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Over at Keith's, I got engaged in a discussion with Judith Curry and others about the well educated skeptics who self identify as "auditors" of climate science. She claims that
this group is definitely interested in moving the science forward.
The existence and flourishing of technical climate blogs that take a critical stance towards the mainstream scientific view shows that the dualistic view of professional scientists on the one hand and the amateur public on the other hand is too simplistic (especially if the public is deemed 'ignorant' of the science). It is clear that there is a continuum of interest, knowledge, skepticism, sincerity, etc amongst the public.
I agree that it's not constructive to dismiss the expertise and energy of the more scientifically minded critics ("citizen scientists"). But then I would suggest that those sincerely interested clearly distance themselves from the contempt and suspicions raising crowd, since that are the public face of the critics, and it's severely hampering communication with mainstream scientists and their supporters. Problem is, McIntyre himself has had a major influence in instilling contempt and suspicions into his very wide following. It doesn't just raise my ire; it's entirely un-constructive to moving the internet discussion with critics forward (regardless of how it all started). I suggest that those critics who are sincerely interested in moving the science forward engage more with scientists (rather than raging against them).
Citizen science
Judith Curry compares the technically savvy critics with citizen scientists in other disciplines, e.g. biology and astronomy. I think that comparison is only superficially true. In none of those other fields are the citizen scientists contemptuous towards the professional scientists (and vice versa). The 'normal' way for citizens to contribute to science is by providing observations; not so much in the interpretation. In none of the other cases I know of are the citizen scientists strongly critical and suspicious of the mainstream science.
Even in cases where the 'auditors' have superior technical skills, scientific intuition and broad background knowledge of the field is very important in placing results in context and in making a coherent scientific argument. These (especially the context) are what's missing in many (not all) of the citizen scientists efforts regarding climate change, and yet, the conclusions are often uncritically taken to be of paramount importance for the field as a whole (e.g. talk of paradgim shift, Galileo and stuff like that).
Oftentimes, the specific details that the citizen scientists focus on and criticize are presented as needing to be resolved before the rest of the science can be discussed, and long before we may discuss policy options. That's exactly what concerned scientists and citizens fear: That it's used as an option to delay action (whether intentionally or not).
A constructive discussion about the best public actions to address global warming does notdepend on these technical details at all. That's the crux of the matter. They make people not see the forest for the trees, in a very effective way. If that's not McIntyre's purpose, he should really rethink what he's doing.
Michael Tobis made the observation that he agrees with the "citizen scientists" on many of their main points, but not on the policy direction. If they would be primarily interested in what they proclaim their key points are, and not in (obstructing) mitigation politics, the rational response would be to welcome Michael as an ally. However, he is "cast as an opponent, even as an extremist". This is a very important point, and indeed, it suggests that their "real priorities have nothing to do with scientific process".
In response Judith said that Michael's stance on mitigation and uncertainties is what the self proclaimed "auditors" respond negatively to. The first point (on mitigation) is exactly what leads to Michael's conclusion: Their primary interest is politics (disagreeing on the need for mitigation). The second point is untrue and unfair to Michael. He is most definitely not "in denial of uncertainty" as Judith later claimed.
Rather, he often makes the following pertinent points that I wholeheartedly agree with:
- Some things are known more accurately than others.
- The big picture of where we're heading is clear, and this is what's relevant for policy making.
- Uncertainty cuts both ways. Combined with the knowledge about the big picture direction and the inertia in the system, uncertainty makes the case for action stronger rather than weaker.
I see a lot of self proclaimed "skeptics" mix up uncertainty with knowing nothing, and use that as an excuse for delaying action on mitigation. That is probably the number 1 argument to delay action. It is a policy statement, masquerading as a concern for science.
Genuine and pseudo skeptics
Undoubtedly climate skepticism comes in many shades of grey (as does climate concern). How can we distinguish between genuine skeptics and pseudo-skeptics? Undoubtedly, all self styles skeptics see themselves as genuine. I don't really have an answer to that question. But the comparison with other areas of citizen science begs the question of why those in the climate change arena are predominantly critical, contemptuous even, about the mainstream scientific view? If their primary interest was in data analysis or observation quality, such an attitude wouldn't make a lot of sense. I'd expect a group of citizen scientists to also have a spectrum of opinions on the science, but to see that spectrum go off in a totally different direction than the spectrum of views of professional scientists, is odd. Even if I'd take their criticism on the details at face value (which I don't; call me skeptical), it doesn't logically follow that their opinions of the science as a whole, let alone on mitigation, would be dramatically different.
The fact that many "citizen scientists" seem to be have such different views of the big picture makes me think that a sizeable proportion of them did come into this debate with preconceived notions. Something must have picked their interest in the science. Perhaps it's more likely that they came to this debate with a skeptical inclination, rather than purely based on a love of the science in question, as is the case with archetypical examples of citizen science. This skeptical inclination could have extra-scientific reasons (e.g. psychological, ideological, political, etc) or it could be that criticisms they read about (e.g. from McIntyre) made them question the validity of the science, which they then decided to explore themselves. It's important to distinguish between the details and the big picture. To what extent do they question the validity of the big picture, while exploring the details? And conflating the two? Without knowing the big picture, the McIntyrian way of looking at things probably sounds very convincing, especially to those from specialized technical fields.
The existing polarization, and subsequent defensive attitude of some spokespeople of mainstream science, may also have contributed to technically savvy people being drawn to 'the other side'. That's something we shouldn't discount as a potentially important factor, and we should try to learn from it. It is clear that mainstream scientists (and their supporters) have not come to grips with these new skeptics, citizen scientists, technically savvy critics, auditors, or whatever name you'd want to give them.
See also some recent posts by Michael Tobis here and here.
Let me end by naming some constructive examples of citizen science:
The making of a sea level study
Temperature reconstructions (and my reply to Lucia at Comment#46143)
Recent examples of citizen journalism also make clear that the less judgment is (perceived to be) passed onto the subject of study, the better it will be received.
Tags: citizen science, citizen scientists, climate auditor, Judith Curry, Lucia Liljegren, Skeptics, Steve McIntyre


