The Science Guy Takes On The Creationist - A Preview Of Ham's Arguments

[This post is not yet another debate whether they should have a debate, but to look at what Ken Ham actually says.]

Background for those not following this:  Bill Nye (the science guy) is scheduled to debate with Ken Ham (the creationist) February 4.  It's going to be live online.  (First it was going to be $5 to watch online, but now it's free.)  There’s been some debate about whether it makes sense to debate someone who doesn’t believe in logic, but rather in the infallible word of God.  Lot's of folks think this just gives Ham a lot of publicity and will help raise money for the Creation Museum.  "It will help Ham's resume, not Nye's"  is the theme.  You can see an example of the basic evolutionist online discussion of the debate here.



In any case, I thought I should check out what Ham has to say and how he says it.  I have no doubt that Nye and his team are doing the same.   Below is the video  I watched:




In this video, Ken Ham argues that the earth was literally created in six days and that the earth is 6000 years old, not millions or billions of years old.  He knows this, as he says over and over again, because God tells us that in the bible. Basically he argues that those who want to impose man's 'facts' (there are no facts, just interpretations he also tells us) on the Bible are undermining the authority of God by substituting the authority of man. 


His main target is Christians who reinterpret the Bible to accommodate evolution and other scientific evidence by reading the six days of creation figuratively, not literally.  He takes quotes from about ten or eleven of them and explains what’s wrong with what they are doing.  [The exact number isn't important enough for me to go through that 76 minute video again.  For the same reason the quotes below, from the video, are close but not exact.   But I don’t think anything distorts what is said in the video.]

The basic problem, Ham tells us, is that the Christians, who are willing to see the six days of Genesis as figurative rather than literal, so that they can stretch them into the millions of years that science would suggest, are substituting the fallible word of man for the infallible word of God. 

Ham’s arguments demonstrate a number of rhetorical tricks and fallacies.  I make an attempt to point out some of those fallacies and give examples, but Ham’s examples often include more than one, or even two, of the fallacies. 

Let's start with a circular argument - basically appeal to authority:  The bible is authoritative because it is the word of God.  (This isn't necessarily a fallacy, but the premise and the conclusion are the same.  It doesn't prove anything.)

He argues that those who try to claim the earth is millions of years old have no place to fit those millions of years into the  Bible except Genesis.  The rest of the Bible can be calculated by counting the ‘begats.’

“Where do you fit millions of years into the bible - you have all the begats.  The only place you can do it, is before Adam, before creation.”

But, he argues, using the consequence of the action to invalidate the action,  if you put them before Adam, then you end up blaming God for all that’s wrong on earth when in fact man is responsible. Because, of course, God is infallible.


He uses straw man arguments.  He attacks those who say the world is millions or billions of years old by saying:

 [People ask me] Don’t  you have all these dating methods that prove the earth is millions and billions of years old?  Well actually, I say, what about the majority of dating methods that go against the secular accepted dates right now.  90% of the methods you can use, and there are hundreds and hundreds of methods you can use, to age date things on the earth, but 90% of them actually contradict the commonly accepted secular dates.

 Click to enlarge         Screenshot from video

Thus the Bible is right.

There are problems in all dating systems because they are based on assumptions - that’s the point.  Which leads us back to the main circular argument - Are you going to believe the fallible word of man or the infallible word of God?

Why would you take man’s fallible dating methods and use them to judge God’s infallible word? 

He even makes science the straw man, by defining it his own special way:

"Science - What I mean by science is operational science, in the present, you know, using your five senses.  He’s talking about big bang theory, billions of years, that’s stepping out of that sort of science."

And, he says, that’s how the word of man has supplanted the word of God. 

"In the 1700’s the door was unlocked and it’s gone on and on until today the bible is not looked on as the absolute authority."

He uses semantics to confuse and in some cases seems to move to a biased sample fallacy  - There’s lots of discussion of the meaning of ‘day’ in English and some about the meaning of ‘yom’ in Hebrew.  Much of this is like a verbal version of hiding the pea under one of three walnut shells and moving the shells around and around so fast that the observer can no longer follow.

"The point is, the word day can mean something other than an ordinary day.  You know what?  That's true.  I had a pastor who once said, "The word day can mean something other than an ordinary day and I said that's true.  But it can also mean an ordinary day.  He said, "That's true but it can mean something other than an ordinary day."  And I said, "That's true, but it can also mean an ordinary day."  I said, "Look Pastor, does the word day ever mean day?  Can day mean day or doesn't day mean day? And if it doesn't mean day when does it ever mean day?  Can you give me an example of when day means day?"

This is more like Abbot and Costello's "Who's on First?" routine than a logical argument.  And his audience laughs.  But while Abbot and Costello's audiences laugh at the absurdity or the word play, I suspect Ham's audience is laughing at how cleverly they think Ham has dismissed the argument.

“When is a day a literal day?  Why is it accepted as a day in the other 2300 times it’s used in the Old Testament, but not in Genesis?  They only want to reinterpret the meaning of day in Genesis. 

He may be right or maybe not.  Someone would have to check up on those other uses of day in the rest of the Old Testament.  And while we're checking up on the literal meaning of 'a day' let's look at all those biblical figures who lived to be hundreds of years old.  Are those literal years too?  

God didn’t create the sun until the fourth day.  People ask, how can you have a day without the sun.  You don’t need the sun for day and night, you just need light, and there is light on day one.  Why didn’t God tell us where the light came from?  There’s lots he didn’t tell us. 

If we look at the words of Genesis used to tell us about the first six days, there are a number of seeming inconsistencies like this.  But since the word of God is infallible we're supposed to just accept it.  Literally. 

He says to look up the words in a Hebrew dictionary, which in my experience with foreign languages is often a sure way to misinterpret the meaning of a word, because the meaning of a word in one language does not exactly correspond with the meaning of a similar word in another language.  See 15 myths about Bible translation.

He does at one point acknowledge that “I’m not a Hebrew scholar.”


He constantly goes back to the assumption that the word of god is authoritative:
comparing the fallible word of man to the infallible word of God - this way, the literal meaning of the (English) bible has to be the truth. 

He can also change the subject with an ad hominem joke:

"A pastor came to me and said how could so many scientists be wrong, and how could they be soooo wrong?  And I said, “The majority of scientists didn’t survive the flood either.”  

 The audience ate that one up.

