Veteran's Day Message 2012

Veteran's Day Message 2012

Fresh from the excitement of the U.S. Election, I'm pleased to see the democratic system of the United States transition power (in this case retain it) in a peaceful manner as has been the hallmark of the great union since George Washington rejected the notion of being a King or President for life.

George Washington left his service as President imparting words of wisdom to the new nation… among those words, he said, "The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the constitution which at any time exists till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all".  Clearly, President Washington was a man who understood the value of democracy and the rights of the people.  He was also a man who suffered terrible hardships of war to enshrine those values. 

In the United States election, I watched as partisan politics generated a fever pitch in the months leading up to the election.  Even the news channels seemed to have a stronger partisan flavor than usual.  Immediately after the election, the conversations quickly turn to the problems ahead and how there will be a great conflict in a nation so evenly divided.  In part, this is probably due to the pain of defeat, which is very real.  Especially for the candidates and their campaign workers and the thousands of volunteers who have placed countless hours of their lives into a cause they dearly believed in.  But the pain of an election defeat quickly dissipates and the business of the union continues.

I always harbor a strong sense of optimism at election time because I would like to believe that true patriotism is always prepared to blossom in the hearts of those who will head to Washington to govern the nation.  Patriotism itself should guide the larger needs of the nation and infuse a sense of collaboration in all hearts.  But the optimism, like the pain of defeat or the ecstasy of victory, also tends to dissipate as the omnipresent tasks ahead of the people are ever larger and more complex in a shrinking World.

The optimist believes the best days are still ahead of the United States.  President Obama will be focused on shaping the policy environment that will usher in new jobs, a growing economy, and a shrinking level of military conflict around the World.  Of course, the challenges are not easy nor will they be solved overnight. Hopefully, words of optimism and courage shall guide the republic and be a constant companion of political leaders in the weeks, months, and years ahead. 

On a personal note, I'm cheering for President Obama because, Like former President Clinton, I believe his policy direction will pay dividends for the great republic.  The global economic and security challenges this administration has faced have been historic.  The President, however, is not without fault.  During his first two years in office, he tended to undervalue the coin of the realm… trust.  Trust between Republicans and Democrats alike.  Politics do not need to be a blood sport.  People who do not involve themselves with the machinations of the political intricacies of the beltway believe their representatives are assigned the job of looking after the republic and that they will do that work to great effect. 

There will always be a reason to distrust the patriotism of those who, under any pretense, may endeavor to weaken its bonds.  The division of political beliefs has spanned ever wider, creating large chasms that may disturb the republic.  It is clearly a matter of great peril, that any circumstances should be furnished for characterizing parties by demographic or geographic discrimination. 

The manipulative leaders of divisive policy endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of interests and views. This is an expedient manner for a party to acquire influence within particular districts or parties.  Altogether too often, they will readily misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts or parties.  Citizens should actively shield their hearts against the jealousies and divisiveness that spring from attempts to divide.  Such actions render hostilities between citizens who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. 

I point no fingers at any party, instead, I caution people as citizens of the republic, thereby incorporating both the innocuous practitioners and the sublimely effective highly capitalized practitioners for whom financial capacity dwarfs the ability of the average person to compete for an understanding of their opinions.  For the republic to be effective, a union of the government for everybody is indispensable and must be demanded of our elected representatives.

Some political entities exist to organize a strong faction and to endow it with extraordinary force powered by wealth.  The danger of such entities is their proclivity to pretend they delegate the will of the republic while representing the will of their own interests.  In many cases, such entities are driven by a minority of republics, making the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of their self-serving goals.  This is in stark contrast to transparent and well-thought-out plans that are evaluated by common counsels; modified by mutual interests and a sense of the fraternal good for the entire republic.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned political entities will seek to carry a popular issue such that it enhances their ability to become powerful organizations.  Their leaders are often cunning and ambitious.  Left unchecked, their ability to subvert the power of the people for their own purposes endangers the well-being of the republic.  It is only through the constant opposition to such extremism that the public good will be served.

