Is Wikimedia Dumbing Down the Idiocracy?

NYT
Several areas of commerce, enterprise, and science remain the province of mainly-male participation. Physics, mathematics, advanced computer science, technical engineering, math-intensive sciences, aircraft test pilots and combat pilots, commercial sea captains, and so on. Most informed people understand that research is dominated by males, but few people realise that technical information intensive areas -- such as highly demanding reference information providers -- are also dominated by males. A lot of politically involved feminists would like to change that situation, but is there a danger in moving too forcefully from the top down when changes may adversely affect critically important services?

...surveys suggest that less than 15 percent of [Wikipedia's] hundreds of thousands of contributors are women.

About a year ago, the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that runs Wikipedia, collaborated on a study of Wikipedia’s contributor base and discovered that it was barely 13 percent women; the average age of a contributor was in the mid-20s, according to the study by a joint center of the United Nations University and Maastricht University.

...The notion that a collaborative, written project open to all is so skewed to men may be surprising. After all, there is no male-dominated executive team favoring men over women, as there can be in the corporate world; Wikipedia is not a software project, but more a writing experiment — an “exquisite corpse,” or game where each player adds to a larger work.

...The public is increasingly going to Wikipedia as a research source: According to a recent Pew survey, the percentage of all American adults who use the site to look for information increased to 42 percent in May 2010, from 25 percent in February 2007. This translates to 53 percent of adults who regularly use the Internet.

Jane Margolis, co-author of a book on sexism in computer science, “Unlocking the Clubhouse,” argues that Wikipedia is experiencing the same problems of the offline world, where women are less willing to assert their opinions in public. “In almost every space, who are the authorities, the politicians, writers for op-ed pages?” said Ms. Margolis, a senior researcher at the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at the University of California, Los Angeles.

...Ms. Gardner said that for now she was trying to use subtle persuasion and outreach through her foundation to welcome all newcomers to Wikipedia, rather than advocate for women-specific remedies like recruitment or quotas.

“Gender is a huge hot-button issue for lots of people who feel strongly about it,” she said. “I am not interested in triggering those strong feelings.”

Kat Walsh, a policy analyst and longtime Wikipedia contributor who was elected to the Wikimedia board, agreed that indirect initiatives would cause less unease in the Wikipedia community than more overt efforts.

But she acknowledged the hurdles: “The big problem is that the current Wikipedia community is what came about by letting things develop naturally — trying to influence it in another direction is no longer the easiest path, and requires conscious effort to change.” _NYT

The Wikipedia world is indeed a rough and tumble world of competitive edits and re-writes. If a person cannot withstand criticism and competition, they will not likely last long in that world.

The male hormone testosterone shapes the human brain in multiple ways not yet fully comprehended by science or society at large. Much of what science has learned about the influence of hormones such as testosterone on the gender differences so prevalent in society, is considered not politically correct -- and thus essentially unmentionable in left-leaning tabloids such as the New York Times, quoted above. Testosterone makes males more interested in objects than people, more competitive, have generally superior spatial and higher math skills, physically larger and stronger with greater stamina, tending to greater independence, and generally more logically determined and less emotional in the face of distractions.

Charles Murray's fascinating book, Human Accomplishment, provides a historical reflection of the phenomenon that Wikimedia's executives and critics are struggling with. Males have tended to achieve the lion's share of discoveries, inventions, and masterpieces of art, music, and literature as far back as history can tell.

A population shrinkage is occurring among the more intelligent people of the world -- Europeans and Northeast Asians -- while an explosive growth of population is occurring among the less intelligent people of the world. The average intelligence of the human population is inexorably dropping from near 90 points of IQ, downward -- close to the mid-80s and below. That qualifies as an Idiocracy.

In order to dumb down the Idiocracy, one must institute foolish rules of arbitrary and counter-productive governance, while educating the populace to accept dumbed-down groupthink rather than to think for themselves. It is easier than you might think. What Wikimedia is contemplating -- and what many western governments have done, and called affirmative action -- is an excellent example.

If You're Reading This In America, You're Rich

One of my favorite posts in my first year of blogging was titled If You're Reading This, You're Rich. It mostly focused on how much better the world is compared to historical standards. Here's the same message, but with global standards:

You may notice that inequality increases. Nobel laureate Gary Becker has some interesting thoughts on how all inequality isn't bad.

Worst Case Scenario For US Economy

Becoming like Japan:

In 1995, Japan's economy was seven times bigger than China's. Since then, China's economy has grown a lot — it's now bigger than Japan's. And Japan's economy has actually shrunk a bit.

As its economy was shrinking, Japan's government spent like mad. So its debt is now twice as big as its GDP. There is one country in the world in worse debt shape: Zimbabwe. The highly indebted countries you keep hearing about, like Greece and Ireland, have much smaller debt burdens than Japan.

The future does not look bright. Japan's population is tilted towards older people, so they have to think about huge pension payments in the coming decades.

Investors are still lending lots of money to Japan at reasonable rates. The country does not seem on the brink of an acute fiscal emergency. At the same time, it doesn't seem likely to break out of its long term chronic economic illness.

The primary reason for this lack of growth is bad government decisions. The good news is that means this is avoidable. The bad news is we need our politicians to make good decisions. I won't be losing sleep over this, but it is a possible future for America.

Islamic Fertility: Far from Fading

More 4 Feb 2011: Dennis Mangan looks at this issue and receives many comments, including a thought-provoking comment from "Albert" who claims to be a US government diplomatic employee in Europe. Most of Dennis' commenters feel that the Pew numbers were understated -- not including illegal immigrants who may in some countries be as large in number as legal declared immigrants. Another valid point made is that although problems with crime and hostility are significant due to the rapid expansion if Muslim immigrants, perhaps a greater problem being ignored -- in terms of crime -- is legal and illegal immigration into Europe from Subsaharan Africa, whether Muslim or not.

“The Future of the Global Muslim Population”, produced by the Pew Research Centre, a non-profit outfit based in Washington, DC, reckons Muslim numbers will soar....by 2030....from 23.4% to 26.4% of the global total. _Economist

Since most of the Muslims in Europe and Canada will be concentrated into large cities such as London, Paris, Toronto, Hamburg etc., their influence will be greater on the nation at large. Muslims are a particularly vocal and visible population, exerting an influence on civil and political affairs far out of proportion to their actual numbers or percentage of population.

THE number of Muslims in Australia will grow four times more quickly than non-Muslims over the next 20 years as the continued instability in developing Islamic countries in Southeast Asia drives migrants and refugees to these shores.

