Chaos Manor View, Wednesday, February 03, 2016

“This is the most transparent administration in history.”

Barrack Obama

 

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

James Burnham

I have been working on fiction all day; I was interrupted by a lack of laundry soap, and Roberta still reluctant to undertake outside expeditions, so I decided to try it: it was a beautiful day, I feel fine, and I drove my ancient SUV the few blocks to the local store. There were no incidents. I do not think I will try to drive at night, but I am now confident that I can do small routine errands.

I’m making much progress on other work; apparently I am completely recovered from my bronchitis. Roberta is recovering from pneumonia, slower that she would like, but quite well. We are approaching normality – at least as much as Chaos Manor ever approaches normality.

 

I have just finished a Preface to the 2016 edition of There Will Be War Volume Nine: After Armageddon.  Originally published in 1989, this edition will be released as an eBook next week.

RIP Ed Mitchell
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/astronaut-edgar-mitchell-6th-man-moon-dies-florida-n512511

Dave Kenny

When I was President of the Science Fiction Writers of America about 1973, one of my duties was to arrange the annual Nebula Awards presentation. At that time we gave a dramatic presentations Nebula, and I was able to enlist the support of the Hollywood studios for the event. They bought several tables and gave us some money to hire a name speaker; not much money, but Dr. Ed Mitchell, sixth man on the Moon, agreed to come down and present the awards as well as make a keynote speech. I don’t have a transcript; this was years before personal computers and easy copies of documents. We got him to come without a fee because he was an admirer of science fiction and thought it important.

He was also involved in ESP research, partly at Stanford; these were the days of Dr. Joseph Rhine, who had been experimenting with ESP since 1928, and Rhine Card experiments were very popular on college campuses: with tens of thousands of unsupervised experiments it is statistically certain that some improbable events would occur—after all, if the odds are 100 to 1 against something and you run the experiment 200 times—but Ed was not a naïve believer, at least when I met him; he hoped it was all true, but he was fairly rigorous in his experimental protocols.

I didn’t know him for long or all that closely, but I was impressed, and I have been rather glad that someone of that stature has been warning us that we don’t know everything. The US government spent some $10 million dollars on remote viewing research; given the value of the payoff if it had been successful, I cannot quarrel with that appropriation, even if the final conclusion was that they had found no useful results. Ed Mitchell was heavily into remote viewing, but the experiments he conducted were fairly rigorous in protocol, not stunts. The results, as have been all the results of that sort of experiment, were ambiguous at best and not repeatable.

I’ve had no contact with Dr. Mitchell for decades; I gather he was still interested in weird experimentation; but so far as I know he was quite rational about it. We need a few people of stature to head such to introduce rationality and some rigor in testing the limits of our knowledge; or I have always believed so. Requiescat in Pace.

Think of this as a substitute essay by me; not that I agree with everything in it, but much is self evident and draws intelligent conclusion about the strange phenomena we are experiencing.

 

Erosion Of The US Middle Class

By Porkypine

 

Jerry,

In the recent Iowa caucuses, of the people motivated enough to show up, 50% of Democrats (Sanders) and 66% of Republicans (Cruz, Trump, Carson, Paul) voted for candidates who are explicitly running against the current Establishment. Moreover, in recent Rasmussen polls, 67% of US likely voters are somewhat-to-very angry about Federal government policies, and 81% think the Feds are somewhat-to-very corrupt.

I recently listened to a Bernie Sanders stump speech and found myself surprised. I agree with him on the problem: The US middle class has been under prolonged attack, is already seriously damaged, and it’s only getting worse. (Mind, the moment Sanders started proposing solutions, I was reminded of H.L.Mencken: “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong”.)

Given the modest but real chance that an anti-establishment candidate who actually means it will wake up in the White House a year from now, a quick review of the US middle class’s actual problems and some practical solutions is in order. Much of this will be rehashing of to-us obvious points, some of it perhaps not. I don’t have time to make this definitive anyway – I’ll be happy if it merely starts wiser heads thinking more thoroughly.

First, though, let me digress briefly to WHY fixing this erosion of the US middle class is vital. Recently, I wrote you about the role of a healthy middle-class majority in making democracy a stable and practical form of government. My main thrust was Western elites’ destructive foolishness in pushing democracy in places where it would predictably lead to some flavor of one-man-one-vote-once tyranny, but in the buildup I mentioned this:

“My take is, what actually makes for the stable prosperous societies many in the West currently take WAY too much for granted is middle-class rule, not democracy per se, with ‘middle class’ defined as those who tend to plan for their next generation, not just for their next week.”