The baneful effects of the spirit of a political party have, as part and parcel of the very human nature of such organizations, the goal of domination over another.  This is sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to opposing parties or political entities.  Left unchecked, the miseries imposed over the weaker entity, over time, will incentivize people to seek the security of the absolute power of the party or entity, expressed in our current system as partisan politics and control over key institutions. 

Having no recourse, and left to prosper without dissent, leaders of powerful factions, having accumulated more fortune than their competitors, may seek to elevate their powers at the expense of the public good.  Let these words stand as a grim reminder that public interest, the very foundations of democracy, become challenged whenever such polarization is allowed to run rampant over the larger needs of the republic and the people.  As this election ended, leaders on both sides pontificated the need to work across the aisle and engage each other in the spirit of the public good.  May we be fortunate to see these words translated into actions.

I believe the policy issues of the day, such as managing the finances of the republic, restoring geopolitical stability in the Middle East and elsewhere, the restoration of the economic engines that provide jobs, and a thoughtful dialogue about climate change constitute challenges every bit as large as the greatest challenges the republic has ever faced.  In few instances, except during the great wars or during the civil war when the cousins battled each other for the very existence of the union itself, has more been at stake for the people of the republic.  Accordingly, it is up to the people to demand, through their votes and their constant attention to government, a non-partisan spirit that shall not wane with the passing of some weeks or months. 

This applies equally to all parties and political entities, all of which owe their very right to exist to the blood of the patriots shed across the centuries.  Let the sacrifice of the many patriots be cherished and valued, for in their sacrifice the republic came to exist and survives to this day.  Failure to arrive at political solutions for the overall public good, even at the expense of the power of the political party or entity, is to heap the ultimate disrespect upon the cherished memories of the many patriots who have fought and paid with their blood and with their lives, for the free republic that now faces these challenges.

I wish every success to the President of the United States, to his staff, and to the Congress as the elected representatives of the people.  And I'm equally sure that, in the most fundamental sense of patriotic duty, this is also the wish of the people of the republic.  I also admonish both parties for their partisan mischief over the last years, and I am very hopeful their desires for the future of the republic can, and shall, be placed above any and all forms of partisan posturing.

As it turns out, this is a rather rare election for me because the President is also my cousin.  President Obama and I are 9th cousins, two times removed!  I believe I shall, perhaps, write to the President and ask him to send his cousin some inauguration tickets.  This will likely be the only chance I ever have to see a cousin sworn in as President of the United States for a second term.  But I would also like to look back on such an experience knowing it was also the day a new journey on the path of bi-partisan politics began in Washington. 

Interestingly, our common ancestors are from the Canadian side of our family tree that ties us together as cousins.  POTUS has Canadian lineage he can be proud of!  If I get the inauguration tickets and, possibly, the chance to converse with the President… I'll be sure to point that out to him.

In the meantime, dissolving all such fantasy of inaugural attendance, I turn my attention to the important duties of respecting our honored dead and the glorious living who have made the ultimate contract and compact with their fellow citizens, to defend freedom and liberty at all costs, and to pay any price to insure it, up to and including their own life if necessary.  Let those brave men and women occupy our thoughts as we, the free from around the World, gather to remember and honor these brave people.  Let us remember they have provided the very democracy where we prosper and thrive.  If you know a Veteran, or if you have a Veteran in your family, maybe take a moment to thank them for their service.  Those words mean more than you can ever imagine; it was for you whom they dedicated and sacrificed some of the best years of their lives.

The E-President Poll predicts an Obama Win

In the last U.S. Presidential election, I invented a fun tool designed to measure the e-bay factor.  It's a poll that looks at how much money people are willing to pay to have a piece of the candidate.  The more items for sale the larger the demand.  If the market has a larger demand AND a higher price, it's a hands-down winner. The fascinating part is that it had a 100% predictability record in the 2008 U.S. election, both in the primaries and the general election.

e-President poll is not scientific, in fact, it's about as subjective as you can get.  I just do this for fun.  Still, it seems to have a good track record to predict the Presidency!  So here we go again.  Keep in mind, the last election did not feature a sitting President, so owning a piece of the candidate made for a relatively equal playing field in 2008.  In this election, if you bought Obama, you'd be getting a Presidential autograph and if you buy a piece of Romney, you won't know if it's a Presidential autograph until after the election... could turn out to be the autograph of somebody who ran and lost, so the value is harder to appreciate.  This means more measures should be introduced, so I added active bids.

