The Village Elliot

Whiskey Before Breakfast

2011-09-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

Whiskey Before Breakfast is a really interesting song. In my humble opinion, it is best done as an instrumental. In fact many people don't even know that there are words to the song, but in fact almost all fiddle tunes from the Scotch irish tradition do have words.
     I've been trying to do some research on the songs we play at the Wednesday Night Jam at the West Virginia Brewing Company in beautiful downtown Morgantown, but in this case, the lyrics take bad to a whole new level. I can't imagine why somebody decided to write such bad lyrics to such a great tune. In the case of Whiskey Before Breakfast, the lyrics are nothing more than a joyous celebration of hard core alcoholism.

    Saints alive, angels protect us
    We've been drinking whiskey before breakfast!

The complete lyrics are appended below, just for completeness, but if ever there was a song that begged to be an instrumental, this is definitely it!

    The chord progression goes something like this (and thanks to Bob Shank for clarifying the B part for us)

D D GD A
D   D GD AD

D   D Em A7
DA GD GD AD

   The B part has different variations in different parts of the country, and in particular some folks substitute a D chord for the E minor and A7.
   But underneath all this, there is a very simple tune. In fact the A part starts with just the scale in the key of D: (do re mi fa so, or 1 2 3 4 5 if you prefer the Nashville notation). Then coming down in the B part, you can actually play the whole
scale backwards (do ti la so fa me re do, or 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1). So it can be very simple to play, and even a novice can do it.

   Alternatively, you can crosspick the chords and it can become very sophisticated. Norman Blake's Youtube video shows one way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYau7QfiiuM

   Many guitarists try to learn Norman's version note for note, but in my opinion that approach kind of misses the forest for the trees. Norman shows the basic lick that can be used with any chord--not just this song--so if you are in the right chord it will work.

   By mastering the basic crosspick, you can get a cross picking sound that perhaps sounds a little like Norman Blake's style without having to actually memorize what he does note for note. Anyway, no one can ever sound exactly like Norman because he is the cleanest guitar picker in the universe, and the rest of us are mere mortals.
But more than just the notes that are played, there are a wide range of sounds that can go with this song. I would say that Norman's version is a very elegant, dignified version. By the way, if you want to play along with him, he is actually in the key of E-flat (finger postions in C, with the capo on the third fret).
On the other hand, when the lyrics are used, the song takes on a light-hearted feeling. Check out this version from some little kids:

On the other hand, in Morgantown, lead fiddler Keith McManus usually plays this song like his hair is on fire, and the rest of the musicians follow suit. It's a very powerful version, not at all like the other two.

Early one morning before the sun could shine
I was walkin' down the street, not feelin' so fine
I saw two old men with a bottle between' em
And this is the song that I heard them singin'

Lord protect us, Saints preserve us
We been drinkin' whiskey 'fore breakfast

I passed by the steps where they were a' sittin'
I couldn't believe how drunk they were gettin'
I said "Old men you been drinkn' long?"
"Long enough to be singin' this song"

They handed me a bottle, said, "Take a little sip"
And it felt so good, I just couldn't quit
So I took a little more, next thing I knew
There were three of us sittin' there singin' this tune

One by one everybody in town
Heard our ruckus and they all came down
Pretty soon all the streets were a-ringin'
With the sound of the whole town laughin' and singin'

Fly Away My Blue Eyed Girl

2011-09-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

    Here is another video from Clifftop, taken by Banjowim on Youtube.com. This song is entitled Fly Away my Blue Eyed Girl and is another favorite of our Wednesday Night Jam at the Morgantown Brewing Company. Keith McManus is playing lead fiddle and singing lead vocals, supported by a cast of thousands from Morgantown and around the world.
Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers had a version of this song in the 1920's, and there was another version from Frank Blevins and His Tar Heel Rattlers from about the same time.
   Some folks know this as "Fly Away My Pretty Little Miss" instead of my "Blue Eyed Girl." This song is also kind of similar to Shady Grove, which was performed by Doc Watson and others. Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead) and Stephen Grissman also played a version of this song.
Some things to listen for are the brass accompaniment from I. B. Browning and Robert Shank (which is a kind of unique Morgantown thing, which gives it some additional kick), and also the harmony from Rachel Herner. Then too it is kind of cool to just sit back and listen to the sound of a few dozen fiddles playing together. There is simply no way you can get that sound except in a festival jam.

Once I had a fortune,
I laid it in a trunk,
Lost it all a-gamlin'
One night when I was drunk.

Fly around my blue-eyed gal
Fly around my Daisy,
Fly around my blue-eyed gal
You almost drive me crazy.

If I had no horse at all
I'd be found a-crawlin'
Up and down this rocky road
A lookin' for my darlin'

Fly around my blue-eyed gal
Fly around my Daisy,
Fly around my blue-eyed gal
You almost drive me crazy.

Every day and Sunday too
It seems so dark and hazy,
Thinkin' about my blue-eyed gal,
Almost drive me crazy

Fly around my blue-eyed gal
Fly around my Daisy,
Fly around my blue-eyed gal
You almost drive me crazy.

If I were an apple,
hanging on a tree
Everytime my Daisy'd pass
She'd take a bite of me

Fly around my blue-eyed gal
Fly around my Daisy,
Fly around my blue-eyed gal
You almost drive me crazy.

Wish I had a needle and thread
Fine as I could sew
I'd sew that pretty girl to my side
And down the road I'd go

Fly around my blue-eyed gal
Fly around my Daisy,
Fly around my blue-eyed gal
You almost drive me crazy.

Jaybird and the sparrow
They had a little fight together
Fought around the bria patch
Never lost a feather.

Fly around my blue-eyed gal
Fly around my Daisy,
Fly around my blue-eyed gal
You almost drive me crazy.

I wouldn't marry a banjo player
Tell you the reason why
His lips are full of tobacco juice
He never zips his fly.

Fly around my blue-eyed gal
Fly around my Daisy,
Fly around my blue-eyed gal
You almost drive me crazy.

I'd never marry a fiddler,
Tell you the reason why,
Her neck's so long and stringy, boys,
I'd fear she'd never die.

D   D   D   A
D   D   D AD

D D D   D
D D   A   D

D G D   A
D G D AD

Solar Power Company Takes the Fifth

2011-09-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

The Federal government is now up in arms after the bankrupt Solyndra Company defaulted on a half a billion dollar loan.

US Congressional Representatives preparing to investigate the failure of the Solyndra solar power company.

   Last week, the Village Elliot advised his readers that solar power as a means to replace fossil fuels or nuclear enegy is simply a farce because of the 50 times higher capital investment required per kilowatt. You can check out what I said here:

http://elliotkennel.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-there-are-no-solar-power-plants.html

So it should not come as a surprise that if you invest money in something that is that far out of whack economically, it isn't going to work out.

    The problem is that the government desperately wishes for people to believe that solar power is economical. Therefore there must be crooks that made the company default on its loan! Yeah, that's the ticket!

The fact is that the federal government willingly convinced itself that solar photovoltaics is going to be a viable source of cheap electric power, just as it convinced itself that ethanol and hydrogen were going to be viable in the Bush administration. None of this stuff makes any sense economically however.

    So no wonder the Solyndra people are pledging the Fifth Amendment rather than helping Congress carry out its "investigation." Well, Congress, the Village Elliot already told you the real problem: solar power ailn't economical. Investigate that.

Morgantown Wednesday Night Jam at Clifftop, 2011

2011-09-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

Once a year the Morgantown Wednesday Night Jam moves from its normal location at the Morgantown Brewing Company to Clifftop West Virginia, as part of the annual Appalachian String Music Festival (to see the full-up version on youtube, try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWKCUkR2w6Q ).

   Wednesday night at Clifftop is famous because that is the normal night for the string music jam in Morgantown. So naturally the jam just moves to Clifftop, since everyone who is someone is at Clifftop. People literally come from around the world to visit this humble gathering. Since Kristian is from Sweden it is perhaps not surprising that there is a large connection with Sweden to group, but even before that people from Europe seem to really love our music and there are always a number of groups that attend.

