Tim Jones (Jones)

Sorry to hear Dick. Best to you and yours in the new year. 

Virginia Wolfe (Scheffer)

Thanks to Ken for posting pictures of the new construction.  I am sure others like myself, who do not live in the area anymore, appreciate it.  Hope you can send more along the way.  Cheers everyone!

Ruth Scholtes (Murphy)

Happy New Year also. Life on the Cental coast of California is great . Also been married 52 years .Lots of grandkids of all ages to keep me busy .So sorry to hear of your loss Dick. Hope 2020 brings a new start for you .God bless. Ruth Scholtes Murphy

Al Peffley

Dick,

Thank you for making contact with us. I was also happy to see Navy do well this NCAA football season. Sorry to hear of your loss in September, my long-time friend. It was tough for Theron and I to see George go through the cancer cycle to its end. God bless you and may He help you begin your new senior life without your mate. Give yourself lots of time to heal and cherish the good memories. It's a good photo of you. Who is the guy next to you? I have a photo of you next to the MG that I can send to you, if you would like to have it. I bought the Midget from Al & Mardine when George was deployed to Thailand in the USAF during Vietnam. George's ashes are buried out at the National Cemetery in Covington, WA. George graduated from Mt. Rainier HS and lived in "the Park" for those of you who did not know him. He loved sailing like Bob Mayfield did. I miss both of them.

George & Theron at the Hanger Inn parking lot in front of George's '57 Chev sedan hotrod, July, 2015.

Best Regards Always,

Al

Tom Nixon

Rich, Gary Lindberg and I were chatting earlier and both of us are so sad to hear about Jackie. She is a beautiful woman and I remember the day you two were married. I was honored to be your best man.

Is the Captain in the photo a relative? Best wishes...Tom

Gregg Wilson

We are at war with Iran?!?!

Iran has five oil refineries. Destroy all five of them. The war is over.

THEN bring our troops home!

Al Peffley

The news media is not telling the entire story of the latest civil war events in Iraq between Iran & Iraq militant factions. There is a long history of armed conflict and use of chemical weapons [of mass detruction] between the two countries. A squadron of B-52H's has been staged in Diego Garcia and one Navy Fleet has been repositioned with the USMC Expeditionary Force Group in the Gulf. We and the Canadians are extracting non-military operations support personnel from Iraq to Kuwait ASAP. If the Allies sink the Iranian Navy, attack BM launch sites, and incapacitate their oil production capabilities they are done. They threatened to attack WDC before the Iranian terrorist Persian general was taken out by the drone's missiles. It's not a good situation. The whole unstable Middle East is rattling swords. The Brit's and Canadian's deployed forces are also under attack at the same air bases as our warriors.

Richard Leisy

Thanks to all for your kind words of sympathy on the death of my wife.  Unfortunately, we are at the age when things like this happen all to frequently.

Tom and Al - Yes the captain with me in the picture I posted is my son-in-law Adam Fleming.  Adam is currently on the staff of the superintendent of the Naval Academy in Annapolis.  Some time this summer they will be moving to a new command in Everett.

Thanne Winterer (Summerson)

So very, very sorry Dick. Grief beyond words.

Hang onto all your years of memories.

Our sympathy, Gary and Thanne Summerson

Pat Gray (Scheetz)

Happy New Year from Peoria AZ go Mariners!

Al Peffley

Go KC Chiefs! Andy deserves a new ring.  ;o)

Tom Chavez

Monkeying around with Theism and Atheism

This entry is inspired by two of our classmates, Robert Bramel and Dan Norman, who take opposing sides in this debate. If it is irrelevant or inappropriate to be posted here, my bad.

For much of his career Antony Flew was known as a strong advocate of atheism, arguing that one should presuppose atheism until empirical evidence of a God surfaces. In 2004 he stated that in keeping his lifelong commitment to go where the evidence leads, he now believed in the existence of a God.

