75 Comments

1. ADE:

And one day a Rupture may come which will require a response an order of magnitude beyond what we have.

But not beyond our capacity to blame America, if you’re of Leftist bent.

Democracies, run by politicians who get voted into office promising benefits to the current voters, can’t make such farsighted investments for the benefit of people not yet living (or more precisely, not yet voting).

Nor should they. All they need to do is look at the NPV equation: Is the future value > current cost? Sadly, they will interpret this equation personally.

And because the pollies will interpret the benefit equation as what benefits them, the pollies will use the scenario to control you, and consequently manufacture ‘doom’ (vid. Global Warming, and its associate shamans) . Swine flu, anyone?

There are some scenarios where death is better than a bunch of creepy priests (Al Gore?) controling your life.

We are hostage to Just Six Numbers

Handle the truth.

ADE

Jun 15, 2009 - 5:16 am 2. Gaffe Prices:

I daresay we prepare an awful lot for contingent possible bad things. But its the spectrum of possible outcomes that overwhelms the ability to choose which one or ones will be the likely pestilence.

I’m a bit troubled by the narrative though, if I may fisk, a bit:

The article appears to start with “The spores arrived from Kenya on dried, infected leaves ensconced in layers of envelopes.”

But we jump (or work) backwards to: “Working inside a bio-secure greenhouse outfitted with motion detectors and surveillance cameras, government scientists at the Cereal Disease Laboratory in St. Paul, Minn., suspended the fungal spores in a light mineral oil and sprayed them onto thousands of healthy wheat plants. After two weeks, the stalks were covered with deadly reddish blisters characteristic of the scourge known as Ug99. …

Umm, uh… “suspended the fungal spores in a light mineral oil and sprayed them onto thousands of healthy wheat plants” (?!)

Yeah, I can see the logic in that. /sarcasm off

“suspended the fungal spores in a light mineral oil and sprayed them onto thousands of healthy wheat plants???

I’m not a scientist, nor do I pretend to be one in non-debate-able senate hearings, nor on tv, but I could have told them that if you were the pluperfect fool and you sprayed fungal spores “onto thousands of healthy wheat plants”, it would probably lead to a veritable wheat fungal holocaust of exquisitely biblical proportion if you’d just had the simple horse sense to just ask me. Or someone with even the just-woke-up level of common sense to not do anything stupid just yet, and maybe take a maybe-we-just-better-re-think-this-one attitude to what the human mind can deduce from the bleeding obvious!!!

(Even if I hadn’t known beforehand the specific morphology that the above combination would produce “stalks [that] were covered with deadly reddish blisters characteristic of the scourge known as Ug99. …”)

Yeah right, and not to mention the cold comfort I get from the intricate use of motion detectors and surveillance cameras lest some non-group denke individual, without the proper stamped paperwork might “seize the intitiative” and commit an act whose objective might be to devise a way to eliminate or exterminate 90% of the worlds population, for our own good, and all without the expressed written consent of the “government scientists at the Cereal Disease Laboratory in St. Paul, Minn.,”

Jeeze, Is the purpose of the “Cereal Disease Laboratory in St. Paul, Minn” to help down-on-their-luck fungi get back in the game, or what?

And who was the genius who sent “spores on dried, infected leaves ensconced in layers of envelopes” all the way to Kenya from that bastion of disease isolation in St.Paul Minnesota? (scuze me if I decline to shake his hand)

The article is rather short on details of that chain of command, uh, events, not to mention the tremendous ethical considerations that weighed so heavily in the preliminary, pre-emptive deliberations

And of course I’m certainly comforted in the extreme by the extra-ordinary measures taken beforehand, such as isolating the fungal spores from the rest of the known universe by the cosmically brilliant method of “working inside a bio-secure greenhouse” only to liberate the virulent pestilence in some apparently self righteous act of courageous imprudence, based, one might presume, if not on the Uni-bomber Principle, then perhaps on a simpler plan to provide the fungus with a newfound ability to circumnavigate the globe [/sarcasm back on again], just to see, you know, what it might mean, you know, for the rest of humanity, you know, “biodiversity” and all.

Good Gaudy Almighty, it sounds like the source of countless threats threads here at the club based on another virulent strain, aided and abetted by some gummiyt idiots(s) yearning to make victims group of another voting block sure to come through in the next future elections…

Jun 15, 2009 - 5:18 am 3. Barry 0351:

“So……Once again…..we are yet……going to die?”
>Humming nearer to God am I, yet again<

Jun 15, 2009 - 5:49 am 4. Ninjasuperspy:

#2: Scientists are attempting to create a wheat hybrid that is resistant or immune to the ug99. So they breed potentially resistant specimens in a lab (the greenhouse) where they receive a sample of the fungus (In several layers of envelope, the opening to the article). In order to test the wheat’s resistance, they spray it with the fungus (Suspended solution on healthy allegedly resistant wheat plants, received via envelope from Africa). They then wait and see if anything develops or resists the fungus. All of this is done in the dead of winter so any escaping spores die immediately. Seems pretty solid science to me. All the spores are released on wheat inside the greenhouse, they aren’t wandering around spraying wheat wherever they find it.

Jun 15, 2009 - 6:17 am 5. Jack Okie:

Jeez, #2 – Have your coffee and try reading the article again. And you’re right – you’re surely not a scientist, and apparently understand nothing of the scientific method.

Jun 15, 2009 - 6:35 am 6. anton:

This is the sort of thing that reminds me of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds; a tiny fungus that can kill billions by starvation while we are busy worrying about asteriods hitting the Earth, Norks and Iranians getting The Bomb and the rising(?) seas about to swallow us all. Let us just hope that it doesn’t mutate into a strain that likes the flavor of rice plants.

More that energy people need food and while survival is possible without oil (however unpleasant that would be) the loss of a large part of our cereal crops would be devastating, particularly to the populations of major urban areas. I wish the folks at the Cereal Disease Laboratory the best of luck, they will be saving an untold number of lives when they succeed. When they do they will deserve (and, of course, not get) the Noble Peace Prize.

