| Thursday,
February 11, 2010 Schools and Black
Language Skills
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams021010.php3
"It is very likely that a person with poor language
skills will suffer significant deficits in other areas of academic
competence such as mathematics and the sciences. It doesn't mean that the
person is unintelligent; it means that he doesn't have all the tools of
intelligence. That is what's so insidious about the state of black education
today; so many blacks do not have a chance to develop the tools of
intelligence. Many might have high native intelligence but come off sounding
like a moron."
Charles Brumbelow
I hadn't realized there was anyone who doubted
it. There was the 'ebonics' movement some years ago, but I thought it had
entirely died away. I think everyone understands that learning decent
English is important to one's future, no matter what native language --
including ebonics -- one started with.
=========
I Blame Global Warming...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424
052748704182004575055601529152426.html?
mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
"For Washington, the winter of 2010, which blanketed
the capital with about 45 inches before Tuesday, seems likely to break the
record 54.5 inches set a decade after record-keeping began in 1888. "I
don't know any staff member that's been around that remembers snowfalls of
this magnitude," Mr. Howland [the head of the D.C. Department of Public
Works] said."
Charles Brumbelow
See today's View. And see
below.
=============
DSM V
Jerry,
An update of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders planned for 2013 will increase the number of persons
diagnosed with mental illness or risks thereof:
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/
big-changes-proposed-for-
diagnostic-and-statistical-manual-of-mental-disorders
/19352107?icid=main|htmlws-sb-w|dl1|link3|http%3
A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fnation%2Farticle
%2Fbig-changes-proposed-for-diagnostic-
and-statistical-manual-of-mental-
disorders%2F19352107
<snip> The most controversial change under
consideration is likely to be the addition of a new "at risk" category for
patients displaying early symptoms of illnesses such as dementia and
psychosis. Some experts are expressing concern that it could lead to
stigmatization and misdiagnosis.
"There will be adolescents who are a little odd and
have funny ideas, and this will label them as pre-psychotic," Robert
Spitzer, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, told The
Washington Post <http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/
AR2010021000009.html> .
Several childhood disorders could be folded into a
broadly defined category, called "autism spectrum disorders," that would
include Asperger's and autistic disorder. The committee has also
recommended a new diagnostic category called temper dysregulation disorder
with dysphoria (TDD), which would apply to children who display symptoms
of bipolar disorder.
Rather than treatment with anti-psychotics, doctors
would turn to behavioral therapy for TDD patients. <snip>
J
The DSM came after I got my PhD in psychology. I
thought it poorly done when it first came out, and I'm not much impressed
with it now. It serves as the bible for those who have to decide on what
insurance policies will pay for, and the coverage of "mental illness" is
one of the enormous factors in health care costs. If it's in the DSM --
and some pretty silly things are -- then it can be treated by some
practitioner or another, and insurance will pay.
In the first DSM a lot of very typical adolescent
behavior like talking back to mother and not cleaning up your room got
transferred into syndromes and disorders that could te treated under
insurance policies. I gather they've cleaned up some of that nonsense, but
there's a lot of Freudian speculation still in the DSM. It used to be that
full psychoanalysis, one of the longest term and most expensive treatment
programs imaginable, could be charged to insurance policies. Perhaps it
still can; as I said, I'm not familiar with the DSM. Let me hasten to add
that I don't have a psychology practice nor do I maintain a license (the
malpractice liability costs would be prohibitive even if I had the
inclination) so there's no need for me to be familiar with the DSM. When I
did briefly have a practice in a relationship with a pediatrician I
confined it to bright kids not doing well academically. I didn't do much
of that.
It's likely that the new DSM will raise the costs
of "health care" in the US. One of the features of both 'reform' bills is
that health insurance has to include mental health, which means treatment
for DSM described disorders. So it goes.
I am prepared to be convinced otherwise, but my
impression of the DSM is that it is an excellent example of the inevitable
expansion you will get if you put the fox in charge of the hen house. The
demand for a free good is infinite: and the incentive for those who are
well paid for providing free goods is always to come up with more
products. So it goes.
==========
Emerging Problems with Satnav
See <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8494225.stm>
-- Harry Erwin
Solar storms have wide effects. Perhaps on global
warming as well.
==========
China PLA officers urge economic
punch against U.S.
Dr. Pournelle --
This from Reuters news:
China PLA officers urge economic punch against U.S.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6183KG20100209
"The calls for broad retaliation over the planned U.S.
weapons sales to the disputed island came from officers at China's National
Defence University and Academy of Military Sciences, interviewed by Outlook
Weekly, a Chinese-language magazine published by the official Xinhua news
agency."