But how does that answer the question?  There were no scientists as we know them today at the time of the flood.  Or is he saying, they (the scientists) weren’t around for the flood?  If so, then that applies to him as well.

In fact, he likes to taunt scientists by saying, "How do you know?  You weren't there."

Using the consequences to prove his point.  Basically he says that if the earth wasn’t created in six days, then there will be negative consequences - a) the authority of God is compromised and b) there will be no basis for morality.  The Bible must be literally true because if it’s not, serious negative consequences would be the result. 

“If you tell generations of people the bible means something, but it doesn’t mean what it says because of outside influences, you’ve just unlocked the door. And the door you’ve unlocked is you don’t have to take the Bible as written and you can take man’s fallible ideas outside the Bible to reinterpret the Bible.”  

“The Bible is the basis for morality - if we say the world was created in six days, then we are saying that God’s word is authoritative and we have a basis for the meaning of life, for moral standards, for marriage, for laws . . . “Six days, Thousands of years” - God’s word is authoritative.  We believe in the Bible and don’t take man’s words and impose them on the Bible.
But if you believe millions of years, then you believe that man determines truth by himself without revelation, because you don’t get the millions of years from the Bible.” 

“If you use millions of years - instead of six days - you then blame God and not man for all the problems on earth, because many problems would have happened before Adam and Eve ate the apple.”

That's like saying, "I can't be adopted, because if I am, then you aren't my biological mom."   I can see why he wouldn't want the authority of God to be challenged, just like after 20 years of believing you're my mother, I don't want to believe you aren't my mother.  But if the facts are at odds with what I've always believed - in this case the biblical text - then perhaps what I believe needs to be reassessed.  

So that’s what Nye is up against. 

A man who starts with the assumption that the Bible is the literal word of God and that God is authoritative and infallible while man’s word is fallible.  So from his perspective, Nye’s word, when it doesn’t confirm the literal words of the Bible, can't be right. 

Nye could ask how Ham knows that God wrote the Bible.  Was he there to see God writing it?  My understanding is that what is now called the Old Testament was passed on for centuries if not millennia orally. and eventually put in writing by many different people.  Surely over that time period, some, if not many, words got changed. If you've ever seen people pass on information orally from one person to the next, and so on,  you know that the meaning of a short sentence can be radically different after passing through only a few sets of ears and lips.  Yes, we're told they were inspired by God.  But lots of people have claimed to be inspired by God, people who tell us contradictory things - just as Ham himself disputes what other Christian leaders tell us about the Bible.  How do we know whose claims to believe?  Ham's answer seems always to be, because I'm only telling you what's written in the Bible.   

And even if we accept that the writers of the Hebrew Bible were inspired by God, what about the people who translated the Bible into Greek and Latin and then to English?  If they were all inspired by God, why aren't all the translations the same?  Which one is actually the literal word of God that Ham cites as infallible?  Also go back to the link on 15 myths about Bible translation.

Nye will face a man who can speak with ease, moving words around in ways that seem to make sense unless one is paying close attention.  And untangling his words may be hard to do on the fly. Which is why I'm sure he's doing what I'm doing here - going through Ham's video tapes to prepare. 

Nye willl face a man who puts down his opponents as a way of winning his arguments.  He does it gently, but they are still put-downs. And he'll be on Ham's home court.  We don't know who got tickets, some claim atheists were shut out, but Ken Ham says that's not so.

But Nye doesn’t have to win over Ham, he just has to get some of the listeners to see that Ham’s arguments are fallacious.  He just has to plant some seeds of doubt about the literal word of the Bible.  But many of these folks will be judging what he says - if the Hams of the world have done their work well - by whether it contradicts the literal words of the Bible, not by the rules of logic. 

However, people Ham himself cites as compromising the Bible, by accepting the millions of years argument of science, include many biblical scholars and evangelists - including James Dobson of Focus on the Family.  Ham bills himself as an outlier even among evangelical Christians.  It may well be that those who follow him are very literal thinkers for whom black and white are the only options and abstract thought - such as logic - is a stretch.  Or maybe they just haven’t been exposed to other perspectives.

Bottom Feeders

I got this spam email, I've xxx'd out most of the name and gotten rid of the links. 

Exxxxxxxx   xxx

Smoking Is Sexy Again.

Looks and Feels like a Real Cigarette

• No Tar
• No Bad Breath
• No Odar [no spell check either]

Try It NOW!

Do I even have to explain why this is so disgusting?  I understand smokers using e-cigs as a less toxic alternative to real cigarettes, but this is marketing smoking as sexy.  That's my big objection.


Here are some excerpts from what Clarence Page, the generally right-on-target Chicago Tribune columnist wrote (today) on this topic:

As a recovering nicotine addict, the rising tide of local bans against puffing in public on electronic cigarettes makes me wonder what lawmakers have been smoking.
By an overwhelming 45-4 vote last week, Chicago's City Council followed New York, Los Angeles and other cities that have passed or are considering limits on e-cigarettes that banish their use in restaurants, bars and most other indoor public places.
Retailers also are required to sell e-cigarettes from behind the counter so that it's harder for minors to get their hands on them.

E-cigarettes are battery-powered fake cigarettes. They contain no tobacco, require no combustion and, after exhaustive health studies, appear to cause no physical harm — compared to real cigarettes, at least.

You can't even call their use "smoking." Some users call it "vaping" for the vapor the devices create by heating up a liquified nicotine mix. When puffed and exhaled, the white, misty vapor resembles smoke — like your breath on a cold day.
By duplicating the rituals of smoking, the devices are designed to help wean users off the nasty habit. . .

You can finish it here.  (He does see marketing this to kids as a problem.)


Here's what WebMD said about e-cigs in 2009.

The FDA, on a page updated 1/10/2014, says:

Electronic Cigarettes (e-Cigarettes)

What are electronic cigarettes? 
Electronic cigarettes, also known as e-cigarettes, are battery-operated products designed to deliver nicotine, flavor and other chemicals.  They turn chemicals, including highly addictive nicotine, into an aerosol that is inhaled by the user.


Most e-cigarettes are manufactured to look like conventional cigarettes, cigars, or pipes. Some resemble everyday items such as pens and USB memory sticks.

E-cigarettes have not been fully studied so consumers currently don’t know:

• the potential risks of  e-cigarettes when used as intended,
• how much nicotine or other potentially harmful chemicals are being inhaled during use, or
• if there are any benefits associated with using these products.

