Chaos Manor View, Friday, April 1, 2016

“This is the most transparent administration in history.”

Barrack Obama

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

Under Capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under Socialism, the powerful become rich.

Under Socialism, government employees become powerful.

Today’s Wall Street Journal, in its panic over Trump, raises an issue of general interest which should be of importance to all candidates: nuclear proliferation, and thus deterrence.

In an interview that has a great resemblance to a “gotcha” interview, CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked what he thought about Japan and South Korea having a new interest in acquiring their own nuclear weapons. It is clearly an issue Trump has not thought much about, as have very few of us. US policy has always been that the fewer nuclear weapons, the better, and the fewer countries that have them, the better.

This has long ceased to be an issue over which we have complete control and it can be argued that we have already lost it. We haven’t done much to ensure it for years.

Obama’s agreements with Iran practically assure that Iran will go nuclear; the agreement may have bought some time before they get them, but it certainly does not prevent a determined Iran from acquiring a nuclear fission capability; and the transition from fission to fusion – A-bomb to H-bomb – is inevitable. India and Pakistan have already got nukes, and the possibility of the Taliban acquiring one or more by theft or conquest is certainly not zero. North Korea has nukes, and may well be welling to sell them to enemies of the US – either to states like ISIS, or to Non-Government Organizations. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine whether the Taliban is a once and future state, or an NGO; and I suppose that it could be disputed that ISIS is actually an NGO pretending to be a state, or, as it proclaims itself, a state whose ambition is to bring the entire world into the House of Islam. The point is that it may have the desire and the means of acquiring nuclear weapons by purchase. The Taliban has the option of attempting to acquire them by stealth or conquest.

Moreover, Japan and South Korea can’t help noticing that although the United States has them under our Nuclear Umbrella, that umbrella is beginning to wear. The Republic of China – which we now call Taiwan – has had every possible assurance of a US guarantee, but no US Administration can commit a future majority in Congress, or a President, or both; and as conditions change, a change in policy becomes more and more likely. Would the United States bomb The People’s Republic of China because the Chinese People’s Army occupied offshore islands belonging to Taiwan? There is certainly for more doubt in 2016 under Barrack Hussein Obama than there was in 1961 under John Fitzgerald Kennedy. We can be sure that Japan and North Korea have also made this observation. Taiwan certainly has. Trust in the United States may be better than attempting to acquire your own Mutual Assured Destruction – MAD – policy, but the temptation is always there. Why would the United States risk the obliteration of Seattle or San Francisco because another country is invaded? Might there be a timid administration? Would it be better to have a Mutual Destruction capability? Those questions may have an obvious answer at one time, but times change.

Of course a safe second strike deterrent will be expensive. In the early days of the nuclear era, the atomic weapons carrying bombers were moved often, and other such precautions were taken. Then we developed the Triad: aircraft on the runways, submarines on cruise, and land based missiles. The submarine based missiles were not accurate enough for war fighting: they were city busters, pure deterrent. With GPS, much better gyroscopes an accelerometers, and computers that is no longer true, but there are not a lot of them to actually fight a war; they are still more a threat to populations than to an enemy’s nuclear forces.

A nuclear umbrella is even more expensive.

Of course there is defense as well as deterrence; I have some experience in developing “Star Wars”, Ted Kennedy’s derisive phrase for the Strategic Defense Initiative proposed by Reagan. President Reagan did a lot of work on his own speeches. I was chairman of a group which wrote about the technology and policy that informed that Reagan speech. (It met at Larry Niven’s Tarzana house five times from late fall, 1980, until 1984. Our papers went directly to the President.)

We are not doing as much as we could to develop and deploy strategic defenses. Without that development and deployment we cannot insure against small nuclear attacks on the United States. Even with the best strategic defenses we cannot be sure of protecting our cities against a major power; in a nuclear world, that requires deterrence. Deterrence is not easy, nor is it cheap. Among other costs are the dedicated young men and women sitting in silos. They can study and learn, but they cannot gain experience in the field; they will probably be useful academics, but they are not getting experience in command, and they are not advancing their careers. How could they be? They give their most productive years, and if they do their job well, nothing happens; yet our lives depend on them.

And every extension of our nuclear umbrella may put their lives – and ours – in more danger.

In other words, nuclear protection is a complex subject; I doubt if any of the candidates of either party has thought much about the subject. Thinking about the unthinkable is not pleasant, even if must be done; and few do it. I am not astonished that Mr. Trump has not spent much time at it. Neither have his opponents.

Asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper earlier this week whether he favored Japan and South Korea developing nuclear weapons of their own, the Republican front-runner said he wouldn’t mind if they did, and that it’s probably only a matter of time before they did so anyway.

“At some point we have to say—you know what?—we’re better off if Japan protects itself against this maniac in North Korea, we’re better off, frankly, if South Korea is going to start to protect itself,” he said. Pressed by Mr. Cooper whether there wasn’t a benefit to the U.S. in providing (nuclear-backed) security guarantees to our allies in Asia or Europe, Mr. Trump acknowledged “there’s a benefit, but not big enough to bankrupt and destroy the United States, because that’s what’s happening.”

This is not a bad answer for someone who has not thought much about the problem, and has little data not in the newspapers, and not much to go on other than what the President is doing. It may be the incorrect answer, but it takes a great deal of discussion to specify why. Extending the US nuclear umbrella – with defense backed up by deterrence or with deterrence alone – is complex and expensive, and talking about it as if you were in a sophomore class in International Security (as I once taught) is going to produce answers a lot more absurd than Trump’s first cut.

Mr. Trump is not an expert in International Security. Few are, and they don’t all agree, meaning that the expertise of at least some of them must be flawed. What we need in a President is someone we are pretty sure is on our side.

I do not have that confidence in the present administration.

More on the technicalities of deterrence and defense another time. Obviously, defense has the higher moral position; it is also more difficult.

Nuclear Iran

Jerry, some years back, I described a scenario.

This was shortly after it was revealed that Iran USED TO have a nuclear weapons development program, but wasn’t working on it any more.

I invite you to recall that, despite all the rhetoric in the world, despite all the sanctions, despite EVERYTHING, Iran has NEVER slowed their centrifuges or reduced their enrichment program.

I further invite you to recall that they went all-out pedal-to-the-metal to conceal a development facility until the very last minute, when it was about to be revealed to the world by Somebody Else, as PROOF that they were cheating.

I suggested, to a friend of mine with some connections, that what had happened was that Iran had completed ALL of the engineering material development for a Device, right out to development of the CNC machine programs, including proving them out and doing form and fit test assemblies, using parts machined from inert material (U-238).  They’d shelved the project because, at that point, ALL that remained to be done was acquiring a sufficient quantity of highly-enriched uranium, at which time they could machine the critical parts.

If my suspicion is correct, and I’d *REALLY* rather be wrong, then the current deal didn’t do DIDDLY to retard Iran’s schedule for joining the nuclear club.  It just freed up a lot of money for them to make more mischief.

–John

 

I don’t disagree, but I have no evidence not available to the public. It is inevitable that Iran will get nukes (if they don’t already have some bought from North Korea); slowing or stopping them requires an act of war, well above my pay grade. We are not doing all we should to bolster either deterrence or defense; apparently we intend to use diplomatic means.

 

If you’re interested in the space program, this is a great way to find out a lot about what’s going on. I won’t be there because I committed to another event earlier, but I would be if I could. You’ll meet a lot of people who know a lot about space science, commerce, and politics.

Space Access ’16 – next week! – three days focused on the technology, business, and politics of radically cheaper space transportation.

Thursday afternoon April 7th through Saturday night April 9th in warm springtime Phoenix, in an intensive informal atmosphere, single-track throughout so you don’t have to miss anything.

Organizations like Agile Aero, DARPA, Lasermotive, Masten Space Systems, Nanoracks, Spaceport America, United Launch Alliance, XCOR Aerospace.

People like Mitchell Burnside Clapp, Jeff Greason, Gary Hudson, Jordin Kare, Dave Masten, Rand Simberg, and Henry Spencer in a variety of presentations and panels.

Progress reports ranging from major government & industry programs through university student & high-end amateur rocket hardware projects.

Plus this year, now that a thriving low-cost space transportation industry is near, a focus on What’s Needed for The Next Thirty Years?

SA’16 is just days away – make your plans NOW. Everything you need to know to be there, at http://space-access.org/updates/sa16info.html

The Clinton Investigation Enters a Dangerous Phase.

<http://www.unz.com/anapolitano/the-clinton-investigation-enters-a-dangerous-phase/>

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Roland Dobbins

I think it’s too late to pull back the NAFTA jobs. Especially in China.

China has developed some kind of economy for it’s 1.5 Billion people. The net result is a more peaceful cooperative global environment.