" 'Our retaliation should not be restricted to merely
military matters, and we should adopt a strategic package of counter-punches
covering politics, military affairs, diplomacy and economics to treat both
the symptoms and root cause of this disease,' said Luo Yuan, a researcher at
the Academy of Military Sciences."
" 'For example, we could sanction them using economic
means, such as dumping some U.S. government bonds,' Luo said."
It could be interesting to see if Beijing agrees with
its generals.
Avoid strength, attack weakness. - Sun Tzu
Pieter
Why, what a surprise!
===========
: Re: Industrial Policy
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
Subsidiarity and transparency, good. I'm with you
there. But I have to differ when you argue that a protective tariff is, or
could be, an alternative to getting our own house in order. Things don't
work that way, for at least two reasons: first, because everyone's foreign
competitor is somebody else's foreign supplier; and secondly, because trade
is determined by relative, not absolute, costs of production. To illustrate
the first point, Bush's steel "safeguards," recommended by Karl Rove, threw
more people out of work in steel-using industries than they kept at work in
steelmaking, which should have come as no surprise, and did not to those who
understood economics.
It's not just industrial commodities like steel. If we
raise tariffs and cut import quotas on clothing, for example, that may mean
more jobs for American textile workers, but then the cost of living goes up,
everyone who wants to buy clothing is a bit worse off, and has less to spend
on other things after buying his clothes, meaning fewer jobs for the people
who make the things he has to do without. He may even have to do without the
latest book by his favorite sf author.
Then there are other problems. When union contracts
require wage increases to match the Consumer Price Index, higher clothing
prices will result in higher wages for workers in at least some industries,
making those industries less competitive. When government pensions or
public-sector wages are indexed to inflation, then taxes or borrowing have
to go up, leaving less for the private sector.
Next, there's the matter of comparative advantage.
Even if we are in absolute terms better at producing everything than
Bangladesh is, we can gain by importing from Bangladesh those products that
Bangladesh has a comparative advantage in (towels, for example, or materials
salvaged from derelict ships). Even if we are worse at producing everything
than Japan is, we can gain by exporting to Japan those products in which we
have a comparative advantage (soybeans, wood products, oranges, etc.)
Unnecessary regulations do not fundamentally change this.
If we have unnecessary regulations that raise the
costs of all forms of production and economic activity equally, they will
make us poorer than we need to be, but they won't have much effect on trade.
If we have unnecessary regulations that burden the widget industry more than
the wadget industry, they may result in us importing widgets and exporting
wadgets, which may irrational if our comparative advantage would otherwise
be in widgets, but this should not produce general unemployment, even if
some widget makers are thrown out of work, and don't have the training or
other opportunities to become wadget workers. (High general unemployment
must have other causes, and does.)
In thinking that protective tariffs can help us,
you're taking a view contrary to the mainstream of economic thought. That's
not necessarily a condemnation; I hold some views contrary to the mainstream
of economic thought. But it does raise a question: If you are convinced that
you know better than the supposed experts, and seek to persuade the rest of
the country that you do, isn't there a burden on you to refute the standard
economic arguments, supposedly based on logic (as adumbrated above) and
experience (Smoot-Hawley Tariff, etc.)?
Can you explain why you believe these standard
economic arguments to be wrong? You're welcome to quote my letter and
respond to it, if you wish.
Yours for liberty, transparency, subsidiarity, and
sound reasoning,
Nicholas D. Rosen
A reasonable summary of Ricardo and the standard
economic views on Free Trade. I have written about this for thirty years,
and I suppose I ought to summarize it at some point, but it is obviously a
complex subject.
Let me state a couple of assumptions. First, the
US is pretty sell self-sufficient and capable of a large humming economy
if the rest of the world sank beneath the sea. Second, our regulations are
costly. Let's just take minimum wages: the US could raise minimum wage to
$100 an hour, and we would have a sort of an economy. We wouldn't export
much, and there would be an enormous black market economy, and huge
official unemployment. Many of our regulations have much the same effect.
The obvious remedy is to repeal them. That we
cannot do.
Another possibility, one maintained by many
including my old friend Jim Baen, is subsidies: the regulations benefit
all, so let all pay for their effect. That one is intriguing, but it isn't
Free Trade, and many of the free trade disputes come from subsidies.
Another is to say yes free trade is best -- but
we can't compete given the regulations, and thus we have no choice. We
can't export all our manufacturing jobs and have a comparative advantage
in financial products. Our economy in recent years has been to open
containers from China while borrowing money from China to pay for
importing them, and when we can buy it from China cheaper than it can be
made here, we export the job to China; Walmart insist on doing it that
way. They even finished off the Mexican border town economies and exported
those jobs to China.