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Matthew Panzarino
Matthew Panzarino was Managing Editor at TNW. He's no longer with the company, but you can follow him on Twitter. Matthew Panzarino was Managing Editor at TNW. He's no longer with the company, but you can follow him on Twitter.
A couple of days ago the news broke that Apple had acquired indoor location startup WiFiSLAM. Since the company immediately pulled its website and Apple isn't exactly forthcoming about its plans for its acquisitions, much of the chatter since then has been speculation.
But, thanks to a video of a detailed WiFiSLAM presentation (thanks Brian) at a Geo Meetup, we now have more information about the exact technologies that WiFiSLAM was using to pull off its indoor magic. We also know what SLAM means and why Apple was so interested in this particular company.
Apple has been gathering location data based on trilateration (or triangulation) of WiFi and cellular signals for some time. You may recall the location database mini-debacle of 2011, when it was made clear that Apple, Google and other companies used WiFi hotspots and cell towers to track users and improve their networks. That blew over in the end as the companies made better efforts to turn the data over and ensure that it was, indeed anonymous and impossible to access outside of those ID-free stores.
But those tried and true trilateration methods continue to be in use today, mostly to augment the accuracy and speed of GPS locations. That's where WiFiSLAM comes in. Its system uses a handful of technologies including WiFi signals, GPS and more to craft more accurate positions and maps, especially when users are indoors.
WiFiSLAM's Jason Huang, a former Google Intern, lays out the strengths and weaknesses of GPS and how it can be augmented with other systems.
The typical accuracy of GPS when it's performing well is around 10 meters, points out Huang. This means almost nothing when it comes to traveling down a road in a car, but 10 meters vertically in a building could mean a difference of 6 floors.
"Getting the floor wrong by six or seven floors is a huge nuisance if you're trying to do interesting things with location," says Huang.
WiFiSLAM uses a combination of various methods to get better indoor locations. Obviously, WiFi and cell tower trilateration doesn't work indoors. Instead, WiFi signals can be measured by any device to get an approximate location. In order for that location to be accurate, though, you have to use WiFi fingerprinting to get an idea of what the materials and construction of a particular building are going to do to WiFi signals. Enough scans in one place and you'll have an accurate profile of a building that can be used to make a map.
The goal of WiFiSLAM and its SDK is "to try to make indoor location as accessible as possible to anyone who wants to try it," says Huang.
In around 90 seconds, you should be able to take a picture of a map, walk to one point of each location you want to log and upload it to a server. This process uses any hotspot that responds to probe requests. Those include hidden and password protected hotspots, as you're only using the strength of the signal.
The SLAM acronym? That stands for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. This encompasses WiFiSLAM's way of gathering location and mapping information without recording any data at all and pairing with more traditional methods. To do this they record 'trajectories' from sensors on the phone including the accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers.
The green is raw trajectories, using just inertial sensors. These are the ones inside your phone including your accelerometers. The Blue is SLAM. If you record enough of these trajectories (note that it doesn't have to be just one person, which is important) and mate them with WiFi data, you can start to build more accurate indoor maps.
To aggregate the data, you track the paths walked by various users (anonymously) and build a big database of paths and maps for the inside of buildings.
"The common wisdom," says Huang, "is that smartphone sensors are cheap and that you can't get any meaningful data from them."
To illustrate, here's a recording using off the shelf GPS software. The top is the actual path and the bottom is the recorded path. You can see that they don't resemble one another very closely. The sensors aren't accurate enough and they have too many limitations for any single one to give you an accurate enough profile.
But that's where WiFiSLAM's technology starts to get interesting. They use pattern recognition and machine learning to draw correlations between data gathered by all of the sensors in a device, not just one. And they mate that with WiFi trilateration to create accurate indoor maps.
Every time you take a step, for instance, a gyroscope inside a device could record an impact (if it has one). This creates a graph of steps that seems fairly useless on its own. Other sensors are also limited by their natures. An accelerometer can't measure an angle, just a linear velocity, for instance.
"But people hold phones in front of them, and when you turn your body you get centrifugal acceleration," Huang explains. This allows them to track anomalies in acceleration that mate with the data from the steps taken with the gyroscope to determine when people are making turns. In fact, WiFiSLAM has done enough work with its pattern recognition to be able to duplicate the quality of readings that you get with a gyroscope using just accelerometers.
"And if you have both of those on the phone," says Huang, "you can do some really interesting things."
There were other technologies being leveraged by WiFiSLAM including packet timing that to gather more accurate distances from hotspots (TDOA). They were also playing with using image recognition together with studies of human psychological decision-making to predict the routes you'd take through a building.
Then there's the use of magnetometers to take magnetic field readings throughout a building. Poor for outdoor locations, but great for indoor work. Magnetic fields, Huang says, have as much variance and detail as WiFi when it comes to indoor location sensing.
The iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S, it is worth mentioning at this point, have a gyroscope, magnetometer and accelerometers on board.
WiFiSLAM actually produced a proof-of-concept app that used accelerometers to navigate indoor maps called Footprint.io. It was published on the Google Play store and last updated in January, but has since been removed.
They were also looking into other areas that would work well with camera-centric devices like Google Glass. These computer vision arenas are still in the nascent stages, but the potential is crazy. Using a video feed as you walk through a building, the device tracks the pixels on the screen to map turns one way or another and forward progress. There's also visual matching of textures and architectural details across a city in order to identify it, which is really cool.
But it's safe to say that the internal tracking methods that WiFiSLAM had been developing are the primary interest for Apple. Obviously, it has been using triangulation based on WiFi and cell towers for some time to build out its traffic service.
Apple had been quietly building its own solution for maps since at least 2009. That is when it acquired small but innovative maps company Placebase and started up its own 'GEO Team'. Since then, Apple has continued to make small purchases in the mapping arena, snagging Google Earth competitor Poly9 in July of 2010 and wicked 3D mapping company C3 Technologies in August of this year. During the location tracking brouhaha in 2011, Apple mentioned that it was gathering anonymous data for an 'improved traffic service'. It launched that service with its new Maps in iOS 6.
Since then, Maps has taken some heat for its inaccurate database of places. Apple has been working with data providers, teams of its store employees tasked with improving results and other crowd-based sources like the 'report a problem' button in the Maps app to boost their accuracy. But indoor mapping, while definitely another area where Apple lags behind other companies like Google, is still very much a horse race.
If Apple were to bring technologies like the ones that WiFiSLAM was working on to the iPhone, it would gain an instant army of remote mapping drones. Everyone carrying an iPhone in a building would be charting at least a passive map of that location. Ever walk around carrying your phone in front of you? Yes, everyone, everyone does this at some point. Imagine if the sensors inside the device were measuring your footfalls and turns and matching it with hundreds of other paths to map out that building while you did so?
WiFiSLAM was very much building on the shoulders of others with its tech, but its unique mating of existing practices with machine learning and sensor leverage was likely attractive to Apple's M&A team. A small company, without strong ties or a platform play, that brought together obviously brilliant people to hone a specific technology. That fits Apple's acquisition profile to the T.
But it's not just mapping that matters when it comes to location. The more accurate a location is the more accurate every app on the device is. Adding in more precision to an iPhone's indoor location capabilities doesn't just help Apple, it helps every developer and, hopefully, every user.
Now, we just have to wait to see exactly how Apple applies the tech, and whether it has a material effect on the accuracy of Maps.
Image Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
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Story highlights
China dropped five spots to 80th place out of 176 nations in the Corruption Perceptions Index
Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden and Singapore topped the list as the cleanest countries
Somalia, North Korea, Afghanistan, Sudan and Myanmar ranked at the bottom
The United States was ranked 19th in the world, below Japan and the UK
While China has become the world's second largest economy, doing business in China is now perceived to be more corrupt, according to Transparency International.
China dropped five spots to 80th place out of 176 countries surveyed in the 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index. "The world's leading economies should lead by example, making sure that their institutions are fully transparent and their leaders are held accountable. This is crucial since their institutions play a significant role in preventing corruption from flourishing globally," said Cobus de Swardt, managing director of the Berlin-based corruption watchdog.
Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden and Singapore topped the list as the cleanest countries to do business in the world, according to the survey released Wednesday. Somalia, North Korea, Afghanistan, Sudan and Myanmar ranked at the bottom.
The United States was ranked 19th in the world, below Japan and the UK and ahead of Chile and Uruguay.
China isn't the only emerging economic giant to perform poorly on the index. India was ranked 94th, a step up from last year's ranking. Russia was 133rd, 10 places higher than 2011.
In Europe, Greece – whose ailing economy faces tough austerity measures to meet international standards to get bailout cash – plummeted to 94th place on the list, down from the 80th spot last year.
Corruption Perceptions Index 2012 – Top 25
1. Denmark
1. (tie) Finland
1. (tie) New Zealand
4. Sweden
5. Singapore
6. Switzerland
7. Australia
7. (tie) Norway
9. Canada
9. (tie) Netherlands
11. Iceland
12. Luxembourg
13. Germany
14. Hong Kong
15. Barbados
16. Belgium
17. Japan
17. (tie) United Kingdom
19. United States
20. Chile
20. (tie) Uruguay
22. Bahamas
22. (tie) France
22. (tie) Saint Lucia
25. Austria
25. (tie) Ireland
Countries are ranked on "perception" of corruption because statistical collection of illegal activities "are deliberately hidden and only come to light through scandals, investigations and prosecutions," the Transparency Index web site says. "Capturing perceptions of corruption of those in a position to offer assessments of public sector corruption is the most reliable method of comparing relative corruption levels across countries."
Countries were assessed on a sliding scale ranging from 0 for "highly corrupt" to 100 for "very clean."
"While no country scored a perfect score, the majority of countries scored below 50, indicating a serious corruption problem," said Huguette Labelle, the chair of Transparency International, in a news release. "This translates into human suffering with poor families being extorted for bribes to see doctors or to get access to clean drinking water."
"Equally damaging is the failure of basic services such as education or public infrastructure because public money is being skimmed off by corrupt leaders. Corruption amounts to a 'dirty tax,' one that hits the poorest and the most vulnerable."


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Vanilla Scented Crystals - Refresh with Fragrant Oilscryvan
Product Details
Vanilla Scented Crystals one year supply resuseable; refresh with any scent fragrant oil.
Scented Crystals to be used with Fragrant Oils. Slows down the heat process so the Fragrant Oil does not burn, it is warmed. (no brown spot in the bottom of your dish) or if you use water with your Fragrant Oils, you no longer have to think "did the water evaporate?". Crystals are reusable for approximately 4 months AND you can change your Fragrance each time you use it without changing Crystals!