Additionally, it is not known if e-cigarettes may lead young people to try other tobacco products, including conventional cigarettes, which are known to cause disease and lead to premature death.

FDA Regulation of e-Cigarettes

Only e-cigarettes that are marketed for therapeutic purposes are currently regulated by the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER).  The FDA Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) currently regulates

• cigarettes,
• cigarette tobacco,
•  roll-your-own tobacco, and
• smokeless tobacco.

FDA intends to issue a proposed rule extending FDA’s tobacco product authorities beyond the above products to include other products like e-cigarettes. For further details, please see the Unified Agenda entry describing this rulemaking.

eCigarettes and Adverse Events

What is an Adverse Event?
An adverse event is an undesirable side effect or unexpected health or product quality problem that an individual believes was caused by the use of a tobacco product.
Reporting an Adverse Event
Anyone can report an adverse event to the FDA. In fact, these reports help us identify safety concerns with tobacco products that could cause health or safety problems beyond those normally associated with tobacco product use.

Please report adverse events with e-cigarettes via: 

• The HHS Safety Reporting Portal or
• By calling 1-800-FDA-1088

It's Hard To Believe It's A Year Already

Why The Senator Who Opposed Torture, As President Says "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

In Obama's talk this morning he used the euphemism "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques."   What he means is torture.  This post speculates on why he uses that term.  I don't come up with a final answer (as if anyone ever does), but I wanted to think this one through a bit and maybe some people will be reminded not to be distracted by euphemisms. 

In an interview with Time magazine, Ralph Keyes, the author of  Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms, said people use euphemisms:

 "to deflect us — and maybe even themselves — about what they're doing. .  .

David Lloyd George — he was Prime Minister of Britain during World War I — once said that if we ever spoke plainly and clearly about what was going on on the battlefields, the public would demand that we bring an end to war."

The euphemism is bad enough, but at the CIA it's been shortened to EITs. 


Am I exaggerating about this being torture?

From ABC News in 2005:

"The CIA sources described a list of six "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" instituted in mid-March 2002 and used, they said, on a dozen top al Qaeda targets incarcerated in isolation at secret locations on military bases in regions from Asia to Eastern Europe. According to the sources, only a handful of CIA interrogators are trained and authorized to use the techniques:

1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.

2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.

3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.

4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.

5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.

6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt."

 But is that torture?   Remember, these are just the things they talked about openly. 

One of the CIA agents quoted in the story uses the word 'torture':

"It is "bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough," said former CIA officer Bob Baer." 

Judge for yourself with this example: 

"According to CIA sources, Ibn al Shaykh al Libbi, after two weeks of enhanced interrogation, made statements that were designed to tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear. Sources say Al Libbi had been subjected to each of the progressively harsher techniques in turn and finally broke after being water boarded and then left to stand naked in his cold cell overnight where he was doused with cold water at regular intervals"

The piece goes on to say the prisoner actually had no knowledge of what the interrogators wanted but made things up

  "because he was terrified of further harsh treatment"

An NBC investigative report on the movie Zero Dark Thirty which put American torture of terrorist suspects on the big screen for all to see, reports:

Working with Mitchell Jessen & Associates, the CIA soon developed a menu of 20 enhanced techniques – a list that was ultimately whittled down to 10, mainly because some of proposed techniques were considered too harsh even for terrorists.
“Not everything they proposed was part of the final menu,” said a former senior intelligence official, also speaking on condition of anonymity. “They came up with some stuff people didn’t like and were not approved. … There were legal tests. … Does it shock the conscience?  Does it lead to deep long-lasting injuries?”

I guess the question is whose conscience?  An average citizen or a psychopath?

But let's stop beating around the bush.  Here's what the UN Convention Against Torture, Part I, Article 1 says:  

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. 

There's no doubt that by international standards, "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" are torture.  


Why does Obama use this term?

It's depressing that the senator and presidential candidate who opposed  torture, now as president not only condones it, but he hides behind the euphemism "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques." 

I assume that his many security advisers have convinced him that certain activities are necessary, or at least have given him enough doubt that he hasn't outright banned torture.  And he's also been told, I'm sure, that he can't use the word torture or he will make the US and perhaps himself, vulnerable to international sanctions and perhaps

The US is a signatory to the UN Law Against Torture, but has a long list of official 'reservations.'  Perhaps we can call them quibbles about the meaning of 'torture.'  Thus, using Enhanced Interrogation Techniques is a way of saying that we are not using torture.  From the United Nations Treaty Collection:

       II. The Senate's advice and consent is subject to the following understandings, which shall apply to the obligations of the United States under this Convention:
       (1) (a) That with reference to article 1, the United States understands that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.
       (b) That the United States understands that the definition of torture in article 1 is intended to apply only to acts directed against persons in the offender's custody or physical control.
       (c) That with reference to article 1 of the Convention, the United States understands that `sanctions' includes judicially-imposed sanctions and other enforcement actions authorized by United States law or by judicial interpretation of such law. Nonetheless, the United States understands that a State Party could not through its domestic sanctions defeat the object and purpose of the Convention to prohibit torture.
       (d) That with reference to article 1 of the Convention, the United States understands that the term `acquiescence' requires that the public official, prior to the activity constituting torture, have awareness of such activity and thereafter breach his legal responsibility to intervene to prevent such activity.
       (e) That with reference to article 1 of the Convention, the Unites States understands that noncompliance with applicable legal procedural standards does not per se constitute torture.
       (2) That the United States understands the phrase, `where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture,' as used in article 3 of the Convention, to mean `if it is more likely than not that he would be tortured.'
       (3) That it is the understanding of the United States that article 14 requires a State Party to provide a private right of action for damages only for acts of torture committed in territory under the jurisdiction of that State Party.
       (4) That the United States understands that international law does not prohibit the death penalty, and does not consider this Convention to restrict or prohibit the United States from applying the death penalty consistent with the Fifth, Eighth and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, including any constitutional period of confinement prior to the imposition of the death penalty.
       (5) That the United States understands that this Convention shall be implemented by the United States Government to the extent that it exercises legislative and judicial jurisdiction over the matters covered by the Convention and otherwise by the state and local governments. Accordingly, in implementing articles 10-14 and 16, the United States Government shall take measures appropriate to the Federal system to the end that the competent authorities of the constituent units of the United States of America may take appropriate measures for the fulfilment of the Convention.
       III. The Senate's advice and consent is subject to the following declarations:
       (1) That the United States declares that the provisions of articles 1 through 16 of the Convention are not self-executing.

