Self-Driving Cars and Downloaded Minds - Part II

And now for the fantastical...

"I think the brain is like a program in the mind, which is like a computer, so it's theoretically possible to copy the brain on to a computer and so provide a form of life after death." Not a believer in the conventional concept of an afterlife, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking was speaking during an appearance at the Cambridge Film Festival in late September.

Hawking has long suffered from motor neuron disease. When diagnosed fifty years ago at the age of 21, he was told he had three years to live. His primary means of communication with the outside world now is through a computer interface. Hawking's comments at the film festival take the concept of artificial intelligence to a level previously explored primarily in works of science fiction.

 

Artificial intelligence has been around for a while. The Turing test, a test of a computing machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from that of a human, goes back to 1950. The term artificial intelligence was first used in 1955.  I worked on one form of artificial intelligence, the development of an "expert system", for a brief period back in the mid-80's - not quite the vacuum tube era but almost 30 years ago. The objective was to capture in a computer program the knowledge base and decision-making ability of an expert.  The computer program could then be used, for example, to help in the response to a plant emergency or to anticipate and correct potential manufacturing problems.

The increase in computing power has been literally exponential, but  some experts say that Moore's Law ("computing power doubles every two years") will soon be coming to the end of its usefulness .  We are reaching the physical limits of manufacturing silicon chips. Not to worry. The 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to two quantum computing pioneers - Serge Harocheand David Wineland. Quantum computing, still in its early developmental stages, will make the billion-fold increase in digital computing power since the mid-1950's seem like the step from finger-counting to the abacus.

Ten years ago, a National Science Foundation and Department of Commerce sponsored paper noted that "Four transforming tools have emerged: nanotechnology for hardware, biotechnology for dealing with living systems, information technology for communication and control, and cognition-based technologies to enhance human abilities and collective behavior."  The continuing advances in computing capability and these other areas have led to speculation as to what the future holds.

 

Computers are everywhere and are already enhancing human capabilities in areas such as communications, medicine and vehicle safety. Robots are already capable of mowing lawns and cleaning houses. They soon will be, or already are, predicting monster storms, mapping vineyards for better wine production, clearing jellyfish blooms, fighting brain tumors, taking over exhausting and dangerous mining activities, teaching Japanese calligraphy, watching over sleeping patients in nursing homes, and, of course, in the form of superstar robot the Mars Rover, exploring space.

 

Science fiction has envisioned even more amazing scenarios - computing machines achieving self-sufficiency, a technological singularity, and, to Hawking's comments, personalities downloaded into computers.  Each of these poses some interesting philosophical questions. 

 

If computers or robots achieve self-sufficiency, to what degree should they be controlled and what rights should they have?  Science fiction (and science) writer Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics addresses the question: 

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. 

Scientists are taking the possibility of self-sufficiency seriously.  A February 2009 meeting under the auspices of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) discussed the "extent to which computers and robots might be able to acquire autonomy, and to what degree they could use such abilities to pose threats or hazards". [Ref. 1]

 

The technological singularity is that "theoretical moment in time when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of a greater-than-human intelligence that will "radically change human civilization, and perhaps even human nature itself." [Ref. 1]  Asimov predicated a Zeroth Law of Robotics for the situation where robots had taken responsibility for government of whole planets and human civilizations: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." 

We have no way of predicting what a super-intelligence might actually mean for humanity and whether they would bother at all with the Zeroth Law.  Commentators have noted that evolution "has no inherent tendency to produce outcomes valued by humans, and there is little reason to expect an arbitrary optimisation process to promote an outcome desired by mankind."  Some have gone so far as to say that one result of a super-intelligent entity might be the extinction of humanity.  [Ref. 1]

Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga and his Void Trilogy - five books set in the same fictional universe - present a world with faster than light travel, advanced post-physical civilizations, genocidal aliens, galaxy-devouring anomalies, and downloaded personalities.  The novels relate events over a span of more than a thousand years and many of the main characters are present throughout this time.  The lynchpins in this capability for extended life are the "memory cell" and advanced bioengineering.  Every so often, an individual's memories are downloaded into a memory cell.  When it's time to get young again or if the individual suffers a physical death, the memory cell is loaded into a re-fashioned body. 

