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I have a new Mises piece that details how I have taken a bearish, 180 turn on China’s economy.

It originally began as an email to Robert Wenzel and was later flushed out into a proper article based on conversations I’ve had with KY Leong and Mark DeWeaver.

So with apologies to Mish (whom I called out earlier), my bullishness was incorrect. I should also point out that Lew called this stupendous bubble many months ago.

With any luck, other, more media-savvy libertarians (two in particular) will also stop trying to peddle Sino-based indices to potential clients. China is not the US in 1909.

Bubble, what bubble?

One example that I highlight in the footnotes: stocks have risen 79% in Shanghai (since January) and took a 5% nose-dive two days ago when there were rumors that policy makers will “curb inflows” — to cool off the officially recognized bubble. Who knows when it will officially peak, so buyer beware…

Other bearish articles of interest:

- Notes on a real estate trip in China (Pettis)
- RMB 15 trillion in new Chinese lending, can we turn this thing off (Pettis)
- China: Bogus Boom? (AEI)
- Beijing Borrows $8.8 Billion for Financial District (Bloomberg)
- Murky world of local finance exposes holes in China’s stimulus programme (Dragon Beat)
- The Four Cheapest Plays in Emerging Markets (Barron’s)
- China warns banks over asset bubbles (Financial Times)

As yesterday was urban-withdrawal-day, these sobering stats were from Patrick Cockburn’s latest piece at The Independent:

Countdown to withdrawal: The Iraq war in numbers

170,000 The number of US troops in Iraq at the peak of the invasion in 2003

135,000 The number of American service personnel in Iraq on 1 June 2009

4,303 The number of US military deaths

2,200 The number of Iraqi doctors and nurses killed during the conflict

92,438 The minimum number of documented deaths of Iraqi civilians

80,000 The number of mobile phones owned by Iraqis before the war, compared with the estimated 17.7 million handsets owned by the population now

500,000 The number of Iraqis who were living abroad before the invasion, compared with the estimated 2 million expats who are living overseas now

138 The number of journalists killed

2.41 million Current oil production at Iraq’s oilfield, down from 2.58 million before the war

$674bn The estimated cost of the war in Iraq, equivalent to £407bn

Biologist PZ Meyers has a very popular blog (Pharyngula) that I’ve read for the last couple of years. It is usually through him that I find out the latest shenanigans of the creationist movement.

While I tend to find his rants amusing, one that struck me odd was his thrashing of Ray Kurzweil a month ago. Meyers had previously blogged about Kurzweil and had little warm and fuzzy to say about him at that time tambien.

What surprised me about Meyers latest scoffing is that he seems oblivious to the advances of all sciences at both the amateur and professional levels. For instance, within the latest issue of h+ magazine is a detailed interview with one of the participants of the DIY biology movement.

True, it would be hard to argue that any of these specific experiments from these independent organizations have yet fulfilled the visions of Kurzweil. However, in the past month I have posted more than 100 links detailing research and development in the science and technology fields (NBIC).

In addition Engadget, ScienceDaily, BoingBoing, PhysOrg, Slashdot, CNet, ArsTechnica and a bevy of other tech-heavy websites summarize ongoing innovations on a daily basis.

Thus taken as a whole, it is through these developments that we all have a better chance of living substantially longer, healthier lives.

With that said, I am curious to know what Meyers is all hung up about. Does he not see artificial hearts and limbs (e.g., Luke arm, Olympic-quality legs) as precursors to being completely borged in a few decades?

What exactly does he see as insurmountable in terms of supercentenarian longevity? Does he think Aubrey de Grey (negligible senescence) is a modern day snake-oil peddler?

The roadmap

For the record I do not have nearly as bullish outlook on ‘accelerating returns’ as Kurzweil does, and even think that the current economic maelstrom will have long-lasting repercussions. However, ceteris paribus, it is hard to see why innovation will somehow come to a standstill preventing molecular nanoengineering (e.g., Drexler’s predictions) from eventually germinating sooner or later.