Unfortunately, the net result has been a decline in the U.S. economy.

But, pulling jobs back would disrupt a pretty fragile global economic situation…..

I’m not sure if my Canadian friends are happy with the NAFTA agreement. It’s pretty clear that they are basically dependent and incorporated in the U.S. economy at this point.

The idea of a North American Trade Partnership Agreement seems on the surface to be a pretty good idea. Especially in the energy sector. Boone Pickens has been calling for a North America Energy Alliance. I think this is sound thinking because Mexico is apparently considering selling directly to China for Yuan. (Renminbi Currency)

The volatile price of oil and gas has a negative impact on the Global Economy.

Stability is vital in this sector. That’s why I have come to the conclusion there are two things that you do not tamper with in a new Presidential Administration;

1. The energy sector. Unless you are going to consolidate North America to counter balance the OPEC consortium.

2. The Federal Reserve. I hate to say it but, I have to agree with Chomsky on the  Federal Reserve. Auditing the FED or even talking about auditing the Fed is not in anybody’s best interest. When the FED Chair even speaks, it impacts the markets.

    Just the other day, Janet Yellin gave a speech and the market bounced up.

    I didn’t see it, but assume she said there would be no increase in rates.

The FED is sitting on a very precarious Global Economic situation. Coordination between all the Central Banks globally, is probably a good thing for world peace. There should always be constructive conversation with the BRIC’s Central Banks. (BRIC = Brazil, Russia, India, China)

It’s always important to keep in mind this statement;

“Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.” –Thomas Jefferson

NeuroComputer to Shepherd Nukes (EE Times)

IBM brain-like chips now working for LLNL

R. Colin Johnson

3/31/2016 10:48 AM EDT

LAKE WALES Fla.—IBM’s brain-like supercomputer chips—dubbed its TrueNorth neurocomputer—have been installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to explore new ways to ensure the cyber-security and the stewardship of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Sounding eerily like a prelude to Skynet “waking up” in charge of our nukes, IBM and LLNL assure us that its TrueNorth neurocomputer use with our “nation’s nuclear deterrent” does not mean being in charge of the launch codes, but rather being used for simulating the deterioration of our aging nuclear arsenal—currently the most difficult problem for supercomputers to solve worldwide.

“LLNL will use the new system to explore new computing capabilities important to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) missions in cyber security, stewardship of the nation’s nuclear deterrent and non-proliferation,” Dharmendra Modha, IBM fellow and chief scientist for brain-inspired computing, IBM Research-Almaden (San Jose, Calif.) told EE Times. “NNSA’s Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program will evaluate machine learning applications, deep learning algorithms and architectures plus conduct general computing feasibility studies. ASC is a cornerstone of NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship Program to ensure the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear deterrent without underground testing.”

Besides packing more supercomputing punch into a smaller space (see photos compared to a single server rack) the TrueNorth neuromorphic computer consumes the smallest fraction possible of the a supercomputer—just two-watts.

[Learn to implement crypto-security on bare-metal ARM Cortex-M processors at ESC Boston]

“The 16-chip neuromorphic system represents 50 times the computing power of today’s computers,” Modha told us. And consumes just “1/10th the power of a dim lightbulb.”

The nuclear arsenal stewardship program using TrueNorth’s neuromorphic power, started long before the current announcement. IBM had already collaborated on simulating the TrueNorth 16-chip set on LLNL’s Sequoia supercomputer based on the Power architecture. With the knowledge derived from that program IBM was able to create a suite of support software that converts traditional computing goals into brain-line neuromorphic commands.

“IBM researchers collaborated with LLNL to develop a pilot project that simulated the power of the 16-chip IBM Neuromorphic System,” Mocha told us. “Based on that pilot, IBM Research subsequently developed the ecosystem of support software to help LLNL computer scientists easily access the [neuromorphic] supercomputer’s functionality.”

TrueNorth—the semiconductor—is a culmination of IBM’s long-road quest to create not just cognitive computing simulations like Watson running on traditional computers, but to harness the latest neural science insight into how the brain works better—and consumes far less power—than the fastest digital supercomputers in the world. Using brain-inspired machine learning on TrueNorth cores, has enabled IBM to pass a major milestone in cognitive computing—with more to come as more-and-more is understood about how the real human brain works.

According to IBM, neuromorphic supercomputers will be the shortest path to the goal of exascale computing while simultaneously making that power accessible to the masses by virtue of its tiny-size,-cost and -power envelop compared to planned exascale digital supercomputers. By depending on deep learning supported by hardware that emulates 16 million neurons and 4 billion synapses while consuming less power than a small tablet, IBM is pinning its hopes on TrueNorth performing pattern recognition, sensory fusion and other cognitive tasks better than any other know architectures—from massive multicores, to synchronized co-processors to massive arrays of graphic-processing units (GPUs).

The True-North architecture is expandable by configuring multiple 4-by-4 arrays into larger configurations using arrays of arrays, resulting in supercomputers two orders of magnitude faster than today’s fastest petaflop supercomputers, and aspiring to exascale neuro-synaptic systems at a fraction of the volume and power.

A single TrueNorth processor consists of 5.4 billion transistors wired together to create an array of 1 million digital neurons 256 million synapses to communicate and store learned knowledge. At 0.8 volts, it consumes just 70 milliwatts per chip running in real time and delivers 46 billion synaptic operations per second—hundreds of times lower energy than conventional digit simulations of neural networks.

Beside the 16-chip TrueNorth hardware, its programming environment mimics the brain’s abilities for perception, action and cognition. In conventional terms, that consists of a simulator, a programming language, a library of common algorithms as well as prepackaged applications, firmware and tools for configuring neural networks for deep learning.

TrueNorth was originally funder by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Systems and its Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) program in collaboration with Cornell University.

— R. Colin Johnson, Advanced Technology Editor, EE Times

“When I realized that people believe what the Internet says more than reality, I discovered that I had the power to make people believe almost anything.”

<http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-to-hack-an-election/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

I include this message I have received without comment:

 

Fred on Everything Trump…

Subj: It Cometh from the Pit:And Hath a Knout

http://fredoneverything.org/it-cometh-from-the-pitand-hath-a-knout/

I’m utterly shocked by the source of this fine article which defines the historical spring from which ISIS has (er) sprung. The article admits that we had nothing to do with it. Yes, we did help some of the al Qaeda people at some points in time; but, we had no more influence over their ideology than any rock you might pluck from the deserts that spawned them.

I’m shocked Huffington Post (not HuffPo in this instance) posted it as it flies into the apparent ideological biases at “HuffPo”.

You Can’t Understand ISIS If You Don’t Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-wahhabism-saudi-arabia_b_5717157.html

This is highly recommended reading. And it will give you an acute idea of just how difficult winning this 14 century long war with literalist Islam will be for us. It’s probably a war that will never end within the life time of even those newly born today. But it is a war that is absolutely worth winning. It is a war of goodness, grace, love, and live against unspeakable evil, death, and destruction. It is a war against an ideology that amounts to humanity’s suicide pact with itself, a war which cannot end until no two people can reach each other to fight to the death.

{^_^}

The war is inevitable, but we have the weapons of mass destruction of culture: rock music, iPhones and iPads, blue jeans, etc.  I fear we must use them.

 

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

Chaos Manor View, Tuesday, March 29, 2016

“This is the most transparent administration in history.”

Barrack Obama

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

Under Capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under Socialism, the powerful become rich.

Under Socialism, government employees become powerful.

 

The AT&T technician is here, and he has looked into my outside box and now has to go down the street; so it looks as if the static in my landlines is theirs, not mine, and Roberta’s call to the phone company – the number on the bill, NOT 611 which is fruitless misery – has paid off. Now my phones are dead. A call to the house phone on my cellphone produces endless ring, no answer, on the cellphone, but it doesn’t ring here at all. Hope that’s a good sign, but it’s been fifteen minutes and there is no sign of him.

Ah. He’s back, and closing up the box. We still have static, but it’s not as bad as it was. Can’t use the phone for radio interviews, but it’s usable. The phone technician was a middle aged white guy. I told him of our attempts to use 611, and he laughed like hell. Apparently no one ever gets him through 611. You have to use the number on your phone bill.

There’s enough static that I’m going to have to do this again if it doesn’t go away in a week or so, but at least we have the phone now. ‘Tis not so loud as a bell, nor so large as a church door, but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve.

And Lo! He’s back, having discovered the problem in another test just to be sure – and he’s fixing it now. It’s like the old Phone Company, competent technicians who cared, and an office bureaucracy that didn’t. And now he’s done, something on the outside box, and there is no static at all. Loud dial tone, no static, everything great again. Hurrah. And no cost.