I can't imagine that the US Congress would put up with external inquiries into US torture.  They simply would refuse to comply and start withdrawing support for international organizations that tried to enforce sanctions against the US.  The US is still powerful enough to do that. 

But it would be embarrassing and it would officially lower the status of the US world wide.  I'd note that most members of Congress seem to dismiss the opinions of people who oppose what they believe.

For more on this topic, the ACLU has a number of links.

Here's also a CATO Institute comment on torture. 

[This post is evidence of my blogging addiction.  I have other things to do today, but the President's euphemism wouldn't let go of me until I wrote this.  A (bigger?) issue that will have to wait til later is the unspoken acknowledgement that what Snowden did was important.   It's not as proofed and checked as most posts.  I'll check on it again when I get my to do list done.  Your help in fisxing things is appreciated.]

Thank You - Another Culture Where It's Not Used So Much

"It was time for dinner. The old woman outside, his wife, fed us beans and cabbage, and there was all the water one could dream of.  I thanked hiim, and he said, "You are our guest.  You do not say thank you.  Would you thank your mother?" (p. 152)

This comes from Robert Sapolsky's A Primate's Memoir.  I've already posted about the book here and here.  He'd just

"lurched through 110 - degree dust for the [last] twelve hours, covering 130 miles"

from the desert of Juba, Sudan up into the mountain logging town of Katire.  This happened some time in the 80's but Sapolsky is loose with when things happened, or else I just missed it.  (You can see some recent pictures of Katire here.)

He'd just had an interaction at the police station about his right to be there.  Then, it's resolved.  He gets his passport back.

"We relaxed, his job over.  Suddenly, he lunged at me, said, "We must go now."  Wha, wha, what did I do?  It was time for dinner."

I'm posting this as a follow up to an earlier post that included a snippet on how Chinese think Americans say thank you way too much.

And because of the turmoil going on now between the new nation of Southern Sudan (Juba is the capital) and the Sudan it broke from.  Below is a map.  I added Katire, that's approximately where it is.

Sapolsky's work with baboons was initiated by his interest in the social causes of stress and here's a link to a three minute video of Sapolsky - a Stanford professor now - talking about stress in humans compared to other animals.

Gonna Be Hard Going Home - The Beach, Then Spanish Lessons [UPDATE: Fire and Film]

LA weather isn't helping me prepare to go back to Anchorage.  The picture is from yesterday afternoon at Venice Beach.  The temperature was back in the low 80s again.  The air was clear.  And on Monday, the beach wasn't too crowded.  The surf was much lower than it was Saturday when I biked with B. 

It was a good chance for J and me to relax a bit and catch up after her quick trip to Seattle to see our daughter and Z and the others.

On the way home we stopped at La Fiesta Brava to pick up some Mexican food for

Spanish Teacher and Chef

dinner.  The chef wouldn't let me speak English.  And forced me to dredge up my 50 year old junior high school Spanish.  I could tell him that "Mi Español es muy malo" and I could understand most of what he said, but the one saving grace of Thai and Chinese is that you don't conjugate the verbs.  I couldn't remember how to do past tense or future at all.  Another employee there said that the customers who come every day have learned to speak enough Spanish to do all their ordering and chit chat in Spanish.  I believe it.  As bad as I was, I still am surprised at what still lives in my brain.

As I juggled the bags of take out on the bike ride home, more words began to emerge - things I could have said.

Here's the card - for good food with free Spanish lessons.  



I'm hoping we can find a little more time at the beach this afternoon, though  so far I'm inside prepping for class on Friday in Anchorage - my first for credit UAA class since I retired.  I'm looking forward to it.  It's the capstone class, so it only meets six or seven times over the semester, but there is lots of consultation with the students.  In the past I've always known the students, but not this time.  There will be other faculty helping.  We also have some errands to run before we leave tomorrow.  But it's too nice a day not to hit the beach once more, even if just for an hour. 


UPDATE Tuesday 5:30pm (PT)  - After doing our errands, we biked back to the beach about 4pm today in time to see smoke billowing up somewhere north of the Santa Monica pier.  Two planes were bombing it with water then turning around and going out to sea to get more water.  We never saw them getting the sea water - they disappeared at a certain point - but from maybe two miles away we could see the water being dumped.

The fire was to the right of the photo from yesterday.  The plane disappeared from our sight against the mountains where they start to go down to the lest.

Right near us on the beach was a film crew.  A guy was standing in trunks with a gal in front of him.  She'd put out her arms and move like she was falling.  I couldn't figure it out as they did it a couple of times.  But then the last time someone threw a bucket of water on the woman as she was 'falling.'  That's when I saw they were standing on a surf board on the sand.  I'm assuming they were getting them and the sand in the background.

I forgot my camera at home so my fire shot - below - is from Santa Monica Patch which seems to have gotten it from KCAL - 9.  The report says it was just a brush fire, but if they hadn't been bombing it every three or four minutes, it would have been more.  From our vantage point much further away, there was lots of brown smoke that was blowing out to the ocean.  The temps were in the 80s today and the humidity down below 10 percent - with red flag fire warning for all around the LA area. 


Tomorrow we visit an old friend in Portland for a few hours before continuing on back home.

Beets + (Less) Salt = Better Deiced Roads - True or False?

A friend sent me a link to this video, dated Jan. 7 (presumably 2014) on why adding beet juice (from the left-over pulp from making sugar that used to be thrown away) can be used at colder temperatures and drastically reduces the chloride necessary to deice roads, thus doing less environmental damage.






Of course, I checked to see what others have said and it turns out this isn't really new news. This is from a 2008 USA Today piece

By Terry Kinney, Associated Press Writer

CINCINNATI — A concoction of beet juice and salt that is kinder to concrete and metal is getting mostly favorable reviews from a growing number of states and cities looking for more effective ways to treat ice- and snow-covered roads.

It works by lowering the freezing temperature of the brine that's used to pretreat roads, experts say. And it's made from a waste product that was dumped down the drain before this new use was discovered.

Road crews learned long ago that pretreating highways with brine before a storm helps prevent the accumulation of snow and ice. Then they learned that adding beet juice to the brine could make the treatment effective at lower temperatures.

A commercial product called Geomelt uses the beet juice that's left after sugar has been extracted from sugar beets. The Ohio Department of Transportation is testing it in 11 counties, spokesman Scott Varner said Wednesday.

