Advice To Blog Writers

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Several times over the last month, surely coincidentally, I have been asked how it is that I can write a daily column. The rejoinder is trivially obvious: that every day I write a daily column.

There is no deep understanding required. If you don’t do the work, the work won’t get done. And so the answer is to sound like my father: self-discipline! If you want to be a blogger who everyday writes a column, you must everyday write a column.

Write!So much for how: on to why and what.

First why. Like all writers, even sort-of-semi-professional bloggers, I write for two reasons: I love the sound of my own voice and I desire money. Just as with the staff of the New York Times, I am convinced the world would tend towards Utopia were it only to follow my advice. I am therefore determined to issue this advice as often as possible.

This conflicts with the one piece of advice from my father that I have never been able to follow: “Never pass up an opportunity to keep your mouth shut.” (Luckily, this is one that has evaded him, too.) I justify my loquacity on the grounds that this website is the only way I have of people with money noticing me and then, with luck, hiring me. And if they hire me, I can eat and perhaps make the rent.

Now what. In an particular episode Rumpole of the Bailey our barrister is on a cruise and made to attend a lecture given by a pompous mystery writer with the theme, “How I Think Up My Plots.” Here then are how I think up my posts and what I think of them.

1. Wake up at 5 am. Stare at screen in the dreadful realization that all the ideas I had yesterday for topics have gone missing, have evaporated completely from my consciousness. Look at email hoping for inspiration—which I often find, thanks to you, my loyal readers—drink coffee, stare out window in a blank daze, refill coffee, realize that I have real work to do and that deadlines loom, finally start hacking out something on the one or two areas in which I have some expertise.

2. The trick is to carry a notebook everywhere, jotting ideas into it as soon as they occur. Noble plan, but I have never mastered it. I sometimes tote the notebook, but I can only rarely be bothered to open the damn thing and write anything. Do you know how long that takes? In the rare instances I manage to scrawl a pearl or two, I can never later understand what I meant.

It’s not just that my handwriting is notorious, but I have never learned to summarize intelligently. For instance, just what in hell did I mean by the note, “Utility Bill”? There is next to it a drawing of a stick figure. Did I mean this to be Bill himself, in a kind of atrocious pun? Or did I have in mind this is how one looks after the monthly mugging by ConEd?

3. General advice: try not be bore and avoid clichés like the plague. Unless used ironically, and even then, when one is seen, rip it out. And not just rip it out, smack yourself on the wrist, and look at yourself in the mirror with a look of superior disdain. If you knew my high school teacher Sister Dorothy, you’d know just what I mean.

4. You never know which columns will be popular. I have tracked this and have discovered that the posts which receive the most traffic or discussion are those which are written on the order of twenty minutes. If I don’t care about them, you will. The funnier I think a joke is, the flatter it falls.

5. There are only two kinds of blogs, lists and columns. I have no advice for list writers. But if you write columns, stick to standard length, which is about 750 words. Columns much shorter than this turn into lists. If you must say more than space allows, break it up across days. People don’t have the patience to read longer works on a computer screen.

6. If you ever become truly stuck for topics, write about how you are stuck for topics.

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Global Warming: Is Weight Loss A Solution?

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That title is taken from an article of the same name in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Obesity by Gryka, Bloom, and Rolland, themselves from the Centre for Obesity Research and Epidemiology in Aberdeen.

The International Journal of Obesity is not to be confused with the journal Obesity, nor the Journal of Obesity, nor Obesity Reviews, nor The European Journal of Obesity, nor Obesity Research, nor Obesity Management, nor any other of the half dozen titles focusing on this mysterious disease. (Also see this.)

Before we start: when reading obesity “studies” I am always put in mind of The Onion “story” in which busy doctors, worn thin by scurrying about, missing meals, treading hallways and stairways, are perplexed by their inability to discover the source of obesity.1

Anyway, Gryka and pals assembled together a whopping 25 fat folks with type-2 diabetes and stuck them on a “low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet” for six months. Having somebody breathing down your neck and pestering you to stop eating so damn much usually works, as far as diets go, and it worked here, too. The small sample of people lost an average of 10 kilograms (about 22 pounds).

