France withdrew before the tournament, the Cornwall (Great Britain) left, playing Australasia.<|endoftext|> not you. My friend had a great example.

    He invested in an oil drilling partnership. He had no control and was to split the “profits” 50-50 with his controlling partner. The controlling partner needed a “business” car and went on several “business” trips. He seemed to do well in conjunction with the business. There were never any “profits” left over for my friend to split. My friend still invests in the oil business, but now he takes his percentage from what comes out of the ground and gets sold to the refinery. He takes a lessor portion that comes out before expenses. No room for shenanigans there. He learned a lesson. I learned it from him as well.

    • I sometimes fall into the trap of assuming other people woudn’t do things I would never think of doing. Like spending other people’s money on a car and vacations for myself. It’s best to assume the worst in people, unfortunately, at least in situations like this one.

  7. This is a good article. I agree illiquid investments on your dark side list are where we can all get into trouble.

    To me, the core principle at play here is Warren Buffet’s “Buy simple investments you know and understand.” It sounds like surgery center centers and other medically related commercial real estate is a theme with docs. It meets the simple and understandable tests because docs can reasonably study that market.

    I primarily invest in residential income properties. I have found d them to be as understandable as any possible investment. We have all rented or bought houses or apartments. So, we intuitively get the qualities that make residential rentals attractive to tenants.

    The other important point you make is control. When you can never make decisions that impact your investment for good or bad – you might as well just buy broad index funds. This is one thing that concerns me about crowd funding real estate sites, even though I like the asset class.

    • Good point about the crowdfunded RE deals. I feel like I understand them reasonably well, but you have no control over them, other than whether to invest or not.

      Individual rentals are pretty easy to understand. Get a favorable cap rate, good tenants, and collect checks!

  8. I find that “being involved” with your investments is the hardest thing for physicians to do. Call it being busy or lack of interest, many of my colleagues are more than willing to outsource their financial plan to a financial advisor rather than spending a little bit of time learning about the issues themselves.

    I myself have been looking more into illiquid investments, namely rental real estate. However, I am of the same mindset that I should understand something before I invest into it, so I am doing my best to educate myself on the topic before diving in.

    As always, thanks for helping this community think more about taking control of their finances!

    • Fortunately, rental real estate is one of the easier investments to understand. There is a ton of information out there (see Coach Carson, Bigger Pockets, etc…). You just have to decide if you want to invest the time and deal with the potential issues (or hire someone to do it for you).

  9. It seems like the docs who invest in surgery centers, etc. do pretty well. It is like Mr Denniston says, when we start investing in things completely out of our realm with no prior knowledge that we get into trouble.

    I have yet to invest in anything illiquid (except for my own home…if you can call that an investment) or strange. I recently wrote about investing in non-traded REITS which would fall into the category of the “Dark Side”. I would not recommend it.

    • The more obscure and complex the investment, the more likely you may be to lose big time.

      I have made sure to understand the brewery business. I actually used my investment to start homebrewing so I could talk smart with the brewmaster.

  10. Nice review of a subject that is important to physicians. I think it comes down to the individual physician’s financial situation, tolerance of risk, hurdle rate demanded, and knowledge of the investment and the people involved. If there is a solid management team in place, a built in referral network, and solid financials it can be a great opportunity.
    I have invested in imaging centers, commercial real estate (medical office building or surgery center), physical therapy business, senior housing development, and equipment leasing. They have all done phenomenally well. My average IRR has run around 33% over a 20 year period. Some of this is luck. Some of this is due diligence and financial understanding. I turn down more investment opportunities than I accept. I still have two investments in small private company start ups that may ultimately fail. Or they may do well, but only time will tell.

      • Thanks. You are too kind. Despite the extraordinary returns, I haven’t achieved extraordinary riches, for several reasons.
        1. I was always a saver, but I thought the typical 10%, 15%, or 20% was a lot to save. It was what I saw recommended and more than most I knew. Saving 1K a month seemed like a lot. It never occurred to me to set aside 50% – 70% as some FIRE folks do now (or as Sir Templeton did back in the day).
        2. Most of these investments have an upper cap on the amount invested. The great investments aren’t too available. When a few shares become available from one of the more successful surgery centers become available, people pounce on them. They don’t want one investor to hold too much of it too. So the percentage returns are high but the total amounts are not always so large.
        3. The extra investment income allowed me to be a bit sloppy in my spending and record keeping. I’m not that compulsive about recording and spending. I’m sure I waste a ton of money, but I have done well to allow that so far.

  12. I have invested in one surgery center, two hospitals, and one home health company. All did ok but I did not like having no idea what the position was worth. It also means a K-1. Most of these investment types will not let you keep the investment if you do not practice their any more so no retirement income stream from these. My angel investment went very bad as I written about on WCI. I agree that it is better not to invest in things that you know nothing about and are not involved in.

    • Yes, I didn’t see deranged gunman among the list of potential dangers, but I recall that was the issue with your angel investment!

      I do get a K-1 from my first brewery investment, but the same CPA that does my taxes also does the brewery’s taxes and K-1’s, so it’s no hassle.

Leave a Comment<|endoftext|>SERIES: How Do I Build My Credit? Part 4

"How do I build my credit?"

This is one of the most common questions I am asked.  In this series, I will be sharing various ways that one can build credit while still winning with money.

Part Four – Understand Why Credit Scores Are Necessary

What is the number one reason why someone would want a great credit score?

To obtain more debt!

Think about it!  I am not a fan of debt at all.  It robs people of peace and places tremendous strain on relationships.

What exactly is debt anyway?

Debt is nothing more than pledging tomorrow's income to someone else.

If one has zero debt, then they will have no credit score.  They could have $10,000,000 in the bank, but have a zero credit score.

A credit score does have an impact on other areas of life, however.  It can affect insurance premiums, deposits required for utility hook-ups, and approval to rent real estate.  It can also impact one's ability to be hired!  Military personnel have been denied or lost security clearances due to their credit.

So read the entire series, work on building a decent credit score, and do it all with a written spending plan!

Leave a Comment<|endoftext|>Tuesday, June 8, 2010

I Am My Influences

I am currently reading Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin. I am also currently rewriting my own novel, possibly to be titled The Stars Are Fire. Last night Mighty Reader asked me what I thought about McCann's book. My answer was, more or less, that I thought it was fantastic writing but I didn't know if I was enjoying it much. There ensued a short conversation about LTGWS and what, if anything, I expect from a novel. This conversation eventually turned to what I expect of my own novels (because I am never more than six sentences away from talking about myself), and I have made some observations. About me, of course.

The first books I can remember reading were fairy tales, Dr. Seuss and then adventure stories. Books heavy on danger and linguistic play. The books I write now are heavy on danger and linguistic play. Huh. Later I read Shakespeare, books heavy on (even the comedies) the dark side of humanity and full of linguistic play. The books I write now are (even in the comic moments) heavy on the dark side of humanity and full of linguistic play.

When I was a young man, I read a lot of books that examined the existential problem

 not you. My friend had a great example.

    He invested in an oil drilling partnership. He had no control and was to split the “profits” 50-50 with his controlling partner. The controlling partner needed a “business” car and went on several “business” trips. He seemed to do well in conjunction with the business. There were never any “profits” left over for my friend to split. My friend still invests in the oil business, but now he takes his percentage from what comes out of the ground and gets sold to the refinery. He takes a lessor portion that comes out before expenses. No room for shenanigans there. He learned a lesson. I learned it from him as well.

    • I sometimes fall into the trap of assuming other people woudn’t do things I would never think of doing. Like spending other people’s money on a car and vacations for myself. It’s best to assume the worst in people, unfortunately, at least in situations like this one.

  7. This is a good article. I agree illiquid investments on your dark side list are where we can all get into trouble.

    To me, the core principle at play here is Warren Buffet’s “Buy simple investments you know and understand.” It sounds like surgery center centers and other medically related commercial real estate is a theme with docs. It meets the simple and understandable tests because docs can reasonably study that market.

    I primarily invest in residential income properties. I have found d them to be as understandable as any possible investment. We have all rented or bought houses or apartments. So, we intuitively get the qualities that make residential rentals attractive to tenants.

    The other important point you make is control. When you can never make decisions that impact your investment for good or bad – you might as well just buy broad index funds. This is one thing that concerns me about crowd funding real estate sites, even though I like the asset class.

    • Good point about the crowdfunded RE deals. I feel like I understand them reasonably well, but you have no control over them, other than whether to invest or not.

      Individual rentals are pretty easy to understand. Get a favorable cap rate, good tenants, and collect checks!

  8. I find that “being involved” with your investments is the hardest thing for physicians to do. Call it being busy or lack of interest, many of my colleagues are more than willing to outsource their financial plan to a financial advisor rather than spending a little bit of time learning about the issues themselves.

    I myself have been looking more into illiquid investments, namely rental real estate. However, I am of the same mindset that I should understand something before I invest into it, so I am doing my best to educate myself on the topic before diving in.

    As always, thanks for helping this community think more about taking control of their finances!

    • Fortunately, rental real estate is one of the easier investments to understand. There is a ton of information out there (see Coach Carson, Bigger Pockets, etc…). You just have to decide if you want to invest the time and deal with the potential issues (or hire someone to do it for you).