Sedasys

The article from the Washington Post about colonoscopies and the Sedasys machine had one major error.
“And sedation with the Sedasys machine cost $150 to $200 for each procedure, compared to $2,000 for an anesthesiologist, one of healthcare’s best-paid specialties. “
While anesthesia is a well paid specialty, I’m not sure where they got $2000 cost for colonoscopy sedation by an anesthesiologist. My wife is a recently retired anesthesiologist and the outpatient surgicenter where she worked did many colonoscopies each day. The charge from her group was well below that figure.
Anesthesia is different from most specialties in that they charge by “relative value unit”. A procedure is billed by taking the “base units”, a measure of how complex the case is and accounts for time talking to the patient and reviewing records; adding units if the patient is especially ill or has complicating factors (transfusion required, heart problems, grossly obese, diabetes, etc.); and adding units for time, one every 15 minutes. A typical colonoscopy on a healthy patient would have 3 base units and last about 20-30 minutes time for 2 more units. So a typical case would charge 5 units. In 2014, the median charge for a unit in the US was $66 according to a study I found. So a typical case would be charged $330. The highest charge in the US was $200/unit somewhere in the northeast, for a charge of $1000.
So the Sedasys had a fee of $150-200 to Johnson and Johnson, plus there would be a fee from the facility for hooking you up to the monitors and the IVs. Net – not much savings and higher risk to the facility in case of something going wrong. And if something does go wrong, the GI doc doing the colonoscopy would need to get situational awareness to figure out what to do, or wait for an anesthesiologist to be summoned. (This is one of the things the human factors experts worry about in automated cars and planes, getting oriented when things go pear shaped.)
One thing that TV and movies get wrong is that if a surgical patient “crashes”, the anesthesiologist is in charge and barks out orders, not the surgeon. The anesthesiologist is in charge of patient care. They are your advocate in the OR. They are there “to keep you alive while the surgeon tries to kill you”. It is also one of the specialties trying to figure out what goes wrong and how to prevent it in the future. Every closed malpractice claim against an anesthesiologist in the US is studied for that purpose and any trends and other findings sent out each quarter.

Edmund Hack

Thank you for the data – information, actually. I know little about anesthesiology, although my mad friend’s widow was an anesthesiologist and professor of medicine at USC medical school and teaching hospital. Haven’t seen her for years, of course, and I’ve quite lost track of the field. If a live doctor is only $300 and letting a machine do it is $299, I know I’d choose the human; which is probably why they aren’t going to make this robot any more. This year. I suspect we have not heard the last of it, though.

The Tiresias program which did diagnostics from its internal data base after being fed patient data information was said to be pretty successful back in the early 80’s; I don’t hear much about it lately. It seems to have evolved into an expert system and not to have gone much further; and I don’t hear much about medical diagnostics programs any more. I see I enquired about this sixteen years ago http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view103.html without much result.

At one time, the idea of using computers in medical diagnosis was a big deal; and it actually scared some young interns who feared that computers would put them out of a job. Since then computers have got more powerful, but their utility in medical diagnosis gets little attention. I’m not sure why.

After all, good medical diagnosis is very much like flying an airplane: before you take off, you go through an elaborate mandatory check list, and if you get past that, you can go. Lately, even the go process is mostly pushing buttons and turning the job over to a robot.

Same with medical diagnosis: you list symptoms, take a clinical history, and compare to what you learned in medical school; there’s some room for intuition, but not a lot: the check lists, whether written or memorized, pretty well govern the process.

A robot does check lists better than you do.

I wrote many years ago about an episode that happened to a psychiatrist friend of mine who worked for the government, I think at Walter Reed at the time. He had a patient with some weird delusions who otherwise exhibited no symptoms that seemed familiar. My friend remembered a lecture he heard in medical school years before: rather part of a lecture, a casual mention of a rare tropical disease, one its symptoms being weird delusions. He asked the patient if he had been abroad recently.

Of course he had been; he was a Foreign Service Officer; and he had been in Borneo, to the specific place mentioned in the nearly forgotten lecture. It turned out that he had a rare parasite. My friend had never seen a case of that, nor had he ever met anyone who had. The story has a happy incident: they were able to cable to a hospital in Indonesia where one man had some familiarity with this, and he knew an Indonesian physician who knew more, and eventually they could correspond with someone who knew what to look for, and they found the parasite.

A good enough computer data base would know about the Borneo parasite, and would never forget it; and anyone connected tothe Internet could find out without having to recall a five minute segment of a lecture he heard fifteen years ago…

I suppose many diagnostic programs are in use now so routinely that no one thinks about them; but I suspect the era of robot expert systems being able to do diagnostics better than Dr House is only beginning; but it will come. No human can be a better expert that a robot which has access to everyone’s checklists…

Chicago Teacher’s Union Plans Day of Tantrum

clip_image00310.gif

Chicago Teachers Union executives have spent weeks whipping their members into a froth over this Friday’s planned classroom walkout.

They’ve stoked members’ anger over Chicago Public Schools’ bid to phase out a generous pension deal the near-bankrupt district can no longer afford.

They’ve whipped passions over the district’s decision to order furlough days because of a huge budget shortfall, and over its move to withhold a category of raises that’s based on teachers gaining further education and experience.

Still, the vote in the union’s House of Delegates to authorize the April 1 strike was a lopsided but far from unanimous 486-124.

That’s 124 union officials rejecting their leadership’s proposed one-day strike. That’s a big contingent of CTU delegates saying no, let’s teach our students that Friday, not spend the day brandishing banners and hollering slogans in the Loop for … what?

The hastily planned, unfocused Day of Tantrum that union leaders demand evokes a famous line in the 1953 movie classic “The Wild One.” Motorcycle gang leader Marlon Brando is asked what he’s rebelling against. “What have you got?” he retorts.

[snip]

This is probably self-commenting. It can’t go on: punishing the pupils because the government won’t give the teachers’ unions what their leaders want. I invite comments from teachers. Chicago hasn’t the money. Must the pupils suffer?

Trump

Dear Mr. Pournelle;
I do question whether Trump “says what he thinks.” As I understand his business practice, he says what he thinks will make the deal. Typically, that has been some glittering fantasy.
Yours,
Allan E. Johnson

I did not mean that Trump never calculates what he going to say; I do say he often does that. He doesn’t feel that his casual comments and expressions are an actual commitment; they’re more of a proposal, or rather, an invitation for comment. I don’t know Trump, but Newt Gingrich used to do that: say outrageous things in the sure and certain knowledge that one or more of his friends around him at the time would say, “Uh, not, really. That’s idiotic.” After which would follow a reassessment, a discussion, and from it quite possibly a good idea.

But the difference between skillful and professional politicians and Mr. Trump is that with the pro’s that seldom happens in public and you never hear anything but the considered and refined idea, not the beginning remark which may well have been imbecilic.

When Mr. Trump is paying attention because he is bargaining for a deal, I suggest you not only check your wallet often, but also that you be mindful of your back teeth.

The Ancient Agreement

Cats only moved in after dogs domesticated humans. This is the cause of the cat – dog feud. Dogs view cats as claim jumpers! 🙂

Peter Wityk

I like that notion.

How Clinton’s email scandal took root from The Washington Post

http://wpo.st/aGqP1

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/03/28/climate-change-the-biggest-conspiracy-against-the-taxpayer-in-history/

Subject: Oh yes…Climate Change – The Greatest-Ever Conspiracy Against The Taxpayer

Climate Change – The Greatest-Ever Conspiracy Against The Taxpayer

by James Delingpole

28 Mar 2016

Climate change is the biggest scam in the history of the world – a $1.5 trillion-a-year conspiracy against the taxpayer, every cent, penny and centime of which ends in the pockets of the wrong kind of people, none of which goes towards a cause remotely worth funding, all of it a complete and utter waste.

Here is an edited version of a speech on this subject I gave last week to the World Taxpayers’ Associations in Berlin.

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/03/28/climate-change-the-biggest-conspiracy-against-the-taxpayer-in-history/

More data and talking points for the Unbelievers and Deniers and Skeptics

Cryptography explained in understandable terms

Jerry,

   Pretty good explanation of Cryptography:

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2016/03/25/become_conversant_in_cryptography/

What wasn’t discussed is salting, this is a good site for that, but beware, it’s considered a hacking site:

https://crackstation.net/hashing-security.htm

Tracy Walters

Is college worth it? Goldman Sachs says not so much (USA Today)

By Brooke Metz December 10, 2015 8:30 am

College is certainly an investment, but it’s worth it — right?

Maybe not, according to new research from Goldman Sachs.

The company said in a research note published in early December that the average return on college is falling. In 2010, students could expect to break even within eight years of finishing school. Since then, that has increased to nine years. And if this trend continues, students who start college in 2030 without scholarships or grants, it said, may not see a return on investment until age 37.

