Wednesday, February 27, 2019

India And Pakistan Must De-escalate

For Prime Minister Modi to give the Indian army a "free hand" is to abdicate responsibility. Do what you have to do is not an order. That is more like saying, I don't really know what needs to be done.

That Prime Minister Imran Khan has no real control over his army is an open secret. The Pakistani army has been a state inside a state for as long as Pakistan has existed. The Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, is even less answerable to the elected government.

The same terrorist group that is accused of having blown up 40 Indian soldiers in Kashmir is also on record having made attempts on the life of Pervez Musharraf, who was then dictator king of Pakistan. How do they do that? Who supports them?

Traditional diagrams that explain how a state works seem to fail in explaining how power works inside Pakistan. The Islamist ideology also has major sway over a section of the ISI. And elected leaders have a hard time confronting that ideology. It is not dissimilar to the Hindu extremism of some BJP types in India.

India sees that 40 soldiers were blown up. But India doe not see how many Kashmiri youths have been killed and captured by the Indian army over years of military subjugation of Kashmir.

In short, this is a difficult problem. It has been for almost 75 years. But now there is a nuclear dimension to it. And so de-escalation is the only sane option.

Pakistan and India might not be able to do it themselves. And so all external players have to proactively engage. Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the US, France, Japan.

This is about Kashmir. But then this is not really about Kashmir. Political and military leaders in both countries have used Kashmir for too long for their internal reasons. An external enemy is a great way to distract your people from their genuine problems. Take away Kashmir and the Pakistani people might no longer tolerate why the Pakistani army does not really answer to its elected parliament. Take away Kashmir and India might have to confront its reality of abject poverty. There are more poor people in India than in any other country in the world.

An unthinkable outcome would be a war, even if not nuclear. But since the military hardware is so asymmetrical between the two powers with India having a distinct advantage, Pakistan might be tempted to go nuclear if pushed into a corner.

A good outcome would be that the two powers are forced to face the Kashmir issue and solve it once and for all.

Kashmir is the top hot spot on the planet. It beats Palestine. Pakistan is no Palestine. And India is not Israel either. Its anti-terrorism capabilities are not a match.

The long term solution is to help Pakistan along the path to full democracy and a proper state. But that is not a short term luxury. The immediate need is to de-escalate.

When Modi gives the Indian army a "free hand," he is taking himself out of the picture. When Imran Khan fears the situation might escalate to the nuclear level, he is not threatening nuclear war. He is saying the Pakistani army might get there on its own, and he might learn about it on the news.

Modi and Khan make it sound like this is a hardware problem between the two armies. The conflict has to be promptly dragged back into the political space. External players need to jump in fast as they can.


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Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Amazon Walking Away Was A Loss For AOC

I was not even following the developments closely. I thought it was a done deal. Past tense. And then Amazon announced its exit. I was surprised. I still have not had the time to dig into the details. I did read the NYC Mayor's op-ed on the topic. And the AOC celebratory tweet. And there is this Wharton podcast, that I read. (I did not listen)



If it was a botched deal, maybe the NY Governor, and the NYC Mayor did not sell it to the people hard enough. Or maybe Amazon made the mistake of not engaging. Or the protestors did not see the full picture. It comes across as a political victory, but an economic loss.

When I think of the Green New Deal, I see a lot of high tech entrepreneurship. Otherwise, under the current economic paradigm, the Green New Deal can look really, really hard. Pricing out dirty energy is much smoother than trying to shut down an industry. There is no shutdown valve.

Just like the original New Deal created a new middle class and a new age of prosperity, I see the Green New Deal as ushering in an Age of Abundance.

You probably don't want to come across as anti-entrepreneurship. On the other hand, maybe Amazon should not be so stand-offish when it comes to ordinary people and their elected representatives. The local community matters. The city might have gotten 25,000 jobs. But what was Long Island City going to get specifically?

