According to awikipedia article: "... Hurricane Katrina is ... the costliestnatural disaster in U.S. history (estimates run higher than $100billion). Over a million people were displaced ... a seconddisturbance merged with the remains of Tropical Depression Ten onAugust 20 [ 2005 ], and there is no way to tell whether theremnants of T.D. Ten should be credited with this storm. ... onAugust 28, Katrina was upgraded to Category 4. Later that morning,Katrina went through a period of rapid intensification, with itsmaximum sustained winds strengthening to 175 mph (280 km/h) (wellabove the Category 5 threshold of 156 mph (250 km/h)), gusts of 215mph (344 km/h) and central pressure of 23.635 inches (906 mbar) (hPa)by 1:00 p.m. CDT. It later reached a minimum pressure of 902 mbar(hPa), making it the fourth most intense Atlantic Basin hurricane onrecord. ...
... Katrina made landfall on August 29 as a Category 4 hurricanewith winds of 140 mph at 6:10 a.m. CDT near Buras-Triumph, Louisiana.A few hours later, it made landfall for a third time near theLouisiana/Mississippi border with 125 mph (200 km/h) Category 3winds. ... Its lowest minimum pressure at landfall was 27.108 inches(918 mbar) (hPa), making it the third strongest hurricane on recordto make landfall on the United States. A 15 to 30 foot (5 to 9 m)storm surge came ashore on virtually the entire coastline fromLouisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to Florida. The 30 foot (10 m)storm surge recorded at Biloxi, Mississippi is the highest everobserved in America. ...
... as many as 60,000 people had gathered at the Superdome forevacuation ... [ Superdome image fromGlobalSecurity.org Public Eye Orbimage ...
...]... Air conditioning, electricity, and running water allfailed, making for very unsanitary and uncomfortable conditions.There have been widespread reports of murders, rapes, beatings,robberies, and general mayhem in the Superdome ... mainstream U.S.media have omitted the more serious reports ... Officials say thatthe flood damage, debris, human waste and bodily fluids in theSuperdome is a "potential biohazard," and that it is too early totell what the final fate of the structure will be, althoughdemolition has been cited as a possible outcome. ...
... Over 70 countries have pledged money or other assistance,including Cuba and Venezuela ... Mexico ... contributed two militaryships, helicopters, military equipment, hundreds of tons of food,bottled water, medical personnel and hundreds of troops (it is thefirst time Mexican soldiers have operated on U.S. soil since theMexican-American War) ...".
According to a31 Aug 05 BBC web article: "... Water from Lake Pontchartrain...
...[was].. pouring into New Orleans after the failedattempts to plug breaches in the barriers which are supposed toprotect the city. ...".
According to a 5Sep 05 MSNBC AP web article: "... The network that was supposedto protect the below-sea-level city from flooding was built towithstand a Category 3 hurricane, the Army Corps of Engineers said.It was overwhelmed when Katrina's winds and storm surge came ashore aweek ago as a Category 4 storm. That has left some lawmakerswondering why officials only considered the consequences of amoderate storm. ...".
According to a1 Sep 05 The Interdictor blog entry: "... "Bigfoot" is a barmanager and DJ on Bourbon Street, and is a local personality and iconin the city. ... Here is his story as told to me moments ago. ...
... more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in weapons being aimed at them. ... Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint. ... there has been at least one murder and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the area, and 2 of these dead people are kids. ... Before the supplies were pitched off the bridge today, people had to break into buildings in the area to try to find food and water for their families. There was not enough. This spurred many families to break into cars to try to escape the city. There was no police response to the auto thefts until the mob reached the rich area -- Saulet Condos -- once they tried to get cars from there... well then the whole swat teams began showing up with rifles pointed. Snipers got on the roof and told people to get back. ...".