There are several important questions to be asked when considering these examples of advanced artificial intelligence.  "Can computers or robots achieve enough self-sufficiency to become sentient?"  "How would we know if they do?" "Can an individual human personality be completely downloaded into a computer?"  "Would that downloaded personality be the individual?"

Which brings us to the crux of the matter - consciousness.  Consciousness is one of our great unanswered questions.  It is at the core of the human person and experience - I am aware that is I who am experiencing the external world. But no experiment has ever located it within the physical brain. It seems, to me at least, that to expect consciousness to spontaneously arise in a physical object when it attains a certain amount of intelligence is an extraordinarily long shot. As to the question of downloading a human personality into a computer, historian and philosopher of science John S. Wilkins writes: "Physical differences make a difference, and ahead of time we can’t predict what will have an effect on whether silico-me will behave the same way vivo-me does. While I am sure that we will manage to simulate “me” or somebody like me (more likely Stephen Hawking than me), the simulate won’t be “me” in any deep sense. It’s either going to be a representation of me that has some dynamical properties in common with me but not all, or it’s going to be a deep simulation of me that lives a day every so many months of realtime. And even then it won’t be exactly like me..."

Nevertheless, concepts such as robot sentience, machine super-intelligences, and near immortality make for great entertainment.  Science fiction, like all fiction, depends on the reader's "willing suspension of disbelief."  While reading science fiction may not increase our empathy as much as reading literary fiction (Science, October 3; Slate, October 28), it does exercise our imaginations and sense of wonder.  Occasionally, in the best of the genre, it allows us to think about some of the deeper questions of the universe. 



Reference and Images
Ref.1 is the ask.com's wiki entry on technological singularity.  Futurist Ray Kurtz predicts a date of 2045 for the singularity event.
Robot image is from Popular Science website.
Peter F. Hamilton collage is from his website.

Interesting Reading
For a unique look at consciousness, read neuroscientist Giulio Tononi's Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul.  From the Goodreads review: "Not since Gödel, Escher, Bach has there been a book that interweaves science, art, and the imagination with such originality. This beautiful and arresting narrative will transform the way we think of ourselves and the world."

Self-Driving Cars and Downloaded Minds - Part I

Some recent articles and news items bring home the realization that, from the mundane to the fantastical, the world of today seems to be edging closer and closer to the world of science fiction.

Let's start with the mundane. The October issue of Popular Science, which was devoted to automobiles of the future, has an 8-page article on self-driving cars. Google is in the lead in this area.  The company is currently beta-testing a self-driving car based on Google Chauffeur software and light detection and ranging technology ("lidar"). Lidar is a remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser and analyzing the reflected light. [Wikipedia]

 

 

 

[Image is from Popular Science]

 

Once the human driver activates the autonomous system, the vehicle transfers control of the brakes, gas, and steering to an onboard computer. The vehicle's roof-mounted lidar unit "probes 360 degrees with 64 laser beams, taking more than a million measurements per second." The data from the lasers are combined with a prebuilt navigation map of static infrastructure (telephone poles, for example) to give an accurate picture of the car's surroundings down to a distance of about 4 inches. The software then identifies moving objects (pedestrians, for example) and reacts accordingly.

 

When Chauffeur encounters a situation that it cannot interpret or finds a glitch during its self-

diagnostic checks, it system alerts and hands control back to the human driver. Glitches occur about once every 300 miles with the "incredibly low" bar that Google has set - in the words of Chris Urmson, the director of Google's self-driving car project. In 500,000 miles of closely controlled test driving there hasn't been a single accident caused by the Chauffeur system. 500,000 miles is about the average automobile accident rate in the U.S.

Detroit's reaction has been lukewarm to hostile; there are numerous state, national and international legal questions (how do you define a driver? whom do you sue when there is an accident?); and the current cost for a lidar unit is in the range of $80,000. 

