We noted in our previous post about “gun control” that there are approximately 300 million firearms in the United States (another source states, more precisely if not more accurately, 276 million firearms of all types.) This plethora of arms is unique in the world: it has also been estimated that, with 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has 50% of the world’s firearms. A parallel, and probably not coincidental, fact is that the United States federal government spends more than virtually all other countries in the world combined on its military establishment.
The reasons for the quantity of arms and related paraphernalia in the US are, first, that the US is one of the richest countries in the world, second, that the US was a victor (and chief arms supplier to the Allies) in the last world war, and third, there was for many years (until 1968) little or no regulation of private civilian arms purchases. Contributing to the laissez-faire attitude of the public has been the tradition of rural arms possession for hunting and self-defense that has persisted since the settlement of the West in the early nineteenth century. In fact, in parallel with the urbanization of America, the percentage of people owning firearms has gradually but consistently dropped to about one-quarter of the adult population.
However, the number of firearms in civilian hands has consistently risen. In part, this is because firearms are extremely durable and have been manufactured to very high standards for over a hundred years. Once manufactured, with a little care and proper storage, a firearm is likely to last well over a hundred years. Because of the durability of modern firearms and the reduction of interest in firearms over recent years, manufacturers have been forced to market new types and calibers of arms to people who are already owners, and to attempt to market an interest in firearms to the younger generation. Without this marketing, manufacturers fear a reduction in sales would be inevitable.
Despite the durability of arms and lack of interest by the younger generation, gun sales are booming. Incidents such as the election (and re-election) of Barack Obama and the Newtown school shootings have been blamed for spikes in sales over the last few years. It can only be inferred that sales are being made to people who already own firearms. These people appear to feel that their present arms are inadequate, and that they need semi-automatic firearms in military calibers that can accept large magazines.
The reasons behind the insecurity of those who already own firearms are complex, but we can hypothesize that the reasons include intensive marketing by arms manufacturers.
“I have said it repeatedly: Because of these prophecies, going in on the ground would be the worst trap to fall into. They want troops on the ground. Because they have already envisioned it,” said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East Studies at Sciences Po in Paris, and the author of “Apocalypse in Islam,” one of the main scholarly texts exploring the scripture that the militants base their ideology on.
“It’s a very powerful and emotional narrative. It gives the potential recruit and the actual fighters the feeling that not only are they part of the elite, they are also part of the final battle.”
via U.S. Seeks to Avoid Ground War Welcomed by Islamic State – The New York Times.
This is the problem with invasion that Trump and the Republicans are ignoring: The Islamists want us to invade Iraq and Syria so they can engage us in “the final battle.”
We cannot win by doing what they want us to do.
Muslim Radicals
Note how these two are dressed. Do you suppose that could be the basis for a profile?
“Religious conservatism and piety are not the only thing institutions like Al-Huda spread,” said Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States now at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington. “Their teachings have a strong dose of ‘Muslims are destined to lead the world’ and ‘the corrupt West must be confronted.’ ”
via Killers Were Long Radicalized, F.B.I. Investigators Say – The New York Times.
Here is the essence of the “conservative” Islamic worldview: “the corrupt West must be confronted.” and “Muslims are destined to lead the world. ”
This is what we have to face. The people who oppose “the corrupt West” and want to “confront” the secular establishment. Whether it is with words or with .223 bullets, the truth is that they think we are screwing up the world and they have to take control away from us. “We” are secular, corrupt, and sinful.
See also the photograph of the two people who killed 14 and wounded 21 before they were killed themselves in a shoot-out with police. More in a future post.
The most striking hallmark was Mr. Trump’s constant repetition of divisive phrases, harsh words and violent imagery that American presidents rarely use, based on a quantitative comparison of his remarks and the news conferences of recent presidents, Democratic and Republican. He has a particular habit of saying “you” and “we” as he inveighs against a dangerous “them” or unnamed other — usually outsiders like illegal immigrants (“they’re pouring in”), Syrian migrants (“young, strong men”) and Mexicans, but also leaders of both political parties.
via 95,000 Words, Many of Them Ominous, From Donald Trump’s Tongue – The New York Times.
The New York Times (NYT) has taken the trouble to quantitatively analyze all 85,000 words spoken by Mr. Trump in one week– and they are ominous, threatening, fascistic words. Delivered in his breezy, off-the-cuff style, with unapologetic falsehoods, his words are increasingly prompting the support of a know-nothing, atavistic electorate.
In another pattern, Mr. Trump tends to attack a person rather than an idea or a situation, like calling political opponents “stupid” (at least 30 times), “horrible” (14 times), “weak” (13 times) and other names, and criticizing foreign leaders, journalists and so-called anchor babies. He bragged on Thursday about psyching out Jeb Bush by repeatedly calling him “low-energy,” but he spends far less time contrasting Mr. Bush’s policies with his own proposals, which are scant.
Here’s a mythical anecdote on the San Bernadino massacre:
… on Friday night in Raleigh, he mocked people who reportedly did not contact the authorities with concerns about the California shooting suspects for fear of racial profiling.
“Can anybody be that dumb?” Mr. Trump said. “We have become so politically correct that we don’t know what the hell we’re doing. We don’t know what we’re doing.”
As I noted in a previous post (“Comment of the Day”) Trump ignores or contradicts facts and confirmed realities:
… Mr. Trump uses rhetoric to erode people’s trust in facts, numbers, nuance, government and the news media, according to specialists in political rhetoric. “Nobody knows,” he likes to declare, where illegal immigrants are coming from or the rate of increase of health care premiums under the Affordable Care Act, even though government agencies collect and publish this information. He insists that Mr. Obama wants to accept 250,000 Syrian migrants, even though no such plan exists, and repeats discredited rumors that thousands of Muslims were cheering in New Jersey during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
His rhetorical style and the substance of his attacks is patterned after well-known demagogues of the past:
This pattern of elevating emotional appeals over rational ones is a rhetorical style that historians, psychologists and political scientists placed in the tradition of political figures like Goldwater, George Wallace, Joseph McCarthy, Huey Long and Pat Buchanan, who used fiery language to try to win favor with struggling or scared Americans. Several historians watched Mr. Trump’s speeches last week, at the request of The Times, and observed techniques — like vilifying groups of people and stoking the insecurities of his audiences — that they associate with Wallace and McCarthy.
A significant difference between Mr. Trump and 20th-century American demagogues is that many of them, especially McCarthy and Wallace, were charmless public speakers. Mr. Trump, by contrast, is an energetic and charismatic speaker who can be entertaining and ingratiating with his audiences. There is a looseness to his language that sounds almost like water-cooler talk or neighborly banter, regardless of what it is about.
For some historians, this only makes him more effective, because demagogy is more palatable when it is leavened with a smile and joke.
Mr. Trump is the fascist demagogue par excellence. By the way, the word “demagogue”, as described by commenters, comes from the same class of words as “pedagogue” and literally means “leader of the people”, just as “pedagogue” originally meant a leader of the children, that is, the slave who escorted children to school. The words have come to mean something pejorative, a despised class of orator in this case.
There is a distinct probability that Mr. Trump will become the Republican nominee for President, and if he doesn’t, that he will, despite his pledge, become a third-party candidate. Either way, he will shift his attacks to Mrs. Clinton and become ever more vitriolic as he describes her liberal supporters, possibly as closet Communists and subverters of the American Dream, responsible for preventing America from “becoming Great again.” There is no question that Mr. Trump is a narcissist, only out for what it can get him, and when he loses the general election, he will still win because his name-recognition will increase even further. If he were to win the Presidency, he would turn over his administration to the same Republican conservative administrators and cronies who served President George W. Bush, that is if he does not make over the country in his fascistic mold.
Comment of the Day
Empirical Conservatism
United States
The Times continues to see the trees and not the forest.
It’s not climate science the GOP is fighting. The Republicans must attack the scientific method itself. They are required by their politics to attack the very idea of empiricism. If they admit that science can achieve irrefutability in this area, then they must admit that it has and can determine it elsewhere, particularly in areas where they need ambiguity and room to lie: public health, environmental law, even the historical record. They aren’t attacking what’s happening in Paris. They are defending their right to pathological subjectivity and the right to externalize its costs onto people who eagerly accept it.
The Left keeps making the same mistake: they detect instances but not the pattern. They diagnose after the fact. This gives liars the freedom they have to strike and move and strike again.
Karl Rove explained all this years ago, when he told your reporter, “”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” The whole Conservative battle plan is right there. How long before you figure it out that for one moment he was telling the truth?
[Comment to an NYT article about Representative Lamar Smith’s attack on a climate science paper that states global warming pause was illusory]
It’s the scientific method itself that the Republicans are fighting. The very notion that reality is a mutually agreed concept that can be tested and confirmed to everyone’s satisfaction. The Republicans want to impose their own reality which you will have to accept because they will use force to make you . That reality cannot be the subject of reasoned discussion but must be precisely the way they say it is. Nothing can be modified or contested.
Scientific American: “Climate Science Predictions Prove Too Conservative.” (December 6, 2012)
Comment of the Day
From Mor in California at about 7 pm:
I am sorry but I am not convinced. Saying that the supporters of Da’esh are not real Muslims amounts to the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. They call themselves Muslims. Islam has no central religious authority, so you cannot excommunicate them. The most you can do is to say that your interpretation of Islam differs from theirs, which is of course true. But what DOES mainstream Islam stand for? Platitudes about “religion of peace” go nowhere to explain the profound social and ideological dysfunction in so many majority-Muslim countries of the world. They go nowhere in explaining the prevalence of female genital mutilation, inequality, violence, cultural and technological stagnation, and extreme fundamentalism in the Middle East and beyond. Comparison between majority-Muslim Pakistan where the shooter is from and India is instructive: the two countries have a similar ethnic and racial makeup but different religious compositions. Which one is more democratic, scientifically-minded and (relatively) peaceful? “Islamophobia” is often used as a way to stifle any criticism of Islam. But just as not all political ideologies are the same, not all religions are the same. I accept that the majority of American Muslims are peaceful. This does not answer the question why the religion they profess to follow leads others into terrorism.
The country has been host to many near-legendary mass shootings and now an instantly legendary shooting in Paris has happened followed by a bizarrely threatening massacre in San Bernadino by a couple who left a six month old child behind. The really threatening part about the incident in San Bernadino is the racial origin of the pair who quietly stockpiled the necessary arms and armor and the fact that the husband was a government employee as an inspector of public facilities for five years beforehand. The fact that both had recently been to Saudi Arabia also casts suspicion on the extremely conservative Muslim religious doctrines practiced there.
There is no reason to doubt that the shooting was a combination of a workplace disagreement (possibly even offensive statements by coworkers) and a Muslim terrorist act. Terrorism is designed to disrupt the normal functioning of a society and that has happened, at least around the city of San Bernadino. The ripple effects of this act will spread to incite suspicion of all Muslims, even all Southeast Asian looking people. That will be the intent of the attack in the first place.
As I have stated in previous posts, this is an ideological war, with Islamist terrorists, some of them using or dependent on amphetamines, against secularist countries, some of whose populations are using or dependent on a wide variety of drugs. The bottom line, briefly, is Islamist terrorists against secular government.
To win a war, all potential tactics must be considered and used or discarded depending on whether they can contribute to a long term advantage. There are two main arms to an overall strategy for secular countries: military confrontation and protection, extending into the civilian world; and civilian activities: showing welcome to refugees, contributing to a prosperous and free society, and upholding the secular Constitution (in our case, the Constitution of the United States; the European Union has a different constitution.)
Captagon is a combination of amphetamine and theophylline, called a codrug, and is circulated in the body as both drugs. It was first synthesized in 1961, and was briefly used for such purposes as treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy. It was thought to be a milder alternative to amphetamines, but was found to have the same abuse potential. It was banned in the US in 1981 and by international organizations in 1986. There was, at that time. little abuse of this drug anywhere, but it was clear that Captagon held no advantages over amphetamine and theophylline given separately. The drug’s popularity began to take off around the turn of the century, at the same time as opioid use and abuse increased in the US. (Global Initiative)
Captagon is popular in the Mideast and is the most-used illicit stimulant in Saudi Arabia, where the majority of patients treated for substance use disorder are dependent on amphetamines. In October 2015, a Saudi prince and four others were detained in Beirut in connection with the seizure of two tons of Captagon found on a private jet bound for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In November, two more tonnes(sic), amounting to “almost 11 million tablets” were seized by Turkish agents in the Hatay area on the Syrian border. (Wikipedia)
It is said that illicit Captagon manufacturers in Syria, displaced by the civil war, moved their operations to Lebanon. The Beirut seizure mentioned above suggests that the source was indeed in Lebanon. Captagon has also been manufactured in Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Serbia. By 2006, manufacture in Turkey began. The “Captagon” now being circulated is usually a mixture of amphetamines with various active ingredients, such as ephedrine. The size of these seizures suggests the size of the market for this drug: it is thought that less than ten percent of any drug produced is captured by authorities. Estimates of drug demand in Saudi Arabia amount to 500 million tablets a year. (Global Initiative)
The drug is popular for its stimulating and aphrodisiac effects; it is so widely used in these countries that there is no doubt that the Syrian Army as well as insurgents, including ISIS, are using it and probably manufacturing it. The advantages for the user, at least on first or “naive” use, are that it stimulates the mind and dulls pain, making the user feel invulnerable. This effect is a dramatic increase over the effect normally produced by such stresses as acute perceived lethal threats; the mind races, the body feels no pain, and time seems to slow down. These effects are accompanied by a rise in blood pressure, frequently to abnormal levels, and an increase in heart rate. More important from a military standpoint is the drug’s ability to maintain alertness and “on task” performance, even in boring or tedious activities.
The effects of amphetamine have been known since 1929 and it was widely used by soldiers on all sides in WW II. It is still administered to pilots in the US Air Force. Amphetamines were widely used and abused all over the world, peaking in the US in 1969 and returning today to similar levels. Benzedrine (amphetamine base for inhalation) was available “over the counter” (prescription-only categories did not exist at that time) from 1933. Treatment with amphetamine for minor or “neurotic” depression was in favor from the late 1930’s. Current estimates place the number of Americans dependent on amphetamines at roughly 300,000 (0.1% of population) (American Journal of Public Health)
The advantages of these effects on the battlefield are obvious: soldiers are braver, can go further and overcome more obstacles and minor wounds. A continued supply is critical to the maintenance of alertness in a prolonged engagement; the effects may begin to wear off in as little as six hours. Twelve to twenty four hours after a single dose, the user’s condition is worse than useless militarily. When administered to pilots for long missions, long-acting forms of amphetamine or repeated doses are necessary.
Continued, daily use of amphetamines results in a development of tolerance and loss of the acute effects, which may be partially overcome by larger doses but eventually leads to complete loss of the perceived effect. It is necessary to spend some time in the “off” state, with concomitant sensations of fatigue, sleepiness, and increased sensitivity to pain. This is, again, a dramatic version of the effects seen normally after acute stress is relieved and chronic stress sets in.
There is a significant risk, if the drug is abused or even after a single dose, of the development of hypersensitivity to stimuli and paranoia. “Amphetamine psychosis” is a condition that mimics the acute paranoia and delusions experienced by schizophrenics and in the manic phase of bipolar disorder. When in this state, an individual will believe that others have a malign intent or are “out to get me”; this suspicion extends even to otherwise staunch comrades. Delusions of persecution in which the most benign acts can appear to have ulterior motives and hallucinations can supervene. (social and medical experience)
The behavior of Islamic State soldiers and administrators suggests that they may be chronic users of Captagon. The Islamic State’s very nature makes it essential that they manufacture anything that they need within their boundaries, so manufacturing and smuggling the drug are also distinct probabilities.
The behavior of Stalin, especially during the latter stages of his rule, is typical of the paranoid state. Stalin is not known to have used amphetamines but drank and smoked heavily and was known to have atherosclerosis. When he died, supposedly of a stroke, in 1954, his cohorts were so afraid to disturb him that he lay stricken for twelve hours in his bed without anyone coming to his aid. (Wikipedia)
An article about Captagon smuggling in “Global Inititiative Against Transnational Organized Crime”: http://www.globalinitiative.net/amphetamines-anarchy-and-assad/
Here is an article about Captagon in Vox: http://www.vox.com/world/2015/11/20/9769264/captagon-isis-drug
An article in The New Republic about our military’s administration of Dexedrine to pilots, and soldiers’ use of anabolic steroids, energy drinks, opioids, laxatives, diuretics, and other drugs: https://newrepublic.com/article/112269/112269
Front page of a report on substance abuse in the military by the Institute of Medicine: http://iom.nationalacademies.org/Reports/2012/Substance-Use-Disorders-in-the-US-Armed-Forces.aspx
An article in Time magazine about Syrian combatants profit from sales of amphetamines: http://world.time.com/2013/10/28/syrias-breaking-bad-are-amphetamines-funding-the-war/
Microplastics and the Environment
Microplastics are less than 5mm in diameter and are either produced that way or devolve from larger pieces through environmental degradation. They are ubiquitous but have increased in volume over the last fifty years because, according to one scientific abstract, “annual plastic production has increased dramatically from 1.5 million tonnes in the 1950s to approximately 280 million tonnes in 2011 (PlasticsEurope, 2012)”
The word “plastic” has two meanings: “soft and easily pliable” or the more common use, which is now essentially shorthand for “synthetic polymer.” Plastic was preceeded by a compound of nitrocellulose dissolved in ether and alcohol, known as collodion, which replaced the egg white (albumen) used in photographic plates and was also used for medical dressings. Egg whites were not in limited supply, but as a natural product, it was subject to rapid degradation.
Plastics as such were first produced by Alexander Parkes in 1855 and later by John Wesley Hyatt in the United States. Parkes patented his process but was unable to commercialize it; Hyatt obtained the patent, performed additional experiments, and was able to produce a compound which he made into billiard balls, replacing ivory with celluloid, in 1869.
Hyatt’s replacement was needed because ivory was in limited supply; one set of elephant tusks produced only eight billiard balls. Other compounds were used, but none were as resilient as celluloid. A story has circulated that Hyatt won a $10,000 prize offered by a New York company for his invention, but there is no evidence that he actually received the prize (Wikipedia).
In Parkes’ and Hyatt’s processes, nitrocellulose (from cellulose, a natural polymer of glucose that is found in plant cell walls) is treated with camphor (a natural terpenoid derived from laurel trees or rosemary leaves) to obtain celluloid. When compressed into a ball, celluloid is neither soft nor pliable, but when stretched out into the thickness of movie film, it is indeed soft, pliable, and readily bent and straightened repeatedly.
When formed into film, celluloid is quite flammable, and when exposed to the heat of a movie projector light it will spontaneously burst into flame at 150 degrees Celsius. The problem of burning movie film was not solved until celluloid was replaced by acetate in the 1950’s (Wikipedia) and nearly all film produced on celluloid has probably been destroyed, although copies exist.
The first “completely synthetic” plastic, Bakelite, was invented by Leo Baekelite in 1907 as a substitute for shellac in electric insulation. Again, shellac was in limited supply; it is produced from the secretions of female lac bugs, dissolved in ethanol. It has been known since ancient times, and was used on furniture since at least the 1200’s. Shellac has been largely replaced by nitrocellulose lacquers and polyurethane for furniture applications since the 1920’s. It was used to produce phonograph records at least until the 1950’s, when it was replaced by vinyl. Shellac is still used as an edible coating on pills, candies, and apples.
Bakelite is made from phenol and formaldehyde with heat and pressure, and is called “thermosetting” because its liquid state turns solid on further heating. Bakelite was used for thousands of products, from telephone casings to jewelry. The base material, phenol, is also used in making nylon, which was invented in 1935 and first used for the bristles in toothbrushes. Nylon was used for women’s stockings starting in 1940, and for parachutes since WW II.
Phenol is made from petroleum, which is actually a natural product although it is greatly altered from its original state as the bodies of trees and other dead organisms. These organisms died in catastrophic circumstances which disallowed natural degradation by smaller organisms. Layers of dead material were covered in volcanic lava or sediment and then subducted to great depths under the earth, where heat and pressure under anoxic conditions transformed them into oil.
Formaldehyde is made from methanol, which is produced commercially from the methane in natural gas, or by fermentation of sugar cane, corn, or switchgrass. Methanol was originally produced by the Egyptians for embalming through pyrolysis of wood. “Natural” gas is, of course, naturally produced in the same fashion as petroleum.
Bacteria that can digest nylon were discovered in 1975 in a waste water pool at a nylon factory. It is believed that these bacteria had developed an enzyme to break down nylon from new mutations, as the nylon compounds did not exist in nature before nylon was produced in the laboratory.
The problem of microplastics comes from the universal production and use of plastics; originally in many forms, it breaks down into small particles which, if not captured and recycled, are lost into the environment. Microplastic pellets are produced to be used as abrasives in air-powered sanding guns; pellets are also the starting material for melting into larger aggregates. As noted, there has been an enormous increase in the production of plastics because they are so useful for so many things.
Microplastics are frequently ingested by small organisms in mistake for their normal food, and appears internally. They may either be expelled with digestive products, lodge in the digestive system, or may intrude into the organism’s circulatory system and even into individual cells. Little is known about the toxicity of microplastics; studies to determine how living organisms tolerate this substance are only beginning.
The possible toxicity of microplastics evokes great concern and speculation as to potential mechanisms of damage to living organisms, but there is little solid information. There is a Wikipedia article on microplastics which suggests obstruction of the digestive tract, false satiation, and leaching of plastic components like bisphenol-A (BPA), heavy metals (and many other substances that adhere to plastic during its breakdown) as possible mechanisms of toxicity.
I suspect that there will be much more information on microplastic toxicity in the near future because of the enormous increase in the quantity of this material in the environment over the last fifty years and likely continuing increases. Without hard information, it is difficult to speculate on the degree of toxicity. Larger pieces of plastic have become lodged in the digestive tracts of birds and fish, strangulated animals (think of the rings that hold beer cans together), trapped cetaceans in their meshes (discarded or lost fishing nets and line) and caused unsightly accumulations on beaches and on ocean surfaces.
The problem of microplastic pollution can be ameliorated by recycling of used and damaged plastics. Discarding plastic articles that are no longer useful leads to buildups of resilient but partially degraded pieces of plastic that eventually become microplastics. These are no longer visible but persist in the environment for many years. Microplastics will persist until there is widespread evolution of bacteria and eventually larger micro-organisms which can break down plastics into their component molecules, that can then be metabolized. Creating articles out of cellulose or fungal mycelia (such as experimental packing “peanuts”) will bypass this problem of evolution; this has been tried and is suitable for numerous materials that do not need great structural strength.
An analogous problem (or non-problem) is that natural fibers like cotton and wool also break down into microparticles that appear in fresh water contaminated by the discharge of washing machines. As far as is known, these tiny particles do not cause any environmental damage, although they are mentioned in the scientific literature as a “potential” problem. Concern about microplastics is certainly justified, but I don’t think this problem will approach the dimensions of global warming; recycling durable but broken items and avoiding the use of inherently durable plastics in discardable items are important aspects of harm avoidance.
[Most of the material in this post was obtained thru Wikipedia]
Conrad Theodore Seitz 