What Caught My Eye Today - Sarah Palin, Soccer, Space Weather, Demographics, Potpourri

Fred's Note: It seemed like forever since we have been enlightened by the great political minds of the day. Then out of the blue, Michele Bachmann took center stage by announcing she would not seek another term in office (an election which in all likelihood she would have lost). And now, in what can only be described as a feast of riches, the original "mama bear" has some fresh words of wisdom to bestow on us.

Sarah Palin - Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin criticized the Obama administration's decision to supply weapons to the rebels in the civil war in Syria, arguing that the U.S. should "Let Allah sort it out" until there is a stronger leader in the White House.  Oh snap. You go, girlfriend! 

"Militarily, where is our commander in chief? We're talking now more new interventions. I say until we know what we're doing, until we have a commander in chief who knows what he's doing, well, let these radical Islamic countries who aren't even respecting basic human rights, where both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line, 'Allah Akbar,' I say until we have someone who knows what they're doing, I say let Allah sort it out."

Sarah Palin's grasp of foreign affairs is a marvel to behold isn't it? At least she got the 'Allah Akbar' reference correct, although the context might be a tad bit off. Though she has often served as the butt of jokes on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," Palin joked about the frequency with which the comedy show makes fun of her, saying she's provided an ample amount of jokes and jobs for comedians. "They should think of me as a friend. For a while there, I was providing more job security for the Tina Feys of the world and doing more for those employment numbers than Obama's ever done." On this Palin and I are in complete agreement. Sarah Palin has done far more to ensure the gainful employment of Tina Fey than Barack Obama could imagine in his wildest dreams.

Soccer - For those of you that follow such things, in addition to FIFA World Cup qualifying for next year's event, there is a warm-up tournament underway in Brazil called the Confederations Cup.  This story isn't directly related to either one, but does illustrate just how much passion there is for the beautiful game.  Unfortunately, in this case that passion, is not such a beautiful thing. Argentina has banned all fans of visiting teams from attending soccer games after a fan was recently killed by police at a game, the latest of more than 70 soccer fans killed at games in Argentina since 2000. Hundreds of visiting fans joined in a brawl which was broken up by police firing rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. Argentina's Security Minister said police would no longer use rubber bullets at sporting events, and also announced the ban on away fans saying that patrolling games was a waste of police resources.  On one hand, this seems a little extreme, not to mention the question of how a visitor ban could possibly be enforced.  But when you consider how many people of died and the cost of trying to keep unruly fans under control, you can sort of sympathize with the decision that was made.  Personally, I think this is mostly political posturing. The fact that such posturing has been deemed necessary is the tragedy here.

Space Weather - It's been a pretty tough year, climatically speaking, so far in much of the United States.  The end of 2012 saw the East Coast get shellacked by Super Storm Sandy while much of the mid-section of the country was suffering from record drought conditions. 2013 hasn't been much better. Torrential rains, deadly tornadoes and something called a 'derecho' (click here) have devastated the Midwest, while high winds have helped kickoff what looks to be one of the worst fire seasons on record across most western states.  And hurricane season has barely started. But consider this...it could always be worse. A severe geomagnetic storm—a sudden, violent eruption of gas and magnetic fields from the sun's surface—could prove particularly devastating. Magnetic storms can force Earth's magnetic fields to go temporarily haywire, overwhelming power grids. The biggest geomagnetic storm on record occurred in 1859, known as the 1859 Solar Super Storm or "Carrington Event (click here). An analysis conducted by Metatech for the Electromagnetic Pulse Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency found that the effects of a severe geomagnetic storm would not only be widespread, but long-lived. All kinds of sectors would be impacted by a power failure. Fuel, food, water, sanitation, communications, medical/health, finance, and transportation would all feel cascading effects. Many businesses rely solely on satellite navigation for transportation on land and sea, and cell phones would be vulnerable to interference. I can take clogged up toilets, food shortages and tainted water supplies, but when you start messing with my satellite TV, you are definitely poking the bear. Hurricane Katrina caused roughly $80 billion to $125 billion in damage, according to the report. A future geomagnetic storm could cost 10 to 20 times as much and take up to a decade to fully recover from.

Demographics - For the first time, America's racial and ethnic minorities now make up about half of the under-5 age group. If the significance of this is not yet evident, not to worry read on. Might I also suggest enrollment in a remedial statistics course. The new census estimates, a snapshot of the U.S. population as of July 2012, comes a year after the Census Bureau reported that whites had fallen to a minority among babies. Fueled by immigration and high rates of birth, particularly among Hispanics, racial and ethnic minorities are now growing more rapidly in numbers than whites. Stay with me now. The government also projects that in five years, minorities will make up more than half of children under 18. Not long after, the total U.S. white population will begin an inexorable decline in absolute numbers, due to aging baby boomers. Alright then, let's connect those dots, shall we? There are now about the same number of minorities in the under-5 age group as there are whites, and that number is growing. Logic dictates that most minority children in the under-5 age group will make it into the under-18 age group. At same time, a lot of whites at the other end of the age spectrum will, at some point in the not too distant future, begin to shuffle off this mortal coil.  So to summarize, more minorities entering the population than whites and more whites leaving the population than minorities.  Any questions?

Potpourri - In this edition we have a "why bother?", a "damn, that's a big number", and a "I'm sure this is probably important, but am not sure why".

• Surveillance - The U.S. federal government made 33,900 surveillance applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from 1979 through 2012. The court approved all by 11, or 99.97%.
  I suppose it is mathematically possible that 33,889 of these surveillance applications were legitimate and that the court is doing its job adequately.  I just don't see how it is realistic.
• Data - An estimated 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data are created daily, due largely to the proliferation of smartphones and other mobile devices. 90% of all the digital data in the world has been created within the last two years.
  Bear in mind that data and information are two different things.  A cut cat video certainly constitutes data, but I challenge anyone to justify how watching Fluffy fall into the toilet would meet the definition of information.  
• Political Partisanship - Either the Democrats or Republicans control  both the legislature and the governorship in all by 13 states. As a result, blues states are moving to the left on issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion, unions and taxes, while red states are moving to the right.
  The author of the article I read that cites this factoid, made any interesting observation... America is splitting apart without an actual civil war.  Something to think about, wouldn't you say?