“Consider the US, where the vote was originally pretty much restricted to settled property owners, and the Founders agreed “there never was a democracy that didn’t commit suicide.” We continued to do OK as the franchise was expanded for so long as this coincided with the expansion of a reasonably informed and forethoughtful middle class. Now that we’ve spent a couple generations simultaneously destroying our educational system and insisting that anyone who draws breath (and many who don’t) should vote, things are getting a bit dicey.”

My take here is, it isn’t just overseas where our self-appointed betters in the bipartisan establishment elite are screwing up. They’ve also spent decades imposing destructive policies on us here at home. Now, finally, what’s left of the country’s real ruling class, our middle class, seems to be catching wise, and we may – may – have one last chance to fix things before we’re history.

The Problem

I think it comes down to six things: Spending, taxation, regulation, education, and expectations. The sixth thing? A horrible result of these first five (though they do damage in other ways too.) To quote that eminent natural philosopher James Carville, “it’s the economy, stupid!”

Since the housing bust, GDP annual growth has been just over 2% – half the average rate for post-WW II recoveries. Unemployment is only “low”  because so many have given up looking, and of the jobs available, far too few are full-time at wages that will actually support a minimal middle class existence.

But that’s pretty abstract. I deal with the blue-collar lower margins of our middle class a lot. A few are doing OK, most are hanging on by their fingernails, and every year a few more fall off the edge. When they do, it tends to be ugly. The “safety nets” don’t help as much as you might think, as these are designed for stable clients. People whose lives have just exploded but who aren’t yet resigned to clientude can fall a long long way and hit very hard indeed.

More patches to the safety net won’t save our republic. We must remove a lot of the accumulated progressive dreck that makes it so hard to hang on in the first place. [emphasis added by JEP]

Spending

Federal revenues as a fraction of GDP seem prone to stabilize at around 18%, regardless of nominal tax rates, since shortly after WW II.

Revenue sees temporary peaks in boom times, temporary drops during busts, but always returning to the same ~18%. (I wouldn’t go so far as to call this some sort of natural law, mind – it’s more likely a matter of a natural inflection in the curve of American resistance to paying more taxes.)

18% of an $18 trillion GDP is a lot of money. Unfortunately, over the last eight years, Federal spending has averaged almost 22% of GDP (21% in 2015, but alas rising again from 2014.)

This level of spending has been sustained since the Dems lost control of Congress in 2010 by amazingly unscrupulous maneuvering – Harry Reid’s deliberate crippling of the normal Congressional budget process, and see also the recent revelation that Treasury knew all along how to avoid default in the various “shutdown” confrontations with Congress – IE, the White House threats of disastrous default were barefaced lies.

Assuming Republican control of both Congress and the White House next year, one of the first things to watch for is whether they get serious about bringing Federal spending swiftly back under 18% of GDP. It will be ugly, it will be painful, but it’s vital.

Taxation

Overt taxation at the bottom margins of the middle class is currently quite low. In fact, go low enough and EITC makes it outright negative – albeit on a one-“refund”-per-year basis that encourages a jackpot mindset unconducive to working back up into the middle class. This is worth fixing – if we’re going to subsidize lower-income workers with families anyway, we might as well figure out a way to do it per-paycheck instead.

Get into the broad middle of the middle class, and overt taxation rises to a substantial slice. Outrageous, no, but substantial. This is probably inevitable as long as we insist on government continuing to do most of the things it currently does, as the middle class is still where the bulk of of the money is. We’ll be lucky to succeed in stopping further national debt growth and paying for the middle-class entitlements we’re already committed to. Significant middle-class tax relief on top of that probably can’t happen until we have quite a few high GDP-growth years behind us.

Covert taxation is another matter entirely. There are any number of things that, by government policy, we pay a great deal more for as soon as we start putting some daylight between ourselves and the official poverty line.

Some of this is obvious: The various explicit subsidies for the government-client underclass that go away fast as income rises. It’s not news that there’s significant pressure at the lower margin to just give up and slide into being a government client rather than continue struggling to be an independent citizen. Tinkering at the margins can actually be quite effective here, as witness the ’90’s welfare reform.

A bit subtler is Obama care, where the majority of the middle class is only now discovering that it’s us paying for all the new mandatory expanded benefits, via outrageously higher premiums for anyone moderately healthy who’s above the not-very-high subsidy cutoff. A free market in insurance, plus a formally subsidized high-risk pool, would get rid of this covert taxation, and allow rational decisions on both how much coverage we need, and on how much charity, how paid for, we can actually afford.

