British Army has more horses than tanks

A thoughtful review of Britain's shrinking armed forces has this as link bait:  "The UK military has more horses than tanks; two admirals and thirteen captains for every ship of the line".   The deeper point is that the special military relationship between the US and the UK is drifting into irrelevance and the stability that offered is being replaced with uncertainty.  Canada's standing vis a vis the US will shift.

Read article at The American Interest.

Caution: Investors choose risk over caution in record numbers.

Chart from Global Economic Analysis:  The ratio of money put into hopes of growth compared to money parked on the sidelines is over four to one, a new high.  This may not be unsound when prospects are good but it is out in black swan territory where consequences are hard to guess.

Sea going down and up at the same time.

While alarmists sound the climate klaxons, sea and land go up and down  to their own tune.  Look at this chart off the Chesapeake coast of America.  Subsidence and rise of sea relative to land are everywhere and satellites tag it.  The blocks of land we inhabit are rafts bogged into moving molten muck with seawater sloshing around the crannies and hollows as stuff moves about.

Crater, page 20 of Chesapeake report.

Distrust ecopoliticians painting good and evil on a simple canvas.  The earth is still rebounding from the recent ice age as a mile thick layer of ice melted from Canada.  Ten thousand years ago, native people were migrating from the Prince Rupert area (through what is now the 100 ft deep Hecate Strait) to the Queen Charlotte/Haida Gwai area on foot.  Tectonic plates are grinding into each other and slipping past as one rises and one falls.   The study referenced by the chart even found a hitherto unknown but enormous meteor impact by the mouth of Chesapeake Bay which is still altering the land's response to the sea.   Worldwide you can see drowned coastlines (like the fjords of Norway and the west coast of BC) and emerging ones with lazy deltas and flats.  Not that long ago, the Thames and the Rhine emptied into the same bay and the settled areas of Doggerland in the North Sea (once the heart of Europe) subsided below the sea.

These maps are modern history since the last ice age.  The old landscape has been re-charted
under the mud of the North Sea and many artifacts of early settlement turned up.

Give me a gigantic break from THE-SEA-IS-RISING-THE-SKY-IS-FALLING alarmism.  How sea and land levels alter is a good topic of study and may even someday be well quantified.  That day is not yet.

Obama Presidency: Perverse in ways no other country in history would contemplate.

Paul Mirengoff at Powerline supplies the headline.

"Any country might do a prisoner swap, even if it meant freeing very bad people. But only an exceptional country would swap five leading terrorists in exchange for a deserter.
Any second-rate county might screw up in providing medical treatment for its veterans. But only an exceptional country would do so while at the same time providing a sex change operation for an ex-soldier who betrayed his country.
What Obama really believes in, of course, is his own exceptionalism. This belief is fully justified.
President Obama believes in American exceptionalism — his own version, in which American does things so perverse that no other country in history would even contemplate them."

Paul adds about Bergdahls:  Appeases a deadly enemy, makes like more dangerous for an ally we are about to abandon,  disregards American law, and does it on behalf of jihad sympathizers.   That warm hug with Obama was beyond inappropriate and topped off with Islamic praise in the Pashto language, the language of an enemy to whom Bergdahl fils apparently gave bomb making instruction.

Angelina Jolie`s nose and the brains of a professor, coming to a crib near you.

DNA and reproductive technology predict the future:  We will have more choice but end up more alike than ever.  Can we even breed for voting tendency?   We will be like those monoculture fields of corn or beets of just a few genotypes, the ones you find on the seed shelf at the farmer's co-op.  Given the choice, there will be more blondies with noses like Angelina Jolie and more broad-shouldered dudes with near genius IQs.  This Atlantic article on where we`re heading with reproductive choice gets into the topic in section five.

I apologize for the misleading suggestion that professors are smarter than average people.  Their politics and 97% rate of agreement on global something suggest much is wrong in that department.

Don't legislate against violent video and porn.

The US army takes measures to reduce PTSD.  Showers, air conditioning and one holiday to anywhere per tour.  Most surprising to me is access to violent video games.   Not soothing music and picnics in the country but pretend violence is what it take to untwist some minds heading for crack-up.