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Wondering about a little golf while staying at Zion National Park. Well Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort has just announced the opening of a new and unique miniature golf course for summer 2010. See more info here.
This miniature golf course will feature faux rock formations of a Zion National Park style slot canyon and a Bryce Canyon National Park style hoodoo. Hoodoos are the unique rock formations that fill Bryce Canyon National Park and slot canyons are the deep and narrow canyons carved by flash floods into the soft sandstone of the Zion National Park region.
These two rock formations will highlight the miniature golf course which will also offer two main water features. Each water feature will have a pond at the north end of the course and connected by a small stream that flows to a pond on the southern end of the course. Small bridges will cross the stream features at various points in the 18 hole miniature golf course.
The beautifully landscaped miniature golf course will play through the center island of the area just north of the main lodge and between the Cabin Suites on the west and east. The golf course will be open for much of the day, and even into the evening during summer months.
As with all Zion Ponderosa activities, the course is open to all visitors even if they are not staying at the resort. Golf enthusiasts will relish the opportunity to practice their putting game and to keep some friendly competition going amongst friends and family. This is the type of thing that brings young and old together for an activity that really can be enjoyed together by people of all ages (1 to 100).


text: Back Older Adults and the Importance of Social Interaction As you get older and retire or move to a new community, you may not have quite as many opportunities to socialize as you did when you were younger. If you're not heading to an office or getting out and about each day, you may be missing out on important social interaction that you need to stay sharp, healthy, and maybe even ward off dementia. Research has shown that social interaction offers older adults many benefits. Staying socially active and maintaining interpersonal relationships can help you maintain good physical and emotional health and cognitive function. People who continue to maintain close friendships and find other ways to interact socially live longer than those who become isolated. Relationships and social interactions even help protect against illness by boosting your immune system. The benefits of being social Specific health benefits of social interaction in older adults include: Potentially reduced risk for cardiovascular problems, some cancers, osteoporosis, and rheumatoid arthritis Potentially reduced risk for Alzheimer's disease Lower blood pressure Reduced risk for mental health issues such as depression Conversely, social isolation carries real risks. Some of these risks are: Feeling lonely and depressed Being less physically active Having a greater risk of death Having high blood pressure Social interaction helps keep your brain from getting rusty, but it's most effective when coupled with an overall healthy lifestyle, including a nutritious diet and physical activity. Keeping your connections strong Start by staying in touch with friends and family, and try to visit with them regularly. Here are other ways you can maintain a high level of social interaction: Volunteer in your community. Visit a senior center and participate in offered activities with other seniors—this is a great way to make new friends. Join a group focused on activities you enjoy, such as playing cards or a book club. Try taking a class—learn a new language or a new style of cooking or experiment with a new hobby. Join a gym or fitness center to stay physically fit and engage with others. Find ways to stay young at heart, stimulated, busy—and out of the house. Schedule regular visits with grandkids or volunteer at a school or children's organization to enjoy time with little ones and absorb some of their youthful energy. Although staying in touch in person is important, phone calls, snail mail, and e-mail can keep you connected, too—if you're not yet comfortable with computers, ask a young relative to help you. Staying socially active and maintaining your relationships are an important part of healthy aging. Reach out to your loved ones—neighbors, friends, family members—and stay as vibrant, active, and social as you've always been.


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I have observed—particularly in international areas, although it often occurs domestically—that sisters do not participate openly in ward council meetings. This is most unfortunate, because they have perspectives and experiences that are of immense value. When they can be encouraged to take part freely in ward council meetings, their ideas are always helpful and inspirational.
This challenge can be resolved easily in the following way. As the ward council meeting unfolds and specific suggestions are made, the presiding officer can call on individual sisters present by name, asking them to express their feelings regarding the matter. They will always respond to such an invitation. As they gain more experience in the environment of the ward council, they will learn to participate actively without the need for such an invitation.
When decisions by the council need to be made, the presiding officer can often determine whether or not it appears that there is unanimity of feeling on the part of the members present. Where he senses such support, he should propose that the council support a specific decision and then vote to sustain it. If no such unanimity is sensed, then he can indicate that since all have had the opportunity to share their feelings he will make a decision and request that all present sustain it and implement it unitedly and wholeheartedly.
An important aspect of meeting as a ward council is to clarify with each present that items discussed and decisions made must be kept confidential.
I have practiced the foregoing suggestions in international areas of the world where it is not common for sisters to publicly express opinions. Where a presiding officer calls them by name and expresses gratitude for the specific recommendations they make, the sisters develop confidence in working in this manner with priesthood leaders. Over time, they are much more likely to participate in ward council meetings and to share their valuable suggestions without the need for the specific encouragement of being called on individually.
There is sometimes a complementary blessing that comes to the homes of priesthood leaders who observe the benefits that result from sister participation in ward council. These men can become more appreciative of the sacred role of their wives in their own home. This is particularly true where local cultures tend to minimize or ignore the contribution of women in the home.
I would like to conclude and use a word that we don't frequently use among the Twelve, but it's our official designation as Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. As an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, I bear my testimony that He lives, that He is our Savior, that His Atonement was wrought at a terrible cost but is completely effective and has made Father in Heaven's plan of happiness active throughout the world. I love Him. I bear solemn witness that He lives. I know He lives because I know Him. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.


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Installing An Automatic Overdrive Transmission
Get into efficient overdrive cruising over a weekend
Performing an AOD swap in a classic Mustang is easy today thanks to the automotive aftermarket. These companies have done the homework already. All you have to do is tell them what you have and what you need. When the parts arrive on your doorstep, they can be installed in a weekend.
Few companies know more about automatic transmissions than B&M Racing & Performance, which has been building high-performance automatic transmissions for 60 years. Cal Pony Cars was founded by Ray Harrington, a Mustang enthusiast who took his profession and turned it into high-quality reproduction parts for classic Mustangs. Ray noticed how much fabrication had to be done to swap an Automatic Overdrive (AOD) transmission into classic Mustangs. That's when he and his people went to work conceiving an all-in-one kit.
Ray wasn't the only one with an eye on what enthusiasts needed. Inland Empire Driveline developed custom-length steel and aluminum driveshafts for the conversion, available from Mustangs Plus for 8- and 9-inch rear ends. Classic Tube has also developed transmission cooler lines for vintage Mustangs with an AOD conversion.
Follow along here as Gil Roiz at Mustangs Etc. replaces a '65 Mustang's C4 with a B&M AOD.
Throttle Valve Cable Adjustment
There has long been a lot of confusion about the AOD's TV (throttle valve) cable adjustment. Ford advises the use of a pressure gauge, which most novices don't have nor do they know how to use. We will caution you that TV cable adjustment is something you must get right or risk serious transmission damage.
First, some history about Mustang transmission operation. Your Mustang's original C4 transmission has two shift control systems—the vacuum modulator (throttle valve) and a kick-down system. The AOD has one cable-controlled system. C4 shift points are controlled by a combination of intake manifold vacuum and kick-down lever position. In normal driving, the kick-down cable is not involved. However, the throttle valve is always working via manifold vacuum, which depends on how much throttle you're using. With light throttle and high intake manifold vacuum, control pressure is low and you get smooth shifts up or down.
As you step on the gas, intake vacuum drops and control pressure increases to both delay and firm the upshift. You want a firm upshift at open throttle for a solid transfer of power and minimal clutch and band slippage. Punch the throttle wide open and the kick-down cable contributes to even higher control pressure and the appropriate downshift to Second or First gear for that burst of power. You don't want low control pressure at wide-open throttle, which will cause slippage, extreme heat, and serious damage.
The AOD does not have a vacuum modulator, but instead a throttle valve cable that does the work of both a vacuum modulator and a kick-down linkage. Instead of getting a vacuum signal as an indication of throttle position like we see with the older C4, C6, and FMX transmissions, the AOD's TV cable yields actual throttle position via a direct mechanical cable connection.
Control pressure is modulated by how far the throttle valve cable is moved. The more you step on the gas, the higher control pressure becomes to both delay upshift and increase control pressure for firmness. Transmission professionals we've spoken with suggest you adjust the cable with the throttle closed (idle) and no cable slack, but no cable tension either. Then take your Mustang for a road test at light throttle. If the AOD upshifts too soon under mild acceleration with quick 1-2-3 upshifts (overdrive doesn't come in until roughly 40 mph), you don't have enough cable tension (too little control pressure). Gradually increase cable tension until you get evenly spaced firm shifts under mild acceleration. Do not go into wide-open throttle until you are certain you're getting firm upshifts without slippage. Slippage will cost transmission life. It's a good idea to have a transmission shop double-check your adjustment with a pressure gauge.
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Sixty-eight years ago at Christmas the American and German armies were fighting it out in the Battle of the Bulge, the last German offensive of the War.
Patton's Third Army fought its way through to relieve the Americans desperately fighting to defeat the attacking German forces. The weather was atrocious and Allied air power was useless. Patton had a prayer written for good weather. The skies cleared after Patton prayed the weather prayer, and Allied air power was unleashed on the attacking Germans.
During the Battle of the Bulge, the 101st Airborne Division made a heroic stand at Bastogne from December 20-27 which helped turn the tide of the battle. Massively outnumbered, battle weary from already having done more than their share of fighting in Normandy and Operation Market Garden and short on food and ammo, they stopped the advancing Germans cold in their tracks.
On December 25, a packed midnight mass was held in Bastogne, with Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, who commanded the 101st troops at Bastogne, in attendance. Afterwards the General listened to German POWS singing Silent Night, and wished them a Merry Christmas.
General McAuliffe issued a memorable Christmas message to his troops:
Headquarters 101st Airborne Division Office of the Division Commander
24 December 1944
What's Merry about all this, you ask? We're fighting – it's cold – we aren't home. All true but what has the proud Eagle Division accomplished with its worthy comrades of the 10th Armored Division, the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion and all the rest? just this: We have stopped cold everything that has been thrown at us from the North, East, South and West. We have identifications from four German Panzer Divisions, two German Infantry Divisions and one German Parachute Division. These units, spearheading the last desperate German lunge, were headed straight west for key points when the Eagle Division was hurriedly ordered to stem the advance. How effectively this was done will be written in history; not alone in our Division's glorious history but in World history. The Germans actually did surround us. their radios blared our doom. Their Commander demanded our surrender in the following impudent arrogance.
December 22nd 1944 To the U. S. A. Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne.
The fortune of war is changing. This time the U. S. A. forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units. More German armored units have crossed the river Ourthe near Ortheuville, have taken Marche and reached St. Hubert by passing through Hombres Sibret-Tillet. Libramont is in German hands.
There is only one possibility to save the encircled U. S. A. Troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note.
If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U. S. A. Troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours term.
All the serious civilian losses caused by this Artillery fire would not correspond with the well known American humanity.
The German Commander
The German Commander received the following reply:
22 December 1944 To the German Commander:
The American Commander
Allied Troops are counterattacking in force. We continue to hold Bastogne. By holding Bastogne we assure the success of the Allied Armies. We know that our Division Commander, General Taylor, will say: Well Done!
We are giving our country and our loved ones at home a worthy Christmas present and being privileged to take part in this gallant feat of arms are truly making for ourselves a Merry Christmas.
A. C. McAuliffe
Today we have troops serving in harm's way. From the bottom of a grateful heart I wish them and their families the Merriest of Christmases and the Happiest of New Years.


