Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for the West as it commits suicide.

James Burnham

Military suicide: the US military was never a very impressive one, certainly not when compared to the British, Russian or German ones. But it did have a couple of very strong points including the ability to produce a lot of technical innovations which made it possible to produce new, sometimes quite revolutionary, weapons. And if the US track record on ground operations was rather modest, the US did prove to be a most capable adversary in naval and aerial warfare. I don’t think that it can be denied that for most of the years following WWII the US had the most powerful and sophisticated navy and airforce in the world. Then, gradually, things started getting worse and worse as the costs of the very expensive ships and aircraft shot through the roof while the quality of the produced systems appeared to be gradually degrading. Weapons systems which looked nothing short of awesome in the lab and test grounds proved to be almost useless once they to to their end user on the battlefield. What happened? How did a country which produced the UH-1 Huey or the F-16 suddenly start producing Apaches and F-35s?! The explanation is painfully simple: corruption.

http://www.unz.com/tsaker/the-empire-should-be-placed-on-suicide-watch/

The entire linked article is worth reading, particularly the two sections on national suicide (Political Suicide and Foreign Policy Suicide). Note I am recommending this for reading and contemplation, and perhaps discussion. This is not a blanket endorsement, particularly of his criticism of Generals Petraeus and Mathis. The politicization of the nation’s military leadership is manifest, but it too needs discussion at another timed; and of course we may look forward to considerable reform. Mr. Trump was not known for appointment of incompetent political cronies to run portions of his financial empire. Draining the swamp is not going to be simple nor will it be quick given the world situation.

President Trump has gone all out for passage of the health care bill; he made a promise that he would repeal Obamacare and replace it with something better. The current bill does not appear to be “conservative” enough, and the Freedom Caucus is willing to stick us with Obamacare until we get near perfection. Their reasoning is that we will never get more than we ask for, and this bill is nowhere near perfect; get a perfect bill through the House, let the Senate reject it, and the Democrats now own Obamacare just in time for the 2018 elections with waves of Democratic Senators up for reelection in Red states.

President Trump is apparently working a different strategy; since this bill will fail in the Senate, the Democrats will own Obamacare anyway. Obamacare is a disaster, and will be repealed, leaving us with the situation we had before the midnight lame duck passage of Obamacare. And that – well, at this point I find myself saying beedee, beedee, beedee…

It is pointless to comment on this now, because the “news” changes every hour and nothing is certain. I continue to believe that President Trump is a very competent man, and if he is crazy he is crazy like a fox.

sc:bubbles]

Justice Department warned White House that Flynn could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail, officials say

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-warned-white-house-that-flynn-could-be-vulnerable-to-russian-blackmail-officials-say/2017/02/13/fc5dab88-f228-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html?utm_term=.093f89ca8cc8

By Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Philip Rucker February 13

The acting attorney general informed the Trump White House late last month that she believed Michael Flynn had misled senior administration officials about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States, and warned that the national security adviser was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail, current and former U.S. officials said.

The message, delivered by Sally Q. Yates and a senior career national security official to the White House counsel, was prompted by concerns that ­Flynn, when asked about his calls and texts with the ­Russian diplomat, had told Vice ­President-elect Mike Pence and others that he had not discussed the Obama administration sanctions on Russia for its interference in the 2016 election, the officials said. It is unclear what the White House counsel, Donald McGahn, did with the ­information.

The one thing we are certain of is that revealing that if a government agency taps a non-citizen’s telephone, and that phone is used in a conversation with a US Citizen, the situation changes instantly; the conversation, especially including the identity of the Citizen, becomes highly classified, and access to that identity and conversation is greatly restricted; consequently there must be a record of who told Ms. Yates and the as yet unidentified senior career national security official must know who told them the details of the conversation and the identity of t. General Flynn. There is also the question of who told them what Flynn told the Vice President about the conversation? They were, they say, concerned that Lt. Gen. Flynn might be blackmailed because he had not told the Vice President about the sanctions that then President Obama imposed on Russia the day before the phone call. The Russian Ambassador did not ask Lt. Gen Flynn, then the National Security Advisor designate for President Elect Trump how Mr. Trump, as President, would react to a Russian counter-sanction deporting 31 American diplomatic families in retaliation? Or he did but Lt. Gen. Flynn did not tell the Vice President this? Really? But Ms. Yates had a transcript of the call, and inferred that Flynn could be blackmailed, and the President ought to know.

And no one is asking her who told her the details, not only about the admittedly tapped telephone from Trump Tower to the Russian Ambassador, but also the conversation between Flynn and the Vice President. How did she know what Flynn told the VP? No Congressperson seems to have asked that question. Do they already know, or have they been hit with a stupid stick?

Very odd. Very Odd indeed.

I just saw this:

The Flynn leak

“if a warranted tap of a non-US Citizen’s phone discloses and records a conversation with a US Citizen – which of course Lt. Gen. Flynn is – then special rules apply to dissemination of any information, specifically including the identity of the citizen. “
When does a leak become a leak? Can the guy (or gal) who actually recorded the conversation discuss this with his or her bosses? Does it become a felony as soon as this is mentioned to anyone else within the agency. Or does it remain OK as long as the ID of the caller and the content remain confined to people with high security clearances, and they treat that information as if it were confidential, and not to be widely shared? Does the Acting Attorney General of the US have a high enough security clearance to be briefed on the matter (or does the law specifically prohibit that kind of notification)?
Perhaps they need to start by looking at who within the Trump administration was notified. Do we know for certain that this leak wasn’t done by one of Trump’s own people, someone jockeying for position within the new administration? Some of those folks might not be quite as familiar with government policy in this area, and might not have understood the gravity of leaking information to take out a potential rival.

Craig

Since we know nothing, I have no answer. Sally Yates was an Obama holdover and instantly went to work as a Democrat political operative on being fired as Acting Attorney General. Somehow she knew what Lt. Gen. Flynn discussed with the Russian Ambassador in that call from thee Trump Tower just after President Obama deported 31 Russian diplomats and families, and also that Flynn did not tell the VP about the discussion of Obama’s sanctions or Putin’s lack of retaliation; how she knew what Flynn told the VP is not known to anyone I know; but I find it unbelievable that no one in Trump Tower knew all about that phone call, since it was known there that Flynn was making it.