"Rock salt alone stops melting snow at about 18 degrees; Geomelt goes to 20 below," Varner said.  .   .   .

They use it in North Dakota where they grow sugar beets.  In Wisconsin they use cheese.  A report out of Chicago  the other day:

Many places around the country are mixing up strange de-icing concoctions, adding things like cheese brine, molasses, and potatoes.
Here in North Dakota beet juice is the not-so-secret ingredient. .  .

Of course, beet juice is abundant locally, with North Dakota's robust sugar beet industry.

Other places use the same concept, for example, in Milwaukee they use cheese brine leftover from cheese making. [cheese link added]

Potatoes?  We grow potatoes well in Alaska.  Does it make more sense to use them to clear the roads or to eat them?  And will beet or potato residue attract moose to the roads?
The Daily Iowan reported in Dec. 2011:

Effectiveness is without a doubt the most important, because human lives are the primary beneficiary. Cost is also to be considered — many municipalities, especially Iowa City, continually face crippling budget restraints. The third principal factor is the environmental impact of a given substance. For instance, road salt often makes its way into urban and other waterways, compromising drinking water and wildlife — not even to mention the detrimental effects of salt-mining.

One natural substance can make the substances we use more powerful, more cost-effective, and more sustainable: sugar beet juice. Both the University of Iowa and Iowa City recognized the advantages of beet-juice formula — often marketed as either ProMelt (pre-mixed) or GeoMelt (unmixed) — and use it to secure our streets.

"We're on our third season using GeoMelt," said John Sobaski, Iowa City's assistant superintendent for streets and traffic engineering. "We receive 1,500 of the 3,000 tons, and we treated that 1,500 tons right here on site. It doesn't take much to coat it, and we have a two- to three-day residual effect on the pavement. It does reduce corrosion, as well, and keeps the stockpile flowing nicely.

"At a cost of $10 per ton, it's been very cost-effective and beneficial."

Hold on though.   Is this just manufacturer hype that the media have eaten up uncritically?  Have the states who use this stuff  done scientific tests or are they using just anecdotal evidence to justify their expenditures on these products? 

A report by the Western Transportation Institute at the University of Montana for the State of Minnesota  is not as effusive about the  benefits of agricultural by-products (ABPs).

Additives such as agricultural by-products (ABP s) or organic by-product enhancers are also blended with these primary chemicals to improve their performances in snow and ice control. Known additives are corn syrup, corn steeps, and other corn derivatives; beet juice-sugared or de-sugared; lignin/lignosulfonate ; molasses (usually from sugar cane); brewers/distillers by- product; and glycerin. A variety of agro-based chemicals are being used either alone or as additives for other winter maintenance chemicals (73). Agro-based additives increase cost but may provide enhanced ice-melting capacity, reduce the deicer corrosiveness, and/or last longer than standard chemicals when applied on roads ( 74). Furthermore, agro-based additives utilize renewable resources and have low environmental impact. Alkoka and Kandil examined a deicing product named Magic, which was a blend of ABPs and liquid MgCl 2 ( 75 ). The working temperature of the product was found to be down to -20ºF. Pesti and Liu evaluated the use of salt brine and liquid corn salt on Nebraska highways and found liquid corn salt to be more cost- effective because it achieved bare pavement conditions quicker than salt brine and contributed to more significant road user savings (76). Fu conducted field testing in the City of Burlington, Canada of two different beet molasses based mate rials (30% beet juice + 70% salt brine) and regular salt brine (23% NaCl) us ed as pre-wetting and anti-icing agents over nine snow events. The results indicated organic materials for pre-wetting under low temperatures did not perform significantly better. With a higher cost than regular brine, organic materials can reduce the amount of chlorides released into the environment. However, the results from this study are limited to the application rates and the observe d winter conditions (77) . The Swedish National Road and Transport Institute evaluated the fricti on characteristics of three types of mixtures. A brine made with 30% sugar beet flour used to pre-wet salt resulted in no significant friction improvement. Longer term performance was observed with sand mixed with hot water (78).  Fay and Shi (19) developed a systematic approach to assist maintenance agencies in selecting or formulating their deicers, which integrates the information available pertinent to various aspects of deicers and incorporates agency priorities.

This post deserves a lot more research.  But I don't think I need to research everything.  I see one of my jobs as finding interesting possibilities and also asking questions and this issue seems relevant to Alaska.

Sunday Beach Bike Ride - Five Blog Posts In One: Heermann History, Chevron Prop Taxes, Hermosa Beach Oil, And More

B and I biked Saturday from the Marina del Rey along the beach path to the end near Palos Verdes.  What a wonderful ride.  Above are surfers from the Manhattan Beach pier.

I took this picture to show the surf board racks people have on their bikes.  When I was growing up here, the boards were much bigger and heavier and if people had bike racks, they were trailers behind the bike.  Another thing I noticed in this shot was how pale the surfers are.  Wearing wetsuits definitely blocks the sun.  These guys look like Alaskans under their wetsuits.

I liked the blue wave bike racks at the Manhattan Beach pier.  But when we got back from walking on the pier about ten minutes, a lot more bikes were parked.

Here's the pier itself.  There's a cafe and aquarium at the end.  The round house aquarium can't be very big, and even though the website calls it "Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab and Aquarium"  it seems more like a tourist attraction than a science center.  The website doesn't mention any research, but it does have a link for parties.

Further down was the Redondo Beach pier.  It's full of tacky looking tourist shops and restaurants.  I took the top picture on the way down.  On the way back it was obscured a bit by fog.  Strangely it was sunny the whole time, but if you looked ahead or back it was foggy.  I think there was just light fog all the way and sometimes it got a little thicker then dissipated.  It was probably in the high 60s. 


Based on the Seattle area's Audubon Birdweb  pictures and description, this is a Heermann's Gull.  I was eating a granola bar and it was clearly hoping I'd share.

The black feet and black tip of the orange beak give it away.  ABCBirds says:

"Close to 95% of the entire world’s population of Heermann’s Gull nests in a single location: Isla Rasa, in the Gulf of California, Mexico, which supports
300,000 breeding birds. The island is protected by the Government of Mexico as a seabird sanctuary. The other nesting locations are islands along the coast of western Mexico; there are no sites where the species has successfully bred within the U.S. The bird undertakes a reverse migration, beginning in May, when non-breeders appear off the California coast, later to be joined by breeders. It moves as far north as Vancouver Island, British Columbia, before all but a few individuals head back south during the fall and winter."