A major new study by the US-based Pew Research Centre has forecast a global surge in the Muslim population, with Australia and New Zealand among the nations expected to see the biggest rises.

In Australia, the Muslim community will grow from about 399,000 to 714,000 by 2030, an increase of 80 per cent.

In that time the non-Muslim population will increase by about 18 per cent.

This trend is even more dramatic in New Zealand, where there will be a 150 per cent rise in residents who adhere to Islam. _TheAustralian

Australia and New Zealand are nations with relatively low populations. Both nations are beginning to see adverse affects from the growing numbers of newcomers bringing cultures which can clash badly with the majority -- sometimes violently. Schools, city streets, and prisons from Europe to Canada to Oceania will feel the growing swell of hostility and violence.

... in 2030 Britain will have a Muslim population of 5.5 million people, roughly 8.2 per cent of the total population.

That’s hardly Eurabia, I hear some saying. But that figure will not be spread evenly across the UK. By that stage Oldham, Bradford, Blackburn and Burnley, and possibly Birmingham, may well be Muslim-majority towns. What will race relations be like in those places, I wonder? _Telegraph

As Muslim populations concentrate in particular towns, the ability of individual Muslims within these zones of control to assimilate to the host country will be lost. Instead, growing ghettos of tribal and religious intolerance will be imported from the old countries, and there will be no safety for anyone who thinks or acts outside the narrow rules of the religious tribe.

Think in terms of multiple "no-go zones" run by local Taliban, Hamas, or Hizbollah equivalent gangs. Think of Beirut, Gaza, Baghdad, and the other perpetual hot spots of violence fueled by the endemic violence and intolerance of Islamic culture.

As poor migrants start families in Spain and Italy, numbers there will rocket; in France and Germany, where some Muslims are middle-class, rises will be more modest—though from a higher base. Russia’s Muslims will increase to 14.4% or 18.6m, up from 11.7% now (partly because non-Muslims are declining). The report takes a cautious baseline of 2.6m American Muslims in 2010, but predicts the number will surge by 2030 to 6.2m, or 1.7% of the population—about the same size as Jews or Episcopalians. In Canada the Muslim share will surge from 2.8% to 6.6%.

How will liberal democracies accommodate such variety? The clarity of a written constitution may give America an advantage over many European countries, where unwritten custom has more sway. Jonathan Laurence, an Islam-watcher and professor at Boston College, thinks Europe could rise to the challenge, but failure is also easy to imagine. _Economist

It is best not to think of Europe as a monolithic entity in this case. Clearly, some nations will fall to the human tide of tribalist primitivism, and some nations will assert their right of self-determination. It will depend upon the toughness of the indigenous Europeans within each country.

Some cities in France, Sweden, and the Netherlands are as good as overrun. As noted earlier, Muslims do not need to be in the majority to dominate over more passive, less assertive Europeans. They merely need to be positioned to intimidate a weak government -- first in cities and provinces, then national capitals, then the nation at large.

The borders of Islam are bloody around the world, from Africa to Asia and increasingly inside Europe itself. The hostile and intolerant folkways of Islam are entirely portable, capable of establishing themselves inside entirely foreign cultures -- creating completely new bloody borders at every turn.

If Pakistanis, Egyptians, Yemenis, Iraqis, etc. cannot maintain order within their own boundaries, how can one expect much weaker and more tolerant European governments to deal with these primitive violent tribal cultures?

What's wrong with this picture?

You will have to click on the photo and enlarge it to read the text.

Your name after time in taskbar

Here is a trick to add up your name in the place of AM and PM beside time and 

make yourself to feel proud among your group of friends. It is very simple.

Follow the below procedure:
Start -> Control Pannel -> Regional and LAnguage option -> 

Customize (beside English US) -> Go to TIME tab -> 

Change AM symbol and PM symbol from AM and PM to Your name -> Apply -> Ok.

IS it changed ??? Might be not.

Now go to time in taskbar and Double Click it to open "Date and time property". 

Look place where time chnges in digital form i.e. 02:47:52 AM, 

click to arrow to cnage the AM or PM by selecting and press arrow. 

It will Show your name or name that was entered by you, Apply -> OK.

Think... Positive

Think Positive

Never make the same mistake twice,
There are so many new ones,
Try a different one each day.

A good way to change someone's attitude is to change your own.
Because, the same sun that melts butter, also hardens clay!
Life is as we think, so think beautifully.

Life is just like a sea, we are moving without an end.
Nothing stays with us,
what remains is just the memories of some people who touched us as Waves..

When Snake is alive, Snake eats Ants.
When Snake is dead, Ants eat Snake.
Time can turn at any time.
Don't neglect anyone in your life.

Baby mosquito came back after 1st time flying.
His mom asked him "How do you feel?"
He replied "It was wonderful, Everyone was clapping for me!"
Now that's What is a Positive Attitude .

Poor Parents Matter More

I've been advocating for an accurate depiction of parenting for quite a while now. I've mostly focused on how parents have less influence than they think and that there are many practical reasons to have kids. However, I certainly admit I see problems caused by bad parenting my classroom all the time. So which is it, does parenting really matter that much or not? Well that depends on how wealthy you are:

For a paper in Psychological Science, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Virginia looked at 750 pairs of American twins who were given a test of mental ability at the age of 10 months and then again at the age of 2. By studying the performance of identical versus fraternal twins, the scientists could tease out the relative importance of factors such as genetics and the home environment. Because the infants came from households across the socioeconomic spectrum, it also was possible to see how wealth influenced test scores.

When it came to the mental ability of 10-month-olds, the home environment was the key variable, across every socioeconomic class. But results for the 2-year-olds were dramatically different. In children from poorer households, the choices of parents still mattered. In fact, the researchers estimated that the home environment accounted for approximately 80% of the individual variance in mental ability among poor 2-year-olds. The effect of genetics was negligible.

The opposite pattern appeared in 2-year-olds from wealthy households. For these kids, genetics primarily determined performance, accounting for nearly 50% of all variation in mental ability. (The scientists made this conclusion based on the fact that identical twins performed much more similarly than fraternal twins.) The home environment was a distant second. For parents, the correlation appears to be clear: As wealth increases, the choices of adults play a much smaller role in determining the mental ability of their children.

There are diminishing returns to good parenting. If kids are already playing musical instruments, having intelligent conversations, and taking improv classes, the extra effort has minimal effects. Pretty good argument for some kind of universal early intervention.