 

Here is all I know:

 

Husband of fired AG top donor to Dems, Obama

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/husband-of-fired-ag-top-donor-to-dems-obama/article/2613466

https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/deputy-attorney-general-sally-q-yates-delivers-remarks-new-york-city-bar-association

https://www.palmerreport.com/politics/sally-yates-testify-trump-russia-house-intel/1828/

 

Ms. Yates was said to be on the witness list for the Congressional investigation back in February, but I find no record that she did. I’d have thought she’d be the first person called, but I’m not in Congress. Those inside the Beltway think differently from the rest of us.

Wiretapping “Investigation”

Hello again, Dr. Pournelle –
In your Chaos Manor of Mar 20 you said of wiretapgate – to coin a phrase – “That’s the interesting investigation. Have we any agents with the competence to conduct it?”
I think you used the wrong “c” word.
Not “competence” but “cojones.”
Keep well!
Cam Kirmser

re- Doctors that kill and B-‘s dad.

Jerry

I had B’s experience in mind when I asked my question: “Do you want to die?” I really expected, given what the wife and the doctors said, the patient would nod his head Yes. But he was like my own dad and indicated NO. People like B’s dad really should make out living wills in addition to healthcare proxies. What I really like about the story was that doctor who noted that he had seen a miraculous response. He slowed down the action until he knew which way the guy would go, then advised B and his mom. Fine story. Deftly illustrates that end of life care is an art, and relies on the experience of human beings. Cut and dry rules don’t cover it.

Ed

How Leonardo DiCaprio Can Persuade Me on Climate… buffy willow

Jerry

This, from Scott Adams’ blog:

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158549646496/how-leonardo-dicaprio-can-persuade-me-on-climate

“ . . . If you want to convince me that climate change is real, the best approach is to abandon the current method that packages climate models in a fashion that is identical to well-known scams. (Or hoaxes, if you prefer.) . . . By the way, my educational background is in economics and business. And for years, my corporate jobs involved making complex financial projections about budgets. In other words, I was perpetuating financial fraud within the company, by order of my boss. He told me to pretend my financial projections were real, and I did. But they were not real. My predictions were in line with whatever my boss told me they would be. I “tuned” my assumptions until I got my boss’s answer.”

Thought the perspective is interesting.

Ed

 

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Monday, March 20, 2017

“The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world.”

Donald Trump

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

One of the improvements they have made to Word is that it comes up with a list of things you’ve done recently and an offer to open the one you choose. These are only the recent documents themselves, not the folders they were in, which may save you time but can also be confusing if you don’t remember where they were. At the bottom of this list is the choice of “Open Other Documents, but if you are operating at less than full screen mode, you may not see it: I went up to the monk’s cell to work on fiction today, only to find in the travails around here someone had unplugged the power strip into which Zen, my USUS ZenBook laptop is plugged, resulting in near discharge of the computer, a bit of panic because the power strip was also turned off, and turning it on didn’t help. Eventually I found that it was also unplugged, but not before I – oh. Well. I needn’t burden you with details. I got it working and all’s well.

But I hadn’t worked on the interstellar colony book in a while, and it wasn’t a choice I was given for opening it; the window was sized just right to make the “Open Other Documents” choice invisible; and I’d forgotten where it was. There’s no key that just opens Word with the ribbon and the choice of looking for what you what – the ‘File’ menu. More panic, which is against the first rule, but it’s sometimes hard to control, especially if it’s tempered with previous panic and perhaps a bit of resentment for someone having let the computer go unpowered. Finally I hit on the bright idea of opening a blank document, which produced the ribbon, which produced “File” which produces the drop down menu that lets you go find what you wanted to work on. Unfortunately I was in fiction mode and all this shifted me into reporting mode, and I was pretty much stuck there, so I didn’t get much done. Tomorrow ought to be better.

It’s after dinner, and the news is full of “Investigations”, none of which are meant to find truth, but to cover things up unless they embarrass the politicians the finder doesn’t like. Millions have been spent, not counting the supposedly valuable time of the Senators and Members of Congress involved, and what has been found?

One wiretapping we know of, and knew about before the investigations started: the conversation originating in Trump Tower between Lt. General Flynn, then advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, and the Russian Ambassador. We know that conversation was listened to by US security agents, because it resulted in one felony we know of, the leaking of Flynn’s identity as having spoken to Ambassador Sergey Ivanovich Kislyak on a wiretapped call.

General Clapper says no FISA warrant to tap the Trump Tower lines was ever issued. Various others have said that no US agency ever tapped the Trump Tower telephones, and you can believe as much of that as you want to. The inference is that the Russian Ambassador’s telephone was tapped, and that is how the Flynn to Kislyak call was transcribed; presumably with a FISA warrant, since no other warrant record is found; and of course the United States would never tap a telephone without a warrant. You may believe as much of that as you want to.

But whatever warrant was used, one thing is black letter law: if a warranted tap of a non-US Citizen’s phone discloses and records a conversation with a US Citizen – which of course Lt. Gen. Flynn is – then special rules apply to dissemination of any information, specifically including the identity of the citizen. Violation of that rule is a felony.

And therefore there must be a record of everyone who was officially informed of that phone call, including the person who informed Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. Every one of those is required to keep a record of everyone informed of the name of the citizen involved. If they did not make and keep such a record, penalties apply; and surely Yates knows who told her. The President has a right to know this identity.

It may be difficult to identify the person who leaked Lt. Gen. Flynn’s name, along with a transcript of the call, to the public, although given the restrictions on who can have access to that it can’t be a long list. The leaker is guilty of a black letter law felony, and should be found and prosecuted, and this wasn’t a computer hack or mistake; this was a deliberate and willful felony by someone who knew very well that it was a felony. And who did that felon conspire with?

That’s the interesting investigation. Have we any agents with the competence to conduct it?

sc:bubbles]

President Andrew Jackson famously said, “John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it. “ A Hawaiian judge has issued orders to the executive branch. For a commentary and some discussion, see http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2017/03/16/robert-barnes-trump-could-go-full-andrew-jackson-ignore-interference-activist-judges/ . I do not recommend invoking the inevitable Constitutional Crisis that would result, but clearly if this sort of judicial interference in powers granted by the Constitution to the Executive continue to be usurped by judges appointed for life, such a move is eventually inevitable.

What if we go through the judicial process for deporting someone, but the home country refuses to admit him? He came here with a Ruritanian passport and visa and Ruritania doesn’t want him back; what now?

First, of course, we immediately cease to honor Ruritanian visas, and admit no more Ruritanians. That ought to be automatic. Of course some Ruritanian legally resident in the US will then sue to have a federal judge declare that unconstitutional and demand the right to be visited by his Ruritanian relatives, but we can ignore that one for a moment. Secondly, we can cease all aid to Ruritania; there may be none, but it is likely there will be quite a lot. Congress could also levy a 100% tariff on all imports from Ruritania. But assume Ruritania will not relent: they don’t want this dude nohow, and that’s that.

