Election tomorrow.
Monday, November 7, 2016
Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for the West as it commits suicide.
James Burnham
If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.
Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983
“Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Immigration without assimilation is invasion.
Mike Donahue drove me out to the hospital in time for me to encourage Roberta at dinner. She’s looking much better now, and said several words. Still frustrated because she wants to say things and can’t, but the therapists at Holy Cross are excellent at helping people overcome that kind of problem. It’s obvious Roberta knows what she wants to say, so her head’s working. She’s still in there and they’ll teach her how to get back out. Deo Gratia.
The election is tomorrow. Of course my vote in California won’t count, and the election will be decided well before the California vote is counted, unlike the election when people went to bed and woke up to discover that California had gone to Woodrow Wilson by about one vote per precinct and Wilson was now the President elect.
I won’t venture a prediction. I will repeat, Trump makes me nervous; Hillary makes this old Cold Warrior terrified that she’ll blunder us into a war with Russia. Trump understands Putin much better than either Clinton does. Mr. Clinton let Ms. Albright get us into the anti-Slav position in the Balkans, where there are no obvious good guys, but the Russians have always been pro-Slavic; things have soured since then. We cannot dictate policy in Iraq and Syria, and neither Obama nor either Clinton seems to understand that the Russians take encirclement by NATO very seriously; if we really mean to act as a superpower, the only First World Nation, we need superpower capability; and we not only don’t have that now, we are losing what superiority we have in favor of more entitlements and crony services. I was an aggressive Cold Warrior, but I understood the limits; I do not think the Clintons do, as Obama certainly does not.
The nation could tolerate four years of Mrs. Clinton – indistinguishable from a third Obama turn – but I do not think we would enjoy it. I do not think we could tolerate another Hot War, especially one where we have no vital interest but survival.
Contemplate this:
New Warship’s Big Guns Have No Bullets.
<http://www.defensenews.com/articles/new-warships-big-guns-have-no-bullets>
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Roland Dobbins
Presidential Election and arch of American History
Hi Jerry, Hope all is well with you and certainly hope Roberta continues to improve. You have a lot on your plate and this US election is probably lower in the priority list at this time. I thought this article by Conrad Black would prove interesting to your and your readers. It is from an outside perspective (Canada)but details in a short piece the context of this election within the greater 2 centuries of US history.
Here is the link:
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/conrad-black-what-a-spectacle-this-election-has-been
Take Care, and good luck.
Sam Mattina
Thank you
Best essay of the week.
J
Caddell: The Real Election Surprise
Perhaps not the best, but certainly worth attention.
I have no idea if this is true. I merely report it. It would not surprise me if the report were literally true.
Wikileaks revealed that CNN asked Hillary’s campaign for questions to ask Trump!!
Donna didn’t have to pass the questions to Hillary, she got them from Hillary!
Automate away the public sector workers?
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/11/02/public-sector-workers-to-be-automated-away/
[quote]
Next up on the robot kill list are public sector workers: almost 90,000 people stand to lose their jobs in Scotland alone. …
[end quote]
That would certainly reduce both the cost and arrogance of government, and probably improve efficiency. Robots are upon us; they are inevitable and many government jobs easily could be automated; probably half of then within ten years. Of course we might prefer red tape…
A moment of science.
The Microwave Space Drive aka Em Drive
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/emdrive-leaked-nasa-paper-reveals-star-trek-microwave-thruster-does-work-1590244?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=rss&utm_content=/rss/yahoous&yptr=yahoo
Supposedly it works according to a ‘leaked’ NASA paper!
“researchers achieved a force of 1.2 millinewtons per kilowatt in a vacuum after errors of measurement were accounted for.”
Link to the text of the paper
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7kgKijo-p0ibm94VUY0TVktQlU/view
Most interesting. I wonder if there is enough detail for the Chinese to take it over since NASA appears to want to kill the topic and close the research center that did the work. Or, do you think that they would prefer for someone to actually do the engineering work so that they can steal that? :-J
Pete
This could be the most important news of the decade. One Newton = force to accelerate one kilogram one meter per second per second. Small, but the EM drive seems to need no reaction mass. At 1.2 KW per millinewton, you could accelerate a small ship to enormous speeds over time.
Quantum news
Submitted to your attention.
Note in the bylines several other items some of you may be interested in.
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/why-quantum-mechanics-might-need-overhaul?tgt=nr
Elon Musk Thinks Automation Will Lead to a Universal Basic Income
It’s the science fiction scenario we’ve read about for years. People paid by the government because there are no jobs. This should lessen the burden on most educational institutions. They can openly be enhanced baby sitters since the pupils couldn’t get a job even if they had skills.
https://news.google.com/news/amp?caurl=http%3A%2F%2Famp.timeinc.net%2Ffortune%2F2016%2F11%2F06%2Felon-musk-universal-basic-income%2F%3Fsource%3Ddam#pt0-38057
Thanks,
John
Marx believed that work was unnecessary, if only all the surplus value went to the workers. Burnham in his thoughts on The Managerial Society had different views. Most science fiction authors have believed that the first fruits of real automation would be some kind of basic income: Mack Reynolds postulated it as shares in the national corporation that you couldn’t lose or be conned out of. No one has dug too deeply into designing an economic system that makes it actually work.
Offensive on Raqqa
The only question I have after reading this article is why am I reading about this as something that is about to happen, today. Why didn’t i read this last week as something that happened?
<.>
An attack on Raqqa has been long expected, with U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter saying on Oct. 25 that the battle to retake it would “overlap” with the assault on Mosul.
The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, said last month that the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State wanted to move urgently to isolate Raqqa because of concerns about the group using the city as a base to plan and launch attacks against targets abroad.