A Public Service Announcement from President Obama

My Fellow Americans:

I am very aware of the pain that many of you are feeling, with no jobs, no income, no health insurance. My administration is doing everything it can to help the economy recover from the Bush years. Some recent job openings have come to my attention while I was watching news coverage for next week's SuperBowl in Texas. It seems that thousands of people are needed for high paying jobs as "prole dancers" in the Dallas - Ft. Worth area over the next several days.

I had never heard of prole dancing before, but it seems clear that it involves some form of rhythmic movement set to music, performed by white trailer trash performers -- a group currently suffering particularly high unemployment.

After researching the topic on the internet, I can see that I was correct. It looks quite easy to do, and there are many tutorials available on the internet. Here is one:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Michelle has informed me that prole dancing can also be used as a workout program, for losing weight and gaining fitness. That is most fortunate, since one sees far too many fat proles walking the streets these days. Disgusting.

Here is more information about the use of prole dancing as a fitness tool:

TV & Movie Spoofs Channel
Tags: Atom.com | Funny Videos | Tournament | Upload

Thank you for your attention. And I hope this will put an end to all of the accusations against this administration, that it doesn't care about proles or white trailer trash. Because we certainly do, and this announcement is proof of it.

Eh? What's that Rahm? You say it's called "pole dancing", not "prole dancing?" Anyone can do it -- not just trailer trash? Oh. Well, then. Never mind.

General Facts

* Most cats are left pawed.

* 250 people have fallen off the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

* A Blue whale's tongue weighs more than an elephant.

* You use 14 muscles to smile and 43 to frown. Keep Smiling!

* The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.

* The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

* The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and 

a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

* Shape of the backbone is important to have sufficient breathing.

* Tortoise has very sharp teeth it can rip open the stomach of whale with its teeth.

* The words 'racecar,' 'kayak', 'malayalam' and 'level' are the same whether they are 

read left to right or right to left (palindromes).

* There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

* There are more chickens than people in the world.

* There's no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewable Vitamins.

* Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

* Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

* Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

* Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks;
otherwise it will digest itself.

* Bamboo can grow up to 3 ft in 24 hours.

* An eyeball weighs about 1 ounce.

* Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand and

"lollipop" with your right hand.

* TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on

one row of the keyboard.

Findout my another Guest?

Birbal had been invited to lunch by a rich man.

Birbal went to the man's house and found him in a hall full of people. His host greeted him warmly.

"I did not know there would be so many guests," said Birbal who hated large gatherings.

"They are not guests, "They are all employees except one man" and 

he is the only other guest here beside you, said the rich man.

Then a crafty look came on the man's face.

"Can you tell me which of them is the guest?" he asked.

"Maybe I could", said Birbal. "Talk to them as I observe them. Tell them a joke or something."

The rich man told a joke that Birbal thought was perhaps the worst he had heard in a long time. 

When he finished everyone laughed uproariously.

"Well", said the rich man. "I've told my joke. Now tell me who my other guest is."

Birbal pointed out the man to him.

"How did you know?" asked his host, amazed.

"Employees tend to laugh at any joke told by their employers," explained Birbal. "When I saw that this man was the only one not laughing at your joke, and in fact, looked positively bored, I at once knew he was your other guest."

Spirit

What is the meaning of Spirit?

Answer:

Complicated Foreign Policy Gets Complicated

When I called for a less complicated foreign policy, this is why:

That's because, in the final analysis, the US needs a friendly government in Cairo more than it needs a democratic one. Whether the issue is Israel-Palestine, Hamas and Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, security for Gulf oil supplies, Sudan, or the spread of Islamist fundamentalist ideas, Washington wants Egypt, the Arab world's most populous and influential country, in its corner. That's the political and geostrategic bottom line. In this sense, Egypt's demonstrators are not just fighting the regime. They are fighting Washington, too.

For more on the complicated Egypt story, here's a regularly updated article.

If You Think You Know, Understand, or "Get It", You Probably Don't

If you think you have a solution to the problem of consciousness, you haven't understood the problem. _Susan Blackmore, Consciousness (An Introduction)

The human mind hates to be wrong. But it hates uncertainty even more. The end result of any particular struggle between the "fear of being wrong" and the "fear of not knowing" cannot be predicted -- but in the long run people tend to "take sides" in the face of uncertainty.

Inside the brain of every human, sits a little person who is watching the ongoing theatre of his life. Well, that's one way of looking at it anyway. It makes sense in a simple-minded way, as long as you understand the theatre analogy. Otherwise you might find a similarly simple-minded analogy to help you "understand."

One problem with "being on the inside looking out", is that you will certainly see yourself out there -- even though you may not realise that is what you are seeing. When faced with gaps or ambiguities, the mind has a way of painting them over or filling them in. The world makes sense to us because we prefer it that way -- not because we actually understand what is happening.

When one says "a picture paints a thousand words," he is not strictly accurate. Pictures express thoughts which words cannot possibly express. Music, movement, and touch can also easily outrun the capacity of verbal language.

But reality is incomprehensible in any form of expression or human comprehension. We really do not understand the present and cannot predict the future in any meaningful way -- and that bugs the crap out of us. So we make things up. We pretend we understand what is happening, and that we know what will happen in the future. It makes us feel better to do that.

We have found ways to deal with uncertainty in certain parts of our lives. We may have faith that a power greater than ourselves is watching out for us, is balancing the bad with the good, making everything turn out right in the end. Or we may think that everything is going to hell, and that nothing and no one can help. Either way, we are compensating for our lack of knowledge and understanding -- attempting to replace uncertainty with certainty.

A Panglossian utopian is utilising the same compensatory mechanisms as a catastrophist doomer, when imagining the future. Whether a religionist or an atheist, the same mental processes are constantly at work conjuring up an acceptable future -- even if it is a future of doom.

Part of the reason that people who believe themselves terminally ill sometimes commit suicide, is to remove the uncertainty of when they are going to die. Similarly, doomers and apocalyptics of the dieoff.orgy persuasion often pursue policies which will bring about the very doom they claim to be warning against.

Peak oil doomers, for example, often lobby against the mining of coal, oil & gas drilling, nuclear energy, oil sands, and other alternative fuels and energies -- seemingly unaware that their political activism is making their peak oil predictions into self-fulfilling prophecies. In such a case, they are taking a strong predictive stand, then taking subsequent actions to help assure the accuracy of their prediction. Sadly, everyone will suffer if they are right, but it is very important to them, so they persist.

Humans are irrational, and they will have their religion -- regardless of their denials of faith.