One thing we could do: auction the deportee off. We will pay $XX to the country that accepts him. Lowest bid wins. Perhaps that is a bit harsh, but it can be negotiated. Realistically, though, this is a real problem.

A few web tabs I’ve kept open; this is not a recommendation or condemnation; just pointing to them. I’m about to close some;

 

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170315-the-invention-of-heterosexuality

http://dailysignal.com/2017/03/12/the-daily-signal-wont-be-bullied-by-the-establishment-media/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Top5&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTXprelpHUmxZamRqTTJRNCIsInQiOiJ0U3R4SVBFenpRSUh6aVB5emFNa2M2Uld0enV2d2EySVVLeU5HUmZWMld5WVA4YnNnY01cL1JRTzFvRzQyUU5tdW1MK2N4V2dkdUJrXC81M2N5emw1NlVBcmFMUzZkQ0tZU2VIRmpLWjhaVk45MlFyeHZHU3VYMkozcXJCRFlhck4wIn0%3D

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/space-travel-wont-save-you-from-capitalism/518853/

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5zovs7/holy_mother_of_mary_i_just_inadvertently/

http://exiledonline.com/malcolm-gladwell-unmasked-a-look-into-the-life-work-of-america%E2%80%99s-most-successful-propagandist/

 

Limbaugh: We’re on the Verge of a Constitutional Crisis.

<https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/03/17/were-on-the-verge-of-a-constitutional-crisis/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

I’ve said that too. We’ll just have to see.

New Study Suggests Our Understanding of Brain Cells Is Flawed, and Here’s Why.

<http://www.sciencealert.com/new-study-says-our-understanding-of-our-brain-cells-is-flawed-and-that-s-a-big-deal>

—–

“A fundamental belief in neuroscience has been that neurons are digital devices. They either generate a spike or not. These results show that the dendrites do not behave purely like a digital device,” said Mehta.

“Dendrites do generate digital, all-or-none spikes, but they also show large analogue fluctuations that are not all or none. This is a major departure from what neuroscientists have believed for about 60 years.”

—–

I’ve always thought Penrose had a strong argument on the nature of consciousness. This seems to support his stance on the (in)feasibility of strong AI.

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

It’s worth a lot more discussion than I have time for just now. Penrose is always worth paying attention to.

Robots With Human Level Intelligence

https://www.markmanspivotalpoint.com/robotics/here-comes-i-robot-a-decade-early/?sc=PP-E

“In a little over a decade, the next evolution of human beings starts. According to a noted engineer and futurist, that’s when we can expect brain implants that will link us to supercomputers.”

Actually that description reminds me much more of “Oath of Fealty” than “I, Robot”.

Charles Brumbelow

ADA to UC Berkeley: take free lectures offline

A DOJ ruling on an ADA complaint made by students at Gallaudet University resulted in UC Berkeley taking down 20,000 free online lecture videos to avoid the cost of adding closed captioning to all 20,000 videos.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/06/u-california-berkeley-delete-publicly-available-educational-content

Joel

Tragic but predictable. And more of that to come. It can only harm; there is no benefit.

SteynPost #9 – Steyn on Sweden – YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUPgfEM9OzM

Mike

Interesting,

EM Drive redux

Hope you finally have all your locusts (and termites) under control.
I just ran across a short-short called “Toy Story” by Harry Harrison which seems to be to be a perfect explanation for the progression of the EM Drive. It’s in the public domain at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22966/22966-h/22966-h.htm
I found it in an anthology:

England Sends Soldiers to Russian Border

According to this tabloid, England is sending almost an entire battalion of soldiers to the Russian border…. Almost a battalion but they’re sending more armor:

<.>

Britain is sending 800 assault troops to Europe’s border with Russia in the UK’s largest military deployment against Moscow since the Cold War.

An advance spearhead of more than 120 soldiers flew to Estonia to bolster the nation’s defences against the military might of Vladimir Putin.

Backed by 300 armoured vehicles including Challenger 2 tanks, the force will swell to 800 within weeks.

It is part of a huge NATO operation in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland to strengthen 700 miles of Eastern Europe’s borders with Russia.

</>

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/british-troops-join-showdown-again-10049584?service=responsive

I tried to find more reputable sources to confirm this and what I found was interesting; troop movements from the UK of this character are common under conditions where tensions with Russia rise. Also aircraft and other assets are often committed in similar numbers of several hundred but nearly always under a thousand in terms of both personnel and materiel.

I also confirmed this story via Reuters, MSN, and other “mainstream”

sources. But, I heard about it first from a populist aggregation that listed the tabloid as the initial source of the story. However, Reuters mentioned that NATO plans to add 4,000 troops to the area on a rotational basis. That’s about four battalions, which generally means nothing in military terms but might help create populist revolts, and support for war, if those soldiers died in an attack. Ah the joys of political and social capital.

https://www.reuters.tv/v/FkF/2017/03/18/over-120-british-soldiers-arrive-in-estonia

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Massive troop movements are used as diplomatic signals, and to prevent border incidents. Presumably all parties know this; and it’s European matter. I hope.

Oregon Descends to Feudalism?

It seems that we are going into feudal society after all. How is

this any different from making homeowners into lords of the homeless?

The more property you own, the more peasants on your land. I understand this is a simplification and I’m speculating on what could happen in the future, but I see this as part of the overall trend:

<.>

With more than $300,000 and volunteer homeowners, Multnomah County has a new idea to fight homelessness: Build tiny houses in people’s backyards and rent them out to families with children now living on the street.

The homeowners would pay nothing for the construction. They would become landlords and maintain the units for homeless families for five years.

Then the tiny houses would become theirs to do with what they want. If the homeowners break the contract before then, they pay the cost of construction.

</>

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2017/03/multnomah_county_wants_to_ince.html

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Industrial feudalism — more local control – may be an answer to the modern age. Probably not, but let Oregon try it. Of course that’s not really feudalism.

Doctors Who Kill

My father suffered with heart trouble in his later years (heavy smoker).  

He had such a massive heart attack he was lucky to survive it and

ended up on experimental medication to control his heartbeat.

Eventually luck ran out and his heart went into a fatal rhythm.

 

The paramedics managed to bring him back, but his brain was

without oxygen for too long.  So there he was on life support.