Be sure to also read the Newsweek piece that started it all. Here is Kurzweil’s response as well as another interesting discussion from Aaron Senz.

So some people have emailed me about the 20th anniversary of the Tienanmen square protests.

I usually send them Justin Raimondo’s excellent piece written 10 years ago.

If you want a condensed view, I heartily endorse Ron Paul’s bad ass speech given yesterday.

Seriously guys. If you live in America and you don’t protest on the anniversary of the Iraq invasion, yet you get all flustered about China, you are a hypocrite. If you don’t protest during the anniversary of the Branch Davidian siege, you are a hypocrite. If you don’t protest the dozens of other domestic deaths caused each year due to “human rights” abuses in the US, you are a hypocrite. Ruby Ridge? Kent State?

Heck, the cockamamie raid at the mormon YFZ Ranch occurred just last spring, yet you didn’t see busy-body Chinese nationals burning US flags and calling for a boycott of GM or IBM.

And don’t even get started with that Tibet bull crap.

Let us ignore the fact that the Lama voluntarily went to Beijing in 1954 and broke bread with Mao & Co. for several months and signed various agreements. Let us also ignore the fact that the Dalia Lama was in bed with the CIA and MI6 through Operation ST Circus. For more on that see: “A Cold War in Shangri La” by Tenzig Sonam, “Democratic Imperialism” by Michael Barker, “CIA’s Secret War in Tibet” by Joe Bageant, “Tibet, the ‘great game’ and the CIA” by Richard Bennett.

Yea, I said it. He’s a tool who speaks English and is good at winning the hearts and minds of naive people with slick slogans.

What about Free Hawaii? Its queen was toppled by US militants and missionaries. Seriously, check it out. What about Free Northern Ireland? Which was invaded by do-gooders from England? What about Free the Boer Orange State, which was invaded by British South Africans? What about Free Réunion and all the other overseas territories of France?

In short, if you feel like protesting some grave injustice, be sure you’ve wagged your finger at the local injustices first before tweeting about the savages that live on the other side of the tracks.

See also: Challenging China-Bashing
Professional Protesters and the Political Class

I was reading a blurb on Bloomberg regarding uranium prices and was reminded of the fact that some of the uranium fuel used to power nuclear plants in the US come from converted Russian nukes.

Yes, that is right, according to a press release in 2002:

Over the past eight years, Megatons to Megawatts has eliminated weapons-grade uranium equivalent to 6,000 nuclear warheads by converting it to clean-burning fuel for nuclear power plants. By already completing about one-third of our 20-year goal of eliminating 500 metric tons of weapons-grade uranium, this milestone achievement has measurably reduced the threat of nuclear terrorism Noun 1. nuclear terrorism – the use of a nuclear device by a terrorist organization to cause massive devastation or the use (or threat of use) of fissionable radioactive materials; “assaults on nuclear power plants is one form of nuclear terrorism” in the world.

The benefits to both the United States and Russia are substantial and will continue to grow. By 2013, at the contract’s scheduled conclusion, we will have eliminated 500 metric tons of weapons-grade uranium–the equivalent of 20,000 nuclear warheads.

And while Obama is continuing much of the same ridiculous foreign policies as his predecessor, here is to hoping that he expands the denuclearization (weapon) talks with Russia. He is scheduled to meet later this year to discuss decommissioning even more nukes. So with any luck, these radioactive pits will one day power homes and businesses instead of living on the tip of a missile.

For more on the Megatons to Megawatts program, here is the official brochure (PDF) and the WNA has a more thorough, web-friendly explanation.

