John’s Blog

I could not let this pass without my comment.

This article is from “National Geographic News” dated October 28, 2010

The comments at the end, in blue,  are mine.

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Can the Moon Cause Earthquakes?

John Roach
National Geographic News

May 23, 2005

Coast dwellers are accustomed to the daily rhythm of the tides, which are primarily lulled in and out by the gentle gravitational tug of the moon. Some scientists wonder whether the moon’s tugging may also influence earthquake activity.

“The same force that raises the ‘tides’ in the ocean also raises tides in the [Earth's]crust,” said Geoff Chester, an astronomer and public affairs officer with the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

Chester said the tides in the Earth’s crust are subtle—on the order of a few centimeters, as opposed to the several-meter ocean tides.

“We live on the crust, so we don’t really notice the deviation from what would be sort of the normal form of the geoid,” he said. “So the effect is small but nonetheless there.”

(The geoid is an imaginary outline that coincides with the mean sea level in the ocean and its extension through the continents.)

In theory, this slight deformation of the Earth’s crust could be sufficient to trigger an earthquake—like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Most earthquakes occur on preexisting tectonic lines, and the vast majority do occur as a result of geophysical processes, but there may be some correlation [between the moon] and earthquakes,” Chester said.

For example, he said that in general there is a higher incidence of earthquake activity in the Northern Hemisphere when the moon is north of the Equator and an increase in earthquake activity in the Southern Hemisphere when the moon is south of the Equator.

The moon’s orbit is inclined in relation to the Earth, causing the moon’s position in the sky to nod north and south on an 18.6-year cycle.

James O. Berkland is a Glen Ellen, California-based geologist and editor of Syzygy—An Earthquake Newsletter. He believes the gravitational tugs of the moon, sun, and other planets can influence earthquake activity. Berkland said he has accurately predicted tremors based on factors such as syzygy.

“Syzygy” refers to the alignment of three celestial objects. Syzygy of the sun, Earth, and moon occur twice a month, at the full and new moons. At such times, gravitational forces are at a maximum, especially when the bodies are close together, Berkland said.

The Earth and moon are closest together—at perigee—once a month. The Earth and sun are closest together—at perihelion—once a year. Perihelion currently occurs in early January. Maximum gravitation force occurs when a syzygy and perigee occur on the same day as perihelion.

According to Berkland, seismometers left on the moon by Apollo astronauts show that moonquakes occur most frequently at perigee.

“So we know Earth’s gravity triggers moonquakes. I don’t think any scientist disputes that,” Berkland said. “When I learned that, I went to my former [U.S. Geological Survey] colleagues in Menlo Park [California] and pointed out this really exists, so what’s so difficult about turning it around?”

According to Berkland, the U.S. Geological Survey said such a theory is ridiculous—the Earth is 82 times more massive than the moon. Though the Earth can trigger quakes on the moon, they said, the moon is too small to trigger any earthquakes. *****

But the moon is mostly solid and lacks a liquid core like the Earth, Berkland said. The Earth “is an active, living planet, and so it is not at all surprising that minor gravitational stresses can trigger earthquakes,” he said.*****

Using syzygy and other factors—such as the number of cats and dogs listed in the lost and found in newspaper classified advertisements—Berkland said he accurately predicted several earthquakes, including the October 17, 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, California. Berkland said the number of cats and dogs reported missing goes up prior to an earthquake. The numbers went up significantly prior to the 1989 San Francisco quake, he said.

At least two major quakes may suppoort Berkland’s theory. The December 26, 2004, magnitude 9.1 in Sumatra, Indonesia, occurred on the day of a full moon. Likewise, the March 27, 1964, magnitude 9.2 earthquake in Alaska occurred on the day of maximum high tide.

According to Berkland, such correlations are more than coincidences. They demonstrate a true connection between the moon and earthquake activity, he said.

But Bellini, the U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist, said, “There is still no known observation of an effect related to the moon and seismicity.”

In a follow-up email to National Geographic News, Bellini questioned the scientific validity of Berkland’s predictions. He said they appear to be “self-selected statistical analysis of historical seismicity rates and are so vague in time and location that they are certain to be correct.” *****

Is the observed correlation between the moon’s position in its 18.6-year cycle (or any other lunar phase) and earthquake activity a coincidence or something more? That question, Chester said, is best answered by the U.S. Geological Survey.

“There’s no evidence to support that,” said John Bellini, a geophysicist with the survey’s National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado. “There were some studies in the past that tried to link lunar effects to seismicity [the relative frequency and distribution of earthquakes and there was nothing found.”

