text:
Black History Trailblazers and Changemakers 2020-Day 11: Christi Smith-Jones and Daughter Lola
black history month 2020 Feb 11, 2020
DAY 11-Cristi Smith-Jones and her daughter, Lola.
When Cristi Smith-Jones' 5-year-old daughter, Lola, shared with great interest that she had learned about the famous civil rights leader on Martin Luther King Jr Day 2017 in her kindergarten class, her parents took this chance to discuss slavery and civil rights.
They wanted her to learn about the struggles and contributions of black trailblazers and changemakers but wanted to do it in a way that would be fun for Lola as well.
They talked about the lives and accomplishments of historic notables, read stories, and watched videos. Using her daughter's love of dressing up, Smith-Jones helped her daughter recreate a memorable photo of a different icon each day of Black History Month in 2017 and then posted it on Twitter.
Lola had several favorites, but Smith-Jones said, "When she dressed as Bessie Coleman, America's first black female pilot, she didn't want to take off her aviator hat."
Learn more about this memorable black history project
How have you helped your children, students, or loved ones learn about the struggles and achievements of their ancestors and trailblazers in their heritage and history? Tell us about it on http://facebook.com/groups/yourlifestorymatters


Drugs containing cannabinoids - chemical compounds found in the cannabis plant- must undergo rigorous scientific review by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) before being registered and supplied here.
In a joint statement yesterday to clarify the Government's position on these pharmaceutical products, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Ministry of Health (MOH) said there are strict frameworks in place for the supply, prescription and dispensation of such drugs. They must be prescribed for the condition registered with the HSA and by a Singapore doctor.
Manufacturers of cannabinoid pharmaceuticals have to substantiate the safety, quality and efficacy of their products, based on scientific evidence from clinical studies and data on the manufacturing process.
The ministries said it is important to differentiate between products with cannabinoids and those that contain unprocessed or raw cannabis.
While there is some published research on the potential therapeutic uses of cannabinoids, such as managing seizures and epilepsy, MHA and MOH said there are no studies validating the claims that unprocessed or raw cannabis can be used to treat medical conditions.
A literature review conducted by experts from the Institute of Mental Health in 2015 that looked at more than 500 research papers confirmed the harmful and addictive nature of unprocessed or raw cannabis.
The experts concluded cannabis consumption is associated with irreversible brain damage, brain shrinkage and serious mental and psychiatric illnesses.
MHA and MOH said: "This supports our position that cannabis should remain an illicit drug. At the same time, we will continue to allow safe and controlled access to evidence-based medical treatment options."
In January last year, the National Research Foundation launched a Synthetic Cannabinoid Biology Programme to study the compounds and find ways to produce medicinal cannabinoids sustainably.
The ministries added: "The Government's stand on illicit drugs, including cannabis, is clear - they are harmful, addictive and can destroy lives, families and communities... Singapore must continue to keep our country drug-free to prevent harm to our population and our society."


TOMRA is pleased to announce that Jacob Rognhaug has taken over the role of Country Manager, China, for TOMRA Sorting Technology (Xiamen).
Jacob Rognhaug has been promoted from his previous position of Country Manager, Recycling China with the company, which he fulfilled from 2011, and during which time he helped to establish and position TOMRA as a leader in the recycling market. Having built a strong team of marketing, sales and service engineers that now covers sectors such as plastics recycling, municipal solid waste and metals recycling, the team is now geared up for strong growth to meet rising demand.
"With Jacob's broad experience in sales and within the China market generally, it makes perfect sense for him to lead the next phase of TOMRA's further development in China," commented Stefan Ranstrand, President and CEO of TOMRA.
In addition to taking on the role as Country Manager, China for TOMRA Sorting Technology (Xiamen), Jacob will continue in his leadership role with TOMRA Sorting Recycling, which will maintain its total commitment to the company's China customers by providing the leading-edge sorting technology now in high demand across China's fast-growth recycling industry.
Jacob takes over the position from Even Rekdal, who will take on a new challenge within TOMRA Collection Solutions operations, based in the Langenfeld office in Germany. Rekdal was based in Xiamen for five years and as the Country Manager, China, was instrumental in building the TOMRA Xiamen presence from the very beginning.
Rekdal will continue to work in China until the end of the second quarter of 2015 to ensure a smooth transfer of executive roles. In particular, Rekdal will lead the local startup R&D effort in China for TOMRA, until a local manager is in place in the second quarter.
"We express our warm gratitude to both Even and Jacob for their outstanding contributions and wish them great success in their new roles," expressed commented Stefan Ranstrand, President and CEO of TOMRA.


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\section{Introduction}

Some decades ago a general analysis of the forward Compton scattering amplitude allowed Baldin \cite{Baldin:1960},
Gerasimov \cite{Gerasimov:1965et}, Drell and Hearn \cite{Drell:1966jv}
to establish first sum rules expressing the static electromagnetic
properties of the nucleon in terms of its total photoabsorption cross sections.
The Baldin sum rule relates the sum of the electric $\alpha_E$ and magnetic $\beta_M$ polarizabilities
to an integral of the unpolarized photoabsorbtion cross section $\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}$:
\begin{equation}
\alpha_E+\beta_M=\frac1 {2\pi^2}\int_0^\infty \! \frac{{\rm d}\nu}{\nu^2}
\, \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}(\nu),
\end{equation}
where $\nu$ is the photon energy in the lab frame.
The Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn (GDH) sum rule  relates the anomalous magnetic moment $\kappa$  of a spin-$1/2$ target
to an integral of the helicity-difference
photoabsorption cross section $\De\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}=\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_{3/2}-\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_{1/2}$
(here subscripts stand for the value of total helicity):
\begin{equation}
\eeqlab{gSLAC-PUB-0187}
\frac{e^2}{2M^2}\,\kappa^2=\frac1\pi\int_0^\infty \!\frac{{\rm d}\nu}{\nu}
\,\De\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}(\nu),
\end{equation}
with $e$ the charge and $M$ the mass of the target.

A few decades later it has been realized \cite{Roy:1974fz,Gerasimov:1973ja,Brodsky:1995fj} that the GDH sum rule applies to a  photon target, in which case the anomalous magnetic
moment is zero by Furry's theorem, and one simply has:
 \begin{equation}
\eeqlab{gammagSLAC-PUB-0187}
0=\frac1\pi\int_0^\infty \!\frac{{\rm d} \nu}{\nu}
\,\Big[\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_2(\nu) - \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_0(\nu)\Big],
\end{equation}
where $\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_\lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}$ is the $\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\ga$-fusion cross section with the total
helicity $\lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}$, and $\nu$ is the photon energy in collider kinematics.

More recently, a systematic derivation of sum rules for light-light system
has been done \cite{Pascalutsa:2010sj}, resulting in sum rules for
the low-energy constants of the Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian.
Some details of the sum rules for light-by-light (LbL) scattering will be given below,
with emphasis on perturbative verifications of the sum rules in field theory.
The case of charged massive spin-1 field is especially interesting.

In the concluding section we shall discuss the way the sum rules can be used
to evaluate the hadronic contributions to the low-energy interaction of light with light.

\section{Sum rules for light-by-light scattering}

The sum rules in question are based on very general
properties of the S-matrix, namely Lorentz and crossing symmetries, analyticity, unitarity, as well the gauge symmetry of the electromagnetic interaction.
To demonstrate this we highlight here the main derivation steps for the
case of $\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma} \gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}$ systems.

Denoting LbL scattering ($\gamma \gamma \to \gamma \gamma$) corresponding Feynman and helicity amplitudes as, respectively, $\mathcal{M}$ and $M$, their relation is:
\begin{eqnarray}
\eeqlab{genexp}
M_{\lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}_1\lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}_2\lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}_3\lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}_4} &=& \varepsilon}  \def\eps{\epsilon^{\ast\mu_4}_{\lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}_4}(\vec{q}_4) \, \varepsilon}  \def\eps{\epsilon^{\ast\mu_3}_{\lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}_3} (\vec{q}_3)\,
\varepsilon}  \def\eps{\epsilon^{\mu_2}_{\lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}_2}(\vec{q}_2)\,  \varepsilon}  \def\eps{\epsilon^{\mu_1}_{\lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}_1}(\vec{q}_1) \nonumber\\
& & \times \,  \mathcal{M}_{\mu_1\mu_2\mu_3\mu_4} ,
\end{eqnarray}
where $\varepsilon}  \def\eps{\epsilon(\vec{q})$ are the photon polarization 4-vectors, $\lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}$'s are the helicities; for
real photons traveling along the $z$ axis, i.e.\ $\vec{q} = (0,0,\nu)$, the polarization vectors are
$\varepsilon}  \def\eps{\epsilon_{\lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}}(\pm \vec{q}) = 2^{-\nicefrac12} ( 0, \mp \lambda} \def\La{{\Lambda}, -i , 0)$.
The Mandelstam variables are defined as
$s=(q_1+q_2)^2 = 4 \nu^2$, $t=(q_1-q_3)^2$, $u=(q_1-q_4)^2$, with $q_i$ the
photon 4-momenta.

