Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Most of my day was used up in maintenance: out to Kaiser, then some shopping. Returned to find that President Trump had been busy. For one thing he approved the Keystone pipeline, with a few restrictions. Not only will the work be in the United States – how could it be otherwise – but the pipes will be of steel made in the United States. Oddly, much of the media acted surprised, and most emphasized how controversial this is; yet I distinctly remember Trump promising to approve that pipeline during the campaign, and not clandestinely: didn’t he mention it in the debates? Surely there is not much room for surprise in this decision. Meanwhile the Democrats found reasons to delay Mr. Trump’s Cabinet appointments. Mr. Trump announced that he will have chosen his Supreme Court appointment next week; Senate Majority Leader McConnell told reporters that Trump’s choice will be confirmed. Asked if he means that he is threatening the nuclear option, Mr. McConnell repeated that Mr. Trump’s choice will be confirmed; leading me to wonder if Mr. Trump is serving backbone stiffening medicine in his conferences, and if the FDA has approved it as effective.

In fact, there is not much information, in the technical sense, in the news; it is going as expected. Of course the cumulative effect is information, namely that Mr. Trump is holding firm to most of his promises. That I suppose is news to many Washington politicians, who do not expect any politician to keep his word once elected; but of course, Mr. Trump is not a politician, as the media keeps assuring us, so why are they surprised when he does not act like one? And the early approval of Keystone could not be a surprise to anyone who actually listened to Mr. Trump during the campaign. There was also an effort to make Mr. Trump’s estimate of 28,000 jobs as a result of the pipeline approval another example of his gross exaggeration. I’m still looking at that; it may be an overestimate, but it depends on your view of the effects of the lower costs of energy, and that is difficult to estimate.

The pledge drive continues to be successful. If you haven’t subscribed, or you can’t remember when last you did, this would be the right time to help pay for this place.

rights, and inaugurations

Dear Mr. Pournelle,
I appreciate Mr. Hack’s observation that “Positive rights are things that must be provided…” Emphasize “must.” While as you know I support national health care legislation, this seems to me an excellent reason why categorizing it as a “right” would be imprudent. We are able to guarantee defense counsel. No plausible economy can guarantee all the health care which might be needed, even through the draconian measures to which Mr. Hack alludes.
Mr. Flynn’s observation that “Natural rights are those rooted in human nature. It is the right that is not alienable, not the thing itself” is very useful, as his his background on the philosophical discussion. But again, I’m inclined to think that even though people with whom I would group myself argue for health care as a “right,” this isn’t a useful way to approach the question. A better question would be: is this an objective which we find desirable and legitimate?
Regarding the “most watched inauguration” question: I can’t say I really care. Whatever the conclusion, it would at most provide a data point regarding popularity, which might be useful during an election but doesn’t get us anywhere now. What I’m interested in is: what will he DO?
In any event, it seems to be a theme with Mr. Trump that everything associated with him must be the biggest and best ever. I take that as noise, not signal. One could parse distinctions regarding “watched,” but why bother?
What I *do* care about, is two points in the discussion. Most important: the suggestion of reprisals against media which do not support the “most watched” claim seems just wrong. “Hold them accountable?” Under what legitimate presidential power?
A second point is the strange notion of “alternative facts.” There are no alternative facts. There are facts, incomplete data, errors, misrepresentation, and lies. But none of us get to live in an alternate reality. Postmodernism has a lot to answer for.
Yours,
Allan E. Johnson

I agree with your assessment of the rights debate: the subject should be, is this Constitutional (for the Federal Government) and is it a good idea. Subsumed under that second question is an all important one: can we afford it, or is the money more required for other needs? And that discussion I do not recall seeing. Edmund Burke once said that for a man to love his country, his country ought to be lovely; a thought I find attractive. If we can afford health care for all; if the cost is not to lower the general quality by, for example, enslaving doctors – then it is a perfectly good argument. I think it is manifestly clear that at present we cannot afford it, or many of the other entitlements brought in by the Great Society and the “War on Poverty” – that strange war that persists no matter how many battles we win.

But that is for another discussion; few talk about the subject on those terms. Instead it is all about the rights of the recipient, a mention but no examination of the obligations of those who pay, and not much else.

With regard to ‘reprisals’ against unruly press, we have a problem: some of the “Press” deserve reprisals, since they exercise no self-restraint and exhibit no manners. Obviously the ‘reprisals’ should not include jail for non-violent behavior, but surely much of what the Press Corps receives is privileges, not rights, and those may be withheld at discretion? We can discuss what are rights and what are privileges another time; but surely I am not required to invite unruly people into my house?

Rights redux

The notion of “positive” and “negative” rights is well established in scholarship and law, and Edmund Hack did a good job of explaining both the idea and illustrating how it can be applied to contemporary politics.

However, I think there is a simpler way to describe rights. Richard Mayberry, author of the Uncle Eric series and other booklets beloved of homeschoolers, puts it this way:

No person may encroach unreasonably on the person or property of another.

I put it this way:

No person may compel another against his will, except in defense of his own or another’s person or property, or to remove a hazard or nuisance.