The doctor said he had a patient (much younger than Dad)

have this very thing happen to him and after treatment walked

out of the hospital on his own power.  The doctor ‘pinched’

Dad’s toe and just barely got a response.  After several days

of this the doctor said he did not expect Dad to get any better.

 

So Mom and I decided to pull the plug.

We were fortunate for him to have made his wishes clear

many years before about not wanting to live as ‘some kind 

of freak’, so there was no doubt what he would have chosen

if he had the capacity to choose.

 

This can potentially open up a long discussion about

Situational Ethics. How far gone does someone have to be before the quality

of life has deteriorated to where it is no longer worth it, and

how is something like that measured?  

B-

It is when the circumstances are not so clear that discretion enters the picture; and here is not always a rational solution.

Alexa worth it?

Dr. Pournelle,
IMO, Alexa is not worth learning, and is difficult to turn off. If my only interaction with Amazon was frequent shopping for a small number of standard items, then perhaps it would be more valuable. Like Cortana, it seems to have a big local machine processor, network, and memory footprint, and I believe that there are privacy and personal security issues with the application. I’ve tried to disable it on my Kindles, and attempted to keep it disabled on my other devices, but the settings and administrative interface is pretty obscure to me.
Cheers,
-d

War in Space is Becoming a Real Threat

Dr. Pournelle,
Please only use my alias Terrier1 for this posting. Do not publish my real name. Thank you:
The Washington Post figured out what has been known among readers of this site for a long time: that war in space is a real possibility.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/war-in-space-is-becoming-a-real-threat/2017/03/16/af3c35ac-0a8f-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?utm_term=.c60d3db3d139
Maybe Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon.com, the Washington Post, and the Blue Origins private space program, has figured out that war in space can be a threat or a source of revenue to Blue Origins.
Terrier1

I doubt that. Mr. Bezos has never preferred quick profit to long term structure and long term gains. Remember when the joke was that Amazon might make a profit next year?

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

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

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana

The chaos continues. The locusts that ate my morning and a good part of the afternoon were trivially dealt with, but took time, and kept popping up unexpectedly, usually as I was just sitting down to work. Fortunately the last one is over, solved by Mike Diamond’s smell good plumber for $99, the only problem t=being that in the morning they could not assure an appointment before tomorrow; fortunately they found someone, and although he took a while getting here, once here everything was done quickly and simply. The termite people kept calling, one to say they needed to schedule an appointment for an annual inspection, then suddenly realizing that she didn’t have her appointments schedule, then an inspector (from the same company) to make an appointment, only to discover he had no openings for next week, then the same office girl to offer me an appointment for next Monday. This after about five earlier variations on this theme last week and earlier this week.

So either we have a termite inspection next week, or we don’t, but I have to be ready for someone to appear at the appointed time; which is the hoped for outcome, but I can’t shake the feeling that the next telephone call will be someone telling me I need a termite inspection, when would I like to schedule it?

I discovered also that paying property taxes by having your bank send a check does not work. The bank sent the check last December, and it was received there; the bank later informed me that it had not been cashed, and yesterday I got a new tax bill, with $150 penalty for not paying before the December deadline. At the same time the bank noted the check had been cashed after all. I sent them the taxes with the $150 penalty; I notified the bank to cancel the payment sent last December only to learn that about the same time they sent me the new bill with the penalty attached, they also cashed the check they got last December. Calling the County Tax Collector got sympathy but no results, and attempts to speak to someone who could do something were to no avail. The status now is that I have sent them the payment with the penalty, which I expect will satisfy them; and they’ll someday, I am sure, figure out that I paid twice, but I am not going to worry about it. Yes, it’s a lot of money, but spending time on it does no discernable good, and certainly does not produce additional income. Eventually I suppose I’ll turn my very patient lawyer loose on it, because I want that first payment back; but since I won’t get the penalty back, I suspect I’ll end up spending even more… Ain’t bureaucracy grand? And –

But enough. You don’t need a list of trivia that devoured my time, generally with a telephone call I did not expect just as I settled down to work. The toilets work, Roberta went to her appointments and has returned, and all’s well.

It’s getting late, and I want to get this put before dinner. I’ll probably have more later; there’s some interesting mail. I have nothing useful to say about the Hawaiian judge dictating to the United States as if the judiciary were invited to consult on national security. I’d swear that should be up the President and Congress, and Hawaiian judges do not have the authority to rule for the President on national security cases involving issuing new visas and not applying to citizens; only to aliens.

Andy Jackson once answered an edict by Chief Justice Marshall: “John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.” I doubt that President Trump will go that far, but it will be interesting what the President and Congress do here. The interference of the judiciary in the political process, particularly as it is in general in favor of a defeated party which had appointed many of the judges, has caused Constitutional Crises before. FDR threatened to expand the numbers on the Supreme Court, and was appeased only when one Justice switched sides: Google “A switch in time saved nine” for details. There have been others. The original Marbury vs. Madison was deliberately decided in a way to make a Constitutional Crisis difficult to impossible.

I doubt that Ryan has the votes to impeach this Hawaiian judge, and given the Republican squishes as well as Democratic joy over the injunction, there are certainly not enough votes in the Senate to convict; but there are some Democrats who find the Courts’ interference in the political game rather alarming.

– – – –

It’s after dinner, and I’m about to be off to LASFS. I’ll try to add some mail before I go to bed. Stay tuned. This is a time when some might think there are no ways out: despite losing majorities in both Houses, most of the Governorships, even county dog catcher elections, and the Presidency, nothing seems to be happening.. The Democrats retain a claim to the popular vote (almost all of that in New York City and big cities in California). Doesn’t count. Elections matter only when Democrats win them. This is a dangerous belief.

Machiavelli had much to say on this subject; as did the Roman political writers. When a people no longer believe in elections as a means to settle disputes, the disputes don’t go away.

And here’s some mail.

 

Termite inspection

Jerry:

I’m not all that clear on the whole “termite inspection” thing.

Is this like an ORI, or are the termites supposed to get in formation while the inspector walks through the ranks?

Keith

 

You’d be astonished at the lengths we go to to keep the termites sociable out here.

Property Tax

The status now is that I have sent them the payment with the penalty, which I expect will satisfy them; and they’ll someday, I am sure, figure out that I paid twice, but I am not going to worry about it. Yes, it’s a lot of money, but spending time on it does no discernable good, and certainly does not produce additional income. 

—————

I have found sending a strongly worded letter to your local politician gets results.  Most are available by email.

Your State Senator/Representative and/or the City Council person for your district.  Sometimes it takes a while to get them to 

act and you might want to send a reminder.  Copious paperwork to prove what has been done helps a lot.