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2015 Polaris Slingshot SL
Retail $16,995
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Do you ever find yourself muttering or declaring with savagery that there is never enough time?
We rise in the a.m. with high hopes and ambitions, only to lay our heads back down in the p.m. feeling unaccomplished, bedraggled, and a little despondent. Like we will never catch up. Like life is a kite string we stumble toward and chase after, on good days managing to graze with our fingertips and the rest of the time spend trying not to lose our tenuous grip.
Slow down!
Come back!
Wait for me!
Life is an earless animal. It does not hear us when we shout at it. Nor is it a kind stranger sitting in a crowded bus; it will not scoot over and make room for us. It gives us what it gives us. The same amount, everyday, rain or shine. I have realized that I cannot do it all. Maybe you will be surprised to know this came as quite a shock to me. Or maybe not. Maybe it surprised you too at first. I laughed. I said, Oh, no. I'm sorry, but you must be mistaken. You see, I am a multitasker. I do several things at once. It's like my second job. So really I can do it all. What's that? I look a bit strung out to you? Dark circles under my eyes? No, no, no, no. I can see how you might think–but no. No. Those are productive circles. Very different. They mean I am fulfilled. Yes, exactly. Fulfilled. Now you understand. Would you like to join me? I'm just going to take a seat here where I can make lunches, check my e-mail, water the lawn, and shave my legs.


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Are Americans smart to stop drinking diet sodas?
When I was director of the Congressional Budget Office, I was testifying so frequently to the Senate Finance Committee that the chairman granted me a special exception to the committee rules: He allowed me to drink diet soda rather than just water during hearings. At my peak, I was downing up to eight diet sodas a day.
My family did not think this was such a great idea, and at their urging I have largely eliminated my diet soda drinking. Recent data from Beverage Digest suggest others are cutting back also; consumption of diet sodas fell more than that of sugary sodas in 2013. "While the health risks of sugary sodas have been publicized for some time, the growing public aversion to diet drinks – with many believing artificial sweeteners are also unhealthy – has caught the industry somewhat off guard," the Wall Street Journal noted.
This raises two questions: Why is total consumption declining, and is drinking diet soda harmful to health? Although the data do suggest a change in attitudes toward diet sodas, one potentially underappreciated factor in the consumption data is the role of demographics. Consumption of diet soda is twice as high among non-Hispanic whites as among Hispanics, for example, as data from the National Center for Health Statistics show. As the share of non-Hispanic whites in the population declines and the share of Hispanics rises, one would expect diet soda consumption per person to fall.
Demographic shifts don't entirely explain the shift in soda drinking, however. Concern about health effects appears to be rising, too – which is not surprising, given how much media attention has been trained on reports of harm.
A recent example is an analysis of the extent to which the consumption of diet drinks influences cardiovascular events – a study that highlights both the insights and the shortcomings of research on diet soda. Ankur Vyas and colleagues at the University of Iowa examined the diet drink consumption of almost 60,000 older women and concluded that, "compared to women who never or only rarely consume diet drinks, those who consumed two or more a day were 30 percent more likely to suffer a cardiovascular event and 50 percent more likely to die from related disease."
The Vyas study identifies a troubling correlation between diet soda drinking and significant health risks. Yet, as the authors themselves point out, this correlation proves nothing about causality.
To understand why this matters, consider that only about 5 percent of the women in the study were drinking two or more diet sodas a day. And these 5 percent were different from the rest of the women in many ways, in addition to their diet soda drinking: Almost twice as many of them were obese (42 percent versus 23 percent), and almost twice as many were smokers (almost 8 percent versus a little more than 4 percent). If overweight smokers are, for whatever reason, more likely than others to drink diet soda two or more times a day, that shouldn't lead us to believe it's the sodas that are increasing their risk of cardiovascular disease.
It is also interesting that the "regular" diet soda drinkers were just as likely as the other women to be daily drinkers of sugar-sweetened beverages. That underscores another concern: The study did not compare people who drank diet soda with those who drank sugared soda or other types of drinks; indeed, it is unclear what the people who "never or only rarely" consume diet soda are drinking.
The authors deployed a statistical model to adjust for the adverse health of effects of smoking and other variables, and they still found a correlation between diet soda consumption and cardiovascular risk. Yet even this residual correlation is only as sound as the model itself. Those who drank far more diet soda seem so unlike the others that one has to wonder whether all the differences have been fully controlled. That is not to say that diet sodas are necessarily safe, but just that this study doesn't prove they are harmful, as its authors themselves (but not most news reports about the study) emphasize.
This conclusion is echoed in the wider literature about the health effects of diet soda. A careful analysis of the research by Richard Mattes of Purdue University and Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina found that long-term randomized controlled trials are essential, because almost every existing study is subject to concerns about correlation versus causation.
I'm glad that my family succeeded in getting me to shift away from diet soda and toward tea. Yet I'd say the case is still out on whether my health was ever at risk.
Peter Orszag is vice chairman of corporate and investment banking and chairman of the financial strategy and solutions group at Citigroup Inc. and a former director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration.


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Singlemalt.tv and Highland Park teamed up to do a live webcast back on September 28th. Gerry Tosh, head of brand education at highland park, and his boss Jason Craig discussed (and tasted) the new Earl Magnus 15 year Cask Strength special release that is coming out by the end of the year. They also talked about the general plan for HP special releases in the near to medium term, and hinted at a possible addition to the standard HP lineup.
Check out the video here:
[Update: The above link isn't working well for me right now. Here's a link to the High Resolution Video on singlemalt.tv]
Now, for those who don't feel like watching the full 25 minute video, I thought I'd go ahead and summarize some of the most interesting tidbits:
- Special Releases
- HP looking to put significant effort into satisfying enthusiast/collector demand for special releases.
- Earl Magnus is Edition 1 of a series of "affordable collectible" releases to come out in round bottles with darker glass.
- Also looking at some high end collectible releases: Vintages, 50 year, etc.
- Earl Magnus
- 15 year old cask strength at 52.6% ABV.
- To be priced in the 75 to 85 GBP price range. [Update: Looks like 85 GBP]
- Just under 6,000 bottles to be released.
- Will contain some older casks as well.
- American oak and high ABV combines to make the smoke stand out. Not as sweet as the Hjarta.
- Lemon/lime/coconut flavors due to the American oak.
- Update [12/7/09] – Whiskyfun has now reviewed Earl Magnus. 90 points.
- Update [12/15/09] – Check out a high resolution picture over at Edinburgh Whisky Blog.
- Update [2/10/10] – My own unbottling and initial impressions, with lots of pictures and packaging details.
- "Affordable collectible" Edition 2
- The follow-up to Earl Magnus will come out next year.
- Age not yet determined…could move to an 18 year or go back to a 10-13 year release.
- If 18 year, probably closer to 4,000 bottles to be released. If younger, maybe 7,000 to 9,000 bottles.
- Price will be 10-20 GBP higher or lower than Earl Magnus depending on age.
- Vintages
- Yet another bottle style. Jet-black glass with flared bottom.
- 2 vintage releases per year.
- Looking to release 10 vintages over the next 4-6 years.
- 1964 and 1968 to be the first two vintage releases.
- Coming in March/April 2010.
- 290 bottles of 1964; 1,550 bottles of 1968.
- 50 Year
- They have some casks that will turn 50 in Jan. 2010.
- Still planning the details of the 50 year release.
- Look for it in Summer 2010.
- New Make Spirit
- Planning to make new-make spirit available, probably only at the Distillery (or possibly from web site).
- Probably would come in smaller bottles.
- 12 year Cask Strength core range bottling
- Gerry and Jason both feel that they should do a standard 12 CS release.
- Hjarta showed strong demand for higher strength.
- Hoping for success with Earl Magnus…could play into the decision.
- No commitment or details…just hinting that it's very possible.
- HP Packaging
- Current flat bottle design based on some bottles they found in their archives from 1920s/30s. Not just dreamed up out of nowhere.
- They also had some quality problems with the old bottle that led to the change.
Are these exciting times for HP or what? Apparently their traditional focus on primarily the standard 12 year bottling (up until 1997/1998) has allowed them to build up quite a stock of older casks. That's why they're now able to offer the 30 and 40 year as permanent releases. This also affords them quite a bit of creative freedom with these special releases.Cheers, Jeff