Enter the state. The state doesn’t exist in nature; it is a created thing. Historically, it is the creature of the strongest, most numerous, or best organized bully. We flatter ourselves that in our case it is the creature of the people, and in the most ideal sense it is. It is supposed to be an agent of the people, acting in their interests, and exercising only the authority that the people have delegated to it.

However, since the people can only delegate the authority that they themselves possess, and “the people”, as a collective, cannot be deemed to possess any authority — or right — that a single person lacks, it follows that the state also cannot legitimately act against a person in any manner that would be forbidden to another person. To paraphrase Bastiat, it is a bad law which benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

This, of course, is the ideal, never existing at any time or place. The reality is that the only governing principle that has ever been applied is “might makes right”. All that prevents our own state executives from becoming terrible despots is their own forbearance and the realization that they cannot confidently command American troops to bear arms against their neighbors.

And this, perhaps, is the cornerstone of civilization.

Richard White

Del Valle, Texas

To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

Women’s March trash

Mixed opinions on how the marchers disposed of their signs. While the Park Service gratefully acknowledged that, for the most part, the signs were stacked near trash bins, making their jobs easier, other articles and photographs tell a different story.

https://www.rt.com/usa/374721-mixed-reaction-march-cleanup/

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/01/liberal-women-march-trump-leave-trash-heaps-someone-else-clean/

Richard White
Del Valle, Texas

All I know is what I read in the newspapers – or hear someone say on Television…

women’s protest march

It only took one day in office for Donald Trump to get more fat women out walking than Michelle Obama could in 8 years.

J

Free Trade

I have a simple definition. If the trade agreement is a thousand pages long, it’s not a free trade agreement. It may very well be an improvement on the current trade agreements, but it’s not free trade.

Fredrik

I like that.

Oy.

Why am I not surprised…?

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/01/23/obama-sneaks-221m-to-palestine-on-the-way-out/

S

Actually, I expect the Israelis would have to pay that to the PLO if the United States did not; without outside support surely the Moslems in Judea and Samaria would throw the PLO out, and it would be replaced by Hamas or worse?

Bunny Inspectors

I wrote to you about this four years ago; you may have published it.

When discussing the Federal Bunny Inspectors, it seems necessary to iterate the comparatively recent absurdities under the Obama Administration. The Bunny Inspectors require a disaster plan from “member of their regulated community” for the bunnies:

<.>

This summer, Marty the Magician got a letter from the U.S. government.

It began with six ominous words: “Dear Members of Our Regulated Community . . .”

Washington had questions about his rabbit. Again.

Marty Hahne, 54, does magic shows for kids in southern Missouri. For his big finale, he pulls a rabbit out of a hat. Or out of a picnic basket. Or out of a tiny library, if he’s doing his routine about reading being magical.

To do that, Hahne has an official U.S. government license. Not for the magic. For the rabbit.

The Agriculture Department requires it, citing a decades-old law that was intended to regulate zoos and circuses. Today, the USDA also uses it to regulate much smaller “animal exhibitors,” even the humble one-bunny magician.

That was what the letter was about. The government had a new rule. To keep his rabbit license, Hahne needed to write a rabbit disaster plan.

“Fire. Flood. Tornado. Air conditioning going out. Ice storm. Power failures,” Hahne said, listing a few of the calamities for which he needed a plan to save the rabbit.

Or maybe not. Late Tuesday, after a Washington Post article on Hahne was posted online, the Agriculture Department announced that the disaster-plan rule would be reexamined.

</>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/watch-him-pull-a-usda-mandated-rabbit-disaster-plan-out-of-his-hat/2013/07/16/816f2f66-ed66-11e2-8163-2c7021381a75_story.html?utm_term=.43ad5d92aba1

This is the same media that we can’t trust… It seems absurd, but I can’t put it past government. Apparently, anyone “exhibiting” an animal requires federal regulation. Shall they regulate the exhibition of breasts at your local strip club and porno studio and get taxes and fees there too? After all, the interstate commerce clause could be interpreted in that way, could it not? Why can they regulate the conduct of a stage magician who does not have an act that cross state lines anyway?

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Dr Pournelle 

RE: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/mail-a-selected-mixed-bag-all-interesting-to-me/

Thank you for the mailbag. Still chasing the links from much of it. 

Charles Brumbelow sent in the link to and snippets from Fred on Everything. I read as much as I could stomach and then quit. Fred is dead wrong on so much in his screed. 

One example: The Chinese quantum-crypto satellite — whatever the hell that is — he touts has transmissions that are “not usefully interceptable.” 

This is not new. For as long as I can remember, intercepting Chinese signals has been something anyone could do with parts from Radio Shack. Breaking their code was another matter entirely. The same guy who created American cyphers created the Chinese cyphers (’cause he was Chinese and went back to help Chairman Mao build a Workers’ Paradise). You may recall his name. I don’t. Anyway, his cyphers are unbreakable in practice: intelligence is time-sensitive and by the time you can break one, the information in the code has passed its sell-by date. 

So, if by “usefully interceptable” Fred means transmissions which can be intercepted (all if you are willing to pay the price) and read (most unless they are Chinese), even before the quantum-crypto satellite Chinese transmissions were not “usefully” interceptable. Not a new problem. 

And that’s just one error. There are many, many others. 