I do agree with Gaffe Prices though, that place should be guarded like a nuke silo, what is in there has the potential to kill billions.

Jun 15, 2009 - 6:45 am 7. Brock:

America has an answer to a Rupture in wheat production – it’s called corn, rice and potatoes. We might have to learn how to live without hamburger buns, but that’s hardly an existential crisis.

The only Ruptures really worth worrying about are those that cannot be replaced easily. That’s why it’s so important to replace oil with something distributed, cheap and universally available (whether that’s wind, nuclear, fusion, solar or whatever doesn’t matter, as long as supply cannot be Ruptured) and, ultimately, to colonize off-world.

Jun 15, 2009 - 6:48 am 8. Gordon:

High impact, low probability–brings to mind Pascal’s Wager.

Jun 15, 2009 - 6:52 am 9. aaron:

I think food security is going to play a very large part in the politics of the near future.

America is the worlds breadbasket. Where I live most of the small farmers didn’t prep their fields last fall because of the credit crunch.

Locally it costs about $3k per acre to prep for the chile season. Usually borrowed $. Many of the fields are fallow now because the farmers couldn’t afford to prep and plant. So this coming fall will have a much reduced harvest.

I’m concerned that this years harvest across many crops will be reduced at a time of financial upheaval world wide. I suspect there will be food scarcity in many parts of the world. Consider that there have been food riots across the world in recent years already.

Add in some sick crops and there’s some serious stress to our support stuctures.

Add in biowarfare and things get hairy quick.

Jun 15, 2009 - 7:24 am 10. Fletcher Christian:

This sort of possibility is exactly why various agribusiness companies should be prevented from taking over the entire market (or a large fraction of it) for any crop at all.

I am quite sure that, 100 years ago, there were many strains of wheat in common use, the particular strain being used by any particular farmer being chosen by him based on the soil characteristics, drainage and so on. How many strains are in use now? Of course, this also leaves out the undoubted fact that the wheat of today is far lower in trace elements and far higher in pesticide residues than the wheat of even 1950.

Many strains of any food crop means much more chance of at least one of them being resistant to any novel disease when it arrives. Monoculture is bad, m’kay?

Jun 15, 2009 - 7:36 am 11. RWE:

In 2004 we had three very powerful hurricanes hit central Florida in a period of less than 2 months. Many people and organizations were overwhelmed, but none more so than the electric power companies.

The damage to the power grid was so extreme in some areas that the companies naturally focused on those hardest hit areas. But that in turn meant that less damaged areas, ones 50 miles or more away from path of the storms, got less attention and were without electric power for well over a week. At my house I had no power for 10 days, but the streetlight on the corner was working. A comparatively small amount of attention focused on the areas easiest to fix would have produced quicker, better results for more people than putting everything into rebuilding the power grids that were all but destroyed.

We need to realize that the “normal” method of responding to a disaster may not be appropriate in extreme cases, and the usual approach of putting attention on the worst hit areas may not be wise.

Jun 15, 2009 - 7:38 am 12. Dave the Kapampangan:

Rupture is part of the “all the eggs in one basket” phenomenon. Let’s say we ban all animals and meat in America except for Chicken, pork, and beef. Or we wipe out all vegetation except for a certain type of rice or wheat. One day a single chicken virus or wheat mold wipes out the entire USA because the system is like one big boat, like the “unsinkable” Titanic. One hole, one boat = kaput. Same deal with creating a monolithic “banking system,” electrical grid or monolithic “Homeland Security” system. One crack in the monolith and it all goes down like a house of cards.

Imagine if humans could not give birth without the local hospital. If their immune systems could not survive without vaccines from the local hospital. If their near-sighted eyes couldn’t see very far without glasses. And their crooked teeth couldn’t eat well without braces. Not to mention the diabetes medicine and high blood pressure pills. Or similarly the reliance on refrigeration for food and Jabba the Hut-style electric carts for walking around Costco. And computers to do all the thinking, math and store information.

One electromagnetic pulse from a distant sunspot and it all goes away. One hole, one boat = kaput. (Hopefully, we have more than one boat, or at least a few handy lifeboats instead of being a true monolith.)

Jun 15, 2009 - 7:56 am 13. Lynne:

Any word on whether this rust affects Spelt? Spelt is usually much hardier than common wheat, and can be used for all the same purposes.

Jun 15, 2009 - 7:58 am 14. Barstid:

We could go back to planting buckwheat, which is reportedly immune or at least resistant to rust. And those who call genetically-modified grains “frankenfood”, may be glad we have the ability to insert genes on a wide scale. Come to think of it, I am rather surprised that the conspiracy nuts haven’t been claiming the stem rust itself is a plot by, and was created by, Monsanto to increase dependency on GM grains. OBTW, you can also make bread from rye, oats and barley so no need to forgo the hamburger buns.

Jun 15, 2009 - 8:08 am 15. joe buzz:

Brings new meaning to the phrase “gluten free”. Perhaps Team 44 may travel to Kenya and address all fungi. Remind them of all they have given us….

Jun 15, 2009 - 8:10 am 16. Alexis:

Agricultural diseases happen and sometimes they wipe out a crop. That’s life. This is why it is not only a good idea to ensure a diversified range of crops for any society, but also a diversified range of breeds for any particular crop. Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the Irish Potato Famine.

I see a corollary.

One reason why the British Empire fell is that it relied too heavily upon Oxford and Cambridge for its leadership. So, when the British upper class got infected by a desire to commit treason (St. John Philby and his son Kim, for example), the British Empire was left without alternative sources of leadership. So, if the United States relies upon a small group of universities to monopolize leadership positions, America repeats the same strategic blunder.

If America’s diplomatic corps does not represent the depth and breadth of American cultural experience, it will fail to proficiently do its work. If the political science departments of a narrow circle of universities were to succeed in monopolizing the ranks of America’s diplomatic corps, the effect becomes strategic myopia and vulnerability to systematic subversion.