  9. It seems like the docs who invest in surgery centers, etc. do pretty well. It is like Mr Denniston says, when we start investing in things completely out of our realm with no prior knowledge that we get into trouble.

    I have yet to invest in anything illiquid (except for my own home…if you can call that an investment) or strange. I recently wrote about investing in non-traded REITS which would fall into the category of the “Dark Side”. I would not recommend it.

    • The more obscure and complex the investment, the more likely you may be to lose big time.

      I have made sure to understand the brewery business. I actually used my investment to start homebrewing so I could talk smart with the brewmaster.

  10. Nice review of a subject that is important to physicians. I think it comes down to the individual physician’s financial situation, tolerance of risk, hurdle rate demanded, and knowledge of the investment and the people involved. If there is a solid management team in place, a built in referral network, and solid financials it can be a great opportunity.
    I have invested in imaging centers, commercial real estate (medical office building or surgery center), physical therapy business, senior housing development, and equipment leasing. They have all done phenomenally well. My average IRR has run around 33% over a 20 year period. Some of this is luck. Some of this is due diligence and financial understanding. I turn down more investment opportunities than I accept. I still have two investments in small private company start ups that may ultimately fail. Or they may do well, but only time will tell.

      • Thanks. You are too kind. Despite the extraordinary returns, I haven’t achieved extraordinary riches, for several reasons.
        1. I was always a saver, but I thought the typical 10%, 15%, or 20% was a lot to save. It was what I saw recommended and more than most I knew. Saving 1K a month seemed like a lot. It never occurred to me to set aside 50% – 70% as some FIRE folks do now (or as Sir Templeton did back in the day).
        2. Most of these investments have an upper cap on the amount invested. The great investments aren’t too available. When a few shares become available from one of the more successful surgery centers become available, people pounce on them. They don’t want one investor to hold too much of it too. So the percentage returns are high but the total amounts are not always so large.
        3. The extra investment income allowed me to be a bit sloppy in my spending and record keeping. I’m not that compulsive about recording and spending. I’m sure I waste a ton of money, but I have done well to allow that so far.

  12. I have invested in one surgery center, two hospitals, and one home health company. All did ok but I did not like having no idea what the position was worth. It also means a K-1. Most of these investment types will not let you keep the investment if you do not practice their any more so no retirement income stream from these. My angel investment went very bad as I written about on WCI. I agree that it is better not to invest in things that you know nothing about and are not involved in.

    • Yes, I didn’t see deranged gunman among the list of potential dangers, but I recall that was the issue with your angel investment!

      I do get a K-1 from my first brewery investment, but the same CPA that does my taxes also does the brewery’s taxes and K-1’s, so it’s no hassle.

Leave a Comment<|endoftext|>SERIES: How Do I Build My Credit? Part 4

"How do I build my credit?"

This is one of the most common questions I am asked.  In this series, I will be sharing various ways that one can build credit while still winning with money.

Part Four – Understand Why Credit Scores Are Necessary

What is the number one reason why someone would want a great credit score?

To obtain more debt!

Think about it!  I am not a fan of debt at all.  It robs people of peace and places tremendous strain on relationships.

What exactly is debt anyway?

Debt is nothing more than pledging tomorrow's income to someone else.

If one has zero debt, then they will have no credit score.  They could have $10,000,000 in the bank, but have a zero credit score.

A credit score does have an impact on other areas of life, however.  It can affect insurance premiums, deposits required for utility hook-ups, and approval to rent real estate.  It can also impact one's ability to be hired!  Military personnel have been denied or lost security clearances due to their credit.

So read the entire series, work on building a decent credit score, and do it all with a written spending plan!

Leave a Comment<|endoftext|>Tuesday, June 8, 2010

I Am My Influences

I am currently reading Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin. I am also currently rewriting my own novel, possibly to be titled The Stars Are Fire. Last night Mighty Reader asked me what I thought about McCann's book. My answer was, more or less, that I thought it was fantastic writing but I didn't know if I was enjoying it much. There ensued a short conversation about LTGWS and what, if anything, I expect from a novel. This conversation eventually turned to what I expect of my own novels (because I am never more than six sentences away from talking about myself), and I have made some observations. About me, of course.

The first books I can remember reading were fairy tales, Dr. Seuss and then adventure stories. Books heavy on danger and linguistic play. The books I write now are heavy on danger and linguistic play. Huh. Later I read Shakespeare, books heavy on (even the comedies) the dark side of humanity and full of linguistic play. The books I write now are (even in the comic moments) heavy on the dark side of humanity and full of linguistic play.

When I was a young man, I read a lot of books that examined the existential problem (that is, attempting to find meaning in the fact of being human and delineating the social


The six killed were four Burmese citizens and two Russian citizens.<|endoftext|>phibians are interesting subjects of study when it comes to convergent evolution and ecotype diversification, as they are thought to experience more environmental constraints than most vertebrates, due to evaporative water loss in terrestrial habitats, i.e. forest or desert (Buckley et al, 2012). Despite this, they have successfully diversified  into forms that can cope with an astonishingly wide array of habitat types through morphological, behavioral and physiological adaptations. Frogs and toads generally display a tight correlation between body shape patterns and habitat use or environmental niche. Thus, convergent evolution in morphotypes should be common across diverse lineages that share similar ecotypes, something that has been rarely tested at the transcontinental level and across multiple species of the same type of animal (Vidal et al, 2015).

This initiated the study done by Vidal et al. (2015), where they were interested in testing for the existence and strength of convergent evolution in the morphology of frogs at the level of the entire continent of Australia. Australia comprises many diverse habitats, ranging from hot, dry deserts to wet rainforests, and has an array of isolation and aridification history. This combination is great for comparative analyses on a broad scale. These researchers examined morphological, environmental, and physiological data on 84 Australian hylid (tree frogs) in an evolutionary context and categorized them into ecotypes. From this, the researchers focused their study on trying to answer four questions:

  1. Are there body size and shape differences among different clades and ecotypes?
  2. Do species from the same ecotype show similar morphological patterns, even across different clades and families?
  3. What is the cause of these body shape similarities?
  4. Do physiological traits vary among species relative to body shape and environmental niche?

They began their quest to answer these questions by collecting data on morphological variation, evaporative water loss, and habitat use in the four main ecotypes they categorized—arboreal, ground-dwelling, semi-aquatic and fossorial— across all species and lineages of Australian hylid frogs. They then compared this data with morphological and environmental patterns found in the radiation of Australian myobatrachids frogs from another study, using phylogenetic comparative methods (Vidal et al., 2015). Further, they quantified the strength of morphological convergence at two levels: 1) between fossorial myobatrachid and hylid frogs and 2) in each ecotype within the hylids. The researchers found evidence to answer each question:

  1. Are there body size and shape differences among different clades and ecotypes? No. Certain body shapes evolved multiple times within certain clades. On the other hand, looking at a finer scale, i.e. species within ecotypes, it was discovered that there was a strong evolutionary relationship: species subtly conform to particular shapes. This was especially evident between fossorial species in the different ecotypes.
  2. Do species from the same ecotype show similar morphological patterns, even across different clades and families? Yes. Body shape patterns roughly matched each ecotype, and this correlation was strongest in the fossorial species, which displayed non-webbed feet, more pointed snouts and proportionally shorter limbs. This morphological type was also observed in all co-distributed burrowing myobatrichid frog species: body shape patterns among fossorial species from different families were similar (Fig. 1), when compared to closely related species from different ecotypes
  3. What is the cause of these body shape similarities? It’s hard to determine one specific cause. From Videl, et al, (2015) results, it was suggested that “there was a tendency for morphological convergence between fossorial tree frogs and myobatrachid back burrowers  sharing the same ecotype”. Moreover, it was suggested that ecotype diversification plays an important role in shaping morphological traits in Australian tree frogs.
  4. Do physiological traits, vary among species relative to body shape and environmental niche? Not exactly. Cutaneous resistance of tree frog species was highly variable. No clear phylogenic, morphological, or environmental correlation was found. However, a correlation existed between ecotype and resistance to evaporative water loss, with arboreal species displaying the highest resistance to water loss and aquatic and fossorial species displaying the lowest.
Fig 1. Representative drawings summarize mean measurements and body patterns displayed by two species from each ecotype. Vidal et al, 2015.

Overall, the results provide evidence that illustrate how adaptation to different ecological niches plays a crucial role in morphological evolution, boosting phenotypic diversity within a clade.  Ultimately, as the researchers coined it,  “morphotype matches ecotype” (Vidal et al, 2015).

But how can this study be taken further? It would be interesting to look at more in depth what other factors might be facilitating adaptation to each ecotype looked at in this study. Do species with a more generalized or conserved body shape display a wider array of behavioral tactics than other species? Additionally, looking at how frog species in Australia have adapted resistance (or if adaptation has occurred) to the chytrid fungus and if these potential adaptations have undergone convergent evolution, would be interesting to consider. Chytridiomycosis, a disease caused by the zoosporic chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd),  is on the rise. One hypothesis is that the origin of Bd was in Australia; however recent evidence places the origin in Africa (Weldon, et al. 2004). With an increase in the chytrid fungus, major die offs have occurred in Australia that has caused the extinction of four species and has led to a dramatic decline of at least ten others (Chytridiomycosis, 2013). How have Australian frogs adapted or have they adapted? Are their similar adaptations across different clades or is adaptation similar among species sharing the same ecotype? Learning about resistance adaptations and how they evolved, can better help the understanding of the dynamics of the chytrid fungus and potentially aid in treating the disease. The discovery of immunological resistance to this pathogenic fungus can provide for an exciting fundamental breakthrough that offers hope and a critical tool for dealing with a global epidemic affecting wild amphibian populations.