Now it is true that if you were to haul around a 10-kilo weight you will expand more energy than if you did not, all else equal. Expending more energy means sucking up more oxygen, and thus expelling more carbon dioxide. A person with 10-kilo of extra stuffing around the short ribs will thus expel more CO2 than the same person grown svelter.

Therefore, ceteris paribus, fatter people will spew more CO2 than thin ones.

So much is not disputed, and is, in fact, indisputable. But from these simple truths, Gryka and pals conclude:

On the basis of the current data, for every 1 kg of body mass lost, the CO2 production would decrease 3.2 ml min-1. Therefore, an individual who lost 10 kg would produce 32 ml of CO2 less every minute. This would equal to 168 12 l (33.04 kg) of CO2 less in a year, compared with what would be produced without weight loss. In 2008, the global number of obese and overweight adults over 20 years old was 1.5 billion. If all those individuals lost 10 kg and sustained it for a year, the reduction in CO2 emissions would be 49.56 Mt CO2 per year. This would equate to 0.2% of CO2 emitted globally in 2007 by burning of fossil fuels and the manufacture of cement.

Quark RMRWhatever else we learn from this study, we at least are witness to the first researchers to equate human fat and cement production.

To measure CO2 exhalation, our scientists stuck people under a tent like that in the picture (the device is the Quark RMR). These measurements of course occurred in the lab and when the people were at rest (it is difficult to be vigorous lying in a bubble).

Actual CO2 will be very different for normal activities. Thus that 49.56 (and not 49.57 or 49.55) Megaton reduction is already dicey. That 32 ml per minute decrease in resting CO2 is for the very fat, but the authors assume it will be the same for the merely “overweight” and for those, fat or otherwise, without type-2 diabetes. The authors are aware of these criticisms and admit that their “calculations may be slightly overestimated.”

They do not however admit a weakness from the tiny, almost-not-there sample size. To extrapolate from 25 obese Scottish diabetics to the world population is not responsible.

Real uncertainties creep in with the ceteris paribus assumption. Things are anything but equal between a nation of grossly obese and another of thin folk. It costs CO2 to bring all that food to market for the fat nation, but all that “extra” CO2 that is saved in the thin nation is probably more than made up for in the CO2 not taken up by the food.

I mean that as food grows it stores CO2. Plants take it up directly, and our food animals eat the plants, storing more CO2. If people aren’t eating that food, we won’t grow it and therefore the CO2 that would have been taken up is left lingering in the air, trapping heat, and, as the authors say, causing “the extinction of many species, irreversible changes in the ecosystems and environmental disasters like storms, wildfires, droughts or floods.”

People are no different than food animals: they take up carbon because fat is made from carbon. Thus, since fat people store more carbon than thin, it might benefit our precious atmosphere to encourage more people to double dip their potato chips.

This analysis is no more speculative than that offered by our authors. Mine and theirs are probably both wrong, and wrong in ways that are unpredictable and unanticipated. The only difference between the two analyses is that mine does not pretend to posses scientific certitude.

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1If anybody can find a link for this, please post it below.

Thanks to Willie Soon for forwarding the original article.

A Disease Which Affects Only Atheists?

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American Atheists have filed papers with an official government body claiming that they, American Atheists, suffer from a debilitating illness from which only the government has the power to cure. Strangely, this malady affects the central nervous system only of members of this group and not of ordinary citizens.

The group I mean are official “American Atheists” and not atheists who are Americans per se, though that organization claims to speak for non-affiliated atheists living in this country.

We learn from Jordan Sekulow at the Washington Post that the papers filed by the American Atheists is a lawsuit aimed at those in charge of rebuilding the World Trade Center site, destroyed on September 11, 2001.

The American Atheists claim that the cross builders would ensconce on the new building is harming them physically and emotionally.

In their suit, they charge that “Named plaintiffs have seen the cross, either in person or on television, and are being subjected to, and injured in consequence.” On television! As plaintiffs, they “pray and demand” (no irony intended) that they cross be removed.