Recent graduates can relate to the report. Mary Kate Baumann, a 2010 graduate of a private college in upstate New York who also graduated from journalism and business graduate programs at the University of Missouri this year, said, “My undergraduate education was over $200,000 in total and my first job paid only $28,000. That’s a large disparity.”

Goldman Sachs calculated the economic return on college education as the “total all-in cost of college (net of grants and scholarships) and the wages foregone during the 4 years of study versus the wage premium that undergraduate degree holders enjoy versus high school graduates over their working life.”

While the National Association of Colleges and Employers reported in October that the job market for grads has seen recent improvements, Goldman Sachs said wages still aren’t cutting it to make up for education costs.

Of course, many students still say college is money well spent.

“I think it’s worth it to grow as a person, and there are so many other experiences that college teaches you,” said Vanderbilt University senior Chris Wolk, who plans to go into the consulting field. “Involvement outside of class and learning how to balance your life and live independently is worth the cost of college.”

Wake Forest University senior McKenzie Ziegler, who plans to pursue a career in sports agency and representation, agreed. “College is extremely expensive,” she said, “but there is no price tag in terms of the conversations you hold and the community you make.”

Brooke Metz is a student at Wake Forest University and fall 2015 USA TODAY College web producer.

Has it got better? And the grade and high schools are deteriorating from an abysmal level…

post CoDO universe

I have long wondered if you were going to do a book on what happens after the events of Prince of Sparta? I am curious to see how that played out, bridge the gap between formation of the first Empire of Man, and the Sauron wars. I thank you for your time, and I have enjoyed all of your books!!!
Regards,
Scott Nelson

I seldom write about what I don’t believe in, and the CoDominium vanished with the Berlin Wall; it might have been revived, but Clinton and Albright infuriated Putin to no discernable national interest or purpose, and no one has moved in that direction since.

I liked the CoDominium universe, but we are taking another path – and we didn’t develop faster than light either.

“It’s the Ikea of Neolithic monument building.”

<http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/dec/07/stonehenge-first-erected-in-wales-secondhand-monument>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

The psychiatric matrix creates the politically correct victim – Personal Liberty®

Something to consider…

http://personalliberty.com/the-psychiatric-matrix-creates-the-politically-correct-victim/

Charles Brumbelow

“Individual [Harvard law] students often ask teachers not to include the law of rape on exams for fear that the material would cause them to perform less well. One teacher I know was recently asked by a student not to use the word ‘violate’ in class — as in ‘Does this conduct violate the law?’ — because the word was triggering. Some students have even suggested that rape law should not be taught because of its potential to cause distress.” — Jeannie Suk, The New Yorker

“When you have medical services at colleges all over the country making psychiatric diagnoses and dispensing drugs, day in and day out, what do you suppose is going to happen to those students? They’re going to wear their mental-disorder labels like badges, and they’re going to think of themselves as vulnerable, and they’re going to look for new ways to prove how vulnerable they are. They’re going to say that hearing certain words can cause them to go into a tailspin…” — Jon Rappoport, The Underground

The current official list of mental disorders hovers at 300. That’s 300 separately defined, treatable and covered by insurance plans.

On a cultural level, this means the population is being tuned to the idea that they are vulnerable and at high risk. The right trigger at the right moment, a slight change in brain-chemical balance, and there it is: a disorder, with a title, a professional diagnosis and the need for treatment.

This cultural programming — no surprise — has been a major factor in influencing people to believe they are victims. The obsessive focus on politically correct words that could offend and traumatize is, in reality, an extension of the psychiatric matrix.

[snip]

September 23, 2014

 

It’s Time to Take the Islamic State Seriously

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/time-take-islamic-state-seriously

Rev. James V. Schall, S.J.

Islam has no central or definitive body or figure authorized to define what exactly it is. Opinions about its essence and scope vary widely according to the political or philosophic background of its own interpreters. The current effort to establish an Islamic State, with a designated Caliph, again to take up the mission assigned to Islam, brings to our attention the question: “What is Islam?”

The issue of “terror” is a further aspect of this same understanding. Many outside Islam seek to separate “terror” and “Islam” as if they were, in their usage, independent or even opposed ideas. This latter view is almost impossible seriously to maintain in the light of Islamic history and the text of the Qur’an itself.

John Kerry, however, insists that what we see is “terrorism” with nothing to do with Islam. The Obama administration seems to have a rule never to identify Islam with “terrorism,” no matter what the evidence or what representatives of the Islamic State themselves say. The vice-president speaks of “Hell” in connection with actions of the Islamic State. Diane Feinstein speaks of “evil” behind the current slaughters in Iraq and Syria. The pope mentions “stopping aggression.” The English hate-laws prevent frank and honest discussion of what actually goes on in Islamic countries or communities in the West. Not even Winston Churchill’s critical view of Islam is permitted to be read in public.

Ecumenism and liberalism both, in their differing ways, because of their commitment to tolerance and free speech, make it difficult to deal with what is happening in Islamic states. Islam is not friendly to relativism or to subtle distinctions.

Is terror intrinsic to Islam?
What I want to propose here is an opinion. An opinion is a position that sees the plausibility but not certainty of a given proposition. But I think this opinion is well-grounded and makes more sense both of historic and of present Islam than most of the other views that are prevalent. I do not conceive this reflection as definitive. Nor do I document it in any formal sense, though it can be. It is a view that, paradoxically, has, I think, more respect for Islam than most of its current critics or advocates.

This comment is an apologia, as it were, for the Islamic State at least in the sense that it accepts its sincerity and religious purpose. It understands how, in its own terms, the philosophic background that enhances its view does, in its own terms, justify its actions, including the violent ones.

The Islamic State and the broader jihadist movements throughout the world that agree with it are, I think, correct in their basic understanding of Islam. Plenty of evidence is found, both in the long history of early Muslim military expansion and in its theoretical interpretation of the Qur’an itself, to conclude that the Islamic State and its sympathizers have it basically right. The purpose of Islam, with the often violent means it can and does use to accomplish it, is to extend its rule, in the name of Allah, to all the world. The world cannot be at “peace” until it is all Muslim. The “terror” we see does not primarily arise from modern totalitarian theories, nationalism, or from anywhere else but what is considered, on objective evidence, to be a faithful reading of a mission assigned by Allah to the Islamic world, which has been itself largely procrastinating about fulfilling its assigned mission.

[snip]

Has there been any evidence that this analysis was wrong/

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

Chaos Manor View, Monday, March 28, 2016

“This is the most transparent administration in history.”

Barrack Obama

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

Under Capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under Socialism, the powerful become rich.

Under Socialism, government employees become powerful.

 

It’s been a hectic Easter weekend. Roberta keeps coming down with painful episodes almost undoubtedly related to having an abscessed tooth removed. Meanwhile, Richard and Herrin are visiting with two of the grandchildren. Delightful, but we’ve long since forgotten just how energetic bright young children can be.

And things keep breaking down. We have since the rains three weeks ago had terrible static in the landline telephone we had for years. I messed about replacing some of the rather corroded cords and plugs, with at best marginal improvement, and meanwhile the static gets worse; and lately it has spells of going away, so it’s probably not internal connections at all. I procrastinated on reporting it to AT&T, anticipating what would happen; but today it was just too much

The plumbing jammed up. Mike Diamond’s crew – who were very competent by looked like a couple of the Bubba’s the old radio adds used to portray as Diamond’s competitors – were difficult to reach, but eventually came out to find wads of paper in the pipes. They cleared it out for $99 as advertised, but the lack of usable telephones complicated matters.

So today Roberta tried calling 611 on my cellphone. Eventually she reached a human. In the Philippines. Whose English was about what you might expect. And who had a problem understanding why we weren’t calling from the number that didn’t work. Sand had even more trouble writing down that number; Roberta must have repeated that landline number thirty times, and they kept telling her the number was registered to someone else, and she kept giving them the number again, after which we sat with a telephone that periodically went beep-beep but otherwise showed no signs of life for 26 minutes. At which point she gave up.

She tried again, this time calling the number on the bill, and the experience was much better. In theory a technician will visit tomorrow; free if the problem is outside the house, $55 if it’s our internal wiring. Sounds fair enough. As to calling 611, I don’t see why anyone but a masochist would ever do that more than once. The robot is stupid, getting a human takes endless repeating of the word operator, and when you get one – in the Philippines – she doesn’t speak any better English than the robot and has an only slightly higher IQ. I would imagine there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans who would be much better at handling trouble calls and would like to have the work; but what with having to pay minimum wages, comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, unions, regulations, and the rest, the Philippines sounds more attractive. But is it? It certainly cuts down on the number of 611 calls; but simply disconnecting that number would get the same results.