In the forward kinematics, where $q_3=q_1$, $q_4=q_2$,
and hence $t=0$, $u=-s$, the general Lorentz structure of the Feynman amplitude is given by:
\begin{eqnarray}
\mathcal{M}_{\mu_1\mu_2\mu_3\mu_4} & =&  A(s) \, g_{\mu_4\mu_2} g_{\mu_3\mu_1}
+B(s)\, g_{\mu_4\mu_1} g_{\mu_3\mu_2} \nonumber\\
&  +&  C(s) \, g_{\mu_4\mu_3} g_{\mu_2\mu_1} \,,
\end{eqnarray}
where $g_{\mu\nu}$ is the Minkowski metric. Crossing symmetry (under $1 \leftrightarrow 3$, or
$2 \leftrightarrow 4$) means in this case
\begin{eqnarray}
\mathcal{M}_{\mu_1\mu_2\mu_3\mu_4} & =&  A(u) \, g_{\mu_4\mu_2} g_{\mu_3\mu_1}
+B(u)\, g_{\mu_4\mu_3} g_{\mu_1\mu_2} \nonumber\\
&  +&  C(u) \, g_{\mu_1\mu_4} g_{\mu_3\mu_2} \,,
\end{eqnarray}
hence $A(-s) = A(s)$, $B(-s) = C(s)$.
 As a result there are three independent nonvanishing helicity amplitudes:
 \begin{eqnarray}
  M_{++++}(s) &=& A(s) + C(s),\nonumber\\
  M_{+-+-}(s) &=& A(s) + B(s),\\
  M_{++--}(s) &=& B(s) + C(s),\nonumber
 \end{eqnarray}
 satisfying the  following crossing relations:
$ M_{+-+-}(s) =   M_{++++}(-s)$, and
$ M_{++--}(s) = M_{++--}(-s)$.

The principle of (micro-)causality implies that the above functions
are analytic functions of $s$ everywhere in the complex $s$ plane  except along the real axis. For the amplitudes,
 \begin{subequations}
 \begin{eqnarray}
f^{(\pm)}(s) &=&  M_{++++}(s)  \pm M_{+-+-}(s) ,\\
g(s) &=&  M_{++--}(s),
\end{eqnarray}
 \end{subequations}
the analyticity  infers the following dispersion relations:
\begin{equation}
\mbox{Re}\, \left\{\begin{array}{l} f^{(\pm)} (s)\\
g (s)\end{array} \right\}  = \frac{1}{\pi} \fint\limits_{-\infty}^{\infty} \! \frac{{\rm d} s' }{s'-s} \,
 \mbox{Im}\, \left\{\begin{array}{l} f^{(\pm)} (s')\\
g (s')\end{array} \right\}\,,
\end{equation}
where $ \fint$ indicates the principal-value integration. These relations hold as long as
the integral converges, and otherwise subtractions are needed.
Because $f^{(\pm)}(-s)=\pm \,f^{(\pm)}(s)$ and $g(-s)=g(s)$,
we can express the right-hand side as an integral over positive $s$
only:
 \begin{subequations}
 \begin{eqnarray}
\mbox{Re}\, \left\{\begin{array}{l} f^{(+)} (s)\\
g (s)\end{array} \right\} & = & \frac{2}{\pi}  \fint\limits_{0}^{\infty} \frac{{\rm d} s' \, s'}{s^{\prime 2}-s^2}\,
 \mbox{Im}\, \left\{\begin{array}{l} f^{(+)} (s')\\
g (s')\end{array} \right\}\,,\\
\mbox{Re}\, f^{(-)} (s) & = & -\frac{2s}{\pi} \fint\limits_{0}^{\infty} {\rm d} s' \, \frac{  \mbox{Im}\, f^{(-)} (s')}{s^{\prime 2}-s^2}\,.
\end{eqnarray}
\end{subequations}
In the physical region ($s\geq 0$),  the optical theorem relates
the imaginary part of these amplitudes to the total absorption cross-sections with
definite polarization of the initial $\gamma \gamma$ state:
 \begin{subequations}
\begin{eqnarray}
\mbox{Im}\, f^{(\pm)}(s) &=&  - \frac{s}{8} \,[ \,\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_0(s)  \pm \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_2(s) \,] ,\\
\mbox{Im}\, g(s) &=&  - \frac{s}{8} \,[ \,\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_{||}(s)  - \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_\perp (s) \,] .
\end{eqnarray}
\end{subequations}
Substituting these expressions in the above dispersion relations one obtains:
 \begin{subequations}
 \eeqlab{srules}
 \begin{eqnarray}
\mbox{Re}\, f^{(+)} (s) & = & -\frac{1}{2\pi}\fint\limits_{0}^{\infty} {\rm d} s'\, s^{\prime 2}\,\frac{\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}(s')}{s^{\prime 2}-s^2}\,,
\eeqlab{srulesa}\\
\mbox{Re}\, f^{(-)} (s) & = & -\frac{s}{4\pi} \fint\limits_{0}^{\infty} {\rm d} s' \,\frac{ s'  \, \De\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma} (s')}{s^{\prime 2}-s^2}\,,\eeqlab{srulesb}\\
\mbox{Re}\, g (s) & = & -\frac{1}{4\pi} \fint\limits_{0}^{\infty} {\rm d} s' \,s^{\prime 2}  \,\frac{
\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_{||}(s')  - \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_\perp (s')}{s^{\prime 2}-s^2}\,,
\eeqlab{srulesc}
\end{eqnarray}
\end{subequations}
where $\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}=(\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_0+\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_2)/2=(\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_{||} + \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_\perp)/2$ is the unpolarized
total cross section, and $\De\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}=\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_2-\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_0$ (0 or 2 show the total helicity of the circularly polarized
photons, while $\|$ or $\bot$ show if the linear photon polarizations
are parallel or perpendicular).

We next recall that gauge invariance and discrete symmetries constrain the low-energy
photon-photon interaction to the Euler-Heisenberg form \cite{Heisenberg:1935qt}, given by the following Lagrangian density:
\begin{equation}
\eeqlab{physics/0605038lagr}
\mathcal{L}_{\mathrm{EH}} = c_1 (F_{\mu\nu}F^{\mu\nu})^2 + c_2 (F_{\mu\nu}\tilde F^{\mu\nu})^2,
\end{equation}
where $F_{\mu\nu} = \partial_\mu A_\nu - \partial_\nu A_\mu$, $\tilde F^{\mu\nu} =
\varepsilon}  \def\eps{\epsilon^{\mu\nu\alpha\beta} \partial_\alpha A_\beta$. Expanding the left-hand side and right-hand side of \eeqref{srules} in powers of $s$
and matching them at each order yields a number of sum rules. At 0th order in $s$
we would find
 \begin{eqnarray}
0 & = &  \int\limits_{0}^{\infty} {\rm d} s \, \Big[ \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_{||} (s) \pm \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_\perp(s) \Big]\,,
\end{eqnarray}
which cannot work for ``+"  since the unpolarized cross-section is a positive-definite quantity.
Empirically $\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}$ shows a slowly rising behavior at large $s$ and the integral diverges.
The assumption of an unsubtracted dispersion relation is violated in this case.
For the ``$-$" case the sum rule is broken too, cf.~\cite{Gerasimov:1973ja} and references
therein.

 At the  first and second orders we find, respectively:
\begin{subequations}
 \eeqlab{s0rules}
 \begin{eqnarray}
0 & = &  \int\limits_{0}^{\infty} {\rm d} s\,  \frac{ \De\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma} (s)}{s}\,,
\eeqlab{s0rulesb} \\
c_1\pm c_2 & = & \frac{1}{8\pi }\int\limits_{0}^{\infty} {\rm d} s\,  \frac{ \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_{||} (s) \pm \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_\perp(s)}{s^2}\,.
 \eeqlab{s0rulesc}
\end{eqnarray}
\end{subequations}
The first sum rule here is the analog of the GDH sum rule mentioned above,
while the sum rules for the low-energy constants are unique to the $\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\ga$ system.
Note that according to these sum rules the constants $c_1$ and $c_2$ are positive
definite, in contrast to some previous predictions in the literature
\cite{Kruglov:2001dp}.

Most of the above arguments will equally hold for the
space-like virtual photons ($q_1^2  < 0 $, $q_2^2 < 0 $), if  written
in a variable which reflects under crossing, e.g.\  $\nu = s-q_1^2-q_2^2$.
The EH Lagrangian must however be extended by terms containing $\partial_\mu F^{\mu\nu}$. For the case when at least one is real such terms are absent
and the above sum rules hold with
only a single modification: $s \to \nu = s- q^2$, where $q^2$ is the
other photon virtuality.

\section{Verifications in perturbative QED}

\begin{figure}[t]
\centerline{\epsfclipon  \epsfxsize=8,2cm%
  \epsffile{ggss.eps}
}
\caption{Pair production in scalar QED.
}
\figlab{scalar}
\end{figure}
The leading-order cross-sections of $\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\ga$-fusion in QED are
given by tree-level pair-production diagrams (\Figref{scalar}),
which can be easily computed
and substituted into the right-hand-side of the sum rules in Eq.~\eref{s0rules}.
In QED of a scalar and a spinor (Dirac) particle the superconvergence sum
rule has thus been verified to leading order the fine-structure constant $\alpha$.
For example the spin-1/2 pair-production helicity-difference cross section in $\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^\ast\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}$
collision is given by
\begin{eqnarray}
 && \De \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}^{(\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^\ast\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\to f \bar f)} (s,q^2,0) =  \frac{8\pi \alpha^2}{(s-q^2)^2} \, \theta} \def\vth{\vartheta} \def\Th{\Theta(s-4m^2)\\
 &&\, \times  \left\{
  -(3 s+q^2)\sqrt{1-\frac{4m^2}{s}}  + 2 (s+q^2)\, \mathrm{arctanh} \sqrt{1-\frac{4m^2}{s}}
  \, \right\}, \nonumber
 \end{eqnarray}
  and is plotted in \Figref{xsect} for three different values
  of $q^2$. One sees that in all cases the low- and high-energy contributions cancel.
The fact that
 \begin{equation}
  \int\limits_{4 m^2}^{\infty} {\rm d} s\,  \frac{ \De\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}^{(\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^\ast\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\to f \bar f)} (s,q^2,0)}{s-q^2}=0\,
\end{equation}
is easily verified for any $q^2 < 4 m^2$.

 \begin{figure}[t]
\centerline{\epsfclipon  \epsfxsize=8 cm%
  \epsffile{gg_heldiff.eps}
}
\caption{Helicity-difference cross section of  $\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^\ast\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\to f \bar f$ in  QED
 at leading order,
for different photon virtualities.
}
\figlab{xsect}
\end{figure}

Substituting the corresponding linearly-polarized cross section into the sum
rule for EH low-energy constants, we obtain: $c_1=\frac{7\alpha^2}{1440 m^4}$,  $c_2=\frac{\alpha^2}{1440 m^4}$ for the scalar case;
$c_1=\frac{\alpha^2}{90 m^4}$, $c_2=\frac{7\alpha^2}{360 m^4}$ for the spinor case.
This result agrees with the explicit one-loop calculations of low-energy light-by-light
scattering, see e.g.~\cite{Karplus:1950zza,Karplus:1950zz}.