The United States must substantially improve the manner through which it recruits its diplomats and spies.

Jun 15, 2009 - 9:20 am 17. Rob:

Here is a potential real problem that competes for attention with the Gorocle’s global warming fraud. That’s the tragedy. Junk science, beloved of our politicized liberal media is making it harder to understand what is really going on.

Jun 15, 2009 - 9:26 am 18. Rob:

Good comments.
Robust and diverse seem to be important.
Even in diplomacy.

Here is a potential real problem that competes for attention with narrow political vision of the Gorocle’s global warming fraud (things have been cooling for 11 years now).
That’s the tragedy. Junk science, beloved of our politicized liberal media is making it harder to understand what is really going on.

Jun 15, 2009 - 9:34 am 19. Charles:

Here’s an interesting piece by seeking alpha. The piece reiterates the view that while the current rise in long interest rates from 2-4% is viewed as a caution of future inflation… —current standard inflationary indicators gold, TIPS and real estate — are flat to down. The feds have not yet sparked inflation — which would cause money to come out of the stock market and into hard assets like real estate–thereby stabilizing real estate prices. (This policy might work if the falling value of the dollar didn’t also hike the price of dollar denominated oil.) the clarion calls ringing now for sharp cuts in fiscal spending — hopefully will knock out the government take over of medical insurance. However, it important to note that the big budget deficits also have about 10 billion for the NIH. This money imho should stay in for reasons mentioned above. As well, all the money devoted to the R&D needed to get the USA off dependence on foreign freaking oil. All that money should stay in the budget. Funny thing is NIH and energy independence dollars only occupy a small portion of the New Federal Deficit. Oh and, despite the deluges of rain that have come in the last couple months everywhere from the USA to Australia–water needs to get more government R&D dollars.

Jun 15, 2009 - 9:37 am 20. Gordon:

#16–right you are and here in the USA Harvard-Yale-Princeton = monoculture

Jun 15, 2009 - 10:16 am 21. Mad Fiddler:

At some important level, survival of ruptures in the world depends on a culture’s ability to distinguish between delusion and some reasonably accurate description of reality.

In the USA and a number of Western “democracies” the Left are accustomed to shouting down their opponents. In effect, their delusional view of the way the world works has been allowed to persist because their domestic political / cultural rivals have been unwilling to use violence of their own in reply. Consequences of Leftist policies have been artificially deferred, put off, explained away, blamed on conservative foot-dragging and opposition, and blatantly denied. A time is approaching when no amount of cooperation by conservatives will avert the actual real disastrous consequences of Leftist delusion.

These morons still believe George Bush and the Republicans “stole” the election in 2000, despite the acknowledgment by the New York Times that every single recount demanded and conducted by the Democrat party showed Bush winning, UNDER RULES THEY KEPT MANIPULATING TO INCREASE THEIR OWN CHANCES OF WINNING.

Morons.

Delusional, spitting MORONS.

Jun 15, 2009 - 10:17 am 22. michael hoskins:

Alexis. You have hit a nerve. You are so completely correct.

W. I suggest you consider A’s comments for a future blog. You would be fascinated by the types of questions asked on the foreign service exam…and the Ivy bias.

ta

Jun 15, 2009 - 10:18 am 23. Mad Fiddler:

And the REAL problem that will come from people who persist in believing they were wronged despite all evidence to the contrary, is that they feel justified in exacting revenge for the imagined injury.

Observe that Obama’s Department of Justice has refused to prosecute “New Black Panther” uniformed thugs with a billy-club who stood at the entrance to a Philadelphia polling place in 2008, actively intimidating and harrassing people coming to cast their vote. This despite a sworn affidavit from a certified LIBERAL 1960’s Civil Rights activist who witnessed the thugs intimidation, and called it the most blatant example he’d ever seen.

God Help This Country.

Jun 15, 2009 - 10:22 am 24. Eggplant:

Charles you said,

“despite the deluges of rain that have come in the last couple months everywhere from the USA to Australia–water needs to get more government R&D dollars.”

Availability of fresh water scales with energy costs. If they can crack the cheap energy puzzle then the fresh water problem goes away. Of course the cheap energy puzzle maybe insolvable.

Charles, have you been tracking Karl Denninger’s “Market Ticker”? Denninger has been digging up some really weird stuff:

1) Italian customs caught three guys smuggling documents that looked like billions of dollars worth of bearer bonds,

2) Supposably there’s a “special trader” at State Street who is part of the Plunge Protection Team.

I know this is tin foil hat stuff but the market has been so screwy lately that what earlier appeared insane doesn’t seem so crazy anymore.

For what it’s worth, I think the bearer bonds are probably Nork counterfeits. This was probably the front end of a badly conceived scam.

Jun 15, 2009 - 10:26 am 25. Lifeofthemind:

Is there a fungus among us?

Jun 15, 2009 - 10:27 am 26. exhelodrvr:

Easy solution – just let the government take over farming. They will be able to fix this.

Jun 15, 2009 - 11:05 am 27. joe buzz:

This article describes how one lawmaker tried to survive the financial rupture…

As U.S. stock markets plummeted last September, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, sold more than $115,000 worth of stocks and mutual-fund shares and used much of the money to invest in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

The Illinois senator’s 2008 financial disclosure statement shows he sold mutual-fund shares worth $42,696 on Sept. 19, the day after then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged congressional leaders in a closed meeting to craft legislation to help financially troubled banks. The same day, he bought $43,562 worth of Berkshire Hathaway’s Class B stock, the disclosure shows.

Full story…well sort of…from the Chi. Sun Times Here

Jun 15, 2009 - 11:15 am 28. Roderick Reilly:

I’m going to respond to this posting by looking at the issue as an allegory for human political systems, because I think the same underlying algorithm of diversity vs. uniformity governs both agronomy, economics, and governance.