Here is an awesome video (not sure who took it, but thanks, whoever you are) of the Clifftop version of our jam. Keith McManus, as usual, is the ringleader, with many other of the usual suspects from Morgantown WV present, plus the entire Swedish contingent, and a few other dozen stray musicians thrown in for good measure. One of the interesting things about our jam is that we usually have a couple of really good horn players, which gives it a little bit of a ragtime sound.

     Despite being filmed in the dark, the video does an excellent job of conveying the festival feeling, and you can get a sense of what it is liked to be surrounded by the almost deafening sound of fifty or a hundred instruments. The jam, by its nature is completely unrehearsed, which results in a spontaneous kind of atmosphere. Not everyone sings the same words to each verse, and it's impossible to know exactly what is going to be performed on each verse. Everyone has to develop a sort of extrasensory perception in order to make it all come together.

Think of Woodstock, West Virginia style. Only we do it every year. So y'all come and visit next year, okay?

This song is entitled "Down the Old Plank Road." One version has been recorded by Stewed Mulligan group on their album Liv and Howl. I'm not sure about the origins of the song, but one of the early recordings of this song was made by Uncle Dave Macon in the 1920's. I would call this a "nonsense song," intended to make the audience laugh by telling jokes in verse. For example one verse talks about a fellow whose wife passes away on Friday, and then remarries by the following Monday. Ostensibly, the song tells a story about a person who was in prison, with an iron ball and chain to make sure he would not run away. The singer pledges that he "won't get drunk no more," down the old plank road. Back in the old days, wooden planks were sometimes used to create makeshift roads, in place of bricks or asphalt. We might question whether the promise to not "get drunk no more" will be kept.
     Keith's version is similar to Uncle Dave Macon's version which went something like this:

Rather be in Richmond with all the hail and rain
Than to be in Georgia boys wearin' that ball and chain

   Won't get drunk no more
   Won't get drunk no more
   Won't get drunk no more
   Way down the Old Plank Road

I went down to Mobile, but I got on the gravel train
Very next thing they heard of me, had on that ball and chain

Doney, oh dear Doney, what makes you treat me so
Caused me to wear that ball and chain, now my ankle's sore

Knoxville is a pretty place, Memphis is a beauty
Wanta see them pretty girls, hop to Chattanoogie

I'm going to build me a scaffold on some mountain high
So I can see my Doney girl as she goes riding by

My wife died on Friday night, Saturday she was buried
Sunday was my courtin' day, Monday I got married

Eighteen pounds of meat a week, whiskey here to sell
How can a young man stay at home, pretty girls look so well

Come on Boys, Let's Go a Huntin'

2011-09-13T18:04:00.000-07:00

One of our world famous Brew Pub songs is known simply as Let's Go Hunting. A nice version appears on Youtube from Tim O'Brien.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z376PFa9Os&feature=BFa&list=FLo48BhkLyS--DmKVZynPqXQ&lf=mh_lolz

Now, what the screw do the lyrics mean? The first time I heard it, I had no idea what "your dog" and "my dog" were doing. Say what? Fortunately, I had the benefit of a lecture from Professor McManus who explained the meaning of the song very simply. The song is about two guys who are out hunting, and arguing about whose hunting dog is the better one. The job of the dog is to chase some raccoon or other tasty animal into a tree, so that the hunters can shoot it. So, when your dog moans or barks, that doesn't mean anything. He is a stupid dog and probably just has fleas! However, when MY dog moans that means that he has done his job properly, and chased an animal into a tree. One you've got that figured out, the song may start to make some sense!

Come on boys, let's go to huntin
Dog in the woods, he done treed somethin

Your dog barks, it don't mean nothin
My dog barks, he done treed somethin

This is not quite the same as the version that Keith sings, but it's close enough to convery the idea. If you want to see the rest of lyrics, you can check here:

http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=173907

This song is best enjoyed at the Brew Pub while sharing a dish of roast raccoon. Wash the little critter down with a glass of beer! Mmm, mmm!

Why There are No Solar Power Plants

2011-09-12T20:26:00.000-07:00

Isn't it time to quit relying on fossil fuels and switch to nice clean solar electricity? Philosophically, it's the best possible scenario. There is an inexhaustible amount of energy from the sun, so why not try to harness it and use that to power our society. Yet, there are no major solar power plants anywhere in the world. Why is that?

Power plants based on natural gas, coal or oil can easily top 1000 Megawatts. Solar power plants are usually in the range of 10 MW or less. Mostly the reason why we have solar power plants at all is for a political show, and have no practical economic advantage.

For example, the largest power plant in the US east of Arizona is a 3 MW plant being built in Pennsylvania, occupying 16 acres at a cost of some $20 Million. However, the plant doesn't produce 3 MW all the time. Solar power won't work at night, works less well in the morning or late afternoon. Cloudy days likewise limit the performance of solar systems. Also,there is less sunshine at higher latitudes than at the equator, and less well on cloudy days. When you add it all up, the Solar power plant average power is 422 kilowatts (0.422 Megawatts), or 14% of the rated value.

So the capital cost (the amount that a utility company has to pay to build the plant) is $47000 per kilowatt. This is about 50 times more than a power plant built for natural gas (the only type of new power plant that can be realistically approved for construction in today's political environment in America). Advocates claim that the government should throw money at the problem and soon it will become cheaper. Well, how much money should the government throw, and how much cheaper will it get? Let's see some numbers, please.

As another example, there are some interesting numbers posted on the web by the German organization Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft. In this case the numbers are even more intimidating, the average power output of solar photovoltaics in Germany is less than 10% of their rated value.

A real plant---say 1000 MW average power---would cost the utility company some 47 billion dollars. That's more money than the entire gross domestic product of Bulgaria.

But wait a minute! Isn't the operational cost of a solar plant going to be zero? Well, no. First of all, you have to figure that the money you spent on the plant could have been invested in something else. If the expected rate of return is a measly 5%, then that's $2.4 billion dollars per year that you need to earn from the sale of electricity. It works out to some 27 cents per kilowatt-hour, or some 3 or 4 times the going rate for electricity. That's just for the interest on the plant, assuming zero maintenance and zero electrical switching requirements (which is grossly optimistic).

    But isn't it true that there is no environmental impact of solar power? That also is blatantly false. First of all let's consider the capital investment, which as you will recall is some 50 times higher than a natural gas plant.    The structure is made of metal, which requires consumption of coke made from petroleum and coal. Are silicon semiconductors used? That requires mining of silicon, and a significant amount of energy to melt and refine the silicon to create solar cells. The energy is supplied mainly from fossil fuels (hint: no plant that produces solar cells for profit could ever be powered by solar energy). The capital cost must certainly be associated with consumption of raw materials.

     We can argue about whether a solar photovoltaic plant has more or less environmental impact than some other, but there should be no question that all plants have some impact.

    Proponents may argue that some other photovoltaic plants, notably in the American southwest where there is more access to sunshine, might have more favorable economics. That's true to a limited extent, but the point remains that fossil fuels are far and away more economical than photovoltaics. American industry could possibly remain competitive if they pay 10 or 20% extra for electric power, but 1000%, or 50000% is just unfathomable.
    That is why solar energy continues to account for less than 1% of the total electrical energy produced in America.

    Solar power, in its own way, is the subject of fantasies that are every bit as weird as, for example, the fantasy that President Obama has no birth certificate and is a secret agent of an Islamic group trying to take over the world. But we're on to him! Similary, solar power is highly economical, and that some massive conspiracy, usually led by the oil companies or defense industry, is preventing their use. Well, the fact of the matter is that Obama may not be such a great president but he has a birth certificate, and solar power plants are unaffordable.

Did John Henry Really Exist?

2011-09-07T09:24:00.000-07:00

John Henry is an American Folk Song that has at least a million verses. It tells the story of a contest between man and machine. Evidently there was a contest between a steam drill and a man with a hammer. The man won the contest, but died from the effort.