Still the concept of self-driving cars is intriguing.  Sooner or later they will become a reality.   Proponents see fuel savings, elimination of traffic jams with computerized intersection managers, and fewer accidents in the future promised by self-driving vehicles.  Price and safety are the major factors to be overcome.

Besides Google's work, Volvo has "a simple auto-drive system called platooning, in which its cars autonomously follow a professional driver. It uses technology that's already built into every high end Volvo sold today, plus a communications system." The NHSTA's soon-to-be-announced vehicle-to-vehicle communications standard "would, at least in theory, enable all makes and models to platoon. And lidar could eliminate even the need for a lead driver." Both GM and Mercedes are working on systems that "use a combination of radar and computer vision to center the vehicle in the lane and maintain a safe distance from the car in front of it."

As the article notes, the real engineering and safety challenge is making sure the drivers stay alert. We have enough problems with them texting and talking on their cell phones. Not sure I'm ready for a highway where everyone thinks there is no need for them ever to look at the road. 

So much for the mundane...we'll take a look at the fantastical in the next post.

Sunday Round-Up October 27, 2013

In this week's selection of news and opinion from outside the US mainstream media, we look at European reaction to NSA spying, climate refugees, Syria and an update on the Bo Xilai case.  Sources include The Guardian, Deutsche Welle and BBC News.

The Guardian, which played a key role in bringing the NSA spying documents to the public's attention, had several stories on the European reaction to recent revelations. 

On October 25, Ian Traynor reported on warnings from Europeans that fallout from the spying was jeopardizing the international fight against terrorism:

__________________________________________________________________

"Germany and France are to spearhead a drive to try to force the Americans to agree new transatlantic rules on intelligence and security service behaviour in the wake of the Snowden revelations and allegations of mass US spying in France and tapping of the German chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone.  At an EU summit in Brussels that was hijacked by the furor over the activities of the National Security Agency in the US and Britain's GCHQ, the French president, François Hollande, also called for a new code of conduct agreed between national intelligence services in the EU, raising the question of whether Britain would opt to join in.  Shaken by this week's revelations of NSA operations in France and Germany, EU leaders and Merkel in particular warned that the international fight against terrorism was being jeopardised by the perception that mass US surveillance was out of control."
____________________________________________________________________________

The Guardian's Lizzie Davies and Angelina Chrisafis reported on additional revelations from Italy and France noted in  L'Espresso and Le Monde:

_____________________________________________________________________________
"The weekly L'Espresso magazine said it had learned that documents obtained by the whistleblower Edward Snowden showed the intensive monitoring of Italian telecoms networks by both the NSA and GCHQ.  L'Espresso ...said it had ascertained that Italy - and particularly Sicily - had become a focus of activity because of its strategic location between Europe, north Africa and the Middle East...

In France, the daily newspaper Le Monde published an internal NSA document which it said showed the "tensions and distrust between Paris and Washington".  The document, a preparatory note before a visit to the NSA by two top French intelligence officials in April 2013, shows that French officials suspected the US could have been behind a now well-known cyber-attack on the French presidential computer network at the Elysée in May 2012....The NSA document states that no US intelligence agency or of its close allies in Britain and Canada were behind the electronic attack...[and] shows that the US maintained it had no role in the cyber-attack."
_____________________________________________________________________________

Deutsche Welle had an October 24 article on the Kiribati climate refugee case now being considered by New Zealand immigration authorities and the "legal void" that surrounds such cases.   

The case should be decided by the end of this month - just several weeks before UN-organized Warsaw Climate Change Conference. Migration because of climate changes - rising seas, increased extreme weather events and desertification - will increase as global warming takes its toll. Recent estimates have put the possible total at 700 million by mid-century.   (See also Left Bank Café post "Sunday Round-Up October 6, 2013) 

_____________________________________________________________________________

"Recently, Kiribati's government suggested relocating the entire island state's population of over 100,000 people, if predictions prove accurate that the sea will rise by one meter (3.25 feet) by the end of the century. At the moment, half of the population is crammed on to the central island of Tarawa, which comprises 32 square kilometers (12.4 square miles) of land. New Zealand and Australia, the two most developed countries in the South Pacific, have in recent years resisted calls to change immigration rules in favor of Pacific people displaced by climate change....