Too much of the world has dependent on too few varieties of staple grains, a potential source of peril as this Belmont post points out. The Western world has become enamored with the idea of “harmonization” of economies and political systems — a reckless and stupid notion. The U.S. in particular should not be emulating the European model of governance and economics. The world has always operated more rationally when there were different places and different peoples to provide both safety valves and alternatives when most nations and societies were working themselves into a potential corner with too-rigid political, economic, and social policies. This is why the world needs the Switzerlands, Singapores, Hong Kongs, Taiwans, Seychelles and other off-shore places, and, ultimately the biggest “special place” of all, the United States. The world has also always needed special people whose particular skills and cultures allowed the rest of the world to modulate and circumvent their own follies and shortcomings. Medieval Europe needed the Jews for rational commerce, Southeast Asia the overseas Chinese, and East Africa the Indian immigrants, and the world has needed America to have a relatively free-market economy with a formidable military so others could indulge themselves with welfare states and social democracies.

The special places and peoples fulfill the same role as variegated seed banks, and diversified livestock.

Jun 15, 2009 - 11:20 am 29. no mo uro:

Throughout nature, and several times in human history, monoculture has resulted in disaster.

There are advantages to relying on a single food source when it is plentiful, you never have to worry about eating. The problem comes when that particular food is gone.

Brant (sea geese) were nearly wiped out in the 1920’s and 1930’s when there was a worldwide die-off of eelgrass, which is just about the only thing they eat, and which grows essentially in pure stands. Eelgrass has somewhat recovered, but the brant numbers have still not recovered to what they were prior to the die-off.

American elms were nearly eliminated by Dutch Elm Disease, whose progress was made easy by virtue of the fact that most towns and cities in the northeast planted them almost exclusively along their streets, without alternating other trees. Most Elm Streets have none.

The American chestnut was the most common tree east of the Mississippi until about 1920. Much of the income of Appalachia depended on these trees for lumber, nuts, and tanning products. A fungus introduced in 1904 on Chinese chestnut trees brought to NYC spread like wildfire on American trees which had no resistance to the fungus, and by 1940 the trees were essentially extinct, which they remain to this day. Chestnuts often grew in vast pure stands, with few other trees mixed in, making them ripe for slaughter. Deer, squirrel, and turkey populations did not recover until extensive agriculture by humans and regrowth of the forest with other mast trees like oaks occurred, increasing their food supplies to the levels of pre-blight – a time of fifty or more years.

The Irish potato blight was made far worse by virtue of the fact that around 90% of all the potatoes grown in Ireland were of a single variety. Once the blight arrived from overseas, there was literally not enough seed potato of other more blight resistant types to regrow even a small percentage of the acreage.

As long as people move plants and critters from one biome to another, this sort of thing will probably happen.

Develop a taste for lots of foods, and learn to enjoy venison!

Jun 15, 2009 - 11:38 am 30. Mel Williams:

“So why don’t we prepare for them? A reviewer of Posner’s book put the problem succinctly. Human beings don’t prepare for what they can’t clearly anticipate.”

Tradition used to be that preparation, as imperfect as it was. It was the sum-total of centuries of experience baked down to cultural traditions, always conservative, that got us through thick and thin. We’ve gotten ahead of ourselves in recent decades to the point where ivory tower thought is now seen as the mode to follow. How short-sighted we’ve become!

Jun 15, 2009 - 11:46 am 31. PA Cat:

Fungi have their uses. The U.S. Forest Service is experimenting with a fungus called Colletotrichum gloeosporioides as a biological control agent for kudzu. Per #14, I don’t know whether they’ve tried making hamburger buns from kudzu.

Jun 15, 2009 - 11:52 am 32. twobyfour:

LotM, Uncle Fungus?

But yea, something of that sort. One, cancer is essentially a fungus.

Second, there is a parasite to this day unclassified and unacknowledged (not so in the past, but then it has been described in more “superstitious” terms), that affects central nervous system. It can be traced to at least 3,5Kya, when the first references appeared. It functions on a standard predatory cycle. I’ll bet that it is more a fungus than anything else, except with highly developed mimicry that emulates the surrounding tissue almost perfectly. The only difference would be in I/O chemical compounds, hormones and proteins in its locus as compared to normal tissue. The critt likes a chemical soup produced by certain mental states.
Its symptoms are degrees of insanity, ranging from acute paranoia and pathological sociopathic behavior to outright suicidal behavior (can be also sublimed as social suicidal behavior). In time it gets worse–a fully blown barking moonbat is the result. The antidote/cure is to be happy (on a personal level–e.g. happy with yourself–usually underscored by self-respect). The happy environment is toxic and the critt leaves through a scab in the scalp. Spores sized about 1-2mm, pink with red dots, or ochre with greenish dots, very light, easy to breathe in. Likes damp places as a preferred environ for the invasion (I suspect that it is present in Seattle in large numbers).

Jun 15, 2009 - 11:52 am 33. Jim,MtnViewCA,USA:

off topic but if you are a twitter person interested in events in Iran, consider following
persiankiwi

Jun 15, 2009 - 1:05 pm 34. wildernesscalling:

Are the piece moving faster into place? Truth comes it will be denied as horrid, inhuman, merciless and a lie, whilst the abomination plainly seen by all, praised for its humanity, wisdom and mercy. There will be no Lamb but a lion hungering for its prey, as justice left long unfulfilled will all be settled.

Jun 15, 2009 - 1:33 pm 35. Bob Smith:

The Western world has become enamored with the idea of “harmonization” of economies and political systems

I think that’s mostly a tax issue: if everybody has the same tax system, there is no limit to taxation because you can’t go somewhere else that has lower taxes.

As to the issue at hand, we could probably genetically engineer resistance to this fungus (and many others) in short order, but murderous environmentalists would probably tie it up in litigation for decades.