Active bids are the range where the "buy it now" signs tend to either fall off or we see multiple bids on items with regularity.  In other words, this is where the market becomes quite active for both candidates, indicating a measure of liquidity.  In this area, Obama holds roughly a 4:1 advantage over Romney.  Unfortunately, this is a new measurement, so I can't compare it to the 2008 data.  Obama's Active Bid Range starts just shy of 400 and strengthens into the 350-dollar range whereas Romney starts at 100 and strengthens into the 75-dollar range.  Interestingly, a lot of items for sale this year are signed baseballs.

Active Bid Range 3.99 : 1 Obama

Item count is another category, and compared to the 2008 election, where Obama's item count was 3.7 times higher than McCain's; the range has narrowed in this election with Obama posting 2.8 times the item count Romney has.  This is a troubling statistic for the incumbent president as one would expect an incumbent President's item count separation to be wider.  I think this reflects a much stronger candidacy from the Republican ticket.

Item Count 2.87 : 1 Obama

The value predictor... or how much people will pay to "own" a piece of the candidate has also changed between 2008 and 2012.  Obama's cash value has slipped from 2008 when it was 2,500 down to 2,125 in 2012.  Romney, on the other hand, posts nearly 400 bucks on top cash value pre-election compared to a mere 108 bucks for McCain back in 2008.  This means Romney is a stronger candidate than McCain according to valuation figures. and the ratio has vastly changed down from 23:1 in 2008 to a mere 6:1 advantage for Obama in this election.

Cash Value 6.08 : 1 Obama

My analysis is as follows:

Obama will win the election, although due to lower bid values and a tighter range, and compensating for an incumbency, it looks to be that the polls are correct, this will be an exceptionally close election.  The bottom line will be how the swing states go, and on that count, I believe the map of the United States will look very red, but most of the key swing states will be blue; placing President Obama over the top in the Electoral College, but it could be tight... with a possible electoral college win of less than 30.

A narrow active bid range is also troubling, but I feel the margin is wide enough to make it easy to call the race.  Obama enjoys both a far larger base of active bids and the quality is superior.  Romney, apparently, isn't as easy to sell on eBay.  I was going to try and use Hillary as a potential marker to adjust for incumbent vs. non-incumbent, but even though she is Secretary of State, she is also a failed candidate and her e-bay numbers were in the tank... so not a good way to go.

I'm going to apply a 4:1 rule for incumbent vs. non and look at an amalgamated difference in the ratios posted in item count, valuation, and active bids.  Bear with me... it's a guess.  But using this as my only attempt at a data normalization attempt, I arrive at a predicted victory by Obama of approximately 3.2 (+/- 3)  In other words... it won't be pretty, but Obama wins in 2012.  

Climate Change and Arctic Methane

Arctic Ocean Latitude 71 degrees North
April 15, 2010, Image Credit: NASA/JPL

I recently noticed a fascinating article in the Edmonton Journal written by Margaret Munro of the Postmedia News entitled "Scientists eager to drill in Arctic Waters for answers about methane".  The article goes on to outline a project being undertaken by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program for the expressed purpose of gathering a deeper understanding of the ramifications of methane coming out from the permafrost under the Arctic.  

Glaciologists, geologists, and environmental researchers of different disciplines have been pondering very large questions related to the planetary environment and what the potential impacts could be to humans.  Of particular interest recently, is the impact of methane hydrates coming out from the permafrost beneath the Arctic.  Since methane is probably 20 to 25 times more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, there are considerable ramifications associated with this research.  Methane has a short half-life compared to CO2, so it dissipates faster, this offsets the sheer quantities that could be released into the atmosphere.  With estimates of methane hydrates being discussed in vast numbers, understanding the risk imposed by climate change in the Arctic is not a subject to be taken lightly.  

