The Hype over the Volt

Vincent J. Curtis



9 January 2008

*The piece below was intended to be published in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, but never saw print.*

            Every so often environmentalists go stark raving mad.  In 1997, the Kyoto Treaty, a product of environmentalism gone mad, called for unrealistic reductions energy consumption, through government regulation, just as India and China grew into first world countries.  In 2000, fantasies about the hydrogen fuel cell exploded on the world with its false promises of an economic, pollution-free source of energy for cars and homes.  Now, General Motors is about to launch its own green machine; an electric car called the Volt. 

            The new, experimental GM Volt is a four passenger automobile powered by a lithium-ion battery supported by a 1000 cc gasoline engine.  The Volt is supposed to be Detroit’s near-zero emission car of the future. The Volt is the car environmentalists have claimed the big car makers have been hiding for nefarious reasons.  Humbug!

            Though I am sure the Volt is a nice car to drive and works perfectly in accordance with the specifications, electric cars have hidden economic and environmental costs that seriously limit their usefulness as a means of reducing pollution over-all.  These limitations are quite similar to those that make the hydrogen cell propelled car forever uneconomic and of questionable environmental value.

            The hydrogen fuel cell worked by the conversion of hydrogen and oxygen into water with nearly perfect conversion of the energy of that reaction into electricity.  The lithium ion cell of the Volt converts lithium into a lithium salt with the nearly perfect conversion of the energy of that reaction into electricity.  So far, so good.  The problem lies in regenerating that hydrogen and that lithium from water and lithium salt.  Regeneration requires the input of electric power from some outside source; that is, from the increasingly strained electric grid.

            The problem of regeneration does not occur in gasoline and diesel engines.  Internal combustion engines take fuel we found in the ground and simply burn it in a way that provides motive power.  The sun and the earth created this energy source for us millions of years ago, and we are simply taking advantage of the energy content of material we found in the earth.  We don’t try to regenerate it.

            Unlike combustion engines, the lithium cell and the hydrogen cell require that their fuel be regenerated.  Recharging, it is called.  While the lithium cell presents far fewer practical and engineering difficulties as a rechargeable power supply than the hydrogen cell, like the hydrogen cell it also uses electrical generation from outside itself to recharge   Therein lies the fundamental economic and environmental fallacy of the electric car.

            Let’s look at the fallacy in a small scale and then the large scale.  Let’s say the power goes out, and you have to recharge the car by connecting it to the gas-powered electric generator you keep for such emergencies.  Because of the losses inherent in energy conversions, it would have been a more efficient use of the gasoline to have burned it in a car engine to propel the car directly than to have used it to create the electricity to regenerate the lithium and then to use the lithium in order to propel the car.

            In fact, the Volt carries its own gas-powered generator.  A one litre gas-powered motor mounted in the Volt provides the car with on-board regenerating capacity for the lithium cell.  Plugging in the car at night merely relieves the gas tank of the Volt from supplying the chemical energy necessary to convert lithium salt back into useful lithium again.  If the power was out, and you didn’t have a gas powered generator, you could idle the car in the driveway until the lithium cell was recharged.

            On a large scale, suppose that electric cars become popular and lots of people buy them.  Where is the grid electricity going to come from for all these cars?  Well, to replace gasoline made from Alberta tar sand, the expansion of the electrical supply will have to come primarily from the burning of West Virginia coal and from nuclear reaction of Saskatchewan uranium.  If electric cars become popular, we will have to build more coal-burning and/or nuclear powered generating facilities to replace the Alberta tar sands we no longer use as liquid fuel.  Wind power and solar power are fantasies that cannot fill the gap in Ontario.

            Burning coal is a dirty business; nuclear generation is extremely capital intensive; and these hidden environmental and economic factors have to be considered when evaluating the overall advantages of electric powered cars like the GM Volt.

            The economy in driving a Volt lies in the fact that the car is driven by a 65 hp, 1000 cc engine, the performance of which is enhanced by a battery, so long as it lasts.

            Electric cars can be useful in reducing air pollution in dense urban areas where traffic is intensive, like New York, Los Angeles, and London.   A one liter motor creates less air pollution than a 2.2 litre motor; and the air pollution caused by the burning of coal for electrical power is created out of the downtown area in a facility designed to mitigate the pollution released.  Electric cars can be a small piece of the puzzle of solving certain, restricted air pollution problems.

            However, if you believe that man-created carbon dioxide is bad for the environment, and that nuclear power is next to nuclear weapons on the scale of evil, then you can only support the development of electric cars by hiding your eyes from the unintended consequences.  The Volt and cars like it will not take us on the road to environmental nirvana.

-          XXX –

Vincent J. Curtis was employed as a Research Scientist by the Ontario Research Foundation, and worked on high energy density batteries in the 1980s.

Budget Cuts Hit U.S. Military

Releases New Strategy Paper “in response to new global realities.”

Vincent J. Curtis



12 Jan12
 

Responding to the Budget Control Act of August, 2011, and to the failure of a Joint Congressional Committee to agree on some $1 trillion in budget cuts over ten years, the U.S. military is required by law to reduce its expenditures by $487 billion over the next ten years.  Without the cut, the U.S. Defense Department was expected to spend between $6,000 and $7,000 billion in that period.