I have always liked that song, maybe because I keep figuring that somewhere among those million verses is on in which John Henry wins the contest and lives instead of dying at the end. Plus, it is a song about the American working man and woman (John Henry's wife, by the way, "could drive steel like a man, Lord, Lord." So it was one of the earliest Woman's Liberation songs!). In my heart of hearts I will always have faith in the workers of this great country. I am sometimes less than thrilled with the leadership of our country. I may be old fashioned, but I still believe that Americans are supposed to build railroads, and make steel and be an industrialized nation.

OK, well, back to John Henry. I always thought that the whole thing was made up, but listen to this clip from famed American blues singer and guitarist Leadbelly (Leadbelly, by the way, is the person who turned me on to the extra low tuning for the 12 String guitar, B-E-A-D-F#-B).

In Leadbelly's version, he sings

...that Big Bend Tunnel on the C & O Road,

It is gonna be the death of me, Lord Lord...

Now the C & O is a real railroad which runs from Newport News, Rhode Island all the way to Cincinnati Ohio. Similarly, there is a Big Bend Tunnel, located in West Virginia. In order to blast through the mountain, someone needed to drive a hollow shaft into the rock, where a charge of dynamite was used to blow a hole in the surrounding rock. This should not be confused with the process of laying down track and pounding spikes to hold the rails to the wooden ties. It's pretty clear that the John Henry story has to do with pounding holes for dynamiting through the mountain, rather than laying down track.

Leadbelly himself was emphatic that John Henry was born in Newport News, Rhode Island, and that he and his sponsor John Lomax had toured the place where John Henry was born. There is some tendency to discount what Leadbelly says since we was not a scholar, but the man was certainly not an idiot, and he did hang out with the greatest historian of American folk music ever.

Incidentally, Leadbelly also was friends with Woody Guthrie, one of the most famous American folksingers of the day, who also had a version of the song.

This theory was first described by in Guy B. Johnson's John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend (1929), and recapitulated online by Paul Garon.

Scott R. Nelson, a historian from William and Mary College found that there was in fact a John Henry who was a Union solider imprisoned at the Virginia State Penitentiary and assigned to work for the C & O railroard as part of his sentence. Nelson thinks that the Lewis tunnel might be more likely than the Big Bend, and moreover suspects that John Henry might have been buried in a nearby graveyard with a number of other prisoners near the prison. I'm not wild about the second part of the theory (just because they found a graveyard doesn't mean that that everybody was buried there).

Ultimately none of this is for certain, given that the records were not well kept. But the story is an important one. As Leadbelly says,"Now, "John Henry", you know, it's made up about a hard-workin' man, folks, don't forget it."

Are phytoplankton disappearing from the ocean?

2011-06-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

In 2010, a spectacular claim was made in the prestigious journal Nature that the population of phytoplankton in the ocean had declined by something like 40% since 1950 (Boyce et al., Global Phytoplankton decline over the past century, Nature Vol 466 pp 591-596, 29 July 2010).

At the time, one of the things I was working on was a way to absorb oil spills and to clean up oil contaminated seawater. You may recall that the BP Deep Horizon disaster had occurred at that time, and I took a centrifuge (I would tell you who donated it, but the company wishes to remain anonymous) down to Port Arthur Texas to work with a company interested in remediating contaminated seawater. Although where we were, the beaches were spectacularly clean and fishing was excellent, we were rightly concerned about the impact on ocean life. But we knew the Gulf would survive even this serious spill. By contrast the claims of Boyce et al were that FORTY PERCENT of the plankton were missing from ALL THE OCEANS OF THE WORLD. This was such as serious claim that it dwarfs all concerns about overfishing or spilling oil or anything else. Fish and sea animals can't survive without phytoplankton and I doubt whether life on land including humans could survive very long if the phytoplankton were going extinct at such an alarming rate. It's hard to quantify the significance of billions of tons of ocean life, but let's such say it would be orders of magnitude more serious than any hurricane or oil spill or other event that we have experienced.

Boyce et al were convinced that this mass extinction had occurred due to the ravages of global warming. I doubted that, based on the following reasoning: suppose there were a lake somewhere with a healthy population of phytoplankton. Suppose overnight the temperature rose from 55 degrees Fahrenheit to 56. Does that kill half the plankton in the lake? Not likely! Even less likely if you give the plants 60 years to make the adjustment.

Still I was surprised that many people seemed content to a) accept the claims of Boyce et al, and b) didn't seem too concerned about it. My feeling, in a nutshell, was that the scientific community needed to find out whether it was true or not, and if it were true it was time to push the panic button.

But over the past year, other articles have appeared which suggest that the orginal contention of Boyce et al may be due to a ghastly error. Rykaczewski and Dunne published a rebuttal in Nature (A Measured Look at Ocean Chlorophyll trends, Nature Vol 472, pp E5-E6, 14 April 2011). They suggest the Boyce's data was in error because of changes in sampling methodology and analysis. A similar note appeared in Nature from Ohlman (Nature 466, 591 - 596 (7306)
Published online: 2010-07-29).

Phew! So maybe the reason everyone seemed unconcerned about the data was due to its fishy smell.

Does this mean that the world is off the hook? Not necessarily. I still remain very concerned about ocean pollution and curious about the attitudes of my friends and colleagues. A number of us were outraged, rightly so, by the BP Horizon spill last year. But few people complain about the amount of pollution that we dump into the same body of water. The United States is the most powerful agricultural economy on earth, and most of the petrochemical fertilizer runoff from that economy winds up draining into the Gulf via the Mississippi and other rivers. It is millions of tons per year, and has resulted in enormous dead zones near the mouth of the Mississippi in which life can not be supported. If you go to the Florida Panhandle and are lucky enough to get a hotel with a view of the ocean, you may be surprised to find that it is now green. The ocean is supposed to be blue, folks. The reason is that in this area all that fertilizer has caused phytoplankton to proliferate (the opposite effect claimed by Boyce et al, by the way). You can definitely see it. And yes, changing the color of the ocean means that there are other effects as well. Some years ago I wrote an article explaining that greener water might absorb sunlight more effectively near the surface, and that there could be some effect on climate change. Some of my friends in the business are aware of that now and trying to incorporate such effects into global climate models.

I believe that we should seek the means to recover millions of tons of chemicals from rivers in the US. Our emphasis is mainly on stopping pollution at its source, which is a good approach, but in the case of the Mississippi and other rivers, we just have to admit that millions of tons of chemicals are getting into the water anyway, and it makes sense to figure out ways to clean it up.

BAre phytoplankton increasing due to massive quantities of fertilizer being dumped into the ocean? Or are they vanishing? We need the right answers to feed into the computer models that tell how our climate is behaving.

The Atlantis of Japan--Yonaguni

2011-05-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

Are these terraces a freak of nature, or proof of the existence of an ancient civilization?

What? Underwater pyramids near Japan? Yes, in shark-infested shallow waters off the island of Yonaguni Japan lie stepped pyramids. Nobody knows who made these pyramids. Indeed, it may be that much of the site is natural. The rocks are shale, which is naturally flat. Because Japan is in an earthquake zone, geologists say that the rocks can split along a fault, creating a terraced effect.

Thus, listening to the geologists, the hugeness of the geometric features actually support the notion that the site may naturally have terraces. On the other hand, the details may argue in favor of human activity. For example, in the second drawing there appears to be a drawing of a human face. However, I should point out that this photo came from a for-profit TV show and it's not clear to what extent the photo is digitally "enhanced" (i.e., fraudulent).

I kind of think that the answer may lie somewhere in between. The large terraced features are much more likely to be natural than man-made, given the nature of the shale rock layers. But the details are too perfect, and tend to suggest that people may have helped to smooth over the features of the site.

If for the sake of argument, we assume that the site was sculpted to some extent by humans, what does this show? Unfortunately we can know very little about who might have used the site. We can't conclude that this was some super lost civilization liike Atlantis. We really need to examine pottery, tools, artwork and written records (if any exist) to know about a society. We have none of this in the case of Yonaguni. A pottery fragment or two would go a long way towards helping us understand the role of humans at the site, but so far nothing like that has been found, as far as I know.

