perfidy

In all likelihood, this will be me, Princess Cat and Blackfive on the Friday before the Milblogger conference in a few weeks.

[wik] Princess Cat notes that we will likely have AWTM with us as well. We'll need a whole line of urinals!

The United States has twice invaded Canada in the course of prosecuting wars against Great Britain. Despite this violent start to US-Canadian relations, on many occasions over the last two hundred years, people have proposed with varying degrees of seriousness that various bits of Canada be annexed to the United States. But for some people, that sort of piecemeal aggrandizement just isn’t enough.

For example, this website argues that there should be a complete merger of Canada and the United States. Given that Canada has only 10% of the population of its southern neighbor, they recommend that the Canadians adopt wholesale the political system and constitution of the United States. (And argue as well that the American Federal system will serve to preserve large measures of Canadian independence.

Among the benefits of such a merger would be the creation of, geographically, the largest country in human history. Most of the new territory is of course arctic wasteland, but it’s still land. The ten percent increase in population would narrow slightly the margin with China, which will be important in a couple decades when China goes imperialistic and attacks. Also, the added GNP will put us in a better position with regard to the EU. Dropping unnecessary border installations, customs, and redundant government installations will surely result in a savings for the taxpayer.

While this has absolutely no chance in Hell of ever happening, it is interesting to contemplate. (We’d have a better chance, I think, of picking up bits of Canada if Quebec ever decided to secede.) The most significant impact would be political, considering the close margins between Republicans and Democrats in the last few elections.

Consider: of the ten provinces, nine are big enough to become states, population wise. (Prince Edward Island only has 127,000 people – it would have to be rolled into New Brunswick or Newfoundland.) Of these provinces, now states, most would, thanks to their low populations, get the minimum three electoral votes. As we know, states with low populations get a disproportionate impact in the US Electoral College.

Bush won the 2004 election by five electoral votes. If Canada had been assimilated before the election, what would the result have been? Assuming that each province adopted the traditional winner-take all approach of most states, and that everyone who voted in the 2006 Canadian federal election for Liberal or NDP candidates voted for Kerry, this is what would have happened: Bush would have taken Alberta (6), Saskatchewan (3) and Manitoba (3), and lost by a whisker in British Columbia, for a total of 12 electoral votes. Kerry would have won in all the other small provinces, and gained BC (8) and Ontario (19), for a total of 36 electoral votes, throwing the election decidedly to Kerry no matter how Quebec voters went.

But, what if the provinces adopted the Maine method of determining their electoral votes? If so, then all the smaller provinces with three electoral votes would be unchanged, as would Alberta which went decidedly conservative. But, assume that Bush edges Kerry in BC, for a 5/3 split. And in Ontario, Bush would pick up six of the seventeen congressional districts for a 13/6 split. Both Kerry and Bush would likely pick up to districts apiece in Quebec, which gives us a total of 25 for Bush, 27 for Kerry. Bush would be up by three overall, and the last nine electoral votes would be in the hands of the Parti Quebecois.

The French would at last have their wish, control over America.

[wik] Ran into some other interesting sites in reading about the above: The Apportionment Paradox, Congressional Apportionment, and Thirty-Thousand.org.

Tennessee was once nearly the state of Franklin before it all fell apart in a welter of acrimony, economic backwardness, Indian assault, and no doubt duels and whiskey. But the people regrouped, tried again, and successfully became Tennessee. For some fairly small values of "successful."