Adolphus L. Herman from here

I was curious about who Heermann was and finally found a photocopy of seven pages of Cassinia - Proceedings of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club, 1907, by Witmer Stone.   Today it's posted on the Club's website, 106 years later.

He was born about 1818 in South Carolina, according to the text, and was trained as a medical doctor, but seems to have been more interested in ornithology.  He came to California in 1849.

"Upon the organization of the Pacific Railroad survey parties Dr. Heermann obtained the appointment of surgeon and naturalist to Lieut. Williamson's party, which was to explore southern California with the object of finding available passes through the mountains by which the routes along the 32d and 35th parallels might reach the coast."

The proceedings say the gull is named after him and so is a song sparrow (Melospiza melodia heermanni).  I found a Heermann's Kangaroo Rat while I was looking too that lives in California, but I couldn't document a connection to Heermann, but it's likely.  Do look at the proceedings of the Ornithological Club for the whole story on Heermann.  The author who tracked down the notes would have made a great blogger.  And his piece on Heermann has made it on line now.

And if you want to know even more, I found that Dr. Joel Weintraub

"will explore the life and accomplishments of 19th-century California naturalist Adolphus L. Heermann. You will learn about the impact Adolphus had on the natural history of California"

at Cal State University Fullerton, at Mackey Auditorium, on Feb. 24, 2014 from 10 am to 11:30 am.   I think calling him "California naturalist" is a bit of a stretch.  He did important work in California, but from the Delaware Club's publication, it seems he only spent a relatively short part of his life in California.

Moving along on our bike ride - not necessarily in chronological order - we also rode by the Chevron refinery in El Segundo. [Note:  as you go through the following on Chevron's property taxes, you'll see I missed a key point, then found it.  I leave it in so you can see the process of my thinking and writing on this, not just the cleaned up (and possible still erroneous) final version.]

I wouldn't have known it was Chevron - there was nothing that said it was - except that B pointed it out to me.  He said the massive wall with spikes on top was new.

From Chevron's El Segundo website:

"We've been a part of this community since 1911 when the main product produced was kerosene for lamps. In fact, the City of El Segundo (Spanish for "the Second") was named after the refinery, then Standard Oil's second in California. Today, the El Segundo Refinery provides jobs for more than 1,100 Chevron employees and 500 contractors, covers approximately 1,000 acres, has more than 1,100 miles of pipelines, and is capable of refining 290 thousand barrels of crude oil per day. Transportation fuels -- gasoline, jet and diesel -- are the primary products refined from the crude oil. We are responsible caretakers of our land and the environment, we operate our own electricity, steam, and water treatment facilities, and even maintain one of the only two remaining preserves in the world for the endangered  El Segundo Blue Butterfly. "

Previously it only had a chain link fence, he said.  And eventually the medieval fortress wall ended and the old fence began.




From KOLO 8 TV, April 18, 2013:

 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Tests of pipe samples from Chevron Corp.'s refinery in El Segundo found corrosion to an extent similar to the pipe that failed and caused a large fire at the company's Richmond facility.

The federal Chemical Safety Board and California Division of Occupational Safety and Health issued a report Thursday that found up to 60-percent wall loss in a pipe at Chevron's El Segundo refinery that processes the same type of crude.

Chevron voluntarily inspected pipes at its El Segundo crude unit after the Aug. 6 fire in Richmond caused by a corroded old pipe.

There's also a lawsuit over Chevron's tax deal with the city of El Segundo.  One can imagine the kind of influence Chevron has on this town.  Here's a snippet from a Daily Breeze article in October  14, 2012:

A county civil grand jury is looking into El Segundo's decision to negotiate tax deals with the Chevron oil refinery, including a 1994 pact over utility-users' taxes that has come under scrutiny in recent months.

Members of the grand jury last month interviewed former City Manager Doug Willmore, who was fired in February and alleges his ouster came in retaliation for proposing that Chevron pay higher taxes. Willmore said he met for more than two hours with five members of the volunteer grand jury.

A followup article on April 23, 2013 article says they negotiated a deal:

"El Segundo city leaders this week finalized a deal with the Chevron oil refinery that will yield an estimated $128 million in net new revenues over the next 15 years, bringing negotiations over the company's tax payments to a close.

The City Council on Tuesday passed the so-called tax resolution agreement on a 4-1 vote, with little discussion. Councilman Dave Atkinson was opposed. .  ."

Look at the dates.  This deal was reported April 23, 2013 as having happened "this week."  Above, the KOLO report on the pipeline corrosion was on April 18, 2013, just a few days before.  But KOLO is in Reno.  I can't find any coverage in the Daily Breeze on that until July 15, 2013.  (That doesn't mean it wasn't reported, only that I can't find it.  But I did several google searches and searched the Daily Breeze website.)  Just find it curious they didn't report it when many other outlets far from them did.  And the July 15 article was from the Contra Costa newspaper which is in the San Francisco Bay area.


And $128 million over a 15 year period?   That comes to a little less than $1.9 million a year for 1000 acres (according to Chevron's website, cited above) of prime Southern California waterfront property.  When you get to Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach just past the refinery, the beachfront is lined with million dollar houses.

From eConsultant, we get this:

Place: Hermosa Beach, CA
Population: 129,251
Median Home Price: $1,200,000
Average Property Taxes: $5,884 (2006)

Assuming four properties per acre - just a for a rough estimate - that would be over $20,000 of taxes per acre.  Chevron has 1000 acres.  That would come to $20,000,000 in property taxes per year.  Times 15 years, it would $300,000,000.  And they worked out a deal for $28,000,000 over 15 years.

One could argue that the Chevron land wouldn't be worth that much.  Who would want to build on top of a former oil refinery?  But that only tells us how much Chevron has cost this area.  What would it cost to clean up the land?

Maybe there's something I'm missing, but it sounds like Chevron's got a great deal going.   This is just a quick and dirty calculation, but if I lived in El Segundo, I'd want to check this out further.

As I looked more carefully, there was something I was missing - the $128 million is "net new revenues,"  but the article isn't totally clear on how much this will be.  There's this sentence later on in the piece:

"Chevron's first-year base payment totals $11.1 million - a figure that reflects its 2012 taxes with more than $5 million in added funding. "

Does that mean it's $11 million including the added $5 million?  That's still lower than the $20 million a year I estimated - but my numbers are just back of the envelope calculations and I'm sure people in El Segundo could explain the difference.  