Additional information:

Want to check out convergent evolution and ecotype diversification for yourself? Check out the original Vidal et al. 2015 paper here.

Still interested in reading further? Check out this paper that discusses convergent evolution and morphological diversification with Anolis lizards in the Caribbean.

Aridification: the process of a region becoming increasingly dry

Clade: or a group of organisms consisting of a common ancestor and all of its descendents

Ecotype: genetically distinct geographic population or race within a species adapted to specific environmental conditions

Morphotypes: any group of different types of individuals of the same species in a population; a morph

Morphological (Morphology): the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features

Myobatrachids: frogs specifically native to Australia

Phylogenetic: of or relating to phylogeny, or the evolutionary history of a kind of organism; based on natural evolutionary relationships.

Buckley, L.B., Hurlbert, A.H. & Jetz, W. (2012). Broad-scale ecological implications of    ectothermy and endothermy in changing environments. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 21: 873–       885. DOI: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2011.00737.x

Chytridiomycosis (Amphibian chytrid fungus disease). (2013). Retrieved March 22, 2016, from chytridiomycosis-amphibian-chytrid-fungus-disease

Losos, J.B. 1992. The evolution of convergent structure in Caribbean Anolis communities. Syst. Biol. 41: 403–420. DOI: 10.1093/sysbio/41.4.403

Pinto, G., Mahler, D. L., Harmon, L. J., & Losos, J. B. (2008). Testing the island effect in             adaptive radiation: rates and patterns of morphological diversification in Caribbean and     mainland Anolis lizards. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 275(1652), 2749-2757. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0686

Vidal‐García, M., & Keogh, J. S. (2015). Convergent evolution across the Australian continent: ecotype diversification drives morphological convergence in two distantly related clades  of Australian frogs. Journal of evolutionary biology, 28(12), 2136-2151.       DOI: 10.1111/jeb.12746

Weldon, C., du Preez, L. H., Hyatt, A. D., Muller, R., & Speare, R. (2004). Origin of the Amphibian Chytrid Fungus. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 10(12), 2100–2105.<|endoftext|>SALTON SEA, Calif.El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents seized over 175 pounds of methamphetamine Tuesday afternoon.

The incident occurred at approximately 5:25 p.m., when a man driving a white Peterbuilt tractor-trailer approached the Highway 86 checkpoint. A Border Patrol K-9 detection team alerted to the truck in the primary inspection lane. Agents directed the truck to enter the secondary inspection area

phibians are interesting subjects of study when it comes to convergent evolution and ecotype diversification, as they are thought to experience more environmental constraints than most vertebrates, due to evaporative water loss in terrestrial habitats, i.e. forest or desert (Buckley et al, 2012). Despite this, they have successfully diversified  into forms that can cope with an astonishingly wide array of habitat types through morphological, behavioral and physiological adaptations. Frogs and toads generally display a tight correlation between body shape patterns and habitat use or environmental niche. Thus, convergent evolution in morphotypes should be common across diverse lineages that share similar ecotypes, something that has been rarely tested at the transcontinental level and across multiple species of the same type of animal (Vidal et al, 2015).

This initiated the study done by Vidal et al. (2015), where they were interested in testing for the existence and strength of convergent evolution in the morphology of frogs at the level of the entire continent of Australia. Australia comprises many diverse habitats, ranging from hot, dry deserts to wet rainforests, and has an array of isolation and aridification history. This combination is great for comparative analyses on a broad scale. These researchers examined morphological, environmental, and physiological data on 84 Australian hylid (tree frogs) in an evolutionary context and categorized them into ecotypes. From this, the researchers focused their study on trying to answer four questions:

  1. Are there body size and shape differences among different clades and ecotypes?
  2. Do species from the same ecotype show similar morphological patterns, even across different clades and families?
  3. What is the cause of these body shape similarities?
  4. Do physiological traits vary among species relative to body shape and environmental niche?

They began their quest to answer these questions by collecting data on morphological variation, evaporative water loss, and habitat use in the four main ecotypes they categorized—arboreal, ground-dwelling, semi-aquatic and fossorial— across all species and lineages of Australian hylid frogs. They then compared this data with morphological and environmental patterns found in the radiation of Australian myobatrachids frogs from another study, using phylogenetic comparative methods (Vidal et al., 2015). Further, they quantified the strength of morphological convergence at two levels: 1) between fossorial myobatrachid and hylid frogs and 2) in each ecotype within the hylids. The researchers found evidence to answer each question:

  1. Are there body size and shape differences among different clades and ecotypes? No. Certain body shapes evolved multiple times within certain clades. On the other hand, looking at a finer scale, i.e. species within ecotypes, it was discovered that there was a strong evolutionary relationship: species subtly conform to particular shapes. This was especially evident between fossorial species in the different ecotypes.
  2. Do species from the same ecotype show similar morphological patterns, even across different clades and families? Yes. Body shape patterns roughly matched each ecotype, and this correlation was strongest in the fossorial species, which displayed non-webbed feet, more pointed snouts and proportionally shorter limbs. This morphological type was also observed in all co-distributed burrowing myobatrichid frog species: body shape patterns among fossorial species from different families were similar (Fig. 1), when compared to closely related species from different ecotypes
  3. What is the cause of these body shape similarities? It’s hard to determine one specific cause. From Videl, et al, (2015) results, it was suggested that “there was a tendency for morphological convergence between fossorial tree frogs and myobatrachid back burrowers  sharing the same ecotype”. Moreover, it was suggested that ecotype diversification plays an important role in shaping morphological traits in Australian tree frogs.
  4. Do physiological traits, vary among species relative to body shape and environmental niche? Not exactly. Cutaneous resistance of tree frog species was highly variable. No clear phylogenic, morphological, or environmental correlation was found. However, a correlation existed between ecotype and resistance to evaporative water loss, with arboreal species displaying the highest resistance to water loss and aquatic and fossorial species displaying the lowest.
Fig 1. Representative drawings summarize mean measurements and body patterns displayed by two species from each ecotype. Vidal et al, 2015.

Overall, the results provide evidence that illustrate how adaptation to different ecological niches plays a crucial role in morphological evolution, boosting phenotypic diversity within a clade.  Ultimately, as the researchers coined it,  “morphotype matches ecotype” (Vidal et al, 2015).

But how can this study be taken further? It would be interesting to look at more in depth what other factors might be facilitating adaptation to each ecotype looked at in this study. Do species with a more generalized or conserved body shape display a wider array of behavioral tactics than other species? Additionally, looking at how frog species in Australia have adapted resistance (or if adaptation has occurred) to the chytrid fungus and if these potential adaptations have undergone convergent evolution, would be interesting to consider. Chytridiomycosis, a disease caused by the zoosporic chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd),  is on the rise. One hypothesis is that the origin of Bd was in Australia; however recent evidence places the origin in Africa (Weldon, et al. 2004). With an increase in the chytrid fungus, major die offs have occurred in Australia that has caused the extinction of four species and has led to a dramatic decline of at least ten others (Chytridiomycosis, 2013). How have Australian frogs adapted or have they adapted? Are their similar adaptations across different clades or is adaptation similar among species sharing the same ecotype? Learning about resistance adaptations and how they evolved, can better help the understanding of the dynamics of the chytrid fungus and potentially aid in treating the disease. The discovery of immunological resistance to this pathogenic fungus can provide for an exciting fundamental breakthrough that offers hope and a critical tool for dealing with a global epidemic affecting wild amphibian populations.

Additional information:

Want to check out convergent evolution and ecotype diversification for yourself? Check out the original Vidal et al. 2015 paper here.

Still interested in reading further? Check out this paper that discusses convergent evolution and morphological diversification with Anolis lizards in the Caribbean.

Aridification: the process of a region becoming increasingly dry

Clade: or a group of organisms consisting of a common ancestor and all of its descendents

Ecotype: genetically distinct geographic population or race within a species adapted to specific environmental conditions

Morphotypes: any group of different types of individuals of the same species in a population; a morph

Morphological (Morphology): the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features

Myobatrachids: frogs specifically native to Australia

Phylogenetic: of or relating to phylogeny, or the evolutionary history of a kind of organism; based on natural evolutionary relationships.