Nor do we know when the Yonaguni Monument may have sunk beneath the waves. One hypothesis is that it may have gradually been overtaken by water at the end of the last Ice Age, some 11,000 years ago. Alternatively, it may be sunk more abruptly during an earthquake, perhaps as recently as 1500 years ago.

Ultimately, Yonaguni may not tell us much that science didn't know already. We know that anatomically modern humans have been around been around for some 40,000 years or so. So there have been several opportunities for proto-civilizations to rise and fall, although archeology doesn't attest to much of a civilization prior to the Sumerians.

     I am not a professional anthropologist by any means, but it seems to me that some of the early civilizations might have been seafaring ones, and it wouldn't come as a great surprise if the end of the Ice Age might have set back the advance of civilizations such as Yonaguni. Our main problem is that it is hard to gather data on civilizations that are now underwater, but in this case the lack of data shouldn't be construed as proof they didn't exist.

     I think it would be really cool to try to map likely locations for port cities during the ice age and to have the resources to excavate them.
   It will be interesting to see what future archeologists make of the the Yonaguni site.

Is this real? This shot came from a TV documentary, but to what extent is it digitally enhanced? In today's photoshop age, you have to be suspicious, but it looks too much like a face with a headdress to be an accidental resemblence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIu2rA0yd9s&feature=related

NASA: Fossilized Extraterrestrial Bacteria Found?

2011-03-06T15:29:00.000-08:00

Is this a fossilized bacteria? Or an inorganic fiber grown from an iron catalyst and hot ceramic molecules? http://journalofcosmology.com/

　

NASA has dropped another bomb, making what seems to be the strongest claim ever for the existence of extraterrestrial life. The claim is that they have found fossilized bacteria in a meteorite fragment.

The Village Elliot has made a cursory examination of the original paper, and here's what I can tell you:

a. This is not the first time that NASA has made an extraordinary claim. Some fifteen years ago, another meteorite fragment was proposed as a possibilty for extraterrestrial life. In that case, however, it seemed that the meteorite had the right sort of catalysts in it to promote the growth a ceramic fibrils that might look like bacteria. The Village Elliot himself had made such materials, which are related to carbon nanotubes. Briefly, all you needs is the right kind of iron catalyst, and if you heat it up to the point where it is nearly molten, the catalyst will cause ceramic nanotubes to grow, They look exactly like the NASA "fossils," so I figured that they are probably not fossils, but ceramic nanotubes grown as the meteorite washeated, possibly during reentry.

b. The current generation of claimed fossils is a bit more impressive. They are the right size to be bacteria, and indeed the authors (Hoover et al.) believe that terrestrial bacteria may have been seeded from comets based on the resemblances. I wouldn't rule it out,but on the other hand, I've seen similar large diameter structures form when the conditions are right. So, the question is whether these things *are* fossil bacteria, or whether they just look liike they are. On the grounds that extraordinary claims require extraordinary justification, I'm not buying it just yet. In fact, I'd like the opportunity to put the same materials on a plate and heat them up to the temperature regime at which these nanotubes form, and just see what we get.

c. Although the leader of the current team, Richard B Hoover, is a veteran scientist, he was one that on record supporting the claimed fossil bacteria circa 1995 from McKay et al. That suggests that he is a bit overeager to believe in the fossilized bacteria theory.

d. This new claim comes on the heels of another spectacular claim, for a fundamental new life form discovered on earth that doesn't need phosphorous to survive, using arsenic instead. A number of people think that that claim was made prematurely as well.

e. NASA is also out in front on the issue of global warming. Rather than striving to be an impartial arbiter, as one might expect from a government agency, NASA seems to increasingly view its role as an advocate for certain controversial theories.

All that said, I think the current article is much more formidable than it's predecessors. I've written to the Journal of Cosmology and asked to be put on the panel of reviewers being assembled. The role I've proposed for myself is to see if it is possible to make these kinds of structures by taking these materials and sticking them in an oven and heating them up. I'm confident that some kind of fibers will indeed grow spontaneously. What I'd like to know is if the meteorite structures have specific features uniquely identified with bacteria, that can not be duplicated in my lab.

Why You Can't Sound Like Leadbelly

2011-02-22T18:22:00.000-08:00

Why can't you sound like Leadbelly? Or at least play the guitar the way he did? I learned to play the guitar, sort of, in High School, and really got into it when I attended Cuyahoga Community College and worked at a music store (LaBash Music in Berea), where I hung out with some truly awesome musicians. Anyway I made some clumsy attempts to play old transcriptions of music from guys like Leadbelly (famous for the boogie woogie walking bass line), Missississippi John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Big Bill Broonzy. But Leadbelly was the most mysterious. Very few recordings even existed of this man, who everyone from the Beatles and Bob Dylan credited with being a link between blues and modern rock 'n roll.

On the one hand, one reason why a modern musician can not duplicate the Leadbelly sound (to paraphrase Llloyd Benson), is that YOU ain't Leadbelly. Leadbelly lived in a very different world than we do. Leadbelly, let it not be forgot, was a killer who was sent to prison twice for killing people. He himself was left for dead at least once, and if you look at some ot his pictures you can see the horrific scar which goes from ear to ear. Part of Leadbelly's experience comes from the violent world of night life in the segregated South, and it just isn't going to translate for most of us. His performing got him sprung from the joint twice.

Imagine trying to sing the lyrics of Black Snake Moan for a modern audience:

Oh, I ain't got no mammy now.

I ain't got no mammy now.

Ya told me late last night,

ya didn't need no mammy no how!

Leadbelly is singing about being rejected by his lover. It is actually a very painful song, punctuated by Leadbelly's incredible bass runs. But there is no way we could use those lyrics for a modern audience. They would laugh you off the stage.

It always sounds terrible if you try to tell someone else's story. Music is kind of the same way. And one of the rules of the blues is that you need to put some of yourself into it. If you will search on youtube, you will find that there are an amazing number of muscians, many of them young, who are interested in Leadbelly songs and trying to bring them forward. The best ones, in my opinions, are the ones who don't try to imitate him, but maybe incorporate a few licks into their own sound.

There is also a secret to the Leadbelly sound, however. The best lecture on Leadbelly's guitar that I have

ever heard is from a fellow named Harry Lewman. What you need to know is that Leadbelly's guitar is made differently than the conventional style. Leadbelly used very heavy gauge strings, and here's the kicker: the rascal actually tuned his guitar five half-steps lower than a conventional guitar. In other words, it goes from BEADF#B. So you play the same chord forms, but they are lower than a standard guitar. Harry does the best job of anyone in getting the Leadbelly sound from the instrument: check this out:

It's also very hard to sing when you're playing these bass runs, btw. You how to just practice 10,000 times until you get it.

I have been keeping my own 12 string at Leadbelly tuning for about six months now. I still don't sound like Leadbelly, and shouldn't try. What is better is you can incorporate some of his techniques into something completely different. For example I've tried Leadbelly's walking bass with Wagon Wheel, a song by Old Crow Medicine show that features a fiddle and banjo.