According to a 13 September 2005 WashingtonTimes web article by Wesley Pruden: "... Democrats in Louisianaare terrified of the lasting effects of the hurricane and subsequentflooding ... of something really serious, the loss of their remainingstronghold in the black precincts of New Orleans. ... "It would nottake a large shift of population out of New Orleans to tilt thepolitical balance in favor of the Republican Party," Jim Nickel, theformer Democratic state chairman in Louisiana, tells the FinancialTimes. "Although there are large African American populations inother Southern states, they have not been as concentrated andorganized in a large metropolitan area. New Orleans has been averitable ATM machine of votes for the Democratic Party." ... Floodshave changed demographics before. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927sent thousands of blacks from the delta counties in Mississippi,Arkansas and Louisiana to Detroit and Chicago. This erased thepolitical power of the planters, who typically kept their fieldhands' poll-tax receipts in the plantation safe, to be brought out onelection day with precise instructions on how to vote, and for whom....".
According to a7 April 1997 Salon web article by James Carville: "... I grew upon the Mississippi, in a one-stop-sign town by the name of Carville,La. ... John M. Barry's "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of1927 and How It Changed America" is the best book I've read in years.... Levees allowed the river to spill out well beyond its banks,while still holding it to a predictable channel. Levees had anotherbenefit as well: Confining the flooding river would speed up itscurrent; the faster current, in turn, would gouge out the river's bedand lower the water level in the future. ... would the faster currentcarve out enough to prevent big-time floods? That was thebillion-dollar question. ... [Some engineers] knew leveesalone could not work. ...[However, the powers-that-beadopted]... a cockamamie levees-only policy. ... The levees-onlypolicy was not an immediate bust. For several generations it workedwell enough to allow some of the South's most fabled families toreclaim the rich soils of the Mississippi Delta and build huge cottonempires. ... But a flooding river does not err. It finds each crackand exploits it. That's what happened in spades in '27. The firstcracks showed up in the levees. ... Then the river exploited thelogical gaps in the levees-only strategy. Because the scouring effectwas not that big after all, the river threatened to pour over the topeven of intact levees. For most people, the only hope of avoiding thefloodwaters was a sudden crevasse on the opposite side of the river.And not everyone was content to leave the matter up to chance. Localspatrolled every stretch of levee with guns -- and shot on sightanyone who approached close enough to plant a few sticks of dynamite.... As the flood waters started approaching New Orleans, theclose-knit cabal of New Orleans bankers who ran Louisiana from theirexclusive krewes and clubs decided they were going to save their ownskins by dynamiting a levee about 10 miles from the city. They werepowerful enough that they didn't even need to do it under the coverof night -- they got the governor to sign an order making theoperation legal. On the afternoon of April 29, 1927, workers startedblowing a massive hole in that levee. As New Orleans aristocratswatched from their yachts, the river buried St. Bernard andPlaquemines parishes under 30 feet of water. ... the Great Flood ...swept ... Huey Long to the Louisiana statehouse. It leveled aself-serving aristocracy. ...
... While today it is damn near impossible to name a single famous engineer, in the 19th century engineers were masters of the universe -- with egos every bit as outsized as today's Wall Street bigwigs. ...".
With respect to China, according to anEpoch Times web article in 2005e "... The following is atranscript of a speech believed to have been given by Mr. ChiHaotian, Minster of Defense and vice-chairman of China's CentralMilitary Commission. Independently verifying the authorship of thespeech is not possible. It is worth reading because it is believed toset out
Text of the speech:
... Hitler's Germany had once bragged that the German race was the most superior race on Earth, but the fact is, our nation is far superior to the Germans. ... Our Chinese people are wiser than the Germans because, fundamentally, our race is superior to theirs. ...... After the June 4 [ 1989 Tiananmen Square ] riot was suppressed, we have been thinking about how to prevent China from peaceful evolution and how to maintain the Communist Party's leadership. We thought it over and over but did not come up with any good ideas. If we do not have good ideas, China will inevitably change peacefully, and we will all become criminals in history. ... we finally come to this conclusion: Only by turning our developed national strength into the force of a fist striking outward - only by leading people to go out - can we win forever the Chinese people's support ... Therefore, the June 4 riot made us realize that we must combine economic development with preparation for war and leading the people to go out! Therefore ... Publicly we still emphasize economic development as our center, but in reality, economic development has war as its center! We have made a tremendous effort to construct "The Great Wall Project" to build up, along our coastal and land frontiers as well as around large and medium-sized cities, a solid underground "Great Wall" that can withstand a nuclear war. We are also storing all necessary war materials. Therefore, we will not hesitate to fight a Third World War ... If we take the long view, we will see that history led us on this path. ...