As for you, dear reader, look to the essential core. Emphasise competence for yourself and those around you. Expect things to go wrong from time to time and be prepared. Expect the unexpected. Embrace uncertainty, and turn it to serendipity. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

And although it is almost certainly futile in the long run, never stop trying to understand. ;-)

Peak Oil Keeps Slipping, Slipping.....Into the Future...

Important Note 3 Feb 2011: The author of the article quoted below is Jeremy Bowden, a writer and analyst who specialises in energy and other topics.

“The estimates for how much oil there is in the world continue to increase,” according to William M Colton, Exxon Mobil’s vice president for corporate strategic planning. “There’s enough oil to supply the world’s needs as far as anyone can see.” Just as prices rose sharply and peak oil concerns re-emerged, huge deep water oil fields were found off the coasts of Brazil and Africa. Higher prices also stimulated “unconventional” oil production from massive Canadian oil sands projects, which now provide North America with more oil than Saudi Arabia. In 2009, the United States increased domestic oil production for the first time in decades. _Source

Image Source
Much of the fashionable panic surrounding "peak oil DOOM!" is reminiscent of the catastrophic circus that surrounded Y2K. While it is true that the Y2K problem required the attention and effort of thousands of professionals to solve, the same thing is obviously true for the problem of providing ongoing energy supplies in the face of rising global populations and expectations. Maintaining reliable energy supplies is an ongoing problem which is solvable as appropriate effort is applied.

...at least one positive development has resulted from the sharp rise in oil prices of recent years. The influx of capital to oil companies from high prices, combined with expectations that prices are unlikely to fall very far, has boosted investment in oil exploration and production, especially in what the industry terms “frontier” areas – namely enhanced oil recovery (more oil from existing fields), the deep (or ultra-deep) water and the Arctic. Massive new reserves have been identified, proven up, and brought to production – whilst reserves previously considered impossible to reach are now no more than a horizontal drilling or steam injection technique away. All this should help ensure supply can meet global demand for far longer than was expected just a few years ago – pushing back the oft-cited “peak oil” date by decades.

...most of this newly-discovered potential avoids the above-ground risks and cartel policies that constrain oil production in most of the world’s largest proven deposits – the bulk of which lie in Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), or are controlled by national oil companies in central Asia and Russia. It is the technical expertise and project management skills of the most dynamic multinational and independent oil companies that hold the key to these new hard-to-get-at reserves, rather than the whims of Arab dictators or the level of OPEC budget deficits. A similar, but even more dramatic change has taken place with gas, where new techniques mean huge “tight” gas deposits present in many rocks are now recoverable. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently estimated that natural gas reserves could last twice as long as previously expected – up to 250 years.

...Some experts claim enhanced oil recovery (EOR) could potentially double the amount of oil that can be extracted globally. Most fields only recover just over a half of the original oil in place and sometimes less than a third. With modern techniques field development should be able to extract a far higher proportion of the oil, while more and more oil can be made recoverable from existing wells.

...Faced with falling reserves and barred from acquiring fresh production in areas such as the Middle East, international oil majors began to search for new large deposits in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico in the 1990s – on the back of a proven drilling record in shallower Gulf areas, and in the North Sea. Exploration and drilling below 10,000ft of water and through miles of hard rock, thick salt and tightly-packed sands required the development of supercomputers and three-dimensional imaging techniques as well as equipment that could withstand the heat and pressures common at such depths, not to mention submarine robots to make repairs.

That technology is now available to drill in other areas such as the Arctic and elsewhere...Similar advances in technology have opened up huge unconventional oil shale resources in Canada. ...the Bakken shale field is now the country’s fastest-growing major oil field [in the US]. Production has reached about 350,000bpd, from 100,000bpd a decade ago. In a recent report, consultancy firm PFC Energy projected production would climb to 450,000bpd by 2013. _Industrial Fuels and Power

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil forecasts that by 2030, gas will surpass coal as an energy source.

Many analysts are expecting a lot of new oil supplies from multiple locations around the globe.

Clever technologists are finding ways to make every barrel of oil go that much further. This is true in many ways, not just in terms of improved efficiency at the consumer level.

The concept of "peak oil" is heavily dependent upon unknown factors which could change at any time. Only a fool would maintain a posture of predictive certainty in that atmosphere of uncertainy and rapid change.

This article is excerpted from an earlier article published at Al Fin Energy

Economics of Leno vs. Conan

Or, why Leno's 10 o'clock show didn't stand a chance:

In 2009 key demographic group ratings for network 10 P.M. shows were just half of what they had been five years earlier. And a reason for that was that some 40 percent of households now had the technology of digital video recorders, allowing people to easily program their own TV schedules.

And a habit many people had apparently gotten into was to use the 10 P.M. hour to catch up on programs they had recorded either earlier that night or even earlier in the week. So Leno at 10 wasn’t just up against alternative network programming. Thanks to consumer technology, he was up against millions of people’s personal programming options, too. 

Why Are Carbon Hysterics Going Cuckoo Trying to Explain A Cold and Snowy Winter as Another Sign of Climate Catastrophe?

Willis Eschenbach WUWT
It looks as if the January 2011 global temperature anomaly may be a full degree Fahrenheit below "average." And the brutal winter snow assaults against North America and Europe are probably not over yet. It was winter in the Northern Hemisphere the last time I checked, so why are carbon hysterics going out of their minds trying to explain cold and snow as a sign of catastrophic global warming?!!?

Willis Eschenbach takes a look at some of the mathematical prestidigitation upon which the global enterprise of climate catastrophism rests, and begins to suspect that the catastrophists are stuck in a dark, airless compartment of their own construction. In other words, the mathematically modeled construction of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) finds itself "locked in." It has no choice but to continue to argue -- more and more frantically as believed necessary -- that the construct is the only possible valid way to view the climate.

Certainly many of the superstars of climate catastrophe are finding themselves being discredited by ClimateGate and any number of other ongoing discoveries of dishonest, dishonourable, and unscientific shenannigans that have been perpetrated by the IPCC's first team players -- in the attempt to keep the bandwagon of CAGW orthodoxy from crashing and burning entirely.

Fortunately, there is light at the end of the highly politicised IPCC tunnel of obfuscation. Alternative means of publication are springing up for honest climate researchers, far out of the reach of the carbon hysteric overlords and overseers. Even President Doombama Obama of the USA neglected to mention climate change or promote carbon trading in his most recent State of the Union address to the nation.

The future will demand the best and most honest efforts from science, technology, economics, and politics, which the human species can produce. This is no time to get stuck in a blind box and go cuckoo.

More 29Jan11: Did government agencies lie about 2010 being the "warmest year ever?"

