Category Archives: general

The World is Entering a Pre-Collapse State

Posted by on May 21, 2013 Comments Off

Israel and Syria have entered a state where only a small event will send them into a major war against each other. These are two civilizations, each backed by a major power, going to war. This will be huge. We could be looking at a massive missile attack on Israeli cities. The existence of Israel could be threatened. Also, we could be looking at an Israeli nuclear response. At this point, regionally we are looking at the possibility of total collapse. That means when the dust settles the region will look completely different. One side will be wiped out.

If Israel is the victor, then there is the possibility of a great-power war. This suggests that the world has entered a pre-collapse state as well.

Syria and Hizballah, flushed with the success of breaking the rebel hold on the strategic town of al Qusayr, Sunday, May 19, are making no secret of their plans for the “great confrontation,” i.e. military confrontaiton with  Israel after they win the Syrian civil war.  Israel’s military leaders are taking with the utmost seriousness the words of Ibrahim al-Amin, editor of the Hizballah organ Al Akhbar, and a close buddy of Syrian president Bashar Assad, who wrote Monday:

“The rope is taut. It is taut to the limit. Anyone at either end [Israel at one end, Syrian and Hizballah, at the other] need only flex a finger and it will break, and the great confrontation will take place. This is neither a threat, nor an exaggeration or interpretation. This is the situation on the enemy’s northern front. Now means today; it means this hour,” al-Amin wrote.

After the al Qusayr victory, Syria and Hizballah plan war on Israel

There are already signs that the American Empire is cracking. The next step is collapse – war.

America Next: End of the World As We Knew It – Steve Clemons – The Atlantic

In the case of the United States — which has been indisputably the reigning global superpower for six decades — there are signs — ranging from the tumult in the Middle East to a humiliating war in Afghanistan to a downgrade of US sovereign debt — that America is at a key inflection point in its history and that the US network of global control (aka, “empire”) is disintegrating.

America Next: End of the World As We Knew It – Steve Clemons – The Atlantic

Futurist’s Warning To Israel: Don’t Over-reach | The Jewish Week

Posted by on May 16, 2013 Comments Off

Still, his job is to predict the future, based on the new academic discipline of Future Studies. His latest book, “2048,” describes the conflicts that likely will dominate the next half-century, including a major world clash between superpowers by 2020, the emergence of Turkey as a key regional power and buffer between the U.S. and Russia, and a major Israeli attack on its northern neighbors that will result in its conquering Lebanon and Syria on the way to making peace with the Palestinians and the Arab states.

The 400-page book, first published in Hebrew in 2010 and updated for its new English edition, is a self-described “rather depressing and deterministic” look at how Israel will fare. It’s based on Passig’s close study of history, psychology and technology, as well as the theory that history tends to repeat itself in cycles of 60 to 80 years, culminating in major clashes.

Futurist’s Warning To Israel: Don’t Over-reach | The Jewish Week

Turning to the crowd for a hint of future events | The Times of Israel

Done properly, said Passig, “collective wisdom gives more accurate answers about future trends than even the top experts in various fields.”

Many people have the wrong idea about what the wisdom of crowds is all about. “It’s not as simple as taking a poll on Facebook and finding out what people say,” said Passig. “If you don’t use proper methodology, you get a mishmash of chaos. But done properly, you get a much more accurate picture of what the trends are in almost any area.”

The crowd is a much more reliable resource — twice as reliable, or even more, Passig said — for business and government than the boatloads of experts that purport to predict trends that companies and political officials need to prepare for.

Turning to the crowd for a hint of future events | The Times of Israel

Click here to view the full book cover for “2048″

For a list of trends, please click here

For a 5 minutes video synopsis of the book, please click here

For a 20 minutes video lecture about the book, please click here

Start watching the video at time 18:00 minutes.

Video streaming by Ustream

China is going to implode in 10 to 20 years because in that time period about 40% of the population will be age 65 and older. I’m not sure how the author gets 40%, but the percentage will be large nevertheless.

China’s Population Destiny: The Looming Crisis | Brookings Institution

Why should one care about these demographic changes, and why should the overused label “crisis” be attached to such slow-moving developments? The aging of China’s population represents a crisis because its arrival is imminent and inevitable, because its ramifications are huge and long-lasting, and because its effects will be hard to reverse.