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Training Services Process Improvement
Process improvement training courses from SGS – a wide range of training to ensure the safety and efficiency of your processes.
To minimize risk and improve customer satisfaction, you need to ensure your processes are optimized. We offer you comprehensive process improvement training, covering a wide range of topics, from root cause analysis training and functional safety to Lean and Six Sigma, and more.
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Whatever your industry, whatever the subject, contact us to find out how SGS Academy can help you.


text:
Data protection New EU rules provide major step forward for consumer protection
Donnerstag, 14 April, 2016 - 12:09
The European Parliament today adopted a legislative agreement on the reform of the EU's data protection rules, finalising the new law. After the vote Green MEP and European Parliament draftsperson/rapporteur on the data protection regulation Jan Philipp Albrecht stated:
...The new rules will give users back the right to decide on their own private data. Businesses that have accessed users' data for a specific purpose would generally not be allowed to transfer the data without the user being asked. Users will have to give clear consent for their data to be used. Crucially, firms contravening these rules will face fines of up to 4% of revenue, which could imply billions of Euro for the major global online corporations. ...


text:
--> Текст песни Celine Dion - If I Could lyrics
(I'd like to dedicate this next song
to all the parents and children of the world...
and especially to my very own... Rene-Charles!)
If I could
I'd protect you from the sadness in your eyes
Give you courage in a world of compromise
Yes, I would
If I could
I would teach you all the things I've never learned
And I'd help you cross the bridges that I've burned
Yes, I would
If I could
I would try to shield your innocence from time
But the part of life I gave you isn't mine
I've watched you grow
So I could let you go
If I could
I would help you make it through the hungry years
But I know that I can never cry your tears
But I would
If I could
lyrics Celine Dion - If I Could текст песни <--
If I live
In a time and place where you don't want to be
You don't have to walk along this road with me
My yesterday
Won't have to be your way
If I knew
I'd have tried to change the world
I brought to you to
And there isn't very much that I can do
But I would
If I could...
oh baby... mummy wants to protect you
and help my baby through the hungry years
it's part of me
and if you ever... ever need
sad shoulder to cry on
I'm just someone to talk to
I'll be there... I'll be there
I didn't change your world
but I would
If I Could!
--> lyrics Celine Dion - If I Could слова песни на www.lifemusic.ru


text:
Ogden "Bo" Bass currently serves as the new Assistant City Manager (ACM).
He is responsible for a wide variety of projects and strategic initiatives that support City Council, the City Manager and the community's priorities and the City's annual work plan. The ACM's primary responsibilities will be external services and strategic initiatives. In addition, the ACM provides administrative guidance to assigned departments, assists with their budget development and administration, monitors and coordinates City programs and assists in the creation, implementation and presentation of long- and short-range strategic plans to meet the organizational needs of this growing City.
Bass has served the City of Allen as Director of Community Development since 2008. Before that position, he worked as Assistant City Manager in North Richland Hills, and Deputy City Manager in Bedford. In addition to his public-sector experience, Bass has seven years in the private sector. His responsibilities have included oversight and management of multiple departments including planning and development, economic development, engineering, public works, parks and recreation, and information services.
He attained Master's degrees in land development and urban and regional planning from Texas A&M and a Bachelor's from Texas A&M. He has also served as an adjunct professor in land development planning at the University of Texas at Arlington and holds a certificate from the American Institute of Certified Planners.
An Eagle Scout, he has served his communities through various activities including the United Way, the YMCA and Foundation for Allen Schools. Bass has a long history in the area having grown up in Freeport and still has family and friends scattered throughout the Houston area.
Email Bo BassPhone: 281-554-1007


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FeedDemon 18.104.22.168
FeedDemon 184.108.40.206 is released.FeedDemon enables you to quickly explore the world of RSS from your desktop without having to visit hundreds of sites. Written by Nick Bradbury, creator of TopStyle and HomeSite, it makes RSS as easy to access as your email. Thousands of web sites offer their content as RSS newsfeeds.
Bring the power of RSS right to your Windows desktop with FeedDemon.
* Get your news and information instantly.
* Customize the way you read and organize feeds.
* Download podcasts to your iPod or Windows Media Player.
* "Panic Button" – detects when you have a ton of unread items and offers to mark them (or a subset of them) as read
* Significant performance improvements
* Redesigned newspaper UI
* Significant improvements to offline reading support, including redesigned "prefetching" of feeds
* Inline page search
* Attention reporting/APML export
New in FeedDemon 3.0!
* Google Reader sync – use Google's online reader to keep up with your posts when you're away from FeedDemon.
* Redesigned UI including new "Subscriptions Home" page with popular videos and articles extracted from your feeds
* Tagging and tag cloud on Subscriptions Home page.
* Easy item sharing – let others enjoy your favorite articles with just a click
* Enhanced Twitter feed reading with automatic hyperlinks and short URL expansion view
Download:FeedDemon 184.108.40.206
0 Comments: Subscribe This Comments(Atom)


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The first Porsche ever built has been untouched since 1902. Officially called the Egger-Lohner C.2 Phaeton, this electric car from 1898 has 'P1' engraved onto all of the key components standing for Porsche 1, done by the then 23-years old Ferdinand Porsche himself.
The P1 took to the streets of Vienna on June 26, 1898, making it one of the first vehicles registered in Austria. Porsche's first design included a compact electric drive weighing 286 pounds and offering an output of 3 hp, or up to 5 hp in overloading mode, allowing it to reach up to 22 mph. When driven in this manner, speed was regulated via a 12-speed controller.
The overall range could span up to 50 miles. Under the electric system was coachbuilder Lohner's alternating vehicle body, which allowed the vehicle to be used all year.
The first practical test of the "P1" came in September 1899 at the international motor vehicle exhibition in Berlin. A race for electric vehicles over a distance of 24 miles was announced for September 28, and Ferdinand Porsche steered his "P1" across the finish line 18 minutes ahead of the next competitor with three passengers on board. He also came out on top in the efficiency test, as his "P1" recorded the lowest energy consumption in urban traffic while more than half the participants failed to reach the finish line due to technical difficulties.
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What followed this success was the production version known as the Lohner-Porsche, while this prototype has only been recovered now after 114 years in original and unrestored form.
If you happen to be around Stuttgart on February 1 and 2, you can check out the P1 free of charge as part of the celebrations to mark the fifth anniversary of the Porsche Museum. It always worth a visit.


text: Bristol Palin paid a visit to The Tonight Show this evening to plug her new memoir, but Jay Leno seemed more interested in talking about whether her mom plans to run for president. When Leno asked Bristol if there was any reason her mom shouldn't run, comedian Don Rickles exclaimed "'Cause she could lose!" The audience responded with resounding applause and things turned a wee bit awkward for a moment.