From Strategy Page's longer article on post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD):

It was also discovered, quite by accident, that the troop habit of playing violent video games, in between bouts of real combat, reduced combat stress. Mental health practitioners tested the use of violent video games for their PTSD patients, and found out that it worked.

In the past I went for the argument that violent games promote real-life violence. Now I see there's a strong argument that we will have a society with less violence when feelings about survival, rage, revenge, defence of your family and group,  can be acted on without victims.      The same seems to apply to pornography.

Scientific examination of the subject has found that as the use of porn increases, the rate of sex crimes goes down.  (From "The Scientist").

While I was convinced in the past that viewing sexual parts and activity promoted lascivious behaviour that threatened marriages, it also seems likely that dispersing the sex drive into play in a never-never land, reduces the drive to engage in appropriate and inappropriate sex with live partners.

Pretend behaviour seems to reduce the trouble caused by acting undesirable stuff out in real life.  Be very cautious about introducing legislation to appease one crowd when the problem addressed has ambiguous outcomes.

Most polluted countries

This chart from WHO shows China well down the list.  Does it mean something that the five worst offenders are Islamic?  And what does PM2.5 mean?  This is a catchall definition of pollution that includes all particulate matter under  2.5 micrometers in size.  That means four hundred specks would make a row less than one millimeter long.  This is stuff that you breathe in and out and can float for ages in the breeze.  H/T  Zero Hedge.

I love capitalism

My prosperous neighbours seem to hate it but I love capitalism.  What the heck do they think it is?  In their lives they feel free to use their time and assets to prosper their family, and why shouldn't they? A financial guy and a professional guy expressed their disdain of capitalism to me recently at dinner.   Is their scorn for capitalism a moral judgement on the greedy with the presumption that those who prosper most covet most?  The history of philanthropy disproves it.   Is it contempt for the three BIGS who rig the markets, big business, big labour and big government?  That's not capitalism. Those are the three tools that  subvert it.

The free-est markets I've ever seen are yard sales.  People sell what they want where they wish and make deals with each other, even re-selling to newcomers as they walk back to the car with their prize.

From the Merriam Webster dictionary:  Generally your choices instead of the government's and mainly free markets.  In a civil society.

The sky is always falling

The sky is always falling and climate change but the latest excuse.  The goal posts keep moving but the stifling prescription does not.

"The Left doesn’t really believe in climate change. Their true religion is raising taxes, increasing government, impeding capitalism and reducing national sovereignty. Climate change is just a temporary excuse to achieve those ends".

Gabriel of Ricochet.com  makes it sound funny in a well-written piece as the left segues from ice age to DDT to aerosols to global warming to more natural gas to less natural gas.

Is "Left" the right word for people who seek status and power through alarmism and hijacking collective piggy banks?

Science discovers renewal, not extinction is in the driver's seat. Sorry, lefties.

All over the world, niches full of critters have just as many kinds now as decades ago,  or even more.  The news is that those tear-jerking extinctions you read about are the small part of the tale.  The large part is change, that those ecological communities are forming and reforming and changing again, often with different players from the ones you knew as a kid.

From the abstract:  Scientists re-examined 100 world-wide monitoring studies and were surprised to discover that, over decades, the number of species in many places has not changed much -- or has increased. But the researchers did discover that almost 80% of the communities showed changes in species composition. This shows that a rapid global turnover of species is happening, resulting in novel biological communities.

It's not about redistributing the old pie but making new pie.

The left view that man is a destructive interloper who needs to be humbled and to give up liberties is a rehash of the doctrine of original sin, but without a redeemer.  Change and re-creation is the norm and you can't stop it.  Protests about saving minnows and birdies are like zoning regulations,  a plan to keep everything the same as it was, that is, the same as it was right after you moved into the neighbourhood.

Going the way of the Dodo and going the way of the dinosaurs is the same death road.  Man didn't mess it up for the sauropods.   When man spread, so also did starlings, coconut palms and wild mustard.  They prospered while Dodos were clubbed and shot.  Facing change and complexity is helpful.  Promoting the sinfulness of man and the cure-by-government-run-by-smart-superior-people is not.