China’s Population Destiny: The Looming Crisis | Brookings Institution

Check out the sex ratios in Saudi Arabia:

Sex ratio

at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.27 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 1.03 male(s)/female
total population: 1.17 male(s)/female (2010 est.)
Source: Wikipedia

The ratio of males to females in the 15-64 age group is a disaster. There are 27% more males than females. Saudi Arabia is headed for big trouble in the future.

Russia is headed for disaster due to population losses. Very low fertility, high deaths and emigration mean Russia is headed for trouble. Historically, these kinds of problems push countries to be more aggressive and more likely to go to war.

Scientists launch ‘nano gold rush’ by replacing cyanide with cornstarch

Posted by on May 15, 2013 Comments Off

Northwestern University scientists have struck gold in the laboratory. They have discovered an inexpensive and environmentally benign method that uses simple cornstarch — instead of cyanide — to isolate gold from raw materials in a selective manner.

This green method extracts gold from crude sources and leaves behind other metals that are often found mixed together with the crude gold. The new process also can be used to extract gold from consumer electronic waste.

Current methods for gold recovery involve the use of highly poisonous cyanides, often leading to contamination of the environment. Nearly all gold-mining companies use this toxic gold leaching process to sequester the precious metal.

Making Gold Green: New Non-Toxic Method for Mining Gold: Northwestern University News

Pope Bestows Sainthood on Italians Massacred by Ottomans

Posted by on May 12, 2013 Comments Off

The newly-canonized Italian saints known as Antonio Primaldo and his Companions were massacred in 1480, when Ottoman Turks invaded the southern Italian town of Otranto in 1480 and demanded that its Christian inhabitants convert to Islam. When the inhabitants refused, the invaders beheaded a group of about 800 men and boys, who became revered by Catholics as the Otranto Martyrs.

Benedict had offended some Muslims during his eight-year papacy with remarks seen by them as equating Islam with violence. The former pontiff said he was misunderstood. But, relations between the Vatican and Muslims have remained sensitive and it is not clear how they will respond to the canonization of the Italians killed by the Ottomans.

Pope Bestows Sainthood on Italians Massacred by Ottomans

Some Tweets You May Have Missed

Posted by on May 12, 2013 Comments Off

When I am on vacation and have internet access, then I usually try to tweet some articles that I am reading. Unfortunately, I am unable to post articles from my tablet.

A Dangerous Rift Between China and Japan via

A parched Syria turned to war, scholar says, and Egypt may be next via

Palestinian-Syrian group forming units to fight for Golan | JPost | Israel News via

China’s and India’s Dangerous Game – Atlantic Mobile

Economist Roche: Crisis Will Ensue from Central Bank Easing via

On the Brink

The Next Pandemic: Not if, but When

1913Intel News

Posted by on May 9, 2013 Comments Off

I will be gone until Monday. I will probably not be posting until I get back on Monday. I don’t think the world is going to end before I get back.

I am concerned about the meeting in Teheran around May 23rd. It is possible that big things could happen after this meeting. Obviously, this is just speculation on my part. Still, you might want to think about stocking up on potassium iodide tablets. Two weeks ago I ordered two bottles.

Lately, I have been posting a lot of articles about China. As china’s aggression ratchets up, it appears that the end of China’s peaceful rise has arrived. However, I still think of Russia as the greater threat. Now Russia sees itself as the guarantor of world security. This is actually an implied threat directed at NATO and in particular the US. Stay out of the affairs of other countries or Russia is going to do something about it.

Russia and the changing world

Who undermine confidence

As before, I believe that the major principles necessary for any feasible civilization include indivisible security for all states, the unacceptability of excessive use of force, and the unconditional observance of the basic standards of international law. The neglect of any of these principles can only lead to the destabilization of international relations.

It is through this prism that we perceive some aspects of U.S. and NATO conduct that contradict the logic of modern development, relying instead on the stereotypes of a block-based mentality. Everyone understands what I am referring to – an expansion of NATO that includes the deployment of new military infrastructure with its U.S.-drafted plans to establish a missile defense system in Europe. I would not touch on this issue if these plans were not conducted in close proximity to Russian borders, if they did not undermine our security and global stability in general.

Our arguments are well known, and I will not spell them out again, but regrettably our Western partners are irresponsive and are simply brushing them aside.