Jun 15, 2009 - 1:34 pm 36. twobyfour:

Bob Smith/35

murderous environmentalists would probably tie it up in litigation for decades

May they live with interesting fungus!
(Pox upon them would do too)

Jun 15, 2009 - 1:59 pm 37. Morton Doodslag:

Not taking measures in “high impact, low probability event[s]” ??

Hell — we don’t even take measures to mitigate catastrophes when they’re high impact, high probability events. Take the cancer of “multiculturalism” — the sordid Marxist scheme designed to subvert the European Judeo/Christian cultural edifice, and wipe it from the planet. We see ample evidence that rather than leading to some kind of dreamy all-one-god-faith pluralistic utopia, this nightmare takes us completely into the hell of Balkanized sectarian strife and endless misery. Yet the multicultural charade continues apace:

Bill Clinton: United States growing more diverse
WASHINGTON (AP) – Former President Bill Clinton said Saturday that Americans should be mindful of the nation’s changing demographics, which led to the election of Barack Obama as president.

He told an Arab-American audience of 1,000 people that the U.S. is no longer just a black-white country, nor a country that is dominated by Christians and a powerful Jewish minority, given the growing numbers of Muslims, Hindus and other religious groups here.”

So the very thing that permitted America to thrive and become the most dynamic engine of true progress and wealth is jettisoned for some absurd doomed-to-fail scheme. People who peddle this dangerous swill are not only misguided, but guilty of murdering our civilization with their betrayal. It is a high crime, yet Clinton can stand unchallenged and unashamed before a crowd of terror loving America-hating Arab bigots and comfort them with the prospect of our self inflicted civilizational suicide. The fangs must have shown among the smiles on the snakes in that particular audience that night…

AP link: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090614/D98QA80G0.html

Jun 15, 2009 - 2:34 pm 38. Mongoose:

The Amish still keep germplasm for staple crops that date back to the 19th and eve the 18th centuries. These are localized to growing conditions and in some cases the radius of the localization is under 50 miles.

My grandfather once said to me that “one day we will be going back to the Amish to learn how to farm again.”

Right as rain.

Jun 15, 2009 - 2:44 pm 39. maineman:

Twenty one percent of the population, as it turns out, with delusions of grandeur AND their collective hands on the steering wheel of the country. Not a good plan for surviving any rupture that reality provokes.

Can we just PLEEEZ send them back to their late night comedians, occasional anti-war rally, and PBS re-runs of Simon and Garfunkle concerts?

And I had the same thought the other day, Mongoose, that the Amish were onto something, as it turns out.

Jun 15, 2009 - 2:47 pm 40. Roderick Reilly:

#37 Doodslag:

The perception about the growing proportion of “non-Europeans” in America is exagerrated. A projection by the Census bureau a couple of years ago that the white majority would be reduced to only half the population by 2050 is pure poppycock. Several reasons for this: 1)The African American population si not growing in proportion to the white one. Black women also comprise the largest single group of abortion clients. 2) Latino birthrates are down to typical U.S. just-above-replacement levels, and that’s also true in Mexico. There is some anecdotal evidence that Lation numbers are going down, if only because some are going back home (in the case of the “undocumented”).

To top it off, white Americans express surpise when they find out that they are still 70% of the U.S. population.

Jun 15, 2009 - 3:01 pm 41. Gary Ogletree:

Brock, Corn came to my mind right off. But winter wheat is dry farmed in areas too dry for corn in the summer. Rice and potatoes need more water than wheat. Millet could step in as it is very drought resistant. But losing puts a gigantic hole in the food supply for quite a while. Watch Wheat Futures head for the moon. If you don’t want to go without bread, cookies and fluffy pancakes, better buy a hundred lbs of wheat berries and a grinder.

Jun 15, 2009 - 3:06 pm 42. Cannoneer No. 4:

Y’all must not listen to late night talk radio. Major Ed Dames remote viewed this on the Art Bell show years ago.

Jun 15, 2009 - 3:35 pm 43. buddy larsen:

Surviving The Ruptures
Will you be left behind?

Yuk yuk –the “Left Behind” publishing phenom, about surviving the Raptures –punsters, wot would we do wifout ‘em?

Ok, now a certain east African nation has sent us fungi and Fun Guy, and i say, ok, that’s enuff, that’ll do.

Jun 15, 2009 - 3:46 pm 44. Marcus Aurelius:

The expected value of a given event is the product of its probability of occurring and its payoff. We all understand the concept even if not the math behind it. Sales for lottery tickets skyrocket as the prize pushes record levels. No one thinks their chances are improved — the payoff is justifying the risk.

Same too here. The expected cost of something such as rust wiping out the wheat or the a large meteor striking the earth is quite high but the probability of such events offsets the cost — therefore we spend on it but not a whole lot, it seems the effort described here is pretty much on par with my annual $5 expenditure on lotto tickets.

Most of the research into an earth striking meteor is usually geared around finding near earth objects, I am not certain what thought has been given to dealing with them when found.

However, the big problem when contemplating the concept of a “rupture” is they could arise from one of those unknown unknowns.

I know it is eventualities such as this rust is why there are government programs & associations dedicated to preserving heirloom plant varieties. I heard of some seedbank or depository carved into the ice with this in mind. A lot of hybridization is/was driven by yields or some other prized characteristic (e.g. perfectly formed rosebuds) to the exclusion of others such as disease resistance, odor, hardiness etc.

Jun 15, 2009 - 4:23 pm 45. buddy larsen:

MA/44; –one could say that mother nature has for five billion years (locally) been running a 24/7/365 triple-blind GM program aimed at nothing else but hybrid vigor.

Jun 15, 2009 - 4:35 pm 46. buddy larsen:

Eggplant/24; there’s some evidence that the Fed/Treasury duckbill platypus has been quietly cleaning up the mess at DTCC, left behind by the 18 month (thru Sept ‘08) extravaganza of legally illegal naked short-selling which maybe elected a president two months later and definitely has now achieved roughly (and i do mean roughly) a doubling of gov’t’s traditional 20% share of the US economy –and counting, and counting, ain’t through yet by a long shot.