Also, for a quick laugh: Barack Obama’s Facebook Feed via Peter Klein

- A softer approach to North Korea (NY Times in 2005)
- Border calm as tensions rise on Korean peninsula (AP)
- Kim Jong Il’s provocations to the West may hide a rational purpose (Times Online)
- China, Japan on collision course over rare-earth metals (The Australian) :: it is an update to a previous story
- New Vietnam port heralds US service (AFP)
- Potential of US Copyright Agenda to Endanger Freedom of Expression in China (IP Osgoode)
- New Law In Korea Means Google Bans The Uploading Of Music On Any Blog (Techdirt) — I noted this quagmire two years ago in this footnote

And here are two somewhat conflicting articles on the economy in North Korea. The first is from Newsweek which says, “the North doesn’t have to rely on the black market to support itself.”

Yet a new piece from AFP discusses just how much regular/common/normal folk depend on black and grey markets to obtain consumer goods. Thus, the tie breaker goes to the interview with Andrei Lankov whose statements seem to affirm the AFP report.

NewScientist is reporting that the Discovery Institute, the creationist organization that lost in the Dover case, has finally admitted on a new website that:

[C]an one be a Christian and accept evolution? The answer, as far as the Discovery Institute is concerned, is a resounding: No.

This is the same organization that has year after year said that the concept of Intelligent Design is not based on theistic creationism. In fact, they have paraded several non-evangelical Christians at various events and even got a Jewish Ben Stein to stump for them in the movie Expelled.

Of course, this is not too surprising for anyone following the itallicized cintelligent designreationism debate. See the NOVA program: Judgment Day to better understand that typo and this admission.

Author Charlie Stross recently posted a speech he made regarding the near-future and gaming.

I can’t say much about gaming (because I’m too cool to play anymore), but he does have some interesting things to say about wireless technology and semiconductor fab limits.

I think he is spot on regarding where the wireless stack is heading (driven by “smart” on-the-fly software drivers).

However, I am perplexed as to his position on the limits of semiconductor processes. I too recognize what the designers at big firm like Intel have been saying: there are limits that will eventually be run into. However, Stross believes that there is only another couple magnitudes in performance that can be squeezed from the next several generations of CPUs and GPUs.

To be fair he does suggest that someone could get the multicore approach to eventually pay off in applications outside specific niches (e.g. graphics, finance). But what about graphene? What about optics? What about improvements in bus interfaces, RAM speeds, SSDs, etc.?

And on the software side, what about OS virtualization and shard-based redundancies? Even if it becomes nigh impossible to scale and squeeze performance from XXX amounts of cores, most applications will probably become thread tolerant and OS/application crashes may simply become a thing of the past (for what it is worth, Vista has only crashed on me once in the past 6 months). Stability is a performance gains that will manifest itself more as hard drive throughput speeds increase.

Rose-tinted glasses?

Also, I’m still not sold on his heads-up display/glasses scenario. He has high hopes for it in his book Accelerando, but the whole near-term prospects remind me of what author William Gibson said: the future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed. Has Stross ever been to the rural parts of developing countries?

Perhaps some members of the digerati may adopt this technology on the margins in the coming decade, but they would only be able to in dense, developed cities. And don’t count on Japanese and Korean customers to be always leading the way.

Why?

Their populations are declining and the kids being born now will be saddled with huge amounts of debt they will have to pay for. Japans debt-to-GDP is more than 200% now and while Korea is not that high (yet), is saddled with the same institutional problems that will make it hard to pay for and deploy the gee-whiz “smart” infrastructure that Stross envisions and what is needed to make glasses-based HUDs usable. Similar doom and gloom for the US is spelled out here.

Be sure to also check out this sneak peak of Larrabee and an interesting discussion on building a single-server MMORPG.

Not quite, but the Board is voting on the age of the universe.

Why stop there? Why not vote on the mass of the Higgs boson? Heck, next session, why not vote and fill in the missing quantities for the Millennium Prize in mathematics?

Unsurprisingly, many members of the Board are adherents to creationism and have pushed forth various new laws and resolutions to change the wording in various text books.