Live long and prosper 

h lynn keith

I do not endorse everything Fred says; I doubt Fred does. I do find his observations invariably interesting, and sometimes uniquely valuable. I do advise discretion.

Good Monday morning, Dr. Pournelle,

I’m a long-time reader of your Byte columns and your website.  I’m looking forward to seeing yourself and Mrs. Pournelle on the mend.

As an aside, I’ve followed your Microsoft Surface adventures with great interest.  Our engineering department uses them as their main PCs with dual-monitors and docking stations.  They also take them mobile into the field on a daily basis.  Also, myself and our other IT person use them.  I will probably jinx myself by saying this, but with nearly 100 PCs  in the co-op, the 10 Surfaces require less support than any of our other PCs over the past 2 years.

Thanks,

Bruce

I am pleased to hear that. I like the Surface Pro, but somehow every time I start using it some problem develops. Eric has taken mine off the experimental update list, and we’re reinstalling from scratch, but I haven’t had much time to get used to it. I still have high expectations. Thank you.

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

Monday, January 23, 2017

John Glenn must surely have wondered, as all the astronauts weathered into geezers, how a great nation grew so impoverished in spirit.

Our heroes are old and stooped and wizened, but they are the only giants we have. Today, when we talk about Americans boldly going where no man has gone before, we mean the ladies’ bathroom. Progress.

Mark Steyn

If Republicans want to force through massive tax cuts, we will fight them tooth and nail.

Senator Elizabeth Warren

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.

Tomorrow I have a routine maintenance appointment out at Kaiser, and I’m going to drive myself. I’ll leave early enough that no hurry will be involved, and take large unobstructed streets. I drive fine and my glasses are good enough, and I feel up to it, and I think it is as well to be reasonably independent, so I didn’t arrange for a driver. I still won’t drive at night or on a freeway, although I have done both since the stroke, with no incidents; or rather, once when taking Roberta to the emergency room, at night, we encountered a street party requiring me to thread through crowds of revelers in the street, and I managed that nicely.

CBS, Paramount Settle Lawsuit Over ‘Star Trek’ Fan Film

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/cbs-paramount-settle-lawsuit-star-trek-fan-film-966433

 

 

Alas, the settlement doesn’t tell us much about “fair use”, but it sure created work for lawyers, which probably helped the LA economy.

Mr. Trump had a busy weekend and a busier Monday. His visit to the CIA went well, but then he wandered off track into talking about the crowds at his inauguration and various other ambiguous subjects; it’s hard to tell precisely what, because the traditional media are very selective in what they are reporting, and most of the so-called information comes from columnists who mix their contempt for Trump in with their factual reporting. The media score it as a Trump blunder, but then they score most things he does as silly, unwise, blustering, megalomaniac, or worse, so that it’s again impossible – for me anyway – to tease out what really happened. I approach the subject this way: Trump has often in the past shown he is crazy like a Fox. From the first day coming down that escalator and announcing he was a candidate, through the elimination one by one of 17 pretty well qualified Republican candidates, to his highly improbable nomination, and on to his impossible election as President; he has shown that he knows what he’s doing. I start with the view that he’s more in control of his actions than the media give him credit for. He also likes the win, even if it’s over trivial matters; but he’s what we used to call a good winner, usually, once that particular game is over.

Anyway, he is President, and his style is not in question any longer; it is what it is. He is not a professional politician, and didn’t run as one. One his first day he overturned a number of regulations, and froze non-defense hiring. That latter he had to do: the National Debt doubled in the last eight years; his predecessor spent more money than the 44 Presidents preceding him combined. (Yes, he had no control over some of that spending, but he made no real effort to stop it either.) The first thing is to stop the bleeding: if you are in a hole, stop digging. If government is too big, stop making it bigger. That he seems to be trying to do.

Now we’ll see if he can eliminate Bunny Inspectors. I doubt he has ever heard of them, but I hope he has someone looking for federal civil servants doing jobs that the federal government ought not be doing at all (even if they are done well; the government workers may be very competent at their jobs). One such job is federal licenses for stage magician rabbits, and pet rabbits sold as pets by kids in their back yards. I doubt these activities need regulating at all, but if they do surely it is a state matter, not the business of the Department of Agriculture of the United States of America, to send Federal agents to magic shows to see if the magician uses a rabbit and to inspect the licenses of the magician if he does.

We’ve had our discussions of Free Trade here; Trump’s actions in that regard are ambiguous; the trade deals he has got us out of are huge and complex, not free trade whatever they are, and I for one have far more confidence in Trump’s ability to make a deal that I ever had in Kerry or Mrs. Clinton. They do seem to know how to marry well, but that is not an international deal with American jobs at stake. If there are deals to be made, I’d rather Trump were in charge of them than Mr. Obama.

I don’t know what to make of the open war with the press, but it is, after all, only a recognition of an existing condition that prevails when the Democrats are not in the White House. Recall the lady reporter/columnist saying of one Republican President “I don’t see how he won at all. I don’t know a single person who voted for him.” She meant it, too. Literally.

So much for the first days.