Buckley, L.B., Hurlbert, A.H. & Jetz, W. (2012). Broad-scale ecological implications of    ectothermy and endothermy in changing environments. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 21: 873–       885. DOI: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2011.00737.x

Chytridiomycosis (Amphibian chytrid fungus disease). (2013). Retrieved March 22, 2016, from chytridiomycosis-amphibian-chytrid-fungus-disease

Losos, J.B. 1992. The evolution of convergent structure in Caribbean Anolis communities. Syst. Biol. 41: 403–420. DOI: 10.1093/sysbio/41.4.403

Pinto, G., Mahler, D. L., Harmon, L. J., & Losos, J. B. (2008). Testing the island effect in             adaptive radiation: rates and patterns of morphological diversification in Caribbean and     mainland Anolis lizards. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 275(1652), 2749-2757. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0686

Vidal‐García, M., & Keogh, J. S. (2015). Convergent evolution across the Australian continent: ecotype diversification drives morphological convergence in two distantly related clades  of Australian frogs. Journal of evolutionary biology, 28(12), 2136-2151.       DOI: 10.1111/jeb.12746

Weldon, C., du Preez, L. H., Hyatt, A. D., Muller, R., & Speare, R. (2004). Origin of the Amphibian Chytrid Fungus. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 10(12), 2100–2105.<|endoftext|>SALTON SEA, Calif.El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents seized over 175 pounds of methamphetamine Tuesday afternoon.

The incident occurred at approximately 5:25 p.m., when a man driving a white Peterbuilt tractor-trailer approached the Highway 86 checkpoint. A Border Patrol K-9 detection team alerted to the truck in the primary inspection lane. Agents directed the truck to enter the secondary inspection area for further investigation.

During their inspection, agents discovered several duff


The soft and smooth coat is gray to fawn in the upper parts.<|endoftext|> or the ability to secure and estimate the facts involved...But the very size, heterogeneity and nobility of urban populations, the vast capital required, the technical characterization of the engineering problems involved soon tire the attention of the average voter."

And (p. 131-46)

"The increase in the number, variety and cheapness of amusements represents a powerful diversion of political concern. The members of an inchoate public have too many ways of enjoyment, as well as of work, to give much thought to organization into an effective public...Access to amusement has been rendered easy and cheap beyond anything known in the past."

In chapter 5, "Search for the Great Community", Dewey points out that the transition from family and dynastic government was the result of technology rather than ideology. Ideology has served primarily the role of "war cries" but not of hypotheses meant for experimentation. History has not borne him out. The classical liberal ideas that he deprecates have been associated with far better economic performance than socialist ones. Ideology rather than technology differentiated the American and Soviet economies. Thus, by his own pragmatism Dewey's diminution of the importance of ideology failed.

Dewey believes that the trend has been toward greater democracy (p. 146) but I do not think that history has borne out this belief. There has never been a solution to his question:

"The prime difficulty, as we have seen, is that of discovering the means by which a scattered, mobile and manifold public may so recognize itself as to define and express its interests."

Dewey suggests as a solution, enhanced participation in pluralistic groups. Democracy is the idea of community life (p. 148). Associations become communities when they are infused with morality supported by signs or symbols (p. 152). "The young have to be brought within the traditions, outlook and interests which characterize a community by means of education: by unremitting instruction and by learning in connection with the phenomena of overt association."

Meaning and communication can influence the technological and economic change that creates the "Great Society". To transform the Great Society into the Great Community social transmission of knowledge, tools and habits are needed (p. 158-9). Habit is fundamental to institutions. Mere freedom from constraint does not create intellectual freedom. The "agencies of publicity which exist in such abundance are utilized in...advertising, propaganda, invasion of private life" and therefore obstruct the "circulation of facts and ideas" (p 169). "We seem to approaching a state of government by hired promoters of opinion...Men have got used to an experimental method in physical and technical matters. They are still afraid of it in human concerns." Social knowledge is backward and people are excessively conservative and loyal to established institutions. "Only continuous inquiry, continuous in the sense of being connected as well as persistent, can provide the material of enduring opinion about public matters" (p. 178). Much of news is trivial and sensational (p. 180). Social science must be integrated with news. Instead, pecuniary interests manipulate the news. Presentation of news is "fundamentally important" (p. 188). "The freeing of the artist in literary presentation, in other words, is as much a precondition of the desirable creation of adequate opinion on public matters as is the freeing of social inquiry."

As Dewey notes in chapter 6, The Problem of Method, the reader is left with a considerable sense of denial of the possibility of these conditions occurring. Dewey goes on to argue that abstract theory is not important, but rather the consequences of theories are what should be considered (p. 193). "The problem of exercising 'social control' over individuals is in its reality that of regulating the doings and results of some individuals in order that a larger number of individuals may have a fuller and deeper experience...Even professedly empirical philosophies have assumed a certain finality and foreverness in their theories which may be expresse dby saying that they have been non-historical in character."

Subsequent generations of social democrats (formerly known as liberals) have betrayed this perspective. Dewey's Progressivism was founded on pragmatism. Today's social democrats resent any tinkering with the solutions that were put forward in Dewey's day. They are as conservative with respect to Social Security, the Federal Reserve Bank and the income tax as early twentieth century conservatives were, only in reverse. As Dewey points out (p. 202) "The person who holds the doctrine of individualism or collectivism has his program determined for him in advance." Today's liberals hold their collectivism tightly, and resent and resist any attempt to reform failure in their many programs, to include urban renewal and planning, education and monetary policy. The solution ought to be a new technology of public management, not a new ideology. As Dewey points out, ideological debates are sterile, and American politicians lack the knowledge or courage to experiment.

Social Democratic Liberalism Came to Serve Corruption

Americans' acceptance of the Keynesian ideology, often called social democracy or post-war liberalism, had its roots in Hamiltonian Federalism. Hamilton, a follower of Hume's economic ideas, had advocated federal expansion of credit and concentration of its availability to business interests. This was to be accomplished by federal assumption of the Revolutionary War debt and establishment of a central bank. Hume had argued that if credit is made available to merchants, then the merchants' smart investment decisions would allocate resources into their most productive uses. Thus, the public might become richer by the artifical creation of money, in Hume's view. Hume assumed that it is a good bet for the public to bear investment risk. But there is certainly risk. Hume believed that the risk would pay off, but this is an apriori argument, not an empirical fact. Moreover, this argument rested on particular facts that were true in the 18th century and ceased to be true by the late nineteenth, in particular merchants' personal assumption of risk.

Hume wrote at a time when corporations did not exist. Corporations did not take their present form until the late nineteenth century, as late as the 1890s. At the time that Hume wrote, merchants who assumed risk did so on their own account, and if they lost money they personally suffered. Thus, there was considerable motivation for rational, profit-maximizing behavior. When central banking was abolished, business needed alternative means to aggregate capital. Corporate organization did so, and it did so by shifting risk away from entrepreneurs and merchants onto investors. This is a more rational method for allocating risk than is central banking because it can reflect personal preferences for risk. Moreover, it permits reflection of a wide range of public preferences. Some people have considerable utility for money in the present because they prefer to consume. Consumers might prefer not to take risks with money but rather to spend it. In contrast, other people have greater utility for money in the future. Such investors can choose to invest more heavily in corporate ventures than a central bank's broad allocation of public resources to specific interests would permit.

Corporate organization might be viewed as an alternative form of capital aggregation to central banking. It is superior because the allocation of risk is explicit. Those who wish to take risks invest in the corporation, while those who do not wish to take risks do not invest. This contrasts with monetary creation by the central bank, which forces all citizens to participate in risky business decisions whether they choose to or not.

But the compounding of the corporate form with central banking might exaggerate risk taking and confound the Humean-Hamiltonian model. Merchants who are not personally at risk may not behave rationally. The result is a potential for corrpution. A corporate president who is granted dollops of credit artificially created by a central bank might be motivated to present false earnings reports, pay himself an exaggerated salary and then resign from the firm before it goes bankrupt, much as the officers of Enron and Bear Stearns did. There is no guarantee of rational behavior by corporate organizations staffed by self interested bureaurcrats. Thus, the subsequent adoption of Hamiltonian Federalism under the Keynesian moniker has gradually led to a crap shoot economy unbridled by rationality and propelled by self-seeking, incompetence and greed.

By 1830 it was evident to most workers that the Central Banking system was not beneficial to them. The Humean and Hamiltonian theory of credit had failed. In particular, banking monopolies led to depreciating currency which in turn led to resentment of the central bank, which President Andrew Jackson abolished in 1832 and 1833. Between 1833 and 1913 there was no central bank, and this was the period of greatest economic creativity in American history. It was also a period of slow business profit, which resulted in repeated complaints about "depressions". Every decade saw increasing real wages and every decade saw a "depression". By the end of the 19th century the average American was much better off, the American economy was the center of world innovation, immigrants flocked here by the millions, but business interests incessantly complained about "depression". Moreover, governmental subsidies to railroads engendered corruption and overexpansion. Post-Civil War monetary inflation facilitated speculation and created income inequality. This occurred at the same time that Jackson's spoils system led to political corruption in the cities.

Many observers felt that rationalization of the state through civil service would improve the economy. The traditional American belief that morality led to economic success was being tested by corruption associated with the railroads and political clubs in the cities. In 1883 Congress passed the Pendleton Act, which created a rudimentary civil service for the federal government. In turn, advocates of moral and limited government, to include the Mugwumps, argued for increased use of civil service, honesty in government,

 or the ability to secure and estimate the facts involved...But the very size, heterogeneity and nobility of urban populations, the vast capital required, the technical characterization of the engineering problems involved soon tire the attention of the average voter."

And (p. 131-46)

"The increase in the number, variety and cheapness of amusements represents a powerful diversion of political concern. The members of an inchoate public have too many ways of enjoyment, as well as of work, to give much thought to organization into an effective public...Access to amusement has been rendered easy and cheap beyond anything known in the past."

