Thoughts on Israel, Iran, Daesh, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Racism(Opinion)

To those who pay attention to current events, it should be obvious that there is a widening rift between the United States and Israel.  The rhetoric between the Israel Administration and the US Administration has grown to a fevered pitch as the prospect of a nuclear deal with Iran in March 2015 becomes more possible. Behind all of the rhetoric lies a legitimate policy difference.

Israel

Israel rightly perceives Iran and its proxies (Hezbollah, Hamas) to be an existential threat.  Certainly the thought of Iran developing a nuclear warfare capability is frightening to Israel and its partisans.  Such a capability could blunt Israel's strategic military advantage.  It is not hard to imagine a skirmish with Hezbollah leading to nuclear blackmail or worse.  If I were an Israeli citizen, I would be worried about such eventualities.  I am, however, a US Citizen and my only national loyalty is to the United States.

The United States

The interests of the United States are often in concert with those of Israel; so it is no coincidence that the two countries cooperate in a very dangerous neighborhood.  It is possible, however, for those interests to diverge and at this point in time (2015), I believe that they are divergent.  The United States and its allies face a global threat from a loosely affiliated and sometimes competing array of Sunni groups that are either influenced by or closely in agreement with Wahhabism and or Salafism.  These groups include Al Qaida, Daesh (ISIS), Al Shabab, and Boko Haram.  Obviously, these groups also pose a threat to Israeli interests. All of these groups are blatantly Antisemitic.  It is equally obvious that Iran and its proxies are a potential threat to US Interests (Consider the Khobar Towers incident, for example).  I do not mean to make absolutist claims one way or the other.

In the current climate, however, detente between the US and Iran may be possible.  Assuming that my enemy's enemy is my friend is a strategy that can backfire too often, but strategic non-aggression for the short term is very likely to be in US interests in fighting Daesh in Syria and Iraq.  The nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers must be seen in that light.  While such non-aggression is in the short-term interests of the United States, it is not at all in the interest of Israel.  To the United States, Iran and its proxies are a regional threat.  Israel happens to be in the region, and to Israel, Iran and its proxies are an existential threat.  I suggest that this is a rational policy difference between the two countries, one that can and should be responsibly debated, but unfortunately that debate has taken a darker turn.

A Proposal To Reduce The Defense Budget (Opinion)

Disclaimer: This post represents my opinion only and is no reflection on the views of my employer.

There is no question that the Department of Defense is a huge part of the National Budget.  I think that it is possible to make significant cuts in that budget without impairing our national capabilities.  There are many issues in the Defense budget to include Healthcare, size of the force, entitlements, compensation etc. that are important, but I am not going to discuss those issues.  Rather, my interest is in how the Department of Defense buys stuff.

A lot has been written about Acquisition Reform, and I am not going to write much about that topic except to say that every few years there is another reform effort that never seems to reach the vision of those who initiate it.  A lot of very smart people work on this issue and fail, and I am not convinced that I am any smarter or more earnest than they are.  Rather, I intend to propose fixing the system from the bottom up with a few radical policy changes that would greatly empower end users to get the goods that they need at effective prices.

Proof that Dinosaurs and Humans Coexisted

If humans and dinosaurs did not coexist, then who built this train:

Q. E. D.

Which Is It?

"All ingredients are non-hazardous.  Warning: This product contains a chemical know to the state of California to cause cancer..." 

Strong, Mostly Grain Porter

I am a big fan of Porter.  My previous batch of The President's Porter came out well.  I decided that I would make a regular Porter.  I am interested in moving into all-grain brewing, but I also had some malt extract from an old brewing kit that I wanted to use.  So I decided to make a mostly all-grain porter with the exception that  I would use up the remainder of the extract I had.  I adjusted the amount of grains I used using the an extract to grain conversion.

Ingredients

• 19.4 oz blonde malt extract from an old brewing kit (I thought I'd use it up.)
• 7 lbs cracked American 2-row (Klages) malt
• 1 lbs cracked Munich malt
• 1 lbs cracked crystal malt 120
• 1/2 lbs cracked black patent malt
• 1/2 lbs cracked English chocolate malt
• 1/2 lbs cracked, roasted barley
• 1 oz German northern brewer hops
• 1 oz German Tettnang hops 
• 3/4 cup dextrose
• 0.388 oz. Nottingham Dry Yeast
• 2.5 tsp diammonium phosphate
• 1 tsp Crosby & Baker yeast energizer
• 2 tsp gypsum
• 5-6 gallons Reverse Osmosis purified water
• 27 lbs ice

Eye Allergies: Patanol Still the Best For Me

Previously, I wrote about my experience with Patanol vs. Alaway.  Since that time I have tried additional medications, and I thought I'd post an update.