Flew stated that "the most impressive arguments for God’s existence are those that are supported by recent scientific discoveries" and that "the argument to Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it".

Flew was impressed by a refutation of the idea that monkeys at typewriters would eventually produce a Shakespearean sonnet. The likelihood of getting one Shakespearean sonnet by chance is one in 10690 (10 followed by 690 zeros); to put this in perspective, there are only 1080 particles in the universe. [For the math see “Infinite Monkey Theorem” on Wikipedia.]

Flew concluded: ‘If the theorem won’t work for a single sonnet, then of course it’s simply absurd to suggest that the more elaborate feat of the origin of life could have been achieved by chance’.

The question of the origin of life became much more complex with the discovery of DNA, a molecule comprising ‘letters’ that code for the instructions to build the machinery of life. A real vicious circle is that the instructions to build decoding machinery are themselves encoded on the DNA.

That life is governed by a complex code leads to the question: ‘Can the origins of a system of coded chemistry be explained in a way that makes no appeal whatever to the kinds of facts that we otherwise invoke to explain codes, languages, and systems of communication?’

Flew pointed out that natural selection can’t explain the origin of first life. Ultimately, a vast amount of information is behind life, and in every other case, information necessarily points to an intelligent source, so it is only reasonable that there be a Source behind this information as well.

Flew argues along with many other classical and modern scientists that theism is the only serious answer. He cited his "growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe" and "my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself – which is far more complex than the physical Universe – can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source."

Athato brahma jijnasa: “Now is the time to research the Absolute Truth, the original source of all that be.”—Vedanta Sutra

Al Peffley

We use to joke at work sometimes that the federal government used monkeys to gather data from different model contract templates, and then post the resultant solicitation model contract in the Federal Register for qualified contractors to repond to the sponsoring government agency's Request for Proposal announcement.

When I first started out in Finance Estimating at Boeing our team's lead contract negotiations lawyer had once been a federal agency Contract Manager. He knew all of the tricks the soliciting agency's representatives would pull in fact finding and negotiation manipulation tactics. When the government negotiators became greedy or unyielding to reasonable adjustments in the model contract terms or contract statement of work, our team leader would say these (leave the table) words: "From this seed would grow a tree...", and then we would start packing up as an end to the discussions and leave the negotiation room. Any contract can be revised by hand writing or striking out terms and then adding the initials of all negotiators with legal and binding decision authority for the change. A good reference book for negotiation tactics is Dr. Chester Karrass' book Give & Take, ISBN 0-690-00566-0.

These resources helped me in negotiations when our  family would desire to purchase real estate property, even purchase a pedigreed pet, or buy a new vehicle on contract. Any person who has legal authority to represent the seller and adjust the model contract is the one you want to bargin with for legal contract purchase satisfaction. Everyone wants a "good deal" and a functional product, whether the product is a service or a physical item of personal property ownership or consumption.

I hope this information is helpful to some of my classmates who follow my posts here. May God bless you in this new year.

Al Peffley

Get your favorite beverage and a bowl of popcorn, baked cheese chips, or veggies out and view Dr. Patrick Moore's presentation (focused on global environmental studies) last year (25 February 2019) in Calgary, Canada. His information-rich presentation on life science change cause and effects to the Economic Education Association was recorded for posting on YouTube. The video is entitled  "The Power of Truth". Patrick Moore is a world-wide recognized life sciences subject matter expert. Dr. Moore has some interesting information to share from his science-based studies with you. The video lasts about an hour, so it is a long dissertation on in-depth CO2 cause and effect evaluation studies. Dr. Moore is one of the Green Peace Organization (GPO) founders who became "woke" when most of his (non-scientific) GPO companions allowed themselves to become political pawns for global control radicals. His New Green Deal "wokeness" [awareness] comment Tweets last fall "triggered" Ms. AOC (LOL).

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWahKIG4BE4

Cheers,

Al

Gregg Wilson

Hi Al,

I watched the entire video. Truly excellent and factual. From my view point, he is preaching to the choir.