I remain dependent on patron and platinum subscriptions to maintain this place, because I must have enough income to have someone pretty well full time to help me look after Roberta; since the stroke I am simply not confident in my ability to do it.  That works, but it is an expense; it is time consuming to hustle for journalism income, which would mean neglecting this place. I can do it if I have to; and of course I have an income from my backlist, and I am working on three books. I’m not in danger of poverty, nor of neglecting my fiction. That goes slowly because minor interruptions take much longer to recover from when I am doing fiction as opposed to non-fiction.  

This remains a Public Site, free to all, without annoying advertisements, but it is supported by your patronage, which I greatly appreciate. If you have not subscribed, or cannot remember when last you did, this would be a good time. I don’t bug you often, but this IS pledge week…

The large crowds of women marching in protest confuses me. With few exceptions, they were orderly – one observation is that they threw their trash in trash cans, not on the ground as many protest marches do. And they were certainly angry enough. But I couldn’t figure out what they want. Leave out Madonna’s dream of blowing up the White House; what do they actually want? Opinions vary. Some want someone else to pay for their contraceptives and abortions, but surely not all of them are in danger of unwanted pregnancy, and some are actually, if quietly, pro-life. Some want Trump to resign, but surely they don’t expect that result? And there are a lot of them, not all from areas won by Mrs. Clinton. And they put the trash in trashcans.

The next few days should be interesting.

For other speculation from the libertarian view, see https://accordingtohoyt.com/2017/01/23/surviving-the-cult/

Most Watched Inauguration in History?

Jerry,

I do not find it hard to believe the claims by the President’s Press Office that the recent Inauguration was the most watched in History.

Why do I say this?

First, we know that the Media has severe bias against Trump and it appears that any means will be used to undermine his Presidency.

Second, viewing habits have changed significantly since 2009. The use of TV ratings to measure the size of the actual viewing audience will grossly understate the size of the audience due to the wide spread use of streaming for viewing events in real time. One possible way to adjust for changes in the use of TV for viewing might be to look at the potential size of the TV audience and then calculate the percentage of viewers watching the event. I do not know what results this would produce, but it might actually support the “Alternate Facts” put forward by the President’s Press Office.

As long as Americans are severely divided we will fall short of our potential. The Media, were it unbiased, could play an important part in promoting Adult Behavior on both sides of the divide and, ultimately, assist in promoting cooperative steps to improving the lot of All Americans.

Bob Holmes

It is a question of fact and definition: who is present? The crowd? TV audience? Internet viewers? It was raining in Washington and no place for small children. I have no way to resolve the question, although I would not be shocked to find either side “won” the count if there were any way of making one. I do wonder why Mr. Trump cares – or appears to care – so much, but I suspect it is part of his distrust of the media.

From Mr. Flynn, whose study of the classics is more complete than mine.

Rights, alienable or not?

Jerry
Justice was anciently defined as “the habit whereby a man renders to each one his due…” Since a virtue is defined by the good act proper to it, and a good act is in turn defined by its proper object, “jus” or “what is due to each man” has logical priority over the virtue of justice. Hence, “jus” is something much like the Enlightenment “right,” except for its vector. A “right” is something that I demand for myself; “jus” is what I owe to another. However, the former is rooted in the older meaning.
A right is something the defense of which is seen as natural, i.e., belongs to one’s nature. It is not something that you are guaranteed by an authority. Aristotle wrote that all pursue the good as they understand the good. All living things will, in the common course of nature, struggle to maintain their existence. To exist is a good, and the struggle to maintain existence is central to the theory of natural selection. Hence, the desire or impulse to defend one’s own life is both natural and primary, since without it, no other rights attach.
This does not mean that life is guaranteed, nor that it cannot be taken or surrendered in pursuit of a higher good, such as the well-being of society. But even the criminal is seen as legitimate in defending his life against a capital charge. Nor does one suppose that an enemy soldier is doing wrong by shooting back, although we may rather wish he didn’t.
Aquinas argued that human law ought not forbid every vice nor compel every virtue, citing Augustine’s dictum that if harlots were removed, the world would explode with lust. He noted that the death penalty might not be imposed even when justified when an unacceptable evil might result (e.g., killing the hostages along with the bandits) or when the adherents of the criminal are so numerous or well-armed as to incite insurrection by doing so. It would be in any case a last resort to a clear and present danger, precisely because taking a life is a deprivation of a natural good.
Aquinas grounded this in the fact that God permitted some evils for similar reasons, and this allowance for the freedom of the will lies at the root of the right to liberty. Aquinas uses the example of a judge depriving a robber of his liberty against allowing him his liberty to feed his family as the paradigm case of choosing the lesser of two evils.
The third such right, mentioned by William of Ockham, is the right to property. Again, a man defending his own property is seen as justified in doing so, even when the king’s tax collectors have the power to seize it.
And so on. Natural rights are those rooted in human nature. It is the right that is not alienable, not the thing itself. Life and liberty may easily be taken away, but the right to them cannot be taken away. Even a man “chained in prisons dark” may remain “in heart and conscience” free; and a man drowning in the ocean will nonetheless struggle to the end against his doom.