• Celebrating 50 Years Of Shitty Country Music
• We're Like Kentucky, But With Cities
• A unique fixer-upper opportunity
• The Darwin State
• The Educashun State
• The Parallelogram State
• Home of Most of Dolly Parton
• Daaaavey Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier
• The Forced Conscription State
• Got Cooter?
• We’re huge in Germany
• I Ride With Forrest
• Hooray For Dollywood
• At least we've got Elvis
• West West Virginia
• We’re bigger than France, and better smelling
• Almost Franklin
• We didn’t volunteer fer nuthin
• Don’t make me take off my Bible belt
• I love it when a plan comes together
• Home of Five Future Presidents
• Home of Al Gore, and therefore the Internet
• If you can read this motto, you may not be from Tennessee
• Follow Me To Tennessee, And Answer Me These Questions Three
• Gateway to Alabama
• I Hate Tennessee
• That’s Appalachian-American, you insensitive clod
• Fuck Walking Horses
• Tennessee is like a mullet: business in front, party in the back
• The Hillbilly State
• As Fertile as the Tennessee Valley
• Aim High: Agriculture and Commerce
• Don't go lookin for them damn melungeons
• The Hog and Hominy State
• Mother of Southwestern Motherfucking Statesmen
• The Butterbutt State
• Sounds Good to Me

[wik] There is a country-type band out of Ohio called Lost State of Franklin. They sound like a country version of Timbuk 3. It grows on you. You can listen to them here, click on "Clint Eastwood." This Clint Eastwood is nothing like the Gorillaz version.

The new Ministry official motivational poster:

[wik] Thanks to Minister Patton's mysterious correspondent for sending us that.

Chapter 11 proceedings seem to focus the corporate mind. Not always on anything that matters to business, however. Witness, below, excerpted from an email message I got from Delta Airlines today:

In a partnership with The Conservation Fund, we are the first U.S. airline to implement a voluntary carbon offset program — and we'd love to have you "onboard."

It's simple. Beginning June 1, 2007, you will be able to add a small donation to fund the planting of trees in sustainable managed forests around the globe when you book your ticket at delta.com. These trees will help off-set carbon emissions by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting it to oxygen as part of their natural processes.

We'll disburse 100 percent of your donation to "The Conservation Fund program" to plant trees and to support the organization's education and outreach efforts. Additionally, we'll make a donation to The Conservation Fund for every customer flying on a Delta mainline jet worldwide on Earth Day (April 22).

It's just part of our Force for Global Good initiative that strives to benefit the world we fly everyday. So go ahead and take a flight, and join us in uniting our customers and employees in support of environmental stewardship.

Note: this, from the company with the well-meaning customer service people who called to reschedule a flight I've got on tap for next week because their operations staff had changed things, leaving me a massive 7 minute connection time in Atlanta. Whoops. But at least they called.

Anyhow, a couple things occur to me right off the bat.

If they'd paid as much attention to their stockholders as they pretend to pay to the environment, their (former) stockholders wouldn't need to be such heavy users of Preparation H. Sure, the stock's at $0.16/share as I write this, but it's likely overvalued. Bankruptcy has a way of doing that.

Secondly, as I read that kind offer of theirs to join the "Force for Global Good", it sure looks like they're trying hard to do it with my money, and that it's not really them (other than on Earth Day™!) that will be doing the giving. If they want to give their own corporate money to a fool's boondoggle like carbon offsets, I'm fine with that. I'm not one of their stockholders, and am, in fact, a relatively steady customer of theirs. They've already proven, over the years, a callous disregard for the interests of their owners, and those owners are probably beyond surprise at this point. The customers, like me, being a bit more flexible in our ability to avoid having donations milched on our behalf, will see this as the useless public relations gum flapping that it is.

[wik] What good is corporate gum flapping without a press release?

A little bird tells me that the Russkies are planning to build an undersea tunnel to the United States. No doubt this is some sort of paleo-commie plot. But it is an interesting, and hugely expensive one. The scheme is to build from the Easternmost tip of Siberia, to the little islands about halfway between there and Alaska, and then back into the water and over to Alaska. At over $10 billion, it will even cost more than Boston's big dig. The tunnel, which in its longest stretch will be underwater more than twice the distance of the chunnel, would carry rail, power, pipelines and road traffic. As cool as this is, theoretically, I can't really imagine that it would be terribly profitable, or useful. As a way to improve transportation to resource rich and largely empty Siberia, I would think that other schemes might give more payback. Saying you're connecting two continents that have been separated for 10,000 years sounds nifty. But what you're really doing is connecting the most desolate and uninhabited part of Russia with the most desolate and isolated part of the United States. If they build it, cool, but there isn't a lot of traffic piling up there, and sea transport is cheaper than rail anyway.

