Crude-oil futures ended November 23, 2007 at the highest-ever closing level. Crude oil for January 2009 delivery settled up 89 cents at $98.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The session touched an intraday high of $98.45. Crude ended the week up $4.34, or 4.4%. The US dollar also helped boost oil as it touched a new historic low of $1.4966 per euro before “recovering” to $1.4834. A sliding dollar makes oil cheaper for buyers holding other currencies. These buyers are likely to increase demand and bid up oil prices. You think?

Dr. Jiang bridges electronic and mechanical engineering with stretchable electronics

Adaptive Intelligent Materials and Systems open new opportunities for MCAD.

On November 19, 2007 from Bloomberg News comes word that shareholders in the securities industry are having their worst year since 2002, losing $74 billion of equity. But it appears that won't prevent Wall Street from paying record bonuses for 2007, totaling almost $38 billion. That's billion with a "b", folks! By way of comparison, Bloomberg News reported that the industry's 2007 bonuses are larger than the gross domestic products of Sri Lanka, Lebanon or Bulgaria. The average $201,500 bonus is more than four times the $48,201 median household income in the US last year, according to US Census Bureau statistics.

Just in time for the Annapolis peace conference planned for the last week of November 2007 comes news over the weekend November 17-18 from PBS: In Israel, a new word has been added to the official Hebrew Dictionary. The new word is “Condel”. It means, “to run around, have lots of meetings, and get nothing done.” Condel is a real word, frequently used in Israel and spreading elsewhere, inspired by the US Secretary of State Condi Rice.

If you missed paying $35 per share in the Blackstone IPO in July 2007, you’ll be somewhat gratified by this news. Shares of Blackstone Group traded as much as 11% lower November 12, 2007, as investors reacted negatively to the private-equity firm reporting a third-quarter loss. The company's quarterly loss amounted to 44 cents a share. On average, analysts had been expecting Blackstone to earn plus 30 cents a share for Q3 2007.

The Figure: Number of US deaths in Iraq in October was 39.The Lie: “This number of 39 proves the surge is working.”The Facts: Bush implemented “The Surge” in January 2007. As of early November, the year 2007 had already become the deadliest year yet for US troops in Iraq. At least 852 American military personnel have died in Iraq so far this year — the highest annual toll since Bush began the Iraq war in March 2003.The Figure: Six US troops were killed when insurgents ambushed their foot patrol in the high mountains of eastern Afghanistan on November 9, 2007.The Lie: “The US vanquished the Taliban in 2001, to avenge 9/11.”The Facts: The year 2007 has just become the deadliest for US troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. The war in Afghanistan has evolved into an increasingly bloody counterinsurgency campaign, especially after many US troops were withdrawn to invade Iraq. Afghanistan is now the opium/heroin Poppy capital of the world. Pakistan is also a mess today. Osama is still at large.Related Facts:...

The Figure: On November 7, 2007, the US national average gas price for Unleaded Regular reached $3.04 per gallon.

The Lie: Autumn always means falling gasoline prices, as demand eases after the busy summer travel season.

The Facts: The average price per gallon of Unleaded Regular Gas has gone up 28 cents in 30 days. In some states the average price is much higher. In California, the price on November 7 averaged $3.31.

Related Fact: The price of a gallon of Unleaded Regular Gas when George W. Bush took office on January 20, 2001: $1.46

The Figure: Real US gross domestic product (GNP) -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 3.9% in the third quarter of 2007, according to advance estimates released by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis at the end of October 2007.The Lie: “The proves that the economy of the US is strong and resilient.” The Facts: The advance estimate of GNP proves nothing. It’s a very preliminary estimate. The dramatic impact on GNP of the value of the US dollar being at record lows against foreign currencies has yet to be analyzed.The Figure: The US economy added 166,000 jobs in October 2007, the fastest pace in five months, the Labor Department said.The Lie: “The proves that the economy of the US is strong and resilient.” The Facts: (1) Even if accurate,166,000 is well below the level needed just to take care of the number of people entering the US job market every month from sheer population growth. (2) Nearly half of the October...

As societal problems have increased in extent, variety and ambiguity the current era of architecting and engineering by systematic, prescient design is proving inadequate in an increasing number of instances. Instead of laboriously describing the system to be built, we represent behaviors, usages, and benefits that are much more understandable to those who make of buy components to realize the system.

Instead of laboriously producing as cascade of specifications that represent the statics of the system to be built and strive to communicate the dynamics, we flesh out a holonic array of emulatable propositions that enable pragmatic foresight about the dynamics of the sysem to be built.

This frees us to represent the evolution of the system because the model of the system knows enough about the system to generate orchestrated morphs in several dimensions such as gradients on interrelatonships of the components, structure of the components, repertoire of components, implementation technologies, and even...