Um, Middle East Governments are Not Stable

2011-01-28T18:47:00.000-08:00

    The Village Elliot feels compelled to lecture again on a subject that no one wants to hear. Namely, governments in the Middle East are not stable. This is underscored by the current situation in Egypt, which has turned very, very ugly in Egypt, where aged despot Hosni Mubarak tries to cling to power while the people are tired of being oppressed by an idiotic government. The thing that surprises me is that it didn't occur in one of the monarchies, like Saudi Arabia, where tens of thousands of royalty expect to be rich by living off the government.
But the average person in these countries lives in dire poverty, ruled by governments that think that new industries are impossible.
In the US, we have chosen to depend on countries like Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, since we have decided to pin our energy hopes on guaranteed failures like corn ethanol, hydrogen, wind and solar energy (the American Gang of Four). These fuels are too expensive to allow American industry to compete on the world market, so as a consequence we import 11 million barrels of oil per day while hoping for a miracle.   In the long run, the theory goes, one of the Gang of Four will suddenly become economical. But we've been saying this since 1973, and darn if we aren't still importing more and more oil.
Part of the issue, I believe is that Americans have misleading information about the stability of governments of OPEC countries. Why is this? Well I think it is because when we send our oilmen over to do business with the sheiks, they get stuffed with delicious Middle Eastern cuisine, and they visit the harems with beautiful women and they get a distorted view of life over there. Then the oilguys bring that view back to America, and report that the people revere their government and that they are basically Pro-American. They need to spend some time with ordinary people or at least read Al-Jazeera to learn that the people are very upset with the lousy governments that they have. Hatred of America is perhaps one of the great unifying forces that exist over there.
   I don't know if anyone is sure what kind of government will prevail once the Egyptians evict the 82 year old Mubarak. No doubt the US will have a chance to participate and get involved in a war if it wants. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we have been fighting to make sure that there is an appropriately pro-American government there, and some people feel that the policy is partially successful, at least until the next time the people get mad at the government (hint: about two years).
Yet if these governments start to topple--and who knows whether they can contain the problems within Egypt or whether they might spread--this may well threaten the ability to pump oil, which could in turn destabilize oil prices. Based on our policy of running the economy on debt and not producing our own energy or raw materials, it might be appropriate to start asking how our economy will survive rapid escalation in oil prices.
    So our panicked State Department is asking what are we going to do to stabilize Egypt? Will it spread to Saudi?   My question is: are these really the best friends we have? Why doesn't the government let us produce our own crude using coal and natural gas, rather than hanging the stability of our country on the willingness of OPEC nations to (1) sell us oil and (2) extend us credit to finance our national debt?

Coal Struggles in West Virginia

2011-01-22T15:27:00.000-08:00

   Tempers are beginning to flare in West Virginia and other coal mining states, probably with good reason. What's at stake is that the EPA has revoked previously granted permits for mountaintop removal mining. I think this is one battle in a larger struggle between environmentalists and industrialists, and the environmentalists are winning. According to statistics from the Energy Information Agency, West Virginia mined 158 million tons of coal in 2008, and in 2009 they mined 137 million tons.  We don't have numbers for 2010, but it will probably be about the same as 2009. What does it mean if coal production goes down by 21 million tons? Well, at 62 dollars per ton in 2009. So, in round terrms the loss of production is worth 1.3 billion dollars. That's about 720 bucks for each man, woman and child in the state. That's before you ask about the ripple effect--try making steel without metallurigcal grade coal, or aluminum without electricity. The impact on the US economy is very significant.

“The truth of the matter is, they’re interrupting every kind of operation,” says Bill Raney, of the West Virginia Coal Association. “The frustration level is enormous.”

   This I think is true. During the 2008 presidential campaign, President Obama talked about raising environmental standards as way of killing off industries such as the fossil fuel industry, with the hope that new "green" technologies would rise to take their place. Hence, while crowds around America were chanting "Yes We Can!" to coal producing states the message was more like "No You Can't!" It is relatively easy to destroy domestic industries, less obvious to see where these supposedly green technologies are going to come from.
    The EPA has been a great organization since its creation by President Nixon in 1969.  You have to admit skies are way clearer now and the water is much cleaner.   What is missing is the ability to weigh the needs of the economy and the environment together.
    Rookie Senator Joe Manchin has authored a bill which would make it harder for the EPA to unilaterally withdraw permits once it grants them.. Had such legislation been in place today, we wouldn't be having these fights now. In my opinion, this is exactly what is needed.
    I'd like to know, where is the crisis? Arch Coal was said to be prepared to invest 250 million dollars in a new mining operation, and now these jobs no longer exist. That's an economic crisis.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-20/activists-dismayed-by-manchin-s-plan-to-curb-epa.html

Why was there an environmental crisis so acute that it had to result in revoking exisiting permits and eliminating jobs? People act like there isn't a fish left in our state. The opposite is true, however. If you will visit West Virginia, you will see mile after mile of green mountains and streams and lakes. If you don't believe me, just pick up a hunting magazine and see what the people say.  Fishing and hunting are both excellent. Animals are not being wiped out by some environmental crisis.

If it were really true that the environmental consequence can be greatly reduced by not having mountaintop removal, then it should be phased out slowly, not as if there were an artificial crisis that required immediate action. There should be an effort to find out whether there are coal seams that might be mined equally well by underground mining rather than mountaintop removal.  Maybe we have such efforts, but if so the studies aren't being publicized well.

We, the American people acting through our Congress, have set up our Environmental Protection Agency as a necessary watchdog for the environment. In my view, we should not kill this watchdog, but we do need to make sure that he is housebroken. We don't seem to have the ability to balance economics and environmentalism. I totally believe that you can have both if you manage them well. Why can't we have an office that tries to figure out how to solve problems, rather than just shut down industries? For example, why can't we have top down instructions that say, "well, we want to grow the American economy by 5% this year, and reduce emissions by 5%." Then that organization could tell how to best do that. What it means is, radical environmentalism isn't going to get everything they want, but neither is radical free enterprise. There has to be a sensible middle ground in there someplace where both goals--increasing economic growth while decreasing emissions--can be addressed.

Methods of Ancient Navigators

2011-01-19T17:49:00.000-08:00

How could ancient peoples sail around the world with only primitive ships, no computers, and only the lousiest of maps--or no map at all?

This question has baffled historians for centuries, despite the unmistakable existence of people who inhabited remote islands throughout the Polynesians. Basically, the answer the historians came up with was that it didn't happen.

Only smart sailors from Europe could possibly make maps and develop sailing technology for long voyages, or so the theory went. European vessels were gigantic constructs, stuffed with supplies of food, water and cargo of different sorts, suitable for very long voyages.

So if primitive peoples were inhabiting remote islands in the Pacific and the Atlantic, they must have gotten there by accident. Perhaps they were caught in storms, and just happened to be swept to islands of safety. Well there must have been a lot of storms, and a lot of lucky people.

Particularly baffling is the civilization at Easter Island, which is 600 miles from the nearest land mass. To make a long story short, the inhabitants of Easter Island spoke Polynesian dialects, so they probably came from islands, located thousands of miles away. More embarrassingly for Eurocentric historians, the Polynesians had no giant ships, but only glorified canoes with no instruments.

Nevertheless, Easter Island was populated by Polynesian people at the time of its "discovery" by Capt James Cook in 1774. Not to mention that over 1000 other islands were also inhabited. Face it, folks, the Polynesians knew how to sail!

But how did they do it? One great way was to follow the paths of migrating birds. If the island has birds--and even Eastern Island does, then a person could find the island by following the birds.

Moreover, by traveling light, the Polynesians could also travel fast. Picture the paddlers as sort of the Polynesian version of the Tour de France. If you can imagine scheduling shifts, with each paddler spending several hours per day paddling, perhaps a canoe could average five knots, or some 4000 miles per month.

Greg Taylor (Honolulu Advertiser) painted this picture of a Polynesian canoe.

Polynesian navigators also knew a lot about the waves, and how they alter their appearance subtly within hundreds of miles of land. They understood the path of the sun and the stars, and could probably maintain their bearing and latitude with reasonable accuracy.

And if Polynesians knew such tricks, it shouldn't be surprising if other people, say Native Americans or Vikings, were sailing back and forth between North America and Europe at the same time. When I was in elementary school, we were taught that Christopher Columbus was the first person to sail to America. Later we learned that the Vikings may have explored North America. By now, it is generally acknowledged that ancient people were actually very mobile, and a lot of people may have been piling up miles on their Frequent Sailor's cards.

Just because sailors lived in the Stone Age doesn't mean they were dumb. It was really a combination of genius and athleticism that allowed people to find new lands and to trade with remote civilizations. A task awaiting future historians is to get a better understanding of their methods, and to figure out just who was visiting who and when.

Lost Civilization of the North

2011-01-17T17:20:00.000-08:00

Lost Civilization of the North

Although anatomically modern humans have existed for tens of thousands of years, we have no record of civilizations prior to about 5,000 BC, when civilizations grew up in places like the Tigris/Euphrates, Nile and Ganges. There is certainly adequate time for civilizations to have risen and fallen. Any number of quack theories purport to identify Atlantis. My personal favorite explanation is that England and France were to blame, as every century or so they send ships via the Pillars of Hercules to go invade.