- First, China's long history has resulted in the world's largest population, including Chinese in China as well as overseas ...
- Second ... the profit-seeking western capitalists will invest capital and technology in China to assist our development ...
- Third, our numerous overseas Chinese help us create the most favorable environment for the introduction of foreign capital ...
- Fourth, China's great economic expansion will inevitably lead to the shrinkage of per-capita living space for the Chinese people ...
- Fifth, China's great economic expansion will inevitably come with a significant development in our military forces, creating conditions for our expansion overseas. ...
... Would the United States allow us to go out to gain new living space? ... Only countries like the United States, Canada and Australia have the vast land to serve our need for mass colonization. ... Therefore, solving the "issue of America" is the key to solving all other issues. ... America was originally discovered by the ancestors of the yellow race ... We the descendents of the Chinese nation are entitled to the possession of the land! ... It is historical destiny that China and United States will come into unavoidable confrontation on a narrow path and fight each other! ... In the long run, the relationship of China and the United States is one of a life-and-death struggle. ... The United States is the most successful country in the world today. Only after we have learned all of its useful experiences can we replace it in the future. ...
one mountain does not allow two tigers to live together ... after solving the "issue of America," the western countries in Europe would bow to us, not to mention to Taiwan, Japan and other small countries
... Comrade Xiaoping emphasized "refrain from revealing the ambitions and put others off the track." ... Thus we will understand why we constantly talk loudly about the "Taiwan issue" but not the "American issue." We all know the principle of "doing one thing under the cover of another." ... If, however, the attack ... triggers a nuclear retaliation from the United States, China would perhaps suffer a catastrophe in which more than half of its population would perish. ... The population, even if more than half dies, can be reproduced. But if the Party falls, everything is gone, and forever gone! ...
... we recently decided to further promulgate atheism. If we let theology from the West into China and empty us from the inside, if we let all Chinese people listen to God and follow God, who will obediently listen to us and follow us? ...
... It is indeed brutal to kill one or two hundred million Americans. But that is the only path that will secure a Chinese century ... the majority of those Chinese living in the United States have become our burden, because they have been corrupted by the bourgeois liberal values for a long time and it would be difficult for them to accept our Party's leadership. If they survived the war, we would have to launch campaigns in the future to deal with them, to reform them. ...
... The central committee believes, as long as we resolve the United States problem at one blow, our domestic problems will all be readily solved. Therefore, our military battle preparation appears to aim at Taiwan, but in fact is aimed at the United States, and the preparation is far beyond the scope of attacking aircraft carriers or satellites. ...".
According to a 15July 2005 MSNBC AP web article: "... Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, adean at China's National Defense University, told visiting HongKong-based reporters ... "If the Americans draw their missiles andposition-guided ammunition into the target zone on China'sterritory, I think we will have to respond with nuclearweapons ... If the Americans are determined to interfere ... wewill be determined to respond, and we Chinese will prepareourselves for the destruction of all cities east of Xi'an ... Ofcourse the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of, ortwo hundreds of, (or) even more cities will be destroyed by theChinese ...". ... China has a "no first strike" nuclear policy,but ... Zhu said he believed that applied to non-nuclear powers andcould be changed. ... The general said his comments were "myassessment, not the policy of the government ..." ...".