The case of spin-1 QED, describing a charged and massive vector particle, is not as simple. In this case interaction with electromagnetic field can be described in terms of three independent structure functions. Considering the minimal and linear non-minimal couplings we start with the following Lagrangian density:
\begin{equation}
\begin{split}
\eeqlab{lagr1}
\mathcal{L}_1=&-\frac 1 4 F_{\mu\nu}F^{\mu\nu}-\frac 1 2 W^*_{\mu\nu}W^{\mu\nu}-M^2W_\mu^*W^\mu+ieW_{\mu\nu}^*A^\mu W^\nu-ieA_\mu W_\nu^*W^{\mu\nu}+e^2A^2W_\mu^*W^\mu+\\
+&iel_1W_\mu^*W_\nu F^{\mu\nu}+{el_2}[(D^*_\mu W^*_\nu)W^\alpha\partial_\alpha F^{\mu\nu}+W^*_\alpha(D_\mu W_\nu)\partial^\alpha F^{\mu\nu}]/{(2M^2)},
\end{split}
\end{equation}
where $A_\mu$ and $W_\mu$ denote the electromagnetic and vector-boson fields respectively;  $F_{\mu\nu}=D_\mu F_\nu-D_\nu F_\mu$ and $W_{\mu\nu}=D_\mu W_\nu-D_\nu W_\mu$ are the corresponding field-strength tensors, with
$D_\mu=\partial_\mu-ieA_\mu$ the covariant derivative, $e$ the charge and $M$ the mass of the vector boson.
The parameters $l_1$ and $l_2$ contribute to the magnetic and quadrupole moments as:
\begin{equation}
\mu=(1+l_1)\frac{e}{2M}\qquad \mathrm{and} \qquad Q=(l_2-l_1)\frac{e}{M^2}.
\end{equation}

Computing the cross-section for the tree-level $\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\ga \to W^+ W^-$ process
in this theory we find that the integral on the right-hand-side of the first (super-convergence)
sum rule in Eq.~\eref{s0rules} diverges, unless $l_1=1$ and $l_2=0$. Only for the
latter choice of the parameters the integral converges and is equal to 0, as it should.
This choice of parameters is realized in the Standard Model, and gives rise to the
so-called "natural values" of the electromagnetic moments.

Computing for the linearly polarized cross sections (for $l_1=1$ and $l_2=0$)
and using the second sum rule we obtain:
\begin{equation}
c_1=\frac{29\alpha^2}{160M^4}\;,\qquad\qquad c_2=\frac{27\alpha^2}{160M^4}.
\end{equation}
This is in agreement with the one-loop electroweak correction to LbL scattering
(\Figref{bands}),
which we obtained by the low-energy expansion of the expressions of
Bohm and Schuster \cite{Bohm:1994sf}. It is interesting that to obtain
this result in electroweak theory one needs to take care of the Higgs mechanism
as well as the ghosts, while on the side of the sum rule the calculation is much simpler:
tree-level production of massive vector bosons, and a dispersion integral.

 \begin{figure}[t]
\centerline{\epsfclipon  \epsfxsize=10cm%
  \epsffile{BandS1.eps}
}
\caption{One-loop Feynman graphs in the standard electroweak theory. Here $W$ stands for the gauge bosons, $\phi$ - Higgs fields and $\chi$ denotes Fadeev-Popov ghosts.
}
\figlab{bands}
\end{figure}

\section{Hadronic contributions to the LbL scattering}

While the role of the SRs in QED becomes fairly clear in these perturbative calculations,
in quantum chromodynamics (QCD), in its non-perturbative regime, it is far less obvious.
We can gain some
insight by looking at  individual contributions to the $\gamma \gamma\to hadrons$  cross sections.

\subsection{Superconvergence sum rule}
The high-energy behavior of $\Delta \sigma$ is determined by a $t$-channel
exchange of unnatural parity and is expected from Regge theory -- in the absence of fixed pole singularities -- to drop as $1/s$ or faster~\cite{Budnev:1971sz}. We therefore expect the
sum rule \eref{s0rulesb} to converge.
The dominant features of the $\gamma \gamma$ to multihadron production  comes firstly from the
Born terms in the $\pi^+ \pi^-$ (or $K^+ K^-$) channels, which each separately obeys the sum rule.
The largest contributions in the hadronic sector are thus expected to come from the resonance production:
$\gamma \gamma \to M$, with $M$ being a meson. It is highly nontrivial to see how the
sum rule is saturated in this case.

As two real photons do not
couple to a $J^P$ = $1^-$ or $1^+$ state due to the Landau-Yang theorem, one expects the
dominant contribution to come from scalar, pseudoscalar, and tensor mesons.
One can express the $\gamma \gamma \to M$ cross section for a meson with spin $J$, mass $m_M$, and total width $\Gamma_{tot}$, using a Breit-Wigner parametrization, in terms of the
decay width $\Gamma_{\gamma \gamma}^{(\Lambda)}$ of the meson
into two photons of total helicity $\Lambda = 0, 2$, as
\begin{eqnarray}
\sigma^{\gamma \gamma \to M}_\Lambda (s) &=& (2 J + 1) \, 16 \pi
 \frac{\Gamma_{\gamma \gamma}^{ (\Lambda)} \, \Gamma_{tot}}{(s - m_M^2)^2 + \Gamma_{tot}^2 m_M^2} \nonumber \\
&\approx& (2 J + 1) 16 \pi^2
\, \frac{\Gamma_{\gamma \gamma }^{(\Lambda)} }{m_M} \, \delta(s - m_M^2),
\label{eq:mesgaga}
\end{eqnarray}
where the last line is obtained in the narrow resonance approximation.
For the pseudoscalar mesons, which can only contribute to the helicity-zero cross section, the narrow resonance approximation is very accurate and allows to quantify their contribution as shown
in Table~\ref{table_ps}. For the pion, this value is entirely driven by the chiral anomaly, which allows
the expression of the $\pi^0$ contribution to the sum rule as $- \alpha^2 / (4 \pi f_\pi^2)$, with $f_\pi = 92.4$~MeV the pion decay constant.

To compensate the large negative contribution to the sum rule from pseudoscalar mesons,
one needs to have an equivalent strength  in the helicity-two cross section, $\sigma_2$.
The dominant feature of the helicity-two cross section in the resonance region
arises from the multiplet of tensor mesons $f_2(1270)$, $a_2(1320)$, and $f_2^\prime(1525)$.
Measurements at various $e^+ e^-$ colliders, notably recent high statistics measurements
by the BELLE Collaboration of the $\gamma \gamma$ cross sections to
$\pi^+ \pi^-$~\cite{Mori:2007bu},  $\pi^0 \pi^0$~\cite{Uehara:2008ep}, $\eta \pi^0$~\cite{Balagura:2007dya},
and $K^+ K^-$~\cite{Abe:2003vn} channels have allowed accurate confirmation of their parameters.
As these tensor mesons were also found to be relatively well described by Breit-Wigner resonances,
we use  Eq.~(\ref{eq:mesgaga}) to provide a first estimate of their contribution to the sum rule.  We
show the results in Table~\ref{table_tensor}, both in the narrow width approximation and using a Breit-Wigner shape, assuming that the tensor mesons pre-dominantly contribute to $\sigma_2$,
as is found by the above-mentioned experimental analyses of decay angular distributions.

 Comparing Tables~\ref{table_ps} and \ref{table_tensor}, we can see that the contribution of the lowest isovector tensor meson composed of light quarks, $a_2(1320)$, compensates to around 70 \% the contribution of the $\pi^0$, which is entirely
governed by the chiral anomaly.
For the isoscalar states composed of light quarks,  the cancellation is even more remarkable,
as the sum of  $f_2(1270)$ and $f_2^\prime(1525)$ cancels entirely, within the experimental accuracy, the combined contribution of the $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime$.