In response to the projected cut, the Pentagon on January 5^th released a new strategy paper which maps out how the United States will maintain global dominance a period of reduced budgets and a smaller military.  The paper, released at a special press conference featuring President Obama, is entitled: “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for the 21^st Century.”

The usual political suspects in the United States are saying the expected things about a plan by President Obama to reduce the military budget.

The plan itself starts with a re-evaluation of long-term strategic threats to U.S. interests in the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It concludes that, at the head of a long list, Iran and China represent the threats which the U.S. military must plan for.  Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear device is seen as a threat directly to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, and indirectly to the world economy by Iranian control of the sea lanes in the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz.  Some 40 % of the world’s crude oil moves on gigantic oil tankers through those waters.

Reference in the paper is made to al Qaeda and its affiliates as a threat to U.S. interests, but the strategic plan is to avoid the use of large ground forces to control the threat as was done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

China is seen as a threat due to the belligerent rhetoric coming out of the Chinese military, the cold diplomacy employed by China’s government, and the ever bolder use of her growing naval and air forces.  China is foreseen as attempting an “anti-access and area denial” strategy against U.S. intervention in an arc from Japan to the Philippines to eastern India, an area which includes Taiwan, South Korea, and Vietnam.

India is seen as a potential strategic partner in the paper, and is praised as “a regional economic anchor and provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean region.”

What may be the motivation for the Chinese government’s apparent departure from the long Chinese tradition of contentment with being a regional power was not discussed in the paper.

To fit into a small budget, the U.S. military will reduce personnel.  It will lose up to half a million troops out of a current military of 1.6 million, largely coming out of the Army and Marine Corps.  There are presently 565,000 soldiers and 201,000 Marines on strength, and between 76,000 and 114,000 will be lost.  In addition, some costly procurement programs, such as the acquisition of the F-35, are at risk.  The U.S. is expected to draw down between 3,000 and 4,000 of the 80,000 troops that are presently stationed in Europe.

The U.S. will also reduce its nuclear stockpile.

However, a new long-range strategic bomber program has been confirmed.

The AirSea Battle concept is at the heart of the new strategy.  This new operational concept is intended “to prepare the U.S. and its allies to deter or defeat Chinese power,” according to Air Force Magazine.  The new concept is aimed at aiding Joint Operations between the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy, and to avoid duplication of effort.

The U.S. Air Force will seek to be able to revive on short notice operations on air bases abandoned long ago, such as on Saipan and Tinian in the Northern Marianas, U Tapao and Korat in Thailand, Clark Air Base in the Philippines, in Australia, Halim Air Base in Indonesia, and possibly Tan Son Nhut in Vietnam.  These would augment fully operational Air Bases presently on Guam, Hickam AFB on Hawaii, Osan and Kunsan in South Korea, Misawa and Yokota in Japan, in addition to the U.S. Naval base at Yokosuka and Sasebo in Japan.  The U.S.A.F. wants to be able to disperse operations quickly in the event of a surprise Chinese missile attack, and avoid a Pearl Harbor catastrophe.

The AirSea Battle is intended to defeat an “Anti-Access, Area Denial” strategy employed by the Chinese Navy and Air Force. The A2/AD strategy would protect the Chinese People’s Liberation Army as it invaded China’s neighbors from attacks by the U.S. air power.  By denial of safe access to the battle theatre through sea lanes, the Chinese would deter the deployment of the U.S. Army into the field.  Such is the rationale of A2/AD.

In addition to defeating Iranian ambitions and deterring Chinese aggression, the strategy paper rounds out the requirements of U.S. military capability under the heads of: counter terrorism and irregular warfare, conduct stability and counterinsurgency operations, deter and defeat aggression, counter WMDs, operate effectively in space and cyberspace, maintain a nuclear deterrent, provide a stabilizing presence, humanitarian and disaster relief, and homeland security.

The strategy intends to use a whole-of-government approach, which means the use of diplomacy to gain the permission of other countries for use of their military facilities and to encourage the deployment the military forces of allies in aid of the U.S. strategy against a common foe.

NORAD is not mentioned in the strategy paper, and NATO only briefly.  NATO is seen as a source of augmenting military forces on someone else’s budget, as is presently the case in Afghanistan.

Before he retired in July of last year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates hinted heavily that changes of this nature were coming.  The first examples of the use both of the A2/AD strategy and of the AirSea battle were tested by NATO in Libya when he was in office.

A part of Canada’s close and inevitable friendship with the United States is military relevance.  Not much is expected of Canada by the United States, but something beyond favorable diplomatic noises is desired.  What is it that the Canadian military could do that fits into the new U.S. strategic concept?

Whatever it is, it needs to be “visible” to the American and Canadian public.  (“Visibility” is a requirement demanded by retired General Rick Hillier when he was CDS, and was one reason why Canada took on the combat mission in Kandahar in 2006.)