Wrap the egg in tinfoil and go see deepcapture dot com.

Jun 15, 2009 - 4:54 pm 47. Tcobb:

It is amazing. All the predictions of the Wise can be thrown to nothing by the intervention of a fungus that doesn’t even have ears or a mouth.

And that is the essential tragedy of it. The present leadership of the US cannot fathom the idea that there is any problem that cannot be solved by talking with it. After all, when the only tool you have is a tongue, every problem is perceived to be a **** that you can mollify or intimidate by licking or biting at the right location.

Jun 15, 2009 - 5:22 pm 48. Sylvia:

31/PAC. Kudzu won’t make very good hamburger buns. Seed yield per acre is too low. I believe I read somewhere that the fiber can be made into decent paper, though. We’re non-gluten at home so won’t miss buns.

There are excellent fungus-resistant grains, but not the stores of seed required to meet the world’s demand. The hard red winter wheat I used to feed my hens was 17% protein, which increased the girls’ egg production. Since they say spores die in MN winter weather, is the fungus wintering over in heated barns? [Farm equipment running on ethanol has to be kept warm...]

Jun 15, 2009 - 6:16 pm 49. Charles:

24. Eggplant:

Yeah I saw the Japanese in Italy with too much money story. The NORK angle sounds plausible. I havn’t heard any more on that. I saw the funny trading story at the end of the day — at freerepublic too. I buy the idea that the fed would be buying new paper issued by banks who had failed the stress tests. However, some of the banks named as scalping bucks from the feds were banks that passed the stress tests. so I wasn’t sure.

What you don’t hear to much about however, is that the fed has been making money on the big banks. A bunch of them are paying back loans given them in the fall with interest. In the great scheme of things I don’t if we’re talking more than +-100billion principle and +-10 billion interest.

Jun 15, 2009 - 7:58 pm 50. Lifeofthemind:

OT Theo Spark in a burst of scholarship has posted the full text of Netanyahu’s speech.
Perhaps our host might consider it thread worthy?
http://www.theospark.net/2009/06/netanyahus-speech.html

Jun 15, 2009 - 8:10 pm 51. Charles:

Not since Jonathan Edwards “Sinners in the hands of God” have I read a book like “Short History of Nearly Everything” by bill bryson that gave an account of the human condition from the point of view of modern scientists. The book showed just how precarious and conditional our existence is. Only instead of talking about the precariousness of our spiritual condition as jonathan edwards did—bryson talked about the precariousness of our physical condition from the pov of modern science. But first he spends a lot of time in the 17-19th century in all the various scientific disciplines. Its amazing how many British pastors in the 19th century became amateur scientists. Everything then is genteel, interesting and haw haw. However, by the time we get to the last decades of the 20th century the scientists really look like prehistoric shamans with numbers to back up their x ray visions of the world; I was shocked to read that in the world of bacteria much of the genetic information is interchangeable making bacteria in effect a kind of world wide organism. Bryson goes from genetics to geology. He mentions a really big covered over …hole in the the plains of the USA that scientists at first thought was the meteor strike that did in the dinosaurs. They changed their minds when they did the exact measurments. The ten mile wide hole was too small. So they settled on the bigger crater in the Yucatan. Through each scientific discipline bryson amiably tells the story of where scientists have been and where they are now and he infers as to where they are going. His narrative is so easy going that not till the end do you realize just how terrifying and close reality is. one tiny misstep; one tiny shift in some very large cosmic constant and we’re toast. while the story is told from an atheist point of view–you can see by the end–the sheer awesomeness of reality push push through the brysons understated language.

That book was written now 10 years ago. In some disciplines its already very dated.

Jun 15, 2009 - 8:31 pm 52. DinIOWA:

This subject, surviving ruptures, brings me around to a question I have been wanting to ask Richard and others here for sometime.
Who has seriously considered the probability of an EMP attack via a high altitude atomic blast producing an electromagnetic pulse wave? And, possibly more importantly, who has done serious work on methods to protect vulnerable equipment and systems?

There were some stirings on this subject a year or so ago when a federal commission appointed by GWB or Congress gave an updated report. Possibly this is a subject for a new post by Richard.

Jun 15, 2009 - 8:31 pm 53. Mad Fiddler:

What if it turns out that tinfoil hats really are useful and essential apparel?

Jun 15, 2009 - 8:48 pm 54. Bob Smith:

Buddy, There’s nothing immoral or wrong about naked short selling. If you lose money doing it because of counterparty risk, too bad. The government should not have, and certainly didn’t need to, make good on those contracts.

Jun 15, 2009 - 9:03 pm 55. Robohobo:

Dave the Kapampangan @ 12: “One hole, one boat = kaput. Same deal with creating a monolithic “banking system,” electrical grid or monolithic “Homeland Security” system. One crack in the monolith and it all goes down like a house of cards.”

Same thing for a single party government, but you cannot tell THAT to the Leftists. Unless there is diversity of thought then you have the monoculture. Part of our current problem is that we have to diametrically polarized views that want to win to the detriment of the other. I have always said that I WANT my actors, musicians, artists, etc to be liberals. I want the soft practices to be soft. I also want the hard disciplines to be hard = scientists, engineers, pilots, etc.

DinIOWA @ 52: “Who has seriously considered the probability of an EMP attack via a high altitude atomic blast producing an electromagnetic pulse wave?”

The government. Back in the 70’s and 80’s a lot of the science was tested and implemented in weapons systems and many others. The science of protection is well known. What do you think that surge arrestor for your computer is for? Get ones for the other critical systems in your house = refrigerator, TV and stereo system, etc. They will protect from most sources. A lightening/thunder storm generates the same thing and our infrastructure does fine. Not saying there would not be effects but I am betting they would not be TEOTWAWKI.