\begin{table}[t]
{\centering \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|}
\hline
& $m_M$  & $\Gamma_{\gamma \gamma} $   &  $\int ds\;  \Delta \sigma  / s$  \\
&  [MeV] &  [keV] &  [nb]  \\
\hline
\hline
$\pi^0$ & 134.98   &  $(7.8 \pm 0.6) \times 10^{-3}$  &  $-195.0 \pm 15.0$   \\
\hline
\hline
$\eta$ &  547.85   &  $0.51 \pm 0.03$  &  $-190.7 \pm 11.2 $  \\
$\eta^\prime$ & 957.66   &  $4.30 \pm 0.15$  & $ -301.0 \pm 10.5$   \\
\hline
Sum $\eta, \eta^\prime$ & & & $-492 \pm 22$ \\
\hline
\end{tabular}\par}
\caption{Sum rule contribution of the lightest pseudoscalar mesons (last column).
The experimental values of meson masses~$m_M$ and $2 \gamma$ decay
widths $\Gamma_{\gamma \gamma}$ are  from PDG~\cite{Amsler:2008zzb}.}
\label{table_ps}
\end{table}

\begin{table}[t]
{\centering \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|}
\hline
& $m_M$  & $\Gamma_{\gamma \gamma} $   &  $\int ds\;  \Delta \sigma  / s$ & $\int ds\;  \Delta \sigma  / s$  \\
&  &    &  \rm{narrow res. }  & \rm{Breit-Wigner} \\
&  [MeV] &  [keV] &  [nb]  & [nb] \\
\hline
\hline
$a_2 (1320)$ &  $1318.3$   &  $1.00 \pm 0.06$  &  $134 \pm 8$  &  $137 \pm 8$   \\
\hline
\hline
$f_2 (1270)$  & $1275.1 $   &  $3.03 \pm 0.35$  &  $448 \pm 52$  & $479 \pm 56$   \\
$f_2^\prime (1525)$  & $1525 $   &  $0.081 \pm 0.009$  &  $7 \pm 1$  & $7 \pm 1$   \\
\hline
Sum $f_2, f_2^\prime$ & & & $455 \pm 53$ & $486 \pm 57$ \\
\hline
\end{tabular}\par}
\caption{Sum rule contribution of the lowest tensor mesons. We show both results in the narrow resonance approximation (4th column) and using a Breit-Wigner parametrization (last column).
The experimental values of meson masses $m_M$ and $2 \gamma$ decay
widths $\Gamma_{\gamma \gamma}$ are  from PDG~\cite{Amsler:2008zzb}.}
\label{table_tensor}
\end{table}

Besides the tensor mesons, the subdominant resonance contributions to the $\gamma \gamma$ total cross section arise from the scalar mesons
$f_0 / \sigma(600)$, $f_0(980)$, and $a_0(980)$. A reliable estimate of the scalar mesons requires an amplitude analysis of the partial channels, see e.g.~\cite{Pennington:2008xd}. A future study will estimate more precisely the scalar meson helicity-zero contribution to the sum rule, and elaborate on the cancellation between the
tensor mesons and the (pseudo)scalar meson contributions in the sum rule of
\eeqref{s0rulesb}. Interestingly,  when going to the charm sector,
the sum rule also implies a cancellation between the $\eta_c$ meson, whose contributions amounts to about  $-15.5$~nb,  and scalar and tensor $c \bar c$ states.

In the case of non-zero virtuality of one of the photons, the cross-section of the process $\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^*\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\rightarrow M$ is defined not by a Breit-Wigner approximation, but rather by a function of $Q^2$, so-called transition form-factor (TFF). Application of the superconvergent sum rule to these processes can give a useful information of the electromagnetic structure of mesons.
Feynman amplitude of the process $\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^*\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\rightarrow M$ for the case of pseudoscalar meson has the form:

\begin{equation}
T_{\mu\nu}=ie^2\varepsilon}  \def\eps{\epsilon_{\mu\nu\alpha\beta}q^\alpha q'\,^\beta F_{\pi^0\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^*\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}}(Q^2),
\end{equation}
where $Q^2=-\,q'\,^2$ denots virtuality of the $\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^*$ and $F_{\pi^0\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^*\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}}$ is the $\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^*\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\rightarrow \pi^0$  TFF.

The leading contribution of the single $\pi^0$ production
to the superconvergent sum rule is found as:

\begin{equation}
\int_0^\infty {\rm d} s\frac{\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_0(s)}{s+Q^2}=(4\pi\alpha)^2\pi\left(\frac1 2 F_{\pi^0\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^*\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}}(Q^2)\right)^2.
\end{equation}
The production of a tensor meson contributes both to the helicity-0 and helicity-2 amplitudes. However the contribution of helicity-0 cross-section is usually negligible, while the helicity-2
contribution is given by
\begin{equation}
\int_0^\infty {\rm d} s\frac{\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_2(s)}{s+Q^2}=(4\pi\alpha)^2\pi\left(F_{a_2\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^*\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}}^{\La=2}(Q^2)\right)^2+\mathcal{O}\left(\frac1 {Q^2}\right).
\end{equation}
Thus, assuming that in the isovector channel   the sum rule is saturated
by  $\pi^0$ ($\La = 0$) and $a_2$  ($\La =2 $) mesons, we obtain at low $Q^2$
the following relation between the TFFs:
\begin{equation}
F_{a_2\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^*\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}}^{\La=2}(Q^2)\approx
\frac{1}{2} F_{\pi^0\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}^*\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}}(Q^2)\, ,
\end{equation}
which,  as seen from Tables~\ref{table_ps} and \ref{table_tensor}, is at $Q^2=0$ satisfied to an accuracy of better than 70\%.

\subsection{The low-energy-constant sum rules}

The sum rules
\begin{eqnarray}
c_1 & = & \frac{1}{8\pi }\int\limits_{0}^{\infty} {\rm d} s\,  \frac{ \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_{||} (s) }
{s^2}\,,\\
c_2 & = & \frac{1}{8\pi }\int\limits_{0}^{\infty} {\rm d} s\,  \frac{ \sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_\perp(s)}{s^2}\,,
 \eeqlab{s2rulesc}
\end{eqnarray}
allow one to assess the size of the hadronic contribution to the low-energy LbL scattering.
For example, the pseudo-scalar meson production in $\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\ga^\ast$ fusion yields:
\begin{eqnarray}
\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_{||} & = & 0 , \nonumber\\
\sigma} \def\Si{{\it\Sigma}_\perp &=& 4\pi^3 \alpha^2 \left| F_{M\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\ga^\ast} (Q^2)\right|^2 \, (s+Q^2) \, \delta} \def\De{\Delta(s-m_M^2),
\end{eqnarray}
which lead to $c_1=0$ and
\begin{equation}
c_2 = \frac{2\pi \Ga_{\gamma} \def\Ga{{\it\Gamma}\ga}}{m_M^5}\,.
\end{equation}
The corresponding
numerical results are given in Table~\ref{2_ps}.
\begin{table}[b]
{\centering \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
\hline
& $c_1$  &  $c_2$   $[\, 10^{-4}$ GeV$^{-4}\,]$   \\
\hline
& & \\
$\pi^0$ & 0   &  $10.8  $     \\
$\eta$ &  0   &  $0.7    $  \\
$\eta^\prime$ & 0 & 0.4     \\
& & \\
\hline
\end{tabular}\par}
\caption{Contribution of the light pseudoscalar mesons to low-energy LbL scattering.}
\label{2_ps}
\end{table}
This result, however, does not aid much in the problem of hadronic LbL contributions
to muon anomaly, $(g-2)_\mu$, where the main effect comes from the LbL
scattering at the hadronic scale, see e.g.\ \cite{Melnikov:2006sr}.

\section*{References}

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Q: ClassNotFoundException loading runtime compiled subclass I am using JavaCompiler to compile CustomProcessor.java from within a web application at runtime
package com.notmycompany;

import com.mycompany.Processor;
import com.mycompany.Event;

public class CustomProcessor extends Processor {

    @Override
    public void process( Event evt) {
        // Do you own stuff
        System.out.println( "My Own Stuff");
    }
}

Compilation goes well, I end up with a class file that I am trying to load using URLClassLoader
URL[] urls = new URL[]{ new URL("file://d:/temp/") };
URLClassLoader ucl = new URLClassLoader(urls);
Class clazz = ucl.loadClass("com.notmycompany.CustomProcessor");

The problem is I am hitting a ClassNotFoundException on Processor which I am using elsewhere in the application (as in I known it's there).
What do I need to do so com.mycompany.Processor is visible at runtime?
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.mycompany.Processor
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:366)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:355)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:354)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
    ... 30 more

Thanks.

A: It is a matter of using a URLClassLoader fed with a complete classpath
As per this question I used
URLClassLoader ucl2 = new URLClassLoader( new URL[] { new URL( "file://d:/temp/")}, urlClassLoader);
Class<?> clazz = ucl2.loadClass("com.notmycompany.CustomProcessor");