Eyes turn quickly to the navy.  A Canadian F-35 does not appear to be operationally relevant to the new concept because the U.S. Air Force will knock out the Chinese Fighter force on its own, and air superiority is the only role the F-35 is suited for.  The stealth fighter could be used in a surveillance and reconnaissance role for short ranges in the Pacific if it operated out of a U.S. Air Base.  Long range bombing with cruise missiles, as can be done with the B-1, B-2, B-52, and the new strategic bomber, is not in the realm of capability of the F-35.

The new class of frigates and destroyers planned for construction could play a role in a U.S fleet protecting the big aircraft carriers.  What could make the RCN really visible would be a capability to destroy fast moving Iranian PT boats and Zodiacs that carry torpedoes in the Straits of Hormuz.  If it could be made to work, a Bras d’or  class of hydrofoil destroyers would be a real attention-getter in the Straits.  A hydrofoil, in virtue of its 71 knot speed and elevation above the water, could, if it mounted powerful, computer aided automatic cannons, quickly disperse and destroy a fleet of PT boats that moved in the 40 knot range, like a fox among chickens.  Whatever new ships are built for the RCN, some capability to participate in the AirSea battle needs to be designed in.

The Canadian Army could play a visible role under the heads of counterterrorism and irregular warfare, and conducting stability and counterinsurgency operations.  This would be a reprise of the role the army and special operations forces played in Kandahar.  However, these heads are seen as secondary to the main mission of the U.S. Joint Forces, which is the air and sea battle in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans.

As events in Libya proved once again, air and sea power alone are not decisive.  Ground forces are essential to bring matters to a decisive conclusion.  Thus, the AirSea battle may prove to be ineffective as an operational concept except as a preliminary.  A survey of the capabilities of the elements of the Canadian Forces shows that the army is the service most likely to provide visible proof of Canadian intent and support of its great ally and neighbor.

-30-

Talking to the Taliban: Bad New Year’s Resolution

 
Vincent J. Curtis 


30 December 2011

Now that Canada has withdrawn from combat operations in Afghanistan, we can look at the military-political situation in that country dispassionately.

Among its New Year’s resolutions, the Obama Administration hopes to restore ‘momentum’ in the spring to U.S. talks with the Taliban.  Talks, which had been going on behind the scenes, fell apart in December due to objections from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, according to an AP report.

Officials from the U.S. State department and White House, headed by Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama respectively, plan to continue a series of meetings with Taliban representatives, provided the alleged representatives, which the U.S. believes to be legitimate, remain willing, according to AP.   U.S. officials describe the outreach to the Taliban as ‘sensitive and precarious.’

You have to wonder what’s in the Kool Aid that officials in the State Department and White House are drinking.  Hamid Karzai had his own case of vapors, until his head was cleared by a shocking event in September, 2011.  It is no wonder that Karzai derailed the secret U.S. – Taliban talks.

That these secret talks were ongoing makes some sense of the otherwise outrageous statement made by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in early December that “The Taliban are not our enemy…Our enemy is al Qaeda.”

The basis for a U.S.-Taliban settlement apparently includes a provision that the Taliban separate themselves from al Qaeda.  Biden may have been sending the Taliban an unmistakable signal of U.S. seriousness of intent for settlement.

On September 20^th, the respected former president, head of the Afghan Peace Council, and emissary of Hamid Karzai, Burhanuddin Rabbani, was treacherously assassinated by a suicide bomber.  According to reports, the assassin claimed that he was a Talib who wished to make peace with the new political regime in Afghanistan, and requested that he surrender to Rabbani personally.  Rabbani accepted the man into his chambers unsearched, as a sign of respect.  The assassin, who hid the bomb in his turban, apparently bowed to Rabbani, touching his head to Rabbani’s chest, and then detonated the bomb.

Reuters news agency reported immediately afterwards that the Taliban accepted responsibility for the killing.  However, on their website, the Taliban contested the Reuters report but refused to discuss the incident further.  Mullah Omar knew that assassinating a respected man like Rabbani in such a treacherous way was a blunder.

At best the assassination showed Mullah Omar’s lack of control over the movement; at worst it showed a division between the Taliban proper, and the so-called ‘Haqqani network’.  It provided tangible evidence that Taliban protestations of peace were not to be trusted, and left them open to the charge that they were mere agents of the Pakistani ISI, the Interservices Intelligence Agency, who seek to sow confusion and discord in Afghanistan.

Retiring Chairman of the U.S Joint Chiefs of Staff accused the Taliban of being influenced by the ISI in congressional testimony.

The political take on Rabbani’s assassination at the time was that it was ‘a blow to the peace process.’  U.S. Marine General John Allen, Commander of ISAF, released a statement at the time that said that “…Rabbani’s assassination is a sign that the insurgents are afraid: they are afraid of the peace process…Insurgent leaders understand that peace and reintegration is one of the greatest threats they face…”

Right.  Now, the Obama Administration appears willing look past this Taliban marker of less than six months ago, ignore the statements of its own most senior military leaders, and by-pass its erstwhile ally, the president of Afghanistan, and seek peace talks with untrustworthy assassins.

For its part, the Obama Administration is taking the war to the Taliban where they live.  Hellfire missile strikes from U.S. operated drone aircraft killed ten senior Taliban and al Qaeda leaders in sixty-four attacks in 2011, and twenty in one hundred seventeen attacks in 2010, according to reports from Long War Journal.