###
I have to disagree on the end of the Roman Republic. It was not a melting pot overwhelmed by an excess of Celts. The Republic collapsed well before citizenship was extended much beyond Rome itself and her close Latin allies. What brought the Public Thing low was the violence and chaos that overtook politics. They were trying to run a de facto Empire using a city council and the structure just couldn’t support it. Different politicians hired street gangs like those of Milo and Clodius to harass their opponents. There were assassinations and proscriptions; consuls and praetors leaving office were repeatedly hit with lawsuits over their conduct in office (making not-leaving-office a primary goal). Civil wars and coups d’etat. All this stoked demand for a strongman who would set things aright: Marius or Sulla, Pompey or Caesar, Antony or Octavian.
Mike

I must agree with your disagreement; I made a remark about the Republic that belongs better said about the later Empire. I defer to your analysis.

The Romans were unusual in that they tended to take their Latin conquests into the Republic rather than simply to rule over them; this was of great value in the Pyrrhus invasion when cities other than Rome remained loyal to Rome. I had this in mind, perhaps. The Romans, by their legends, descended from Trojan heroes; Troy came from a part of Asia Minor where Empires of diverse people were more common than nation-tribe-states, folkish people like the Israelites. The Hittites were an Empire, not a nation state. Etc. But that’s for another discussion.

The Rights Debate

I see the fundamental divide between Progressives and Conservatives/Libertarians as how they view rights. There are. broadly speaking, two types of rights: negative and positive. Here are examples from the US Constitution.
Negative rights are things that can’t be done: searches without a warrant, censoring speech and the press, involuntary servitude, compelling testimony against oneself, taking away arms, quartering troops in peacetime, etc.
Positive rights are things that must be provided: a court system, defense counsel if you are indigent, jury trials, a republican form of government in your state, etc.
The progressives want to expand the positive rights to include health care, food, housing, education, internet access, and a lot more. Conservatives say no. The case against positive rights is simple: if the government must provide them, they can compel them with all the force of government. For example, if there are people without health care because it is too expensive, then tax some to pay for others to get it. If it continues to be too expensive, the government could set prices, set wages, compel doctors to work longer hours or come out of retirement, force doctors to move to “underserved” areas, etc. In short, government could treat health care like we did the armed forces in wartime. And this could be expanded to any of these other positive rights.

Edmund Hack

These are the sorts of questions that used to be discussed in 8^th Grade Civics class, but now are not always given in Political Science 101; which is not to belittle the subject, but the schools and teachers.

‘. . . Together with our Russian brothers, negotiate an honored but subordinate position for China and all other sub-civilizations and nations, forming the unified Empire of Man before going on to conquer the stars.’

<http://www.socialmatter.net/2017/01/23/crash-course-reactionary-geopolitics/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

An interesting, if long, analysis. Roland cautions that you need to read the whole thing. You will almost certainly disagree with parts of it; but it is a way of thinking about reality that is often sadly lacking.

Obama staffers get permanent federal jobs

https://federalsoup.com/articles/2017/01/20/agg-obama-staffers-get-permanent-federal-jobs.aspx?s=FD_230117

During his last days in office, former president Barack Obama made over 100 appointments before the new transition took over.

• By FederalSoup Staff
• Jan 20, 2017

During his last days in office, former president Barack Obama made over 100 appointments before the new transition took over, the New York Times reports.

President Donald Trump will retain 50 essential State Department and national security officials from the Obama administration, according to the report.

The Trump administration has named only 29 of his 660 executive department appointments, the report notes.

Trump’s Nominees Face ‘Unprecedented’ Democrat Obstructionism

http://dailysignal.com/2017/01/22/trumps-nominees-face-unprecedented-democrat-obstructionism/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTldRM05XVXhNMlE1TUdFeiIsInQiOiI2MUFrQWM4

Nk1mU3lwcTZieDZOcXJLU01DMFg0WDNvdzcwVmV1RFp4MWhCZGI4bEFWUGVpQ2hDNStyMEhhcnpcL2lQOGphQnJpQ2dJTjF4NUIwZX

dQS3NORkUwNXZaekpwZkZpVU9rSHMwaWp6amFkQVY3SkdldkxVWk9cL2JrT1wvQyJ9

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

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Earth breaks heat record

Wednesday January 18, 2017 09:47 PM

 

 

By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

It’s official: 2016 was the hottest year on record since scientists began tracking Earth’s temperature more than 100 years ago, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 

The 1.69-degree jump over the 20th century average, according to NOAA, marks the third year in a row that global temperatures have reached record-shattering levels. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration added that the global average temperature for 2016 was 1.78 degrees higher than a baseline period between 1951 and 1980.

Both agencies noted that Earth’s average global temperature — which NOAA pegged at 57 degrees — was higher in 2016 than in any year since scientists began tracking it in 1880.

“For the first time in recorded history, we have now had three consecutive record-warm years,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University who was not involved in the findings. “The likelihood of this having happened in the absence of human-caused global warming is minimal.”

http://www.readingeagle.com/ap/article/earth-breaks-heat-record

Frightening, isn’t it? It’s what I saw when I opened the LA Times (after removing the annoying advertising wrap that obscured the front page).