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Today's News: Our Take - Lindsay Lohan: I've Created a "Whirlwind of Garbage" Around Myself
In her first sit-down interview since completing her court-ordered 90-day stint in rehab, Lindsay Lohan told Oprah Winfrey that she's addicted to alcohol and chaos, but is committed to staying on the straight and narrow from here on out.
"I'm my own worst enemy," the actress said on Oprah's Next Chapter Sunday. "There are so many powers greater than me in the world, and I've been blessed and lucky enough to be given a gift to share with other people, and I think for so long I kept that so locked down and chained down, just by creating this whirlwind of garbage around myself."
Photos: Lindsay Lohan's biggest scandals
The recent stay was Lohan's sixth stint in rehab and the first one she took seriously, she told Winfrey. "I don't think in the past I've ever fully surrendered to the fact that I just really need to shut up and listen," she said. "In this case, I wasn't fighting at all. I just let go and was able to just be like, 'OK, you probably do know what's best.'
"The definition of insanity," she quipped. "Doing the same things over and over [and expecting a different result]."
Charlie Sheen and other celebrities who've overcome scandals
Elsewhere in the interview, Lohan told Winfrey that she's tried cocaine "10 or 15 times" in her life (an amendment to a previous admission that she had only tried it "two or three" times), but that alcohol was her preferred drug of choice. Since getting out of rehab, she said, she's only been taking vitamins and medicine for acid reflux, and claims that she's even given up Adderall.
Of her status as the prime example of a "child star gone wrong," Lohan told Winfrey: "I hate that label and that title. That's not what I ever aspired to be."
Fall TV Preview: Must-watch new shows
Going forward, Lohan tells Winfrey she feels more committed than ever before to getting her life and career back on track. (Her road to recovery, of course, will be the subject of an eight-episode docu-series commissioned by Winfrey herself that will air on OWN next year.)
"I'm in a different headspace. I don't want those things that I wanted before," Lohan said. "I don't blame anyone for my mistakes. ... I've been given a lot of chances, and I'm really lucky to still have the support and someone like you even coming and sitting to do this interview with me. And I'm grateful for it."
Did you watch Lohan's interview? Do you think she's finally changed?
View original Lindsay Lohan: I've Created a "Whirlwind of Garbage" Around Myself at TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com


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How do you define family? Is it just the people you're related to by blood or by marriage? Or does it include the friends that stand by you through thick and thin? What about the people that leave but come back? And what about those that live on only in your memory? In a world that is constantly redefining itself, who do you call your family?
Despite their differences Janey, Jill and Katie become best friends, bound together by the common stresses of working as post-grad students in Seattle in The Atlas of Love. When Jill becomes pregnant and then is abandoned by the baby's father, the three form a makeshift family and come together to raise Atlas themselves. Juggling teaching schedules, classes and child care at first seems just possible if everything goes smoothly, but of course, life is not smooth or predictable. Katie falls in love and decides to marry, Jill becomes depressed and begins to drift away and Janey struggles to hold everything together by herself. Then Atlas' absent father returns and the little family is thrown into chaos. The resulting turmoil of anger, fear, concern and yes, love means that while almost everything is different, one thing stays the same – family. Family that is no longer defined by rigid rules, but is flexible enough to encompass all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds, all drawn to one common goal – to love and support each other no matter what.
Narrated in Janey's wry voice, this book moves from laugh-out-loud funny to infuriating to sweet and sad as these young women define and redefine their own improvised family.


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Our species will forever be shamed by the things we have allowed to be perpetrated in Yemen, Syria, Palestine, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Burundi, Niger, South Sudan, Tibet, Myanmar, the U.S.A. and everywhere where people are being oppressed, tortured and killed.
"Our species does not have to be the doom of this beautiful planet or our co-inhabitants." Kehinde Sonola
The solutions exist. We need everyone involved to save this planet and ourselves.
#love #serenity #nature #humanity