Perhaps, like Richard Nixon’s Christmas bombing campaign against Hanoi in December 1972, fierce American attacks will bring the enemy, much to his surprise, to the table, go through the charade of a settlement so that the U.S. can withdraw with its dignity intact, and leave the field open to the enemy.

When it speaks of ‘restoring momentum to the peace talks’ and overcoming ‘blows to the peace process’, the Obama Administration is directing these soothing sentiments to an American audience.  It is quite possible that a segment of Obama’s political base actually believes this stuff, as well as addled senior officials of the U.S. State Department.

All would be well advised to heed Rudyard Kipling: his poems “The East is East,” and especially the line from The Naulahka, “an Epitaph drear: A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the east.”

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Embraer’s Super Tucano A-29 Turboprop Chosen for Counterinsurgency Role

Vincent J. Curtis


4 Jan 12

***This just in:  The USAF on Feb 28th unexpectedly cancelled the contract mentioned in this post due to political pressure.*** 

In a move that surprised many, the US Air Force chose the Super Tucano A-29 over an American competitor for a light attack aircraft, it was announced on December 30, 2011.  The A-29 is a design of Brazil’s Embraer Defense and Security company.  The initial contract is for twenty of the aircraft, with an ultimate order for one hundred.  The aircraft is capable of air interdiction of prop-driven aircraft often used by drug-runners, and of ground attack with machine guns, missiles, and bombs.  A turboprop, the A-29 is far cheaper to operate for the counterinsurgency missions that presently are assigned to A-10 Thunderbolt II and F-16 fighter jets.

The aircraft for the US Air Force will be built in Jacksonville, Florida, with Sierra Nevada Corporation as the prime contractor and Elbit Systems of America supplying the avionics.

The main competitor to the A-29 was the AT-6 Texan II, made by Hawker Beechcraft, formerly Raytheon Aircraft.  A variant of the AT-6 is used by the RCAF as a trainer aircraft known as the CT-156 Harvard II, and is based at 15 Wing, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

The Super Tucano is a single-engined turboprop with a cockpit configuration for either one or two in tandem.  The powerplant is a single Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-68C, generating 1600 hp.  The A-29 has a top speed of 590 km/hr, a service ceiling of 10,700 m, and a range of 1,330 km.  It can remain aloft for as long as eight hours, forty minutes.

The armament it can carry is modest by jet standards, but is sufficient for the counterinsurgency role.  The A-29 carries two .50 Cal machine guns in the wings, a 20 mm Vulcan-style cannon in a pod below the fuselage, plus five hardpoints for up to 1500 kilograms of rockets, missiles, and bombs.  The missile it would carry for counterinsurgency is the AGM-65 Maverick, but can also carry general purpose, incendiary, cluster, and precision guided bombs.

The Light Air Support program began in 2009 when the U.S. Air Force sought an aircraft that could fill the role once filled by the A1-E Skyraider in Vietnam.  A heavy, single-engined piston  prop plane, the A1-E carried up to 3,600 kg of ordinance on fifteen hardpoints, and was able to linger over the battlefield in Vietnam for hours, providing support for embattled ground troops with napalm, rockets, and strafing fire from the four 20 mm cannons it carried in the wings.  Much slower than a jet, far more powerful than a helicopter, and with more endurance than either, the A1-E proved ideal in the counterinsurgency role fifty years ago.

While the A-29 is not as powerful as the A1-E, like the Skyraider the cost of purchasing an A-29 is low.  Being a turboprop, the A-29 is far cheaper to operate in terms of fuel and maintenance than the modern jets of today, and can it operate from austere airfields.  The fly-away cost of a new A-29 is approximately $10 million.  The USAF contract signed on December 30^th specified a fixed price of $355 million for twenty aircraft, but that includes ground training devices and support for all maintenance and supply requirements and associated support equipment.

The A-29 is presently in service in the Air Forces of Brazil, Dominican Republic, and Columbia, where it has already seen service combating the FARC drug cartel.  Besides the United States, the A-29 is on order from Ecuador and Chile.  The U.S. may also supply the air forces of Lebanon and Afghanistan with the Super Tucano.

The competitor AT-6 Texan II, though similar in performance and also employing the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-68C turboprop powerplant, has no configurations for carrying machine guns, missiles, or bombs, and is used exclusively for training purposes by the RCAF, the Luftwaffe, and the air forces of Greece, Israel, Iraq, Morocco, and the U.S.  It is not used in a counterinsurgency role anywhere at present.

The RCAF could get into the counterinsurgency business, if it wanted to, in an innovative way by working with a highly motived Hawker Beechcraft company.  A portion of the RCAF’s current fleet of 25 Harvard IIs could be retrofitted with hardpoints for weapons and upgraded avionics to fill the light attack role.  The benefit to Hawker Beechcraft to be that by learning how to upgrade the Harvard II platform with the RCAF the company would be able to offer a package to the owners of the current installed fleet of more than 425 airframes that is less expensive than purchasing an all-new platform from the Brazilians.