I just realized that my mother and Bonnie's mother were waaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of Al Gore. They used wind power and solar energy to dry our clothes.

Al Peffley

Hello Gregg,

Actually, you are very insightful about natural solar & wind power drying of clothes. The added benefits of air-dried clothes are less electric power consumption, cleaner smelling clothes, and longer lasting tee shirts (the standard dress code of most retirees like me - LOL!) Tees don't lose their graphics due to exposure to many harsh chemical cleaning agents nowadays and hi-temp heat drying cycles in most modern dryers when air-dried. We recently bought a metal drying rack at Wally World that works great during the winter months.

As a former life sciences major in college, I also enjoyed Patrick's presentation in these socially stressful times. I miss respectful, intellectual debates on important science subject matter topics.

Cheers,

Al

Tom Chavez

Here's a video I like on Youtube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKfGC3P9KoQ

Michael Cremo: "Forbidden Archaeology" | Talks at Google

The evidence for extreme human antiquity.

Nice consideration of the philosophy of science as well as the scientific evidence.

Tom Chavez

The Science Behind Climate Change

The climate has always changed, and carbon dioxide levels have always fluctuated. But since the industrial revolution, CO₂ levels in the atmosphere have climbed to levels that are unprecedented over hundreds of millennia.

Earth has a natural greenhouse effect, without which the average temperature on earth would be about -18℃ and human life would not exist. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is one of the gases in our atmosphere that traps heat and makes the planet habitable.

About 150 years ago physicist John Tyndall demonstrated the greenhouse properties of CO₂ gas. In the late 1800s, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius calculated the greenhouse effect of CO₂ and linked it to past ice ages on our planet.

Modern scientists and engineers have explored these links in detail by drilling into the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. The resulting ice cores can be more than 3km long and extend back 800,000 years.

Scientists use the chemistry of the water molecules in the ice layers to see how the temperature has varied over the millennia. Tiny air bubbles trapped in the ice from the ancient atmosphere allow us to directly measure prehistoric CO₂ levels. 

The ice cores reveal a tight connection between temperature and greenhouse gas levels through the ice age cycles, thus proving the concepts put forward by Arrhenius more than a century ago.

Previous warm periods were caused by small predictable wobbles in Earth’s rotation and orbit. CO₂ acted as a natural amplifier of the small climate shifts initiated by these wobbles. As the planet began to cool, more CO₂ dissolved into the oceans, reducing the greenhouse effect and causing more cooling. Similarly, CO₂ was released from the oceans to the atmosphere when the planet warmed, driving further warming.

But things are very different this time around. Humans have added huge quantities of extra CO₂ to the atmosphere – very rapidly. The fastest natural shifts out of ice ages saw CO₂ levels increase by around 35 parts per million (ppm) in 1,000 years. Humans have emitted the equivalent amount in just the last 17 years.

Burning fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, takes ancient carbon that was locked within the Earth and puts it into the atmosphere as CO₂. Since the industrial revolution humans have burned an enormous amount of fossil fuel.

Before the industrial revolution, the natural level of atmospheric CO₂ during warm interglacials was around 280 ppm. The ice ages, which created kilometer-thick ice sheets over much of North America and Eurasia, had CO₂ levels of around 180 ppm.

In mid-2017 atmospheric CO₂ stood at 409 ppm. This is unprecedented in the past 800,000 years. Satellite reconnaissance shows that the western Antarctic ice shelf is destabilizing. Just this shelf alone could raise sea levels 4 meters if all the ice melted.

The Paris Agreement aimed to curb CO₂ emissions, to develop new technologies to remove excess CO₂ from the atmosphere, and to limit warming to around 2℃ this century. The US has backed out of this agreement.

The fundamental science is well understood. The evidence of climate change is abundant and clear. The difficult part is: what to do?