And in Hermosa Beach, there were lots of those million dollar homes with these banners on them. 

Here's a snipped from the StopHermosaBeachOil website:

A few facts: The proposed drill site is located four blocks from the beach on Valley Drive, surrounded by family homes, small businesses, beautiful South Park and our iconic Green Belt. From this site, the oil company seeks to drill, produce, and process up to 8,000 barrels of oil and 2.5 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. The company plans to directionally drill in all directions under homes and below the sea floor to the one-mile boundary of tideland that the City holds in trust for the benefit of the People of California. The oil company’s proposition is, essentially, to plant an “offshore” oil rig four blocks inland from the beach.

Our website provides well-researched information, citing source documents, which we view as fundamental to helping our community reach a well-informed and educated decision about the prospect of drilling in Hermosa Beach.

It is our belief that the City’s ban on oil drilling, which voters studied and wisely adopted in 1932, 1958, and once again in 1995, and which the California Court of Appeals unanimously upheld in 2001, remains our best assurance to secure the welfare of our community and avoid the grave risks inherent in any oil drilling operation.

The company that wants to drill the oil is privately owned  E&B Natural Resources and here's what Business Week says about their President. 

Mr. Steve Layton has been the President at E&B Natural Resources Management Corporation since 2000. Mr. Layton joined E & B Natural Resource Management Corporation in 1983. In 1983, he Layton co-founded Alma Energy and Equinox Oil. He served as President of Alma and Equinox from 1997 to 2000. In November 2000, he purchased the Alma and Equinox assets out of bankruptcy and formed E & B Natural Resource Management Corporation. Mr. Layton has been active in the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Louisiana Independent Oil and Gas Association, and the California Independent Producers Association. He served as President of the National Stripper Well Association and a member of the National Petroleum Council. He has been appointed to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission by Texas Governors Richards, Bush and Perry. Mr. Layton holds BS and MBA from University Of Tulsa.

And as we were getting back to the Marina where B parked the car - it was about a 25 mile round trip bike ride and B didn't want to push his back more than that - we got to the rise where people were taking beginning hang gliding classes.  Fortunately - given how long this post is already - I thought I pushed the button to video tape the flight, but it didn't go on until I 'stopped' the video which got a picture of dirt before I shut off the camera.

 

 If you click on the picture, you can read the poster on the hang gliding classes.  And, if the lessons don't go well, at the end of the trail, where we saw the Heermann's gull, you can get a beach wheel chair.

This post got way out of hand.  But I think it also is revealing about how much we don't see when we wander around places.  Just trying to get a little background about the things we saw led me to all sorts of (I would say interesting, but you can fill in your own adjectives) things.  It's a reminder to me that everything is more than it seems on the surface.

Gov's Rejection of ACA Funds Like The Religious Couple Refusing Medical Care For Their Ill Child

 NPR (and others) reported in April 2013:

A faith-healing Philadelphia couple on probation after they refused to seek medical care for a son who later died has now lost a second child.

Instead of taking $2.9 billion in federal aid to expand medicaid (with a cost of about $250 million to the state over seven years) and taking about 20,000 Alaskans off the uninsured list, our governor instead relies on the "Invisible Hand" of the free market to take care of these people.

To me that's very similar to not taking your sick kid to a doctor because you believe in God's will.

How many Alaskans will suffer and die because of his refusal to take the ACA funding?

This is not to say that the free market doesn't make a very significant contribution to US prosperity, but unregulated, it also makes a huge contribution to the massive transfer of wealth to what's been popularly called the 1% from the rest. 

I've already posted about the study that the Governor himself commissioned that said expanding medicaid would cost the state  $240 million from 2014-2020
and gain the state $2.9 billion from the Feds.    And about 20,000 fewer Alaskans would be uninsured.

Instead the Governor's ideological beliefs in the miracles of the free market, apparently, have led him to not accept the Federal ACA funding to expand Medicaid in Alaska.

I have no doubt that many people will become unnecessarily ill, miss work, even lose their jobs, and many will die prematurely because of the governor's decision.  Just like this child in Pennsylvania died because of his parent's decision to let God, not modern medicine, save their child. 

I'm reminded of this because of  a new study by Chuck Burnham, Legislative Analyst from the Alaska Legislative Research Services  requested by Sen. Senator Bill Wielechowski.  It adds to the previous studies already showing the overwhelming benefits to the state of expanding Medicaid.   Here's the summary:

Summary  

Among the provisions of  the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111 ‐ 148), or ACA, when it was enacted is a requirement that states expand Medicaid programs to cover individuals with incomes of up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. 1 Pursuant to the June 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius , Medicaid expansion under the ACA became optional for the states. As you know, on November 15, 2013, Governor Parnell announced his intention to reject Medicaid expansion. Although this decision will have far ‐ reaching and, to some degree, unknown impacts, we confine this report to the specific questions you raised.

Mortality

Although we located no Alaska ‐ specific research on the possible impact on mortality of rejecting Medicaid expansion, a significant body of research shows that health insurance improves access to medical care and outcomes related to a wide range of serious illnesses and disease. Recently published research specifically on Medicaid expansion in other states suggests that rates of mortality decrease among those who are enrolled in the program as compared to the uninsured. Due to differences among populations and Medicaid eligibility thresholds, we believe applying specific numerical finding to Alaska’s uninsured population based on these results would be improper and problematic; however, it is reasonable to conclude that some of the specific benefits found elsewhere would generally accrue to newly enrolled Medicaid participants in Alaska.

Impacts on Healthcare Facilities

The ACA requires reductions in certain payments and reimbursement rates to hospitals. These reductions are more than offset, however, by the reductions in uncompensated care and increased revenues that are projected to occur through expansion of Medicaid. Nationwide, the net effect is estimated at $2.59 in revenues for every $1 in reductions. In Alaska, hospitals expect additional revenues of roughly $60 million per year and a reduction in uncompensated care of over 85 1 Text of the ACA can be accessed at http://www.gpo.gov/f dsys/granule/PLAW ‐ 111publ148/PLAW ‐ 111publ148/content ‐ detail.html . Portions of the federal healthcare overhaul are also contained in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (P.L. 111 ‐ 152), http://www.gpo.go v/fdsys/pkg/PLAW ‐ 111publ152/pdf/PLAW ‐ 111publ152.pdf .  L EGISLATIVE R ESEARCH S ERVICES , LRS 14.117 J ANUARY 8, 2014 — P AGE 2 S ELECTED I MPACTS OF R EJECTING M EDICAID E XPANSION percent. However, because Alaska declined to expand Medicaid, hospitals will absorb the reductions implemented by the ACA without the offsetting benefits.