In chapter 5, "Search for the Great Community", Dewey points out that the transition from family and dynastic government was the result of technology rather than ideology. Ideology has served primarily the role of "war cries" but not of hypotheses meant for experimentation. History has not borne him out. The classical liberal ideas that he deprecates have been associated with far better economic performance than socialist ones. Ideology rather than technology differentiated the American and Soviet economies. Thus, by his own pragmatism Dewey's diminution of the importance of ideology failed.

Dewey believes that the trend has been toward greater democracy (p. 146) but I do not think that history has borne out this belief. There has never been a solution to his question:

"The prime difficulty, as we have seen, is that of discovering the means by which a scattered, mobile and manifold public may so recognize itself as to define and express its interests."

Dewey suggests as a solution, enhanced participation in pluralistic groups. Democracy is the idea of community life (p. 148). Associations become communities when they are infused with morality supported by signs or symbols (p. 152). "The young have to be brought within the traditions, outlook and interests which characterize a community by means of education: by unremitting instruction and by learning in connection with the phenomena of overt association."

Meaning and communication can influence the technological and economic change that creates the "Great Society". To transform the Great Society into the Great Community social transmission of knowledge, tools and habits are needed (p. 158-9). Habit is fundamental to institutions. Mere freedom from constraint does not create intellectual freedom. The "agencies of publicity which exist in such abundance are utilized in...advertising, propaganda, invasion of private life" and therefore obstruct the "circulation of facts and ideas" (p 169). "We seem to approaching a state of government by hired promoters of opinion...Men have got used to an experimental method in physical and technical matters. They are still afraid of it in human concerns." Social knowledge is backward and people are excessively conservative and loyal to established institutions. "Only continuous inquiry, continuous in the sense of being connected as well as persistent, can provide the material of enduring opinion about public matters" (p. 178). Much of news is trivial and sensational (p. 180). Social science must be integrated with news. Instead, pecuniary interests manipulate the news. Presentation of news is "fundamentally important" (p. 188). "The freeing of the artist in literary presentation, in other words, is as much a precondition of the desirable creation of adequate opinion on public matters as is the freeing of social inquiry."

As Dewey notes in chapter 6, The Problem of Method, the reader is left with a considerable sense of denial of the possibility of these conditions occurring. Dewey goes on to argue that abstract theory is not important, but rather the consequences of theories are what should be considered (p. 193). "The problem of exercising 'social control' over individuals is in its reality that of regulating the doings and results of some individuals in order that a larger number of individuals may have a fuller and deeper experience...Even professedly empirical philosophies have assumed a certain finality and foreverness in their theories which may be expresse dby saying that they have been non-historical in character."

Subsequent generations of social democrats (formerly known as liberals) have betrayed this perspective. Dewey's Progressivism was founded on pragmatism. Today's social democrats resent any tinkering with the solutions that were put forward in Dewey's day. They are as conservative with respect to Social Security, the Federal Reserve Bank and the income tax as early twentieth century conservatives were, only in reverse. As Dewey points out (p. 202) "The person who holds the doctrine of individualism or collectivism has his program determined for him in advance." Today's liberals hold their collectivism tightly, and resent and resist any attempt to reform failure in their many programs, to include urban renewal and planning, education and monetary policy. The solution ought to be a new technology of public management, not a new ideology. As Dewey points out, ideological debates are sterile, and American politicians lack the knowledge or courage to experiment.

Social Democratic Liberalism Came to Serve Corruption

Americans' acceptance of the Keynesian ideology, often called social democracy or post-war liberalism, had its roots in Hamiltonian Federalism. Hamilton, a follower of Hume's economic ideas, had advocated federal expansion of credit and concentration of its availability to business interests. This was to be accomplished by federal assumption of the Revolutionary War debt and establishment of a central bank. Hume had argued that if credit is made available to merchants, then the merchants' smart investment decisions would allocate resources into their most productive uses. Thus, the public might become richer by the artifical creation of money, in Hume's view. Hume assumed that it is a good bet for the public to bear investment risk. But there is certainly risk. Hume believed that the risk would pay off, but this is an apriori argument, not an empirical fact. Moreover, this argument rested on particular facts that were true in the 18th century and ceased to be true by the late nineteenth, in particular merchants' personal assumption of risk.

Hume wrote at a time when corporations did not exist. Corporations did not take their present form until the late nineteenth century, as late as the 1890s. At the time that Hume wrote, merchants who assumed risk did so on their own account, and if they lost money they personally suffered. Thus, there was considerable motivation for rational, profit-maximizing behavior. When central banking was abolished, business needed alternative means to aggregate capital. Corporate organization did so, and it did so by shifting risk away from entrepreneurs and merchants onto investors. This is a more rational method for allocating risk than is central banking because it can reflect personal preferences for risk. Moreover, it permits reflection of a wide range of public preferences. Some people have considerable utility for money in the present because they prefer to consume. Consumers might prefer not to take risks with money but rather to spend it. In contrast, other people have greater utility for money in the future. Such investors can choose to invest more heavily in corporate ventures than a central bank's broad allocation of public resources to specific interests would permit.

Corporate organization might be viewed as an alternative form of capital aggregation to central banking. It is superior because the allocation of risk is explicit. Those who wish to take risks invest in the corporation, while those who do not wish to take risks do not invest. This contrasts with monetary creation by the central bank, which forces all citizens to participate in risky business decisions whether they choose to or not.

But the compounding of the corporate form with central banking might exaggerate risk taking and confound the Humean-Hamiltonian model. Merchants who are not personally at risk may not behave rationally. The result is a potential for corrpution. A corporate president who is granted dollops of credit artificially created by a central bank might be motivated to present false earnings reports, pay himself an exaggerated salary and then resign from the firm before it goes bankrupt, much as the officers of Enron and Bear Stearns did. There is no guarantee of rational behavior by corporate organizations staffed by self interested bureaurcrats. Thus, the subsequent adoption of Hamiltonian Federalism under the Keynesian moniker has gradually led to a crap shoot economy unbridled by rationality and propelled by self-seeking, incompetence and greed.

By 1830 it was evident to most workers that the Central Banking system was not beneficial to them. The Humean and Hamiltonian theory of credit had failed. In particular, banking monopolies led to depreciating currency which in turn led to resentment of the central bank, which President Andrew Jackson abolished in 1832 and 1833. Between 1833 and 1913 there was no central bank, and this was the period of greatest economic creativity in American history. It was also a period of slow business profit, which resulted in repeated complaints about "depressions". Every decade saw increasing real wages and every decade saw a "depression". By the end of the 19th century the average American was much better off, the American economy was the center of world innovation, immigrants flocked here by the millions, but business interests incessantly complained about "depression". Moreover, governmental subsidies to railroads engendered corruption and overexpansion. Post-Civil War monetary inflation facilitated speculation and created income inequality. This occurred at the same time that Jackson's spoils system led to political corruption in the cities.

Many observers felt that rationalization of the state through civil service would improve the economy. The traditional American belief that morality led to economic success was being tested by corruption associated with the railroads and political clubs in the cities. In 1883 Congress passed the Pendleton Act, which created a rudimentary civil service for the federal government. In turn, advocates of moral and limited government, to include the Mugwumps, argued for increased use of civil service, honesty in government, and the gold standard and reduced tariffs. The election of 1884, in which the