Image Courtesy of:
Gordon Groat
Ph.D.(abd), M.Sc. (hon), M.A., B.G.S. (IPE), A.A.Sc.
Taken from CO2 and Climate Change

According to Gregory Ryskin, associate professor of chemical engineering at Northwestern University, "explosive clouds of methane gas, initially trapped in stagnant bodies of water and suddenly released, could have killed off the majority of marine life and land animals and plants at the end of the Permian era" — long before dinosaurs lived and died. Ryskin believes that methane may have been the driving force in previous catastrophic changes in the earth's climate, where 95 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species were lost in - geologically speaking - the blink of an eye.

The most troubling estimates suggest that once triggered, this cycle could result in runaway global warming, sometimes referred to as a tipping point.   While our scientific evidence is still limited in scope, it is important to consider what we know from looking back in time.  It seems prudent to be cognizant of strong geologic evidence that suggests something similar has happened at least twice before.  The most recent of these catastrophes occurred about 55 million years ago in what geologists call the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), when methane burps caused rapid warming and massive die-offs, disrupting the climate for more than 100,000 years.  The granddaddy of these catastrophes occurred 251 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period when a series of methane burps came close to wiping out all life on Earth.  More than 94 percent of the marine species present in the fossil record disappeared suddenly as oxygen levels plummeted and life teetered on the verge of extinction. Over the ensuing 500,000 years, a few species struggled to gain a foothold in the hostile environment. It took 20 million to 30 million years for even rudimentary coral reefs to re-establish themselves and for forests to re-grow. In some areas, it took more than 100 million years for ecosystems to reach their former healthy diversity.

Earth image courtesy of:
NASA / JPL

Climate change... if it is anything, it is definitely controversial.  It is also a scientific field that is relatively new and requires additional investment to produce the scope of data required to properly evaluate the impact of methane release.  It should also be noted that methane emissions from tropical areas far surpass, in scale, the emissions of the Arctic.  Nevertheless, methane release due to climate change in the Arctic is worthy of scientific investigation.  The science is not settled on this matter, but it is of considerable importance.  

At the very least, it seems logical to establish baseline measurements of methane in the Arctic simply because the vast potential amounts of methane warrant our investigation for the purpose of understanding changing levels of methane.  This is required in order to reduce the chance of misinterpreting changes in methane levels as climate change continues.

To further understanding of the ramifications of global climate change impacts due to methane release from the Arctic, there is a need to establish increased scientific monitoring and research on the subject.  Rising surface temperatures should motivate the international scientific community to consider these questions.  Appropriate considerations imply the need for the deployment of scientific measuring instrumentation, improved international collaboration, and the integration of traditional indigenous knowledge.  

One particularly revealing comment made by an indigenous elder of the Arctic was "in our generational memory, we have never seen the ice melt so much, we have never seen so much open water".  This prompted the interviewing scientist to ask if that meant one generation or two perhaps.  The question was not easily understood by the elder.  After some more questions, the elder replied that by generational, they meant thousands of years.  This underscores the critical fundamental knowledge carried by the indigenous people of the Arctic.  There are literally thousands of expressions to describe different ice conditions, many of them not easily translatable into English, at least not to their satisfaction.  Thankfully, as research in the Arctic moves forward, more and more participation and collaboration is taking place with indigenous peoples.

This raises the question of what to do with the research.  It's critical to place the best science we possibly can gather into the hands of decision-makers.  The policymakers and governments that have jurisdiction in many areas of the Arctic reside thousands of miles away from the Arctic.  This poses a fundamental problem that can possibly be overcome by hybridizing the structure of decision-making in the Arctic.  

By leveraging the model of the Arctic Council, where indigenous people have a seat and a full voice at the decision-making table, the outcomes can be tailored to the decision-making requirements of the region.  Of course, full diplomatic, governmental, and organizational representation is advantageous for everybody, but there may also be room for an international body where all interested scientists and people who wish to share in a democratic and open manner can come together to form the best decisions possible.

When considering methane, or any other scientific endeavor in the Arctic, it is important for us to remember that the great frontier left in the World today is the Arctic.  This means our investment, our intentions, and our results will be measured in the centuries to come.  Given the enormous impact of climate change upon the entire planet, and given the rate of climate change is highly accelerated in the Arctic, it might just stand to reason that the most important decisions we make in Canada and the rest of the Circumpolar nations will be among some of the most important decisions that will be taken in the 21st century.