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Follow @TheCommentator
The Tea Room
A trim or a crew cut?
Government liabilities now total £3.6 trillion. A figure so huge that it is meaningless. To make some sense out of it, it is equivalent to £138,360 for every household in the country.
To cut or not to cut? Is is even a question?
On 8 April 2011 13:06
The placards at the Trade Union organised a fortnight ago seemed clear. "NO CUTS" they read, with a big red line through the two words. Surely this double negative must indicate an understanding that the cuts were indeed necessary. Well done the TUC, I thought. They have at last got it: they accept the case for the cuts. How mature. What leadership. What good sense.
So far, so good. Now I thought we can move on to the argument that really matters: are the cuts just necessary or a good thing in themselves? But just before dreaming about how best to persuade Mark Serwotka of the latter case, I suddenly realised that the placards indicated not economic literacy but the sign writer's confusion. They really did want NO CUTS.
Yes, of course if your job is under threat then it is right to be worried. To protest. But just to demand something because you want it, with no thought about whether it is reasonable or indeed desirable, is the behaviour of an infant.
Surely we should try to work out how bad things are. Today, the Centre for Policy Studies publishes some new figures from Brooks Newmark MP on what the true size of the government debt actually is. And this is a grim story.
Government liabilities now total £3.6 trillion. A figure so huge that it is meaningless. To make some sense out of it, it is equivalent to £138,360 for every household in the country. Which is, by coincidence pretty close to the average mortgage.
Most homeowners keep a careful eye on their mortgage, its size and its interest rate. So don't imagine them to thank you for telling that the government has borrowed the same amount on their behalf. Yet that is what has happened.
How? Well, the ONS now reckons that the Public Sector Net Debt is now around £875 billion. The ONS says that you have to include the total liabilities of the nationalised banks, which takes the figure up to £2,250 billion. Then you need to add in all those unfunded public sector pension liabilities (another £1,180 billion), the unfunded cost of all those PFI projects (another £170 billion) and other such treat as the investment in Network Rail (another £24 billion).
"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money", quipped US Senator Everett Dirksen to the oil tycoon, H L Hunt.And with over 3,000 billion pounds worth of government debt, it should be clear, even to those waving their placards, that the cuts are necessary (at the very least).
And, things are going to get worse before they get better. The Budget announced that government debt is set to grow over the rest of the Parliament. The "CUTS" are not in fact cuts in the amount that government spends but are merely cuts in the growth of spending. The official government debt is set to increase from 58% of GDP today to 71% in 2013/14. It is not even a trim, let alone a crew cut.
How to get out of this hole? Three things must be done. Firstly, the government must not waver in the face of popular discontent. Second, it must secure the best possible price for the banks we now own (and the CPS has some brilliant ideas on how to achieve just that). And government must focus relentlessly on pro-growth policies (again, the CPS has plans...).
Tim Knox is Acting Director of the Centre for Policy Studies
The hidden debt bombshell – April 2011 update by Brooks Newmark and Ryan Bourne is published today Friday 8 April by the Centre for Policy Studies
Tim Knox, Centre for Policy Studies, government debt, UK debt, and government cuts
Cory Booker hopes to sprint to the finish
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text:
The word spiritual means the active betterment of life for all people, for the most people. Spiritual is anything which brings a man or woman to a higher state of life, whether that is on the physical, the emotional-astral, the mental, or on the spiritual or soul plane. Anything which is towards the betterment of humanity is fundamentally spiritual; it is not only a religious thing. The religious path is only one path. So we have to create structures — political, economic, and social — which are fundamentally spiritual... ~Benjamin Creme
Spirituality is much wider than any particular religion, and in the larger ideas of it that are now coming on us even the greatest religion becomes no more than a broad sect or branch of the one universal religion, by which we shall understand in the future man's seeking for the eternal, the divine, the greater self, the source of unity and his attempt to arrive at some equation, some increasing approximation of the values of human life with the eternal and the divine values. ~Sri Aurobindo
The reason for the corrupt politics and the greedy ambitious planning of so many of the world's leading men, can be found in the fact that the spiritually minded men and women have not assumed - as their spiritual duty and responsibility - the leadership of the people. They have left the power in the wrong hands and permitted the selfish and the undesirable to lead... Spirituality is essentially the establishing of right human relations, the promotion of goodwill, and finally the establishing of a true peace on earth... ~Alice Bailey
Spirituality represents the specialization and detachment of profundity from everyday life into a disembodied, disconnected, symbolic realm that becomes compensatory for an everyday life whose immanence is banality. ~ John Landau
Spirituality concerns itself with matters of the spirit, a concept closely tied to religious belief and faith, a transcendent reality, or one or more deities. Spiritual matters are thus those matters regarding humankind's ultimate nature and meaning, not only as material biological organisms, but as beings with a unique relationship to that which is perceived to be Reality beyond the bodily senses, time and the material world.
Spirituality is much wider than any particular religion, and in the larger ideas of it that are now coming on us even the greatest religion becomes no more than a broad sect or branch of the one universal religion, by which we shall understand in the future man's seeking for the eternal, the divine, the greater self, the source of unity and his attempt to arrive at some equation, some increasing approximation of the values of human life with the eternal and the divine values.
Sri Aurobindo in The Renaissance in India (1918)
The reason for the corrupt politics and the greedy ambitious planning of so many of the world's leading men, can be found in the fact that the spiritually minded men and women have not assumed - as their spiritual duty and responsibility - the leadership of the people. They have left the power in the wrong hands and permitted the selfish and the undesirable to lead...Spirituality is essentially the establishing of right human relations, the promotion of goodwill, and finally the establishing of a true peace on earth...
Alice Bailey in The Problems of Humanity, p. 168/9. (1944).
Later, when the [human] race sees its problem with clarity, it will act with wisdom, and train with care its Observers and Communicators. These will be men and women in whom the intuition has awakened at the behest of an urgent intellect; they will be people whose minds are so subordinated to the group good, and so free from all sense of separativeness, that their minds present no impediment to the contact with the world of reality and of inner truth. They will not necessarily be people who could be termed "religious" in the ordinary sense of that word, but they will be men of goodwill, of high mental calibre, with minds well stocked and equipped; they will be free from personal ambition and selfishness, animated by love of humanity, and by a desire to help the race. Such a man is a spiritual man.
Alice Bailey in A Treatise on the Seven Rays: Volume 1: Esoteric Psychology I. p. 181 (1936)
What is the spiritual battle? Well, the soul is a garden divided into two parts. On one half are planted thorny bushes, and on the other half flowers. We also have a water pump with two taps and two channels. The one guides the water to the thorns and the other to the flowers. I always have the choice to open one or the other tap. I leave the thorns without water and they dry up, I water the flowers and they blossom.
Porphyrios Bairaktaris, Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit - The Lives and Counsels of Contemporary Elders of Greece, p. 170
To that manifested Presence the name of "the Christ" may rightly be given, and it was He who lived and moved in the form of the man Jesus over the hills and plains of Palestine, teaching, healing diseases, and gathering round Him as disciples a few of the more advanced souls. The rare charm of His royal love, outpouring from Him as rays from a sun, drew round Him the suffering, the weary, and the oppressed, and the subtly tender magic of His gentle wisdom purified, ennobled, and sweetened the lives that came into contact with His own... By parable and luminous imagery He taught the uninstructed crowds who pressed around Him, and, using the powers of the free Spirit, He healed many a disease by word or touch, reinforcing the magnetic energies belonging to His pure body with the compelling force of His inner life... The teachers and rulers of His nation soon came to eye Him with jealousy and anger; His spirituality was a constant reproach to their materialism, His power a constant, though silent, exposure of their weakness. p. 136
Annie Besant in Esoteric Christianity: Or, The Lesser Mysteries (1914)
The historical Christ, then, is a glorious Being belonging to the great spiritual hierarchy that guides the spiritual evolution of humanity, who used for some three years the human body of the disciple Jesus; who spent the last of these three years in public teaching... who was a healer of diseases and performed other remarkable occult works; who gathered round Him a small band of disciples whom He instructed in the deeper truths of the spiritual life; who drew men to Him by the singular love and tenderness and the rich wisdom that breathed from His Person; and who was finally put to death for blasphemy, for teaching the inherent Divinity of Himself and of all men. p.141
Politics and Religion are obsolete. The time has come for Science and Spirituality.
Often quoted by Arthur C. Clarke as one of his favorite remarks of Jawaharlal Nehru, though some of his earliest citations of it, in Voices from the Sky : Previews of the Coming Space Age (1967), p. 154, indicate that Nehru may himself been either quoting or paraphrasing a statement of Vinoba Bhave.
Sofi Elizondo: How many senses do worms have?
Ian Gray: They have two: smell and touch. Why?
Sofi Elizondo: So, they live without any ability to see or even know about light, right? The notion of light to them is unimaginable.
Ian Gray: Yeah.
Sofi Elizondo: But we humans, we know that light exists—all around them, right on top of them, they cannot sense it. But with a little mutation, they do. Right?
Ian Gray: Correct.
Sofi Elizondo: So, Doctor Eye, perhaps some humans, rare humans, have mutated to have another sense—a spirit sense—and can perceive a world that is right on top of us, everywhere, just like the light on these worms.
Dr. Ian Gray (Michael Pitt) and Sofi Elizondo (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey) in I Origins (18 January 2014), written and directed by Mike Cahill.
The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs.
Cicero, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 562.
I would not expect religion to be the right tool for sequencing the human genome and by the same token would not expect science to be the means to approaching the supernatural. But on the really interesting larger questions, such as 'Why are we here?' or 'Why do human beings long for spirituality?,' I find science unsatisfactory. Many superstitions have come into existence and then faded away. Faith has not, which suggests it has reality.
Francis Collins, WOL
The word spiritual means the active betterment of life for all people, for the most people. Spiritual is anything which brings a man or woman to a higher state of life, whether that is on the physical, the emotional-astral, the mental, or on the spiritual or soul plane. Anything which is towards the betterment of humanity is fundamentally spiritual; it is not only a religious thing. The religious path is only one path. So we have to create structures — political, economic, and social — which are fundamentally spiritual...
Benjamin Creme in The Ageless Wisdom, An Introduction to Humanity's Spiritual Legacy, Share International (1996)
What is needed is applied, practical spirituality. For the last 2,000 years we have had many ideals: of brotherhood and sisterhood, a recognition that we are all God's children, a desire for peace on earth, goodwill to all men, and so on. We enunciate it every Christmas, once a year, and repeat it at Easter, perhaps... because we have only a notion of spirituality... The Master Djwhal Khul says categorically that one of the greatest triumphs for the forces of evil, the forces of materiality, is the fact that the religious groups have monopolized the idea of spirituality: whatever is religious is automatically spiritual (whether in fact it is or not) and everything else can be as corrupt as we like. Business is corrupt, politics is corrupt, economic systems are corrupt. But religion is thought to be exempt from this corruption; that is `spiritual'.
For me, seeking spirituality had a lot to do with trying to seek understanding about my conditions—how these conditions shape me in my everyday life and how I understand them as part of a larger fight, a fight for my life.
Patrisse Cullors, s quoted in The Role of Spirit in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement: A Conversation with Activist and Artist Patrisse Cullors (June 24, 2015) by Hebah H. Farrag, Religion Dispatches.
Western civilisation, with its own spirituality, has permeated all corners of the earth. My thesis is that this is the spirituality of money.
Ulrich Duchrow, "Spirituality for democracy and social cohesion versus the spirituality of money," Verbum et Ecclesia 35(3) doi:10.4102/ve.v35i3.1332
The growth of philosophy is the story of man's spiritual life.
Helen Keller, Optimism (1903)
Whenever you wash dishes, cook, or clean, if you make no sound, this is smartness itself. A person who enters a house and makes a lot of noise is revealing a lack of spirituality; even cats and dogs do not make unnecessary sounds, and man as he naturally is does not make any either.
Michio Kushi with Edward Esko, Spiritual Journey (1994), p. 4
See the person's eating and cooking, and then you can judge his or her spirituality.
Michio Kushi with Edward Esko, Spiritual Journey (1994)
Spirituality represents the specialization and detachment of profundity from everyday life into a disembodied, disconnected, symbolic realm that becomes compensatory for an everyday life whose immanence is banality.
John Landau, "Wildflowers: A Bouquet of Theses" (1998), in Against Civilization (1999), p. 41
The First Truth is an assertion that all manifested life is sorrow, unless man knows how to live it... the Cause of Sorrow is always desire. If a man has no desires, if he is not striving for place or power or wealth, then he is equally tranquil whether the wealth or position comes or whether it goes. He remains unruffled and serene.... Being human, he will of course wish for this or that, but always mildly and gently, so that he does not allow himself to be disturbed...
C.W. Leadbeater, in The Masters and the Path, (1925), (Speaking about the Four Noble Truths)
Certain broad facts are always put before men in some form or other. They are explained even to savage tribes by their medicine-men, and to the rest of mankind by various religious teachers and in all kinds of scriptures. It is very true that scriptures and religions differ, but the points in which they all agree have to be accepted by a man before he can understand life sufficiently to live happily. One of these facts is the eternal Law of Cause and Effect. If a man lives under the delusion that he can do anything that he likes, and that the effect of his actions will never recoil upon himself, he will most certainly find that some of these actions eventually involve him in unhappiness and suffering. If, again, he does not understand that the object of his life is progress, that God's Will for him is that he shall grow to be something better and nobler than he is now, then also he will bring unhappiness and suffering upon himself, because he will be likely to live for the lower side of life only, and that lower side of life never finally satisfies the inner man.
Charles Webster Leadbeater, The Masters and the Path (1925) (Speaking about the Four Noble Truths)
It is doubtful whether we may name any weak thing as typically spiritual.
Alice Meynell, John Ruskin (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1900), p. 78
A physical man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot get to know [them], because they are examined spiritually. However, the spiritual man examines indeed all things, but he himself is not examined by any man.
Paul of Tarsus, 1 Corinthians 2:14,15
These things we also speak, not with words taught by human wisdom, but with those taught by [the] spirit, as we combine spiritual [matters] with spiritual [words].
Paul of Tarsus, 1 Corinthians 2:13
Everything spiritual is so individual that everyone should sense precisely with his heart what is particularly close to him and follow this path. I am so fond of a statement in the Bagavad Gita, this finest pearl of the Eastern writings, that I never tire of repeating it, and so I shall quote it to you as well. "Man comes to Me by various paths, but by whatever path man comes to Me, on that path I welcome him, for all paths are Mine."
Helena Roerich, Letters II, (11 September 1937)
I, at any rate, acknowledge only one master, not forty-five million two-legged sheep, or two thousand million, but simply and absolutely the spirit.
Olaf Stapledon, Sirius (1944)
Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing. Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don't let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it.
If there is truly nothing that you can do to change your here and now, and you can't remove yourself from the situation, then accept your here and now totally by dropping all inner resistance. The false, unhappy self that loves feeling miserable, resentful, or sorry for itself can then no longer survive. This is called surrender. Surrender is not weakness. There is great strength in it. Only a surrendered person has spiritual power.
Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (1997) p. 56
Many people are already aware of the difference between spirituality and religion. They realize that having a belief system, a set of thoughts that you regard as the absolute truth – does not make you spiritual no matter what the nature of those beliefs is. In fact, the more you make your thoughts (beliefs) into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself.
Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (2005)
The new spirituality, the transformation of consciousness, is arising to a large extent outside of the structures of the existing institutionalized religions. There were always pockets of spirituality even in mind dominated religions, although the institutionalized hierarchies felt threatened by them and often tried to suppress them. A large scale opening of spirituality outside of the religious structures is an entirely new development. In the past, this would have been inconceivable, especially in the West, the most mind dominated of all cultures, where the Christian church had a virtual franchise on spirituality. You couldn't just stand up and give a spiritual talk or publish a spiritual book unless you were sanctioned by the church, and if you were not, they would quickly silence you.
Partly as a result of the spiritual teachings that have arisen outside the established religions, but also due to an influx of the ancient Eastern wisdom teachings, a growing number of followers of traditional religions are able to let go of identification with form, dogma, and rigid belief systems and discover the original depth that is hidden within their own spiritual tradition at the same time as they discover the depth within themselves. They realize that how "spiritual" you are has nothing to do with what you believe but everything to do with your state of consciousness. This, in turn, determines how you act in the world and interact with others.
The one who is not at home, he is wandering outside. Similarly, the one is not in the worldly life he is wandering around the religion.
Dada Bhagwan in Mukherjee, Subhadeep and Bhattacharjee, Soumendra and Singha, Seema, Religious to Spiritual Tourism - An Era of Paradigm Shift in India (February 15, 2020) p. 428 Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3546903 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3546903
Ageless Wisdom teachings
Four Noble Truths
Look up Spirituality in Wiktionary, the free dictionary
At Wikiversity, you can learn about:
Spirituality in India - A Cultural Perspective at Wikibooks
Development Cooperation Handbook/Interviews/Sadhguru#Spirituality is inclusiveness at Wikibooks
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I need an easy going, fun person to hang with three fun little guys. Monday through Friday 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm. Occasional more hours available based on meetings that I have to attend. Dinner will always be ready, and you can honestly study while they play, do homework or practice their instruments.