In early July, Steve Whitley, the criminal father of Harper Whitley and Garrett Whitley, and brother of Benny Cameron.<|endoftext|>ished and enslaved survivors? Or will local food networks and Occupy groups positively transform society from the ground up?
I don’t claim to have a functioning crystal ball. But tracing current trends, and looking to historic analogies, may help us understand our prospects better, and help us make the most of them.
The 21st century landscape of conflict
Looking forward, four principal drivers of conflict are easily apparent. More may be lurking along the way.
First is the increasing prospect of conflict between rich and poor—i.e., between those who benefitted during history’s biggest growth bash on one hand, and on the other hand those who provided the labor, sat on the sidelines, or were pushed aside in resource grabs.
Economic growth produces inequality as a byproduct. Not only do industrialists appropriate the surplus value of the labor of their workers, as Marx pointed out, but bankers accumulate wealth from the interest paid by borrowers. We see inequality being generated by economic growth in real time in China, where roughly six hundred million people have been lifted from poverty in the last thirty years as a result of nine percent annual economic growth—but where economic inequality now surpasses levels in U.S. and even Eastern Europe.
Just as economic growth produces winners and losers domestically, the level of wealth inequality between nations grows as the global economy expands. Today the disparity between average incomes in the world’s richest and poorest nations is higher than ever.
The primary forces working against inequality as economies grow consist of government spending on social programs of all sorts, and on international aid projects.
As economic growth stops, those who have benefitted the most have both the incentive to maintain their relative advantage and, in many cases, the means to do so. Which means that in a contracting economy, those who have the least tend to lose the most. There are exceptions, of course. Billionaires can in theory go broke in a matter of hours or even seconds as a result of a market crash. But in the era of “too-big-to-fail” banks and corporations, government provides a safety net for the rich as well as the poor.
High and increasing inequality is usually bearable during boom times, as people at the bottom of the wealth pyramid are encouraged by the prospect of its overall expansion. Once growth ceases and slips into reverse, inequality becomes socially unsustainable. Declining expectations lead to unrest, while absolute misery (in the sense of not having enough to eat) often results in revolution.
We’ve seen plenty of examples of these trends in the past two years in Greece, Ireland, Spain, the U.S., and the Middle East.
In many countries, including the U.S., government efforts to forestall or head off uprisings appear to be taking the forms of criminalization of dissent, the militarization of police, and a massive expansion of surveillance using an array of new electronic spy technologies. At the same time, intelligence agencies are now able to employ up-to-date sociological and psychological research to infiltrate, co-opt, misdirect, and manipulate popular movements aimed at achieving economic redistribution.
However, these military, police, public relations, and intelligence efforts require massive funding as well as functioning grid, fuel, and transport infrastructures. Further, their effectiveness is limited if and when the nation’s level of economic pain becomes too intense, widespread, or prolonged.
A second source of conflict consists of increasing competition over access to depleting resources, including oil, water, and minerals. Among the wealthiest nations, oil is likely to be the object of the most intensive struggle, since oil is essential for nearly all transport and trade. The race for oil began in the early 20th century and has shaped the politics and geopolitics of the Middle East and Central Asia; now that race is expanding to include the Arctic and deep oceans, such as the South China Sea.
Resource conflicts occur not just between nations, but also within societies: witness the ongoing insurgencies in the Niger Delta, where oil revenue fuels rampant political corruption while drilling leads to environmental ravages felt primarily by the Ogoni ethnic group; see also the political infighting in fracking country here in the U.S., where ecological impacts put ever-greater strains on the social fabric. Neighbors who benefit from lease payments no longer speak to neighbors who have to put up with polluted water, a blighted landscape, and the noise of thousands of trucks carrying equipment, water, and chemicals. Eventually, however, boomtowns turn to ghost towns, and nearly everyone loses.
Third, climate change and other forms of ecological degradation are likely to lead to conflict over access to places of refuge from natural disasters. The responsible agencies—including the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security—point out that there are already 12 million environmental refugees worldwide, and that this number is destined to soar as extreme weather events increase in frequency and severity. Typically, when bad weather strikes, people leave their homes only as a last resort; in the worst instances they have no other option. As America learned during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when hundreds of thousand were displaced from farms in the prairies, rapid shifts in population due to forced migration can create economic and social stresses, including competition for scarce jobs, land, and resources, leading to discrimination and sometimes violence.
Where do refugees go when the world is already full? Growing economies are usually able to absorb immigrants and governments may even encourage immigration in order to keep wages down. But when economic growth ceases, immigrants are often seen as taking jobs away from native-born workers.
In this instance as well, conflict will appear both within and between countries. Low-lying island nations may disappear completely, and cross-border weather-driven migrations will increase dramatically. Inhabitants of coastal communities will move further inland. Farmers in drought-plagued areas will pick up stakes. But can all of these people be absorbed into shantytowns in the world’s sprawling megacities? Or will at least some of these cities themselves see an exodus of population due to an inability to maintain basic life-support services?
Lastly, climate change, water scarcity, high oil prices, vanishing credit, and the leveling off of per-hectare productivity and the amount of arable land are all combining to create the conditions for a historic food crisis, which will impact the poor first and most forcibly. High food prices breed social instability—whether in 18th century France or 21st century Egypt. As today’s high prices rise further, social instability could spread, leading to demonstrations, riots, insurgencies, and revolutions.
In summary, conflict in the decades ahead will likely center on the four factors of money, energy, land, and food. These sources of conflict will overlap in various ways. While economic inequality will not itself be at the root of all this conflict (one could argue that population growth is a deeper if often unacknowledged cause of strife), inequality does seem destined to play a role in most conflict, whether the immediate trigger is extreme weather, high food prices, or energy shortages.
This is not to say that no other sources of conflict beyond money, energy, land, and food will exist. Undoubtedly religion will provide the ostensible banner for contention in many instances. However, as so often in history, this is likely to be a secondary rather than a primary driver of discord.
War and peace in a shrinking economy
Will increasing conflict lead to expanding violence?
Not if neuropsychologist Stephen Pinker is right. In his expansive and widely praised book The Better Angels of Our Nature: the Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes, Pinker claims that, in general, violence has waned during the past few decades. He argues that this tendency has ancient roots in our shift from peripatetic hunting and gathering to settled farming; moreover, during the past couple of centuries the trend has greatly intensified. With the emergence of Enlightenment philosophy and its respect for the individual came what Pinker calls the Humanitarian Revolution. Much more recently, after World War II, violence was suppressed first by the “mutually assured destruction” policies of the two opposed nuclear-armed sides in the Cold War, and then by American global hegemony. Pinker calls this the Long Peace. Wars have become less frequent and less violent, and most societies have seen what might be called a decline of tolerance for intolerance—whether manifested in schoolyard fights, bullying, or picking on gays and minorities.
But there is a problem with Pinker’s implied conclusion that global violence will continue to decline. The Long Peace we have known since World War II may well turn out to be shorter than hoped as world economic growth stalls and as American hegemony falters—in John Michael Greer’s words, as “the costs of maintaining a global imperial presence soar and the profits of the imperial wealth pump slump.” Books and articles predicting the end of the American empire are legion; while some merely point to the rise of China as a global rival, others describe the looming failure of the essential basis of the U.S. imperial system—the global system of oil production and trade (with its petro-dollar recycling program) centered in the Middle East. There are any number of scenarios describing how the end of empire might come, but few credible narratives explaining why it won’t.
When empires crumble, as they always do, the result is often a free-for-all among previous subject nations and potential rivals as they sort out power relations. The British Empire was a seeming exception to this rule: in this instance, the locus of military, political, and economic power simply migrated to