B

 

Good advice for younger people.

 

 

The Helix Nebula in infrared – God’s Eye, indeed.

<https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1609/Helix_SpitzerSchmidt_960.jpg>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Beautiful

Illegal Aliens Cancel Foodstamps

Fearing deportation, certain illegal aliens will no longer take food from a program paid for by US taxes and meant for US citizens.

<.>

“This is a response to the climate of fear and terror that immigrant families are living in because of the Trump administration,” said Jackie Vimo, a policy analyst at the National Immigration Law Center.

“These are unfounded fears. But they’re based in this environment, and they’re very widespread.”

</>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/16/immigrants-are-now-canceling-their-food-stamps-for-fear-that-trump-will-deport-them/?utm_term=.f98223588c21

Why are non-citizens participating in SNAP? If one US citizen misses a single meal or lives with undernourishment for one second of his or her life then we simply do not have the money to be spending on non-citizens since our people need our money.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

 

I think it best if I do not comment on that.

Building the first microcomputer – Computer for Apollo – Buffy Willow

Paper tapes, Hollerith cards and seamstresses with needles hand sewing magnetic core memory. Baby steps towards our world. Well told, in half an hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIBhPsyYCiM

B

Petronius

: Sweden

Do you remember the outrage over Trump’s comments about Islamic Radicalism causing problems “just like in Sweden?” Remember how the Swedish government screamed foul? Their “Integration Minister” claimed there were no problems.

She comes clean: Sweden’s Integration Minister admits lying when she claimed rape rate was “going down”

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/03/swedens-integration-minister-admits-lying-when-she-claimed-rape-rate-was-going-down

Sweden is in deep deep denial while it is in the middle of an existential crisis.

This is why we MUST judicially throttle all immigration, particularly illegal immigration.

{^_^}

‘Yarmosh’s 2-year-old son has been so enthralled by Alexa that he tries to speak with coasters and other cylindrical objects that look like Amazon’s device.’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/how-millions-of-kids-are-being-shaped-by-know-it-all-voice-assistants/2017/03/01/c0a644c4-ef1c-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

I fear I have not learned how to use Alexa.  Is it worth the effort? I suspect it is.

Jerry

We still don’t know where cosmic rays are coming from:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/we-still-dont-know-where-cosmic-rays-are-coming-from/.

“Scientists thus find themselves in an awkward position: apparently, the sources of high energy cosmic rays should be close—think of distances on the order of 5,000 light years, which is just a tiny fraction of the diameter of the galaxy (100,000 to 200,000 light years). But, if they are that close, we should be able to make out bright and dark spots in the sky through careful observation.<snip>”

90 authors, and nobody knows. It’s been a conundrum for 40 years, at least.

Ed

 

Temperature predictions

Jerry:

I check the local NOAA 7-day forecast several times each day. The predictions have a resolution of one degree (F).

It is common to see predictions being adjusted several times each day for what the temps will be the NEXT day, much less through the rest of the week. Those changes are often several degrees.

These are the people who claim to be able to predict the temps a century from now, with a resolution of less than a degree.

I leave others to draw their own conclusions, but I don’t see anything to put any faith in.

Keith

I still can’t get an answer to whether primary data are air or globe temperatures on land; half the people I ask didn’t know there was a difference,  The data collection stations I have seen at the Santa Monica airport are simple thermistors taking air temperature in a shaded box. I am sure others are more sophisticated, and likely the Santa Monica ones are, but in the 80’s that’s what they were. Globe temperature give radically different results on a cloudy night than they do when exposed to absolute night sky. As the Romans knew when they made ice cream in the deserts.

So, the Obama FBI were going to pay for the absurd ‘Trump Dossier’.

<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fbi-once-planned-to-pay-former-british-spy-who-authored-controversial-trump-dossier/2017/02/28/896ab470-facc-11e6-9845-576c69081518_story.html>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Hardly astonishing.

 

Scott Adams: ‘Nye didn’t know.’

<http://blog.dilbert.com/post/157823678756>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Doctors Who Kill

While this may be a perversion of Robert Heinlein’s 1973 Annapolis Address, it does strike me as a logical train of thought. Heinlein stipulated that moral behavior is “that which tends toward survival”, and that acts that promoted the survival of larger groups of humans were higher on the list than “mere” personal survival.
It can be shown that the severely disabled, with the rare exception (Christopher Reeves and Steven Hawking come to mind,) consume more resources than they produce. They eat, they produce waste, they require far more healthcare, and far more human labor to care for than any dog or cat; and produce little to nothing in return. The resources that would have been available for care and and advancement of healthy humans is lost, and can not be reinvested.
Did not the ancient Spartans practice infanticide of crippled or disfigured newborns, exposing them to die, or at best, enslaving them if they had any chance of survival, but not being considered fit to reproduce?
Many military members throughout history chose death before capture and torture by the enemy. I’d not be surprised if a large number of American soldiers wouldn’t kill themselves if they were about to be captured by ISIS; although I’d prefer to take a sizeable honor guard of them with me. Certainly Ghadaffi would have preferred that when his enemies got him.
This parallels the education system in the U.S. where we teach to the lowest common denominator, and nobody can excel. I think most would agree that our current public education system qualifies as being immoral. Well, in that case, so would a blanket program of providing care to all the severely disabled who haven’t paid for it already.
I personally know of several family members or friends who in the last stages of their lives, chose to refuse medical treatment because it would only prolong their pain and humiliation. (To be fair, I know several others who fought the Grim Reaper tooth and claw to the very bitter end.) And there is the euthansia movement of people who wish to have the right to self termination in the face of terminal illness. But in their case, they are the ones controlling their end, not a doctor, insurance company, or faceless bureaucrat.
I’m not God, nor a doctor, nor insurance agent, and while faceless, I’m no bureaucrat. I’m also not in chronic severe pain, or hopelessly crippled. So I don’t know if I would choose to end my own life in that situation; but if a friend were in the same situation begging me to help him die, I’d probably do so. But could I do it if he was so far gone he couldn’t even beg?
I have taken my pets on their last legs to the Vet take the Big Sleep, and occasionally done the deed myself. But those were living creatures, arguably not sentient beings, that I had total responsibility over. Infants, young children, and the severely mentally disabled also fall within the category of someone else having total responsibility over them. Do we allow those responsible to have the choice of life or death for their charges deemed less fit?
I was raised Catholic; so I have a considerable amount of indoctrination that says that it’s God’s decision whether someone lives or dies. I’ve read extensively on this. I’ve prayed about it. I don’t have an answer; other than it’s nobody else’s right to decide whether I live or die as long as I still have my faculties. Whenever I finally lose them, I’m not going to care, am I?