But, while conditions in Kiribati are difficult, they do not fall within the scope of the UN refugee convention, said Ska Keller, a migration policy expert with the German Greens party in the European Parliament. At the moment, Finland and Sweden are the only countries in the world to have passed legislation allowing people to apply for asylum for environmental reasons, but the processes there remain largely untested."
_____________________________________________________________________________

 

As the effort to secure and destroy Syrian chemical weaponry proceeds and the Syrian civil war continues, Deutsche Welle reports on alleged Jihadist attacks against Christians and moderate Muslims in an October 23 article.    

_____________________________________________________________________________

 "They want to drive us out of Syria," [says] 29-year-old Jalal Gazouha, whose brother was killed by al Qaeda fighters...  By "they," he's referring to Jihadists from countries neighboring Syria...who have joined in the Syrian civil war to fight against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. According to Gazouha, they're also targeting Christians.. ..When Gazouha received death threats, he fled the country. "I saw my name on a list on the Internet. That list contained names of Christians who were supposed to be killed, he says, written by "the terrorists of al Qaeda."

 

Jean Kawak, a Syriac bishop from Damascus, chose his words carefully when he spoke about the subject with DW. "We Christians have recently felt threatened by particular radical Islamist groups," he said....These radicalized groups are not only targeting Christians though, Kawak says. "Moderate Muslims are also being threatened."

 

"Reconciliation is possible," says Kawak - of that he is convinced.  But what kind of reconciliation could be possible between Bashar al-Assad and the rebels, the latter of whom have rejected any form of political solution that leaves Assad in power? .... Jochen Langer, Middle East expert at the International Society for Human Rights, shares the bishop's concerns. "The Syrian army is trying, as well as they can, to protect Syria's Christians," he told DW. "But that's only possible to a limited extent."...

 

Sadiq Al-Mousslie, a member of the Syrian National Council in Germany that forms part of the Syrian National Coalition, acknowledges that there were cases of "sporadic attacks by sick individuals" [but denies they were targeted attacks.]"

_____________________________________________________________________________

Update

[BBC News, October 25] Bo Xilai's appeal of his life sentence was rejected by a Chinese court. "The former Chongqing Communist Party leader was convicted [on charges of bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power].in September....Bo only receives one chance to appeal and his sentence is now final. He could submit a complaint to the Supreme People's Court in Beijing, but the vast majority of such complaints are rejected and do not result in another trial." (See also Left Bank Café post of September 29.)

Gun Deaths, the Second Amendment and the NRA

The shooting tragedy at the Nevada middle school this Monday has brought gun violence back to the nation's attention.  A twelve year old, a seventh grader, wounded two students, killed a teacher and then killed himself.  It's not a mass shooting (there have been 16 mass shootings since Newton) so it won't stay in the news cycle for long.  But it's the kind of tragic event that should give us all pause to think what the American attitude towards guns is costing the nation.  Scott Sonner (AP/Huffington Post) reported Tuesday that the student got the gun from his home: "Washoe County School District police said they are still working to determine how the boy obtained the 9mm semi-automatic Ruger handgun used in the Monday morning spree at Sparks Middle School. The boy's parents are cooperating with authorities and could face charges in the case, police said."  The teacher who was killed, 45-year-old math teacher and former Marine Michael Landsberry, was approaching the boy asking him to hand over the gun when he was shot fatally in the chest.  Michael Landsberry's heroic actions allowed students to run to safety and saved lives.  So we have two more deaths that may have been prevented with stricter laws to prevent gun violence.

