UNKNOWN AND IM#4

The two box office hits this weekend were #1, Unknown, and #2, I Am Number 4.  I found both to be entertaining and ideal for escapism.  Unknown is the better film (56% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) over IM#4 (RT=27%).

Unknown is based on a French novel about biotechnology, minor amnesia and assassination, with an intriguing and suspenseful, but difficult to believe, story line.  I'm not giving anything away by saying there is an unexpected, but happy, ending.  Liam Neeson puts on a good performance and is now the reigning action star.

I Am Number Four is mostly about aliens, but weakly managed.  The main alien is supposed to be a 15 year high school student, but looks like a senior in college.  To make a long story short, nine young aliens are somehow transported to Earth to grow up and develop special physical powers.  However, they are being pursued by other aliens looking like white Mike Tysons.  Don't understand why, but each hunted wears a sequential charm.  Three are killed, and #4 is that high school student.  I suspect this film will ultimately make more money than Unknown because it is tailored to draw teenagers with chases, fights, morphing monster animals, super guns, love and more.  Can't imagine why a vampire wasn't tossed into the mix.  How's this for ambition, but this is to be a six-part series, and the next film, entitled the The Power of Six, is expected to be released in August.


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*THE STATE OF PLANET EARTH AND HUMANITY TODAY

1.  Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Iran, and Algeria remain in turmoil,  Jordan, Saudia Arabia and Tunisia remain uneasy, while Sudan and Somalia could be next.  The Muslim Brotherhood, a movement, not a political party, seems entwined in all these rebellions.  They have been around since 1928, and some of them went on to found Al Queda, which now considers the MB to have sold out.  The MB has been in the USA since the 1960's.  Members of the MB are mostly professionals.  They wear suits and accept that democracy might be a pathway to an ultimate Union on Arab Nations, from Spain to Indonesia.  However, "Islam is the solution" is their belief, and an Islamic Caliphate is their ideal, a constitutional republic run by an Imam.  Their spiritual leader is Yusuf al-Qaradawi (left)  If the MB gains any kind of control, there will continue to be gender issues and Israel will be in high jeopardy.

2.  My 31January2011 posting asked where is the next Earth?  Well, the latest information from Kepler is that there are 500 million possible Earths just in our Milky Way galaxy.  Mind you, while we have an ordinary one with, perhaps 300 billion stars, a beam of light will take about 100,000 years just to travel from one end to the other.  Further, as there are, supposedly, 100 billion other galaxies, 500 million times 100 billion would suggest 50000000000000000000 possible Earths in our Universe.

3.  Is Peak Oil imminent?

4.  Sea level rise could affect 180 U.S. cities by 2100.

5.  #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 is Lady Gaga's Born This Way, as covered by Maria Aragon.  #2 is Katy Perry's Firework and #3 Bruno Mars' Grenade.  By the way, Bruno got off his cocaine bust with a slap on the wrist.  The #1 song 50 years ago today was Lawrence Welk's Calcutta. In 1951, #1 was Patti Page's Tennessee Waltz, while in 1941, Artie Shaw's Frenesi.

5.  The number one movie this weekend was Unknown, with Liam Neeson, while I am Number Four, sort of Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) redux, was #2.  Fifty years ago, #1 was 101 Dalmatians.

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HAVE UNIONS BECOME OBSOLETE?

On 6August2009 I posted "SIMPLE SOLUTION:  Disestablish Unions as Necessary."  In particular, I discussed the end of unions in Hawaii.  To quote:

At one time, for both the nation and the State of Hawaii, unions were absolutely essential for getting us to where we are today. But the times they have changed, yet no one dares to officially underscore the debatable contention that unions are today obsolete, particularly in Hawaii. This still toothy dinosaur is so rooted to past conventions that it seems to have totally lost sight of what should be its current mission for the misguided sake of historical precedence.

This issue has suddenly become a hot issue nationwide, as Republicans, urged on by Tea Party types, appear to be trying to eliminate unions in response to budgetary shortfalls.  Wisconsin (Governor Scott Walker on left) is sort of like Tunisia, for the Republicans will almost surely prevail, and a bunch of other states, like Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Florida and Nevada, will wind down the same path.  

Hawaii?  Nah.  While Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat and former  strong supporter, seems to be acting like a self-decided one term governor, for he is confronting public unions with zeal, there will only be some weakening of labor.