Among those suing are

Plaintiffs Dennis Horvitz and Kenneth Bronstein [who] are members of American Atheists and are Atheists reared in the Jewish tradition. They find the cross, a symbol of Christianity, offensive and repugnant to their beliefs, culture, and traditions, and allege that the symbol marginalizes them as American citizens.

Plaintiff Jane Everhart says the cross would be an “insult” to non-Christian survivors of that attack. Plaintiff Mark Panzarino does not go as far and would be satisfied if they put up a “Lutheran cross” instead of the ostensibly non-Lutheran one.

Among the defendant’s named are Mike Bloomberg and that larger-than-life figure Chris Christie (why not?). Old Rudy G. is in there, as are a church (American Atheists are against them) and Silverstein Properties.

Ground Zero CrossThe American Atheists also single out my friend Brian Jordan, a Franciscan Friar who the American Atheists accuse of conducting “a religious ceremony directed at placing a symbol of Christianity on government-owned property.” They mean that Father Jordan blessed the serendipitous cross of steel found in the rubble of the trade towers “after construction workers at the site told him they saw the cross as ‘a sign that God never abandoned us at Ground Zero.’”

But what does all this legal rigmarole and matters tragic have to do with the cruel disease suffered by American Atheists?

Seems something untowardly evil happens to the biology of an American Atheist when viewing a cross. According to the sworn-to-as-true (presumably, not sworn to God) papers filed in court, American Atheists, whenever they so much as glance at a cross, at least suffer from

dyspepsia, symptoms of depression, headaches, anxiety, and mental pain and anguish.

Awful stuff! Poor things! This is anguish we’re talking about here. I looked it up: extreme pain, either of body of mind; excruciating distress. Excruciating—God help us—distress! Foul, nasty business. Shades of torture and all that.

Although horrific, we note it is not as bad as it could be. The cross-viewing American Atheists only endure “symptoms of depression” and not actual full-blown depression itself. And none has (yet) claimed to have outright expired from seeing objects of faith.

Power of the CrossThe good news is that this syndrome is not unknown to medical science. It has long been identified as a malady suffered by vampires and several other species of the undead. But this is the first time it has been identified in American Atheists.

Science is yet silent on how American Atheists react to holy water, however, though experiments with garlic are progressing.

The bad news is that there is but one cure which brings complete remission of the disease. But since this cure is anathema to American Atheists, they must either learn to bear stoically the burdens of their cross (to coin a phrase), or they must resort to palliative care.

This consists in accumulating historical knowledge, and with it precious perspective; but it also means awakening and exercising their dormant senses of humor. The first is accomplished easily, and may be begun, for example, by reading Mr Sekulow’s column.

The second task has been shown to be nearly impossible, however. Experts recommend various strategies, such as canceling subscriptions to the New York Times, eschewing the phrase “equal rights,” and remembering the full version of (relevant clause) of the first amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Obama Administration Gives Appeasement A Try With China

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This is out of our normal range of activity, but I thought it important. You might not initially find it so, but what follows is yet more evidence that the End of History is not quite yet.

China aircraft carrierThe Obama administration has bowed to Chinese pressure and has broken a promise to our bound-by-Congressional-act ally Taiwan. The USA has decided, after hearing discouraging noises from Bejing—that land of opportunity and the promise of easy money—not to sell Taiwan the 66 F-16 C/D fighter aircraft it promised to sell them.

Our government will instead allow Taiwan to be sold a “retrofit package” to upgrade, slightly, its aging wing of F-16 A/B aircraft. The Taipei Times reports, “‘The switch is meant to soften the blow of denying new planes to Taipei,’ a source at Lockheed Martin, maker of the F-16, told Defense News.”

China has its greedy eye on Taiwan, and will have it. China needs living space, among other things, and likes the idea of pushing its territorial waters further into the Pacific. Its bluster and bullying have convinced our Nobel Peace Prize Commander in Chief to let Taiwan wither, while China, not practicing what it preaches, bulks itself up.