Slate reports that from an analysis of the "most recent CDC estimates for yearly deaths by guns in the United States, it is likely that as of today, 10/23/2013, roughly 28,177 people have died from guns in the U.S. since the Newtown shootings."  There is so much that can be done to reduce the deaths but it is stymied by the guns lobby, led by its well-funded mouthpiece, the NRA.  They had a recent success in Colorado in the recall of two State legislators involved in the passage of Colorado's tough new gun law.  People can still get wound up by the NRA's fear-mongering.  The NRA and other right-wing funding sparked the voter turnout of gun rights advocates and destroyed any chance that the Colorado legislators would be able to keep their seats. 

The gross misinterpretation of the Second Amendment given by SCOTUS (what part of "well-regulated militia" did they not understand?) is part of the problem.  Maybe that out of date amendment, written at a time when you had to re-powder and reload your musket with each shot, really should be repealed or, at the very least, modified.   Stricter licensing - at least as stringent as we do for driving licenses - may be one way to modify it so that it serves the common good.  The Second Amendment, as currently interpreted is part of the problem but the gun lobby and its deep pockets are the main issues here.

We know the elements of reducing deaths caused by gun violence - better mental health monitoring, universal background checks, strict licensing procedures, strong enforcement of gun laws, prohibition against high capacity weapons and magazines, gun safety education.  But these will never happen as long as the gun lobby's fear-mongering goes on.  Mike Bloomberg's organization, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, is making a valiant effort to counteract the right-wing noise but I'm afraid that they are no match for the NRA.  It is always easier to stir up irrational fears and people hear what they want to hear.  Case in point - FOX News gives right-wingers what they want to hear so they tune in to hear the latest right-wing bias.  So, here's a message for the NRA -  shut the f**k up for the foreseeable future.  Stop your fear-mongering, erroneous Second Amendment waving, and blatant lies.  Maybe we can stop the gun madness that's afflicting the nation.

Some Updates on Previous Posts
Voter Suppression -  [Think Progress] The Texas Voter ID law, a common voter suppression law that disproportionately targets students, low-income voters and people of color, went into effect Monday as early voting begins for next month's election.  Because of its requirement that valid ID must include your current name, married women will also be affected if their ID has not been updated.  It's estimated that 2 to 3 percent of voters are disenfranchised by voter suppression laws in the various states.

Medicaid Expansion - The expansion of state Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act is an important part of the program since it extends help to those unable to afford it.  Thanks to the SCOTUS ruling, though, this expansion is voluntary and many Republican-controlled states are not offering this important piece of the social safety net to its residents. Republican Governor John Kasich of Ohio wanted to buck the trend.  He backed the Medicaid expansion and turned to the Ohio Controlling Board for approval after the GOP-controlled state legislature balked on the issue. But, as the Huffington Post and the Columbus Dispatch reported, "A group of [six] Republican lawmakers has filed a lawsuit over the Ohio Controlling Board's decision to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act."  This lawsuit is being filed in spite of the $400 million the state would save as a result of the expansion because of Federal assistance.  The savings were to be used as a four percent state income tax cut. 

Sunday Round-Up October 20, 2013

In this week's selection of news and opinion from outside the US mainstream media, we look at the Iran nuclear talks, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.  Sources include The Guardian, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Mother Jones.

In an October 16 article, The Guardian reports on the signs of progress in the initial discussions on Iran's nuclear program.  "Iran signalled the possibility of significant concessions over its nuclear programme in talks that closed on Wednesday, bringing the prospect of a breakthrough closer than at any time in the last decade, according to western diplomats."  The talks which ended Wednesday will reconvene November 7. "Those discussions will focus on Iranian indications in Geneva that Tehran could agree limits on its nuclear programme that ensure it can be used for peaceful purposes, and ultimately accept more stringent international monitoring. Iran has also requested that the US delegation bring financial experts to go into detail on how the economic straitjacket on Iran could be loosened."