Jun 15, 2009 - 9:23 pm 56. buddy larsen:

Bob Smith/54; we may be batting around apples and oranges, Bob –what i meant was the illegal practice of not prior-locating and ‘holding’ the shares to cover the ones you want to sell but do not own. Remember the election precincts here and there (and always deep blue) that have more votes cast than voters registered to vote? Naked shorting is like that. Some issues are trading more shares than they have outstanding (the ‘float’) and last year or two have been complaining to a strangely inert SEC (ask that guy who tried and tried to expose Madoff) –to no avail.

Those ‘phantom shares’ are ‘phantom’ because they were sold but never delivered –AKA ‘naked and never covered’ (as opposed to the familar sloppy scofflawing of not meant defrauding but only shortcutting the ‘locate-and-hold’ laws). More than 100% of the merch can be sold because unlike furniture or beans or cash currency green paper specie, the ownership of electrons can be hidden for a long time, unless the victim company announces “there’s an accounting problem” –an act which will immediately make a fortune for the current shorts on that company.

The phantoms rest in a one-of-a-kind institution, a sort of merged public/private entity called the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, which apparently never gets audited because nobody wants to know what’s in it.

Feds seem to say their jurisdiction is too cloudy, and the DTCC sez “no comment”, and the legal system has not been engaged, so billions of phantom shares are either there or not there, depending (”there” since cash market transactions and taxble events were made; “not there” since they don’t exist so technically can’t be ‘anywhere’).

But seriously, many billions of dollars (AKA “fraud evidence”) is pretty much an open secret in its files, and nobody talks about it.

Now the rumors are it’s gotten so big $omething is being done behind the scenes by good ole Uncle Sam Agonistes (”USA”), who is apparently “saving the system by keeping Wall Street honest” and oh yes, letting the perps go free, possibly under a sister program of the familiar “too big to fail” known (or ‘not known’) as ‘too big to jail’.

(whew) didn’t mean to write so much, but that’s what i was talking about in my comment above that you referenced.

Jun 15, 2009 - 10:11 pm 57. buddy larsen:

OOPs –gremlin messed up the links but good!

The ‘bolding’ in para four was ’spose to be just on “…the legal system” and link to this, and the bolding in the penultimate to this.

Jun 15, 2009 - 10:32 pm 58. buddy larsen:

Adden-dumb, para two last sentence should read …immediately make a fortune for the current shorts on that company –and simply burn up the property of the legitimate –and trusting –shareholders who believed in the management that had two choices: (1) helplessly stand by and hope it stops and then clears up, and (2) go public, raise hell, and force a stop to it, but also crash the share value and hurt –badly –your investors.

Jun 15, 2009 - 10:47 pm 59. buddy larsen:

MF/53; that’s hilarious! you did mean it to be so, right?

Jun 15, 2009 - 10:49 pm 60. buddy larsen:

charles/51; we were savage barbarians, the quick and the dead, for a hundred times as long as we’ve been civilized. We worked and worked at it for a half million years until we created this last few thousand years of civilization. If our barbarian history was the open sea we’d be afloat in a little leaky dinghy out in the middle of it. Anytime we quit bailing it will well up over the gun’ls and down we go, glug glug glug.

Jun 15, 2009 - 11:06 pm 61. buddy larsen:

Oh, what the hell.

Jun 15, 2009 - 11:24 pm 62. Sylvia:

51/Charles, will definitely read some Bryson. Thank you for the suggestion.

53/MF, practice your origami. Foil is not good to wear against the skin, and even the heavier foils aren’t very durable, so assume it will need an adhesive and probably plastic or nylon backing (which ruins the recycling aspect). Hats will have replaceable, washable sweat bands. This is totally within my skill set — do you want me to draft a set of patterns? I used low-oxygen copper ribbon inside a canvas sheath for our stereo cables — would we want a special form of aluminum, or will standard Reynolds heavyweight work? Shiny side out or dull?

55/Robo. I usually agree with you, but I do NOT want “soft” actors, artists, and musicians. A strong technical foundation is essential, let alone self-discipline. Not soft. I don’t know if there’s a correlation between a person’s vote at the polls and his ability to be a convincing Hamlet, but I strongly believe that the current “liberal” education is not doing justice to the potential we can reach in the arts.

I want actors to be linguists, writers and historians, I want artists to be chemists and engineers, and I want musicians who are physicists, metallurgists, woodworkers, historians, linguists… I want to attend the theater and be moved beyond the current reality into that of the play, so much so that after the applause I want to be startled to find myself in a theater wearing my own skin. I want to see a painting that is so filled with life and motion that I cannot look away, that the image burns itself into my mind and calls to me in my dreams. I want to go to a concert and hear music played with such grace and skill and love that it re-aligns my molecules and makes my heart sing.

Geets’ The Accident is a painting that does that. As does Phoebe Jevtovic when she sings with La Monica.

Jun 16, 2009 - 12:12 am 63. twobyfour:

Rumors of wars

Jun 16, 2009 - 3:54 am 64. Charles:

61. buddy larsen:

imho the OT maps the story you linked to in the stories of cain&abel. also the story jacob&esau

I once thought that Melville should have opened moby dick with the line Call me Esau rather than Call me Ishmael.

However, these days I’m more cautious about allowing myself even thought vanities. its become a matter of survival.

If Martin Luther is to be believed –then the modern sale of indulgences — exposes everyone to an immense amount of witchcraft.

Jun 16, 2009 - 5:21 am 65. Micha Elyi:

Willem Geets, “Kind in ‘t Water” (Child in the Water) a.k.a. “The Accident”

HTH

Jun 16, 2009 - 5:38 am 66. buddy larsen:

twoby/63; –Western Europe, NATO, with many times the plant, population, and net of ICBMs and nuclear warheads, the military power of the USSR oops Russia, could save Georgia & Ukraine with diplomacy (”we arm to parley” said Winston Churchill) if only the intent were to be signaled.

Just a speech or two, Merkel, Sarkozy, and Brown, saying “we will freeze next winter if need be, we don’t care, we will make blankets” because “the people of Georgia and Ukraine are human beings and thus have certain God-given HUMAN RIGHTS” would do.