But no matter. For years I have been curious about the Ainu people, who were the original inhabitants of Japan. They are more Caucasian in their appearance than the Japanese people, and moreover some researchers think their language may have some similarities to Gaelic (Irish). What? How did such people get to Japan? In Japan, there are only a few hundred Ainu left, as most of married into Japanese society.

Recently I found out about another small group of people. The Kek are a group which lives in Siberia, near the Yenesei river valley. They look like Asian people, and live much like the Eskimos, herding reindeer and lving like Arctic nomads. Their language is thought by some to resemble the Basques and even the North American Athabaskan Native Americans. How could this be? Well, if you are willing to imagine that there might have been periods of warming during earth's recent history, similar to the Medieval Warming period which allowed the Vikings to survive and to build settlements in Nova Scotia and Greenland, well perhaps the Ket people were able to sail between North America and Eurasia as well.

Another possibility, possibly, would be to have the Ket travel frrom Siberia to North America via the Aleutian Islands to Alaska and then cross the Rocky Mountains somehow to mix with the Athabaskans. Somehow that seems even harder to me than sailing the Atlantic.

Are the Ket the remnants of a once widespread civilization that included travel between the North Coast of Siberia and the North America? I think it's a possibility worth considering, at least.

This Ket family seems well adapted for life in the Siberian Arctic.

This picture from 1914 shows Ket people in houseboats, probably near the mighty Yenesei River in Siberia.

Can America Afford the F-35 Jet Fighter?

2011-01-16T17:35:00.000-08:00

   The F-35 Jet Fighter is said to be the costliest Defense Program ever. We are scheduled to buy some 2443 fighters at a flyaway cost of some $87 to $157 million for each plane, or in other words up to 382 billion dollars over the full purchase, depending on who you believe (hint: pick the higher estimates). This is the cause of some great debate in Congress,

   My own opinion is that all programs need to be scrutinized in the wake of 10 years of unrestrained spending, eight years by supposedly conservative big-government Bush Republicans, and 2 years of granola-fed Democrats. But fiscal restraint needs to be separated from the program itself, which despite cost overruns and other problems, I would argue that the American defense contractors (Lockheed Martin in this case) delivers better value than anyone in the world.

  You can say what you want about American defense contractors, but they are number one in the world. Saddam Hussein provided us with a basis for comparison between Soviet-made aircraft and arrmament versus US-made stuff. Namely, we blasted everything out of the sky. Recently there has been some fuss about China introducing a radar-evading fighter jet. The Chinese have some very capable engineers, no question. But I don't think that anyone can actually compete with the US.

  As far as the unit cost of a fighter plane is concerned, to me it is remarkable that military aircraft are not all that expensive compared to civilian aircraft. Commercial airliners can cost $200 million, for what that's worth. So the recent converts to tight fiscal policies will be blowing smoke about military waste and extravagance, but I believe that is misplaced. Air Force equipment wins. And if you believe that commercial jets are affordable, then military jets are also affordable.

  I do question whether we truly need all 2443 fighter jets, however, and I also question the economics which says that they should all be built within a period of a few years. Why do we need so many and why all at once? I think the best economics is probably to turn out lower numbers with much longer build times, maybe 20 years rather than five.

Another question is whether the country with the best fighter jets actually wins the war. Gulf War I and II have taught us that the armament and avionics are critically important. Our missiles are programmed to read maps, turn corners, identify enemy targets and blow them away. Do you really need to have an exceptional aircraft to deliver these armaments?

Would it make sense to rely on older airframes? I admit I have always liked the philosophy of the A-10 Warthog. That plane, which is a close-air support aircraft and not directly comparable to the F-35 in terms of its mission, was basically an inexpensive airframe which could carry a whopping number of missiles. No it isn't stealth; and no, it is not nearly the fastest plane out there. But it is good enough to launch missiles .

Here's a video:

The Air Force bought some 716 of these. I'm not sure what it would cost in 2015 dollars, but I would guess something in the range of $35 to $50 million might be reasonable. Other fighter aircraft, such as the Mirage and MIG aircraft, might come in at the same range, but none of them have the capabilities of the F-35. So, and the allegedly high price tag of the F-35 seems to me to be a reasonable value. If it were a car, most people would gladly pay three times as much for a new version rather than taking a discount for a twenty year old model. Particularly if your life depended on having the best performance.

If Congress has sabotaged the budget over the years, it isn't Lockheed Martin's fault. Nevertheless, I think the Air Force is going to have to look at smaller acquisitions, and longer production cycles in order to survive in a budget cutting environment.

Is Donald Trump Running For President?

2011-01-13T11:41:00.000-08:00

Donald Trump is telling friends that he is running for president. Do you suppose that could be true?

I like Trump in many ways. Some people watch his show and assume he is simply a grouch tycoon who likes to fire people. But I used to watch his show, and found it very interesting to see how a billionaire thinks. A lot of his advice is very practical and level headed.

Some years ago, I remember he posted a full page ad in the New York Times in about 1991 questioning America's foreign policy objectives in the Middle East. Why are Americans fighting and dying to prop up foreign regimes that don't like us and don't care about us? Those same questions remain today, and I don't have a good answer for them. What exactly are we trying to win in Iraq? What do we get if we win?

Trump is no lover of OPEC and importing costly oil as a legacy of debt for our chldren. "“The first thing I would do [as President] is get my toughest, smartest person and have them…try and divide OPEC....If you have a store and I have a store and we set prices, we go to jail. OPEC is setting the price of oil and destroying many countries because of it…We had $150 a barrel oil [last summer] and it got us into a very big problem. Now oil, that should be $20 a barrel, is at $70 a barrel, and this country can’t afford it.... “OPEC has to be destroyed in an economic sense…It really is an illegal situation…I know people involved with OPEC. They laugh at the stupidity of our country. They laugh at the stupidity of our politicians.”

This is something I also feel very strongly about. America has learned to embrace $3 per gallon gasoline, and any attempt to produce more fuel that would lower the price is met with intense resistance. Many Democrats, for example, embrace the notion that new, green technology is sure to be invented and brought to the marketplace, so we can go ahead and dismantle fossil fuel production right now, without waiting for the alternatives to be commercialized. Here in West Virginia, coal mining (ok, not the same as oil drilling, but what we should be doing is mining coal and coverting it to clean crude oil) is down by about 50% from 2008 levels, thanks to successful environmental lawsuits to stop permitting activities. The logicial consequence of producing less energy is lower economic output. I believe that the US is headed for more debt, and lower production and manufacturing. We do need some help from common sense politicians (Republicans or other) to restore drilling and mining to their proper place, and to insitute new producion activivities from liquefaction of biomass, natural gas and coal. America needs more oil, but for some reason that message can not get through to our thick headed politicians. In the past, our elected leaders have touted hydrogen utlization (forgetting to telll us the source of this hydrogen), corn ethanol, wind power and photovoltaics. All of these energy sources are bogus in that they are not cheap enough to allow American Industry to compete on the world marketplace (though they sound great on 30 second commercials on TV).

Economic growth is not an evil objective. We need someone, perhaps Trump, to help us to grow our economy and to produce more clean energy.

Another billionaire candidate, Ross Perot, couldn't make up his mind whether to run for President or not, back in 1992. But he at one time led both George H. Bush , and Bill Clinton in the polls. So it's not totally absurd to think that Trump might run and win.

By the way, if you are wondering who his Vice Presidential candidate might be, check out this video:

Historicity of Climate Change Phenomena

2010-12-31T01:49:00.000-08:00

My tenth grade history teacher, good old Mr. Hennis, used to paraphrase the philosopher George Santayana: "Those who do not remember 10th grade History are condemned to repeat it. Well, a number of people seem to have trouble remembering history when it pertains to climate change.