Eliminates string trees for better tuning.
With different string post heights, each string gets ideal downward tension behind the nut. No need for string tree hold-downs or their interference with vibratos.
Vintage-style stamped gear housings, oval metal knobs and smooth, precise operation.
"I've had these on my Strat for nearly 10 years, and couldn't be happier. Eliminating the string tree improved my tuning stability, even with a tremolo."
Set of 6 includes mounting screws and knurled press-fit bushings.
The bushings are too small for a fender classic player (mexico) neck. About 1/3 of the concave profile on the tuning shaft is below the face of the bushing when installed.
I wanted to eliminate string trees like the Eric Johnson Strat on my John Mayer Strat and also benefit from the 15:1 ratio. These dropped right in and are nice and snug. I cannot believe the tuning improvement! I put on new strings and the guitar was keeping tune in no time! Awesome product!
These dropped straight in to the footprint of the Gotoh Kluson style tuners on my Fender Custom Shop '56 strat. No drilling, filling, reaming. They work great, too!
I love these tuners! I have always loved the vintage style tuners, due to their simplicity, clean looks, & the wire fed through the center hole. Gotoh takes it a step further & staggers the post height to eliminate the need for string trees! I love this design & use it as often as I can. These are the easiest to install & perform the best, in my opinion. Just an added tip, make sure your hole spacing is drilled perfectly, there is hardly any room for errors when installing these.
These are excellent they give you a much better angle from the nut to the tuners you don't even need a string retainer, I put them on my Tele AVRI, they are machined very well no slipping. I will be a return customer here fast delivery and they have everything you need, Thanks Stew Mac.
Best staggered tuners for a Strat IMO. So far I have not installed string trees. Going to see how they perform after some playing and then I will decide if I need to install a string tree for the B/E string combo. I do believe a properly made nut, with minimal slot depth is the key here.
These are great, tight, accurate tuners. I will be replacing the tuners with the Gotoh's on all of my telecasters. Great product.
They look great; imagine that, no string trees! I still like and use the regular Kluson style tuners with a string tree or two, but having some guitars without them is a beautiful option to put in the mix.
Amazing Tuning Stability on my CP 60s Strat!
Man these tuners are so good they nearly put themselves on. I had a standard vintage Gotoh set on the guitar but ended up with the G and B strings always going out of tune after barely any play. Now that I have removed the string tree and gone over the string nut slots with Big Bends Nut Sauce again(not to much)my CP 60's Strat sounds better than ever.


Optimization can drastically change the way your websites load. Poorly optimized sites load slowly and aren't very nice to look at for the users. Well optimized sites load quickly and provide the user with the content they need. There's lots of different ways to optimize site performance. You can optimize apache, mysql, PHP, and even your HTML code.
One thing people often overlook when optimizing a site is the CSS. Blogging Pro takes a look at four different CSS optimization tools. I, for one, have never really thought of optimizing CSS. I just don't think it's really ever occurred to me, I need to work on learning CSS before I get into optimization. But, there's tools to do the optimizing for you, go check out the article at Blogging Pro.