If nothing else, this should serve as a case for why taxpayer-financed Board’s of education should be abolished. Consequently, the easiest and fairest way to remove politics from the science room is doing just that, axing all the committees and barring future oversight.

Thus, in addition to a separation of church and state there should also be a separation of science and state as well as separation of education and state.

When pigs fly

So that will probably not happen on this side of the singularity, but while creationism is in the news, I wanted to point out a germane comment that Gene Callahan made the other day (Gene usually confuses me, but this one is concise and to the point):

Early evolutionary theorists who were theists:

St. Augustine: A man brilliant enough to realize, by 400, that Genesis “should not be taken too literally.”

al-Khazini, al-Jahiz, Ibn al-Haytham, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, Nasir al-Din Tusi: All developed Islamic theories of evolution in the Middle Ages.

Leibniz, Herder: Devout theists who developed theories of evolution in the 18th century.

James Burnett, Lord Monboddo: Theist and early advocate of the idea that men descended from apes.

I could keep going, but you get the point, fundamentalist: The idea that the theory of evolution was “devised by atheists” or “devised to support atheism” is a lie propagated by fundamentalist websites, and easily disproven by spending 15 minutes browsing the Internet.

There is a game being played with this stance (“Every line of the Bible must be taken literally or else!”) and the name of the game is “Holier than thou” — it’s about getting an ego boost, not about acting as a Christian.

Do a quick google search on those names and you’ll see Gene’s thesis is more than substantiated. In fact, the three entries “History of evolutionary thought,” “Islamic Golden Age,” and “Early Islamic Philosophy” are good reads as well. Gene also points to Anaximander and the ancient Greek philosophers that discussed organic (biological) evolution.

But then again, these guys were obviously on the dole of the Big Evolution – Big Textbook establishment!

Reasons not to believe

The one other blurb I recently came across that ties into all of this was a post from Michael Shermer on Biblical Patternicity. Irrespective of your belief system, his whole post is worth a read as he does a good job showing how creationist groups like Reasons to Believe (RtB) use postdiction (as opposed to prediction) as a methodology.

The reason this struck my fancy is that 8 years ago, when I was deconverting from Christianity/creationism, it was actually debates hosted by RtB that began to untwist my own nutty worldview I had been taught. Oh the irony!

And then there wasn’t light

The only other comment I have regarding the Texas situation is that these luddite literalitists are doing no favors to Western civilization as their rigid fundamentalist thinking is similar to the Islamic literalists of yore. Guys like Chief Mufti, his janissaries and the ulema did wonders to “enlighten” the advanced, sophisticated Arab world of the 16th century (Hint: they helped destroy it, much like the Wedge potentially can do).

See also: You cannot believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible…
Why Intelligent Design is not Scientific
Stellar Appreciation Day
How long did it take for the rings to form around Saturn?
Long distance phone calls in outer space
Are Half-Lives Legit or Just Something Sagan Liked?
Fighting debris with debris creates more debris
Admitting You Are Wrong On Easter
Intelligent Design and the Light-Year

Kidding, but… people have been sending me happy May Day text messages all day. Pretty weird, huh? And we get a day off at work. Heroic communism?!?

Or not.

- The Frock-Communist Coated Communist, the life of Engels (Times Online)
- Rural Riddle: Do Jobs Follow Broadband Access? (Washington Post)
- Interview with monetary economist George Selgin (Richmond Fed)
- Pushing Plastic Solar Cells (Technology Review)
- Intellectual property in China (The Economist). ruh roh, this could be unfortunate (see also: Against Intellectual Property [pdf])
- The Rise and Fall of the Sewing Machine Patent Thicket (Volokh)
- DIY chip fab (RepRap). Be sure to check out the flickr images too.
- Steam Hardware Survey: April 2009 (Valve). Note the low uptake in quad-core processors (14.6%) as well as Vista (28.28%). That is surprising considering how many gamers bill themselves as bleeding edge.