China has just completed its first sea trial of its spanking new-old aircraft carrier. It is new in the sense that many of its parts are right out of the box. But it is old, too, because the shiny new bits have been added to a used carcass, what was once the Soviet carrier Varyag.

According to Xinhua, the official government Voice of the People (whose voice is determined by the committed communist party Politburo of twenty-four fine folks), says the warship is necessary and “reasonable for China’s peaceful development.” It comes in peace!

The BBC says, “The PLA has invested heavily in submarines. It is believed to be close to deploying the world’s first ‘carrier-killer’ ballistic missile, designed to sink aircraft carriers while they are manoeuvring at sea up to 1,500km (930 miles) offshore, and it is building its own stealth fighter aircraft along with advanced carrier-based aircraft built from Russian designs. ”

Close on the Christening—or is it communising?—of the ex-Varyag, is the unveiling of the T-50 fighter aircraft, which will be put through its paces for a Moscow airshow audience, beginning tomorrow. China will, word has it, buy some of these new weapons.

The T-50 fighters, if bought, will augment China’s wing of not-yet-perfected J-20 stealth aircraft (the J-20 is supposedly a reversed engineered job from a crashed American jet).

Taiwan, in celebration of the Varyag’s launching, decided to parade its latest anti-ship missile to defense reporters. According to the Taipei Times:

In a blunt departure from tradition, the military yesterday displayed a model Hsiung Feng (“Brave Wind”) III (HF-3) anti-ship missile with, as a backdrop, a large picture of a burning aircraft carrier that bore a striking resemblance to China’s retrofitted Varyag, which embarked on its maiden voyage earlier in the day…

Next to the burning carrier were the Chinese characters for “carrier killer,” also the first time the HF-3 had been described as such.

Word from down Pentagon way is that “China’s aircraft carrier ambitions should not threaten regional security and stability.” In a further non-statement, as reported by the China Times (a Taiwanese newspaper), the Pentagon said, “China’s development of an aircraft carrier is not a surprise, and these operations are in line with our expectations.”

Miss Hong KongIt was so “in line” with expectations that the same week the Varyag became wetted, the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan sailed easily into Honk Kong harbor. There, among its various duties, it provided a tour to the 2011 Miss Hong Kong Rebecca Zhu and her court.

The Ronald Reagan fights in the heavyweight division, while the slimmer Varyag is only a welterweight. Bookies therefore have set the odds decisively in the American’s favor. Which may be why China began recently, what many consider to be, a rumor campaign announcing their own super-secret “carrier killer” missile.

Meanwhile, the appeasement strategy worked: China ceased giving the stink eye to Mr Obama. And to people anxious that other countries “like” us, this is terrific news. But it does give a teenage, Facebook-like feel to diplomacy.

The Defense News puts it in perspective:

There are fears that losing Taiwan could spell the end of U.S. power projection in the region. Losing Taiwan would “change everything from the operational arch perspective to the posture of Japan and the U.S.” in the region, said Raytheon’s Asia president, Walter Doran, a retired admiral who once commanded the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Admiral Doran understates the case. A militarily strong, and increasingly nationalistic China, a country sure to feel the sting of its bursting real estate and other financial bubbles shortly, is clearly something to worry about.

Update Comfortably employed, and far removed from the Pacific and its inhabitants, professor Charles Glaser discovered that if he moved his theoretical game pieces a certain way, China could be made happy and the risk of nuclear war between them and the USA would be lowered. Glaser wants, to use the vulgar phrase, to throw Taiwan under the bus. Writing in Foreign Affairs, he argues that the independent Island nation should be given to China as a gift. Which is awfully generous of him, especially since he doesn’t own it.

Glaser admits that critics of his pillage-for-free plan counter that “Beijing would not be satisfied by such appeasement; instead, it would find its appetite whetted and make even greater demands afterward—spurred by Washington’s lost credibility as a defender of its allies.” He then goes on to “prove” that critics are wrong by arguing, “The critics are wrong.”

And such is academia.