But then they’re The Phone Company.

This might also be relevant:

It’s game over for the robot intended to replace anesthesiologists (WP)

By Todd C. Frankel March 28 at 9:31 AM

Last May, we wrote about a new machine from healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson that could sedate patients for routine medical procedures.

The device handled one of the most routine and yet risky hospital procedures: Putting someone to sleep so they don’t feel discomfort or pain, yet not so asleep that they don’t wake up.

At the time, the Sedasys machine was being used in just four hospitals, including the one we visited in Toledo. We watched as the Sedasys device provided basic anesthesiology services to a series of patients undergoing routine endoscopies and colonoscopies.

No longer did you need a trained anesthesiologist. And sedation with the Sedasys machine cost $150 to $200 for each procedure, compared to $2,000 for an anesthesiologist, one of healthcare’s best-paid specialties.  The machine was seen as the leading lip of an automation wave transforming hospitals.

But Johnson & Johnson recently announced it was pulling the plug on Sedasys because of poor sales.

The decision was first reported by Outpatient Surgery Magazine and Anesthesiology News.

It comes as the healthcare company earlier this year unveiled plans to shake up its medical device businesses, including laying off 4 to 6 percent of its medical device employees worldwide over the next two years. Johnson & Johnson reported that revenue from its specialty medical devices – Sedasys and others – have been flat for more than a year, hovering at just over $200 million each quarter. It did not break out Sedasys figures.

Sedasys was never welcomed by human anesthesiologists. Before it even hit the market, the American Society of Anesthesiologists campaigned against it, backing down only once the machine’s potential uses were limited to routine procedures such as colonoscopies.

The Post’s story back in May provoked an outpouring of messages from anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetist who claimed a machine could never replicate a human’s care or diligence. Many sounded offended at the notion that a machine could do their job.

And, at least when it comes to the Sedasys machine, they were right.

So next time you get a colonoscopy, you’ll either endure it awake, or pay a human anesthesiologist.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Tap+the+brakes%3A+Self-driving+vehicle+technology+is+%27absolutely+not+ready%2C%27+says+robotics+researcher&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Tap the brakes: Self-driving vehicle technology is ‘absolutely not ready,’ says robotics researcher

SELF DOUBTS?

When the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on Capitol Hill this month to assess America’s readiness for the arrival of self-driving cars, it summoned a who’s who of industry executives: Chris Urmson, director of Google’s self-driving car project, plus executives from Delphi, General Motors and Lyft, all of which are racing to bring self-driving cars to market. 

Then, as if to splash cold water on their ambitions, the committee called Missy Cummings, an engineering professor and human-factors expert at Duke University who argued self-driving cars are “absolutely not ready for widespread deployment.” 

Cummings, 49, who was one of the Navy’s first female fighter pilots from 1988 to 1999 and managed a $100 million Navy program to build a sensor-laden robotic helicopter, is director of Duke’s Humans and Autonomy Lab. 

As a professor, she is leading a National Science Foundation-funded study of how pedestrians interact with self-driving cars. Cummings spoke with Staff Reporter Gabe Nelson on March 18, three days after visiting Capitol Hill. 

Q: How good are humans at working with robots?

A: That’s a big question. It depends what the machine is trying to do, whether the people have lots of training — as in the case of aviation — and the complexity of the environment. Humans certainly can adapt to a high-complexity environment. The question is how much training a person needs to do it. 

How complex is driving?

Driving is one of the most complex domains. It’s even more complex than aviation. 

Even though you’re moving in three dimensions in aviation, road environments are a lot denser. When you’re in the sky there aren’t many planes near you, but there can be a lot going on near a road in an urban setting: cars, people, bicycles. 

And the people are significantly less trained. It doesn’t take much training to get a driver’s license in this country, and we’re not going to move to a society where you have to go to school for six months just to operate a driverless car. We’re going to need to be sure everyone from ages 16 to 96 can operate these things. 

What can we learn from aviation in bringing self-driving cars to market? 

I think the auto industry could learn a lot from how airlines and airplane manufacturers worked to automate their planes, and tested them to be sure that they would work in all conditions. 

We would have never allowed people to fly in airplanes when the industry was still trying to figure out automated landing. The planes had to be tested, and manufacturers had to prove they could land under all sorts of different conditions. 

I believe that before we take drastic steps such as taking steering wheels out of cars, the car manufacturers need to prove that a human will never need to intervene. We’re simply not going to go to a car with no steering wheel overnight. We will get there eventually — I just think it’s not going to happen as quickly as Google might want. 

[snip]

Robert Heinlein foresaw “automated driving only” lanes on freeways and major streets; you couldn’t get into them if you were driving yourself. But they were in addition to “Human drivers only” lanes, where you had to take control yourself. I would suspect that would be the first step in the process.

Subj: Could the US survive a stupid psychopath president?

Kevin D. Williamson proposes that Trump is a stupid psychopath — in particular, that Trump believes, and will act on that belief, that All We Have To Do Is Just adopt some simple, obvious solution, to each of the seemingly intractable problems of public policy we face, which solutions Only Trump has the toughness to adopt:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433296/donald-trump-stupid-psychopath-ignorance-policy-complex-problems

I find Williamson’s argument persuasive, though not entirely convincing, but let’s consider a slightly different matter:

Could the United States survive a stupid psychopath president?

My inclination is to answer “Yes.”

Indeed, my impression is that we could better survive a stupid psychopath president, whose most bizarre flights of policy fancy would be opposed by pretty much everyone else in government, than survive yet another round of self-righteous, abstraction-infatuated mis-leadership, supported by large minorities, and sometimes majorities, in both the Congress and the bureaucracy.

For example, while Obama’s orders to assassinate terrorist leaders, including a few American citizens, have been obeyed, and some innocents have been killed in the process, I do not think any serving officer would obey an order to slaughter the families of terrorists, merely because they are family members.

But I could be wrong. Am I?

Rod

I do not believe Trump is either stupid or a psycho[path; like some other intelligent people with fermenting ideas, he say what he thinks, sometimes at inappropriate times, and sometimes in very inappropriate places; he seems intelligent enough to think things over before acting on them. Henry II spoke of a the cowardice of his followers who would not rid him of this meddlesome priest, and the De Tracy’s immediately left for Canterbury to murder the Archbishop. He sent messengers to recall them, but was too late. Today’s President has few of that kind of follower. His senior officers are well versed in Duty, Honor, Country, as they should be, and the Commander in Chief is not above the Constitution – indeed takes an oath to uphold and defend it.

If we must have a stupid psychopath, I fear I would be less afraid of him than I am of more regulations and regulators who are sure they are right and are acting for my good as they see it…

heads up~!

Security guard of a Brussels nuclear plant found dead, ID stolen. ISIS/Daesh suspected.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/12204863/Brussels-terror-attacks-nuclear-isil-suspects-victims-latest.html
Stephanie Osborn

“The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”
http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com

Low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR)

Is the cold fusion egg about to hatch?

Huw Price

is Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy and a fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He is also Academic Director of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. His most recent book is Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism (2013).

https://aeon.co/opinions/is-the-cold-fusion-egg-about-to-hatch

Iraq-Iran

What does one year mean?  See these two articles one year apart from the Wall Street Journal.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-occupies-iraq-1426116089

http://www.wsj.com/articles/iraq-isnt-lost-to-iran-1458858395

The more recent article supports my long held opinion (as I’ve espoused previously) that the average Iraqi sees hope in a future outside of religious fundamentalism.  Democracy, from the bottom up, seems to be having an (albeit, long time coming) effect.  Even to the point of cooperation.  

I’ve found that the Iraqi’s were intensely patriotic (Sunni, Shia, Kurd; even the Christians) and certainly held a disdain for the Persians.  Remember, I spent all of my time in the Shia area of Iraq.  While there was pragmatism in much of the Iraq/Iran relationship – much of the Shia enthusiasm was ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ – the religious consolidation of power by the Iraqi Shia Umma, fueled by Iranian dinars, was tolerated by the middle class – and sometimes just seen as inevitable. Seeking survival, the average Iraqi had to pick a winning side – for the Shia that meant treating with Iran, particularly after the US left.  Given another opportunity (i.e. secular democracy) that can better their lot in life, it is my opinion that the majority of Iraqis will support a SUCCESSFUL movement in that direction.

David Couvillon
Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; 
Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; 
Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; 
Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; 
Chef de Hot Dog Excellence;  Avoider of Yard Work

As I understand it, both sides of the Shia-Sunni split see the Kurds as not either  “Kurds are Moslems compared to infidels”; and they have always been more pragmatic than any Arab faction;  is this a correct impression?  I know Richard III was able to do a truce with the Kurd Saladin and it lasted a while, but that was a long time ago.  Turks and Iran seem united in wanting to keep the Kurds down, which has made the Kurds our allies…

Jerry Pournelle

Correct on all accounts – as far as my education and experience will tell!