UKIP Farage takes lesson from Canada

On the eve of Nigel Farage's triumph Sunday in the Euro elections, it's nice to remember he takes lessons from Preston Manning and the reverse takeover of the Conservative party.   Example one: his decision not to run for a safe seat was modelled on Manning's decision to let Deborah Grey keep  first chance at it.  That turned out well.  Example two:  Farage may see the Reform/Alliance experience applying to the Conservative party in the UK.   smalldeadanimals linked this yesterday.

Nigel Farage made news today saying "the Ukip fox is in the Westminster chicken house" after winning a substantial number of council seats.   This goes double for the EU parliament when Nigel is no longer the gadfly but the official face of Great Britain.

Then there's this shock opinion from Lib Dem MP and former minister,  Jeremy Browne, who said "Mr Farage was a rare politician who, like Alex Salmond or Boris Johnson, had an air of authenticity and did not sound like he was part of “a hectoring, out-of-touch elite”. “People have a sense with them that they are saying what they fundamentally believe in.”         Politicians who generally say what they fundamentally believe in, sounds about right.

Of course, politicians disappoint over time, but I like this man's ability to smile freely when others reflect what they think people want to see. (Justin Trudeau and Barry Soetero come to mind.)

Taken Friday.  If you're interested look up the mostly smooth
indeterminate faces of the other leaders voting.

Obama's Greatest Hits

Eight track humour, courtesy Ed Driscoll:  See image of yesterday's man.

Russia - China Rapprochement - Not so big a deal.

Body language says a lot:  Putin and  Xi Jinping looking away from each other as the gas pipeline from Siberia to China is announced.   This is not a triumph.    Although analyst Goldman sees big problems with expanded military cooperation coming up,  Russia has had to settle for lower gas prices, China has quietly brought its first fracked gas on-line and probably has a way to get out of the deal if gas drops far. (At the link read notes for May 21st.)

The body language belies the official handshake photos.  (Clip sourced here.)

Click on body language to see how it goes.

Maybe a big deal despite the antipathy:  Goldman quotes the south China Morning Post:  "Chinese and Russian units taking part in the Joint Sea-2014 drill will be combined rather than operating separately during the exercise, the first time the Chinese navy has worked so closely with a foreign maritime force".

Somewhere down the line it makes sense for Siberia to be a Chinese hinterland rather than a Russian one.  Watch the investment and migration.

No Money, Honey. VA Bad Behaviour Prompted by Insolvency. UPDATE

Behind the secret wait lists for US veterans is a simple story:   The outpatient demand doubled in the last ten years and funding didn't match.  "The root of the scandal is not what self-serving bureaucrats failed to do or tried to cover up; it is a federal budget that prevents us from meeting even the national needs on which our polarized political parties can agree."  The money is running out.   See story by William Galston linked at Instapundit.

Veteran support is an adjunct of defense policy and is a core duty of government.
Unlike Galston, I think bad behaviour is as big a problem as insolvency.  Integrity matters.

UPDATE:  The VA funding is complex and has gone up a lot when other agency funding did not.  See article at Hot Air.

Mysterious banker deaths - chance with a dash of stupid?

Zero Hedge has been flagging a "Banker Death Epidemic", a cluster of suicides and accidents framed as a mystery but likely explained by chance.  Or Stupid.  The death of Stanley Morgan VP, Gabriel Magee of London was ruled a suicide today in the sober press, but the Daily Mail takes it to the next level:  

His ex-girlfriend Lucy Pinches said today Mr Magee had an obsession with the concept of parallel universes and a suicide pact of two U.S. students. 'There was a story of a double suicide in the States where two students had killed themselves, she said. 'It was to do with quantum physics and suicide, the two students were linked up to lethal injections which were operated by lottery numbers.'So the only universe they would wake up in would be the one they both won the lottery in. 'That was something Gabe thought about a lot and had the mental capacity to think about it a lot, with the equations and the physics.'

Winning the lottery in parallel universes?  Printing money makes us richer?   Smart and wise are independent variables.  There are many smart bankers.

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Privacy update: "It will be a bit like living in a nudist colony".