Al Peffley

The term "greenhouse" depicts a closed environmental control system designed for human plant agriculture projects. The agriculturalist usually creates a windowed-structural "cacoon" to enhance plant growth, sometimes adding more CO2 gas to the interior to speed up the plants' growth process. The system scale is what we call "human scale" operation in engineering and architectural design terminology.

The earth's atmosphere is not an enclosed eco-system as I understand its definition for discussion purposes, but it does have some weather cycle characteristics important to sustaining life on earth as we know it. I think it is a poor choice of words to describe a complex atmospheric system with earth cycle processes and very dynamic solar system influences as a "greenhouse". I am not a scholar in the field. I took basic physics, chemistry, oceanography and geology courses in college to minor in Marine Biology. However, I think humanity will need many different energy resources to survive this earth cooling off period that we seem to be in now.

As people get more adicted to electronic gadgetry we will need to temper our habits of creating more energy-consuming devices (toxic lithium battery consumption) and HVAC use (less AC, in some cases). Large, densely-populated "mega-cities" are major eco-system pollution contributors. America has such a large land mass that the city eco-system degeneration has been less of a national environmantal influence than in smaller land mass countries, but still is a problem in mega-city, densly-populated centers like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, New Orleans, Philidelphia, and Houston. Mayor and City Council partisan politicians, fix your problems and enforce your quality of life ordinances fairly, equally and swiftly!

Volcanic eruptions are a primary source of climate change for our atmosphere. We are making reasonable progress in transitioning from only fossel fuel vehicle propulsion to hybrid and fuel cell vehicles technology applications, as well as better railroad services (but not up to European and Asian infrastructure levels.)

Cultural habits and terrain characteristics dictate thoughtful infrastructure investment decisions. As Americans, we have a very mobile culture that has provided great benefits to our living conditions compared to many other world cultures. We all need to be good stewards of our resources that have given us such prosperity, individual freedoms, liberty, and the right to own personal property that many are denied in other government systems and cultures.

Quality of life depends upon respect (love) for others' right to freedom and people's responsible use of limited world resources. Seeking the proper balance of using our national resources is a good idea to sustain our unique Republic culture in a world of many diverse cultures and governing systems. When a society abandons its responsibilities of self "production" of needed food, hardware, tangible supplies, and trade for its sustained operation and maintenance, it ceases to exist as a culture.

A totally consumer-based society becomes a slave culture to its subsistance supplier source(s). Consumer-based societies often become a major pollution contributor because people expect someone else to provide everything for their basic existence, altered reality substance use habits, clothing and shelter needs. If most American endeavors of cultural and trade value are primarily information services instead of a strong balance of tangible goods and trade products production, then our culture will further erode and eventually disappear (as ancient Greek Democracy and modern day USSR Communist societies have done in recorded human history.)

There! I guess I violated the limit of discussion length a bunch in the forum. My apologies to those who don't want to hear us discuss world events and cultural diversity topics.

The weather "change" has been extremely wet here recently and I am somewhat house-bound because of it. I am looking forward to spring with a bit more sunshine in the Pacific Northwest. It rained very hard last night and it reminded me of extreme May thunder storms in central Texas when I lived in Arlington in the mid-1980's. Locals called the heavy rain storms "gully-washers" for good reason - they were the cause of deaths when people could not judge the depth of the flooded gully roads and sometimes drowned in their flooded car.

Cheers!

Gregg Wilson

Hi Al,

I'm trying to refrain from writing too much.

At a CO2 level of 150 ppm plants die. At a CO2 level of 15,000 ppm humans die.

If we remove all "fossil" fuels, how do we succeed at doing anything? No transportation except wagons pulled by horses. No supply to farmers and they cannot get their produce to market. We would starve to death.

I could go on and on.

The ocean contains an incredible amount of CO2. Far beyond the CO2 in the atmosphere. A very slight amount of CO2 released or absorbed by the ocean would cause a massive change of CO2 in the atmosphere. Climate change is not caused by CO2. Climate change strongly influences atmospheric CO2.