Bry-Air, Inc. environmental control systems allow for consistent control to efficiently prevent the effects of moisture damage in the marine industry.
Humidity problems in the marine industry are a constant battle. Moisture causes damage during new construction, attacks vulnerable interior surfaces during sandblasting, damages engine parts and causes millions of dollars worth of damage to moisture sensitive cargo.
Better quality and faster shipping periods are being demanded today as more and more new markets are being tapped by manufacturers and exporters. The time lag between a ship arriving at the port with a particular cargo and leaving with another is getting shorter and shorter. At the same time there is also a demand that the ship's holds are clean and dry before a new cargo is loaded. These concerns, coupled with the fact that weather conditions are rarely perfect for efficient and quick drying of tanks and holds, means that today's shipping companies must consider desiccant dehumidification as the most efficient option to avoid humidity related delays, contamination and loss of business.
Ocean-going vessels such as oil rigs and oil tankers are often stored for long periods of time during which they frequently become damaged due to corrosion. Dehumidification can effectively eliminate corrosion and prevent millions of dollars in maintenance and refurbishing costs. All sandblasting and coating/painting operations must utilize 100% fresh air for safety reasons. The presence of moisture in the air can cause rusting (blushing) and adhesion problems in the application of the coating. Again, dehumidification eliminates these problems and speeds up the process. Controlled dry air maintains a clean surface, free from condensation, for optimal corrosion prevention.
Another humidity concern is the fact that cargo has a tendency to "sweat" when it is colder than the humid air in the cargo hold. As a result it can condense moisture from the air resulting in rust spots, stained labels, dull finish and soggy cartons.
This is particularly true of moisture sensitive cargoes such as tobacco, fine chemicals, coils, aluminum and steel sheet, furniture, canned goods, cocoa, coffee beans, etc.. The use of a Bry-Air, Inc. desiccant dehumidifier to dry the cargo hold will completely eliminate these problems and allow the ship to arrive in port with the cargo dry and intact.
Using the above formula, the dehumidifier will take about three weeks to dry the ship to desired conditions after which the unit only has to run 2-3 hours per day to maintain conditions.
Prevention of damage to sensitive mechanical and electronic equipment.
Elimination of corrosion of stored components and machine parts in shaft galleys and pipe galleries.
Reduction in drying time of ship holds.
Prevention of cargo damage due to excessive humidity.
Bry-Air, Inc. has supplied many dehumidifiers to the marine industry and military for ship mothballing, equipment storage, sandblasting, coating, and cargo hold drying.