But then I started reading the fine print, and it’s not so scary. That hockey stick wavy red line shows a temperature rise over the last century all right: one and a half degrees. That assumes we have, accurate to a tenth of a degree, an actual measurement of the temperature of the last century. It also takes not the actual average (as if we actually knew that) but the adjusted temperature. And I trust you noticed that “The National Aeronautics and Space Administration added that the global average temperature for 2016 was 1.78 degrees higher than a baseline period between 1951 and 1980.’

What it doesn’t mention is that the scientific community was in a tizzy about the coming Ice Age in the baseline period between 1951 and 1980. I attended most of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meetings from about 1968 to the end of the Century, and up into the 1890’s the AAAS was in a panic about Global Cooling. Some of you may recall Stephen Schneider’s book “The Genesis Strategy”, which has a picture of Schneider and Margaret Meade on the dust jacket. I took that picture (as a favor to them; I didn’t ask for or expect credit). Dealing with the coming ice was a major concern then; indeed, one of the arguments against made by President Carter’s science advisors was that nuclear waste had to be protected from glaciers in the future, thus raising the cost of nuclear energy. I even got into that debate.

Further:

http://www.climatedepot.com/2017/01/18/load-of-bollocks-2016-allegedly-hottest-year-by-immeasurable-1100-of-a-degree-while-satellites-show-pause-continues/

Load of bollocks: 2016 allegedly ‘hottest year’ by immeasurable amount degree – While satellites show ‘pause’ continues

Two satellite datasets agree: The Temperature Pause lives on: ‘No warming for the last 18 years’

MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen on 2016 being called the ‘hottest year’: ‘The hysteria over this issue is truly bizarre’ – Warns of return ‘back to the dark ages’

Dr. David Whitehouse noted the ‘temperature pause never went away‘: ‘According to NOAA 2016 was 0.07°F warmer than 2015, which is 0.04°C. Considering the error in the annual temperature is +/- 0.1°C this makes 2016 statistically indistinguishable from 2015, making any claim of a record using NOAA data specious.’

Dr. Lindzen also ridiculed previous ‘hottest year’ claims. “The uncertainty here is tenths of a degree. When someone points to this and says this is the warmest temperature on record, what are they talking about? It’s just nonsense. This is a very tiny change period,” Lindzen said. “If you can adjust temperatures to 2/10ths of a degree, it means it wasn’t certain to 2/10ths of a degree.”
[snip]

Death Of Global Temperature ‘Pause’ Greatly Exaggerated – 2016 Not Statistically Warmer Than 1998

 

2016 Not Statistically Warmer Than 1998, Satellites Data Shows

Dr David Whitehouse: ‘Any estimate of temperature trends that have their endpoint on the uptick of the El Nino curve will give a misleadingly high trend. It is obvious that a better trend will be obtained after the natural El Nino has ended. Likewise care must be taken if the start point is near the La Nina years of 1999-2000. The temperature trends of the oceans estimated by the new paper fall into this trap.’

You can find a great deal more if you look for it, but you’ll have to look hard; the “consensus” data get most of the ink; those who ask questions generally get short shrift. But it’s there if you want. What you need to keep in mind is that the global temperature has been rising about 2 degrees per century since the Little Ice Age, and it certainly is not as warm now as it was when Leif Ericson founded the dairy farms in Greenland, some of which are still under the ice. The Earth has been warmer in historical times; and of course we’re still technically in an Ice Age. It would be well to have the means to control earth’s temperature; but that will require a lot of power. It will almost undoubtedly requite nuclear, which emits no pollutants, and generates power that energy that did not fall on the Earth. Space Solar Power, power satellites, generate energy from sunlight that would have hit the earth anyway, but they can also be used to bring down power that would not in case we need that.

I have said this many times before, but it bears repeating: we do not have a pollution problem. We do not have a fresh water problem. With sufficient energy, pollutants can be taken apart into their constituent elements, and used water can be purified and pumped up into the mountains to refill the natural aquifers. The cleanest running stream in California is the outfalls of the maximum purification elements of the Hyperion sewage disposal plat; at the moment we pump it out to sea, but if we had the energy we could pump it up to the top of the San Gabriel’s and let it run down the natural watercourses. Los Angeles is in an arid area and we’d need some outside water; but is we recycle we wouldn’t need anywhere near as much as we take from Mono Lake and the Bay Area. All we need is the power.

This is Thursday and I will be off to LASFS shortly; I’ll post this before I go. Tomorrow is Inauguration Day, and the sick joke on the left is that if they can assassinate both Trump and Pence they can keep Obama. I think that is not true – the Speaker would become President. Of course if they can get him and the President pro temp of the Senate, we’d have Kerry, not Mr. Obama.

Assembling Notes on Brain Cancer

Great notion, to assemble and edit your notes on your health experiences. Ever since reading “The Noonday Daemon”, I’ve thought that every intense, chronic major health condition deserves that kind of aware first-person account. (I’ve been retaining notes regarding my own stroke, as potential fodder for just such a project. You’ll do it better.)
In all this, best wishes, best regards, and thanks for all the work to date – as a fan, it’s a bargain at twice the price.

James Bullock

I will work on that, and add recovering from a stroke as well. It is not likely to be quickly done.