Readers should examine the principle of Le Chatelier : If the condition of a system, initially at equilibrium, are changed the equilibrium will shift in such a direction as to tend to restore the original conditions.

Tom Chavez

Al, I’m all in favor of simple living and high thinking, or at least MATH, “Making America Think Harder.”

Gregg, you are right, the oceans contain a lot of CO2, as does the earth, of course. Regarding Le Chatelier’s principle, you interpret it to say that if conditions of a system in equilibrium are changed, then the equilibrium will shift in a direction to restore the original conditions. Applying your interpretation to the increased atmospheric CO2 released from coal, oil, etc., the atmospheric equilibrium will react to restore original conditions by pushing the CO2 back into the ground, into the oceans, etc. 

The way I understand the principle is that the system will seek a new equilibrium to minimize the effect of the changes. So the atmosphere is pushing more CO2 into the oceans. As for putting CO2 back into the earth (in the form of coal or gas or whatever), that process will take eons. Or, alternatively, we may end up with a catastrophic change of equilibrium (as described in chaos theory) with the accumulating incremental changes resulting in a radically new equilibrium.

The accumulating CO2 from industrialization creates other knock-on changes, such as the permafrost melting, methane hydrates in the ocean destabilizing, etc., which could conceivably lead to a runaway chain reaction and a radical new equilibrium which would render planet earth too hot for human habitation for eons. We don't know, but ignorance is no excuse.

Ocean acidification is the result of long-term change of ocean chemistry as CO2 is absorbed from the atmosphere. With the increase in CO2 since the Industrial Revolution, the world’s oceans are absorbing CO2 more than in the past.

When CO2 is absorbed in the ocean, it reacts with seawater to form a weak acid, called carbonic acid. The carbonic acid breaks down or dissociates into hydrogen (H+), bicarbonate and carbonate ions.

The results of these chemical reactions include an increase in the amount of hydrogen (H+) ions which is what decreases the pH of the ocean, making it more acidic. As industrialized society produces more CO2 the oceans will continue to become ever more acidic.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the pH of the surface ocean has fallen by 0.1 pH units, which represents approximately a 30% increase in hydrogen ion concentration. Problems arise when the pH of the ocean changes more quickly than organisms are able to adapt.

A study in the journal Science of the Total Environment, based on a 2016 survey of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia coastal waters, documented that wild Dungeness larvae had pitted and folded shells, described in their journal article as “severe carapace dissolution,” and are typically smaller in size. The cause appears to be ocean acidity.

The earth’s environment is very complex and unpredictable (consider the ‘butterfly effect”). We are changing the environment in huge ways which we should very carefully reconsider if we don’t want to irreversibly ruin our home planet.

Al Peffley

I am sorry I let the environmental discussion "flood gates" open again here -- my bad.

I think potential spread of the clear and present Corona Virus' flu [pandemic] health threat from China is a higher priority topic than CO2 to ponder since we have such a strong trade relationship and transportation services link with China, don't you?

To abate spreading the evolving virus or getting it, please try to wash your hands more often than usual with plenty of soap and warm water. Don't touch your face or eyes after being out in public places. The West Coast cities and ports often have numerous visitors from China that may increase your exposure risk level. As an aside, I am told Wuhan, or the Province it's located in, also hosts the Chinese Government's biological research lab for creating virus agents and seeking protective means to negate the hazardous effects of (sometimes weaponized) viral biological agents (the equivalent of our Edgewood, MD, DoD laboratory research facilities.) Look up the 2003 SARS pandemic in Canada with your web browser to understand the preparation and incident response measues employed for this viral infection threat family. The CDC's website also has some added information on this quickly-spreading virus threat. Your flu shot is not effective against this emerging virus health threat. Make sure you have adaquate micron level (hepafilter) respirator protection because these viruses are micron size, not bacteria particulate size. Absorption through your skin is always a major concern. Only hydrogrn peroxide solution will negate the virus on material surfaces (using only rinse water spreads it.)