The Nuclear Power Debate

A TED Talks debate between the grand old man of true environmentalism -- Stewart Brand -- and a young but ditzy-green Stanford professor -- Mark Jacobson. An interesting look at how a TED audience reacts to the basic ideas in the debate. Make up your own mind.

A comparison of two countries who took different paths toward the goal of cleaner energy. Remember: When you come to the fork in the road, take it.

Anyone who has read Ted Rockwell's PDF on nuclear energy, John Droz' Wind Energy Facts, and Without Hot Air by David MacKay, is ready to make the decision between the "feel-good" trendy renewables -- wind and solar -- and the no-nonsense, thousands of years sustainable at full capacity -- nuclear energy.

In my experience, Mark Jacobson -- although a professor at a prestigious US west-coast university and a prolific publisher of papers -- is not a trustworthy source on this topic. Time will reveal his hidden motives -- which may be nothing more than naive wishful thinking -- just as time will reveal the IPCC for its hidden motives of obfuscation.

Cross-posted at Al Fin Energy

Argument Against Drug Legalization

You know where I stand. But some disagree:

I couldn't have gotten so stinking rich without George Bush, George Bush Jr., Ronald Reagan, even El Presidente Obama, none of them have the cajones to stand up to all the big money that wants to keep this stuff illegal. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say, Gracias amigos, I owe my whole empire to you.

That's apparently from billion drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera.

you make me fine, when i feel bad

you make me happy, when i feel sad

you make me better

cz you're my 

*BEST FRIEND*

L♡VELY SISTER

More Earlier Migrations of Homo Sapiens

...an international team of researchers led by Hans-Peter Uerpmann from Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, Germany suggests that humans could have arrived on the Arabian Peninsula as early as 125,000 years ago -- directly from Africa rather than via the Nile Valley or the Near East, as researchers have suggested in the past. _SD

Hans-Peter Uerpmann
"Scientific consensus" regarding when modern humans began moving out of Africa has come in for some serious pounding from archaeologists and anthropologists recently. The latest find comes from the Arabian peninsula, from University of Tubingen's Hans-Peter Uerpmann.

The findings, based on a dig that continued from 2004 until 2010, are at odds with results from DNA testing and other archeological finds that put the "out of Africa" migrations much later.

The southern route out of east Africa proposed by the new research is also significantly different from the northern route across the Nile River and into the Sinai that has been traditionally accepted as most likely.

Addressing those very different scenarios, Uerpmann said that their archeological findings offer a new interpretation and that the advanced method of determining the age of the tools gives them great confidence in their results.

Team member Anthony Marks of Southern Methodist University, an anthropologist, said the tools were made in ways consistent with the 125,000-years-ago time period and therefore raise the inevitable question of how they got to the area near the Persian Gulf.

"Either these people came out of East Africa or they came from nowhere," he said.

The dig is being conducted about 40 miles from the Straits of Hormuz, the entry point into the Persian Gulf. The tools were found in a small limestone mountain range in the U.A.E. province of Shuja. _WaPo

Recent findings of modern human fossils in Israel dating well over 100,000 years ago had earlier shaken the complacency of the embattled "Ouf of Africa" consensus. As research findings continue to come in contradicting some of the most treasured beliefs of mainstream anthropology, a significant restructuring or modification of the "consensus" may become unavoidable.

This new research, placing early humans on the Arabian Peninsula much earlier, will appear in the 28 January issue of Science, which is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

The team of researchers, including lead author Simon Armitage from Royal Holloway, University of London, discovered an ancient human toolkit at the Jebel Faya archaeological site in the United Arab Emirates. It resembles technology used by early humans in east Africa but not the craftsmanship that emerged from the Middle East, they say. This toolkit includes relatively primitive hand-axes along with a variety of scrapers and perforators, and its contents imply that technological innovation was not necessary for early humans to migrate onto the Arabian Peninsula. Armitage calculated the age of the stone tools using a technique known as luminescence dating and determined that the artifacts were about 100,000 to 125,000 years old.

...Uerpmann and his team also analyzed sea-level and climate-change records for the region during the last interglacial period, approximately 130,000 years ago. They determined that the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which separates Arabia from the Horn of Africa, would have narrowed due to lower sea-levels, allowing safe passage prior to and at the beginning of that last interglacial period. At that time, the Arabian Peninsula was much wetter than today with greater vegetation cover and a network of lakes and rivers. Such a landscape would have allowed early humans access into Arabia and then into the Fertile Crescent and India, according to the researchers.

"Archaeology without ages is like a jigsaw with the interlocking edges removed — you have lots of individual pieces of information but you can't fit them together to produce the big picture," said Armitage. "At Jebel Faya, the ages reveal a fascinating picture in which modern humans migrated out of Africa much earlier than previously thought, helped by global fluctuations in sea-level and climate change in the Arabian Peninsula." _ArchaeologyNews

Significantly more evolutionary divergence has occurred within the human species than mainstream PC anthropology has been willing to admit. A de facto PC censorship over several politically sensitive areas of science is becoming more and more difficult to maintain.

Beware the Spying Optical Needle: It Can See Your Thoughts

Dubbed the optical needle, it is 500 to 1,000 microns in diameter at its tip—about half the width of a grain of rice. While the device resembles a scaled-down version of the endoscopes now commonly used for surgery, the tiny lens is slightly different. The small size of the device means that a curved lens, typical in most microscopes, is impractical. Instead, its lens is made from a material that has internal variations in its refractive profile to guide rays of light.

...In the new study, published online this month in Nature Medicine, researchers demonstrate that they can use the micro-endoscope to observe the same spot in the brain over time. _TechnologyReview

Brain_Probe
Brain probes are becoming smaller and more clever. The "optical needle" is a micro-endoscopic probe from Stanford, which is capable of long-term direct observation of local brain circuits, deep inside the brain.

A new type of micro-endoscope lets scientists watch nerve cells and blood vessels deep inside the brain of a living animal over days, weeks, or even months. A team led by Mark Schnitzer, associate professor of biology and applied physics at Stanford University, developed the endoscope—an optical instrument used to peer into the body—along with a system to insert it into the same spot time after time. This feature allowed scientists to track changes in minute features, such as the connections between cells in the brain.

"I think it will be a potent tool for tracking properties of cells over long periods of time in response to changes in the environment, over the course of learning, during aging or the progression of disease," says Schnitzer. Some developmental and neurodegenerative diseases, for example, damage connections between neurons deep in the brain.

Of particular interest to neuroscientists is the hippocampus, an area deep in the brain that is crucial to memory. Previously, scientists had been able to look at regions such as this one in detail only with highly invasive methods and at a single point in time. "But a lot of brain disorders occur slowly," says Schnitzer. "We don't just want a snapshot, we want a time-lapse [movie] on a time scale that is relevant to the progression of the disease." _TechnologyReview

The researchers first insert a tiny indwelling guide tube, then pass the optical needle through the tube for optical micro-imaging. Since the tube remains in the same location, the researchers can come back time and again to image the same location -- providing an ongoing time-lapse record of changes in cellular structure at that spot. The tool should provide many opportunities for study, and eventual clinical application.

By placing guide tubes in strategic locations around a brain tumour, for example, clinicians might be able to monitor the effects of experimental treatments.

But what about seeing your thoughts? Be patient, grasshoppers. Current optical needle technology can observe changes in the micro-structure of local brain circuits. As the technology improves, distributed observers will be able to watch a brain learning with experience. Combined with sophisticated deep brain stimulation and advanced neurofeedback, a sufficiently motivated mad scientist could learn to play any human brain like a piccolo.

Will Putin Risk a Pre-Emptive Strike on China's Megacities?

NextBigFuture
As China's population and infrastructure huddles ever closer together along the eastern rim, and concentrates into a few dense megacities, will the temptation to take out the ages-old southern enemy prove too much for Russian dictator Putin?

The demographic handwriting is on the wall. East Siberia will be ceded to China without a fight, without an invasion. Putin cannot afford to allow the wealth of his corrupt mafiacracy to slip through his fingers, but what can he do? Russians are disappearing at the same time that China is reaching out -- all over the globe -- for resources.

Energy, minerals, timber -- Siberia has it all in abundance. That wealth is the guarantor of Russia's continued existence as an empire, as a world power. The same wealth is a purloined promise to China for a future of superpowerdom.

Why is China making it easy for Russia to target its population centers and infrastructure?

"Laying the foundation year, three years paid off, five major development" is established in Yantai Hi-tech Zone Development Goals. According to the latest master plan introduced to Yantai Hi-tech Zone of the CBD as the leading technology driven, together with efforts to build high-end services, intensive with high-end manufacturing, leisure and tourism with coastal resort, riverside high-end scientific and cultural tourism zone, "as one four with "high-tech zones will hold up the layout of new industrial space; 10 km along the road on both sides of technology, planning and construction of 100 more than the roughly 30 stories about the amount of construction, building skyscrapers, modern style, the magnificent iconic urban landscape Boulevard... _NextBigFuture

Apparently the intent is toward greater industrial and commercial efficiency, and more services and conveniences closer at hand. Of course it will also mean more concentrated effluents of waste and toxic by-products of modern life, concentrated into even smaller spaces. Fortunately, most toxic and nontoxic waste can be disposed of with plasma gasification plants -- perhaps a good investment for the China to come?

China's next decade is not likely to be an unmitigated success, however. There are many things about China's real economy which even CCP economists do not understand -- much less outside western observers. Here are six predictions from one China watcher, Gordon Orr:

1. Inflation in food prices will take longer than expected to control.

Chinese consumption patterns are shifting as people become wealthier—more meat eating requires more cereals to feed the animals. The food supply chain, running at the limit, is close to breaking, and the pressures this problem creates will lead to further food quality crises. A major second- or third-tier Chinese city will see demonstrations over food price rises, unemployment, or both, on a much larger scale than anything that has occurred in recent years.

2. Middle-class bankruptcies will expand dramatically.

All that is needed for a wave of bankruptcies is further interest rate rises (targeting inflation) that result in a blip down in house prices just as mortgage payments rise. We have seen this before across major cities in Asia.

3. Minimum wages will rise, but productivity gains will outstrip labor costs. The profitability of industrial enterprises remained high at the end of 2010—indeed, higher, in many cases, than it had been a year earlier, despite the minimum-wage increases rolled out in 2010—and will probably remain high. Yet a government seeking to enhance its stature with lower-income workers will find that increasing minimum wages, perhaps by 15 to 20 percent, is an easy lever to pull.

4. China’s economic growth will be lower than expected.

5. China will step up its “invest out” program in the new five-year plan. The government may well seek to double the country’s cumulative outbound investment within the next five years.

6. The state will again try to reduce its ownership role in business. If the government relaunches its program to sell off more of its stake in companies, domestic share prices will probably decline or at least remain flat. The program will also soak up much of the liquidity currently supporting Chinese IPOs, thus reducing the ability of entrepreneurs to cash out quickly through them _from_NextBigFuture

Not particularly rosy, but not catastrophic either. But Orr was only looking at the next year, which is much safer than looking a decade or two ahead. China is leaping into a highly complex, even chaotic future, without a guidebook. China -- like Russia -- has strategic alliances, but no genuine friends on any side.

China's fate is inextricably tied to that of its northern neighbor, Russia. The relationship between the two countries has been strained for ages, and often at the brink of open war. Demographic strains and transitions affecting Russia's main source of wealth may prove the breaking point.

Nominees and Winners for the 83rd annual Academy Awards

Below is the complete list of Winners and Nominees for the 83rd annual Academy Awards.

Best Motion Picture of the Year Nominees:
127 Hours.
Black Swan.
Inception.
The Fighter.
The Kids Are All Right.
The King's Speech.
The Social Network.
Toy Story 3.
True Grit.
Winter's Bone.

Winner: The King's Speech.


Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role Nominees:
Colin Firth for The King's Speech.
James Franco for 127 Hours.
Javier Bardem for Biutiful.
Jeff Bridges for True Grit.
Jesse Eisenberg for The Social Network.

Winner: Colin Firth for The King's Speech.


Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role Nominees:
Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right.
Jennifer Lawrence for Winter's Bone.
Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine.
Natalie Portman for Black Swan.
Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole.

Winner: Natalie Portman for Black Swan.


Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role Nominees:
Christian Bale for The Fighter.
Geoffrey Rush for The King's Speech.
Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are All Right.
John Hawkes for Winter's Bone.
Jeremy Renner for The Town.

Winner: Christian Bale for The Fighter.


Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Nominees:
Amy Adams for The Fighter.
Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit.
Helena Bonham Carter for The King's Speech.
Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom.
Melissa Leo for The Fighter.

Winner: Melissa Leo for The Fighter.


Best Achievement in Directing Nominees:
Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan.
David Fincher for The Social Network.
David O. Russell for The Fighter.
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen for True Grit.
Tom Hooper for The King's Speech.

Winner: Tom Hooper for The King's Speech.


Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen Nominees:
Another Year: Mike Leigh
Inception: Christopher Nolan
The Fighter: Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Keith Dorrington
The Kids Are All Right: Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg
The King's Speech: David Seidler

Winner: The King's Speech: David Seidler.


Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published Nominees:
127 Hours: Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network: Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3: Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
True Grit: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Winter's Bone: Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini

Winner: The Social Network: Aaron Sorkin.


Best Animated Feature Film of the Year Nominees:
How to Train Your Dragon.
The Illusionnist.
Toy Story 3.

Winner: Toy Story 3.


Best Foreign Language Film of the Year Nominees:
Biutiful: Alejandro González Iñárritu(Mexico)
Hævnen: Susanne Bier(Denmark)
Hors-la-loi: Rachid Bouchareb(Algeria)
Incendies: Denis Villeneuve(Canada)
Kynodontas: Giorgos Lanthimos(Greece)

Winner: Hævnen: Susanne Bier(Denmark)


Best Achievement in Cinematography Nominees:
Black Swan: Matthew Libatique
Inception: Wally Pfister
The King's Speech: Danny Cohen
The Social Network: Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit: Roger Deakins

Winner: Inception: Wally Pfister.


Best Achievement in Editing Nominees:
127 Hours: Jon Harris
Black Swan: Andrew Weisblum
The Fighter: Pamela Martin
The King's Speech: Tariq Anwar
The Social Network: Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall

Winner: The Social Network: Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall.

Best Achievement in Art Direction Nominees:
Alice in Wonderland: Robert Stromberg, Karen O'Hara
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1: Stuart Craig, Stephenie McMillan
Inception: Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias, Douglas A. Mowat
The King's Speech: Eve Stewart, Judy Farr
True Grit: Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh

Winner: Alice in Wonderland: Robert Stromberg, Karen O'Hara.


Best Achievement in Costume Design Nominees:
Alice in Wonderland: Colleen Atwood
Io sono l'amore (2009): Antonella Cannarozzi
The King's Speech: Jenny Beavan
The Tempest (2010/II): Sandy Powell
True Grit: Mary Zophres

Winner: Alice in Wonderland: Colleen Atwood.


Best Achievement in Makeup Nominees:
Barney's Version: Adrien Morot
The Way Back: Edouard F. Henriques, Greg Funk, Yolanda Toussieng
The Wolfman: Rick Baker, Dave Elsey

Winner: The Wolfman: Rick Baker, Dave Elsey.


Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score Nominees:
127 Hours: A.R. Rahman
How to Train Your Dragon: John Powell
Inception: Hans Zimmer
The King's Speech: Alexandre Desplat
The Social Network: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross.

Winner: The Social Network: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross.


Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song Nominees:
127 Hours: A.R. Rahman, Rollo Armstrong, Dido("If I Rise")
Country Strong: Tom Douglas, Hillary Lindsey, Troy Verges("Coming Home")
Tangled: Alan Menken, Glenn Slater("I See the Light")
Toy Story 3: Randy Newman("We Belong Together")

Winner: Toy Story 3: Randy Newman("We Belong Together").

Best Achievement in Sound Mixing Nominees:
Inception: Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, Ed Novick
The King's Speech: Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen, John Midgley
Salt: Jeffrey J. Haboush, William Sarokin, Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell
The Social Network: Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick, Mark Weingarten
True Grit: Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, Peter F. Kurland

Winner: Inception: Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, Ed Novick.


Best Achievement in Sound Editing Nominees:
Inception: Richard King
Toy Story 3: Tom Myers, Michael Silvers
TRON: Legacy: Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Addison Teague
True Grit: Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey
Unstoppable: Mark P. Stoeckinger

Winner: Inception: Richard King.


Best Accomplishment in Visual Effects Nominees:
Alice in Wonderland: Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas, Sean Phillips
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1: Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz, Nicolas Aithadi
Hereafter: Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojansky, Joe Farrell
Inception: Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley, Pete Bebb, Paul J. Franklin
Iron Man 2: Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright, Daniel Sudick

Winner: Inception: Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley, Pete Bebb, Paul J. Franklin.


Best Documentary, Features Nominees:
Exit Through the Gift Shop: Banksy, Jaimie D'Cruz
GasLand: Josh Fox, Trish Adlesic
Inside Job: Charles Ferguson, Audrey Marrs
Restrepo: Tim Hetherington, Sebastian Junger
Waste Land: Lucy Walker, Angus Aynsley

Winner: Inside Job: Charles Ferguson, Audrey Marrs.


Best Documentary, Short Subjects Nominees:
Killing in the Name: Nominees TBD
Poster Girl: Nominees TBD
Strangers No More: Karen Goodman, Kirk Simon
Sun Come Up: Jennifer Redfearn, Tim Metzger
The Warriors of Qiugang: Ruby Yang, Thomas Lennon

Winner: Strangers No More: Karen Goodman, Kirk Simon.


Best Short Film, Animated Nominees:
Day & Night: Teddy Newton
Let's Pollute (2009): Geefwee Boedoe
Madagascar, carnet de voyage: Bastien Dubois
The Gruffalo (2009) (TV): Jakob Schuh, Max Lang
The Lost Thing: Shaun Tan, Andrew Ruhemann

Winner: The Lost Thing: Shaun Tan, Andrew Ruhemann.

Best Short Film, Live Action Nominees:
God of Love: Luke Matheny
Na Wewe: Ivan Goldschmidt
The Confession (2010/IV): Tanel Toom
The Crush (2009): Michael Creagh
Wish 143 (2009): Ian Barnes, Samantha Waite

Winner: God of Love: Luke Matheny.

Ultimate Truth of Life

"Success Kisses YOU in Private"

But,

"Failure Always kicks YOU in Public".

Fabulous Quotes

Napoleon:
"The world suffers a lot. Not because of the violence of bad people,
but because of the silence of good people!"

Michael Paul:
I wrote on the door of heart, "Please do not enter"
Love came smiling and said: "Sorry I am an illiterate".

Einstein:
"I am thankful to all those who said NO to me It’s Because of them I did it myself".

Abraham Lincoln:
"If friendship is your weakest point then you are the strongest person in the world."

Shakespeare:
"Laughing Faces Do Not Mean That There Is Absence Of Sorrow!
But It Means That They Have The Ability To Deal With It"

"In The Times Of Crisis I Was Not Hurt By The Harsh Words Of My Enemies, But By The Silence Of My Friends".

"Never Play With The Feelings Of Others Because You May Win The Game But You Will Surely Lose The Person For Life Time"

"Coin Always Makes Sound But The Currency Notes Are Always Silent. So When Your Value Increases Keep Yourself Calm Silent".