 

Jerry

The bit on doctors who kill was interesting. Too bad so much is video – I don’t watch video. It reminded me of the time my consultation duties took me to the ICU. The patient was covered in tubes and his wife didn’t want him to suffer. The doctors wanted to know if he was competent to make decisions so his wife could ask them and they could turn off his machines at her behest. (If you think that does not make sense, you’re right.)

I’ll admit – I feel like a fake when I do consults on the dying. In this case, I asked one question. I got up in the man’s face and asked, loud enough that he could hear me, “Do you want to die?” He frantically shook his head No and the wife instantly changed her mind on the subject of Quality Of Life. Why did I ask that? I remember my dad, paralyzed by Parkinson’s (he called it “rigor mortis on the installment plan”) saying about a proposed brain implant, “I don’t want to die.” This from a decorated WW2 vet who had made plenty of others do just that. Well, I remembered that for the man in the hospital. Too bad the Dutch doctors do not remember their predecessors.

Ed

 

 

Subj: Washington Conjures Scientific Integrity

http://judithcurry.com/2010/12/22/washington-update-science-integrity/

Owen Glendower: I can call spirits from the Vasty Deep!

Hotspur: Why, so can I, and so can any man! But will they come when you do call them?

Rod Montgomery

 

 

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana

Still more chaos here, and all over. Leaks everywhere, many of them felonious, although of not much merit other than the breaches in security. As I write this, all the discussion seems to be more resentful of Trump’s income than anything else; he paid more taxes, apparently, than the Clintons or Mr. Obama, or Romney; not a great surprise.

The Cabinet seems to have vacant seats; since Bunny Inspectors work for Agriculture as I understand it, and that’s one of the vacant Cabinet posts, I suppose we’re stuck with them for at least a year, which probably means forever.

File 770 announces: PRATCHETT BUSTED. The BBC has the story.

A bronze bust of Sir Terry Pratchett has been unveiled ahead of plans to install a 7ft (2.1m) statue of the author in Salisbury, Wiltshire.

It was created by Paul Kidby, who illustrated Sir Terry’s Discworld novels, before his death in 2015.

Well deserved. I am sure he would have appreciated that.

 

Noonan link around WSJ pay wall

Dr. Pournelle,
FYI, WSJ is covered by a pay wall, so the Peggy Noonan column you linked isn’t immediately available. She also self-publishes, however, and the column also appears at http://www.peggynoonan.com/. Worth a browser bookmark.
Cheers,
-d

 

I have several messages telling me that direct links to Wall Street Journal articles end up outside a pay wall. I always provide the exact title, and as I understand it, if you Google that you get to read what it hits. If someone knows otherwise, please tell me. I also know Googling the exact title always brings up other places you can see the article. You can cut and paste the title to Google – oops, I now realize that will carry the link too; I’ll stop doing that. But generally you can read the articles free if you want, although it may take a bit of patience.

“Wiretaps” Versus Database Access

Jerry,

I’ve noticed it’s often not well understood what official “wiretaps”

actually involve in 2017. This gets in the way of understanding the current brawl. Can’t have that!

First, it’s been a while since most “wiretaps” actually involved someone going into a phone-wires cabinet and physically clipping on a wire-leads “tap”.

Law enforcement “wiretaps” generally involve taking a warrant down to the local phone company and having them intercept the relevant traffic via minor reprogramming of their switching computers.

Or sometimes, these involve setting up a “Stingray” fake-celltower intercept device nearby.

Either way, they accomplish the same end as an old-fashioned wiretap – recording all traffic to and from a particular device (or devices) that happens after the “wiretap” is set up.

An NSA (National Security Agency, or for its first several decades “No Such Agency”) “wiretap” is very different.

Americans, perhaps fortunately, are crap at keeping secrets. We’ve know for several years now that (along with hoovering up everything they can from the rest of the world) NSA is recording and saving “metadata” on pretty much all domestic calls. From and to what device, when, and how long – that’s officially been recorded and saved in a central database these last ten years or more.

What’s not official but is a poorly-kept secret – Americans, secrets, crap – there are many, many public clues – is that they quite probably also record and save in that database many, if not most (if not all) of these calls’ actual contents. Plus also pretty much all non-voice data communications. (Hi, guys!)

In theory, all this is in support of foreign intelligence gathering plus (under the famous FISA warrants) keeping tabs on foreign agents inside the US. In theory, only communications where at least one end is non-US are fair game to look at.

Everything else just gets swept up as a side effect and officially never used. But, the database exists.

Now, the government in its wisdom did decide that US citizens deserve some privacy protections in all of this. These aren’t applied before the fact – they collect just about everything – but rather after the fact, in terms of who can legally access NSA’s vast all-calls database, what they can legally ask for, and what they’ll then be given.

(It was direct access to this database that Obama expanded from NSA-only to sixteen different US agencies just before he left office.)

Meanwhile, official government wiretapping of an opposition Presidential campaign would be political nitroglycerin. Yet for months we were seeing story after story allegedly based on leaks of info from exactly such wiretaps, and nobody was picking up on that aspect.

Until, that is, this President tweeted that his campaign was wiretapped by the previous Administration, forcing focus onto exactly that.

Ever since, we’ve seen the organizations legally allowed access to this NSA database running for cover: One by one denying stoutly that *they* ever processed any such properly authorized “wiretaps”, AKA NSA database searches, of the Trump campaign.

Which leaves two possibilities: All the many leak-based news reports of Trump-related wiretaps were pure malicious fiction. (Some of them probably were. But all of them? Some of the alleged facts included certainly sounded like they’d come from wiretaps.)

Or, someone was doing NSA calls-database searches outside of normal properly authorized channels. Which, given what’s in it – everything – should be deeply disturbing to everyone.

Which brings us to today’s news: A claim that Britain’s GCHQ (their equivalent of our NSA) also has access to this NSA all-calls database, that they occasionally do off-the-books illegal-by-US-parties US searches as favors for the US government, and that this might be where the Trump campaign wiretaps actually came from.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/14394/bombshell-fox-news-sources-say-obama-used-brits-john-nolte#

Me, I’m not sure I believe it.

Oh, it’s highly plausible that GCHQ has such a deal, and does such favors. That sort of thing has been rumored for a long time, and Brit and US intelligence have been scratching each other’s backs since WWII.