First, the Earth was in an Ice Age some 10,000 years ago, and for some imperfectly understood reasons, that Ice Age came to an end, and the globe warmed abruptly. Our current warming period is believed to be long lived but ultimately it is expected to end, , and we expect to go back to an Ice Age someday (but probably not this year despite our lousy weather, which is due to La Nina plus the North Atlantic Anomaly and the Polar Oscillation all going haywire at the same time).

In addition, more recently there was a Medieval Warming Period from 950 to 1250, which coincided with the rise of the Vikings, and the colonization of Greenland, which really was green at the time.

There was also a Little Ice Age, from circa 1650 to 1850, during which time the Thames River in England froze in the wintertime, and in addition Charles X of Sweden marched an army from Sweden to Estonia in 1658, over a frozen Baltic.

We had a Year Without a Summer in 1816.

In the 1920's, through the 1930's significant glacier melt was recorded in Greenland. The amount of melting is estimated to be 50% higher than similar melting that occurred in the 1990's and 2000's, according to Petr Chylek's group at Los Alamos National Lab.

There was also a major disruption in climate observed in the 1930's in which the Western US was besieged by the Dust Bowl. Many ecologists believe that it is a historical fact that poor soil management was the sole cause of the Dust Bowl, although others wonder if it might be part of a larger pattern.

After a long warming trend, from 1940 to 1975 there were colder temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere (i.e., a least squares plot of global average temperature as estimated by the National Climatic Data Center shows a gradual cooling trend).

Then from 1976 to 2002, global average temperature rose by about 0.5 degrees Celsius.

From 2002 to 2010, however, the global temperature has been about constant, as estimated by the NCDC.

Now, what does all this mean? Well, some advocates of CO2 removal would like you to believe that the earth had a constant invariant climate until the last half century, at which point potentially catastrophic global warming started to occur. Hence, they would like you to kindly disregard the fears for global cooling of the 1970s, glacier melting in the 1920's and 1930s, and especially the Medieval Warming Period. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Changed kindly revised their famous "Hockey Stick" graph (in which global average temperature is shown to rise in the second half of the 20th century, creating a profile that looks like a hockey stick). The IPCC would also like you to please disregard the physical evidence that, although the globe did warm from 1975 to 2002, it has paused for the past nine years.

As for the skeptics concerning global warming, the cause celebre is the observed global warming that occurred from 1975 to 2002. However, the Village Elliot believes that the data, though a bit fuzzy, is clear enough that there can be no mistake. The earth did get warmer, at least until 2002, and it's silly to argue otherwise.

Left to be determined is how much of that warming is due to natural cycles such as the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation, versus anthropogenic causes and specifically carbon dioxide. The Village Elliot believes that other human-caused environmental issues such as ocean pollution may also play a major role.

What should be done about this? That also is up for grabs. Currently most of the Western nations urge a general dismantling of the fossil fuel economy, with the brave hope that something else will soon pop up to replace it. So far, however, an inexpensive substitute for fossil fuels has not be identified, at least not anything that can replace the billions of tons which we now use.

However, the Village Elliot wishes to admonish all that climate change is not a simple subject, and if we hearken back to a time in history when climate was predictable, well, that probably is a fantasy.

The IPCC published the bottom historical record in 1990, which shows both the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age. But since those events are troubling, the 1999 historical record (top) eliminates both events from the historical record. The Village Elliot is troubled by the apparent willingness to change the data to suit political agendas.

The Village Elliot also despairs of the ability of the scientific community to have reasonable discussions on this subject. In recent years, it seems that it has become acceptable to present a slanted, unbalanced view of the information in order to win an argument rather than to emerge with the best science. It's more about what is persuasive, rather than what we actually believe to be true.

Cold Weather, not Climate Change

2010-12-27T10:47:00.000-08:00

Readers of the Village Elliot's blog are aware that he predicted that we would have a cold winter this year, based on three simple observations:

   a. We are in a La Nina phase, in which an upwelling of cool water in the Pacific equatorial region usually leads to colder weather worldwide.

   b. The Polar Oscillation favors a cold winter. This weather pattern led to last year's cold winter as well as the cold winters of 1978-1979.

   c. The North Atlantic Anomaly also is shifting in a way that favors cold winters in Northern Europe.

   This is just simple stuff you can get from reading the paper or checking out websites like the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The fact that we are having a cold winter doesn't mean squat as to whether the climate is changing over the long run.
   Let's review, however, that carbon dioxide induced global warming is supposed to make the earth 2-3 degrees celsius warmer from 1999 to the hear 2100, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
   The Village Elliot is certain that the mechanism exists, based on studies of the planet Venus, which is definitely warmer than we would expect, and the reason is carbon dioxide, over a thousand psi of it. Will similar effects occur if CO2 is present at a few hundred parts per million?
   The Village Elliot also believes that the globe certainly heated up between 1975 and 2002, using data from the NCDC.   The same data, however, points to no significant warming since 2002.
   TheCO2 hypothesis also suggests that the difference between summer and winter should decrease, with most of the warming haplpening during the winter. This has simply not happened, however. Nor do we see warmer nights compared to days.
    Is this confusing? Well, fear not! Here, from our friends in England, is the definitive video which will tell you how to be politicially correct:

Merry Xmas from OPEC: $100 Per Barrel

2010-12-25T19:08:00.000-08:00

   Today Kuwait's oil minister suggested that the world economy can withstand $100 per barrel petroleum.

   The Village Elliot is quite angry about this on two accounts: first, the rapid rise in oil prices, necessary to fuel the world's economies, is certain to cause painful repercussions around the world. Second, the majority of the people in the United States still subscribes to a fairy tale version of energy, in which solar and windpower are supposed to somehow replace the 11 million barrels per day of oil that we currently import. To put this into perspective, 11 million barrels * $100 * 365 = 400 billion dollars a year that goes overseas for oil. That's $1300 per year for every man woman and child in America. That's how much you are paying for the privilege of using oil from other countries, while you wait for some other energy source to appear. The granola heads tout wind and solar power, along with teeny little cars, but it says here that it ain't happening.
   America is in real danger of being ruined economically We are afraid to drill in Arctic wasteland, fearing that caribou quality of life might be affected in a very small area. We were also hurt by the BP Horizon fiasco, which has raised legitimate fears about the competence of the petroleum industry to safely carry out drilling in deep water.
   Meantime, researchers know how to convert natural gas and coal to liquid fuels, but we are paralyzed with fear, believing that increasing levels of carbon dioxide will set off an economic catastrophe, causing the heat death of the world. These fears, it says here, are grossly overstated, as the global average temperature has stabilized even as carbon dioxide production has increased.
   Nevertheless, the American public has been fed a series of half-truths about energy for years. The fact is we can not use energy sources like solar, wind or ethanol to make up a substantial amount of the energy we currently import. We are still a petroleum based economy despite two decades of song and dance about "getting off petroleum." The reality is that it isn't happening, and we can not "get off petroleum" unless we are willing to "get off money."
   $100 per barrel oil ought to be a signal that it is time to develop new sources of North American oil, including coal and gas liquefaction, shale oil, Anwar drilling, and even deep sea drilling.

NASA's Arsenic Life Forms Looking Pale

2010-12-25T11:35:00.000-08:00

I'm still hoping that NASA's latest wild claim, about finding a new form of life totally separate from the rest of earth's lifeforms, which incorporates arsenic in its DNA will prove to be true.

But in an earlier blog (on myspace.com), I pointed out that this line of research sounds kind of flakey. There don't seem to be control experiments, and the whole thing hangs on some supposedly infallible experimental measurements. This leads NASA, and some imaginative science writiters, to conclude that this unique organism can incorporate arsenic its DNA, making it the equivalent of an alien life form, but occuring here on earth.

But by now other skeptics are weighing in, and they suggest that the claimed arsenic-DNA molecules could not be stable in water. Moreover, there is another test which could be done to prove that DNA molecules have arsenic in them, but which the NASA scientists didn't bother to do:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2010/12/07/and-the-skeptics-keep-chiming-in-george-cody-on-arsenic-life/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Loom+%28The+Loom%29

Oh yech. Well, there is still an opportunity for advocates to prove themselves, but the more I find out about this business the more depressing it seems. . I would/ have thought that NASA would be more careful, especially after their fiasco a few years ago in which they claimed to have found fossilized bacteria from Mars in a meteorite fragment. The US needs NASA to be a careful advocate for space exploration, rather than being an incubator for weird science.