Trawling through the vast wasteland of the internets, one finds mostly crap. To the point that Sturgeon's law seems wildly optimistic. Every now and again, though, your suffering is rewarded with unalloyed joy. This is one of those times. I found this over at AEBrain, and it is, without exception, the coolest use of Flash animation I have ever seen. (Though Homestar Runner comes close. And this is an addictive close third.)

[wik] I probably put more links in that paragraph above than I have in any in the last year. As a blogger, I should really consider linking more.

[alsø wik] Distracted by the linkiness, I forgot to say why that first link is so damn cool. Though if you clicked it, you'd know already. But I'm about to tell you, so wait a minute. The extrasolar system map is unlike most astronomical doodads you'll find, becasue it's not sol centric. Most star maps simply show what the stars look like from Earth. Which doesn't give you a good idea of how they are connected. A star map is like one of those goofy odd-perspective "the view of the world from New York" maps, that doesn't really provide any useful information. This map actually shows what stars are near each other. And, clicky on a star, and it will show if we have detected any planets in that solar system. Combine this thing with googlemaps and it would be awesome. If it had smooth scrolling between map sections, and a route planning mode with waypoints, it would be the most amazing thing in the world. Also, it would be cool if you could see more than one little bit at a time. Nevertheless, wow. Four thumbs up.

[alsø alsø wik] In light of my last post, I wonder how many of those planets in the nifty star map have ETs waiting to eat us. Most of the stars in that map are within the light cone of our radio broadcasts.

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] Broadcasting to a potentially unfriendly galaxy is probably not wise. On the other hand, a sufficiently advanced technology could detect us anyway.

The blessed amazon fairy delivered another load of printed goodness at my doorstep. Typically, the amazon fairy brings me science fiction that is more or less throw-away, enjoyable to read but whose thinks pass in and then out of my brain leaving little lasting impression. Or history tracts that expand or deepen my knowledge of the past without notably changing my opinions of it. But this last deposit was a little different.

The book in the plain brown wrapper was "An Introduction to Planetary Defense, A Study of Modern Warfare Applied to Extra-Terrestrial Invasion." The careful and attentive reader of this website will quickly discern why this title got onto my wishlist. Of the four writers, I had only heard of the lead author, Travis S. Taylor, who had written a few science fiction novels for Baen Books. From the bios in those works, I knew that Dr. Taylor was a bit of a big brain, working for NASA and various defense department projects, including the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program at NASA before its untimely demise. The name of the book and that last fact was enough for me to shell out the $35.

Was it worth it? On balance, I think definitely yes. There are problems with the book. Let’s get them out of the way first. The book is very poorly edited. There are typos, bad grammar, and poorly formed sentences throughout. That is irritating and distracts from the message the book is trying to get across. The book is poorly balanced, by which I mean that certain points will be attacked in great detail, and the next bit, seemingly of equal importance, will be glossed over. This creates a problem when the authors refer to something that was not adequately discussed further on, and my reaction is a resounding, “huh? Where’d that come from?” That’s the technical side.

On the idea side, I have far fewer problems, and where I do, it’s wishing that the authors had explored a topic a little more, or discussed something they didn’t. More on that (oh, much more. I’m going to go den Beste on their ass) later. Despite the flaws that are, I imagine, the result of what looks like self-publishing, this book is chock full of interesting, thought-provoking meaty stuff.

Why do I think so? Let me count the ways…

In thinking about aliens, two things have always bothered me, and I hoped that An Introduction would address them. The first of these problems is Fermi’s paradox, and the second is the remarkable optimism of SETI researchers. I was happy to see that this book addressed both of them, and in spades.