William Arthur:
"Opportunities Are Like Sunrises, If You Wait Too Long You Can Miss Them"

Hitler:
"When You Are In The Light, Everything Follows You,
But When You Enter Into The Dark, Even Your Own Shadow Doesn’t Follow You"

Shiv Khera:
"If We Are Not Part Of The Solutions, We Are The Big Problems" "Winners Never Do The Different Things, They Do The Things Differently".

John Keats:
"It Is Very Easy To Defeat Someone,But It Is Very Hard To Win Someone" .

Difference between Success and Failure

In an Indian temple, when the priest had gone for lunch, the Idol of the Lord and the Stepping Stone were conversing.

Stepping Stone: “What a good fate you have. We both were the same lump of rock for millions of years. The sculptor carved an idol out of you and every one is worshiping you. And look at me, I am a stepping stone and every one stands on me and stamps on. What kind of life is this? “

The Idol kept smiling and never bothered to answer this, now, routine murmur from the stepping stone. But the stepping stone (stone used as a step that is) will never stop his constant bickering.

The Idol replied: "But do you remember that when the sculptor set out to carve an idol, it was you he chose, first. You were so impatient. In one strike, you broke in to two. But when he tried on me, I grinned and bore all the hammers and chisel strikes with PATIENCE. Here I am the worshipful and happy Idol and you are the Stepping Stone".

Lesson:
The difference between Success and Failure is Patience and Persistence.

2nd Anniversary to My Blog

This Month, My Blog celebrates its 2nd Year Anniversary.

I was started this Little Blog in the month of January, 2009.

I can’t believe that I’m still blogging for 2 years and really amazed how time flies so fast.

Happy 2nd Anniversary to My Blog. Hope, I could post better information's as time goes by.

THANKS to ALL who are supporting me over the past 2 years with your valuable time.

Megacities in China: A Further Prelude to China's Collapse?

Telegraph_via_NBF
We recently learned about the connection between the "skyscraper index" and an impending financial/economic crisis. China is currently testing the skyscraper index with its massive building projects. But a massive project to merge several Chinese cities containing multi-million person populations may introduce an entirely new index: The Megacities Index.

The "Turn The Pearl River Delta Into One" scheme will create a 16,000 sq mile urban area that is 26 times larger geographically than Greater London, or twice the size of Wales.

The new mega-city will cover a large part of China's manufacturing heartland, stretching from Guangzhou to Shenzhen and including Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Huizhou and Zhaoqing. Together, they account for nearly a tenth of the Chinese economy.

Over the next six years, around 150 major infrastructure projects will mesh the transport, energy, water and telecommunications networks of the nine cities together, at a cost of some 2 trillion yuan (£190 billion). An express rail line will also connect the hub with nearby Hong Kong. _Telegraph_via_NextBigFuture

NextBigFuture
China is already exhibiting some early, subtle signs of significant problems on multiple levels -- similar to signs present in the USSR a decade or so prior to collapse.

In 1975, while I was in Siberia on a two-month trip through the U.S.S.R., the illusion of the Soviet Union’s rise became self-evident. In the major cities, the downtowns seemed modern, comparable to what you might see in a North American city. But a 20-minute walk from the centre of downtown revealed another world — people filling water buckets at communal pumps at street corners. The U.S.S.R. could put a man in space and dazzle the world with scores of other accomplishments yet it could not satisfy the basic needs of its citizens. That economic system, though it would largely fool the West until its final collapse 15 years later, was bankrupt, and obviously so to anyone who saw the contradictions in Soviet society.

The Chinese economy today parallels that of the latter-day Soviet Union — immense accomplishments co-existing with immense failures. In some ways, China’s stability today is more precarious than was the Soviet Union’s before its fall. China’s poor are poorer than the Soviet Union’s poor, and they are much more numerous — about one billion in a country of 1.3 billion. Moreover, in the Soviet Union there was no sizeable middle class — just about everyone was poor and shared in the same hardships, avoiding resentments that might otherwise have arisen.

...The corruption extends to the enforcement of regulatory standards for health and safety, which few in China trust. In recent years China has endured a tainted milk scandal and a tainted blood scandal, each of which implicated corrupt officials in widespread death and debilitation. In a devastating 2008 earthquake, some 90,000 perished, one-third of them children buried alive in 7,000 shoddily built “tofu schools” that skimped on materials. Nearby buildings for the elites that met building standards, including a school for the children of the rich, were largely unscathed.

The government tries to tamp down the outrage over the abuses inflicted on the public by banning demonstrations and censoring the Internet. But it is failing. Year by year, the number of demonstrations increases. Last year alone saw 100,000 such protests across the county, directly involving tens and indirectly perhaps hundreds of millions of protesters.

China is a powder keg that could explode at any moment. And if it does explode, chaos could ensue — as the Chinese are only too well aware, the country has a brutal history of carnage at the hands of unruly mobs. For this reason, corrupt officials inside China, likely by the tens of thousands, have made contingency plans, obtaining foreign passports, buying second homes abroad, establishing their families and businesses abroad, or otherwise planning their escapes. Also for this reason, much of the middle class supports the government’s increasingly repressive efforts. _Solomon

China has a long history of empires alternating with chaotic internecine wars carried out from warlord-led strongholds.

The rise of regional mega-cities could well presage the breakup of modern CCP-ruled China into warring factions and (mega) city-states. Joseph Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies dissects the rise and fall of multiple cultures and civilisations throughout history -- and points out the tendency for the complexity of a society to outgrow the society's ability to cope with complexity.

Certainly the sheer size of the Chinese society lends to vast complexities, which can push the ruling powers to their limits of coping. It appears that the leadership of the CCP is determined to press ahead at warp speed, in the direction of rapidly increasing complexity.

China's rapid ascendancy in the global economic and technological hierarchy was achieved via huge outside investment, cheap labour manufacturing and export, an ambitious, highly intelligent and educated workforce, highly talented industrial spies, counterfeiters, etc. Some of those strengths are still operating at high levels. But the core of China's rise -- massive export wealth -- is hampered by a global economic downturn, and a sustained recession led by Luddite and left-reactionary policies implemented by the current US administration.

China is attempting to compensate for the significant decline of its export market by ambitious construction projects inside China. This megacities project is only one of many huge spending and stimulus programs operating -- virtually all of them teeming with corruption, mis-allocation of resources, and shoddiness.

Only a few persons anticipated the fall of the USSR years and decades before its collapse. Will the same be true for China?