David Couvillon

The Arab Iraqis have no choice but to pick a winning side; I would think it best to make it obvious as soon as possible that the Caliphate, ISIS, whatever you to care to call it; which is implacably at war with the West, is not that side.

How GE is using 3D printing to unleash the biggest revolution in large-scale manufacturing in over a century     (zdnet)

In 2015, GE inaugurated a new, Multi-Modal manufacturing facility in Chakan, India. If the company’s ambitions for the space are realized, it could drive a massive change in global manufacturing.

By Rajiv Rao | March 25, 2016 — 14:35 GMT (07:35 PDT) | Topic: 3D Printing

This article was originally published by ZDNet’s sister site, TechRepublic, and is reprinted with permission. Click here to see the original in cover story format.

It is hard to imagine, with its iconography of billowing smoke and raging furnaces, that a factory would ever be called “brilliant” or “flexible.” But, global behemoth General Electric wants to change the way you think about those far away, smoke-belching buildings and introduce you to a new era–maybe even a revolution–in manufacturing.

In 2015, GE unveiled its first ever US $200 million “Multi-Modal” facility in Chakan, located in the Indian state of Maharashtra, which it thinks will be the agent of this change. It was inaugurated by Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister who is confronted by the huge challenge of delivering jobs to hundreds of millions of youth who lack measurable skills. The factory won’t be solving that gargantuan problem since it staffs a mere 1,500 technicians and engineers, but it’s not meant to, at least not in a direct way. Instead, the factory promises to create an enormous, positive ripple effect both inside and outside India that will impact employment and supply chains, as well as promote radical new designs and industrial innovation like never before.

The factory in Chakan reveals the plan at work. Steam turbines compete for space with water treatment units and jet engine parts in neat rows on a spotless, ultra-modern factory floor.

“The idea is to service a multitude of businesses–from oil and gas, to aviation, transportation, and distributed power–all under the same roof,” said GE’s Amit Kumar, who oversees the Multi-Modal facility.

[snip]

The importance of 3D printing grows and grows; and no doubt the new rises in minimum wages will encourage it.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3047657/eric-schmidt-sees-a-huge-future-for-machine-learning.html

Eric Schmidt sees a huge future for machine learning

The man who helped build Google from a search engine into one of the biggest and most influential companies in the world has predicted the emergence of a new computing architecture based on crowd-sourced data and machine learning.

Speaking at Google’s GCP Next cloud computing conference in San Francisco, Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt said the combination of crowd-sourced data and machine learning will be the basis of “every successful huge IPO” in five years.”

He said the adoption of machine learning will allow companies to mine crowd sourced data, which already provides a mass of information not previously available to companies, and improve on it.

“You’re going to use machine learning to take that data and do something that’s better than what the humans are doing,” he said.

Schmidt said the wide adoption of machine learning in computing will be as significant as the switch from the web to smartphone apps, which spawned the success of companies like Uber and Snapchat.

He predicted it will “create huge new platforms, companies, IPOs, wealth, and enormous things going on in the future.”

“It’s a great time to be in the cloud,” he said.

Eric Schmidt sees a huge future for machine learning   (2:21)

Schmidt’s comments were underlined by Urs Hölzle, the man who runs Google’s technical infrastructure.

“Over the next five years, I expect to see more change in computing than in the last five decades.”

The comments build on a recent achievement by Google in the field of artificial intelligence. Last week its DeepMind AI system triumphed in a five-game series of Go matches against one of the world’s best players.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Fight to Be Heard    (nyt)

By DANIEL KRIEGERMARCH 25, 2016  

Lydia Callis wanted to get her mother a gym membership for Christmas last year. When she called to arrange a consultation, she mentioned that her mom (who lives in Arizona) is deaf and would need a sign-language interpreter for the session. The health club said it would not provide a signer. Ms. Callis — who became an Internet sensation during Hurricane Sandy as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s exuberant sign-language interpreter — told the club that it was actually required by law to do so. Still it refused, and Ms. Callis, who was calling from Manhattan, gave up.

Last year was the 25th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and yet this kind of scenario plays out regularly for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. While the broader culture has become accustomed to certain changes the law has engendered, particularly wheelchair access, the rights of the deaf have frequently been misunderstood or simply disregarded.

Recently, however, a deaf rights movement has begun to gain ground, particularly in New York.

[snip]

I am hard of hearing but that’s my problem; I certainly don’t want to be yours. If you are kind enough to put up with me even though it is annoying to have to say things over and over to get me to understand, I appreciate it; but I don’t think I have any right to send an armed man, or a lawyer, to make you do so.

Many public events, such as the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, have had signers and other aids to handicapped for as long as I have been going to them, and as a Fellow of AAAS I supported that well before I lost most of my hearing; but I would not then, and do not now support sending Federal Agents to compel you to do so.

Time Warner Opposes Georgia Religious Act (B&C)

It seems that what precipitated the law in the first place was the push for “non disciminatory” restrooms. Seems that a lot of people in Georgia think men should use the men’s public restrooms, not the women’s and vice versa.
In a statement, [Governor] McCrory said legislative action was necessary to prevent local governments from enacting ordinances that overstep their authority in a way that might allow a man to use a woman’s bathroom, shower or locker room. He tweeted that he had signed the bill “to stop the breach of basic privacy and etiquette”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/03/23/north-carolina-passes-bill-blocking-lgbt-protections/
Restrooms segregated on the basis of sex is something I can live with, as I have been my whole life. In fact, I prefer it that way.
Cordially,
Leo Walker

SECDEF (not SECSTATE) Email Scandal!

Let’s all compromise classified material and endanger the national security of the United States of America. Why not? Former Director of Central Intelligence Deutsch did it! General Petraeus did it!

SECSTATE Hillary Clinton allegedly did it and now SECDEF Carter is suspected of doing it!

The only person left to do this would be a President or Vice President of the United States. Our intelligence and military folks — with Petraeus being both — no longer give a damn about national security.

Why even bother with civil service if the bosses are going to screw up and then, on top of that, get away with it every time? That’s not law; that’s tyranny.

<.>

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter continued to use a personal email account for government work for at least four months last year after the White House questioned the Pentagon about why he was using it, according to copies of Mr. Carter’s emails released by the Defense Department on Friday.

The New York Times reported in December that Mr. Carter had relied on the account at least through May, two months after the newspaper reported that Hillary Clinton had exclusively used a personal email account when she was secretary of state.

According to the emails released on Friday, Mr. Carter continued to use the account for government work at least until September. Mr.

Carter said in December he had made a mistake in using the account.

Since 2012, the Defense Department has prohibited its employees from using personal email accounts for official work.

</>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/us/pentagon-chief-used-personal-email-after-white-house-queries.html?_r=0

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Finally, common sense

http://www.weaselzippers.us/263864-transgenderism-of-children-is-child-abuse-american-college-of-pediatrics-rules/

“Hillary is the answer” is proof there ARE stupid questions.

The Ancient Agreement

Caveman’s best friends? 

http://news.yahoo.com/cavemans-best-friends-preserved-ice-age-puppies-awe-052035084.html

“Fyodorov said a preliminary look at the mammoth remains also found at the dig suggested some had been butchered and burned, hinting at the presence of humans. It remains to be seen, however, whether the puppies were domesticated or wild. ”

It would be neat to find evidence of twelve and a half thousand year old domesticated dogs.  Fingers crossed.

Graves

Yes: we made a deal with dogs.  We protect their children and they protect ours.  They develop the sense of smell, and we use the same part of the brain to get smart.  Worked out well for us; now we owe them.

 

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

Chaos Manor View, Thursday, March 24, 2016

“This is the most transparent administration in history.”

Barrack Obama

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

Under Capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under Socialism, the powerful become rich.

Under Socialism, government employees become powerful.

Apparently the Brussels attackers were – or should have been – well known to the Belgian authorities, as was the coming attack on a major European city. Of course liberalism political correctness is in keeping with the philosophy of consolation for the west as it commits suicide, so there should be no surprises here.

They can say they meant well, trying to rehabilitate the terrorists who have nothing but contempt for them; and meanwhile darker sentiments boil among less sophisticated citizens who think that they have a right to some protection from this sort of thing.

This is known as sowing the wind.

Liberalism encourages diversity, and freedom, but there are limits. After all. There is a consensus on weather and climate change, and it’s important, so we can’t have people presenting arguments against saving the Earth. It’s far too important .

http://www.wsj.com/articles/punishing-climate-change-skeptics-1458772173

Punishing Climate-Change Skeptics

Some in Washington want to unleash government to harass heretics who don’t accept the ‘consensus.’