Other examples abound, any place the government mandates that we buy more than we might otherwise choose. Now, many of these we might not want to change. For instance, I find modern auto crash-worthiness quite comforting, compared to some of the deathtraps I drove when I was younger. (Modern fuel-economy standards, on the other hand, I think have led to all sorts of pernicious nonsense.) But, my opinions aside, all such mandates should be reviewed for which are cost-effective in terms of supporting the overall well-being of our average citizens, and which aren’t, with ruthless pruning of the latter.

Regulation

The regulatory metastasization-induced cratering of the small-business startup rate and (related) of overall economic growth has obvious implications for availability of middle-class jobs. Housing is also made more expensive by a range of government policies – largely local till recently, but increasingly national, with multiple new federal power grabs by the current administration underway.

There’s also the regulatory drag on individual initiative. If I start a craft guitar shop, will I go to jail for importing the wrong exotic wood? And on political participation – do my chances of going to jail for importing the wrong wood go up if I donate to the wrong cause?

Overall, regulation greatly overlaps with the “covert taxation” I’ve already described. One solution is the same: An ongoing review for which regulations are cost-effective in terms of supporting the overall well-being of our average citizens, and which aren’t, with an effective mechanism for removal of those that don’t make the cut. Another

solution: Mandatory sunset period for all new regulations. Another: No new regulation becomes final without resubmission to the Congress for an up-or-down vote.

The US middle class can’t afford Federal bunny inspectors any more.

Multiply that by a thousand and cut, and it’d be a start.

Education

The nationalization and homogenization of US education to provide full employment for a politically-connected credentialed educrat class whose fads and fashions are increasingly unconnected to actual learning has been well covered elsewhere, and the solutions are generally obvious.

Painful and politically difficult, but obvious.

My major beef here is that basic teaching of children HOW to be middle-class has been not just neglected but actively sabotaged. The basic math skills to plan ahead, the basic logic skills to spot deceptive sales pitches, the basic historical knowledge to spot political knavery, the basic practical and technical skills to work productively, the basic personal discipline to apply all of these to leading a stable and decent life – the parts of our middle class strong enough to pass these skills on in-family survive, while those at the margins crumble ever faster into government clienthood.

Let’s not even mention US higher education coming to combine the worst aspects of debt-peonage and Maoist reeducation camps. Some things are just too depressing.

Expectations

Curated this, organic that, free-range food, helicopter-parented over-scheduled designer kids – all these elite establishment cultural expectations hugely increase the cost of having a middle-class family.

It’s easy to dismiss all this as passing upper-class faddism – but increasingly it’s being applied to all by government mandate. As witness, parents being charged with neglect for allowing kids to walk to school alone, or schools being forced to switch to “healthy” foods the kids won’t eat (with the definition of “healthy” changing like the wind.) Much is curable faddism, of course – minimum “acceptable” houses growing ever larger, minimum acceptable media access growing ever more immersive, frenetic, and expensive.

Cultural counterpressure is the answer, of course, though blest if I know how to produce that. Beyond, that is, writing screeds like this and hoping for the best.

Porkypine

 

I note with interest that while Newt Gingrich – who, after all, as Speaker was able to get a balanced budget from Clinton – has not exactly endorsed Mr. Trump but has taken him seriously and has not joined the ritual attack machine.  As I say, I find it interesting.  And I do not expect Mr. Trump to tell me a lot of technical details; he will accomplish his goals (or not) the way leaders have always accomplished goals – by ordering them done by people he has a reasonable expectation of having the ability to do them, and seeing that they have the requisite resources.  He could not tell you how he built Trump Tower; and few of you could do so either.

 

You say we should not mention the utter destruction of the free public education system that took this nation from farmers to a middle class as our vanished apprentice system made for a blue collar middle class; but it is important. We cannot thrive if the cost of an education is a lifetime of debt.  We do not owe our academic masters a lifetime of luxury which they “perform” by abusing academic “adjuncts” and other minions. I agree that the system which produced me – financed by the Korean War GI Bill – was deliberately sabotaged, and credentialism has made essential a gang of academic thugs called administrators as well as given faculty. once accustomed to an adequate but not luxurious life, poppycock dreams which have been fulfilled.

The Ministry of Empty Gestures Wants You

Dear Jerry:

What do Al Gore , Darth Vader and the Animal Legal Defense League have in common ?

An advertising consortium with enough clout to commandeer the Eiffel Tower

http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2016/02/now-all-they-need-is-secret-handshake.html

Shades of Kornbluth and Max Headroom !