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I don’t know where this Bellini went to school but ask any high school physics student and he had better tell you that the gravitational force equals the gravitational constant times the product of the masses of the two bodies divided by the distance squared.

THE FORCE IS IDENTICAL ON EACH BODY.

Second, the Earth has a liquid core which, like the water on the surface is pulled into a pile, under the Earth’s crust by gravitational attraction from both the sun and the moon.

This would be sufficient to crack the crust producing earthquakes.

Moonquakes are less likely because, as far as we know, the moon is solid hence no pile up either on the surface or in the core.

THE GOOSE THAT LAID THE GOLDEN EGG

Most of you are familiar with the fairy tale about the goose that laid a golden egg.

It did so on a regular basis and brought a steady flow of wealth to its owner until it was disemboweled to get to the source. It died and produced no more golden eggs.

When the new Soviet government came into power in Russia and was struggling for its existence in the early 1920’s it turned to its arch philosophical enemy, Capitalism, for survival.

The new government, against all the principles of Communism, understood that without trade from the Western countries, the so called Capitalist Imperialists, and without investment from within, its own capitalists, it was doomed to collapse.

In short, Capitalism saved Soviet Communism from failure.

Fifty years ago George F. Kennan, who had been an ambassador to the Soviet Union, wrote a book, “Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin” in which he said:

“The Western governments came to hate the Soviet leaders for what they did. The Communists, on the other hand, hated the Western governments for what they were regardless of what they did.”

The Chinese Communists under Mao Tse-tung professed the same goals, that is the complete destruction of Capitalism within their country.

With the publication of Mao’s “Little Red Book” in 1966, “The Quotations”, we saw the reduction of a powerful and huge country to that of a life-style that existed in Medieval Europe.

China eventually learned that it required Capitalism to support its productive output. Today the US is deeply in debt because of the lesson that China had learned, that is, Communism does not work and without Capitalists to invest the profit that they have accumulated, China would become a country of peasants living only off the land.

Most people in the US and the rest of the world don’t seem to understand that without Capitalism, that is the reward for the effort of production and reward for the risk of investment of the surplus of production, an economic system will eventually wind down and collapse.

Nothing can long survive without nourishment—whether it is a plant, an animal or an economic system. We are presently seeing the effects at this time in the US of banks being overly cautious in their policies of loaning money to potential home and real estate investors or business ventures. Our economy is dying.

The absolute goal as stated by the true Communists is the total destruction of the Capitalist system.

Although the words “Capitalism” and “Imperialism” are used interchangeably by many people they are not the same thing. US Imperialism has not existed for a long time but the word is still used to attack the only economic system that can expect to be viable.

There are many in the US and most of the other countries of the world who want to see the Capitalist system replaced by Socialism and Communism.

That, in my opinion, is disemboweling the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs.

Copyright: John W. Malenda June 2010

DIPLOMACY & PUBLIC OPINION

In a democratic society, in which actions are taken based on decisions made not by individuals but by consensus, compromises are made until acceptable conclusions leading to action are accepted.

This seems obvious and should require no elaborate explanation of how democracy works.

However, the conclusions that are reached never satisfy all the parties involved; there is always some discontent. Each of the individuals involved wants his stamp of creativity on the final document but this can never be.

As a result, government by coalition can never achieve the goals of all of those involved.

Decision by consensus on an international scale becomes even more complex and creates discontent on even a larger scale; not personal recognition but protection or advancement of sovereign interests.

Every country involved in the decision making and goals in international agreement wants something as a result of the decision for a course of action.

That “something” had been in the past territorial gain, trade advantages with respect to manufactured goods or raw materials or direct financial gain through loans, either at low interest rates or hopefully, for the recipient, ”debt forgiveness”.

Unfortunately for the United States it had always been the most productive and hence the wealthiest country on the planet and all other countries looked to it as a source to provide those things that they did not possess.

This is no longer the case. The American debt has become unmanageable but the rest of the world either does not understand that or does not accept that as the truth.

This is because of the perception of public opinion both within the United States and abroad. The people of the world do not understand that the United States is no longer the “owner of the means of production”; the broad definition of which is Capitalism.

As long as propagandists within our country keep advancing this myth it will become more and more difficult to deal realistically with problems within our country and our relationships with the rest of the world.

We are no longer the “source of plenty” for the world or our own citizens.