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The looming battle over the defense budget could produce a useful national discussion about American foreign and defense policy. But we would need to begin by dispensing with the most commonly repeated fallacy: that cutting defense is essential to restoring the nation's fiscal health. People can be forgiven for believing this myth, given how often they hear it. Typical is a recent Foreign Affairs article claiming that the United States faces "a watershed moment" and "must decide whether to increase its already massive debt in order to continue being the world's sheriff or restrain its military missions and focus on economic recovery."
This is nonsense. No serious budget analyst or economist believes that cutting the defense budget will aid economic recovery in the near term—federal spending on defense is just as much a job-producing stimulus as federal spending on infrastructure. Nor, more importantly, do they believe that cutting defense spending will have more than the most marginal effect on reducing the runaway deficits projected for the coming years. The simple fact is, as my Brookings colleague and former budget czar Alice Rivlin recently observed, the scary projections of future deficits are not "caused by rising defense spending," and even if one assumes that defense spending continues to increase with the rate of inflation, this is "not what's driving the future spending." The engine of our growing debt is entitlements.
So why are the various commissions, including the Rivlin-Domenici commission, as well as members of Congress, calling for defense cuts at all? The answer boils down to one of fairness, and politics. It is not that cutting defense is necessary to save the economy. But if the American people are going to be asked to accept cuts in their domestic entitlements, the assumption runs, they're going to want to see the pain shared across the board, including by defense.
This "fair share" argument is at least more sober than phony "cut defense or kill the economy" sensationalism, and it has the appearance of reasonableness. But it is still based on a fallacy. Distributing cuts equally is not an intrinsically good thing. If you wanted to reduce the gas consumption of your gas-guzzling car by 10 percent, you wouldn't remove 10 percent of your front and rear bumpers so that all parts of the car shared the pain. The same goes for the federal budget. Not all cuts have equal effect on the national well-being. Few would propose cutting spending on airport security, for instance. At a time of elevated risk of terrorist attack, we don't need to show the American people that airport security is contributing its "fair share" to budget reduction.
Today the international situation is also one of high risk.
• The terrorists who would like to kill Americans on U.S. soil constantly search for safe havens from which to plan and carry out their attacks. American military actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere make it harder for them to strike and are a large part of the reason why for almost a decade there has been no repetition of September 11. To the degree that we limit our ability to deny them safe haven, we increase the chances they will succeed.
• American forces deployed in East Asia and the Western Pacific have for decades prevented the outbreak of major war, provided stability, and kept open international trading routes, making possible an unprecedented era of growth and prosperity for Asians and Americans alike. Now the United States faces a new challenge and potential threat from a rising China which seeks eventually to push the U.S. military's area of operations back to Hawaii and exercise hegemony over the world's most rapidly growing economies. Meanwhile, a nuclear-armed North Korea threatens war with South Korea and fires ballistic missiles over Japan that will someday be capable of reaching the west coast of the United States. Democratic nations in the region, worried that the United States may be losing influence, turn to Washington for reassurance that the U.S. security guarantee remains firm. If the United States cannot provide that assurance because it is cutting back its military capabilities, they will have to choose between accepting Chinese dominance and striking out on their own, possibly by building nuclear weapons.
• In the Middle East, Iran seeks to build its own nuclear arsenal, supports armed radical Islamic groups in Lebanon and Palestine, and has linked up with anti-American dictatorships in the Western Hemisphere. The prospects of new instability in the region grow every day as a decrepit regime in Egypt clings to power, crushes all moderate opposition, and drives the Muslim Brotherhood into the streets. A nuclear-armed Pakistan seems to be ever on the brink of collapse into anarchy and radicalism. Turkey, once an ally, now seems bent on an increasingly anti-American Islamist course. The prospect of war between Hezbollah and Israel grows, and with it the possibility of war between Israel and Syria and possibly Iran. There, too, nations in the region increasingly look to Washington for reassurance, and if they decide the United States cannot be relied upon they will have to decide whether to succumb to Iranian influence or build their own nuclear weapons to resist it.
In the 1990s, after the Soviet Union had collapsed and the biggest problem in the world seemed to be ethnic conflict in the Balkans, it was at least plausible to talk about cutting back on American military capabilities. In the present, increasingly dangerous international environment, in which terrorism and great power rivalry vie as the greatest threat to American security and interests, cutting military capacities is simply reckless. Would we increase the risk of strategic failure in an already risky world, despite the near irrelevance of the defense budget to American fiscal health, just so we could tell American voters that their military had suffered its "fair share" of the pain?
The nature of the risk becomes plain when one considers the nature of the cuts that would have to be made to have even a marginal effect on the U.S. fiscal crisis. Many are under the illusion, for instance, that if the United States simply withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan and didn't intervene anywhere else for a while, this would have a significant impact on future deficits. But, in fact, projections of future massive deficits already assume the winding down of these interventions.Withdrawal from the two wars would scarcely make a dent in the fiscal crisis. Nor can meaningful reductions be achieved by cutting back on waste at the Pentagon—which Secretary of Defense Gates has already begun to do and which has also been factored into deficit projections. If the United States withdrew from Iran and Afghanistan tomorrow, cut all the waste Gates can find, and even eliminated a few weapons programs—all this together would still not produce a 10 percent decrease in overall defense spending.
In fact, the only way to get significant savings from the defense budget—and by "significant," we are still talking about a tiny fraction of the cuts needed to bring down future deficits—is to cut force structure: fewer troops on the ground; fewer airplanes in the skies; fewer ships in the water; fewer soldiers, pilots, and sailors to feed and clothe and provide benefits for. To cut the size of the force, however, requires reducing or eliminating the missions those forces have been performing. Of course, there are any number of think tank experts who insist U.S. forces can be cut by a quarter or third or even by half and still perform those missions. But this is snake oil. Over the past two decades, the force has already been cut by a third. Yet no administration has reduced the missions that the larger force structures of the past were designed to meet. To fulfill existing security commitments, to remain the "world's power balancer of choice," as Leslie Gelb puts it, to act as "the only regional balancer against China in Asia, Russia in eastern Europe, and Iran in the Middle East" requires at least the current force structure, and almost certainly more than current force levels. Those who recommend doing the same with less are only proposing a policy of insufficiency, where the United States makes commitments it cannot meet except at high risk of failure.
The only way to find substantial savings in the defense budget, therefore, is to change American strategy fundamentally. The Simpson-Bowles commission suggests as much, by calling for a reexamination of America's "21st century role," although it doesn't begin to define what that new role might be.
Others have. For decades "realist" analysts have called for a strategy of "offshore balancing." Instead of the United States providing security in East Asia and the Persian Gulf, it would withdraw its forces from Japan, South Korea, and the Middle East and let the nations in those regions balance one another. If the balance broke down and war erupted, the United States would then intervene militarily until balance was restored. In the Middle East and Persian Gulf, for instance, Christopher Layne has long proposed "passing the mantle of regional stabilizer" to a consortium of "Russia, China, Iran, and India." In East Asia offshore balancing would mean letting China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others manage their own problems, without U.S. involvement—again, until the balance broke down and war erupted, at which point the United States would provide assistance to restore the balance and then, if necessary, intervene with its own forces to restore peace and stability.
Before examining whether this would be a wise strategy, it is important to understand that this really is the only genuine alternative to the one the United States has pursued for the past 65 years. To their credit, Layne and others who support the concept of offshore balancing have eschewed halfway measures and airy assurances that we can do more with less, which are likely recipes for disaster. They recognize that either the United States is actively involved in providing security and stability in regions beyond the Western Hemisphere, which means maintaining a robust presence in those regions, or it is not. Layne and others are frank in calling for an end to the global security strategy developed in the aftermath of World War II, perpetuated through the Cold War, and continued by four successive post-Cold War administrations.
At the same time, it is not surprising that none of those administrations embraced offshore balancing as a strategy. The idea of relying on Russia, China, and Iran to jointly "stabilize" the Middle East and Persian Gulf will not strike many as an attractive proposition. Nor is U.S. withdrawal from East Asia and the Pacific likely to have a stabilizing effect on that region. The prospects of a war on the Korean Peninsula would increase. Japan and other nations in the region would face the choice of succumbing to Chinese hegemony or taking unilateral steps for self-defense, which in Japan's case would mean the rapid creation of a formidable nuclear arsenal.
Layne and other offshore balancing enthusiasts, like John Mearsheimer, point to two notable occasions when the United States allegedly practiced this strategy. One was the Iran-Iraq war, where the United States supported Iraq for years against Iran in the hope that the two would balance and weaken each other. The other was American policy in the 1920s and 1930s, when the United States allowed the great European powers to balance one another, occasionally providing economic aid, or military aid, as in the Lend-Lease program of assistance to Great Britain once war broke out. Whether this was really American strategy in that era is open for debate—most would argue the United States in this era was trying to stay out of war not as part of a considered strategic judgment but as an end in itself. Even if the United States had been pursuing offshore balancing in the first decades of the 20th century, however, would we really call that strategy a success? The United States wound up intervening with millions of troops, first in Europe, and then in Asia and Europe simultaneously, in the two most dreadful wars in human history.
It was with the memory of those two wars in mind, and in the belief that American strategy in those interwar years had been mistaken, that American statesmen during and after World War II determined on the new global strategy that the United States has pursued ever since. Under Franklin Roosevelt, and then under the leadership of Harry Truman and Dean Acheson, American leaders determined that the safest course was to build "situations of strength" (Acheson's phrase) in strategic locations around the world, to build a "preponderance of power," and to create an international system with American power at its center. They left substantial numbers of troops in East Asia and in Europe and built a globe-girdling system of naval and air bases to enable the rapid projection of force to strategically important parts of the world. They did not do this on a lark or out of a yearning for global dominion. They simply rejected the offshore balancing strategy, and they did so because they believed it had led to great, destructive wars in the past and would likely do so again. They believed their new global strategy was more likely to deter major war and therefore be less destructive and less expensive in the long run. Subsequent administrations, from both parties and with often differing perspectives on the proper course in many areas of foreign policy, have all agreed on this core strategic approach.
From the beginning this strategy was assailed as too ambitious and too expensive. At the dawn of the Cold War, Walter Lippmann railed against Truman's containment strategy as suffering from an unsustainable gap between ends and means that would bankrupt the United States and exhaust its power. Decades later, in the waning years of the Cold War, Paul Kennedy warned of "imperial overstretch," arguing that American decline was inevitable "if the trends in national indebtedness, low productivity increases, [etc.]" were allowed to continue at the same time as "massive American commitments of men, money and materials are made in different parts of the globe." Today, we are once again being told that this global strategy needs to give way to a more restrained and modest approach, even though the indebtedness crisis that we face in coming years is not caused by the present, largely successful global strategy.
Of course it is precisely the success of that strategy that is taken for granted. The enormous benefits that this strategy has provided, including the financial benefits, somehow never appear on the ledger. They should. We might begin by asking about the global security order that the United States has sustained since Word War II—the prevention of major war, the support of an open trading system, and promotion of the liberal principles of free markets and free government. How much is that order worth? What would be the cost of its collapse or transformation into another type of order?
Whatever the nature of the current economic difficulties, the past six decades have seen a greater increase in global prosperity than any time in human history. Hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty. Once-backward nations have become economic dynamos. And the American economy, though suffering ups and downs throughout this period, has on the whole benefited immensely from this international order. One price of this success has been maintaining a sufficient military capacity to provide the essential security underpinnings of this order. But has the price not been worth it? In the first half of the 20th century, the United States found itself engaged in two world wars. In the second half, this global American strategy helped produce a peaceful end to the great-power struggle of the Cold War and then 20 more years of great-power peace. Looked at coldly, simply in terms of dollars and cents, the benefits of that strategy far outweigh the costs.