My apologies to our Message Forum readers on this site. I will avoid climate change discussions here from now on.

Virginia Wolfe (Scheffer)

Thanks for the advice on the virus.  We all need to be soooooo careful.  Good Day y'all!

Tom Chavez

Worse than Coronavirus? Get immunized!

While the new coronavirus from China has prompted Americans to wear masks on the subway and cancel international trips, there is a much deadlier killer already in the United States: the flu.

Like the coronavirus, influenza can spread from person to person through the air. But unlike the coronavirus, which so far hasn't led to any deaths in the U.S., influenza has killed approximately 10,000 Americans since October, according to federal data released Friday.

That figure, gathered from death certificates, is probably an underestimate since the flu can prompt fatal conditions like heart failure or pneumonia, which are then instead listed as the final cause of death.

Nationwide, 19 million people in the United States have had the flu this season, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC is not recommending that people wear face masks to protect against the coronavirus, or any other respiratory illness.

Federal officials do recommend, however, that people get immunized against the flu. The flu shot can make people half as likely to get sick as someone who didn't get the vaccine and the flu season runs through May, according to the CDC.

Flu tends to be most dangerous for the elderly. However, the strains of flu circulating this year have been hitting young people hard. In California, 37 people under the age of 50 have died from influenza this season, according to state data.

Al Peffley

Annual flu vaccines build up your immune system to last year's strain of viruses, but not this year's strain. As a senior, your pneumonia shots are more important than an annual flu shot. Immune system strengthening of the lung cells is the goal. Until there is more infection abatement progress information reported in medical journals, I don't know how effective these booster series pneumonia shots are for most seniors.

There are more confirmed cases (over 11,000 cases) of the 2019 coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in China now than there were confirmed cases of the 2003 SARS coronavirus in the entire world. Collected 2019-nCoV samples evaluated in India last month have contained in them unique protein "inserts" found in HIV1. No other viruses in the coronavirus family of pathogens have ever been recorded as having those additives in their genetic profile. Without the "inserts", SARS killed one in eight confirmed cases of the 2003 coronavirus outbreak world-wide. Those are pandemic statistics that are well-documented. In 2003 the SARS pandemic interrupted Canada's economy and social activities for over two months. Canada has a lot of Asian citizens with relatives in China and a lot of visitors from China every year. Pneumonia is a name for a large family of respitory pathenogenic virus insults to the lungs. Bacteria infections add to lung failure of high risk individuals.

The WHO and the Chinese Communist Government are at odds over what information should be released for containment and negation measures. The Chinese Government is reported to have responded better for this outbreak incident than the 2003 SARS pandemic. There is some concern that this outbreak may have been caused by an accidental lab experiment release in the Government Wuhan laboratories. If so, the animal market products contamination explanation could be a ruse to draw attention away from the real source of release.

Again, those little paper masks you see in the media photos only protect you from body fluid droplet and vapor airborne emissions, and not from micron-size viral pathogens you collect through hand transfers. Wash your hands completely under nails and rings with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds. Anything produced in China since last October can have the virus on its surface because it does not see sunlight in storage. Wipe down surfaces lightly with a hydrogen peroxide-wetted towel and pat dry. Wash all new clothes before you wear them.

Some foreign traveler carriers will not show 2019-nCoV symptoms of coughing and sneezing. Stay at least six feet away from people in public places who are excessively coughing and sneezing. Untreated viruses from body fluids deposited on contact surfaces can live for minutes (most die when when exposed to sunlight UV radiation) or months (if stored away from sunlight) if not sanitized by antiviral agents like drug store variety of hydrogen peroxide solution or Lysol sprays and wipes. Baby wipes work well for face and lips sanitation measures in foreign countires (something I learned from talking with US Special Forces operatives.) God bless you. (Sorry for the typos. It is too bad this venue does not have a spell-checker.)