—

Russell  Seitz

Fellow of the Department of Physics Harvard University  

 

Sunday Evening:

 

You’ll see this again:

 

by the numbers 

Seen on twitter

 

 

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

Chaos Manor View, Tuesday, February 02, 2016

“This is the most transparent administration in history.”

Barrack Obama

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

I had numerous errands today, and although I didn’t drive—I haven’t since the stroke—I did go on numerous errands without the walker; cane only. Quite tiring, surprisingly so, but I did fine. Practice makes perfect, they told me in rehab, and it proves to be true.

Sunday I did 4000+ words on what ended up as the February, 2016 continuation of Computing at Chaos Manor. You will find this at Chaos Manor Reviews, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

The Iowa caucuses produced only one big surprise, Rubio’s close third place. No surprise at all that Cruz, who invested heavily in his ground game—get your own voters out—was able to pull off a bare win by one delegate. Trump spent very little money and did nearly as well; had he not also been concerned with his reputation regarding the media and showed up at the Republican debate, he probably would have won; but second place is certainly good enough to show he is a serious candidate, and Iowa has far too few delegates to justify spending money to get delegates; it’s the reputation you need, and the proof that you can get the voters out, and he showed that in Spades, but without Big Casino.

Most analysts do not understand Trump’s appeal, or they are so afraid of him that they will not admit it: Trump is not a conservative, although he is pro-business, and he has a rather conservative view on social issues much like most people his age. He is not religious, particularly, but he respects piety and approves of it, and he certainly is not anti-religious. Judao-Christian ethics and principles are natural to him, and he respects them as do most Americans. He is certainly no liberal or socialist. He’s a pragmatist, utterly and completely’

He is certainly not a strong party adherent, having been registered as both Independent and Democrat as well as, at present as he was many years ago, Republican.

His appeal is two fold: he despises the existing establishment, and he says he can get things done. Of course enemies and would-be pundits demand that he tell them how he will do them, but he won’t, largely because he can’t, just as if you asked him how to build Trump Towers he could not tell you. He’s neither architect nor engineer: he hires architects and engineers and watches their progress.

In one way he’s like Obama: he tells you to trust him and offers Hope and Change. Believe me, I’ll get the Wall built, and I’ll make America respected again. That’s the sort of thing Obama told us, and enough people believed him to elect him; by 2012 most Americans understood that he wasn’t bringing us Hope and Change, but the Republican establishment promised only more of the same policies that got us into this mess and ran one of the establishment as proof that whatever you would get from them, reform wouldn’t be in the package; and enough people stayed home, and others voted for Republicans in Congress because Obama they were pretty sure they didn’t want what they got after 2008 even if they didn’t trust Republicans with the Presidency.

A lot of Americans hate their government. Perhaps that’s too strong a word, but their experiences with government tend to expose them to arrogant incompetence for which their Civil Masters, oops Servants give themselves bonuses when their performance warrants discipline—look at the VA as a fine example—and they are afraid to stand out in a crowd lest they draw the attention of government. Streets aren’t paved, laws aren’t enforced equally, water pipes burst, drinking water has lead in it in Flint, and generally things don’t work so good; while all around us is the Internet of Things, marvels and miracles, yet somehow government gets bigger, pays itself more, and presents us with arrogant incompetence.

Trump has fewer – not many fewer but fewer – government credentials than Obama had when he started toward the Presidency. He was briefly in the Illinois legislature, hardly long enough to learn that job, before he became a Senator, and he hadn’t been there long before he was the candidate of hope and change, and he didn’t need to tell people how he was going to do it. Trump has less government experience; but he has built buildings and golf courses, and he has done things; he hasn’t been a community organizer or an unpublished law professor whose students don’t remember him; but he had made a lot of money, not from government; and he is not beholden to contributors or anyone else. His appeal is that he say he will do things, and although he is not a great public speaker, he has done things he is proud of. He knows how to choose people to get them done; or so far he has.

This is not an endorsement of Trump; it is analysis. He needed to show that he was a serious candidate, and he did so. He spent little money, he built no organization, he had time to manage his business, and the polls show him winning in New Hampshire; and once again his appeal is that he is not a Bush, he is not Bernie Sanders, he is not a Clinton, he owes no one, and he certainly is not an old line country club Republican. He was gracious to the winner and the close third, he was not contemptuous to the losers. He showed that he has legs, and he is a serious candidate.