Comment stimulated by Alan Johnson’s letter…

Dear Jerry,

(I just re-subscribed today… long overdue: S-7WX21496FD374312K)

‘The Last Man To Walk on the Moon has Died.’  I, too, am deeply concerned about the long term decline of the nation. I think Jared Diamond’s Collapse likely covers the main causes: When governments become too large and too distance from grass roots problems they start making decisions which seem reasonable high up on Mount Olympus (given their priorities), but back on earth the decisions are wasteful and even destructive. I am personally horrified at the late 1990s de-engineering of our country, as if the talent and skills that built it are no longer of any value. Millions of man-years of real world engineering expertise have been discarded in the name of two decades of quick profits. Have we purchased the ropes from which we now hang?
Alan Johnson’s letters today were stimulating ( https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/last-man-on-the-moon-dies-health-care-discussion-new-work-coming-who-hacked-what-the-ancient-foreign-policy-and-other-matters/ )…

We must always remember that we live in a thoroughly-armed and quickly-armed society, and throwing any slice of any bell curve ‘to the wolves’ may have the most unexpectedly catastrophic consequences. Consider this simple example: A majority wishing to stop all food stamps using an over-simplistic ‘work or starve’ philosophy might result in a million armed starving people! Not good! There is an ancient saying, “Every society is just nine meals from anarchy.” Anarchy is a distributed phenomena, you can’t ‘call out’ the National Guard!
Likewise, if we begin to deny medical care to large swaths of a population (‘pay or perish’) we may increase black market medicine and treatments (as in the 3rd world, to the harm of all), home burglaries, and armed robberies by a factor of 100 or 1000. Also Not Good!
In Glory Road Heinlein used the interrelationship of rats, pigs, and dragons to illustrate the need for extreme care in tampering with natural balances. I would suggest that the ‘natural balance’ (the rules of society) of the USA is a thousand times more complex still. Rational social design isn’t impossible, it’s just really, really difficult!

But rational design assumes that people in power actually care about society vs what they can extract from society for themselves and their family/tribe/mafia of supporters… and there appears to be an enormous mass of anecdotal evidence to suggest that they Do Not and Will Never, in which case rational discussion is moot.

So how do you make a government that has evolved via natural social forces over decades into dysfunctionality toward its own society, suddenly care about this self-same dysfunctionality? They will answer that they are well fed and their paychecks are coming in regularly, so what’s the problem? Historically, the society has to collapse to a significant degree. We may be stumbling in a ‘fog of war’ along the edge of the precipice.

Which model below best approximates our society? I think it depends on the circumstances and the timing. I’ve read Tverberg’s postings for years (https://ourfiniteworld.com) and often find her thought-provoking, although I think that she underestimates the sheer mass of world economies and thus the time it will take for them to devolve. I’ve only just discovered Mr. John Michael Greer and haven’t read his work yet.

From: http://permaliv.blogspot.com/2015/01/gail-tverberg-vs-john-michael-greer.html

(Left: Tverberg’s talking points model. Right: Greer’s model)

 

 

 

 

You and your readers might enjoy this video on the elemental forces of governance. It’s entertaining, instructive, and worth watching. 19 minutes:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

Regards,

-John Gibbs Hackett

Thank you, and thanks for the subscription renewal. It’s time for a pledge drive. And if anyone can’t remember when they last subscribed. I suggest that now would be a good time. http://www.jerrypournelle.com/paying.html

I’ll comment another time; thanks again.

“Rights”

I risk sounding pedantic, but here goes:

Mr. Allan E. Johnson said, “For that matter, I’m not sure ‘justice’ and ‘rights’ . . .”

“Rights” can certainly be defined very crisply:

A right is a thing that a person may do — and action that a person may take — without first obtaining permission from another. In other words, the term “right” pertains to a verb, not a noun. I have the right to do something, not to have unrestricted access to something just because I want (or “deserve”) it.

This is my own definition, but I discovered that it agrees very well with the dictionary definition.

Saying that a person has a “right” to adequate housing, a decent job, education, etc. is a misuse of the term. While technically true, it avoids the important, nay crucial, fact that these are not actions, but goods, and someone must pay for them in some manner. I may not be arbitrarily denied access to some good thing, but I may not obligate another to provide it to me.

Richard White

Del Valle, Texas

I used to teach Constitutional Law, and one of my lectures was on the nature of rights. The concept din not used to mean “entitlements”, and I am not sure the change in meaning is beneficial. It would take a longer essay to deal with this and I haven’t time. But do the undeserving have rights? Of course. Should they get free goodies? More debatable. And who decides who deserves what?