But any sane GCHQ spook would recognize a US request to wiretap a major US Presidential candidate as political dynamite, and kick it upstairs to a political level where it would presumably die a traditional British politely noncommittal foot-dragging death.

I think it far more likely that the NSA’s database was being tapped into outside official procedures by the same sort of rabidly partisan US bureaucrats who carried out the IRS conservative targeting.

Only the NSA likely has far better monitoring and recording of who accessed its data than the IRS seems to. These hypothetical partisan bureaucrats might well still be identifiable. Hence this current bit of what looks to me like misdirection?

Worth investigating, I’d say.

Mind, even if I’m wrong here, either way, someone high in the previous Administration would have been coordinating the targeting and leaking of these wiretaps. And either way, it might be possible to track them down too.

interesting times

Porkypine

 

I make no doubt that President Trump will attempt to get to the bottom of this, using both career government agents and others. Felonies have not only been committed but boasted of, and I am told this irritates him. It’s called Rule of Law; reverence for the Law was eloquently pleaded for by Lincoln, not least in a Disneyland address by a live action statue for many years (quoting a real speech, of course). It was elementary civics when President Trump was growing up.

CIA/NSA “stealing” Russian malware

to use malware, you have to put a copy of it on the targeted computers. As soon as any targeted computer is analyzed, whoever does the analysis has a copy of the malware and can decompile it to see exactly how it works.
So OF COURSE the CIA/NSA/etc have copies of Russian malware. So does every other spy agency, and all of those agencies have copies of the CIA/NSA malware as well. If it’s any good, they will adapt it for their own use (why reinvent the wheel after all). And this lets them fool people who are stupid enough to say “the Russians were known to use this malware at some time in the past, so the Russians must have been the ones to use it this time”
Security Professionals have been saying this ever since the ‘analysis’ of the DNC hacking was released.

– –

But of course…

Did you know there’s an ATF National Firearms Examiner Academy?

Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed eCollection eComments Requested; Extension Without Change of a Currently Approved Collection; Application for National Firearms Examiner Academy, ATF F 6330.1

Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed eCollection eComments Re…

The Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), will submit the foll…

R

 

I did not know that, and I doubt many others do. Perhaps someone will tell Mr. Trump

You sound like Heinlein’s ‘rational anarchist’ / Oxenlock / Pneumonia vaccinations…

Jerry,

Regarding your March 13th post:

Good discussion! You remind me of Heinlein’s ‘rational anarchist’ (The Prof) in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. I wonder if most social problems in this modern age might be expressed as too many ‘oxen’ at risk of being gored. The status quo cannot get a needed ‘tune up’ because influential oxen owners will ‘fight to the death’ to maintain the oxen-protection system — and their very oxen are ‘the bigger economic guns’? To coin a new word from ‘gridlock’, perhaps society is in ‘oxenlock’? <g>   I suspect that oxenlock eventually leads to systemic collapse or rebellion… or perhaps a partial ‘pancake’ collapse into a kind of disguised feudalism.

Pneumonia:

If you haven’t already had one, it might be prudent to ask your doctor about the two multi-bacteria pneumonia vaccines available. One inoculates against 13 strains, the other appears to be a superset of 23.

Stay healthy! The nation needs more ‘rational troublemakers’!  Watch out for those ox horns, though!  <g>

Regards,

-John G. Hackett

 

Thank you for the kind words, but I am reluctant to accept the label of “anarchist” no matter how modified. I believe good government is a blessing; it is also rare. When I taught senior level political science, I used C. Northcote Parkinson’s Evolution of Political Thought as a major text; it was then fairly easy to obtain, and covers the subject fairly well. Anarchy does not seem to work except in very small communities. The test of government is when there are large numbers of disaffected inhabitants, and there is change. Ours took place in 17878. Two years later the French tried a different approach.

Most people prefer a Napoleon to utter discord, even if they would not normally support him. Our English forbears brought over the son of the King they had beheaded to reestablish the Monarchy; they were fortunate to get him.

Real government growth and healthcare reform

Dr. Pournelle,
In case you missed it (as I did), last month George Will summarize (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/big-government-sneakily-gets-bigger/2017/02/24/70cb52d2-fa07-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html) a Brookings paper (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/02/13/ten-questions-and-answers-about-americas-big-government/) by John J. DiIulio Jr. DiIulio asserts that government funded bureaucracy has grown 3.5 times since 1961, despite directly employing approximately the same number today as back then.
IMO, that growth is in operations and not acquisition, especially DOD purchases, where I suspect the growth is even greater and less efficiently executed.
I do not know if the figures include the growth of government-financed industry, such as the huge growth of medical “insurance” and health care provider services companies, which has accelerated tremendously since the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
As an aside, I prefer ACA over the term Obamacare, since it has obviously been really Uncle Teddy’s Dream Care (which makes a poor acronym), and the other term seems to transfer some of the last president’s glamour to the program, an attribute that should be ignored. Best the two be separated. And since a stated goal of ACA was to make health care universally affordable and not to reduce costs, it can only be regarded as immensely Iron Law successful: Costs and the bureaucracy to administer the program are increasing at a rate that is out-of-control.
In service to the thought about your future essay (and to punish a deceased equine even more thoroughly) I ask why ACA should be replaced at all? An overdue reform of Medicaid (which has not been replaced by ACA) could provide health care for the lowest income citizens and repeal of ACA without a replacement would immediately lower the rate of spiraling costs.
Cheers,
-d

 

Explicitly denying that illegals are entitled to health “insurance” would help too, but “insurance” with no rate adjustments for “preexisting conditions” is not insurance at all; it is a mere entitlement requiring someone else to pay your bills. That is a free good, and the demand for free goods has no real limits.

Your SFWA Experience Subject

Dr. Pournelle –
The SFWA section of the Mar 13th Chaos Manor was probably the best I’ve read of your posts.
I’ve encountered the upsetedness you mention towards the end and, usually, it comes from being unable to refute what is being said or is a symptom of being uncomfortable at having long-held beliefs shown to be invalid and being unable to come to terms with that invalidity.
My arguments against federal healthcare have been mostly met with “General Welfare” counters. Thing is, that healthcare check is written to cover the expenses of an individual. Individual is not General. Therefore, the General Welfare clause in no way covers federal healthcare plans.
I suppose the Commerce Clause could be, he said smirking, “liberally” applied to cover doctor’s expenses, if, perhaps, the doctor is reaching across a state line in order to perform an examination. I suppose a doctor with his office at Four Corners might be especially subject to federal controls.
But, if his limbs do not leave one state for another, the Commerce Clause could, in no way, predominate.
In my humble opinion, of course.
Unfortunately, it seems that the concept of “Black Robes Confer Infallibility” dictates otherwise.
Best wishes to you and your wife for continued improvement and protection from future concerns.
Cam Kirmser

 

There are many reasons to question the Constructional authority to establish entitlements. The federal government was not established to entitle the citizens; it can protect them from state tyrannies but giving them free stuff was not its purpose. There is a difference between building Interstate roads and distributing goodies and free stuff.