The following shows that unions are nationally losing public support, and, to my surprise, only a little more than 10% of American workers belong to unions:

In Europe, only 6% of workers in Spain belong to unions, going up to 53% in Italy and higher in Scandinavia, but worldwide, memberships are decreasing.  Here is an interesting comparison:

                            Private Sector   Public Sector

United States              7%                    29%

Australia                   14%                    42%

United Kingdom         15%                    57%

Canada                     16%                    71%

Although in the U.S. industrial unions got particularly hammered by the recent recession, as in the auto industry, where significant concessions were made to preserve jobs, the targeted group, these days, has to do with government unions.  At one time, say 50 years ago,  an individual in government made much less than his counterpart in industry.  Unions swooped in to reverse this situation, and they, indeed, were very successful, for in 2009, the average employee in the private sector made (salary and benefits) $61051/year, while this figure was $69,913 in local government, with the big difference being in benefits:  $10,589 to $16,857.  Clearly, then, government workers at all levels will see lowering salaries and benefits in the years to come.  New workers will not enjoy similar retirement and health benefits.

But, are unions obsolete?  I say yes, but mostly because they have not adjusted to the changed economic and political conditions.  There remain important roles for them to play, such as protecting workers from injustices.  They will survive if they become part of the solution.

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Tropical Cyclone Dianne is now at 80 MPH, but will weaken and dissipate far west of Australia.  However Tropical Cyclone Atu just formed, is now at 65 MPH, will gain hurricane force strength as it moves south and threaten a few small islands south of Vanuatu and east of New Caledonia.

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162 HOLES OF GOLF

On February 10 my blog featured "99 Holes of Golf at Ala Wai."  My friends mostly ignore my daily blog, but this posting resulted in a number of comments. Thus, I thought I'd return to this subject and note that the annual Sumida Golf Safari to Nevada/Utah/California usually includes 162 holes over a one week period.  (As the photo shows, we also drink wine.) In fact, we have been known to have rounds featuring margarita, martini, you name it, depending on our taste and inclination.

Yesterday I reached 162 holes, all at the Ala Wai Golf Course this month.  While the Sumida Safari participants only luxuriate on carts, my accomplishment includes as many walking rounds as riding ones.  The significance of this marathon, further, is that it is not easy to get a starting time at Ala Wai.  The Guinness Book of World Records has indicated that this is the busiest golf course in the Nation, which makes sense, for we have longer days here than most areas of the continental USA, plus as many as six can be accommodated in a group if everyone rides a cart.

A $45 monthly card will get you ten 18-hole rounds, for a cost of $4.50 each time if you walked.  Weekends are more expensive and this card cannot be used.

Ala Wai Municipal Golf Course 
404 Kapahulu Avenue
Waikiki, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii
Tee Time Reservations: 808-296-2000
General Information: 808-733-7387
Phone: 808-676-2210
Web Site: Honolulu.gov - Ala Wai Golf course

The only real way to get a starting time is to begin calling 296 2000 at 6:30 AM to gain a slot for the following week.  Thus, this morning, I dialed this number and got through after a couple of rings, winning a 9:59 AM tee off next Friday, February 25.  Anyone interested in joining in, e-mail me at:

patkentak@hotmail.com

The first five will be accommodated.  If only three or fewer care to join me, we will walk.

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The Dow Jones Industrials rose 73 to 12,391, while world markets were mixed.  The all-time closing high occurred  on 9October2007 at 14,165,  The decade low was 6,547 on 9March2009.

Gold increased $3/toz to $1386, while NYMEX petroleum is at $86/barrel and the Brent Spot at $102/barrel.

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There is a rather dangerous storm in the Indian Ocean just west of Australia.  Tropical Cyclone Dianne is already at 75 MPH and is expected to reach Category 3 status soon:

However, Dianne is not expected to make landfall.

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My roof was in technicolor splendor this morning:

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COUNTRY #166: Mozambique

Welcome, country #166:

MOZAMBIQUE POPULATION: 21,669,278

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Background

Almost five centuries as a Portuguese colony came to a close with independence in 1975. Large-scale emigration, economic dependence on South Africa, a severe drought, and a prolonged civil war hindered the country's development until the mid 1990's. The ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) party formally abandoned Marxism in 1989, and a new constitution the following year provided for multiparty elections and a free market economy. A UN-negotiated peace agreement between FRELIMO and rebel Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO) forces ended the fighting in 1992. In December 2004, Mozambique underwent a delicate transition as Joaquim CHISSANO stepped down after 18 years in office. His elected successor, Armando Emilio GUEBUZA, promised to continue the sound economic policies that have encouraged foreign investment.

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They had food riots last year, as shown in this bread line.  However, it is a democracy and tourism is being cultivated.  There is optimism for economic growth.

WILL RARE EARTHS BECOME A PRODUCT OF THE BLUE REVOLUTION?