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The Accepting Schools Act: Biological Confusion and the Chop-Logic of Liberalism

Vincent J. Curtis


24 Jan 12

The Accepting Schools Act is presently in Bill form before the legislature of Ontario, and consists of amendments to the Education Act that concern bullying and other matters.  Among the list of provisions is the mandating of the creation of so-called Gay-Straight alliances in schools.

In respect of bullying, the Act contains a definition of bullying.  It also requires Boards to have policies that promote certain goals, to include promoting a positive climate that is inclusive and accepting and promoting the prevention of bullying.  The Boards will be required to use surveys to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of Board policies related to these goals.  It mandates the creation of a “Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week.”

Most controversial is the requirement that Boards support pupils who want to establish and lead activities or organizations “that promote gender equity, anti-racism, the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people with disabilities or the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people of all sexual orientations and gender identities.”

Therein is the crux of this legislation, the creation of the gay-straight alliance clubs.

The curious aspect of this legislation is that it was created in response to what was said to be the bullying of allegedly gay youths by other youths, and the response amounts to a bullying of Boards and the public in general by the government to promote and in effect to normalize homosexuality and similar instances of what I called ‘biological confusion.”

The legislation sets out the target group that is to benefit from this effort at making communities and schools more equitable and inclusive: LGBTTIQ.  This acronym stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, transsexual, two-spirited, intersexed, queer, and questioning.  In a previous posting I explained what all of these terms meant and observed that the common element among them is what I called biological confusion.  By biological confusion is meant that the animal instinct for reproduction in these individuals is misdirected by an unnatural sexual appetite, or that they suffer crippling psychological problems that render reproduction for them nearly impossible.

Let’s begin with a pertinent analysis of the general issue: bullying.  Bullying is not new.  Bullying is a learned human behavior.  Bullying behavior is expressed in an individual only sometimes and usually only against particular persons or simply another person.  A person may be known as a bully because he exhibits bullying behavior to an unusual degree, but no one is a bully to everyone else.  Bullying has been an act of human behavior since man descended from the trees, and I suspect dominance behavior in the lower animals can be categorized as a kind of bullying.  In the sociological behavior of a group, the dominant members of a group may collectively act in a bullying fashion against a member of the group who does not meet group expectations.  Bullying is a kind of behavior so varied that you cannot isolate what bullying really is with a precise, legal definition.

The legislation sets out a definition of bullying, limiting it to the conduct of a pupil, that merely names certain acts that occur with a particular intent and in a particular context.  Thus it is that the government of Ontario can enact legislation that bullies school boards into accepting its prescriptions without violating the Act’s definition of bullying.

Because bullying behavior seems to arise spontaneously and seems to correspond with dominance behavior exhibited by the lower animals, the belief that with enough attention and disapprobation an act of law can banish bullying behavior among school children seems as absurd as trying to banish laughter, joking, and playing among children with similar means – and that too has been tried throughout the ages without permanent success!

The anti-bullying cause is the latest secular fashion du jour. In the chop-logic of secular liberal moralizing, anti-bullying has been fastened upon as the moral imperfection that can be fixed with the application of enough social and legal ministrations.  Perhaps the cause will disappear as a fashion once the legislation is passed.  The problem of bullying will persist, however, as the bill seems to understand, even as a moral cause anti-bullying disappears from the secular radar.

How much law has been passed and social pressure been applied in the 1960s to overcome the problem of gender inequality and to eradicate racism?  At least two generations have come into being since the revolution of the 1960s, and yet there in the legislation is the provision to combat gender inequality and promote anti-racism.  Either these provisions are present as the expression of an old legislative reflex, or that gender inequality and racism are still problems in Ontario schools.  Since the bill is directed at adolescents of 2012, after all this time the existence of gender inequality and racism in them must reflect some deep-seated condition of the human psyche, as bullying is.

Nevertheless, the gem, buried deep in the bill, that won’t disappear, is the mandate to create gay-straight alliance clubs.

Nothing is controversial about creating groups to advocate against gender inequality and racism.  Today, it is an exercise in tedium to so advocate.  The incongruity of creating a gay-straight alliance club as if it were no different from an anti-racism group is what causes alarm in the Catholic Church, Separate School Boards, and other Boards founded on Christian principles.  It is one thing to advocate that women are equal to men, and blacks are equal to whites; but it is another to advocate that homosexuality is equal to heterosexuality.

Society and humanity do not benefit from homosexuality as they do from heterosexuality.  Without heterosexuality society and humanity would cease to exist after one generation.  In general, society and humanity do not benefit from biological confusion.  Therefore society and humanity need to distinguish between the protection of those who suffer biological confusion and the outright advocacy or normalization of biological confusion as such.  In Christian churches this difference is observed in the distinction between the sin and the sinner.  The Christian abhorrence against acts of biological confusion serves the cause of the preservation of society and humanity.

One weakness of the legislation concerning the bullying of members of the LGBTTIQ group is that it assumes that the formation of gay-straight alliance clubs is the only solution possible to prevent bullying of that group.  There is no proof of that, and there is no provision in the legislation to allow the attempt of other means of achieving that aim. 