Free Trade isn't working and the giant sucking
sound happened -- you just don't notice it because China sucked up what
went South and now it just goes directly to China and India.
If we could have free trade without regulations
AND if we could have some kind of competition on education instead of the
increasingly stultified national education system controlled from DC and
designed to convert ALL our school systems into what you see in DC, I'd
cheer and go for free trade. Yes American can compete.
None of that will happen.
The question is how do we live with what we have?
Economists don't take politics into effect. We have to. I have been
arguing this all my life. Politics trumps economics every time. I
don't have all wisdom, but over my years I have become convinced that we
need something like a 10% across the board tariff on everything we import.
At Lincoln said, if you buy a shirt in from England you have the shirt. If
you buy it from New England, the money stays in the United States and you
still have the shirt.
Now suppose we have to borrow the money from
England to buy the shirt from England?
More another time, but I am not unaware of
Ricardo. I just don't believe he thought enough about politics.
AND SEE BELOW
===========
French reactors
There's a good overview of nuclear electricty
generation in France on this page: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf40.html
A few key points are missing or somwhat unclear,
though:
All nuclear research in France is conducted at CEA
(Center for Atomic Studies), which is roughly the equivalent of the US DoE,
doing fundamental research, and military and civilian applications.
The core civilian industrial capacity is controlled by
Areva, formerly Framatome, which is legally a private corporation but in
which the State has a majority share.
EDF (Electricité de France) was until recently a
completely state-owned entity with a monopoly on electricity distribution -
not production, but in practice it owned something like 95% of the capacity.
It has been separated into two distinct entities a
couple years ago, one for production and one for distribution, and its
monopoly is over - but good luck to the company who wants to invest in a
duplicate distribution grid!
So the whole industry from research down to your
outlet is government-controlled, and the people in charge almost everywhere
come from a single school with a strong esprit de corps, the ultra-elite
Ecole Polytechnique.
When the decision was made in 1974 to go nuclear to
the fullest extent possible, it was also decided to standardize on a single
reactor design, which was licensed by Framatome from Westinghouse.
The original 900MWe design was later improved by
Framatome to 1,200 and later 1,450MWe - even if the process was actually a
bit more evolutionary than this.
Today, all reactors in service are from one of those
three closely-related PWR designs. The two new EPR's under construction are
a fourth generation of this same family.
As said in the article, a major feature of French
reactors from the second generation on is their ability to function in
load-following mode during the first third of their fuel cycle.
Another important feature is their use of recycled
fuel made at the La Hague factory in Normandy.
Unrecyclable wastes are stored underground at two
sites, one in La Hague until 1994 and another one in Eastern France in a
place selected for its geological stability.
In short, the key points are:
- State/Ecole Polytechnique control of the whole chain
- Standardized reactor design
- Maximum use of recycled fuel to minimize waste production
- Ability to function in load-following mode
Best Regards,
Jean-Louis Beaufils, Paris
Interesting. Thanks!
============
Climate Patterns
Dr. Pournelle --
Snow is consistent with global warming, say scientists
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/
4436934/Snow-is-consistent-with-
global-warming-say-scientists.html
"Britain may be in the grip of the coldest winter for
30 years and grappling with up to a foot of snow in some places but the
extreme weather is entirely consistent with global warming, claim
scientists."
The argument is that such cold weather events used to
be more common and therefore the increased rarity of them is evidence of
global warming. But when do they say they were more common?
"A study by the Met Office which went back 350 years
shows that such extreme weather now only occurs every 20 years.
Back in the pre-industrial days of Charles Dickens, it
was a much more regular occurrence - hitting the country on average every
five years or so.
During that time global temperatures has risen by 1.7
F (0.8 C), studies have shown."
Charles Dickens (1812-1870), Industrial Revolution
begins 1769 with James Watt's patent of the improvement to the Newcomen
engine (although I've seen arguments for everything from the 1730s to about
1810). Not only was Dickens living in the industrial age but they are basing
their arguments upon the "normal" of the Little Ice Age and just afterwards.
I'm not certain about AGW: I don't see proof of its existence or
nonexistence. However, sloppy work such as demonstrated by the statements
attributed to the Met Office in the interview certainly don't suggest a
concern for detail among some AGW supporters.
I also came across a chart of warm and cold periods
over the last 4500 years:
http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm
Several possible trends seem apparent, assuming the
chart is accurate.
1. The timing between consecutive warm cycles (and
cold cycles) seems to be shortening.
2. The warm periods may be getting slightly less warm
and may be ending more abruptly.
3. The cold periods are getting colder.
One would think that the pattern seen would cause a
lot of people pause.
Pieter
====================w
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