My early career crossed paths with these rare earth elements twice.  First, when I worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion in the 1970's, I happened to deal with Neodymium YAG lasers.  Neodymium is a rare earth, and the Y part of YAG is another, Yttrium.  The Shiva laser at LLNL used a neodymium glass laser.

Leaving Livermore, I went on to the U.S. Senate in 1979, and my first task was to manage the Hard Minerals legislation, dealing with seabed metals, where Sen. Spark Matsunaga was the chief sponsor.  The bill made it through Congress and became the Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Resources Act, but as a curious sidelight, there was a lot of intrigue regarding Howard Hughes' Glomar Explorer and the CIA.  The cover story was that this ship was built to harvest manganese nodules, when the reality was that it was secretly commissioned to find the sunken Russian submarine, K-129, lost in 1968.  Depending on who you believe, full to partial success was attained, as at least part of the sub was recovered in 1975.  The Glomar Explorer was mothballed during the period of this legislation, was considered by Lockheed for deep seabed applications, then converted into a deep sea drilling craft in the late 1990's.  It is now looking for oil in Indonesia, and owned by, of all the companies, Transocean, the firm with British Petroleum that was implicated for the Gulf Oil disaster.  

Rare earth elements are seventeen metals, fifteen lanthanoids, plus scandium and yttrium.  These rare earth elements are used in various high tech components and military applications. Actually there is a lot of this stuff in the Earth's crust.  However, they are so dispersed that, at present, China happens to be one location where there is some consolidation.  Interestingly enough, from the 60's to the 80's the Mountain Pass rare earth mine in California supplied most of these metals.  Today, China produces over 97% from Inner Mongolia.

How China gained a monopoly was by undercutting the prices of competitors, who mostly abandoned operations over the past two decades.  Now, partly politics, but certainly shrewd business sense, China announced they will be reducing exports over the next few years, no doubt to jack up the price.  It is also clear that China wants to upgrade its exports from low cost commodities to finished electronics.  Japan panicked last year and went to Vietnam to provide these resources, and this week signed an alliance with India.  Even Afghanistan has come into the picture as a future source.

I have in particular been closing watching, Molycorp,  a Canadian company, and kicking myself for not jumping in last September, when that China-Japan brouhaha occurred over the Senkaku Island issue (watch a clip of a Chinese trawler ramming into a Japanese patrol boat).  From 12 at the end of last July to 63 last month, the stock price has settled to around 50 today.

Rare earth deposits in the U.S. are in as many as 14 states.  Quantum Rare Earth Development, another Canadian company, is exploring in the State of Nebraska.  It turns out that nuclear waste tailings are becoming economically attractive now, too.  Can you imagine, though, the environmental impact problems to be faced by any company wanting to commercialize this operation in the USA?  

The most intriguing potential of high interest for me, after all those Law of the Sea (another treaty the U.S. signed, but has not yet ratified) exercises and the fact that the Institute I directed at the University of Hawaii was the Department of Interior's national center for seabed mining, is the deep ocean.  Charles Morgan, who was part of that center, chaired a gathering in Honolulu this past fall, where the conferees tended to agree that, finally, the time had perhaps come to explore the deep oceans again.  Not for the manganese, but these nodules (about the size of a potato) also contain copper and nickle.  The added value of rare earths, plus those national security implications, have changed the interest dynamics.  Certainly, Charley, who once worked for Lockheed on this effort, should gain some funds to assay the 5,000 or so nodules he still keeps.  Japan, for sure, will be exploring seas.

Hmm...I wonder if the Blue Revolution should link with this resource?  I suspect not at this point, as it will difficult enough trying to get OTEC and next generation fisheries going.

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The Dow Jones Industrials crept up 30 to 12,318, with world markets almost all also increasing.  The NYMEX petroleum is at $86/barrel, while the Brent Spot is at $103/barrel.  Many commodities (corn, soybeans, etc.) today leaped 3%.

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Those three tropical cyclones in the Indian Ocean are still bringing some rain, but there appears to be no real threat at this time about any serious strengthening.

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WHAT SPARKED THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION?

While the First World War was triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in the few years leading up to 1914, military spending of European powers increased by 50%, expecting the inevitable.  Some of those incidents sound remarkably familiar today.  In 1909 came the Bosnian Crisis and the war begun when Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia, with early clashes among British, French and German troops occurring in Africa, and even the Pacific, as German territories there were attacked, even by the Japanese, which seized German Micronesian colonies.

The point is that much of the future can be predicted, while wars and revolutions lead in unexpected directions.  Well, who were the visionaries auguring this turmoil in Africa and the Middle East?

Did Samuel Huntington in his early 1993 version of Clash of Civilizations set the table for a new world order?  I still remember Mildred and Dick Kosaki recommending my reading of this book.  I purchased it, still have it, but never made it past the cover.  With respect to that question, though, Huntington's emphasis had more to do with Muslim-Christian cultural conflicts, while the current uprisings are intra-Islamic.  So, as much as he is quoted these days, his future wars are about the next stage of global conflicts, not the current events.

Well, in 2004, Jason Morrissette and Douglas Borer wrote on future conflicts in Northern Africa and the Middle East.  But, again, they were focused on water, and therefore, food, causing chaos.  I understand what they are saying, for I've several times already mentioned in my blogs that Egypt, particularly, would attack the source of the Nile to maintain flow.  But, so far, all protests were merely downtrodden and angry citizens unhappy with their entrenched leadership.  Nothing between nations, nothing cultural, nothing dealing with major resources.

Who anticipated the internet and the fact that people are mad and just could not take it anymore coming together to topple Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt, galvanizing turmoil in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Iran?  Can a case be made for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who spoke against the digital Iron Curtain?  Nope, she gave that talk after Tunisia fell.

Well, then, The Bible?  Click on one blog site that provides such "evidence," but, you can predict anything after the fact from The Bible.  Certainly not the CIA, for Director Leon Panetta even had to guess about the timing of Mubarak's departure.

Well, it really doesn't matter who was that visionary.  What is more relevant is who or what sparked the rebellion?  A current favorite might well be Julian Assange, for Wikileaks supposedly embarrassed American diplomats who confidentially revealed that Tunisian President Ben Ali's family of relatives were lavish spenders, which, although the local masses already knew it, still royally ticked them off, finally reacting to the spark of Sidi Bouzid's self-immolation.

Where does it go from here?  My bookmaking odds (for change of government before the end of this year):

Yemen:             1:2

Bahrain:            1:1

Libya:                2:1

Algeria:              2:1

Iran:                  3:1

Jordan:              3:1

Saudi Arabia:     3:1

Pakistan:           3:1

At least one

   country in

   Europe          1:1
Japan:             1:1 (5 Prime Ministers in 5 years)
North Korea      2:1
Israel               3:1
India:               5:1

China             10:1

USA             100:1  (this is why the Dow Jones Industrial Average 

                                will skip past 13,000 this year)

These odds, of course, will change with time and events, for a strategic assassination, overreaction to Peak Oil, extraterrestrial message from aliens and who knows what, will change the course of the future.

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The Dow Jones Industrials jumped 62 to 12,288 and world markets did, too.  Gold went up $3/toz to $1375 and NYMEX oil is now at $85/barrel, with Brent Spot at $104/barrel, breaking the previous differential.

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Nothing much has changed about those three storms in the Indian Ocean.

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COUNTRY #165: Nicaragua

Welcome, country #165:

NICARAGUA POPULATION: 5,891,199

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Background

The Pacific coast of Nicaragua was settled as a Spanish colony from Panama in the early 16th century. Independence from Spain was declared in 1821 and the country became an independent republic in 1838. Britain occupied the Caribbean Coast in the first half of the 19th century, but gradually ceded control of the region in subsequent decades. Violent opposition to governmental manipulation and corruption spread to all classes by 1978 and resulted in a short-lived civil war that brought the Marxist Sandinista guerrillas to power in 1979. Nicaraguan aid to leftist rebels in El Salvador caused the US to sponsor anti-Sandinista contra guerrillas through much of the 1980s. Free elections in 1990, 1996, and 2001, saw the Sandinistas defeated, but voting in 2006 announced the return of former Sandinista President Daniel ORTEGA Saavedra. The 2008 municipal elections were characterized by widespread irregularities. Nicaragua's infrastructure and economy - hard hit by the earlier civil war and by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 - are slowly being rebuilt, but democratic institutions face new challenges under the ORTEGA administration.

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More specifically:

I don't know anyone who has travelled to Nicaragua, as there is some hostility to the USA.  Various cruise ships make stops here.    Here is a clip on Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega, whose mentor was Fidel Castro.  After all, it is reported that Chavez gave Ortega $1.4 billion to do as he wishes.  My last memory of this country is Guy Lombardo's "Managua Nicaragua."

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The Dow Jones Industrials dropped 42 to 12,227, with world markets more up than down.  Gold increased $9/toz to $1372 and NYMEX petroleum is at $84/barrel, with the Brent Spot at $101/barrel.  The current hotspots are Yemen, Iran and Bahrain.

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There are three storms in the Indian Ocean, two near Australia and Tropical Cyclone Bingiza still raining over western Madagascar.