The Drake Equation

Before we discuss those two things, a brief discourse on the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation is not so much an equation as a means of quantifying ignorance, and adding up the probabilities of intelligent life arising in the galaxy. You start with the number of stars in the galaxy, and multiply that number by quite a few factors. The result is your own personal estimate, N, of how many ETs are out there.

N is the number of civilizations in the Milky way that have developed systems which produce electromagnetic emissions detectable from Earth. It is equal, then, to the rate of star formation times the probability that the star will have planets, times the number of habitable planets per star times the number of those planets that will develop life, times the number of those that will develop intelligent life, times the number of those intelligent species that will develop means of communication times (finally) the length of time those signals are detectable.

The first two numbers, we actually know something about. The rate of star formation is about 1.5 a year, and we are finding planets everywhere we look, so .9 for that. Number of habitable planets? For us in the Solar System, one definitely, and two maybes – Europa and Mars. Let’s say three. (It doesn’t matter if they’re not all habitable at the same time.) SETI researchers always use “1” for the number of habitable planets that develop life. How many develop intelligent life? Taylor suggests 2/3, fair enough. How many develop detectable civilizations? Taylor suggests a quarter. Run the numbers, and the Drake Equation yields an interesting result.

New, detectable ET civilizations are arising at a rate of one every three years.

Assume we’re off by an order of magnitude. That’s two civilizations per lifetime. A hundred thousand over the tenure of man’s existence on Earth. Half a billion extant in the galaxy right now.

Put in smaller numbers, and the results are still invariably stunning. Assume that only one in a hundred habitable planets develops life, and that only one in a hundred of those develops intelligent life. You still get an intelligent species arriving on the scene every thousand years. The galaxy is billions of years old. 150,000 extant in the Galaxy, right now.

Taylor and company also make some interesting additions to the Drake Equation. They take into account the size of the Milky Way, and calculate the galactic density of ETs. Using Taylor’s numbers, it is .064 ETs per square light year. Or, in a 1000 ly bubble centered on earth, there are 50,000 species. That’s intelligent, technological ETs. Even using my several orders of magnitude more conservative numbers, there are still 15 techno-ETs in local space. right now.

They also add two more factors to the Drake Equation: ft, the number of technological civilizations that go a-traveling, and v, the velocity at which those species can move about the galaxy. Here we get some even more interesting numbers. If we assume that all technological civilizations eventually travel, and that their velocity is a tenth the speed of light, then there are 200,000 travelers within range of Earth. Which means that there is a great likelihood of someone, sometime, visiting Earth. And maybe soon. Maybe next Tuesday. (Taylor provides all the math for this, btw.) You’ll have to read the book to see what his numbers suggest, you won’t believe me. (you can see a good chunk of the book here.)

The sheer number of stars in the galaxy, and the staggeringly long time it’s been around mean that whenever you plug a non-zero number into any element of the Drake Equation, you get lots of ETs, and an uncomfortable number in close proximity. Using my numbers but the same assumptions as Taylor, the likelihood of one of 60 nearby species paying a call on earth is about one visit every 166 years. Now there may be other factors that slow down the rate of visitation – varying galactic geography, randomness of placement, or even that there are even less species than we think. Another primary reason we’ll discuss next.

The chance of first contact is not so remote as we may believe.

The Fermi Paradox

Fermi’s Paradox comes from the question, “Where are they?” that Enrico Fermi asked back in the fifties after some back of the envelope calculations led him to consider that given a constant rate of expansion, it would only take millions of years for an intelligent species to spread throughout the Galaxy. And the Galaxy is billions of years old – if, at any time, an intelligent species had arisen, one might assume that they would have gotten here and, presumably, prevented us from existing in the first place.

This always seemed a fairly reasonable supposition, but it does fly in the face of the results of plugging even the most conservative numbers into the Drake Equation. Taylor and company put the eye on this dilemma and come up with a surprising conclusion. The Fermi Paradox is a crock.