I see no evidence AOC was the central figure in the protests. (Some New Yorkers will protest a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g) But she obviously was supportive, and she obviously was celebratory after the fact. If it was a political victory, it was a grand one. Hey, not everything is business.

But I do think AOC should work harder to come across as pro-entrepreneurship.


















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Monday, February 11, 2019

The Next Recession Might Force The US To Do Universal Basic Income



The next recession, which likely will hit before the next presidential election, might force the US to do a Universal Basic Income. The idea will be, every taxpayer gets a basic income (yes, the richest also do) directly from the government, no questions asked. It would likely be a direct deposit that shows up once a month.

Quantitative easing was a gift to the banks post 2008 recession. The Fed was basically printing money, lots of it, and handing it out to the banks at zero interest rates. That meets the definition of free money. Absent a real stimulus, which might have been closer to three trillion dollars, the system resorted to quantitative easing. The Fed did not need congressional approval to do that. It was Fed action. Like raising or lowering interest rates.

The interest rates are already near zero. The Fed does not have much wiggle room. And there is no Big Crisis to justify giving free money to the banks. We The People are an afterthought.

If it happens it will be interesting, because the Fed will introduce UBI (Universal Basic Income) without any presidential initiative or congressional approval. It will change the political paradigm in the country.

What do you think Paul Krugman? Will the next US recession gift us the Universal Basic Income? Is it an idea whose time has come?

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Friday, February 08, 2019

AOC From The Bronx Channels Al Pacino From The Bronx

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Mars Talk, Zero Gravity, And The Human Body



The Dangers Of Zero Gravity
Astronauts on space missions suffer from balance problems, visual disturbances, ‎damage to the heart muscle and bone loss. ...... At the beginning of March 2016 astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth after breaking the American record for a continuous stay in space – 340 days. ...... Studies on people who were on space stations for long periods have shown some of the effects are temporary while others are more long-term. ..... Brief exposure to weightlessness causes space adaptation syndrome (SAS) or “space sickness”, which is the most common problem in space travel. Weightlessness affects our orientation in space and requires us to adapt many of our physiological processes to the new conditions - mainly processes related to our balance system. When the adjustment is not complete it results in nausea, dizziness, vomiting, headaches, fatigue, general malaise, visual hallucinations and disorientation in space. ........ about 45 percent of space travelers suffer from space sickness. ...... Long-term exposure to the zero gravity causes multiple health problems including redistribution of fluids and loss of bone and muscle mass. ...... Fluids, which make up about 60 percent of the human body weight, tend to accumulate in the lower part of the body when under the influence of gravity, and through the course of evolution we have developed systems that balance the blood flow to the heart and brain while we stand. These systems continue to work even in the absence of gravity, therefore causing fluid to accumulate at the top of the body. This is why astronauts have swollen faces. ........ The change in fluid distribution is also reflected in problems in balance, as well as a loss of sense of taste and smell. More importantly, it drives a series of systemic effects designed to adapt the body to the new environment, but they have dangerous consequences upon the return to Earth. One of them is “orthostatic intolerance”, which is the inability to stand without assistance for more than ten minutes at a time without passing out. ............ The heart also gradually degenerates as a result of it having to pump less blood. A weaker heart muscle causes a decrease in blood pressure and may hamper the flow of oxygen to the brain. ...... In the absence of gravity there is no weight load on the back and leg muscles, so they begin to weaken and shrink. In some muscles degeneration is rapid, and without regular exercise astronauts may lose up to 20 percent of their muscle mass within 5-11 days. ....... Due to lack of mechanical pressure on the bone, bone mass is lost at a rate of one and a half percent in just one month in a zero-gravity environment, compared to about three percent a decade in a healthy person in a normal environment. ........ Due to the rapid change in density, bones may become brittle and exhibit symptoms similar to those of osteoporosis. ...... The increase in calcium levels in the blood from the disintegrating bone causes a dangerous calcification of soft tissue and increases the potential of kidney stone formation. ........... unlike patients with osteoporosis, astronauts who remained in space for three to four months, regain their normal bone density after a period of two to three years back on Earth. ....... The best way to avoid the effects of zero gravity is to create artificial gravity. To date, scientists have managed to create gravity only under laboratory conditions, using strong magnetic fields above permitted safety levels, which of course is not practical in space travel. ........ Every astronaut is required to perform at least two hours of physical activity a day, including jogging on a treadmill (they attach themselves to it with elastic bands so as not to float away), riding a stationary bicycle and lifting weights, against springs of course.
Gravity Hurts (So Good)
Gravity hurts: you can feel it hoisting a loaded backpack or pushing a bike up a hill. But lack of gravity hurts, too: when astronauts return from long-term stints in space, they sometimes need to be carried away in stretchers. ....... In zero-G, muscles atrophy quickly, because the body perceives it does not need them. ...... Muscle mass can vanish at a rate as high as 5% a week. ...... For bones, the loss can be even more extreme. Bones in space atrophy at a rate of about 1% a month, and models suggest that the total loss could reach 40 to 60 per cent. ...... Blood pressure equalizes and becomes about 100 mmHg throughout the body. That's why astronauts can look odd: their faces, filled with fluid, puff up, and their legs, which can lose about a liter of fluid each, thin out. ..... Within two to three days of weightlessness, astronauts can lose as much as 22 percent of their blood volume as a result of that errant message. This change affects the heart, too. "If you have less blood," explains Dr. Victor Schneider, research medical officer for NASA headquarters, "then your heart doesn't need to pump as hard. It's going to atrophy." ...... Blood volume, for example, is typically restored within a few days. "Astronauts get thirsty when they come back," Schneider explains, "because their body says, you don't have enough blood in your blood vessels, and that causes the messengers to say, drink more. [Also, the body doesn't] urinate as much." ....... "We normally say that it takes a day [of recovery on Earth] for each day that somebody's in space," says Schneider. ...... For a three to six month space flight, says Schneider, it might require two to three years to regain lost bone -- if it's going to come back, and some studies have suggested that it doesn't. "You really have to exercise a lot,” says Schneider. "You really have to work at it." ..... One day humans will journey to Mars -- a six-month trip in zero-G before they disembark on a planet with 38% of Earth's gravity. ........ Zero-G living mimics closely the effects of old age. Like astronauts, the elderly fight gravity less. They're more sedentary, which triggers the loop of muscle atrophy, bone atrophy, and lower blood volume.
Our bodies in space: Zero gravity weighs heavy on your health
"As soon as you arrive in weightlessness, the fluids start shifting in your body from the lower part of your body into the upper part of your body," said Dr. John Charles, Human Research Program associate manager for international science. "Your organs of balance and your inner ear immediately sense there's no gravity pulling down on them anymore." ...... Bird Leg Syndrome ..... causes them to have puffy faces and thin legs. It also makes them less thirsty, dulls their sense of taste and causes a "stuffy nose" feeling similar to allergies. ........ a loss of appetite, dizziness and vomiting. ...... In space, without gravity, bones lose more than 1% of minerals and density per month. ...... The three exercise machines mimic a treadmill, a stationary bike and a multipurpose weight machine. They're meant to stimulate the lower body, from running to squats and dead lifts, as the largest percent of bone loss occurs in the pelvis and femurs. Astronauts use the machines for two hours a day to compensate for the other 22 hours in which they aren't experiencing physical activity. ....... one of the more recent effects of spaceflight noticed over the past five to seven years centers on eye health. Kelly and other astronauts in their late 40s and 50s have complained about their vision being slightly altered. Some of them have required glasses in flight. ...... "They're not able to see things up close. It's like advanced aging. That sort of thing happens at a sort of an accelerated rate." ...... Even though the ISS sits within Earth's protective magnetic field, astronauts are still exposed to 10 times the radiation that they would be on the ground. ...... a mission to Mars would expose astronauts to harmful galactic cosmic rays. Without proper shielding, this can increase cancer risk, cause radiation sickness, alter cognitive and motor function, and even lead to cataracts and cardiac and circulatory diseases. ......... Mars mission crew members would need to be able to get to work almost immediately after landing. Even though Mars has only a third of the gravity experienced on Earth, it would still be an adjustment for astronauts after floating for six months.
Asteroid Belt And Earth On The Way To Mars
Elon Musk: To Mars Or Not To Mars
Not Mars
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Thursday, February 07, 2019

The 2020 Season Is Warren, Harris And AOC

It is good so many people are running. It is good that both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, one a socialist, another not a socialist, are running. It is extremely good that it has become normal for a woman to run for president. Two of them are showing really good numbers so far: Warren and Harris.

But the big deal is the Green New Deal. First AOC said a 70% tax on incomes over 10 million. Makes sense to me. It is not that you pay 70% on your entire income when you make 10 million. You only pay 70% for income past 10 million. I don't know about you, but I think that would be a nice problem to have. Why is anyone complaining? Then Warren proposed a wealth tax. Is it 2%? That is minuscule. Long past due. Bernie proposed yet another.

It is capitalism, not socialism, that asks that the gap between the rich and the poor not get too wide. Too wide and the wheels don't grind like they need to.

Trump is looking suspect. Will Mueller merely be background noise for the next two years? Or will Trump be toppled and Pence be beaten in 2020? He almost lost the Senate on the Wall and shutdown issue. It happened fast. If enough Senate Republicans nod, he is gone.

His handling of the shutdown reflects upon the trade war with China. If you were going to take the December deal anyways, why engage in the shutdown? If you were going to take the Chinese offer to get them to buy more soybeans (and a few other things), why create the drama?

Will Trump be impeached? If not, will he be beaten? Which Democrat will win? Will it be a Warren-Harris ticket with Sanders helping hone the basic message? AOC will loom large without even running. If she can get the young people to vote, the Democrats win easy.

Too young to run in 2020, AOC is going to be the most exciting figure in 2020. I can see her crisscrossing the country on behalf of the ticket once the primaries are over. If it is a Warren-Harris in 2020, AOC gets 2028 for Green New Deal 2.0.

AOC represents a generation that did not contribute to the global warming crisis but is set to suffer all its consequences. Howard Dean did not become president. But Deaniac Obama did. Bernie is not going to win, but AOC will carry his torch. It is not capitalism, it is not socialism, it is not this or that. It is a new label. It is a bartender millennial rising up to the challenge. It is a new political outlook (not even ideology) that is to herald the new Age of Abundance.

Harris is Left Coast.

Women have been kept away from the White House for so long, it feels like one woman getting in for one time is not going to be enough. Warren, Harris, and AOC are three generations of women.






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Thursday, January 24, 2019

Why The Wall Is Stupid, Cruel And Dumb

Let's start with stupid.

That is like saying, I am against the death penalty, but if you are going to do it anyway, let me explain to you why giving someone an electric shock at 150 volts for two hours is a really, really bad idea. They will still be alive at the end of those two hours. And, in the meantime, you just engaged in torture. Which is inhuman.

The Wall idea is stupid. It will not stop people. It will not stop drugs. It will not stop criminals. The only thing it will do is give legitimacy to racist demonizations of people from the South. Or maybe that is precisely the idea. The Wall is but a hate project.

The cruel part is explained by the lady standing in the New York harbor. That lady in green is beckoning the persecuted of the world to come hither, come now. America is supposed to take people who have nowhere else to go to. It is the oldest modern democracy of some size. The cruelty is not just towards those who seek asylum. It is also towards the very idea of America. Trump wants to be the new Founding Father to America. Guess what, democracy did not work. Let's now switch to fascism.

Dumb, as opposed to stupid?

Japan suffered for decades, then it realized it really needs to open up to immigration if it wants a vibrant economy. And it has been opening up. Immigration is not America doing favors. Large scale immigration is the only solution to America's Social Security crisis. It is the only way to keep the American economy vibrant.

But then Hitler needed to torch the parliament building. Trump needs to push America into a Great Depression to realize his dream of becoming president for life.

The stand to not fund the Wall must be taken. The longer Trump slugs it out, greater the chances Trump will lose both the Senate and the White House in 2020, if America is still a democracy. He might lose the White House well before that. Which means, when he has lost the Senate, he gets impeached. Taking the stand against the Wall is the right thing to do. It is also the right political thing to do.



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Saturday, January 12, 2019

Filmfare Awards 2018

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Friday, January 11, 2019

A New Cold War?



"The philosophical divide between the American and Chinese systems is becoming as great as the gap between American democracy and Soviet communism. ....... in this new era of precision-guided weaponry and potentially massive cyberattacks, the scope of nonnuclear warfare has widened considerably. Great-power war is now thinkable in a way that it wasn’t during the first Cold War...... It is precisely the fusion of military, trade, economic, and ideological tensions, combined with the destabilization wrought by the digital age—with its collapse of physical distance—that has created an unvirtuous cycle for relations between the United States and China."
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Wednesday, January 09, 2019

Can AOC Get Young People To Vote?

Could AOC inspire the 18-28 crowd to vote in the same ratio as the 60-80 crowd? That is the question. Could AOC inspire that crowd to run for office in similar proportions? There are all kinds of offices to run for. There are numerous offices at the local level that do not ask you to quit your day time job.

AOC's challenge is not what committee assignment she can get herself in Congress. It is what she can inspire at the grassroots level nationally and globally. The digital natives have to come out in full force. The generation for whom climate change is existential has to take the lead on doing something about it.

I believe AOC has the option to take the Green New Deal idea to the Netroots Nation, and I don't mean the organization. I mean the digital native crowd who have never not known the Internet. Done right the Green New Deal becomes centerpiece legislation no matter which Democrat gets elected president in 2020. Senator Elizabeth Sanders has already endorsed it. And many say she is the frontrunner. She also leans towards the same end of the political spectrum as AOC.

AOC represents a paradigm shift in politics. America saw its greatest phase of prosperity when the top tax rate was indeed in the 70% range. And America was still called capitalism then. And back then, in the heat of the Cold War, pun intended, capitalism was not just an economic system, it was also a political ideology. It was life or death on the nuclear tip.

The Green New Deal will not get enacted over the next two years. So fighting for some kind of a congressional committee is a losing proposition. But that fight can be used to go to the netroots nation. See, the Congress is not responding, not at scale, not at speed. Get involved. Shape the 2020 agenda.

The Green New Deal is not one thing you do. Just like the New Deal after which it is named, it is sweeping. It is a fundamental realignment.





This is not about let's create a Facebook group. This is not about, can we get more Twitter followers. New digital tools are needed. This is about building an actual organization with local chapters, and locally elected leadership. This is about a political organization that raises funds. Somebody is going to have to pay for AOC's travels. Let a PAC do that. This is about crowdsourcing the drafting of actual legislation. How do you get a million people (at least) to take part in the drafting of legislation? And it has to feel meaningful. I myself am not clear how. The Green New Deal will not be drafted by a committee Speaker Pelosi agrees to. The Green New Deal rough draft will be crafted by a million members of the netroots nation.

Building an organization .... I am thinking, how about Green New Deal Nation for a name? GNDN. The short form sounds right on the lips. It will have to create its own software. That is not a big challenge. Anyone can sign up. You sign up with your email address, phone number, name, and zip code. Basic stuff. It is both a website and a mobile app. Then the software organizes you by zip code, 10 people to a group. The 10 closest people to each other, geographically speaking, form the basic group. Anything larger and people run the danger of not getting heard. You insert your address, and that finds you the group closest to you. The group is a monthly house party. But even on the website and in the app, each individual has the option to start solo. There is a form you fill out where you say what are the political and economic goals that are most important to you. As that moves from one person to a 10 person group, the leader of the group brings it all together. It starts with a list of all that team members want. Then the team votes, so there is a priority list as a second step. And it keeps going up. 10-10-10-10 could keep happening. As a second step, 10 team leaders come together, if not in person, then virtually. And so on. That is a bottom-up thing that must happen.

And then there is a shopping mall concept. The top thinkers in the Green New Deal camp (and many might be academics) make the best case they can make to throw out ideas. The netroots goes shopping among those ideas. These are ideas that have been thought through in terms of technology, in terms of budget numbers, and so on.

You don't need 10 years to build a think tank. You need a split second.

The thing is, this is a cost-effective path. Most people might not have to go any further than their nearby house party. Let the average donation be a glorious $5. Skip the coffee. Donate instead.

This done for a year will make the Green New Deal the centerpiece legislation for any Democrat who might end up in the White House in 2020.

Once Green New Deal 1.0 has been drafted, going back and forth between the netroots and the leadership and the shopping mall of thought leaders, then the leadership has to take it back to the netroots. You participated in the crafting of it, now sell it to the population at large. Canvass. Vote.

And there you have it. Momentum.

That conversation is the democracy. Google is not just some small town library gone digital. People ask Google questions that were never even asked. And on any given day, one third of search queries on Google are new.

This digital conversation will be unprecedented. It just has not been done before.

When you yourself are drafting legislation, that leaves little room for apathy.

AOC is the natural leader of the GNDN.

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Monday, January 07, 2019

The Geometry Of The Green Deal




The term Green New Deal might have a long tail, but the credit of finally putting it on the political map goes to AOC. She is politically gifted. No doubt this honeymoon period will come to an end, and she will face her eventual backlash. But she is no flash in the pan. She is potential presidential material.

It is Green Deal or bust. Climate change is for real. The consequences of not doing anything are dire. There is a cliff ahead. There is a point of no return. Global warming is not just all is same, it is just a little bit warmer. Wouldn't that be nice? Global warming is meteorological chaos. It is the monsoon deciding to leave the Indian subcontinent and popping up at some random landmass every year. Agriculture as we know it requires predictable weather. Global warming in its extreme messes up the predictability.

It's not AOC. It's the planet. The planet needs it. Bad.

The Civil War made Lincoln. The Great Depression and World War II made FDR. Global Warming will make AOC.

The 13 figures that get thrown into any talk of a Green Deal are surprisingly good economics. Post Green Deal America will see prosperity that will make the 2018 prosperity feel like America had been Haiti.

And it will be just prosperity. If you think about it, Social Security was outlandish considering it was preceded by, well, nothing like it. The post-Green Deal similarly will have a floor for all called the Universal Basic Income.

People go wow about the Internet. There are 10 Internet size technologies right around the corner. If you do the Green Deal right, you take the world into an Age Of Abundance. The productivity gains projected by the technologies right round the corner will make the idea of a Universal Basic Income as a matter of fact as minimum wage is today. Can't do without it. The wheels of the economy will not budge without it.

The projected gains in clean energy efficiencies over the coming decade are such that dirty energy sources stand no chance. But the political arm has to do its part. That's where the Green Deal comes in.

The America of tomorrow is young and browning. AOC represents that America.

The worst possible thing AOC could do politically is to try to climb the ladders of the US House. She needs to go national, and possibly global, digitally. And this is not just about having more Twitter and Instagram followers, impressive as her numbers are. This is about an actual organization, only it is primarily digital. It will have donors, it will have local chapters, it will self-elect its local leaders, it will host house parties. It will crowdcraft the writing of the actual legislation. And, no, it's not mobocracy. The academics who have done their work will get their say.

That way even if it is a Warren-Harris White House in 2020, the Green Deal still goes through, and AOC still plays the decisive role, and perhaps she gets to do Green Deal 2.0 when she gets into the White House in 2028. Just like Obamacare is in dire need of a 2.0 because 1.0 still left too many uninsured.










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