In a report dated October 15, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace discussed the increasing friction between Saudi Arabia and the US over recent US foreign policy moves in the Middle East - in Egypt, in Syria and in the recent slight warming of relations with Iran.  Of the latter, CEIP's Frederic Wehrey writes:  "That mild rapprochement brought to the fore an old specter: an U.S.-Iranian breakthrough that marginalizes the Gulf states and erodes their long-standing position as beneficiaries of U.S.-Iranian hostility."  Saudi political commentators "raised the fear of Iran reassuming the role of the Gulf’s policeman that it played during the era of the shah, with Obama’s backing. For others, it is not so much the danger of rapprochement—they agreed that U.S.-Iranian reconciliation would be good for regional peace—but rather the fact that the Gulf states are being sidelined, especially on a potential regional settlement of the Syrian crisis."

Also discussed at CEIP in an October 17 article is a way forward to peace in Syria.  Marc Pierini writes that "The Syrian war is being played out in Moscow, Tehran, and Washington. To achieve further progress, the three capitals cannot avoid working together on a diplomatic solution."  Speaking of Russia's long-time support for the Syrian regime, Pierini writes that this "may soon become a liability for Russian President Vladimir Putin." Putin, currently chair of the G20, wants to be considered a "key broker in the new world order."   Pierini writes: "The Russian leadership believes in the supremacy of the UN system...It also believes in political stability—that is, preserving the Syrian state—and Putin fears the rise of Islamist brigades in Syria, which have developed as a result of regime violence. Seen from this wider perspective, it may be argued that Putin’s ambitions in terms of world leadership can hardly be served by associating with thugs of a defunct era. If so, Bashar al-Assad is bound to constitute a major impediment to Russia’s policies."  As for the West, "...the United States, along with France and the United Kingdom, had no real choice but to entertain a plan to dismantle the arsenal of chemical weapons under the control of the rogue Syrian regime, as the weapons could well fall into jihadist hands as the regime crumbles or retreats to a smaller territory."   Finally, he notes "Iran’s primary objective is to regain its place in the international community and, according to recent statements, to exercise its full right to develop civilian nuclear reactors, not a nuclear weapons program. With this priority in mind and a dialogue just launched in Geneva with Western powers on Tehran’s nuclear program, a certain amount of Iranian moderation is needed on the Syrian issue...Iran is therefore expected to exercise a moderating influence on the Syrian regime." Russia, Iran and the United States all have a stake in making the chemical weapons regime work.  "Beyond chemical weapons, ending the Syrian nightmare clearly requires a few indispensable ingredients: maintaining strong Russian pressure on Assad; including Iran in the discussions about Syria’s future, under certain conditions; safeguarding the Syrian state, though without Assad in the final stage; marginalizing jihadist forces; and holding the Geneva II conference with all concerned stakeholders."

Now that Congressional Republicans are through with trying to deny access to health insurance to poor people, Mother Jones in an October 17 article reminds us of another of their continuing assaults against the vulnerable in this country.  "Shutting down the government and threatening a default in an attempt to block poor people from getting health insurance isn't the only thing House Republicans did over the past two weeks. They also continued their push to defund food stamps...last weekend, Democratic and Republican leaders in the House selected the lawmakers that will negotiate with the Senate to hammer out a final version of the farm bill, the massive bill that funds agriculture and nutrition programs. The main stumbling block for months has been how much money the bill should devote to food stamps; the House wants to strip $39 billion from the program, and the Senate wants to cut just $4 billion. The fact that Republicans in the House named one of the most anti-food stamp members of Congress [Florida Republican Steve Sutherland] to the committee that will decide the future of food stamps does not bode well for the program."  An estimated 3.8 million people will be removed from the food stamp program if the House cuts are enacted.  There is no need to do any of this, just as there was no need to threaten to default on the government debt other than the Republicans' refusal to raise taxes on the wealthy or even deny them their current loopholes and favorable treatment. 

Why Republicans Aren't Worried

The attempted destruction of Obamacare has been halted. The government shutdown and the phony debt ceiling crisis are over for now and Democrats are feeling pretty good about themselves.  As the self-inflicted spending and debt crisis unfolded over the past weeks, I've received emails from progressive organizations saying how vulnerable the Republicans will be in the 2014 elections because of their shutdown.  The most optimistic of these groups speak of 30 vulnerable House seats. 