Over the years, the SETI community has come up with several responses to the Fermi Paradox. We could be the first intelligent species. Or there could be any number of insurmountable obstacles to interstellar expansion: it’s too difficult, conceptually alien to other intelligences, or it’s not really a good idea and just not done. Or, it has been done and there is some sort of Prime Directive that restrains ET from screwing with us. Or ET is screwing with us and we don’t know it. Or we’ve simply been overlooked.

Now all of these things are reasonable. Taylor, however, contests the ground under Fermi’s feet. Fermi, in his calculations, used a simple population growth model. However, says Taylor, that isn’t really the best model for imagining intelligent species moving out into the big world. First, no species on Earth ever follows a simple exponential growth curve. Second, intelligent species will likely have different needs and goals, and thus will either defend niches or compete over them within a greater sentient galactic ecology.

Now this gets meaty.

“Nature here on Earth offers many examples where the struggle for existence between two similar species fighting over the same niche (food supply, space, etc.) occurs. Ultimately, one species wins out by causing the complete extinction of the other species. This phenomenon is known as the “principle of competitive exclusion” and was proposed by Darwin in 1859 in his Origin of Species.

“There are also cases on Earth where the “principle of competitive exclusion” is in direct contradiction with some well-known natural phenomenon. An example of one of these natural contradictions is called the “plankton paradox” and is focused on the variability of plankton organisms which all seem to occupy the same niche. All plankton algae use the same niche, which consists of solar energy and minerals dissolved in their native habitat waters. There are many plankton algae species, many more than the different types of mineral components in the water habitat of the plankton.”

Now this seems very interesting indeed to me. A direct analogy, which the authors do not explore – is that plankton are in effect in a space like environment where solar energy is the primary source of energy, and minerals of varying concentrations are available more or less for the taking within their environment. A spaceborne civilization using asteroids, comets, and solar energy to sustain itself and grow could be likened to plankton. One could imagine multiple intelligent races sharing this niche – with the vastness of space making contact fairly minimal. Of course, one might imagine that if plankton were a little more sophisticated, they might hate and attack other plankton that they did run into.

And that leads us to the next bit – a simple exponential growth law would not explain a species expanding into the galaxy and then running into competition. Other population growth laws – in fact, predator-prey models – might explain how well ETs do in the big galactic arena.

“Therefore, the simple Malthusian or exponential population growth as described previously is a drastic oversimplification. Perhaps Fermi’s Paradox is not as paradoxical as it seems. One could imagine that the galaxy is much like Earth with multiple species supporting and competing against each other over various niche resources. Perhaps the society that is a few million years older than us is not preying on us as often as expected because they are defending themselves from predators a few million years older than them. The possibilities are limitless. Let’s hope that we are living in a natural environment, as on Earth, where the coexistence of predator, prey, and other competing species is possible.”

A galactic meta-ecology, composed not of competing organisms as on Earth, but rather of competing intelligent species is possibly the answer to the Fermi Paradox. No species can expand willy-nilly, because of the presence of other species. Like early algae, the first species may have run wild, but ever more competent species will have, over time, engaged in competition. This competition will certainly engage the intelligence and resources of an alert species – which means that in the dark corners, new species will always be coming up to try their hand (or tentacle, flipper, pseudopod, or claw) in the big game.

The reason, therefore, that we haven’t been assimilated may be not that we are the first, or only intelligent life in the galaxy, but that other intelligent life is too busy staying alive to visit every star, or deal with every potential threat. Other species’ lifespans in the meta-ecology of the galaxy might be rather shorter than they would otherwise be, due to competition with other species. Possible aspects of this galactic meta-ecology are left unexamined in the book, which was frustrating to me, as it certainly bears directly on the main question the book is meant to answer. Still and all, a lot to think about, and we’ll be getting back to that in a minute.

Or maybe more than a minute. We will continue in part two.

South Dakota, where some creepy guy once spent fourteen years carving presidents into a mountainside. South Dakota, where if there were still Buffalo, they'd roam. South Dakota...