An aborted discussion by professional authors

All your discussion on the SFWA forum of government control of our lives is rather ironic — considering it is the Science Fiction Writers of America! Didn’t anyone bring up Jack Williamson’s 1947 novella, “With Folded Hands …”? Later expanded into “The Humanoids”?
Although it’s been a few decades since I read the novel, I still vividly remember the Prime Directive: “to serve and obey and guard men from harm.”
Reading Williamson’s comments from a 1991 interview is rather chilling considering what we have experienced with the rise of progressive politics and social justice warriors:
“…this experience produced in me a deep seated distrust of benevolent protection. In retrospect, I’m certain I projected my fears and suspicions of this kind of conditioning, and these projections became the governing emotional principle of “With Folded Hands” and The Humanoids.”
*SIGH* Unfortunately it is no longer benevolent…
WS

 

Williamson’s With Folded Hands” ought to be required reading for anyone programming robots.

Aspirin for stroke prevention: the story of Dr. Craven and his discovery

Intrigued by your off-hand comment that “A Glendale dentist had noticed that patients who routinely took aspirin had fewer strokes than those who didn’t”, I went a-Googling, and found this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1894700/

Thanks again for all you do!

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

 

Fascinating. Tells the whole story quite well.

Starship Troopers Redux

Dr Pournelle,

In case you haven’t heard. A new version. Reportedly following the novel this time. 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/starship-troopers-reboot-works-943882

‘Starship Troopers’ Reboot in the Works (Exclusive … http://www.hollywoodreporter.com The bugs are coming back. Columbia Pictures is rebooting Starship Troopers, the 1997 sci-fi film directed by Paul Verhoeven. The studio has tapped Mark Swift and …

Matthew

 

It cannot possibly be worse than the original. Ginny hated that one.

Materiel Moving to East Coast!

I just saw videos of hundreds of tanks moving to the East Coast, loaded on trains — tan in color. I also saw hundreds of tan in color APCs in a video along highway 90.

Also, Russia is building up jamming capabilities in Crimea and we’ve moved B1s, B52s, and drones into South Korea in preparation.

I looked into it, and it seems that we know what units the materiel came from and where it is going and it seems that it is, indeed, going to Poland. Unless we experience mysterious delays, I think we can rule out domestic action:

<.>

U.S. soldiers offloaded scores of combat vehicles from ship to shore Sunday at the massive port here, pressing forward with one of the largest U.S. force movements in Europe since the end of the Cold War.

Some 2,500 pieces of gear belonging to the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, including Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, are bound for NATO’s eastern flank, making a 6,000-mile journey from Fort Carson, Col.

</>

https://www.stripes.com/news/poland-bound-us-tanks-roll-east-in-military-signal-to-russia-1.447977

Also, Japan is heating up and the Philippines has some confusion about the Chinese ship in it’s waters. The Defense Minister said it’s a threat and their president seems to think China is their friend and says that he agreed to have the ships here and that he was notified in advance and he doesn’t want to fight with China and he wants the money

they promised… He’ll get neither, I’ll bet. I doubt China will

pay much and I doubt China would find much of a fight without a real navy to meet them.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

 

We are sending a fairly large armed force to Poland. I fervently hope that President Trump is smart enough to avoid actual war with Russia. Actually, I am pretty sure he is. You can’t invade Ukraine or Russia with a few brigades, and both President Trump and President Putin know it.  It’s a show of force, but who it is intended to impress is not clear.

CIA Empowered by Trump?

Alright, I don’t understand this. Maybe you read this WSJ article:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-gave-cia-power-to-launch-drone-strikes-1489444374

This is the same CIA that is all over the news. This is the same CIA that seems to be leading the charge against Trump — or at least Bremer loyalists at CIA.

Why would you disempower the Pentagon and empower a bureaucracy that can’t keep it’s most secret secrets secret? Then again, the Pentagon

hasn’t been doing so well in Iraq and Afghanistan. Inter alia, WWII

took less time to fight and win but we can blame that on policy makers. CIA’s screwups, however, cannot be blamed on policy makers.

I’m not sure what the thinking is here; can you help me out?

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

 

No.

UN Funding Cut “Draconian”

Alright, I skipped dessert to come write this email because I just had to share this laugh:

<.>

State Department staffers have been instructed to seek cuts in excess of 50 percent in U.S. funding for U.N. programs, signaling an unprecedented retreat by President Donald Trump’s administration from international operations that keep the peace, provide vaccines for children, monitor rogue nuclear weapons programs, and promote peace talks from Syria to Yemen, according to three sources.

The push for such draconian measures comes…

</>

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/13/white-house-seeks-to-cut-billions-in-funding-for-united-nations/

I stopped reading at this point. It is now “Draconian” that an elected official does not see value in spending my taxpayer dollars on the problems of foreign nations through the United Nations? It’s Draconian that we can make our own decisions about how we spend our money and if we choose not to spend it on people who want it then we’re evil?

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Health care matters

Dear Dr Pournelle
First, fair disclosure. I was brought up as a typical post war baby boom kid in London. The “right” to health care, in the form of the NHS is so deeply programmed into me that rational arguments are hard to accept, even now. “Give me the boy and I will give you the man” Back in the fifties, everything was available on NHS. Dental, Optical, vaccinations, pretty much everything. I have watched it being gradually eroded by successive UK governments with dismay. Of course today it is a shadow of what it once was.
Now, that said, I am generally supportive of your arguments. But for one thing, best put by Dr Asimov regarding robotics. “A robot may not harm a human being, or through inaction allow a human to come to harm” (I think that’s about right) The second cause is the clincher. In your somewhat Ayn Randian view of things, if a doctor sees a bum knocked over in the street obliged in any way to help him? My feeling is “of course he is” You may or may not agree.
Best wishes to you and your missus,

David

 

“Of course, today it is a shadow of what it once was.”

Yet there have been all these advances in medical science.

Political Humor for Today:

From a political humor mailing I got today, this one stands out my favorite:

 

 

Phil

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.