Another weakness is that it seems to ignore the potential for the use of those clubs by sexual predators, or conveniently as a meeting place to arrange for sexual liaison.

The most obvious weakness is that it serves as a basis for advocating the normalization of biological confusion.  Gay-straight alliance clubs are equated with clubs that advocate the normalization of beliefs in gender equality and racial equality, but the causes of gender and racial equality are different in kind from the cause of equating biological confusion with heterosexuality.  (Since we’re discussing inclusion here and named groups, to limit the clubs to gays and straights, the LBTTIQ portion of the biologically confused is seemingly left to shift for itself in these clubs.)

It is one thing to accept in the sense of tolerating biological confusion; another to normalize it.  The contemplation of the problem of biological confusion led in this case to moral confusion.

In Canada, there are such things as the Constitution Act and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  The attempt by the government of Ontario to enforce a provision that is squarely against the religious beliefs of some Christian Churches may fall afoul of the Charter Rights of those Christians, and of Section 93 of the Constitution Act which establishes the right of Separate Schools for members of the Catholic community of Ontario.

The Catholic Church has decided views about acts of biological confusion, which it regards as morally abhorrent.  The Catholic community sees the legislation as morally confused because it fails to distinguish between sin and sinner.  It is quite proper in the Catholic Church to advocate for love of the sinner while abhorring the sin; it is another matter to conflate sin with sinner, as the legislation seems to.  With two thousand years of experience in matters of love of God and love of neighbour, and with some of the finest minds humanity ever produced writing Catholic doctrine, the wisdom of the Catholic Church in this matter is not to be gainsaid or tritely ignored or dismissed.  The Catholic wisdom on the matter deserves a rational response from those who disagree.

Ontario may see the spectacle of a Roman Catholic premier, Dalton McGuinty, bullying the Separate School system into accepting gay-straight alliances.

-          XXX –

On the “Right” to Gay Marriage

Vincent J. Curtis


19 Jan 2012

The object of this posting is to review the case against gay marriage, and in particular to deny the proposition that limiting marriage strictly to between one man and one woman is unfair.

Since this is my first stab that the project, my reasoning and arrangement of the argument may not be as sound as it could be.  However, putting one’s thoughts on paper is a good way to start refining them.

Let us begin by identifying the group that feels aggrieved.  It is known by the acronym: LGBTTIQ, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, transsexual, two-spirited, intersexed, queer, and questioning.  A lesbian is homosexual woman.  A gay is a homosexual man.  A bisexual is a person, either a man or woman, who will engage in sexual activity indifferently with another person of either gender, though a decided preference to either homosexuality or heterosexuality may be exhibited.  The terms transgendered, transsexual, and two-spirited mean roughly the same thing: a person of one gender who wishes to be the other gender, and in some cases this person may have undergone sexual reconstructive surgery and taken hormonal therapy in order to physically resemble the opposite gender.  The term two-spirited refers to a native of North America who is transgendered or transsexual.  (A hermaphrodite is a person who at birth possessed the sexual characteristics of both male and female, and is therefore a true transsexual.  However, transsexuals in this posting refer to those who employ surgery and hormonal therapy to change from one sex to another.  Hermaphrodites are not a part of the aggrieved group.)  Queer used to be an epithet, but now is taken to be a cover term for homosexual or transsexual.  Questioning is a person who wonders about their sexuality, and the act of questioning may be a sign of incipient bisexuality or homosexuality.

The common element of all these forms of sexuality is biological confusion.

Aristotle, in his work De Anima, concluded that each species has a desire for immortality, and since individual members of the species were not themselves immortal, each species possessed a powerful instinct to reproduce.  Hence reproduction is a natural act of the species, and acts of reproduction by members of the species are natural and, indeed, necessary for the preservation, the continuance, the immortalization if you will of the species.

But nature is not perfect, and examples exist of deviations in individual members of a species from what is natural.  Nevertheless, what is natural is good and what deviates from nature is not good.  Thus acts which are not consistent with the potential for reproduction of the species, not being natural, are not good.  Biological confusion may be said to be the inclination or desire in an individual that is not consistent with the potential for reproduction.

Sexuality in human beings is the most highly evolved of all the animals.  It serves not only the instinct to reproduce but also the capacity in humans of enjoyment for its own sake.  Thus unnatural acts of sex are engaged in for the sake of enjoyment, though a misdirected sense of the desire to reproduce may also underlie the biological urge for unnatural sex.

A species does not benefit from biological confusion.  A species benefits from reproduction, and acts of biological confusion cannot lead to reproduction.

The handling of sexuality and reproduction in human beings is also the most highly evolved among the animals.  Human beings invented marriage, and organize themselves naturally into complex societies that protect and support the individual generally in all phases of life.  Societies allow a fuller development of the human being’s potential than would happen if human beings were solitary.  The purpose of marriage was to establish stability in the mating pair for the mutual benefit of both, of their offspring, of the community, and ultimately of the species.  In marriage, the mating pair pledge, or vow, to each other their faithfulness (that is, the exclusivity of sexual engagement) and the willingness to care for each other – in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, so long as ye both shall live.  Having a caregiver in time of need to an extent relieves the society of a burden, which is an additional benefit of marriage to the community.  Having a stable mating pair in which offspring are raised relieves society as a whole of the entire burden of raising the next generation.