By

David B. Rivkin Jr. and

Andrew M. Grossman

March 23, 2016 6:29 p.m. ET

Galileo Galilei was tried in 1633 for spreading the heretical view that the Earth orbits the sun, convicted by the Roman Catholic Inquisition, and remained under house arrest until his death. Today’s inquisitors seek their quarry’s imprisonment and financial ruin. As the scientific case for a climate-change catastrophe wanes, proponents of big-ticket climate policies are increasingly focused on punishing dissent from an asserted “consensus” view that the only way to address global warming is to restructure society—how it harnesses and uses energy. That we might muddle through a couple degrees’ of global warming over decades or even centuries, without any major disruption, is the new heresy and must be suppressed.

The Climate Inquisition began with Michael Mann’s 2012 lawsuit against critics of his “hockey stick” research—a holy text to climate alarmists. The suggestion that Prof. Mann’s famous diagram showing rapid recent warming was an artifact of his statistical methods, rather than an accurate representation of historical reality, was too much for the Penn State climatologist and his acolytes to bear.

[snip]

Assuming the mantle of Grand Inquisitor is Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.). Last spring he called on the Justice Department to bring charges against those behind a “coordinated strategy” to spread heterodox views on global warming, including the energy industry, trade associations, “conservative policy institutes” and scientists. Mr. Whitehouse, a former prosecutor, identified as a legal basis for charges that the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, the federal statute enacted to take down mafia organizations and drug cartels.

In September a group of 20 climate scientists wrote to President Obama and Attorney General Loretta Lynch encouraging them to heed Mr. Whitehouse and launch a RICO investigation targeting climate skeptics. This was necessary since, they claimed, America’s policy response to climate change was currently “insufficient,” because of dissenting views regarding the risks of climate change. Email correspondence subsequently obtained through public-records requests revealed that this letter was also coordinated by Mr. Whitehouse. [snip]

Use of government to ruin one’s opposition with legal fees and time spent in courts is a very old practice. You’ll see a lot more of it in future. The debate is not over, of course. Mann’s “hockey stick” is still not accepted even by a number of his fellow climatologists, and perfectly respectable people continue to believe that the Earth has been both warmer and colder than it is now even ion comparatively recent time: almost certainly warmer during Viking periods and probably in some Roman periods; and certainly colder during the Little Ice Age, which fact allows Mann to pretend that there has been this sudden warming period. The obvious answer to this heretical skepticism is the auto-de-fe, but perhaps financial ruin will be as good, and doesn’t add to global warming.

Stefan Molyneux on Language, Race, Nationality and the Problem with Europe-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WjC5yvdaAo

I have rarely heard this much truth in one hour, though the heavens fall and the earth cracks.

Petronius

Is ISIS really succeeding?

In a recent post, you suggested that every successful attack strengthens ISIS’s position. And the recent successful attacks in Paris and Brussels have certainly drawn lots of media attention. But at the same time, ISIS seems to be losing ground with respect to its own homeland, the territory claimed for the Caliphate:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-syria-and-iraq-the-islamic-state-is-in-retreat-on-multiple-fronts/2016/03/24/a0e33774-f101-11e5-a2a3-d4e9697917d1_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_islamic-state-1245pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Some have suggested that the shift toward attacks abroad is a sign of weakness, rather than strength, that ISIS is trying to shift attention away from setbacks in holding the territory that they had previously acquired. If the Caliphate does, in fact, eventually collapse or is soundly defeated, I would expect attacks abroad to escalate, as the survivors of the grand experiment return home to vent their anger and frustration. Should we read these European attacks as a sign of success and growing power, or a sign of failure, that ISIS has been driven back to the tactics previously employed by Al Qaeda?

Craig

ISIS losses of territory are not exploited by the West, whereas marginal gains are trumpeted; but one cannot expect the Caliphate always to be victorious. Allah does not directly intervene in these matters and thus rob The Faithful of that share of glory which is rightfully theirs.

You may or may not be correct in assuming that if the Caliphate collapses there will be more, not fewer, attacks on the West; but I can assure you that so long as it exists, there will be more, and better planned, attacks in Europe and the United States. Destroying ISIS will not bring about the end of conflict with militant Islam; but letting it grow more powerful will not either. We could wish we had not kicked over the hornet’s nest, but we have; it now remains to deal with the enraged hornets.

Caliphate etc.

You won’t need a CAP against Iran for your A 10s, as Iran is also fighting ISIS. This is
kinda basic.
The subs etc. You should understand that Putin views the situation between the US
and Russia as a cold war. You have done enough to Russia with the Ukraine nonsense,
and breaking promises made, to make him understand, that no rules hardball, is the only thing you understand.

Chris Carson

I would not trust the lives of American Nation Guardsmen to Iranian pilots, and I would not assume that the Caliphate cannot buy SAM missiles, either from Iran or someone else.

Putin certainly views current US policy as a variant on Cold War and has done so since Madeleine Albright gratuitously chose the anti-Slav side in the Balkan affair, and set the United States to killing Slavs – and very nearly getting into a shooting war with Russia.

I am unsure what is the referent to your pronoun “you”. I have certainly done nothing to Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Comintern. I do understand that Putin does not approve of the effort to encircle Russia with NATO, nor would I were I he. As to breaking agreements, particularly on the disposition of nuclear weapons in exchange for territorial guaranteed, that is a larger subject than we have time and space for at the moment; and both sides have cases to present. If you mean that Putin has what he considers good reason to believe that he did not start the new phase of the Cold War, we are in agreement, but the stakes are different; the Comintern is not a factor.

Daesh
Dear Mr. Pournelle,
You are probably correct that depriving Daesh of territorial control would destroy their claim to legitimacy; and I would support that. The questions would be: How? and “What then?” Perhaps, as you suggest, we could impose a division of the territory they claim. I would halfway trust the Kurds to manage their part. But I doubt we are going to run out of monsters in the Arab world any time soon. So the question I’d like to see addressed is: do we have a good strategy for Whack-a-Mole?
Saddam Hussein was a monster. Whacked. Bin Laden, though I am not convinced I could call him a monster, was certainly our enemy. Whacked. Into that vacuum steps Daesh. Who’s next in line? And does the line end?
I find myself disheartened by the results of the Arab Spring. It seemed so hopeful at first. Well, Tunisia survives, though under threat from jihadists. But elsewhere, we don’t look like running short on monsters.
Is this a combat in which *there is no end game?* If so, how would that affect our strategy?
Yours,
Allan E. Johnson

First, I opposed going into Iraq the first time as well as the second time. I did say that once we were committed, we had to do it right, and we needed to give our troops full support. I didn’t think they should be there, but once there they deserved our full efforts.

Saddam Hussein did not declare war on us, and he did not send airplanes crashing into the world trade center. We had no right to invade his country. Perhaps driving him out of Kuwait was a treaty obligation, but I’m not even certain of that. Restoring the Kuwaiti Royals to power was not our job.

The Caliphate is not just another mole; it stands and defies us, and has declared war on us; and has acted on that declaration. This is both a necessary and sufficient reason to make their destruction a just war. What we do with the fruit of that conquest is a matter to be determined; but ignoring their threat is not a viable option.

ISIS Invasion

Well, the Associated Press claims that ISIS claims that 400 trained men claim they’re ready to attack Europe. Let’s assume this is correct; that’s a couple companies; nearly half a battalion.

To a military planner, it may not seem like much. To a special operations soldier, that’s enough to do some serious harassment.

Governor Ventura, former Navy SEAL, claimed he could shut down the entire country with 5 coordinated sniper teams and I think he’s probably correct.

Will these 400 attack in a coordinated fashion? Probably not because the necessary logistics and communications could reasonably be expected to be detected. A stream of smaller cells seem more effective.

Notice, however, their tactics lately focus on economic targets. This is par for the course in Islamic warfare and we noticed Al Qaeda’s targets are nearly always military or economic. ISIS seems to be shifting toward that approach.

https://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/isis-trained-400-fighters/2016/03/23/id/720533/

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

That speaks to the disposition of the fruits of our conquest of ISIS, and also gives another reason for not putting it off much longer.

Time Warner Opposes Georgia Religious Act (B&C)

Other media companies threatening to boycott production in state

3/24/2016 09:27:00 AM Eastern

By Jon Lafayette

Time Warner on Thursday joined a list of media companies criticizing a religious liberty bill that’s passed the legislature in Georgia that opponents say encourages discrimination.

“At Time Warner, diversity in all its forms is core to our value system and to the success of our business. We strongly oppose the discriminatory language and intent of Georgia’s pending religious liberty bill, which clearly violates the values and principles of inclusion and the ability of all people to live and work free from discrimination,” said Time Warner, whose Turner Broadcasting unit is based in Atlanta.

