Hurricanes all around us!

We are surrounded by hurricanes.  There are three going on in our part of the Pacific right now.  The map above shows Hawai'i in the middle (from WunderMap). 

The Pacific ocean is unusually warm.  It has been very warm and humid here with more rain than normal.  Ridges in the distance like diamond head are turning green and they are usually brown this time of year.  It is also hard to sleep at night because of the heat (we don't have air conditioning).  The heat index last night at midnight was 90 degrees F. 

"Patriot" act still not dead

A federal appeals court reversed a lower court ruling that the NSA eavesdropping on the telephones of hundreds of millions of Americans (link).  Also, have a look at this article (Patriot Act is counter to the ideals of this nation)

Here it is again people; the fourth amendment. 

Fourth Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Of course over time various governments have tried to engineer loopholes such as the "third-party exception," the "silver platter doctrine" and even the "Barny Fife loophole."  However, how can these be valid without a constitutional amendment---if the constitution is the supreme law of the United States?  The fourth amendment was written to stand on its own; there is no phrase in it that says "except as determined by government loopholes."

How about we all start adding the fourth amendment to our email signatures?  Just to remind the people who are reading our email how illegal that is.  That is both a fourth amendment and first amendment issue.

Below is a draft I put together for people to use:

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Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The fourth amendment means whoever is eavesdropping on this email without permission is violating federal law. Email is a document and is the modern equivalent of "papers and effects" in the wording of the constitution. This includes federal employees working for federal agencies. No legal loopholes are allowed according to the constitution (the supreme law of the United States of America) and there is no indemnification by your employer; you are personally responsible and accountable. If you have read this I have to advise you to turn yourself in to the local law authorities for prosecution---I will be pressing charges---in order to avoid possible obstruction of justice charges being added to your case.

First Amendment to the United States Constitution
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Email is a form of speech and a form of press in the sense of the wording of the first amendment. This means that I am within my rights to give the notice above about fourth amendment violations.

Geography Quiz Answers

What is the capital of Canada?  Ottowa (not Toronto)

What is the capital of Australia?  Canberra (not Sydney)

By land, what is the minimum number of countries you have to cross to get from Norway to North Korea?  One, Russia borders both. 

What is the third largest country by population?  The United States

Which country has the largest Christian population in the world?  The United States

What country has most of the world's Muslims? Indonesia

How many countries in Scandinavia are not in the EU?  Depending on your definition of Scandinavia: The most narrow definition is continental Norway, Denmark and Sweden.  Norway is not part of the EU---so one.  However, Iceland is also sometimes considered part of Scandinavia and is not in the EU---two.  Greenland is politically a part of Denmark and was part of the EEC (European Economic Community, which was a forerunner to the EU) but voted to withdraw in 1982---so perhaps the answer is three.  Svalbard is a semi-international area that is administered as a part of Norway, but it is complicated (see the Svalbard treaty and the Politics of Svalbard), for example, US citizens can live and work there without a visa---so maybe the answer climbs to three and a half.  I am actually quite proud of knowing about this.  One time while living in Europe a French citizen accused me of not knowing about geography because I was an American.  Then a few sentences later he couldn't remember the name of "the country in Scandinavia that was not part of the EU" and I got to rake him over the coals with my response (he was thinking of Norway, but I didn't let him get off so easily).  It is a stretch but we could try to push the number up even higher; the Kola Norwegians live in what is today a part of Russia, which is not in the EU; it is not clear to me that the Kola Peninsula and the area around Murmansk should not be considered part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, especially given the cultural and historical ties to Norway---three and three quarters.  Another complicated answer is how many nations in Scandinavia are part of the EU?  Read about Åland, the Faroe Islands, and Sápmi, for a start. 

 Apart from Mexico and Canada, which the US shares borders with, what is the closest country to the US geographically? Let's jump to one of the most extreme stretches.  It could be argued that the US also shares a land border with Chile and New Zealand...to be continued. 