Obamacare v Defense

(1) In January 17th’s View, contributor John Thomas wrote, “I suspect that most taxpayers, given the option, would far rather their tax dollars went to creating universal health care for all citizens of the â€greatest country in the history of the world€ rather than to spend trillions in pursuit of never-ending military actions which further no real national benefit but which do much to enrich the bottom lines of multi-national corporations and co-laterally the war chests of the political parties.”
I contest his conclusion concerning defense spending, but will answer to his point about taxpayers opting for healthcare over defense.
The most healthy body in the land will not stop a bullet to the heart.
What good is health without liberty?
Given the choice? I’ll take defense. I can always see a doctor about my cough and pay for it myself, but I’ll have a hard time defending myself against strategic bombers from China or Russia or the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.
I have no problem with his point about the UN or NATO allies sharing properly in the cost of defending them. After all, it is because of our covering their defense that they were able to grow from the ashes of World War II and become economic powerhouses, since they didn’t have to pay near as much to defend against the USSR. But the bottom line is that Obamacare – or ANY federal healthcare, for that matter – is unconstitutional. It is irrelevant what its quality or efficiency may be, that brings it no closer to the Constitution.
If there is any need for healthcare to be provided to citizens, it is up to the States to provide it, not the feds. So states the Tenth Amendment.
(2) Later on, you wrote, “‘If you want peace, be prepared for war’ has been relevant advice since Appius Claudius the Blind said it to the Senate of Rome.”
I have my own version of that; “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”
Cam Kirmser

If you would have peace, be prepared for war. All but the impoverished have known that for long time.

Trump is amusing me. This negotiation style is effective, no matter what you do you move yourself closer to the goals:

<.>

Trump’s team had discussed moving news conferences out of the small West Wing briefing room to the Old Executive Office Building, which is part of the White House complex, incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said Sunday on ABC.

“The press went crazy, so I said, ‘Let’s not move it.’ But some people in the press will not be able to get in,” Trump told “Fox & Friends”

in an interview broadcast on Wednesday.

“We have so many people that want to go in so we’ll have to just have to pick the people to go into the room – I’m sure other people will be thrilled about that,” he said. “But we offered a much larger room because we need a much larger room and we offered to do that, but they went crazy.”

“And they’ll be begging for a much larger room very soon, you watch.”

</>

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-media-idUSKBN1521OD?il=0

In other words, be happy with what you’ve got or you’ll learn that words can be interpreted to mean almost anything and you’ll, eventually, be seen as unreasonable, outspoken, and childish…. Did you see CNN’s Accosta? And the pressed tried to act like Trump was a volcanic bully when the CNN reporter kept trying to direct Trump’s attention away from the person he indicated had the floor.

This stuff is so childish that they’re not only making Trump resistant to any real scandal he might actually get into, but they’re creating dangers to their own job security.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

‘But is it really surprising that Trump officials would view their longtime detractors with suspicion?’

<http://nationalinterest.org/feature/never-trump-hits-the-unemployment-line-19088?page=show>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

‘Guess what? I won…”

Subject: Moe Berg article errors

Dear Doctor Pournelle,

The story about Moe Berg is one of those fascinating sidebars to the secret wars fought by both sides in World War Two. However, the article needs a couple of minor corrections to errors I spotted, and since I am no expert on all the details, I suspect there were others I could not spot.

First, Berg did not undertake the 1934 Tokyo spying as a member of, or under the aegis of, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), for the simple reason that the OSS was not created until the nineteen-forties, either shortly before or shortly after the entry of the USA into the war. The wartime mission to surveill and possibly/allegedly attempt the assassination of WernerHeisenberg was done after Berg had joined the wartime OSS, so he did later have official status with the OSS.

The other niggling error(s) was that the heavy water plant in Norway was neither secret (it was owned by the Nrsk Hydro Company, and had been opened before the war, when Norway was a neutral, independent state), nor was it destroyed by the RAF after being reconned by Berg. The RAF attempted to destroy the plant from the air, but this was not feasible due to the terrain. The Norsk Gydro electrolytic cells that produced heavy water were eventually destroyed in a raid by a team of British trained Norwegian commando’s.

Niggling matters, but I know you like accuracy, so now the record is corrected.

Best regards,

Petronius

Yes. OSS was put together from Skull & Bones people and wasn’t formed until after the war started. State department had an intelligence service. FBI wanted to be one, and there were other candidates. And of course everyone knows about the Commando raid that got the heavy water. Berg’s pictures made the RAF raid possible, but their bombing was awful.

Cold War Blues

According to Thomas Donnelly of the The Weekly Standard, “The ‘unipolar moment’ is gone: It’s now the POST Posta€“Cold War era. As President Obama leaves the Oval Office, so too will the Posta€“Cold War era exit the scene. Another Lost Ark, it may wind up in an endless, dusty warehouse, a torrent locked in a raw wood crate. What was the post–Cold War era — a time first and forever defined by what it was not? Was it even a fleeting Pax Americana, this unipolar moment? Or were such pronouncements merely hubris, the pride that inevitably comes before a fall? We’ve seen a long parade of Big Ideas, none of which seemed to last more than a season or two.”
I last commented that “I’ve been trying to suss the state of the ‘cold war’”. . . Despite your wisdom on the subject of escalation dominance, I still share, perhaps, with President-elect Trump, the inability to identify present-day Russia and its leader with as an enemy equal to the despots that we all lived with in the past. The discomfort that EU leaders are expressing with the presumed loss of Uncle Sugar’s NATO largess is instructive. Is it possible that the Cold War is over?

Darryl Hannon

In my judgment, Mr. Putin is neither a chiliastic communist nor a typical despot; he certainly does not see himself that way, and I do not think Mr. Trump regards him as such. Russia has natural interests that do not conflict with ours, and not all that many that conflict with our friends’ interests. There are some that do conflict. Read the Art of the Deal.

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