Marriage also provides a superior environment for the raising of off-spring.  Both parents are emotionally involved in the raising of children, which is of benefit to the children and seems highly useful to the development of a happy adult.  Strangers are not usually so involved, and there is no question that being raised in the bosom of a happy family is superior to being raised in an orphanage, for example.  Since the period of development of human beings from newborn into adulthood is so long, marriage is also naturally a long-term proposition, and familiarity and companionship between the married pair add to the benefits of marriage after the capacity for reproduction ends later in life.

Hence, marriage is naturally a relationship between a man and a woman that is founded upon providing an advantageous environment for reproduction of the human species.

But marriage is not an unlimited proposition.  Marriage cannot take place between any man and any woman.  There are the laws of consanguinity: a brother cannot marry a sister, a father a daughter, a mother a son, and so on.  There often are laws against bigamy: a person cannot marry another person who is already married.  A person cannot marry another person who does not wish to be married to them.  There are minimum ages for marriage, and so forth.  Thus restrictions, for good reason, exist in society concerning marriage.  Marriage is not an unlimited right in society.

In the Catholic Church, for example, in addition to the above the marriage must be open to the having of children. So, a couple which has no potential for reproduction or frankly admit that they desire to have no children will not be married in the Catholic Church.

All that said, there is nothing in law which prevents a gay man from marrying a gay woman.

Indeed, at one time marriage between a gay man and a gay woman used to occur in order to disguise the homosexuality of both from society.

Thus marriage can have accidental uses; indeed, it has many accidental properties and advantages, but the essential aspect of marriage - why it exists at all - is reproduction.

Thus so-called “gay marriage” –  of two homosexual men to each other or two homosexual women to each other - is a straightforward deviation from the essential purpose of marriage, since there is no potential whatsoever for reproduction in such an arrangement.  “Gay marriage” amounts to a mockery, a sham, of the real thing.

Marriage is not founded upon sexual desire, but reproduction; and so to argue that marriage ought to be sanctioned on the basis of an unnatural sexual desire is nothing but to engage in moral confusion.  Since society gains no benefit from “gay marriage,” and stands suffer from the loss the esteem that its sanction confers upon real marriage by a mockery, a sham, society ought to reject the proposition of “gay marriage.”

It is no denial of natural human rights to deny gays the ‘right’ to be “married” to each other.  Since reproduction is what is natural, and there being no potential whatsoever for reproduction occurring as a result of acts of homosexuality, such acts are unnatural; and there is no natural human right to the unnatural.  Thus to sanction or formalize a relationship on the basis of homosexuality is to lose sight of the essential purpose of marriage.

But what of marriage between an older couple, so old that reproduction is out of the question?  Is this not also a mockery of marriage?  And what of the marriage that has lasted beyond the years of reproduction?  These seem to violate the essentiality of reproduction as the basis of marriage.

All this is granted, and we fall back to the accidental benefits of marriage to society.  There is a certain prestige and sanction to marriage, which is one reason why gay people seek it for themselves.

The continuance of marriage between a couple too old to reproduce and a new marriage between a man and a woman too old to reproduce exemplify and to a certain extent add to the prestige which marriage has in society.  Since reproduction is good, marriage is good; and maintaining and elevating the prestige of marriage in society contribute to human reproduction occurring in an advantageous setting.  Insofar as “gay marriage” detracts from the prestige of marriage, society ought to resist it since widespread reproduction outside of marriage is harmful to society.

Thus, there is no natural right to “gay marriage;” “gay marriage” is positively harmful to society to the extent that it detracts from the prestige of marriage, and lastly there is no real obstacle in law from a gay couple getting married to each other so long as the couple consists of a man and a woman.  The demand for “gay marriage” is an example of biological confusion giving rise to moral confusion.

It was asked recently by a journalist of a Republican presidential candidate in respect of gay marriage, “what do you say to a gay couple who wish to live in a committed, loving relationship?”  The proper answer to that question is: what is stopping you?  A couple do not need marriage to be in love, nor to be committed to each another.  Friendship can be a committed, long term relationship, just as marriage can be.  Thus there is no requirement for a gay pair to be “married” to each other to maintain a committed, loving, long-term relationship.  They can even pledge to be faithful to each other.  However, the fact that marriage is associated with a committed, long-term, loving relationship even by a gay pair shows the power in real marriage.  Marriage has such power partly by the prestige which society confers upon it, and partly from the human need for security and for the companionship of others.

It is possible for a gay pair to designate each other as the next of kin in law, and given the prevalence today for an equivalent-to-spouse provision in contracts almost nothing stands in the way of the legal advantages of marriage being gained by a gay pair who wish to formalize a relationship.

Thus there seems to be no reason for society to bow before the demands for an institution of “gay marriage,” and some good reasons have been found to resist them.