The medications I've tried are:

• Patanol (0.1% solution of olopatadine hydrochloride).
• Pataday (0.2% solution of olopatadine hydrochloride).
• Alaway (Ketotifen Fumarate).
• Up & Up Eye Drops Allergy Relief (pheneramine maleate and naphazoline hydrochloride).

I previously wrote that both Alaway and Patanol worked well for me, but that Alaway had an uncomfortable sting.  I now find the sting almost unbearable and prefer not to use Alaway, but I still do so in a pinch.  Patanol works exceedingly well for me.  I tried a free sample of Pataday; it worked fine, but I did not think it was any better than Patanol.  The fourth option, which is Target's generic brand of allergy eye drops did absolutely nothing for me.  No offense to Target; I like Target, but I think I'm a Patanol man.

GMO-free Salt and Fluoride

Recently, I came across a blog with a face-palm entry about "GMO-free" pink Himalayan salt.  Coincidentally, I was engaged in a conversation with friends who are apparently concerned about a government conspiracy to poison us with fluoride. Putting the two thoughts together sparked my curiosity.  How much fluoride is in natural salts such as Himalayan Pink Rock Salt, and is it too much?

Good and Bad

Just a quick note on something about which I have been thinking, rather than a full blog post.  It seems to me that some people like the simplicity of easily categorizing things into good and bad.  There are good chemicals and bad chemical.  Vitamin C is a good chemical; fluoride is apparently a bad chemical.  Selenium is apparently a good chemical in your multi-vitamin, but a bad chemical when the EPA tries to eliminate it from our water supply.

In reality the world is much more nuanced.  At high concentration naturally occurring fluoride in the water supply can have negative health effects.  At the concentrations in which it is added artificially to water supplies (700 ppb to 1.2 ppm); it's beneficial. Most chemotherapy drugs are really bad for you, but maybe they are better than cancer.  Pesticides are very dangerous compounds, but mosquitoes can be deadly.  Carbon (see Carbon: Poison in Our Food ) can be toxic as hydrogen cyanide, a nutrient such as a carbohydrate, a fuel like methane, or a greenhouse gas like methane and carbon dioxide.  Ozone in the troposphere is pollution, a result of photochemical smog. Ozone in the stratosphere protects us from UV radiation.

I suspect it is tempting to do the same with people.  There is a school of thought that people can be easily categorized as good or bad.  Good people are like us; they believe what we do; we can trust them; they would never hurt a fly.  People who do bad things must be unlike us.  We search for reasons to categorize them as unlike us, rather than recognizing that but for the good choices we happen to have made, we could be those people.  I suspect that this way of looking at the world is pernicious.  It isolates us from the understanding that our choices have consequences, and that we ourselves have to be ever alert that we do not become what we despise.

Carbon: Poison In Our Food

Learn about the new hazard THEY are putting in our food!!!

You will never guess what they are putting in our food.  Even organic locally grown food contains this poison!!!

Consider the Facts about Carbon:

1. Carbon is a principal component of the deadly nerve gas sarin.
2. In the history of chemical warfare, more people have died from phosgene gas than any other chemical agent used on the battlefield.  Phosgene contains carbon.
3. Deadly hydrogen cyanide gas contains carbon.
4. 100% of biological tissue from cancer patients contains carbon.
5. Carbon compounds are implicated in climate change.
6. Every human disease ever known can be associated with carbon!!!!
7. The Nazis ate food with carbon in it.

Tell Monsanto, Big Pharma, and Big Farm A that you do not want carbon in your food.  Join the movement to insist that our food producers start growing natural food without this toxic poison!

Stop Poisoning Your Body Today!

Sparkling Ginger Mead

In my last blog post, The President's Porter, I wrote about making a variant on the Whitehouse's Honey Porter. That made me think about using honey as the sugar for fermentation, which naturally led me to think about making mead.

The principal sugar used in making beer is maltose, a dissacharide made from two units of glucose. The sugar in honey, by contrast, is principally invert sugar.  Invert sugar is a mixture of  the simple sugars fructose and glucose. Fructose and glucose can also form a dissacharide called sucrose, cane sugar. The reason invert sugar has its name is that a mixture of fructose and glucose rotates plane-polarized light in the opposite direction from sucrose.

Invert sugar is very sweet and honey makes an excellent starting material for mead, a honey wine.

The President's Porter

In a previous post, I described the last batch of beer I made. It's time to start a new batch. As the Whitehouse recently released their recipe for a honey porter, I thought I start there. I also changed some of my methodology to correct some of the problems I encountered in my last batch.