“All of our divisions – HBO, Warner Bros. and Turner – have business interests in Georgia, but none more than Turner, an active participant in the Georgia Prospers campaign, a coalition of business leaders committed to a Georgia that welcomes all people. Georgia bill HB 757 is in contradiction to this campaign, to the values we hold dear, and to the type of workplace we guarantee to our employees. We urge Governor Deal to exercise his veto.”

Georgia gives generous tax credits for TV and movie production, and many shows are now shot there.

The bill was protested by other media companies, with some threatening to boycott production in the state if the bill becomes law.

The Walt Disney Co. and its Marvel Studios unit stated its opposition, as did AMC Networks, which produces The Walking Dead in Georgia.

“Disney and Marvel are inclusive companies, and although we have had great experiences filming in Georgia, we will plan to take our business elsewhere should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law,” a Disney spokesman said on Wednesday.

The Motion Picture Association of America called the pending legislation “discriminatory,” but expressed confidence that Deal would not sign it, according to Reuters. “We are confident that Governor Deal will not allow a discriminatory bill to become law in Georgia,” said Vans Stevenson, MPAA senior VP of state government affairs.

I have heard about a million things about this, but I still don’t know what is unique about the Georgia law. As I understood it, the intent of the bill was to protect small businesses from lawsuits brought by people they have declined to serve. Other states have such laws; many other do not. I gather the starting incident that impelled  the introduction of the bill had to do with a baker being put out of business because he and his wife wouldn’t make a wedding cake for a gay marriage.

I tend to the side of freedom. I grew up in the segregated south, where there was no choice in the matter: like it or not, you could not serve blacks and whites as equals; there had to be separate facilities. I did not care for that law when I was in high school, but not because of the segregation so much as because the shop owner had no choice in the matter. I went to a black barber shop which prominently had a sign outside: “For White Folks Only.” It was located on Main Street. The proprietor advertised on my father’s radio station and we got some sort of discount, which is why I went there; but the black barber had no choice in the matter. He could serve White Folks or Black Folks (I think he would have said “Colored”) He could not serve both. That was the law. I found it absurd.

But it was absurd because he had no choice in the matter. I would not have approved a law requiring him to serve black and white; I would leave it to his choice. But then I have always favored freedom.

Obviously public facilities are different. But I have always thought private concerns were private: you can choose to serve only red headed Irish females, or Choctaw Indians, or whatever takes, your fancy; it’s a free country. Clearly my idea of liberty is not shared by all, and probably very many, but forcing diversity on people in their private lives seems more of an interference with our lives than I would think the Constitution requires. “But what if your store is the only one in town?” is always the immediate question, sometimes asked sincerely, sometimes more bitingly.

“Why do you want to live in a town with one store and the storekeeper doesn’t like you?”

“Don’t I have that right?”

“Sure, but why does that give you the right to enter that store against the will of the owner?”

“I can’t live there any other way.”

“Well, I have the right to live in Chickasaw Gardens (a community somewhat like Belle Aire in Beverly Hills but in Memphis) except I can’t afford to.”

“Black folks can’t live there even if they can afford to.”

“By law. Probably a bad law. But take away that law still you have to be able to afford it.”

This imaginary conversation took place about 1944 in Memphis, and something like it was real, not imaginary . I didn’t believe in legal segregation, not then and not now. I thought then and think now that the law ought to be colorblind. Didn’t make me popular with my dad’s friends. Isn’t very popular with some people now.

My point being that freedom, to me, is the absence of compulsion. You want a cake for your gay affair, go buy one; someone will sell it to you. I would were I a baker; but I sure won’t be party to making some other baker sell it to you.

And that is what I understood the Georgia bill to say; I hear now that it has changed since it was first introduced, and that’s why the boycott; I don’t know. But it’s a matter for the states, and while I certainly approve ending legal segregation, that’s not quite the same thing as forcing you to socialize with me. Or sell me a cake. If you want to open a gay Irish store, for gay Irish folks only, I suspect putting that limit on your clientele will bring you to bankruptcy, that’s your business. It’s a free country.

Enough for the night.

 

[ 1140 Friday: Found a few typos, also that Florida has had a law similar to the Georgia bill one the books for years, so I am unable to comprehend the sudden furor.]

Some thoughts on free trade 

Dear Jerry,

Some thoughts on free trade:

Allow me a Pollyanna moment. If all the world achieved First World status, meaning everyone in the world had what we used to call the “American Way Of Life” , what would free-trade look like?

Wouldn’t comparative advantage in labor costs largely disappear, barring egregious currency manipulations by states seeking to create artificial advantage? What natural comparative advantage remained would be based on factors such as natural resources, location/access to cheap transport, varying levels of efficiency and varying educational levels of each nations workforce and so on. No?

Okay, so we aren’t there yet. The curves seem to suggest we’re going to get there, in the long run. Not forgetting John Maynard Keynes is dictum

(paraphrased: in the long run, were all dead!), if we’re not there but we are going to get there, then the problem is how to best manage the transition. No?

Wouldn’t a good First Principle in managing such a transition be to seek whenever possible to not take action that will significantly delay the achievement of my Pollyanna “Level Playing Field” world?

Attempts, such as mine above, to define the problem and some principles of how to manage/solve the problem, seem a wise first step towards a fruitful debate on the thorny matter of Free Trade.

As an aside, developing the resources of the solar system might be a good way to achieve my Pollyanna world, no?

Petronius

I will wait for comments.

Flogging the Clinton email horse, yet again

Hello Jerry,

You posted a letter from Joshua Jordan today that contained these quotes (Mr. Jordan quoting from his linked ’New York Post’ story):

“FBI chief James Comey and his investigators are increasingly certain presidential nominee Hillary Clinton violated laws in handling classified government information through her private e-mail server, career agents say.

Ya think?  We have thousands of emails and irrefutable evidence that Clinton conducted her entire reign at the State Department ‘off the books’, using a private email server to avoid the FOIA requirements levied on official government communications networks and the FBI chief THINKS that she MAY HAVE violated the law?

Exactly what that evidence is — and how and when it was uncovered during Comey’s months-long inquiry — has not been disclosed.

Uhhhh, the ‘evidence’ has been in the public domain for well over a year.  It is an undisputed fact that Hillary conducted official business over a private communications network to avoid the record keeping REQUIREMENTS—not suggestions or recommendations—of the FOIA during her entire tenure as Secretary of State.  All the hoopla over whether the hundreds of classified emails with no classification marks SHOULD have been classified and who was responsible for classifying them and whether Hillary knew that they should have been classified (So her argument is that as Secretary of State she had no idea what information should have been classified and therefore she should bear no responsibility for the hundreds of classified emails that were found on her private server.  AFTER she purged the emails of self-identified ‘private’ messages?) is all a smoke screen to avoid addressing the fundamental crime:  bypassing the FOIA for four years.  And the media thinks she would be just a spiffy president and anyone who questions her fitness over little things like four years of serial felonies is ‘engaging in the political of personal destruction’ and should be ashamed of themselves?

Just to flog the email horse a bit more, when are all her State Department sycophants who knew about and used her private email server and ALSO knew of the FOIA requirements but didn’t report her actions going to be fired and jailed? 

And how about her ‘off the books’ cabal of nominally private citizens with no clearances with whom she shared the highest level classified material?  Anyone going to jail for that?  Rhetorical, of course.

The fact that Hillary Clinton is not only walking the streets after the revelation that she used her ‘private’ email server  to conduct her State Department business for four years, but is almost certainly going to be the Democratic candidate for president, with more than an even bet to WIN is all the evidence needed to confirm that our run as a Democratic Republic governed under a Constitution and an evenly applied body of Constitutional law is long over.  While I find the above to be upsetting, to say the least, the population at large apparently has no problem with electing rulers who overtly commit multiple felonies with no legal repercussions.  At least not leftist ones.  They are sticklers for the law however when it comes to ‘leaders’ who exhibit even a mild bent toward conservatism.

We are now a Thugocracy ruled by a legally untouchable nomenklatura which no longer even pretends that they are subject to the same laws that apply to the proletariat.

I’m sure that in spite of historical difficulties with that form of government it will turn out just fine, THIS time. 

Bob Ludwick 

Andy Grove: How America Can Create Jobs

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-07-01/andy-grove-how-america-can-create-jobs
Something worth remembering with the passing of Andy Grove, when a manufacturing process is offshored the knowledge base goes with it. Related trivia, Bendix, among other things, built a very good bicycle coaster brake, they also managed a facility said to build nuclear initiators. I don’t think the two items are unrelated.

Good health to you and yours,

Tim Harness.

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