-          XXX –

Andrew Leslie Meets Parkinson’s Law

Report on Transformation 2011

Vincent J. Curtis


3 October 2011

LGen Andrew Leslie’s last battle was with Parkinson’s Law.  Leslie retired from the Canadian Forces Sept. 5^th, 2011, his last assignment being Chief of Transformation. His final report and recommendations, that would reduce DND administrative overhead in order to strengthen the fighting forces, are meeting strong opposition within the Department.  Leslie is now retired, but the forces of Parkinson’s Law are girding for battle.

C. Northcote Parkinson was a British naval historian and scholar of public administration.  In 1957, based upon his observations of the British Civil Service, Parkinson formulated and published a number of sociological “laws,” which were said to accurately project the growth of a bureaucracy.   Among his “laws” were: ‘an official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals,’ ‘officials make work for each other,’ and ‘work expands to fill time available for its completion.’

The growth of administrative tail at the expense of teeth is nothing new to the Canadian Forces.  In the 1950s and early 1960s, the cost of administration was consuming so much of the Canadian defense budget that Parliament, led by Minister of National Defense Paul Hellyer, passed the Canadian Forces Reorganization Act in order to free up money that would purchase new capital equipment for the fighting forces.

The problem confronting LGen Leslie was therefore a particular example in 2011 of the sociological law that, left to itself, a bureaucracy will grow spontaneously and indefinitely, absorbing more and more resources until some crisis is reached.

The growth of the defense budget in the 2002 – 2010 era due to the war in Afghanistan provided abundant forage on which the DND bureaucracy could flourish.  Leslie’s mission was to propose a means of removing the cancer without killing the patient.

Not all administration is bad.  Good administration is one of the ten principles of war.  The purpose of administration in national defense is to provide for the needs of the fighting forces.  But, when the size of administration becomes excessive that relationship inverts into one in which the fighting forces exist to provide for the needs of the administration.

When that inversion happens, Administration sucks the energy and even the life out of the fighting forces.  Regulations multiply.  Reports and returns are demanded.  Movement slows.  Eventually, the fighting forces are sacrificed in order to preserve the Administration.  Accounts of all of these malpractices abound in Leslie’s report.

Although the official reception of Leslie’s report was cheery, reports out of Ottawa indicate a strong movement within DND to bury the report, as Leslie himself forecasted and observed as the fate of similar previous endeavours.  Retired Chief of Defense Staff, General Rick Hillier, for one thundered that the enactment of Leslie’s recommendations would mean the end of the CF, or words to that effect.

A weakness counting against the adoption of many of Leslie’s recommendations is the quality of writing in the report.  The content of the report is protected by thick armoured plating of cliché, making it impossible to read for any length of time. There is practically no sentence in it that is free of cliché or of some hackneyed phrase.  Certainly no paragraph.  Never mind the arcane and technical aspects of the subject matter.

How can one embrace a report which contains statements like these:

“Not only are we going to have to continue to live within our means and balance our books, we are going to have to carefully reallocate from within to meet the new and emerging defence demands of tomorrow (some amongst many that include the Arctic, more part time reservists, cyber, special forces, and sailors going to sea) that will drive us to be even more agile, more deployable, more ready to respond.”?

That single statement, selected from the first page, contains five clichés - italicized for ease of identification - and two hackneyed expressions.  A demand may compel us to be more agile, but too many demands drive us to distraction.  The Arctic, more part-time reservists, cyber, special forces, and sailors going to sea do not at first blush appear to be defense demands.  ‘Cyber’, absent a terminating hyphen, is not even a word recognized in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

Leslie’s treasure chest is full of gems like this, taken from Chapter 4: Design and Theory: Options Development:

The theory and practice of organizational architecture sees public and private enterprises as a manifestation of their various environments. These environments can be physical and literal (such as the geographic, financial, and human resource environments), as well as conceptual (including process, structural and even cultural environments); they influence and in some cases determine the behaviours and outcomes of the organization. In recognition of this, it was decided to pursue an initial design approach that reflected prevailing organizational architecture theory by attempting to address the complexity that characterizes the DND/CF.

Pick any page, sentence after sentence and paragraph after paragraph are replete with execrable terms and quasi-academic phraseology.  Trying to read this report from start to finish is like trying to navigate a mental minefield without getting exhausted, or blown up.

The trouble with reliance on cliché and hackneyed phrases is that they express hackneyed thought.  Nobody cares about hackneyed thinking.  Why should a believer in “combing the tail to magnify the teeth” get behind Leslie’s particular formulation of that process?  Absent a rallying cry to battle, Leslie’s potential supporters are left confused and scattered against an Administration sure of its value and intent on survival.

Just to test the alertness of his readers, Leslie could have tossed in a statement like:

-           “A madman could rampage through NDHQ, swinging a broadaxe at random, and hit no bone, cut no sinew, and sever no vital artery...”

-          referred to superfluous administration as “a fattened herd whose slaughter would feed the fighting forces, in whose capacity the martial reputation of the CDS lies…”

-          For sheer entertainment, have measured progress in terms of a bodycount, or in gallons of blood spilt - anything to enliven the subject.

Leslie’s report, another in a continuing series against the forces of Parkinson’s Law, takes altogether too careful an aim at what should be cut, is far too cautious in expression, and drains the worthy enterprise of the necessary emotional edge required to carry it out.

-30-