The recipe I used is based upon the Whitehouse recipe. My local brew store was out of Nottingham yeast; so I am used Windsor yeast. I used a local organic honey instead of Whitehouse honey. I used 9.6 HBU of bittering hops instead og 10 HBU, and 1 oz. or aromatic hops instead of 1/2 oz., because the quantities are more convenient, and a little more aromatic hops never hurt anyone. I  used diammonium phosphate as a yeast nutrient, and gypsum for flavor. Also, I will use a process that is somewhat modified from the Whitehouse process that I will describe here. 

Amateur Summer Amber

I've brewed beer a few times, but I have not done so in quite some time. In the past, I have not kept very detailed notes about the beer I've made. This time I decided to do so, and as long as I was keeping notes, I thought it would be fun to blog about it.

I am far from an expert when it comes to brewing; so I decided to keep it simple by brewing a pure extract beer. I did create my own recipe, but it is very similar to recipes in a couple of my references below.

Sign Seen in the Neighborhood

The Laws of Thermodynamics

If one looks around the Internet, he or she can find a multitude of pages that state the laws of thermodynamics; so why add one more?  I've been writing a lot of posts on thermodynamics, but nowhere have I given a concise statement of the laws; also, I am not always happy with how the laws are described.  So this post is my contribution.

The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics

The zeroth law states:

If two bodies are in thermal equilibrium with a third body, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other.

A Few Thoughts On Ender's Game

On the recommendation of a friend, I recently finished reading Orson Scott Card's book, Ender's Game. This book has a lot to recommend it.  So much so that I have heard that it has been used in actual military education classes alongside Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz.  I found Card's anticipation of the Internet to be visionary, and there were twists in the plot of the book that I did not expect. There was one element of the story that bothered me, however.

The Third Law of Thermodynamics

The Third Law of Thermodynamics states that it is impossible to reach absolute zero in a finite number of steps. A shortcut way to remember the law is "you cannot leave the game."  An alternate shortcut to remember the law is "let's keep score" which is based on the fact that the third law provides the foundation for thermodynamic temperature scales.

Capitalism

Yes, I am a capitalist.  Actually, I support a mixed-market economy, but my point is that I am not opposed to profiting from my blogging, if is possible. For some time, I have been getting enough page views to make me wonder whether it's worth allowing advertisements.

I realize the pitfalls.  I am especially sensitive to the potential for inappropriate ads.  If you are a regular reader and have a strong opinion about advertisements on blogs, please let me know.  I am going to experiment with it.  If you see ads that seem inappropriate, please let me know.

Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard

From the earliest days of their movement, Holocaust deniers have largely centred their arguments on the Auschwitz death camp. Surveying the literature which makes up so-called Holocaust Revisionism,  the obsession with Auschwitz is undoubtedly one of its defining features. Since the early 1990s, with the advent of the modern world-wide web, Holocaust deniers have taken to the internet to try and argue their case. Until recently, the ensuing online debates between advocates of Holocaust denial and their critics have likewise focused on Auschwitz.


My friends at the Holocaust Controversies Blog have written an article that focuses on the Operation Reinhard camps, Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor, and the attempts to deny the reality of the murder at those camps by Holocaust deniers, Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf, and Thomas Kues. They dedicated this work to the memory of Harry W. Mazal OBE.


The work is entitled, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard: A Critique of the Falsehoods of, Mattogno, Graf, and Kues. 

The Heat Death of the Universe

This post is part of a series, Nonsense and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The previous post is entitled Time's Arrow. The previous post is essential to understanding this post.

In most of the discussion of nonsense in this series, the nonsense stems from a poor understanding of physics.  This post introduces some nonsense that must be taken seriously.  Perhaps, this nonsense, also stems ultimately from a poor understanding of physics.  The people with the poor understanding this time, however, are some of the most brilliant minds in physics.

The School-Book Story

This discussion starts with the school-book story of the heat death of the universe.  By calling it the "school-book" story I do not mean to pooh-pooh it too much.  In fact, it is most likely the correct story.  Much of this post, however, will focus on caveats and complications to the story as it is usually told.

In thermodynamics, the universe is defined as the system and its surroundings.  We have seen that the second law requires that for any change the total entropy of the system and the surroundings must increase or stay the same.  As time goes by, therefore, the entropy of the universe increases.

Time's Arrow

This post is part of a series, Nonsense and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The previous post is entitled The Second Law, Microscopic Reversibility, and Small Systems. The previous post is essential to understanding this post.

Why does time move forward instead of backward? In the spatial dimensions, one can move left or right, up or down, backward, or forward.

Time, on the other hand, has a preferred direction. Why is that so? The underlying physics does not seem to have a preferred direction, but time does.