The scientific community is still interested in the possibility of extra-terrestrial life, but it is in spite of research like this, not because of it.

Fabulous Fiddler Elmer Rich

2010-12-23T16:07:00.000-08:00

Most every Friday night at the Westover Senior Center, a group of old-time musicians gets together and puts together a wonderful display of old time fiddle music. Most of the time, Elmer Rich leads the group. Now, Elmer is a most interesting fellow. Who among your friends was given an award by Eleanor Roosevelt? Well this halppened to Elmer when he did well at a fiddle contest back in 1936. Since then, he has won an incredible number of awards and accolades, and is known throughout Appalachia and America as wonderful musician and warm human being.

Note: if you learn to play rock guitar as well as Elmer learned the mountain fiddle, you get a recording contract for about a zillion dollars. It's a pity that the mountain fiddle is not as well appreciated. But it is a distinctly American instrument and sound, and nobody does it better than Elmer.

The first time I sat down with this group, I figured that I was home. This is really something I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to be surrounded by friendly people, carrying on our American traditions and passing them down to our kids. I've got a renewed interest in improving my abilty to play the mandolin and other instruments.

It's not that I expect to necessarily live as long or as well as Elmer, but that's really not the point. The point is that for every day we are given on this Earth, we are blessed to be able to share it with others, and making music is one of the best ways to do that, for however long we are around.

Thanks, Elmer, for being the unofficial King of Appalachian music. I'm going to enjoy the rest of my musical journey, inspired by people like you.

The Morgantown WV Brew Pub Wednesday Night Jam

2010-12-15T12:52:00.000-08:00

The most fun I know how to have (besides being married to my beautiful wife Daphne) is to participate in a folk jam at the Morgantown Brewing Company (know locally as the Brew Pub), each and every Wednesday night, starting at about 930 PM. The music there is referred to as "Old Timey," which refers to Appalachian style music as it was played 70 years ago or more. The big difference between Bluegrass and Old Timey, is that Old Timey does not use the Scruggs style banjo, because that really works best as a solo instrument due to its rapid fire picking and loud resonator. On a given night at the Brew Pub, there might be three or four banjos playing together, and a like number of guitars, Dobro, mandolin and fiddles.

I don't know the names of all the people who attend, but I'll just say that if you come on Wednesday you might meet people like Keith McManus, Bob Short and others from the Stewed Mulligan band. Fiddler Keith and banjo player Vince Farsetta are the main organizers, while Bob also plays clawhammer banjo as well as the meanest hammer dulcimer in these parts.

and you might see Libby Eddy and the Weathered Road, back from New York, no less.

As you might expect we also have some young people from West Virginia University who are interested in learning the folk style. I got a kick out of a fellow named Carlos, from Brazil, who has become interested in Appalachian folk music. He's learned all the songs, so sometimes if I am not sure what we are supposed to play I look over to see what he's doing, and he's always right on.
Yesterday we had a fellow named Isaac who is interested in percussion, and he brought an African talking drum, plus an unusual instrument he made from PVC pipe which made a variety of sounds ranging from a bass, to a sound kind of like the Touvan throat singers from central Asia. It was great, and believe it or not it meshed very well with the Old Timey style of music we play.

Sometimes a woman named Sue (sorry I don't know her last name) brings a cello to the mix, and a guy named Richard brings a National resonator guitar, which is usually thought of as a blues instrument, though it appears in folk and bluegrass as well.

As for me, I'm not nearly as talented as most of the others, but I've been bringing my mandolin, tuned to a mountain tuning GDGD which gives it kind of a Scotch-Irish resonance. I'm learning some of the songs and can add a little, and when I'm not completely sure what I'm doing I just muffle the strings with my right hand and keep on playing.

So you are going to get an amazing blend of sounds. It is really incredible when you get 20 or so musicians going at the same time. It wouldn't be possible to have a single band with so many musicians, so having a jam is the only way to get this sound.

Here's kind of what it sounds like, though this particular jam was actually carried out at the nearby Blue Moose Cafe.

Dirty Coal Clean Future

2010-11-25T16:54:00.000-08:00

Atlantic Monthly published a fasinating essay on coal technology, and in particular how China is seeking to build its economy around it. This is of particular interest to the Village Elliot, who is currently working on clean coal with a consortium of US and Chinese companies, not to mention Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Dr. Friedmann mentioned prominently in the article.

   Most of us would rather that some combination of solar power and windmills be used to replace coal and to make up the staggering 12 million barrels of oil per day that America imports from places that it doesn't like. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that these supposedly green technologies are too expensive to allow America to compete in the world marketplace. Moreover, they aren't really green once you figure out how much fossil fuel is consumed to produce the hardware for green energy (hint: making solar cells is not cheap, and so where do you suppose the energy comes from to make them?). Fossil fuels, especially coal and petroleum are carcinogenic, poisonous and responsible for environmental disasters and kill workers involved in their use. But other forms of energy are worse.

     Our politicians have sold Americans a bill of goods, suggesting that future energy needs will be met with hydrogen, solar power, wind power and corn derived ethanol. Well, it just isn't true. Although niche markets exist, there is no credible way that America can hope to use energy sources that are severalfold more expensive than fossil fuels. We can't afford to shut down the economy waiting for totally clean energy sources to be perfected. Instead, we should set national targets for increasing energy production while continuing to decrease harmful opinions.

   We should also have a blue ribbon panel of Nobel Prize winners to determine whether carbon dioxide reductions are really benefitting the environment as much as the politcal activists claim. Yes, carbon dioxide in massive amounts can raise the temperature of a planet (like Venus, for example, which sits under thousands of pounds per square inch of carbon dioxide). But that does not mean that spending trillions of dollars is necessary in order to reduce carbon concentrations by a few parts per million on Earth. Yes, carbon dioxide may have changed the swimming habits of polar bears.

   But at the same time, America has found it necessary to borrow 1.3 trillion dollars per year to maintain our lifestyle, while unemployment hovers around 10%, Much of that money goes to buy oil to keep our economy running, some 300 billion dollars worth annually. We're counting on the generosity of our Masters in OPEC to continue to allow us to buy their oil with the promise (via interest from T-Bills) to take care of their children and grandchildren in the future.

   America needs to set goals of achieving full employment, balanced budgets and energy self-sufficiency. We can't do that with fictitious energy. We need coal in order to do this.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/dirty-coal-clean-future/8307/2

How to Balance the Federal Budget

2010-11-16T18:20:00.000-08:00

How to Balance the Federal Budget

It's not so tough to balance the Federal budget. We've been led to believe that Americans are the neediest people on earth, so that our lives are so destitute that we need to borrow like crazy just so that the suffering can be alleviated for a year or so.

Well, it doesn't have to be that way. We can in fact balance the budget. But I'm not going to tell you how to do it. In fact, you're going to tell me how to do it with this interactive graphic from the New York Times, which allows you to (on paper at least) make the budget decisions that Congress is going to make to either raise taxes or cut spending. It will quickly calculate the budget for next year and then in the year 2030.

I found it remarkably simple to balance the budget, without even having to resort to radical Village Elliot ideas like actually increasing economic growth. Some things I would like to call to your attention are items like malpractice reform, which would result in real health care savings, but would lose a lot of well-to-do supporters in the legal profession. Also the "use alternate measure for inflation" sounds wacky, but many people figure that we are over-correcting for inflation, and benefits are going up faster than the (real) inflation. So we may be overspending by billions without intending to. Anyway, without further ado, here's your chance to balance the budget:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html

Budget Puzzle: You Fix the Budget

Today, you’re in charge of the nation’s finances. Some of your options have more short-term savings and some have more long-term savings. When you have closed the budget gaps for both 2015 and 2030, you are done. Make your own plan, then share it online.