A gauge boson can physically be represented as a linkbetween the two fermions that emit and absorb the boson,and all the types of gauge bosons can be described aslinks between (or virtual pairs of) a first-generationfermion particle its antiparticle. Denote them,and their relation to the octonions, by: Octonionneutrino - n 1 antineutrino - anred down quark - rd I cyan down antiquark - cdgreen down quark - gd J magenta down antiquark - mdblue down quark - bd K yellow down antiquark - ydred up quark - rd i cyan up antiquark - cdgreen up quark - gd j magenta up antiquark - mdblue up quark - bd k yellow up antiquark - ydelectron - e E positron - pHere is a chart showing how fermion-antifermion pairscorrespond to:16 G - U(2,2) gauge bosons for MacDowell-Mansouri gravity etc8 gl - SU(3) gluons3 W - SU(2) weak bosons1 ph - U(1) photon an cd yd md cu yu mu pn - G G G G G G Wrd - gl gl gl G W Gbd - gl G ph G Ggd - W G gl Gru - gl gl Gbu - gl Ggu - Ge -Note that if you use triality to convert the fermion/antifermion8-dim half-spinor spaces into the 8-dim vector space,with basis {0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7 }having octonion structure {1,i,j,k,I,J,K,E }where {0,1,2,3 }is a basis for physical M spacetimeand {4,5,6,7 }is a basis for internal symmetry space CP2,you should get something like this: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 70 - G G G G G gl gl1 - G G G G gl gl2 - G G G gl gl3 - G G gl gl4 - G W W5 - W ph6 - G7 -As van Holten indicates in hep-th/0201124,there is a 1-1 correspondence between Y-M gauge bosons and ghosts. Inthe case of the 28-dimensional Spin(8) gauge group of theD4-D5-E6-E7-E8 VoDou Physics model,, the corresponding 28 ghostscan be regarded as antisymmetric pairs of 8 pre-ghosts, with one ofthe pre-ghosts in the pair being a particle and the other being anantiparticle. The 8 pre-ghosts are like the 8 gauge potentials thatform 28 gauge field bosons by antisymmetric wedge product. From thatviewpoint, you could say that the role of ghosts is played byfirst-generation fermion particle-antiparticle pairs, and that whenyou do path-integral sum-over-histories quantization you don't needto add ghosts in by hand, because virtual spinor fermionparticle-antiparticle pairs will do what is needed.
In my opinion, the triality relation for Spin(8), which identifieshalf-spinors with vectors is a natural relationship that makes itunnecessary to throw in ad-hoc ghosts when you quantize, thus makingCl(8) with triality uniquely useful for physics, and that is anindication that the 8-dim Clifford algebra structure is not onlybasic from the point of view of 8-periodicity, but is also basic formodelling a quantum theory of gauge group physics with ghosts.
From a more geometric point of view, if the BRST transformationacts like the nilpotent cohomology operator on the cohomology ofSpin(8), then, consider that Spin(8) cohommology looks like
S3 u S7 u S11 u S7
and
S7 is a fibre bundle made up of S3 and S4 = QP1 (quaternionicprojective space)
S11 is a fibre bundle made up of S3 and QP2 (quaternionicprojective plane).
The 28 ghosts for the 28 Spin(8) gauge bosons can be seen as:
Note that S3 u S3 u QP2 = S3 u S11 is the structure of G2, theautomorphism group of the octonions, and that the two S3 u QP1 = S77-spheres are each unit spheres in octonion space.
Since S3 looks like the quaternion unit sphere, and is generatedby an associative triple of octonions, and QP1 and QP2 are obviouslyquaternionic, it seems obvious to ask what happens to the octonionicSpin(8) or Clifford(8) theory when a particular quaternionic subspaceis frozen out, and that is exactly how in theD4-D5-E6-E7-E8 VoDou Physics model a M4xCP2 Kaluza-Klein spaceemerges at low temperatures (of our present world) from the fullhigh-temperature octonion 8-dim spacetime.