ished and enslaved survivors? Or will local food networks and Occupy groups positively transform society from the ground up?
I don’t claim to have a functioning crystal ball. But tracing current trends, and looking to historic analogies, may help us understand our prospects better, and help us make the most of them.
The 21st century landscape of conflict
Looking forward, four principal drivers of conflict are easily apparent. More may be lurking along the way.
First is the increasing prospect of conflict between rich and poor—i.e., between those who benefitted during history’s biggest growth bash on one hand, and on the other hand those who provided the labor, sat on the sidelines, or were pushed aside in resource grabs.
Economic growth produces inequality as a byproduct. Not only do industrialists appropriate the surplus value of the labor of their workers, as Marx pointed out, but bankers accumulate wealth from the interest paid by borrowers. We see inequality being generated by economic growth in real time in China, where roughly six hundred million people have been lifted from poverty in the last thirty years as a result of nine percent annual economic growth—but where economic inequality now surpasses levels in U.S. and even Eastern Europe.
Just as economic growth produces winners and losers domestically, the level of wealth inequality between nations grows as the global economy expands. Today the disparity between average incomes in the world’s richest and poorest nations is higher than ever.
The primary forces working against inequality as economies grow consist of government spending on social programs of all sorts, and on international aid projects.
As economic growth stops, those who have benefitted the most have both the incentive to maintain their relative advantage and, in many cases, the means to do so. Which means that in a contracting economy, those who have the least tend to lose the most. There are exceptions, of course. Billionaires can in theory go broke in a matter of hours or even seconds as a result of a market crash. But in the era of “too-big-to-fail” banks and corporations, government provides a safety net for the rich as well as the poor.
High and increasing inequality is usually bearable during boom times, as people at the bottom of the wealth pyramid are encouraged by the prospect of its overall expansion. Once growth ceases and slips into reverse, inequality becomes socially unsustainable. Declining expectations lead to unrest, while absolute misery (in the sense of not having enough to eat) often results in revolution.
We’ve seen plenty of examples of these trends in the past two years in Greece, Ireland, Spain, the U.S., and the Middle East.
In many countries, including the U.S., government efforts to forestall or head off uprisings appear to be taking the forms of criminalization of dissent, the militarization of police, and a massive expansion of surveillance using an array of new electronic spy technologies. At the same time, intelligence agencies are now able to employ up-to-date sociological and psychological research to infiltrate, co-opt, misdirect, and manipulate popular movements aimed at achieving economic redistribution.
However, these military, police, public relations, and intelligence efforts require massive funding as well as functioning grid, fuel, and transport infrastructures. Further, their effectiveness is limited if and when the nation’s level of economic pain becomes too intense, widespread, or prolonged.
A second source of conflict consists of increasing competition over access to depleting resources, including oil, water, and minerals. Among the wealthiest nations, oil is likely to be the object of the most intensive struggle, since oil is essential for nearly all transport and trade. The race for oil began in the early 20th century and has shaped the politics and geopolitics of the Middle East and Central Asia; now that race is expanding to include the Arctic and deep oceans, such as the South China Sea.
Resource conflicts occur not just between nations, but also within societies: witness the ongoing insurgencies in the Niger Delta, where oil revenue fuels rampant political corruption while drilling leads to environmental ravages felt primarily by the Ogoni ethnic group; see also the political infighting in fracking country here in the U.S., where ecological impacts put ever-greater strains on the social fabric. Neighbors who benefit from lease payments no longer speak to neighbors who have to put up with polluted water, a blighted landscape, and the noise of thousands of trucks carrying equipment, water, and chemicals. Eventually, however, boomtowns turn to ghost towns, and nearly everyone loses.
Third, climate change and other forms of ecological degradation are likely to lead to conflict over access to places of refuge from natural disasters. The responsible agencies—including the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security—point out that there are already 12 million environmental refugees worldwide, and that this number is destined to soar as extreme weather events increase in frequency and severity. Typically, when bad weather strikes, people leave their homes only as a last resort; in the worst instances they have no other option. As America learned during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when hundreds of thousand were displaced from farms in the prairies, rapid shifts in population due to forced migration can create economic and social stresses, including competition for scarce jobs, land, and resources, leading to discrimination and sometimes violence.
Where do refugees go when the world is already full? Growing economies are usually able to absorb immigrants and governments may even encourage immigration in order to keep wages down. But when economic growth ceases, immigrants are often seen as taking jobs away from native-born workers.
In this instance as well, conflict will appear both within and between countries. Low-lying island nations may disappear completely, and cross-border weather-driven migrations will increase dramatically. Inhabitants of coastal communities will move further inland. Farmers in drought-plagued areas will pick up stakes. But can all of these people be absorbed into shantytowns in the world’s sprawling megacities? Or will at least some of these cities themselves see an exodus of population due to an inability to maintain basic life-support services?
Lastly, climate change, water scarcity, high oil prices, vanishing credit, and the leveling off of per-hectare productivity and the amount of arable land are all combining to create the conditions for a historic food crisis, which will impact the poor first and most forcibly. High food prices breed social instability—whether in 18th century France or 21st century Egypt. As today’s high prices rise further, social instability could spread, leading to demonstrations, riots, insurgencies, and revolutions.
In summary, conflict in the decades ahead will likely center on the four factors of money, energy, land, and food. These sources of conflict will overlap in various ways. While economic inequality will not itself be at the root of all this conflict (one could argue that population growth is a deeper if often unacknowledged cause of strife), inequality does seem destined to play a role in most conflict, whether the immediate trigger is extreme weather, high food prices, or energy shortages.
This is not to say that no other sources of conflict beyond money, energy, land, and food will exist. Undoubtedly religion will provide the ostensible banner for contention in many instances. However, as so often in history, this is likely to be a secondary rather than a primary driver of discord.
War and peace in a shrinking economy
Will increasing conflict lead to expanding violence?
Not if neuropsychologist Stephen Pinker is right. In his expansive and widely praised book The Better Angels of Our Nature: the Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes, Pinker claims that, in general, violence has waned during the past few decades. He argues that this tendency has ancient roots in our shift from peripatetic hunting and gathering to settled farming; moreover, during the past couple of centuries the trend has greatly intensified. With the emergence of Enlightenment philosophy and its respect for the individual came what Pinker calls the Humanitarian Revolution. Much more recently, after World War II, violence was suppressed first by the “mutually assured destruction” policies of the two opposed nuclear-armed sides in the Cold War, and then by American global hegemony. Pinker calls this the Long Peace. Wars have become less frequent and less violent, and most societies have seen what might be called a decline of tolerance for intolerance—whether manifested in schoolyard fights, bullying, or picking on gays and minorities.
But there is a problem with Pinker’s implied conclusion that global violence will continue to decline. The Long Peace we have known since World War II may well turn out to be shorter than hoped as world economic growth stalls and as American hegemony falters—in John Michael Greer’s words, as “the costs of maintaining a global imperial presence soar and the profits of the imperial wealth pump slump.” Books and articles predicting the end of the American empire are legion; while some merely point to the rise of China as a global rival, others describe the looming failure of the essential basis of the U.S. imperial system—the global system of oil production and trade (with its petro-dollar recycling program) centered in the Middle East. There are any number of scenarios describing how the end of empire might come, but few credible narratives explaining why it won’t.
When empires crumble, as they always do, the result is often a free-for-all among previous subject nations and potential rivals as they sort out power relations. The British Empire was a seeming exception to this rule: in this instance, the locus of military, political, and economic power simply migrated to an ally across the Atlantic. A similar graceful transfer seems unlikely in the case of the U.S., as economic decline during the 21st


 know
10. What are you really good at? I'm good at flying my helicopter.
11. Where do you want to go on vacation? Grandma's house
12. What would you buy if you had $100? A remote contorl helicopter.
13. What do you do for fun? on the Wii
14. What is your favorite animal? Uhh...lion, wait tiger.
15. Why do you want to be a 6 year old? I don't know.

And now his perceptions of us:

All about My Mom
1. How old is your Mom? 25
2. What is your Mom's favorite color? Pink
3. What is your Mom's favorite food? oatmeal
4. How tall is your Mom? 88
5. What shoe size does she wear? 15
6. What is her favorite TV show? House
7. What time does your Mom wake up in the morning? I don't know
8. What does you Mom do while you're at school? Take a nap.
9. What is your Mom's first name? Jennifer
10. What do you like best about your mom? You let us go out for dinner.

All about your Dad
1. How old is your dad? 29
2. How much does dad weigh? 50
3. What is Dad's favorite food? Cereal
4. How strong is your Dad? 51
5. What's Dad's job? Working
6. What does Dad do at work? I don't know.
7. What is your favorite thing to do with Dad? Help him carry wood
8. How tall is your Dad? 29
9. What do you like best about your Dad? He let us have treats when we go to Menards,
10. What is your Dad's first name? Robert

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Robert Allen<|endoftext|>look up any word:
1. Grammy Gum Job
When your granny takes out er TEETH! (dentures) and gives a young man with a cock a blow job. AKA grammy gum job.
old lady walks into my room and she gets horny and pulls her dentures out and un-zipz my pants and starts deep throatin' and swallowing my cum. boys and girls, that's what a GRAMMY GUM JOB is!
rss and gcal<|endoftext|>Jefferson lamp worth a pretty penny

on January 29, 2009 at 1:18 PM, updated January 29, 2009 at 1:36 PM
The reader's circa 1920 reverse painted lamp made by the Jefferson Lamp Co. of Chicago, is valued at around $2,500 to $3,000.

Q.The name "Jefferson" is imprinted on the metal around the top of the glass shade on this electric lamp. It belonged to my husband's grandfather and is probably more than 75 years old. The base is heavy metal, the overall height is 21 inches, and the glass shade is hand-painted on the inside with a scene of a winding road leading to a country cottage.

Could you please provide information on the manufacturer, age, and value of our lamp?

A. You have a circa 1920 reverse painted lamp made by the Jefferson Lamp Co. of Chicago. The value of your lamp would probably be $2,500 to $3,000.

Q.This mark is on the bottom of a gravy dish that once was my mother's. The dish is pink and has an attached plate. It is in very good condition, no chips or cracks. What can you tell me about the mark, age, and value of my gravy dish?

A. Taylor, Smith, and Taylor made your gravy dish. They made semi-vitreous china in Chester, W.V. from 1901-1981. Lu-Ray Pastels was a line of semi-vitreous china that was introduced in 1938 by Taylor, Smith, and Taylor. The line was available in six pastel solid colors and several different shapes. Your gravy dish is an example of their Sharon pink and was part of a complete line of dinnerware.

Your gravy dish with attached plate was made in the 1940s and is worth between $25 and $35.

Q.My husband and I bought an early 20th-century four-square home we plan to restore. In the garage we found an old tin sign with the picture of an American Indian. It is an advertisement for "None Such Mince Meat," measures 28 by 20 inches, and is very good condition. My husband said it is "junque" and we should toss it out. I think it is an antique and we should gather more information before we make our final decision.

A. Do not mince words with your husband. Your advertising sign is an antique and worth a lot of dough. It was made around 1890, older than the 75 years of age requirement to qualify as an antique. According to the manufacturer, Merrell-Soule Co. of Syracuse, N.Y., None Such Mince Meat was used to prepare "Pies like Mother Used to Bake." The image of the American Indian is that of a chief of the New York State Onondaga tribe. Your tin sign would probably be worth $6,500 to $7,500.

Q. I have a large, framed painting that was purchased around 1947. It appears to be on a heavy poster board rather than paper and it is signed Robert Wood. The painting is a scene of mountains and trees in the background and rocks and a stream in the foreground.

What can you tell me about my painting?

A. Robert Wood, 1889-1979, was born in England. He was a talented and prolific artist who spent most of his life in the United States. Although many of his paintings were reproduced with his authorization on cardboard, there have been many counterfeits, some made in Japan.

Similar reproductions have sold anywhere from several hundred dollars to $1,000.
<|endoftext|>Particularly dense erosion occurred in warmer melting periods during the ice ages, when the climate of the tundra prevailed and the soil was not protected by a strong vegetation.<|endoftext|>March 9, 2011

South Africa's new bogeymen

Are England bowlers. While on paper, the South Africans look better, in the pivotal moments it is England who have prevailed

Easy like Sunday morning, eh? Not likely Lionel, my dear old thing. Not if you were rubbing the sleep from your eyes in deepest Sussex, it wasn't. Not if you gave a hoot about what was happening in Chennai. And certainly not if your idea of easy is a bump-free ride with Handy Andy and his Mighty Erratics.