We are worried that although the outlines of our “new” relations with NATO are not yet final, the alliance is already providing us with “facts on the ground” that are counterproductive to confidence building. At the same time, this approach will backfire with respect to global objectives, making it more difficult to cooperate on a positive agenda in international relations and will impede any constructive flexibility.

Russia and the changing world

Boeing demonstrator breaks hypersonic flight record | Reuters

Posted by on May 5, 2013 Comments Off

Boeing Co’s X-51A Waverider made history this week when it achieved the longest hypersonic flight by a jet-fuel powered aircraft, flying for 3-1/2 minutes at five times the speed of sound, the U.S. Air Force said on Friday.

Boeing demonstrator breaks hypersonic flight record | Reuters

Get a Free WordPress Website

Posted by on May 2, 2013 Comments Off

If you would like a powerful new website for free then look no further. I will set up a brand new WordPress website at no cost to you. This can be for business use or personal use. I will create a website with up to 5 pages of your content.

Why do you need a WordPress website? You enter a new world by having a WordPress website. Thousands of developers create plug-ins and themes which are either free or inexpensive to obtain. That means most things are easier and cheaper to do in WordPress. Adding or modifying pages is very easy to do. You will most likely rank higher in Google. You can add plug-ins that will give your website all kinds of interesting abilities – like collecting name/email, coupons, maps and a lot more.

This website is a WordPress website that I have been running since 2006. The format is a blog format, but WordPress can easily have a regular website format with a fixed front-page. The theme for this website is free, and there are many free themes to choose from. With the help of a WordPress plug-in for videos, take a look at this short WordPress tutorial video. It shows you how easy it is to work with WordPress.

This is all enough to get you started very inexpensively. Also, it puts you on the right path in the future for inexpensive additions.

Read more »

Life on Earth may be older than Earth itself

Posted by on April 25, 2013 Comments Off

These guys argue that it’s possible to measure the complexity of life and the rate at which it has increased from prokaryotes to eukaryotes to more complex creatures such as worms, fish and finally mammals. That produces a clear exponential increase identical to that behind Moore’s Law although in this case the doubling time is 376 million years rather than two years.

That raises an interesting question. What happens if you extrapolate backwards to the point of no complexity–the origin of life?

Sharov and Gordon say that the evidence by this measure is clear. “Linear regression of genetic complexity (on a log scale) extrapolated back to just one base pair suggests the time of the origin of life = 9.7 ± 2.5 billion years ago,” they say.

And since the Earth is only 4.5 billion years old, that raises a whole series of other questions. Not least of these is how and where did life begin.

Moore’s Law and the Origin of Life | MIT Technology Review

Dust Off Your Math Skills: Actuary Is Best Job of 2013

Posted by on April 24, 2013 Comments Off

As my regular readers probably know, I am an actuary. It’s a job where you usually don’t have to work very hard, and you can make a lot of money.

Pete Rossi can count on one hand the number of weeks out of the year that he works more than 50 hours. But the rest of the year, his job as an actuary with the Department of Defense, provides a good living with a minimum of stress.

The Best and Worst Jobs of 2013 – At Work – WSJ

What’s the catch? The actuarial exams are so hard that most people have no shot at passing. Take a look at this problem:

An insurance company estimates that 40% of policyholders who have only an auto policy will renew next year and 60% of policyholders who have only a homeowners policy will renew next year. The company estimates that 80% of policyholders who have both an auto and a homeowners policy will renew at least one of those policies next year.

Company records show that 65% of policyholders have an auto policy, 50% of policyholders have a homeowners policy, and 15% of policyholders have both an auto and a homeowners policy.

Using the company’s estimates, calculate the percentage of policyholders that will renew at least one policy next year.

a) 20
b) 29
c) 41
d) 53
e) 70

My comment:

Select one answer. Please note that just because you get an answer that is in the list does not mean you are correct. The test giver goes to great lengths to figure out how you might screw up and makes sure that answer is there too. Yes, they are sick people.

Here’s what I got:

% Auto Only = .65 – .15 = .50

% Home Only = .5 – .15 = .35

% Both = .15 (Given)

Total = (% Auto Only) x (% Auto Renew) + (% Home Only) x (% Home Renew) + (% Both) x (% Both Renew)

Total = (.5x.4) + (.35x.6) + (.15x.8) = .53 or 53%

I didn’t verify this answer, so it’s possible I got caught in a trap.