The danger, as always, is that we don't even realize the benefits our strategic choices have provided. Many assume that the world has simply become more peaceful, that great-power conflict has become impossible, that nations have learned that military force has little utility, that economic power is what counts. This belief in progress and the perfectibility of humankind and the institutions of international order is always alluring to Americans and Europeans and other children of the Enlightenment. It was the prevalent belief in the decade before World War I, in the first years after World War II, and in those heady days after the Cold War when people spoke of the "end of history." It is always tempting to believe that the international order the United States built and sustained with its power can exist in the absence of that power, or at least with much less of it. This is the hidden assumption of those who call for a change in American strategy: that the United States can stop playing its role and yet all the benefits that came from that role will keep pouring in. This is a great if recurring illusion, the idea that you can pull a leg out from under a table and the table will not fall over.
Much of the present debate, it should be acknowledged, is not about the defense budget or the fiscal crisis at all. It is only the latest round in a long-running debate over the nature and purposes of American foreign policy. At the tactical level, some use the fiscal crisis as a justification for a different approach to, say, Afghanistan. Richard Haass, for instance, who has long favored a change of strategy from "counterinsurgency" to "counterterrorism," now uses the budget crisis to bolster his case—although he leaves unclear how much money would be saved by such a shift in strategy.
At the broader level of grand strategy, the current debate, though revived by the budget crisis, can be traced back a century or more, but its most recent expression came with the end of the Cold War. In the early 1990s, some critics, often calling themselves "realists," expressed their unhappiness with a foreign policy—first under George H.W. Bush and then under Bill Clinton—that cast the United States as leader of a "new world order," the "indispensable nation." As early as 1992, Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson assailed President Bush for launching the first Persian Gulf war in response to Saddam Hussein's invasion and occupation of Kuwait. They charged him with pursuing "a new world role . . . required neither by security need nor by traditional conceptions of the nation's purpose," a role that gave "military force" an "excessive and disproportionate . . . position in our statecraft."
Tucker and Hendrickson were frank enough to acknowledge that, pace Paul Kennedy, the "peril" was not actually "to the nation's purse" or even to "our interests" but to the nation's "soul." This has always been the core critique of expansive American foreign policy doctrines, from the time of the Founders to the present—not that a policy of extensive global involvement is necessarily impractical but that it is immoral and contrary to the nation's true ideals.
Today this alleged profligacy in the use of force is variously attributed to the influence of "neoconservatives" or to those Mearsheimer calls the "liberal imperialists" of the Clinton administration, who have presumably now taken hold of the Obama administration as well. But the critics share a common premise: that if only the United States would return to a more "normal" approach to the world, intervening abroad far less frequently and eschewing efforts at "nation-building," then this would allow the United States to cut back on the resources it expends on foreign policy.
Thanks to Haass's clever formulation, there has been a great deal of talk lately about "wars of choice" as opposed to "wars of necessity." Haass labels both the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan "wars of choice." Today, many ask whether the United States can simply avoid such allegedly optional interventions in the future, as well as the occupations and exercises in "nation-building" that often seem to follow.
Although the idea of eliminating "wars of choice" appears sensible, the historical record suggests it will not be as simple as many think. The problem is, almost every war or intervention the United States has engaged in throughout its history has been optional—and not just the Bosnias, Haitis, Somalias, or Vietnams, but the Korean War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and even World War II (at least the war in Europe), not to mention the many armed interventions throughout Latin America and the Caribbean over the course of the past century, from Cuba in 1898 to Panama in 1989. A case can be made, and has been made by serious historians, that every one of these wars and interventions was avoidable and unnecessary. To note that our most recent wars have also been wars of choice, therefore, is not as useful as it seems.
In theory, the United States could refrain from intervening abroad. But, in practice, will it? Many assume today that the American public has had it with interventions, and Alice Rivlin certainly reflects a strong current of opinion when she says that "much of the public does not believe that we need to go in and take over other people's countries." That sentiment has often been heard after interventions, especially those with mixed or dubious results. It was heard after the four-year-long war in the Philippines, which cost 4,000 American lives and untold Filipino casualties. It was heard after Korea and after Vietnam. It was heard after Somalia. Yet the reality has been that after each intervention, the sentiment against foreign involvement has faded, and the United States has intervened again.
Depending on how one chooses to count, the United States has undertaken roughly 25 overseas interventions since 1898:
Cuba, 1898 The Philippines, 1898-1902 China, 1900 Cuba, 1906 Nicaragua, 1910 & 1912 Mexico, 1914 Haiti, 1915 Dominican Republic, 1916 Mexico, 1917 World War I, 1917-1918 Nicaragua, 1927 World War II, 1941-1945 Korea, 1950-1953 Lebanon, 1958 Vietnam, 1963-1973 Dominican Republic, 1965 Grenada, 1983 Panama, 1989 First Persian Gulf war, 1991 Somalia, 1992 Haiti, 1994 Bosnia, 1995 Kosovo, 1999 Afghanistan, 2001-present Iraq, 2003-present
That is one intervention every 4.5 years on average. Overall, the United States has intervened or been engaged in combat somewhere in 52 out of the last 112 years, or roughly 47 percent of the time. Since the end of the Cold War, it is true, the rate of U.S. interventions has increased, with an intervention roughly once every 2.5 years and American troops intervening or engaged in combat in 16 out of 22 years, or over 70 percent of the time, since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The argument for returning to "normal" begs the question: What is normal for the United States? The historical record of the last century suggests that it is not a policy of nonintervention. This record ought to raise doubts about the theory that American behavior these past two decades is the product of certain unique ideological or doctrinal movements, whether "liberal imperialism" or "neoconservatism." Allegedly "realist" presidents in this era have been just as likely to order interventions as their more idealistic colleagues. George H.W. Bush was as profligate an intervener as Bill Clinton. He invaded Panama in 1989, intervened in Somalia in 1992—both on primarily idealistic and humanitarian grounds—which along with the first Persian Gulf war in 1991 made for three interventions in a single four-year term. Since 1898 the list of presidents who ordered armed interventions abroad has included William McKinley, Theodore Roose-velt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. One would be hard-pressed to find a common ideological or doctrinal thread among them—unless it is the doctrine and ideology of a mainstream American foreign policy that leans more toward intervention than many imagine or would care to admit.
Many don't want to admit it, and the only thing as consistent as this pattern of American behavior has been the claim by contemporary critics that it is abnormal and a departure from American traditions. The anti-imperialists of the late 1890s, the isolationists of the 1920s and 1930s, the critics of Korea and Vietnam, and the critics of the first Persian Gulf war, the interventions in the Balkans, and the more recent wars of the Bush years have all insisted that the nation had in those instances behaved unusually or irrationally. And yet the behavior has continued.
To note this consistency is not the same as justifying it. The United States may have been wrong for much of the past 112 years. Some critics would endorse the sentiment expressed by the historian Howard K. Beale in the 1950s, that "the men of 1900" had steered the United States onto a disastrous course of world power which for the subsequent half-century had done the United States and the world no end of harm. But whether one lauds or condemns this past century of American foreign policy—and one can find reasons to do both—the fact of this consistency remains. It would require not just a modest reshaping of American foreign policy priorities but a sharp departure from this tradition to bring about the kinds of changes that would allow the United States to make do with a substantially smaller force structure.
Is such a sharp departure in the offing? It is no doubt true that many Americans are unhappy with the on-going warfare in Afghanistan and to a lesser extent in Iraq, and that, if asked, a majority would say the United States should intervene less frequently in foreign nations, or perhaps not at all. It may also be true that the effect of long military involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan may cause Americans and their leaders to shun further interventions at least for a few years—as they did for nine years after World War I, five years after World War II, and a decade after Vietnam. This may be further reinforced by the difficult economic times in which Americans are currently suffering. The longest period of nonintervention in the past century was during the 1930s, when unhappy memories of World War I combined with the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression to constrain American interventionism to an unusual degree and produce the first and perhaps only genuinely isolationist period in American history.
So are we back to the mentality of the 1930s? It wouldn't appear so. There is no great wave of isolationism sweeping the country. There is not even the equivalent of a Patrick Buchanan, who received 3 million votes in the 1992 Republican primaries. Any isolationist tendencies that might exist are severely tempered by continuing fears of terrorist attacks that might be launched from overseas. Nor are the vast majority of Americans suffering from economic calamity to nearly the degree that they did in the Great Depression.
Even if we were to repeat the policies of the 1930s, however, it is worth recalling that the unusual restraint of those years was not sufficient to keep the United States out of war. On the contrary, the United States took actions which ultimately led to the greatest and most costly foreign intervention in its history. Even the most determined and in those years powerful isolationists could not prevent it.
Today there are a number of obvious possible contingencies that might lead the United States to substantial interventions overseas, notwithstanding the preference of the public and its political leaders to avoid them. Few Americans want a war with Iran, for instance. But it is not implausible that a president—indeed, this president—might find himself in a situation where military conflict at some level is hard to avoid. The continued success of the international sanctions regime that the Obama administration has so skillfully put into place, for instance, might eventually cause the Iranian government to lash out in some way—perhaps by attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz. Recall that Japan launched its attack on Pearl Harbor in no small part as a response to oil sanctions imposed by a Roosevelt administration that had not the slightest interest or intention of fighting a war against Japan but was merely expressing moral outrage at Japanese behavior on the Chinese mainland. Perhaps in an Iranian contingency, the military actions would stay limited. But perhaps, too, they would escalate. One could well imagine an American public, now so eager to avoid intervention, suddenly demanding that their president retaliate. Then there is the possibility that a military exchange between Israel and Iran, initiated by Israel, could drag the United States into conflict with Iran. Are such scenarios so farfetched that they can be ruled out by Pentagon planners?
Other possible contingencies include a war on the Korean Peninsula, where the United States is bound by treaty to come to the aid of its South Korean ally; and possible interventions in Yemen or Somalia, should those states fail even more than they already have and become even more fertile ground for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. And what about those "humanitarian" interventions that are first on everyone's list to be avoided? Should another earthquake or some other natural or man-made catastrophe strike, say, Haiti and present the looming prospect of mass starvation and disease and political anarchy just a few hundred miles off U.S. shores, with the possibility of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of refugees, can anyone be confident that an American president will not feel compelled to send an intervention force to help?
Some may hope that a smaller U.S. military, compelled by the necessity of budget constraints, would prevent a president from intervening. More likely, however, it would simply prevent a president from intervening effectively. This, after all, was the experience of the Bush administration in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both because of constraints and as a conscious strategic choice, the Bush administration sent too few troops to both countries. The results were lengthy, unsuccessful conflicts, burgeoning counterinsurgencies, and loss of confidence in American will and capacity, as well as large annual expenditures. Would it not have been better, and also cheaper, to have sent larger numbers of forces initially to both places and brought about a more rapid conclusion to the fighting? The point is, it may prove cheaper in the long run to have larger forces that can fight wars quickly and conclusively, as Colin Powell long ago suggested, than to have smaller forces that can't. Would a defense planner trying to anticipate future American actions be wise to base planned force structure on the assumption that the United States is out of the intervention business? Or would that be the kind of penny-wise, pound-foolish calculation that, in matters of national security, can prove so unfortunate?
The debates over whether and how the United States should respond to the world's strategic challenges will and should continue. Armed interventions overseas should be weighed carefully, as always, with an eye to whether the risk of inaction is greater than the risks of action. And as always, these judgments will be merely that: judgments, made with inadequate information and intelligence and no certainty about the outcomes. No foreign policy doctrine can avoid errors of omission and commission. But history has provided some lessons, and for the United States the lesson has been fairly clear: The world is better off, and the United States is better off, in the kind of international system that American power has built and defended.
As Haass and Roger C. Altman have correctly noted, "it is not reckless American activity in the world that jeopardizes American solvency but American profligacy at home." The United States may be in peril because of its spiraling deficits and mounting debt, but it will be in even greater peril if, out of some misguided sense that our national security budgets must "share the pain," we weaken ourselves even further.
Robert Kagan is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.