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Tag Archives: The Sahara and Sahel in Africa
Tipping Points for Runaway Climate Change, Part Two
Capitalism, Climate Change, Collapse of Industrial Civilization, Corporate State, David Wasdell, Desertification, Dr. Jonathan Overpeck, Ecological Overshoot, Economic Collapse, Environmental Collapse, Going to Extremes: Climate Change and the Increasing Risk of Weather Disasters, James Hansen, Mass Die Off, Michael E. Mann, The Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation (THC), The El Nino Southern Oscillation, The Indian Summer Monsoon, The Sahara and Sahel in Africa
You don't want to push the system past those kind of tipping points because, if we do, we leave a situation for our children and grandchildren that will be out of their control. They won't be able to stop it.
This post is the second in the climate tipping points series. Part one is here. Before getting into some of the other tipping points, I want to mention an excellent new paper, Going to Extremes: Climate Change and the Increasing Risk of Weather Disasters, written by Dr. Jonathan Overpeck, Professor of Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona. It encapsulates a lot of pertinent information explaining the new reality of extreme weather events which humans will have to contend with from here on out.
Scientists warn that global warming may threaten global food security as the changing climate could fundamentally affect humanity's collective ability to feed itself. Although an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may initially promote plant growth, it does not necessarily translate into more food. Crops tend to grow more quickly in higher temperatures, leading to shorter growing periods and less time to produce grains. However, a changing climate will bring other, more significant hazards for agriculture, including greater water stress and the risk of higher temperature extremes that can quickly damage crops.
Agricultural impacts will vary across regions and by crop. Moderate warming and changes in precipitation are expected to decrease yield in seasonally dry and low-latitude areas. In California, where half the nation's fruit and vegetable crops are grown, climate change is projected to decrease yields of almonds, walnuts, avocados, and table grapes by up to 40% by 2050.
Scientists have determined that any benefits increased carbon dioxide for some crops will be largely outweighed by negative factors if global temperature rises more than 1.8°F (1.0°C) from late 20th century values. It is expected that for each degree of warming, yields of corn in the United States and Africa, and wheat in India, will drop by 5-15%. In addition, if temperatures rise 9°F (5°C), most regions of the world would experience yield losses and global grain prices would potentially double…
…[The] NOAA recently concluded, after looking through 50 years of weather data, that droughts like the record 2011 Texas drought was made "roughly 20 times more likely" because of global warming. Indeed, observations have shown that certain extremes—high heat, heavy precipitation and floods, duration and intensity of droughts and extremes related to higher sea levels—have increased over the last half of the century.
Continuing on the list of Lenton's and Schellnhuber's tipping points…
6.) The Sahara and Sahel in Africa could change dramatically, becoming either far more dry or far more wet, as ocean temperature and vegetation-climate feedbacks change within a decade or so. This is considered an "intermediately sensitive" tipping point with large uncertainty.
Desertification and lower rainfalls with infrequent torrential floods from a warming climate is the clear winner according to studies:
One of the most significant climatic variations in the African Sahel since the late 1960s has been the persistent decline in rainfall. The Sahel is characterized by strong climatic variations and an irregular rainfall that ranges between 200mm and 600 mm with coefficients of variation ranging from 15 to 30% (Fox and Rockström, 2003; Kandji et al., 2006). A rainfall decrease of 29-49% has been observed in the 1968-1997 period compared to the 1931-1960 baseline period within the Sahel region (McCarthy et al., 2001). The West Africa region has experienced a marked decline in rainfall from 15 to 30% depending on the area (Niasse, 2005). The trend was abruptly interrupted by a return of adequate rainfall conditions in 1994. This was considered to be the wettest year of the past 30 years and was thought to perhaps indicate the end of the drought. Unfortunately, dry conditions returned after 1994 (McCarthy et al., 2001).
The rainfall variability in Africa has been studied by numerous authors since the beginning of the recent drought period in the 1970s. Many studies focused on the Sahelian areas ( Farmer, 1988; Lamb & Peppier, 1992; Hulme, 1992). Others also compared Sahelian rainfall with rainfall over other West African and Central Afrcan rregions (Thompson et al. 1985; Buishand, 1984).
(click on pic to go to original full story)…
Nigeria's climate of violence | RTCC – Responding to Climate Change
Impacts of climate change
Eminent scientist, Sir Gordon Conway, the former chief scientific adviser to the British Department for International Development and the former President of the Rockefeller Foundation said that Africa is already warming up faster than the global average and that the continent will experience a greater amount of intense droughts, floods and storm surges as a result…
…While there are many facets to climate change in Africa, in the case of central Nigeria it is important to look at food, water and migration. The environmental concerns in the Delta region and rising water levels across the south coast present challenges in themselves and would require an article in themselves.
Food crisis
Climate change threatens the ability of West Africa to compete in the global food system. An increase in temperature will undoubtedly reduce yields in a region where the population is set to double within the next two decades. Some projections claim that crop production will drop by 50% within the same timeframe as this population boom.
Nigerian food producers do not have the capacity to deal with such climate or population fluctuations. Consequently food availability in many regions will be dangerously compromised leading to greater competition for resources.
In addition to the concerns of food production, the availability of water in the Sahel reached crisis levels several times in recent years. In 2010 the region suffered a widespread famine, partially as a result of water shortages, and is now in the midst of an ongoing drought that has affected 18 million people.
Debates continue to rage over the future of Sahelian water as some project a decrease in rainfall of 40 percent in a region beset by drought already. Others have posited that rainfall may increase the Sahel but that such a change would likely lead to an infestation of locusts the like of which have been destroying farmland in Mali and Niger in recent weeks. When the rains do arrive the cities in the region are often unable to deal with them, evidenced by yesterday's lethal flooding in Jos which has killed at least 35 people.
While future projections of waterfall vary, there is no doubting the present and impending threats from desertification.
Desertification is the most egregious form the temperature increase has taken as much of the Sahel is already suffering from climate-induced drought. Approximately 1,350 square miles of Nigerian land turns to desert each year. To put it in perspective, that is over twice the size of Greater London becoming impossible to farm each year. This leads to both farmers and herdsmen having to abandon their homes to move to an area with more abundant resources.
Migration crisis and conflict
Encroaching deserts do not merely mean water scarcity and a threat to food security but also mass migration. The direct competition for resources has the potential to become more acute in several regions of Nigeria and beyond in West Africa.
An example would be the millions of Malians and Burkinabes in Cote d'Ivoire as a result of the Sahelian droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. When the use of migrant labour lost its appeal to Cote d'Ivoire amidst the conflicts of the 1990s it set the course for outside interests to have a major impact on internal conflicts. Migration disputes continue between the two countries to this day including a substantial impact upon the Ivorian crisis of 2010-11.
As the Sahel continues to dry up as a result of climate change, the land can no longer support the animal stocks required by herders to survive. Since the only useful land to the herders is to the south of the desert, they move their herds towards the agricultural regions populated by sedentary farmers. Naturally, the destruction of crops by the herds creates tensions between those moving the animals and those who struggle to grow enough food for themselves in an increasingly unforgiving climate.
The policy solutions up to this point have focused on short-term political factors leading to knee-jerk responses to the violence. Communities in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Nigeria have expelled Fulani herders. The existential threat is forcing the Fulani to fight back.
A refusal to acknowledge the role that climate change has played in the region has led to a failure of governance. Such forced relocations are merely postponing the problem for a future government rather than trying to fix it. In this sense the agricultural policies in Nigeria have become a microcosm for climate policy.
In the case of Nigeria poor governance as a result of political short-termism has exacerbated the food crisis, the catalyst for migration issues. Until the 1970s agriculture made up 60% of Nigeria's GDP. Since then technological stagnation, myopic policies and corruption have turned the country into a net importer at a cost of $150 billion each year. The $500 million allocated to agriculture in the 2012 budget could be enough to facilitate the needs of the country if spent wisely. Some have even argued that Nigeria has the capacity to be the breadbasket for the whole of West Africa.
Politics of inaction
Political short-termism has blighted Plateau State both in terms of local politicians and the global response to climate change. The sudden explosions of conflict in the region have been predicted for decades. Despite the upsurge in brutal violence, the policies remain largely the same.
With roughly 40% of Africa now affected by desertification, solutions will have to come soon. One such solution is the 'Green Wall', a wall of trees 4,300 miles long and 9 miles wide stretching across the African continent from Senegal to Djibouti. The idea has been advocated by West African leaders for over 30 years but has only now been realised.
Erecting walls has rarely provided a long-term solution to conflict. It is unlikely to do so for climate change.
7.) The El Nino Southern Oscillation, occurring across the tropical Pacific Ocean roughly every five years, refers to patterns of warming and cooling in the Pacific Ocean that affect weather worldwide. It could within 100 years change to a persistent warm or cool pattern, or change so that warm El Nino patterns are more intense, leading to more intense droughts in some areas, and likelihood of flooding elsewhere. This is considered an "intermediately sensitive" tipping point with large uncertainty.
Kevin Trenberth, Senior Scientist in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), suggests that we are seeing changes in El Nino:
There's another elephant in the room: the long-term influence of greenhouse gases. "In my view, El Niño and La Niña are very likely changing as a consequence of climate change, but such changes cannot be measured when you get only one event every three to seven years," says Trenberth. "The natural variability is enough to make it impossible to determine a climate change signal." Still, he adds, when it comes to El Niño and La Niña, it's best not to assume that past performance is any guarantee of future results.
This year El Nino was pretty much nonexistent, turning into La Nada:
8.) The Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) is a global 3-dimensional belt of ocean currents that transports large amounts of heat and freshwater around the world. In the North Atlantic, it manifests in a meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) which, through its northward transport of warm tropical waters by the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current, ensures these warm waters reach Europe.
The THC could collapse within 100 years as warming of the oceans alters water density and disrupts the global circulation of the seas. This is considered a "lowly sensitive" tipping point, with intermediate uncertainty.
from 'Abrupt Climate Change' (Lead Author: Thomas L. Delworth,* NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ):
…AMOC and the likelihood of future changes in the AMOC in response to increasing greenhouse gases, including the possibility of abrupt change.
We have five primary findings:
• It is very likely that the strength of the AMOC will decrease over the course of the 21st century in response to increasing greenhouse gases, with a best estimate decrease of 25-30%.
• Even with the projected moderate AMOC weakening, it is still very likely that on multidecadal to century time scales a warming trend will occur over most of the European region downstream of the North Atlantic Current in response to increasing greenhouse gases, as well as over North America.
• No current comprehensive climate model projects that the AMOC will abruptly weaken or collapse in the 21st century. We therefore conclude that such an event is very unlikely. Further, an abrupt collapse of the AMOC would require either a sensitivity of the AMOC to forcing that is far greater than current models suggest or a forcing that greatly exceeds even the most aggressive of current projections (such as extremely rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet). However, we cannot completely exclude either possibility.
• We further conclude it is unlikely that the AMOC will collapse beyond the end of the 21st century because of global warming, although the possibility cannot be entirely excluded.
• Although our current understanding suggests it is very unlikely that the AMOC will collapse in the 21st century, the potential consequences of such an event could be severe. These would likely include sea level rise around the North Atlantic of up to 80 centimeters (in addition to what would be expected from broad-scale warming of the global ocean and changes in land-based ice sheets due to rising CO2), changes in atmospheric circulation conditions that influence hurricane activity, a southward shift of tropical rainfall belts with resulting agricultural impacts, and disruptions to marine ecosystems.
9.) The Indian summer monsoon, which is needed to sustain crops, could collapse anytime as land-to-ocean pressure gradients change with pollution and warming patterns. That could lead to an "erratic" fluctuation that would "chaotically change between an active and a weak phase." This is considered an "intermediately sensitive" tipping point with large uncertainty.
(click to go to story…)
Crops in India Wilt in a Weak Monsoon Season – The New York Times
A looming drought is manageable. Long term changes to the monsoon might be catastrophic.
THE dizzying midday heat of India's northern plains cracks the earth. Farmers slump on the charpoys on which they sleep outdoors. It should be raining, yet the sky is clear. Prithi Singh, lean and wrinkled, says his entire rice crop has withered, along with fields sown for fodder. After two summers of erratic and delayed monsoons, this year the rains simply failed…
The monsoon months, June to September, bring three-quarters of India's annual rainfall. Official studies show it to be erratic in four out of every ten years. Yet farmers rarely get any useful warning of shortfalls. As recently as late June, India's meteorologists were predicting a normal monsoon. Punjab and Haryana, two north-western agricultural states, now say rains are about 70% below average.
Six western states have issued drought warnings.
The government in Delhi says it may soon offer emergency help. The country remains predominantly rural: over 600m out of 1.24 billion Indians rely directly on farming. Nearly two-thirds of Indian fields are fed only by rain. A one-off drought is tolerable. Rural job-creation schemes have lifted incomes for the poorest. Food prices have only started to creep up. Granaries are overflowing, thanks to recent bumper crops.
What is disturbing, though, are tentative signs of long-term change to the summer rains. A less stable monsoon pattern would be harder to predict. It would arrive late more often, yield less water, become more sporadic, or dump rain in shorter, more destructive bursts (which happened two years ago in Pakistan, where the Indus basin disastrously flooded). The concerns of experts about the monsoon long predate today's dry spell.
Too little is known about summer weather systems on the subcontinent. India is short of observation stations, weather planes, satellites, climate scientists and modellers. The government and foreign donors are scrambling to make amends. But even with better data, monsoons are ill-understood once they leave the sea or low-lying land. At altitude, notably, for instance, approaching the Himalayas, it is far trickier to grasp just how factors such as wind direction, air pressure, latent heating and moisture levels interact to deliver monsoon rains.
One trend looks clear: India has grown warmer over the past six decades. Glaciers are melting in the Himalayas, and orchards in the range's valleys are being planted on ever-higher slopes in search of a temperate climate. Crops in the northern grain belt, notably wheat, are near their maximum tolerance to heat, and so are vulnerable to short-term blasts of higher temperatures. North India's cities are also growing hotter.
How more warmth affects the monsoon is not straightforward. A land mass heating faster than the oceans will, in theory, draw in more moisture to produce heavier monsoons. Yet the reverse appears to be happening. Specialists who met in February in Pune, in Maharashtra state, reported a 4.5% decline in monsoon rain in the three decades to 2009.
India's leading climate modeller, R. Krishnan, of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, points to a study showing a "steady decline" in rainfall on the Western Ghats, which run down the west coast. A Japanese model that he has applied to southern India predicts that a still more rapid decline in rainfall is likely.
Such a fall may matter little for states such as Kerala in the south, which gets a monthly drenching of 50 centimetres (20 inches) during the wet season. But Mr Krishnan notes other changes, notably evidence that far fewer depressions have formed in the Bay of Bengal, off India's east coast, in recent summers. Since these help drive rain to India's arid northern plains, he concludes that "there is every reason to be concerned about the monsoon."…
…Yet a decline in average rainfall may not be the main worry. Experts who met in Delhi in May to discuss climate-induced "extreme events" in India suggest that likelier threats include more short and devastating downpours and storms, more frequent floods and droughts, longer consecutive dry days within monsoons, more rapid drying of the soil as the land heats, and a greater likelihood that plant and animal diseases might spread.
It does not bode well for farmers, or for crammed cities with poor sewerage and other rotten infrastructure. Slums and coastal cities look especially vulnerable. Mumbai was overwhelmed in 2005 when nearly a metre of rain was dumped on the city in 24 hours.
Such events will happen more often, the highest official in the country's environment ministry warns. He wants urgently to bring about a big increase in insurance schemes that spread weather-related risks. Rajendra Pachauri, who leads the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, worries that India is not yet even seriously debating the new threats. He says it is ill-prepared for floods and droughts "that are now considered once-in-every-20-years events, but will be happening once in two years.
Part three of climate tipping points will be posted in a week or two.
"Capitalism has the innate genius of being inexorably driven to destroy everything it encounters, in order to turn it into money. 'Creative destruction' -the creation of money through the destruction of life. It is reaching its absolutely inevitable apotheosis now."
~ Mulga Mumblebrain
Capitalism has unleashed the real weapon of mass destruction…


Style: A Julia shoulder style carpet bag in a woven patchwork style fabric with a variety of floral patterns in various pastel shades. Fully lined with a faux suede in fawn with one zipped internal pocket. Two external pockets on each side of the bag. Handle loops in black leather with braided handles in black, and a Gladstone bag style closure (7'' frame).


There aren't many places we go in public nowadays that are "off the grid." Cameras track our movements through a myriad of applications — store security (inside and out), ATM transactions, traffic cams, you name it.
Who hasn't seen crime procedurals on television where a suspect's movements are tracked across town from one camera feed to the next. If it is on TV it must be true, right?
Until recent times, such camera systems were hardwired to some sort of analog monitoring system. These systems were mostly self-contained and reasonably secure.
More prevalent today are wireless setups, where each camera has its own IP (Internet Protocol) address and can stream video directly to a remote network device that manages the camera and its recording schedule.
Just as hackers can wreak havoc by finding and tapping into unsecured computers through IP addresses, the same can be done with cameras that don't have the proper security protocols in place.
He also noted that IP devices come with easy-to-follow instructions to set onboard security that, when done properly, will lock out uninvited intruders. Unfortunately, many camera owners never bother to take the few minutes necessary to do so.
Connor followed up by searching for and tapping into unsecured cameras worldwide, from small villages in far-away places to doctors' offices to aquarium tanks.
Among the cameras he accessed were three red-light cameras in an unnamed Texas town. The lack of IP security enabled Connor to change the camera settings which, thankfully, he didn't follow through with.
As if we didn't need another reason to oppose red-light and speed cameras.