Copyright: John W. Malenda June 2010

Miss Smith enjoyed her job as a Third Grade teacher. The enthusiasm of the 8 year old’s made her work meaningful and exciting.

The one problem that she had though is that she was in a minority.

Her brother was a Marine on duty in Afghanistan. Her father had been a Marine in Vietnam and her grandfather had survived the winters and the bullets of Korea while in the Army.

Miss Smith, because of family history, was a “Conservative”.

One morning on her way to school she heard something on the radio that disturbed her very much. She decided to try an experiment with her class.

“Who would like to pretend to be a General…..” but before she could finish her sentence little Willy Simpson was running to her desk waving both arms yelling, “Me. Me”

“You didn’t let me finish. We are going to play a little geography game today and the General will be the most important General today.

He will have to make a serious decision because he will be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Do you know what that means, Willy?”

“No Miss Smith.”

Willy was far from being the brightest kid in the class but she always appreciated his enthusiasm so she said, “OK Willy. You will be the General.”

She handed Willy a piece of string with a lot of knots in it.

“Willy, each one of those knots represents a thousand miles on the globe on the table over there.

Everyone who has watched TV must know where Iran is so Willy, put one end of the string in the center of Iran and hold it there. Move the string over to the Capitol of the United States, Washington, DC.

How far is it from Iran to our Capitol?”

Willy stretched out the string and said, “About six and a half knots.”

“Very good”, Miss Smith said, “That’s about six and a half thousand miles.”

“Now Willy, holding the string look at the globe and tell me what country is about two and a half knots from Iran.”

Willy looked and said, “Poland.”

“Very good Willy. Can you see the city that the string passes over?”

“Warsaw.”

“And what’s just past Poland?”

“The Baltic Sea.”

“Now General, suppose that someone in Iran wanted to shoot an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, an ICBM, at our Capitol and you wanted to shoot it down before it hit Washington would you want to shoot it down over the United States or somewhere else?”

“Probably somewhere else,” Willy answered.

“Willy, an ICBM travels very fast, about 15,000 miles per hour, and in ten minutes after it was fired it would pass over Poland. What would you do?”

General Willy answered, “I would ask the Polish people to shoot it down.”

Let’s get back to reality. If an ICBM fired from Iran fell short of it’s projected distance to Washington it would land in either New England or a bit further on, New York.

Do we have an anti-ballistic missile defense system in the US? According to the media we do not and will not until near the end of this decade.

Did we have an anti-ballistic missile system that could have been deployed in Poland?

Even a third-grader could figure that one out.

Copyright: John W. Malenda April  2010

I have been on this planet a long time and I have been hearing that phrase ever since I was a kid.

I hear it sometimes many times a day, from everyone who thinks about running for Town Council up to and including the President of the United States.

“We need clean and affordable energy.”

Let me tell you something about energy. It comes at a price.

We generate electricity in a number of ways but in all but one we need to crank a generator. The exception is a solar panel, the photovoltaic conversion of sunlight energy into a flow of electrons.

We crank generators with a turbine powered by steam, water, wind or burning fuel—the jet engine.

With the exception of wind and water all the other systems use steam made by heating water by burning hydrocarbons or heat generated by the decomposition—fission—of nuclear material.

Generators turned by jet engines burn either gas or burn refined jet engine fuel.

Those are our only options. The dream of generating heat from fusion, the squeezing together of hydrogen atoms to form helium with the byproduct of heat only occurs on stars. The best minds on the planet have been attempting to achieve this for decades but have failed. The temperatures and pressures required are not attainable on a continuous basis.

Now to some of the reasons why we will not have “clean and affordable energy.”

The best deal that you can get regarding energy is to hang your wash on an old-fashioned clothesline but your neighbors and environmentalists don’t want to see your underwear flapping in the breeze like Tibetan prayer flags.

Neither do they want to see wind turbines against the skyline on their hills.

Neither do they want to see solar panels on your roof or in your yard if there is not enough sun that hits your roof.

Neither do they want to see dams on the rivers.

Neither do they want to see power plants and transmission towers on their favorite beach.

So to keep saying, “We need to find new ways to generate clean and affordable energy”, accept the fact. There are no new ways.

KNOW WHAT WE NEED?

“Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.”

Looks good on a Christmas card but it ain’t gonna happen anymore than we will get affordable and clean energy.

It’s esthetics versus utility.

It’s wishes versus reality.

When you are done chewing your nails, go to Whole Living Today to get your blood pressure back down to normal.