The logic seems sound.  Republican Party approval rates are its lowest in history.  The damage from the shutdown is real and continuing.  The financial ratings agency Standard & Poor estimates that the shutdown has taken at least $24 billion out of the economy.  The "shutdown caused it to cut its forecast of gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter by at least 0.6 percentage point. The agency lowered its estimate for GDP growth to close to 2 percent from 3 percent." [Huffington Post, October 16]  Viewing the larger picture of the crisis-driven government that we've had since the Republican victories in the 2010 mid-term elections, the research firm Macronomic Advisers estimates that "the resulting fiscal policy uncertainty has directly harmed the American economy by increasing the unemployment rate by 0.6 percent, or the equivalent of 900,000 jobs."  The report also notes that that the "fiscal drag, in combination with heightened fiscal uncertainty, has slowed the annualized rate of growth in the nation's gross domestic product by as much as 1 percentage point since 2010." [CNBC]

Unfortunately, history leads to another conclusion.   In just 3 of the past 21 mid-term elections has the President's party gained seats in the House. The most seats ever gained by the President's party in these twenty one mid-term elections is 9. That was in 1934, in the early years of FDR's administration, in the midst of the Great Depression.   As for other government shutdowns, the 1996 presidential elections came less than a year after one of the more memorable (Gingrich vs. Clinton). Democrats picked up just 2 seats in the House. Add to this historical background the well-financed Republican campaign to pass voter suppression laws - laws aimed specifically at restricting the vote of Democratic Party constituents, their successful redistricting to maximize the number of safe Republican seats, and the Citizens United decision ... well you get the picture.

 

So, much as I'd like to believe the rosy predictions of progressives about the coming demise of the Republicans, I really don't think Republicans are too worried about the 2014 elections.  Memories are short and those affected the worst were probably going to vote Democratic anyway.  There are plenty of wedge issues that can be used to divide the country and Republicans are the proven masters of this.  The continuing resolution will only take us through January or February.  There will be plenty of time before the elections if the lunatics and extremists that control the Republican party want to shutdown the government and threaten another debt ceiling crisis.  I hope I'm wrong but this may not be the last we see of crisis-driven government or attempts to destroy "Obamacare."

 

 

 

 

 

  

A World Cup Update & Waiting for Default

As we wait for the United States to default on its debt for the first time in its history in an incredible display of arrogance, extremism, and dysfunction, here's an update on an area of international interest to keep our mind off the coming debacle.  I'm talking, of course, about the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.  The first rounds in all regions are now complete and twenty one sides have qualified.  The remaining eleven slots will be filled in a series of home-and-home playoffs. 

Here are the teams that have already qualified for the 2014 World Cup Tournament:

- Graphic is from FIFA website

The remaining tournament teams will be selected by November 19 after a series of home and home playoffs. This is what it looks like:

Intercontinental playoff (SA-Asia): Uruguay vs. Jordan

Intercontinental playoff (NA,CA, Caribbean - Oceania): Mexico vs. New Zealand

Africa has completed Round 1 of its qualifiers.  The following 10 African teams are vying for the 5 slots allotted to the continent: Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Tunisia, Algeria, Ethiopia, Senegal and Egypt.

Europe has completed Round 1 of its qualifiers. Nine teams have qualified. The eight best second-place teams from Round 1 will compete for the remaining 4 tournament slots: Greece, Portugal, Ukraine, Sweden, Romania, Iceland, Croatia, and France.

Default

Hopefully, the USA will come off looking better in the tournament than we do in the coming default.  The Party of Tea is an embarrassment to this nation and the effects of their actions, should the default occur, will affect other countries as well as our own.  A New York Times article from today describes the consternation of the rest of the world well: A common question crossing continents remains quite simple: The Americans aren’t really that unreasonable and self-destructive, are they?   'It just goes to show that it’s not only Greece that has irresponsible and shortsighted politicians,” said Ioanna Kalavryti, 34, a teacher in Athens. 'We’ve been held hostage by our reckless politicians, and the interests they serve, for more than three years now. I guess our American friends are getting a taste of the same medicine.'