Some wildly extravagant claims were made on behalf of the previous Sunday's improbable 676-run Anglo-Indian all-squarer (how improbable can readily be gleaned, not so much from the fact that, of the 47 previous tied ODIs, just one had yielded more runs - 680 by New Zealand and England in Napier three years ago - but that the next highest aggregate had been 540). Inasmuch as England had two wickets intact as the penultimate ball was propelled, leaving all three results possible, it was tempting, admittedly, to rush headlong to such lavish conclusions, but this should have been resisted.

Sporting encounters require at least a vestige of balance to secure their own folder on one's inner hard drive, and cricket purists are arguably the hardest to please. Not only do we want both protagonists to have a chance of victory, we also want variety, which means batsmen and bowlers - and, ideally, seamers and spinners - must be on a reasonably level footing. And notwithstanding one magnificent late spell by Tim Bresnan and a similarly swift burst of equal magnitude by Zaheer Khan, which together accounted for roughly five of the 100 overs, that Bangalore bash was a clear knockout for the flat-track bullies, as is the way with far too many ODIs. Fortunately, courtesy of an unexpectedly chirpy Chennai strip, we witnessed something rather beautiful, something bearing a welcome resemblance to a proper game of cricket.

And about time too. Since the last World Cup, the spirit of adventure, stirred by Twenty20 and sweetened by the advent of the batting Powerplay, has seen the pendulum swing to an intolerable degree. Consider the following exhibits. From January 1971 until shortly before the 2006 Champions Trophy, the average ODI total was 209; over the past two years that mean has surged to just south of 253. Of the 51 scores of 350 or more in the 3122 ODIs played up to midnight on Monday, more than 60%, 33, had been slammed and slugged in 626 games since February 1, 2007, along with more than half, eight, of the 15 highest successful all-time chases. And while South Africa boast the highest overall run-rate with 4.93 per over, and 4.86 up to the start of the 2009 Champions Trophy, the first major event to deploy the batting Powerplay, all eight senior nations have exceeded 4.96 since then, seven of them 5.13 or better. A question, assuredly, of extreme imbalance.

That's why Chennai was such a vital and timely tonic for this tournament, not to say the flagging viability of the 50-over flog. In India, the batsmen had been gorging - unstoppably, nauseatingly; how many times

I don't know
10. What are you really good at? I'm good at flying my helicopter.
11. Where do you want to go on vacation? Grandma's house
12. What would you buy if you had $100? A remote contorl helicopter.
13. What do you do for fun? on the Wii
14. What is your favorite animal? Uhh...lion, wait tiger.
15. Why do you want to be a 6 year old? I don't know.

And now his perceptions of us:

All about My Mom
1. How old is your Mom? 25
2. What is your Mom's favorite color? Pink
3. What is your Mom's favorite food? oatmeal
4. How tall is your Mom? 88
5. What shoe size does she wear? 15
6. What is her favorite TV show? House
7. What time does your Mom wake up in the morning? I don't know
8. What does you Mom do while you're at school? Take a nap.
9. What is your Mom's first name? Jennifer
10. What do you like best about your mom? You let us go out for dinner.

All about your Dad
1. How old is your dad? 29
2. How much does dad weigh? 50
3. What is Dad's favorite food? Cereal
4. How strong is your Dad? 51
5. What's Dad's job? Working
6. What does Dad do at work? I don't know.
7. What is your favorite thing to do with Dad? Help him carry wood
8. How tall is your Dad? 29
9. What do you like best about your Dad? He let us have treats when we go to Menards,
10. What is your Dad's first name? Robert

No comments:

Post a Comment

Robert Allen<|endoftext|>look up any word:
1. Grammy Gum Job
When your granny takes out er TEETH! (dentures) and gives a young man with a cock a blow job. AKA grammy gum job.
old lady walks into my room and she gets horny and pulls her dentures out and un-zipz my pants and starts deep throatin' and swallowing my cum. boys and girls, that's what a GRAMMY GUM JOB is!
rss and gcal<|endoftext|>Jefferson lamp worth a pretty penny

on January 29, 2009 at 1:18 PM, updated January 29, 2009 at 1:36 PM
The reader's circa 1920 reverse painted lamp made by the Jefferson Lamp Co. of Chicago, is valued at around $2,500 to $3,000.

Q.The name "Jefferson" is imprinted on the metal around the top of the glass shade on this electric lamp. It belonged to my husband's grandfather and is probably more than 75 years old. The base is heavy metal, the overall height is 21 inches, and the glass shade is hand-painted on the inside with a scene of a winding road leading to a country cottage.

Could you please provide information on the manufacturer, age, and value of our lamp?

A. You have a circa 1920 reverse painted lamp made by the Jefferson Lamp Co. of Chicago. The value of your lamp would probably be $2,500 to $3,000.

Q.This mark is on the bottom of a gravy dish that once was my mother's. The dish is pink and has an attached plate. It is in very good condition, no chips or cracks. What can you tell me about the mark, age, and value of my gravy dish?

A. Taylor, Smith, and Taylor made your gravy dish. They made semi-vitreous china in Chester, W.V. from 1901-1981. Lu-Ray Pastels was a line of semi-vitreous china that was introduced in 1938 by Taylor, Smith, and Taylor. The line was available in six pastel solid colors and several different shapes. Your gravy dish is an example of their Sharon pink and was part of a complete line of dinnerware.

Your gravy dish with attached plate was made in the 1940s and is worth between $25 and $35.

Q.My husband and I bought an early 20th-century four-square home we plan to restore. In the garage we found an old tin sign with the picture of an American Indian. It is an advertisement for "None Such Mince Meat," measures 28 by 20 inches, and is very good condition. My husband said it is "junque" and we should toss it out. I think it is an antique and we should gather more information before we make our final decision.

A. Do not mince words with your husband. Your advertising sign is an antique and worth a lot of dough. It was made around 1890, older than the 75 years of age requirement to qualify as an antique. According to the manufacturer, Merrell-Soule Co. of Syracuse, N.Y., None Such Mince Meat was used to prepare "Pies like Mother Used to Bake." The image of the American Indian is that of a chief of the New York State Onondaga tribe. Your tin sign would probably be worth $6,500 to $7,500.

Q. I have a large, framed painting that was purchased around 1947. It appears to be on a heavy poster board rather than paper and it is signed Robert Wood. The painting is a scene of mountains and trees in the background and rocks and a stream in the foreground.

What can you tell me about my painting?

A. Robert Wood, 1889-1979, was born in England. He was a talented and prolific artist who spent most of his life in the United States. Although many of his paintings were reproduced with his authorization on cardboard, there have been many counterfeits, some made in Japan.

Similar reproductions have sold anywhere from several hundred dollars to $1,000.
<|endoftext|>March 9, 2011

South Africa's new bogeymen

Are England bowlers. While on paper, the South Africans look better, in the pivotal moments it is England who have prevailed

Easy like Sunday morning, eh? Not likely Lionel, my dear old thing. Not if you were rubbing the sleep from your eyes in deepest Sussex, it wasn't. Not if you gave a hoot about what was happening in Chennai. And certainly not if your idea of easy is a bump-free ride with Handy Andy and his Mighty Erratics.

Some wildly extravagant claims were made on behalf of the previous Sunday's improbable 676-run Anglo-Indian all-squarer (how improbable can readily be gleaned, not so much from the fact that, of the 47 previous tied ODIs, just one had yielded more runs - 680 by New Zealand and England in Napier three years ago - but that the next highest aggregate had been 540). Inasmuch as England had two wickets intact as the penultimate ball was propelled, leaving all three results possible, it was tempting, admittedly, to rush headlong to such lavish conclusions, but this should have been resisted.

Sporting encounters require at least a vestige of balance to secure their own folder on one's inner hard drive, and cricket purists are arguably the hardest to please. Not only do we want both protagonists to have a chance of victory, we also want variety, which means batsmen and bowlers - and, ideally, seamers and spinners - must be on a reasonably level footing. And notwithstanding one magnificent late spell by Tim Bresnan and a similarly swift burst of equal magnitude by Zaheer Khan, which together accounted for roughly five of the 100 overs, that Bangalore bash was a clear knockout for the flat-track bullies, as is the way with far too many ODIs. Fortunately, courtesy of an unexpectedly chirpy Chennai strip, we witnessed something rather beautiful, something bearing a welcome resemblance to a proper game of cricket.

And about time too. Since the last World Cup, the spirit of adventure, stirred by Twenty20 and sweetened by the advent of the batting Powerplay, has seen the pendulum swing to an intolerable degree. Consider the following exhibits. From January 1971 until shortly before the 2006 Champions Trophy, the average ODI total was 209; over the past two years that mean has surged to just south of 253. Of the 51 scores of 350 or more in the 3122 ODIs played up to midnight on Monday, more than 60%, 33, had been slammed and slugged in 626 games since February 1, 2007, along with more than half, eight, of the 15 highest successful all-time chases. And while South Africa boast the highest overall run-rate with 4.93 per over, and 4.86 up to the start of the 2009 Champions Trophy, the first major event to deploy the batting Powerplay, all eight senior nations have exceeded 4.96 since then, seven of them 5.13 or better. A question, assuredly, of extreme imbalance.

That's why Chennai was such a vital and timely tonic for this tournament, not to say the flagging viability of the 50-over flog. In India, the batsmen had been gorging - unstoppably, nauseatingly; how many times in one day do you need to see fielders gazing forlornly into the distance? But now, glory be, came a banquet for the bow