Aldrich, University of Warwick

 "We will soon have to live in a world with no such thing as privacy and no such thing as secrecy":   Richard Aldrich.(historian of espionage).   This will apply to the privacy of the ballot box, too.

From the article:  We're used to the idea that secret intelligence agencies spy on us, but over the last ten years the big intelligence gatherers have become airlines, banks, internet providers and Tesco -- all of which have more information about us than GCHQ and the NSA put together.
"These organisations are becoming cleverer and cleverer. Cleverer than the CIA; cleverer than the KGB."

And you'll be part of this invasive tide too, as you consider it normal to know what your neighbour's house is worth, who drives that Mustang convertible, and the names and backgrounds of most of the people your smart phone just photographed.

Privacy is going to be expensive, available only to the rich or resolute.
That includes privacy at the ballot box:
In the last US presidential election, the Democratic party software tagged every resident in every neighbourhood in the land with known or guessed voting behaviour, street by street.  This is also Aldrich's theme, that your friendly data gatherers can probably guess accurately how you will vote in the next major election.

Politics and poker

If you play poker for twenty minutes and don't know who the mark is, you're the mark.
When a silver-tongued politician is hard to follow but seems to be for you, he's against you. This is neatly summarized by David Steinberg:

Little comes easier to a skilled speaker than clarity ..... Politicians require the ability, and generally have the personality type that draws one to public speaking. Ironically, these facts produce a wonderfully useful corollary: If a politician’s statements leave you unsure of his stance on an issue, you can be sure he opposes the popular stance of his electorate.

Before moving on, read some Mark Twain:

"All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity." –Mark Twain

"An honest man in politics shines more there than he would elsewhere." –Mark Twain

“There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress." –Mark Twain

Spendthrift California Gets Awful Warning From Ontario's Debtpalooza.

Ontario's government has put its citizens into four and a half times the debt per capita of California.  California is almost a basket case.

The Fraser Institute reports:

The Golden State has gained international notoriety for its deficits and government dysfunction.....On every measure of indebtedness, Ontario is markedly worse than California.   Ontario’s debt is almost two-thirds larger than California’s bonded debt even though California is a much larger jurisdiction .... Specifically, California’s bonded debt is $143.9 billion as of 2011 while Ontario’s is $236.6 billion, two-thirds larger than California.      As a share of the economy, Ontario’s debt (38.6 per cent) is more than five times larger than California’s debt (7.7 per cent).   Ontario’s per capita debt ($17,922) is over four-and-a-half times that of California ($3,833). ...  Ontario spends a little over three times the amount of revenues on interest costs as California: 8.9 per cent versus 2.8 per cent. More specifically, Ontario spends roughly $10 billion a year on interest costs, about $750 per Ontarian per year just paying the interest on already accumulated debt.

The report is free at the link.

Remember Bob Rae?
This is not just a Wynne-lose scenario.

A cow is a great comfort

My dairy cow was a great comfort on a frozen winter morning before the sun came up.  At the house, all were in bed but I'd lean into her, both enjoying a patch of warmth and familiar touch.  She blocked the wind and we looked after each other.  

The sweet familiar smell of her breath pleased me as the warm milk in her teats thawed my finger tips and she was well content with the molasses-flavoured granola I fed her.  (dairy mash)   Such a cow can be closer to a man than his wife, more familiar to touch.   Thank you, Rosie.

Purifies the inhabitants with magic sentences: Politician or Himba witch doctor?

"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal".   Barry, the Healer.

"(PICTURE) A witchdoctor such as this one is called when bad things happen in a village. The man purifies the inhabitants using magic sentences "  Daily Mail On Line.  (The link has fabulous fair styles).

Closer to home, Canadian Liberal policy sounds warm , fuzzy and uplifting, if you believe in magic.

"Liberals stand for true fiscal responsibility.   Liberals stand for affordable access to post-secondary education.  Liberals stand for universal affordable health care.  Liberals stand for open, fair and strong democratic representation.  Liberals stand for an evidence-based crime policy."

As a young fellow I read the constitution of the USSR.  Sounded pretty good in big magic sentences but meant little in truth.   A helpful guide when deciding what to believe is in this quote:

"Reason obeys itself and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it". Thomas Paine (linked by Bears Rant).