But (*crickets*)

Charles/64; “…the modern sale of indulgences — exposes everyone to an immense amount of witchcraft”

wow. that’s tellin’ it, man.

(BTW, Georgia is home of the earlist western Christian iconography north of the holy land)

Jun 16, 2009 - 6:48 am 67. Pseudo-Polymath » Blog Archive » Tuesday Highlights:

[...] and wheat and the unanticipated [...]

Jun 16, 2009 - 7:31 am 68. buddy larsen:

And Charles, i think you’re right, it IS a thought vanity –and it has been the false excuse of many haters of the chosen people over the span of human civilization. If it’s not a false excuse then mankind has always been doomed from the start to everlasting earthly confusion of the Light-Bearer and the Morning Star.

Jun 16, 2009 - 7:54 am 69. feeblemind:

Too early to tell about the wheat fungus. My guess, and it is just a guess, is that coming from Africa, it won’t winter well here on the Great Plains. A couple of years ago we had a scare on soybean rust from S America, but that threat seems to have disappeared. I think articles predicting the loss of food crops are a lot like the articles predicting the next flu pandemic. The one that will get us is the one no one sees coming. That said, food supply/demand already seems fairly tightly balanced. A cooling earth could tip it out of balance. Crops don’t do well in cool weather.

Jun 16, 2009 - 2:41 pm 70. LarryD:

Semi-sort-of-off-topic:

Telling kids that they are smart is bad for them; Scientific American: The Secret to Raising Smart Kids
“In fact, however, more than 30 years of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings.

The result plays out in children like Jonathan, who coast through the early grades under the dangerous notion that no-effort academic achievement defines them as smart or gifted. Such children hold an implicit belief that intelligence is innate and fixed, making striving to learn seem far less important than being (or looking) smart. This belief also makes them see challenges, mistakes and even the need to exert effort as threats to their ego rather than as opportunities to improve. And it causes them to lose confidence and motivation when the work is no longer easy for them.”

I speculate that this effect is endemic among the “elite”, along with narcissism, which it may feed.

“… On the other hand, our studies show that teaching people to have a “growth mind-set,” which encourages a focus on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, helps make them into high achievers in school and in life.“

Jun 16, 2009 - 2:43 pm 71. El_Heffe:

@ #30. Mel Williams:

“So why don’t we prepare for them? A reviewer of Posner’s book put the problem succinctly. Human beings don’t prepare for what they can’t clearly anticipate.”

Tradition used to be that preparation, as imperfect as it was. It was the sum-total of centuries of experience baked down to cultural traditions, always conservative, that got us through thick and thin. We’ve gotten ahead of ourselves in recent decades to the point where ivory tower thought is now seen as the mode to follow. How short-sighted we’ve become!

The boy scouts say “be prepared”. That there are limits to how much preparation is practical or possible is not any excuse for not doing what you can.

1 Thessalonains 5:1-4

1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

@ #43. buddy larsen:

Surviving The Ruptures
Will you be left behind?

I thought the same thing when i saw the title. not sure if the double entendre was part of wrechard’s intent or if you and I are just afflicted with a similar quirk. Im surprised no one mentioned it be fore comment 43

@ #64. Charles:
funny you should bring up Moby Dick as im reading it for the first time at the moment.

I’m trying to shake that public shcool meme that I was infected with. You all know the one … “important books are hard to read and you don’t need to read them.” What hogwash!

Right now Ishmael is taking Queequeg to see the Pequod for the first time. I must say its not nearly as difficult a read as I had steeled myself for… so far im actually enjoying it, but dont tell the teacher… he will undoubtedly say I’m doing it wrong.

PS. Wrechard I’m loving the 10 minute timer.

Jun 16, 2009 - 3:24 pm 72. Jim Jinkins:

See ‘No Blade of Grass’ by John Christopher.

If the rust mutates to attack rice, barley, etc, the rupture event becomes several orders of magnitude more serious.

Jun 17, 2009 - 4:38 am 73. GerryP:

PA Cat/31
Releasing a fungus to kill Kudzu may not be a good idea. It could migrate to Japan and Taiwan, where Kudzu is an important source of food and healing. Since Japan and Taiwan are colder places, Kudzu does not get so out-of-control there. They have traditioally used wild Kudzu as a fall-back food in case of famine or food shortage.

Sylvia/48
Kudzu seeds have never been worth much as food. But Kudzu has huge underground tubers, full of an excellent, very nutritious starch. The tubers can reach 7 feet long and weigh over 400 pounds. The starch is used for food, and also for healing of digestive and other problems.

Getting the starch out of the tubers is quite a production, but there are businesses in Japan that make money doing that.

Kudzu leaves and shoots are eaten as vegetables in Japan. They are also used as a commercial source of chlorophyl. The leaves make outstanding fodder and hay for farm animals.

The stems are accessible after cold weather kills the leaves. They have an excellent long fiber for making cloth, like linen or sisal. The stems can also be used as bio-mass to make biofuels.

Kudzu is unmatched for rebuilding badly-eroded soils. It also adds much nitrogen to the soil, and prepares depleted soils to grow crops again.

Learning to take advantage of Kudzu commercially might be a better option all-around than loosing a new fungus on the world to erradicate it.

(See “The Book of Kudzu” Shurtleff and Aoyagi.)

Jun 17, 2009 - 6:49 am 74. Sylvia:

73/GerryP. I will never look at kudzu the same way again. Yikes! Nitrogen-fixing even. Thank you for the fascinating data. I will have to go pester and interrogate the bit of weedy stuff on my driveway.

Jun 17, 2009 - 8:22 am 75. World to End, CrossFitters and Paleo Eaters Survive | The Daily Bounce:

[...] no, but Richard Fernandez illustrates a larger point with a crisis that’s threatening to wipe out 80 percent of the [...]

Jun 17, 2009 - 8:04 pm

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