Effects on Health Insurance Premiums

Research suggests that in 2009 uncompensated care added roughly $257 to premiums per privately insured individual Alaskan, or about eight percent of total private insurance premiums. We are unable to isolate the impact of rejecting Medicaid expansion on insurance premiums; however, implementation of the ACA’s health insurance exchanges coupled with Medicaid expansion in Alaska has been projected to result in savings that could reduce the premium increases associated with cost shifting from $301 in 2014 without the ACA / Medicaid expansion to $45 with the healthcare act fully implemented.

Job Creation

One study estimates that additional Medicaid spending under the ACA would result in the creation of over 1,500 jobs in 2014 with annual increases through 2020 when 4,000 new positions are expected. In that year, these jobs could provide approximately $220 million in wages.

Federal Funding

Three studies on Medicaid expansion projected resultant additional federal funding in “mid ‐ case” enrollment scenarios at between roughly $1.1 billion and $2.9 billion in aggregate for the years 2014 to 2020. Increases in state spending in the same projections ranges from $79 million to $240 million. All three reports estimated federal to state spending ratios under expansion would be over $12 to $1

LAPD's Oil Free Vehicles

I've seen mounted police around Venice Beach before, but I was a little surprised to see them as I crossed Lincoln at Rose.  Lincoln's a major four lane urban street - it's Highway 101's route through parts of LA before it gets back to the coastline.  But there they were, closing in on what appeared to be a homeless man with a stuffed shopping cart (upper right.)


The LAPD website says their

The full-time Mounted Platoon was established in 1987 as a component of the elite Metropolitan Division and is currently composed of 35 full-time sworn police personnel consisting of 1 Lieutenant, 4 Sergeants and 30 Police Officers. City funds were allocated for the purchase of 40 horses to be used by the officers during the performance of their field duties. Also purchased through funds donated by the Ahmanson Foundation were a fleet of 8 trucks and trailers to transport the officers and their mounts to the various details, and a state-of-the-art police equestrian center appropriately named "The Ahmanson Equestrian Facility."  The two-acre Ahmanson Equestrian Facility consists of:

• A forty-horse barn
• Administrative offices
• Locker rooms
• Workout facility
• Covered riding arena
• Hot walker, round pen, and necessary training equipment 

"Hot" in the last item refers, not to the person walking the horse, but, according to Wikipedia, to

"hot, sweaty horses after a workout, particularly after work on a racetrack."

 In this case it refers to a mechanical walker.

But what were the cops doing in a busy traffic area?  Here are the duties for the Mounted Platoon according to the website:

General duties of the Mounted Platoon

Demonstrations - The Mounted Platoon is used regularly at the scene of demonstrations and unruly assemblies. Over the years, squad tactics have been developed to work in concert with officers on foot, enabling the Los Angeles Police Department to control large groups of protesters in a firm yet professional manner.

Crowd Management - The Mounted Platoon is deployed frequently in crowd management situations where large groups have gathered for festivals and parades. The appearance of the Mounted Platoon at these functions provides visible security and a sense of assurance.

Crime Suppression - The Mounted Platoon provides high-profile crime suppression in targeted crime areas. Mounted officers offer an increased level of visibility to both the criminal element and to the community at large. The officers are deployed throughout the City and at various hours.
Additional Mounted Platoon duties include public park enforcement, public beach enforcement during the summer months, and search and rescue of lost or missing persons in mountainous and dense terrain areas of the City of Los Angeles.

Well, since there was no demonstration, no large crowds, and it wasn't in mountainous terrain, I'm guessing it had to be crime suppression.  So, this intersection I bike through daily when visiting my mom is a targeted crime area?    Were they just patrolling the area on horseback or were they looking for something or someone in particular?

I would imagine there's a different sort of reaction when someone is approached by cops on horseback than there is when a police car pulls up.

 Trying to find out how horses affect the people police apprehend got me to some interesting findings.  KRS-One equates overseer to officer in this video - lyrics of the chorus below.


KRS-One lyrics to "Sound of Da Police"

Overseer
Overseer
Overseer
Overseer
Officer, Officer, Officer, Officer!
Yeah, officer from overseer
You need a little clarity?
Check the similarity!
The overseer rode around the plantation
The officer is off patroling all the nation
The overseer could stop you what you're doing
The officer will pull you over just when he's pursuing
The overseer had the right to get ill
And if you fought back, the overseer had the right to kill
The officer has the right to arrest
And if you fight back they put a hole in your chest!
(Woop!) They both ride horses
After 400 years, I've _got_ no choices!
The police them have a little gun
So when I'm on the streets, I walk around with a bigger one
(Woop-woop!) I hear it all day
Just so they can run the light and be upon their way


This article from The Nation's article on the use of horses at Occupy Wall Street seems to demonstrate the lyrics: 

At least a dozen officers on horseback entered the barricaded area soon after demonstrators arrived. For a time, the horses simply stood before the crowd, not doing very much. Then, a so-called “white-shirt”—a high-ranking officer on foot —suddenly removed one section of the barricade and guided a horse directly into the crowd. The mounted officer spurred his horse forward, ramming demonstrators, and the scene quickly descended into chaos. A chant of “animal cruelty” broke out, and people were clearly frightened for their safety: horses can inflict serious harm, especially in volatile, high-density situations.
Video footage of the incident shows that at least one of the horses attempted to turn and retreat, according to Barbara Lynn Sherman, a professor at North Carolina State University with expertise in equine behavior. Professor Sherman examined the footage at The Nation’s request. The animal appeared to either slip or momentarily “spook,” Sherman said, “a common response in horses, particularly when startled in response to fearful stimuli.” In fact, she added, police horses are specifically trained to avoid the “spook” reaction while on duty.
Did the NYPD abuse its horses by bringing them into the situation? Peter Singer, the Princeton philosopher and author of Animal Liberation, a landmark 1975 treatise on the rights of non-human organisms, calls it “unethical.” Reviewing the footage, he says, “At least one (horse) appears to be forced to do something—charge into the crowd—that it tries very hard to avoid.”