51 Eridani b

The Gemeni Planet Imager snapped a photo of a planet 96 light years away, 51 Eridani b. 

The planet is hot and glowing in the infrared.  It is the dot next to the "b" in the image above.  The GPI uses optical tricks to mask most of the light from the star it orbits (resulting in the circular mottled artifacts in the image), which at this distance would otherwise swamp out the light coming from the planet.  It is orbiting 51 Eridani at about the distance of Saturn from the sun. 

It is easy to be underwhelmed with all the news coming out about planets outside of our solar system in recent years.  Just dwell on this for a moment.  If someone had asked you, would you think it was possible to see the light, from a planet, 9.08 × 10¹⁵ kilometers (5.64 × 10¹⁴ miles) away? 

Using nuclear exhaust and traveling at 10% of the speed of light it would take a probe about 1,000 years to travel that distance (although less time would occur on the probe because of relativistic time dilation) to get its own close up picture. 

over polarized political news

I found a nice CNN op-ed by Julian Zelizer that spells out many things about modern "news" that bother me but I have not been able to articulate as well.  Here is a link to the original and I have quoted some passages that stand out to me in particular below:

"The insistence on dividing politics into clear categories of "liberal" versus "conservative" ... has remained so through our current age, when everything must be red or blue. ... public opinion is often all over the place on key policy issues, news coverage, like politicians, tends to play into a more polarized vision of politics."

"The problem is that this kind of news coverage actually plays a big role in polarizing the electorate. Rather than presenting nuance and areas of agreement, television news has tended to offer politics that stress one position or the other. The divisions are further amplified by the fact that more Americans now tune in to networks, and websites, that present the news from a partisan perspective. The cycle never ends. "

"... the fight between them was more important than the substance of what they said. While humans love to watch confrontation and conflict, there were many people like ...Walter Cronkite in this formative era of news who didn't believe that it was the job of their industry to satisfy those demands. Rather it was to provide the best information and reporting about the big stories of the day. The rest was for the entertainment shows."

"Too much of television news is now about the fight between the panelists, not the issues. ... For decades, there has been a premium on panelists who can light up the airwaves with dramatic and contentious arguments. ..., viewers often tune in to see the panelists go after one another rather than try to rationally work through the problems of the day. The incentives for television hosts and panelists is to be confrontational and to be shocking. That draws the ratings."

"The medium has changed even more dramatically since the 1990s. Rather than having left and right on one show, we have now divided left and right on different networks. Media personalities ... argue about the people who are no longer in the room, ..."

"One of the worst effects of these trends has been that the public has decreasing trust in the news as an institution. A recent study by the Newseum Institute found that only 24% polled believed the news is unbiased. Last year, Gallup found that trust in the news media has reached an all-time low."

A Few Geography Questions

I have a few questions about geography that I like to ask people.  A good one to ask people in the US is "what is the capital of Canada, a country on our own border."  It is surprising how many people cannot answer that.  The capital of Australia is another one.

This one is fun: By land, what is the minimum number of countries you have to cross to get from Norway to North Korea.

Some questions do not have a single answer and depend on definitions that are not always clear.  Like, how many countries in Scandinavia are not in the EU.  Also, apart from Mexico and Canada, which the US shares borders with, what is the closest country to the US geographically.

Most people can tell you right away what the two largest countries are by population, China and India.  However, people often have a hard time saying what the third and fourth largest countries are by population.  Think about it for a moment.

Okay, I'll give away one of the answers.  Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world by population.  A surprising number of people (and not just Americans) cannot even point to Indonesia on a map.  The common language, Indonesian, is one of the easiest languages to learn.  How many people do you know that have studied Indonesian?  Can you take this as a class in schools in the US?  I suspect Indonesia will become a larger international player in the future, definitely in an economic sense.  We should plan ahead to capitalize on this.

Bonus questions: Which country has the largest Christian population in the world? What country has most of the world's Muslims?