• If Hell were a grim, wind-swept icy plain, well, then this would be Hell
• Under God and the Stony Gaze of Dead Presidents, the People Rule
• The Land of Land and Also Dirt
• Hello? Can anyone hear me? Hey! Over here!
• There’s no place like South Dakota, even South Dakota
• Closer Than North Dakota, unless of course, you’re Canadian. And you’re in Canada, as opposed to a Canadian visiting Texas. Doesn’t make much difference for Washington, since it’s West. Same for Maine. And all of New England…
• It’s better in South Dakota. Better than what, we’re not saying.
• At least we've got Rushmore
• Plenty of parking
• The North Dakota of the South
• The Original Mount Rushmore State
• Our capital has kind of a faggotty French sound, doesn’t it? Be honest
• 6,417 more square miles of nothin than puny North Dakota
• The other Sunshine State
• Seig Heil, South Dakota
• The Artesian State, nudge, nudge
• The unending blizzard state
• Bury my heart, and 299 other hearts, at Wounded Knee
• At least we’re not New Jersey. North Dakota is New Jersey.
• Gateway to the Badlands
• Just ‘cause there’s a “South” in our name doesn’t mean we’re southern
• Someone loves you in South Dakota. And he’s armed.
• Don’t trust those Hun North Dakoters
• Did you hear about North Dakota’s black guy?
• Really near North Dakota
• Come to South Dakota, we swear you’ll have a better time than the Sioux did
• South Dakota kicks so much ass, it might as well be Iowa
• Almost 7000 black people! We’re diverse!

First it was the Irish, with their mining and their farming. Then it was the Slavs, those factory-dwelling scum. Then it was the Latinos with their ambition and willingness to spread mulch and cook your steak frites for little pay. Then it was the Indonesians with their endless garment factories. Then it was the Indians, who have apparently limitless capacity to take shit from irate helpline callers while producing flawless C++ code. And now it's the damn Chinese, taking the job of insane mass murderer away from the white, Christian American males to whom it is their birthright.

No. Seriously. Check this amazing shit out! Media whore Debbie Schlussel is an early frontrunner in the contest to say the least appropriate, most reprehensible thing possible about yesterday's shootings at Virginia Tech, and she's come up with a doozy. Wow!

So, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech massacre is a Chinese national here on a student visa. And, today, this alien did “the job that Americans just won’t do.”

If you really want to be put off your lunch, kite over to her site and check out all the people who somehow agree that yesterday's tragedy is somehow an argument for tighter immigration laws (or evidence of a Great Yellow Conspiracy of unexplained provenance or purpose). Also go to her site if you somehow think I'm taking her out of context or misrepresenting the thrust of her argument. 'Cos I ain't.

Hat tip to Outside the Beltway

[wik]... and check up the to this post, which I found via qando. Just awesome!

**** UPDATE #3, 04/17/07: The shooter has now been identified as a South Korean national.****

**** UPDATE #2: The shooter has now been identified as a Chinese national here on a student visa. Lovely. Yet another reason to stop letting in so many foreign students.****

**** UPDATE: Shootings appear professional, says expert; VTU Alum on school's "Asian" Population; 2nd Amendment-Free Campus/VTU lobbied against students having guns on campus for personal protection ****

Here's what we know about the murderer of at least 32 students and maimer of at least 28 more at Virginia Tech, today:

• The murderer has been identified by law enforcement and media reports as "a young Asian male."
• The Virginia Tech campus has a very large Muslim community, many of which are from Pakistan (per terrorism investigator Bill Warner).
• Pakis are considered "Asian."
• There were 2 attacks at least half a mile apart.
• There have been at least two bomb threats to this campus in the last two weeks.

And dig her rebuttals to the comments:

Posted by: Old Atlantic [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 16, 2007 04:48 PM

Pakis are considered "Asian."

I believe the correct term is "Pakistani".

YOUR BELIEF SYSTEM IS FLAWED. EITHER TERM IS CORRECT. WHAT IS THIS--THE IMUS THOUGHT POLICE? DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL