Presented with no comment…
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What’s the true risk for the Global Economy?
What’s the true risk for the global economy? Its pronounced: /d??fl?SH(?)n/
We are not trying to be cryptic? We are falling in line with commentary and messages from central bankers, institutions, funds with respect to the economy. Here is the FOMC minute’s inflation range going into the next few years.
GDP average ranges from 1.8% to 2.6% per annum. Pay special close to the PCE inflation and Core PCE inflation ranges: 1.5% to 2.4%. The target inflation is 2.0 %. These figures are considering a composed or steady increase in economic activity and a return of capital expenditures by larger – big cap – companies into technology, human capital, infrastructure, etc. Remember, the multiple on private spending is several fold public spending.
The figures are not that bad, so far. We have an initial indication that the EU region is at risk of a slowdown. The US economy is not awash in economic happiness nor are we experiencing difficulty rubbing two nickels together. The Chinese are comfortable with slower growth. Not slow growth, just slower growth. This is the difference between 7.6% and 7.4% on an annual basis. The figure today was at 7.3%. Being fair, most economies in the world would give up their central bankers for that kind of GDP. Outside of China, the other high GDP is India. But we won’t mention the inflation levels in India in this article (wink, wink).
In pure economic terms, deflation is defined as the reduction of the general level of prices in an economy. Said simpler: If you know that a smartphone will be cheaper tomorrow than today by $5, would you wait till tomorrow or buy today? The very thought of considering that option is the beginning of deflation.
What’s the greater risk with deflation? The infectious contention that you can wait to get a “good deal” on a particular good or service. Why is this dangerous? This reduces the flow of money. If you hold your capital for a better opportunity, you are restricting the flow of money to the rest of the global economy. In economics 101, the groundwork for the sustainability of an economy is the movement of money.
We already began to witness in some ways in the EU. When factories are beginning to adjust pricing in relation to demand, we may have new leading indicator. The possible problem is that if we experience a precipitous decrease in economic conditions across the global. Notice how very little mention of inflation has remained in the lexicon of the central bankers in the last few weeks. We really are trying not to be conspiratorial.
What to watch for in the coming weeks? Inflation indicators: CPI, PPI, PCE, housing prices, factory orders, manufacturing PMI’s.
Continue to monitor how ECB central bankers react to the macroeconomic figures. Buying assets, QE, is an approach to bring in a bid in certain securities.
Remember, QE had a concentration on short to medium term securities. Not only did this allow the “Bid” in Treasuries, this also removed duration risk out of the equation. In turn allowing little fluctuation in the securities.
Central Bankers want stability in the markets and the economies. Any hint of removing the movement of capital sets the central bankers into motion. When interest leaves from Treasuries, Asset Based Securities, banks behave different to their clients and lending standards change. Augmentation to lending standards invites greater scrutiny. The burden is then on the borrowers. The flow of capital stops. Capital expenditures stops. Business begin to question the pricing of goods and services.
Our suggestion to the central bankers is to create another macroeconomic indicator. This will be different from the m1, m2, m3. Different from CPI,PPI, etc. This indicator will stem from the need to track the flow of money both intra and inter economies. Call it FoM, Flow of Money.
For now, we’re just standing on the street corner rubbing two nickels together waiting for the next smartphone deal.
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Banning Organ Sales Kills People
Sally Satel (who herself received a donated kidney from former
Reason editor Virginia Postrel) talks in the
Washington Post about
all the lives lost because lawmakers think there is something
vulgar or awful or dangerous about allowing any sort of market
compensation for human organs.
Excerpts from the introduction to the Satel interview:
About 30 Americans a day either die on the waiting list or are
removed from it because they have become too ill to receive a
transplant. Taxpayers also bear a significant burden in the case of
kidneys because of the special status of renal dialysis within the
Medicare program. In 1972, Congress mandated that Medicare cover
the costs of care for end stage renal disease regardless of patient
age. In 2011, over 500,000 people
took advantage of this benefit at a cost of over $34 billion,
which is more than 6% of Medicare’s entire budget…..
What might change this? The culturally unspeakable but
economically sensible solution of allowing compensation for donors
(though Satel doesn’t want to go for a full “free market” model,
which would likely do even better in matching willing donors to
needy recipients).
Satel told the Post of a possible model toward allowing
some compensation in organ donation:
a governmental entity, or a designated charity, would offer
in-kind rewards, like a contribution to the donor’s retirement
fund, an income tax credit or a tuition voucher, or a gift to a
charity designated by the donor. Because a third party provides the
reward, all patients, not just the financially secure, will
benefit.Meanwhile, imposing a waiting period of at least six months
would ensure that donors didn’t act impulsively and that they were
giving fully informed consent. Prospective compensated donors would
be carefully screened for physical and emotional health, as is done
for all donors now. The use of in-kind benefits coupled with a
waiting period would screen out financially desperate individuals
who might otherwise rush to donate for a large sum of instant cash
and later regret it.
The donors’ kidneys would be distributed to people on the waiting
list, according to the rules now in place.
It’s a mild change, perhaps not too frightening to those with a
deep-seated and irrational disgust-aversion to the notion of
selling body parts, though it wouldn’t do all that full market
incentives could to save lives.
Satel sums up, offering inadvertently a quiet defense of the
full free-market model she does not publicly embrace:
If we keep thinking of organs solely as gifts, there will
never be enough of them. Deaths will mount, needless suffering will
continue, and the global black market in organs will continue to
flourish.
Reason has written about this topic
for many years.
A graet Reason TV video from March on how organ sales could save
30 lives a day:
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Paradox: Christian Creationism Bad – Native American Creationism Good
Over at the New York Times today,
science reporter George Johnson has a
remarkably frank column about how researchers who would
otherwise vociferously fight against Christian creationism back
down when it comes to indigenous creationism. Johnson opens by
citing protests by Native Hawaiians against the building of the
gigantic Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea based on claims that
the mountain is sacred. From the article:
For them the mountain is a sacred place where the Sky Father and
the Earth Mother coupled and gave birth to the Hawaiian people.They don’t all mean that metaphorically. They consider the
telescope — it will be the 14th on Mauna Kea — the latest insult to
their gods. Push them too far, the demonstrators warned, and Mauna
Kea, a volcano, will erupt in revenge.It can be difficult to tell how motivated such protests are by
spiritual outrage and how much by politics. …Adding more complications, the indigenous protesters were
allied with environmental activists
denouncing the encroachment of what they call “the international
astronomy industry,” as though there were great profits to be made
from studying black holes and measuring redshifts.
Of course, since the summit of Mauna Kea is “owned” by the U.S.
government, who gets to use it is necessarily adjudicated in the
win/lose arena of politics instead of through the win/win dynamics
of private property rights and markets.
Johnson then goes on to talk about how the Native American
Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) affects scientific
research. Back in 2004, Reason published a fascinating
article that focused on the fight over the remains of
Kennewick Man. That article, “Grave
Injustice,” outlined the uses and abuses of NAGPRA:
Imagine an America where the federal government takes an active
role in promoting the spiritual values of a certain cultural group.
This group rarely documents its largely unknown religious practices
and in fact considers many rituals too secret for public knowledge.
Yet should outsiders violate its beliefs, the government can
threaten them with lawsuits, fines, or prison sentences….In practice, NAGPRA’s opponents say, the law has done far more
for new age sophistry and legal abuse than for science and
justice.
Now a decade later, Johnson inquires of Steve Lekson, a
professor of anthropology and curator of archaeology at the
University of Colorado Museum of Natural History what he thinks of
the requirement to turn over skeletal remains and cultural
artifacts stored in museums and universities to Native American
groups? Lekson replied:
“There’s no question we are losing information,” he said. But he
had become persuaded that complying with the artifacts law was the
right thing to do.“It’s bad for science, but good (I suppose) for the Native
American groups involved,” he wrote in an email. “Given that the
U.S.A. was founded on two great sins — genocide of Native Americans
and slavery of Africans — I think science can afford this act of
contrition and reparation.”But how is letting Indian creationism interfere with scientific
research any different from Christian creationism interfering with
public education — something that he would surely resist?Logically they are the same, Dr. Lekson agreed. But we owed the
Indians. “I’m given to understand that the double standard
rankles,” he said.
Johnson ends by citing a
letter defending the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope
from Native Hawaiian Chad Kalepa Baybayan:
The science of astronomy helps us to advance human knowledge to
the benefit of the community. It teaches us where we have come
from, and where we are going. Its impact has been positive,
introducing the young to the process of modern exploration and
discovery, a process consistent with past traditional practices.
…I firmly believe the highest level of desecration rests in
actions that remove the opportunity and choices from the kind of
future our youth can own.
Sounds right.
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More Foreign Policy Incompetence – U.S. Humanitarian Aid is Going Directly to ISIS
“The convoys have to be approved by ISIS and you have to pay them: The bribes are disguised and itemized as transportation costs,” says an aid coordinator who spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition he not be identified in this article. The kickbacks are either paid by foreign or local nongovernmental organizations tasked with distributing the aid, or by the Turkish or Syrian transportation companies contracted to deliver it.
The State Department official said he, too, was conflicted about the programs… “Are we helping indirectly the militants to build their caliphate? I wrestle with this.”
– From Sunday’s Daily Beast article: U.S. Humanitarian Aid Going to ISIS
The Daily Beast has been at the forefront of exposing the bizarre emergence of the latest terror threat known as ISIS, which is being used to take away civil liberties at home, and fuel more chaos and destruction throughout the Middle East. It was their work in June that first highlighted the fact that ISIS was and is being funded and supported by U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf. I commented on the absurdity of the situation in my piece, America’s Disastrous Foreign Policy – My Thoughts on Iraq, in which I noted:
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Ebola 2014 Is Mutating As Fast As Seasonal Flu
Yesterday we reported that according to Peter Jahrling of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease – one of the top authorities in the world on Ebola – and who is on the front lines fighting Ebola disease in Liberia, there is something different about the current Ebola outbreak in that not only does it spread more easily than it did before, but the viral loads in Ebola patients are much higher than they are used to seeing. "I have a field team in Monrovia. They are running [tests]. They are telling me that viral loads are coming up very quickly and really high, higher than they are used to seeing…. It may be that the virus burns hotter and quicker."
That is one observation on how different the current Ebola outbreak may be from the traditional fare. Another one comes courtesy of Operon Labs, which as cited in detail below, notes that "the current Ebola 2014 virus is mutating at a similar rate to seasonal flu (Influenza A). This means the current Ebola outbreak has a very high intrinsic rate of viral mutation. The bottom line is that the Ebola virus is changing rapidly, and in the intermediate to long term (3 months to 24 months), Ebola has the potential to evolve."
The question is evolve into what?
Submitted by Operon Labs
Ebola 2014 is Mutating as Fast as Seasonal Flu
Background:
The current Ebola 2014 virus is mutating at a similar rate to seasonal flu (Influenza A). This means the current Ebola outbreak has a very high intrinsic rate of viral mutation. The bottom line is that the Ebola virus is changing rapidly, and in the intermediate to long term (3 months to 24 months), Ebola has the potential to evolve.
We cannot predict exactly what the Ebola virus will look like in 24 months. There is an inherent stochastic randomness to viral evolution which makes predictions on future viral strains difficult, if not impossible. One basic tenet we can rely on is this: Viruses tend to maximize their infectivity (basic reproduction number) within their biological constraints (Nowak, 2006).
These evolutionary constraints can be extremely complex, and can include trade-offs between virulence and infectivity, conditions of superinfection, host population dynamics, and even outbreak control measures.
One of the few statements we can make with confidence that the Ebola genome is changing at a specific rate, which is explained below.
Ebola Mutation Rate:
Analysis of the available research suggests that the Ebola 2014 virus is currently mutating at a rate 200% to 300% higher than historically observed (Gire, 2014).
Ebola Genome Substitution Rates (Gire, 2014)
Furthermore, the Ebola-2014 virus's mutation rate of 2.0 x 10−³ subs/site/year is nearly identical to Influenza A's mutation rate of 1.8 x 10−³ subs/site/year (Jenkins, 2002). This means Ebola 2014 is mutating as fast as seasonal flu.
Disclaimer: This paper contains no evidence (for or against) alternate modes of transmission for Ebola, nor is this paper postulating that genetic changes have impacted EVD clinical presentation (although evidence for this has started to emerge). This paper is simply demonstrating what appears to be a rapid rate of evolution in the Ebola 2014 Virus. Many recent Ebola viral mutations have been synonymous mutations, some have been in intergenic regions, while others are non-synonymous substitutions in protein-coding regions. All have unknown impact at the present time. Such questions should be the subject of future scientific research. This article simply points out that Ebola in 2014 is undergoing rapid mutation and adaptation. The future implications of Ebola's rapid evolution are unclear.
We chose to compare Ebola-2014 to Influenza A (Seasonal Flu) because Influenza is one of the fastest-mutating viruses (Jenkins, 2002). Unlike chickenpox (VZV), which people usually only contract once per lifetime, Influenza can infect a single individual many times repeatedly over the years. One of the reasons Influenza is able to re-infect humans each year is because the Influenza's high mutation rate allows the virus to generate 'escape mutants'. Escape mutants are Influenza viruses which are no longer recognized by human immune systems. Each winter presents us with a new mutated strain of the Influenza virus. Rapid mutation is beneficial to Influenza genetic fitness (in regards to antigenic regions), because it allows a 'new' Influenza virus to circulate year after year.
The benefit of a high mutation rate in Ebola 2014 is different — the genetic changes in Ebola-2014 allow for rapid exploration of the entire fitness landscape in a brand new host — humans. We need to be aware that the Ebola-2014 virus is undergoing rapid adaptation.
Ebola in Zoonotic Reservoir: Viral Genome adapted to Fruit Bats. (Green)
Ebola in Human Hosts: Viral Genome adapted to Humans. (Red)
Ebola Genotype will move Green -> Red during serial passage through Humans.
Until the Ebola outbreak is brought under control, the Ebola-2014 virus will continue to seed and adapt in its growing pool of West African human hosts. We need to consider that as the weeks and months go on, the rapidly-changing Ebola-2014 virus will undergo repeated export from the West African region to countries around the world.
As new Ebola cases grow in West Africa and elsewhere, we are effectively conducting 'serial passage' experiments of Ebola-2014 through human hosts. The repeated passage of Ebola-2014 through humans is exerting selection pressure on the Ebola-2014 virus to adapt to our species (instead of fruit bats). The introduction of Ebola-2014 into a large pool of West African human hosts (coupled with the complex dynamics of evolutionary selection pressure) may allow the Ebola-2014 virus to become more transmissible as the months go on, particularly in the absence of effective control interventions.
The high mutation rate we see in Ebola-2014 reflects its ability to rapidly explore the fitness landscape. The ability of Ebola to undergo rapid genome substitutions and SNPs, coupled with genetic recombination, will allow 'survival of the fittest' in Ebola-2014 genetic variants (on both the intra-host and inter-host levels). New Ebola sub-clades are created with each passing month (there are already four sub-clades as of August 2014). New Ebola genetic variants are created with each new infection, though most are selected against. Rapid adaptation emerges from the high intrinsic Ebola-2014 mutation rate, coupled with the virus's ability to undergo RNA recombination during superinfection.
Molecular dating of the Ebola-2014 outbreak (Gire, 2014).
Probability distributions for both 2014 divergence events are overlaid above.
This phylogenetic tree is based on 99 Ebola viral genomes deep-sequenced from 78 distinct patients in Sierra Leone (Gire, 2014). We can see in the figure above that there are at least four Ebola genetic clusters (or sub-clades) based on phylogenetic analysis: These Ebola clusters are called GN, SL1, SL2, and SL3 by Gire et al. The key takeaway is that even prior to July 2014, the current Ebola outbreak had already accumulated significant genetic diversity. Furthermore, the dominant circulating Ebola variants have changed over time. Up to four different Ebola-2014 viral sub-clades (groups of genetically related Ebola isolates) have circulated between humans since the onset of the 2014 Ebola outbreak.
As the number of people affected by the 2014 Ebola outbreak has grown, so has the number of Ebola unique viral mutations and unique viral genetic lineages. We can expect Ebola 2014 viral lineages to grow as some function f(i) proportional to the number of people infected with Ebola.
Ebola-2014: Acquisition of genetic variation over time (Gire, 2014).
Fifty mutational events (short dashes) and 29 new viral
lineages (long dashes) were observed.
The diagram above suggests that as the Ebola-infected host pool grows, so does the number of unique Ebola viral lineages (Gire, 2014). This implies that Ebola acquires genetic diversity as it infects more people, particularly if the virus undergoes recombination during superinfection (Niman, 2007). The growing number of new Ebola viral lineages will undergo natural selection for some 'optimum' balance of virulence, infectivity, tissue tropism, immune suppression, and other parameters which maximize the reproductive fitness of the Ebola virus in humans. What that final virus might eventually look like 2 years from now is anyone's guess. But the explosion of genetic variation suggests that the Ebola virus will become more difficult to contain as time goes on, which is why early action is important.
The idea that the Ebola-2014 Virus jumped species, but is now somehow 'static' or 'frozen in time' is a mistake. The Ebola-2014 virus is undergoing a period of rapid adaptation in human hosts, as evidenced by the Ebola RNA sequences deposited in Genbank, and the studies referenced with this article. Hopefully, interventions (like contact tracing) will be able to stop Ebola-2014 before the virus optimizes its genotype.
These are two scenarios to outline what may happen in the future. The critical variable determining the global outcome of Ebola is the response in West Africa, not the response in the United States.
Best Case Scenario:
WHO immediately deploys contact-tracing teams on the ground in West Africa. The US Military is deployed as well, and constructs hospitals sufficient to care for the sick. The hospitals are staffed by qualified (read: well trained) caregivers. Teams on the ground track down and care for Ebola-infected patients across West Africa, distributing self-treatment kits, food, medicine, and expertise. An effort is made to involve local authorities and community leaders. These efforts cause measurable reductions in the basic reproduction number of the virus by the end of 2014.
Within 3 months to 9 months, the outbreak in West Africa peaks, levels-off, and begins to fade. The Ebola virus never has the opportunity to acquire any significant mutations, due to its limited host pool. Ebola is fully under control by early 2015. Sporadic cases in other countries are dealt with by treatment and contact tracing. By Q4 2015, multiple Ebola vaccines and drugs are in the pipeline limiting the overall threat Ebola poses.
Worst Case Scenario:
The international response is perpetually behind the curve. Every response action is 8 to 12 weeks too late. Statistics from the WHO become volatile and are unreliable as the lack of deployed personnel make hard numbers impossible to pin down. By 2015 the number of infections is in the hundreds of thousands in West Africa. The West African region exports 'asymptomatic infectives' which go undetected by basic screening. These individuals 'seed' outbreaks in other countries.
As more people become infected, a significant mutation arises that allows for a longer asymptomatic but infectious period, increasing the R-0. Globally, cases continue to double every 16 days, contact tracing infrastructure outside the West becomes saturated, and hospitals are overrun. By early-to-mid 2015, the global pool of Ebola-infected patients are in the millions, mainly centered in West Africa and Southeast Asia with multiple strains of varying virulence. A sudden change in the outbreak epidemiology caused by a recombinant Ebola strain causes confusion about how to respond. Efforts at developing treatments/vaccines become logistically complex and ineffective.
The implication of the Ebola 2014 mutation rate is this: A single Ebola mutation doesn't necessarily mean the virus will become 'airborne', or that the virus has altered tissue tropism, or that the virus spreads more easily. But a high intrinsic rate of Ebola mutation means that such changes may become possible in the future. If the number of people infected grows into the hundreds of thousands, or even low millions, then the probability of a significant 'constellation' of accumulated Ebola mutations with phenotypic impact becomes more likely. The problem is that accumulated Ebola mutations will scale with the size of the population infected. Conversely, in a small population, such Ebola mutations are not likely to have a significant impact. It's a bit like the virus is buying lottery tickets… The more lottery tickets the Ebola virus 'buys', the more chances it has to 'win'.
Next Steps:
The general consensus in the scientific and epidemiological community is immediate intervention in West Africa is necessary in order to avoid taking the risky outcomes possible in a 'worst case' scenario. A suitable response would need to include airlifting self-treatment kits with thermometers, the distribution of life-saving drugs, the construction of Ebola treatment centers, hospital staffing, contact tracing teams, and so forth. A robust international response must happen soon in order to ensure that the current situation with the Ebola outbreak remains a 'best case' outcome.
References:
[1] Genomic surveillance elucidates Ebola virus origin and transmission during the 2014 outbreak. (Gire et al, 2014).
[2] Rates of Molecular Evolution in RNA Viruses: A Quantitative Phylogenetic Analysis. (Jenkins et al, 2002).
[3] Isolates of Zaire ebolavirus from wild apes reveal genetic lineage and recombinants. (Wittman et al, 2007).
[4] Ebola Recombination: Recombinomics Commentary. (Niman, 2007).
[5] Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life. (Nowak, 2006).
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113 Federal Reserve Staff Members Make $250,000 Annually
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Just in case you need another reason to dislike the thieving Federal Reserve. From Reuters:
(Reuters) – The top 113 earners among staff at the Federal Reserve’s Washington headquarters make an average of $246,506 per year, excluding bonuses and other benefits – more than Fed Chair Janet Yellen and nearly double the normal top government rate.
Don’t worry Janet, once you leave, you can earn $250k per speech like your hero Banana Ben Bernanke.
The details on Fed pay were provided to Reuters in response to a Freedom of Information Act request for data on all employees of the U.S. central bank’s board whose salaries outstrip $130,810, which is the top of the government’s pay scale in most areas.
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have sponsored a bill that would require the Fed to divulge that information publicly.
“It certainly bolsters the case for more oversight,” said Maggie Seidel, a spokeswoman for New Jersey Republican Scott Garrett, a co-sponsor of the bill.
As of July 31, the Fed’s inspector general led the list with an annual salary of $312,000, followed by the central bank’s four division directors, its general counsel and its chief operating officer, who each earn a base of $265,000.
Not a bad gig. All you have to do is be complicit in the destruction of the American middle class.
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Don’t Work, Get Money: Tens of Thousands of Federal Employees Paid to Sit at Home
Then God blessed paid leave for federal
employees under investigation and made it holy, reports
The Washington Post:
Tens of thousands of federal workers are being kept on paid
leave for at least a month — and often for longer stretches
that can reach a year or more — while they wait to be punished for
misbehavior or cleared and allowed to return to work.A report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) … found
that 53,000 civilian employees were kept home for one to three
months during the three fiscal years that ended in September 2013.
About 4,000 were idled for three months to a year and several
hundred for one to three years.
Over the three year period, idle federal employees were paid
$775 million in salaries to sit tight and wait in
bureaucratic purgatory. And if full pay wasn’t enough to mollify
the unoccupied exiles, employees “also built their pensions,
vacation and sick days and moved up the federal pay scale.” The
report is most likely lowballing those statistics as
well: The GAO only looked at about three-fifths of the federal
government because many agencies don’t report the number of
employees on paid leave.
But getting paid to do nothing is no stint on the Isles of the
Blessed, according to some inactive feds. The Washington
Post tells the, uh, maudlin tale of Scott Balovich, an IT
systems worker for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in Alaska:
Balovich, who makes $108,000 a year, was paid not to work while
investigators examined how pornographic images had gotten onto his
computer hard drive.
Perhaps he should talk to an
Environmental Protection Agency employee, who faced similar
queries. Balovich describes the hardship of getting paid to do
jack:
“Six months went by, and we didn’t hear anything…You’re so
anxious. You don’t know if you’ve got a job. You’re getting paid,
but it’s no vacation.”
No vacation, indeed. Another Washington Post
exposé from 2012 details the travails of Paul Brachfield, the
inspector general for the National Archives:
He planned to ring in the new year with his wife with a relaxed
visit to their vacation home near Bethany Beach, Del. In October,
the couple took a cruise to Puerto Rico. Brachfeld runs every
morning in Silver Spring, hikes with Spree, his Jack Russell
terrier, in the woods most afternoons and catches up with his adult
daughters in the evening. All while collecting his $186,000
government salary. These days, his life seems like one long
vacation.
Unsurprisingly, the government’s Office of Personnel Management
already has rules regulating paid leave, though apparently no one
follows them. Except for “rare circumstances,” such as when an
someone is a direct threat, an employee is to “remain in a duty
status” during disciplinary proceedings. As the
fictional Sgt.
Bilko said, “We have rules, rules, and regulations!” It would
seem those rules fly out the window when managers need an easy way
to shunt aside problem employees.
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Russia Deploys Troops, Robots Along Entire “2nd Middle East” Arctic Belt
On the heels of Sweden's military deployment (following the discovery of a damaged Russian sub), it appears Russia is taking no chances with its access to Arctic resources.As Reuters reports, the Russian defense minister announced today that Russian military units will be deployed along the entire Arctic border from Murmansk to Chukotka in 2014.
Interfax adds that combat robots are also being deployed to protect Russian oil and gas infrastructure in the harsh environment of the Arctic. This should be no surprise as The Guardian notes, the Arctic’s hydrocarbon resources nevertheless exert a powerful pull. It has been compared to "a second Middle East", with oil and gas reserves thought to represent 17% and 30%, respectively, of the global total.
This of course, is nothing new…
On 11 October, in an attempt to forestall such criticism, the Russian defence ministry announced plans to build “a regional environmental centre […] to prevent pollution in areas where Russian forces are deployed”. Russian troops systematically receive “training and briefings on environmental safety and compliance with legislation”, deputy minister Dmitry Bulgakov added. But it will take more than this to reassure the western powers.
But is a major escalation along such a massive border…
* * *
And finally, Interfax reports, Combat robots to protect Russian oil and gas infrastructure in Arctic
Undersea combat robots will be protecting Russian oilrigs and transportation networks in the Arctic region at some point, Deputy General Director of the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects, Chairman of the Foundation's Scientific and Technological Board Vitaly Davydov told Interfax-AVN.
"The Foundation is not designing robotic sharks but it is working on undersea robots and autonomous gadgets capable of protecting infrastructure, controlling the waters and detecting, tracking and, if necessary, destroying a potential enemy. The prospective machinery may be deployed on the sea bottom and specialized submersibles," he said.
So far, the Foundation is focused not so much on defense issues as on mineral development projects, Davydov said.
"The rivalry in this region will be centered on its natural resources. A key task to be solved in the Arctic is access to mineral resources, first and foremost, hydrocarbons. This goal can be achieved through the completion of numerous tasks in the discovery, production and transportation of resources, sub-glacial operations and infrastructural security. This is the target of the Foundation's research programs," he said.
* * *
As The Guardian concludes, The Arctic, which is governed by international maritime law, is also the focus of other disputes. Canada regularly carries out military exercises in its Arctic territory. Relations between Ottawa and Moscow have cooled significantly since the start of the Ukraine crisis.
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What John Grisham Got Right About Child Pornography
Last week, as
Elizabeth Nolan Brown
noted here, best-selling novelist John Grisham got into hot
water by suggesting there might be such a thing as an excessively
long sentence for someone convicted of possessing child
pornography. In a Time essay that went up today, I explain
why Grisham was right. Here is how the piece starts:
Last week John Grisham, the best-selling author of legal
thrillers, triggered a storm of online criticism by
arguing in an interview with The
Telegraph that criminal penalties for possessing child
pornography are unreasonably harsh. Grisham, who has
since apologized, spoke rather loosely, overstating the extent
to which honest mistakes account for child porn convictions and the
extent to which those convictions expand the prison population.But he was right on two important points: People who
download child pornography are not necessarily child molesters, and
whatever harm they cause by looking at forbidden pictures does not
justify the penalties they often receive.
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