France has also pushed for simultaneous action on both fronts.
President Francois Hollande said last month there was evidence that Islamic State fighters were fleeing to Raqqa, and that everything must be done to stop them regrouping there.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Sunday that an offensive on Raqqa should be launched while the battle to push the group out of Mosul is under way.
“We have to go to Raqqa … it will automatically be local forces that will liberate Raqqa even if French forces, U.S. forces, the coalition contribute with air strikes to dismantle Daesh,” Le Drian told Europe
1 radio, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
“Mosul-Raqqa can’t be disassociated because Islamic State and the territories it occupies span that area,” he said.
</>
https://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/isis-raqqa-us-forces/2016/11/06/id/757273/
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Most Respectfully,
Joshua Jordan, KSC
Percussa Resurgo
I have believed this since I thought seriously about the requirements for elimination of the Caliphate. It is a purely military question. The real problem is after the liberation of the Caliphate areas, what happens to the people who remain alive in there. Who governs?
DC Attorney: FBI Agents Working To Expose Top DOJ Officials | The Daily Caller
Hard to say how true this is, but it seems to fit with everything else we’re hearing.
FBI agents pushed forward, against the wishes of the Justice Department and without the support of bureau leadership, to investigate the Clinton Foundation, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
As a result of the obstacles thrown in their way, DiGenvoa says the agents within the bureau have gone “rogue” and any upper level bureaucrat that gets in their way from investigating Clinton could be exposed.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/03/dc-attorney-fbi-agents-working-to-expose-top-doj-officials/
John Harlow
Clinton Foundation Probe Update
I’m reading some updates on the Clinton Foundation probe; it seems the IRS is involved now too:
<.>
Secret recordings of a suspect talking about the Clinton Foundation fueled an internal battle between FBI agents who wanted to pursue the case and corruption prosecutors who viewed the statements as worthless hearsay, people familiar with the matter said.
Agents, using informants and recordings from unrelated corruption investigations, thought they had found enough material to merit aggressively pursuing the investigation into the foundation that started in summer 2015 based on claims made in a book by a conservative author called “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” these people said.
</>
http://www.wsj.com/articles/secret-recordings-fueled-fbi-feud-in-clinton-probe-1478135518
I may have sent you that video. It gets into friends of the Clintons like Paul Kagame, his human rights abuses, and the financial relationship between him and the Clintons, the sum of payments he made; awards and favors he received. Other names and places are covered. I wondered if anyone was going to investigate; now I know.
Clinton Cash is worth your time and might still be on YouTube. And onto the IRS:
<.>
But the [IRS] does have a mandate to review claims of exemption, including conducting “examinations to identify and address non-compliance” like the one underway with the Clinton Foundation. One IRS document called the “Tax Exempt and Government Entities Fiscal Year 2017 Work Plan” gives a more complete picture. “Filing, organizational and operational and employment tax numbered among the top issues the Exempt Organizations Examinations group uncovered in its 4,984 examinations in 2016,” it says. “The filing issues primarily involved verifying exempt activities and securing delinquent returns.”
</>
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Most Respectfully,
Joshua Jordan, KSC
Iran Sending Soldiers to US!
How much do you want to bet they’re talking about the Quds Force?
<.>
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the country’s elite military force, is sending assets to infiltrate the United States and Europe at the direction of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to recent Farsi-language comments from an Iranian military leader.
The IRGC “will be in the U.S. and Europe very soon,” according to the Iranian military commander, who said that these forces would operate with the goal of bolstering Iran’s hardline regime and thwarting potential plots against the Islamic Republic.
</>
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iranian-military-sending-elite-forces-u-s-europe/
This is why we need borders….
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Most Respectfully,
Joshua Jordan, KSC
Percussa Resurgo
sc:bubbles]
Hope you are well, and something that might be of interest
I’ve prayed for your wife and you, I hope she improves quickly. FWIW try not to be too terrified.
Also I’m curious what you think of this idea:
http://www.cringely.com/2016/10/31/heck-happened-apple/
Relevant quote here:
”
Nearly all original ideas in Hollywood, and anywhere else visual entertainment is made, begin in the mind of a writer. Yet writers, like most actors, are notoriously underpaid. Apple just needs to create a welfare state for writers.
What Apple needs is an option for the online rights to every writer’s work. There are probably 10,000 “writers” in the entertainment business earning anywhere from $5000 to $5 million per year. I want Apple to put under contract every writer who has ever written anything that’s been produced, paying them each a guaranteed baseline of $40,000 per year (that’s $400 million annually) with an additional $600 million going to writers whose work is actually produced. Let’s say there are 2000 films and TV shows produced per year so that would be, say, $500,000 per movie and $50K per series episode.
These amounts are substantially above Writers Guild rates and what they’d buy is a streaming option. Apple gets its pick of everything.
The industry wouldn’t know what hit them as Apple steals the idea stream at its source. Apple would have to negotiate the deal with the Writers Guild, which would love it. Producers would hate it but would learn to love it because Apple would end up financing many of their productions.
”
Patrick Melody
Intriguing. I have to give this some thought. I’ve seen nothing on it from the Authors’ Guild (which generally does not talk to the Writer’s Guild and vice versa). Apple changed the music business as Amazon changed publishing.
Thanks for the kind thoughts.
And some not so good news:
Not so fast on A-10
Dr. Pournelle,
A-10 depot can’t recover from illegal neglect:
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2016/11/01/usaf-is-not-preparing-to-sustain-a-10-just-treading-water/
I recommend James T. Harris show. http://www.jamestharris.com/
-d
Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.