The Clinton/Sanders tie was fascinating. The older Democrats went for Hillary; the younger ones, who have never seen real socialism in action, and know of real socialism only from attending Cuba Libre rallies, rejected her; which is to say, they rejected Obama and the Democrat establishment. The Democrat strategists know this. I look forward to seeing what they’ll try next.

And the Soviet Union keeps rolling along… A song we used to sing in the old days. Its theme was the ineptitude of Americans. “John Foster Dulles is all confused, these foreign people aren’t what they used to be, they don’t go for these platitudes, about good Christian attitudes, Why the Spanish people didn’t even say Thank You, when we gave about a hundred million dollars to Franco, and the Soviet Union Keeps rolling along…”

Youthful contempt for the establishment is hardly new. Some of it goes left, some goes right, some goes pragmatic. You could hardly call Cruz or Rubio establishment Republicans, and Bernie Sanders isn’t even a registered Democrat. It promises to be an interesting election year.

I have been asked why have both Mail and View categories, and why so much mail in View? Time: I find myself harassed for time, what with health, age, household crises, etc., and sometimes I simply cannot write the essays I want to write; yet I want this place to remain interesting enough to be read.

I have always had more interesting mail than almost anyone else on the Internet; so I use it to keep View interesting when I don’t have time to do all that myself. Often mail will say something that needs saying even if I do not agree with everything in it. I do not edit mail or alter it. I may in comments show agreement or argument.

Posts categorized as Mail will contain little else; I do one once in a while, less frequently now.

I have several major essays in preparation, but I also owe Niven and Barnes considerable work on our next novel, John DeChancie a pass through our work, and a final push to finish Mamelukes.

You can’t say my life is dull.

Also, I haven’t timed it, but I think it is about time for another pledge drive.

Public Science is Broken

Dear Jerry:

Professor Marc Edwards from Virginia Tech is much in the news for his role in exposing the Flint, MI water scandal. The “Chronicle of Higher Education” interviewed him. Your readers will be interested in what he has to say about the public’s loss of confidence in science and government. Just a couple of quotes:

“We are not skeptical enough about each other’s results. What’s the upside in that? You’re going to make enemies. People might start questioning your results. And that’s going to start slowing down our publication assembly line. Everyone’s invested in just cranking out more crap papers.”

and

“It’s a symbol of the total failure of our government science

agencies, and also of our academic institutions. I really derive no

personal satisfaction from that. I feel shame. That’s what I feel.”

The complete interview is at

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Water-Next-Time-Professor/235136

As I’ve said in past e-mails that you’ve posted in which I questioned

the integrity of contemporary science, today when government agencies

and their scientists claim to speak in the name of “science” I first

ask: What are they up to? What’s their agenda? What’s the narrative

they are pushing?

It wasn’t like this when I earned my Ph. D. in physics from Brown

back in the 1960’s. It’s all gone dreadfully wrong as the new

Lysenkoism has taken hold.

Best regards,

–Harry M.

Science – Big Science – is certainly broken, particularly the social sciences with their unreplicated experiments, but it extends to some physical science as well. I know of no quick fix, but I do think there ought to be funding for some – not all, but some – antiestablishment science. How those projects should be chosen I do not know, I wish there were a well funded foundation dedicated to replicating experiments and looking for crucial experiments contradicting previously settled questions.

This fellow clearly has too much time on his hands – and makes money from it on his YouTube channel.

How Many Days Does Bill Murray Spend Stuck In Groundhog Day?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYAx9RX1OmY

Really? Yup, he figures it all out and comes up with a number – a very large

number. Poor Bill, but, in the end, he and Punxsutawney ended up better off for

his incredible number of replays.

Figuring this all out must have required an interesting obsession. Is there a

clinical description for it?

{O,o}

Ground Hog Day. A wonderful film.

Subj: Mike Flynn on the Iowa Caucuses result

http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2016/02/upset-in-iowa.html

[quote]

What the whole circus has illustrated is the fatal flaw of democracy:

viz., the involvement of people. This is the belief that if a bunch of individuals pool their ignorance they will achieve collective wisdom.

Back when the Parties chose their candidates the old-fashioned way,

http://cookpolitical.com/story/8407

they wound up nominating the likes of Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, Dick Nixon, and so on. Nomination via beauty contests and media buys gave us Carter, Dukakis, Obama, and two Bushes. The basic divide was between competency and the ability to get things done versus media savvy and the mastery of the sound-bite. There were dud the old way, sure, and Reagan managed to slip though the new way. (And heck, even Clinton I knew how to work across the aisle when he had to.) But TOF prefers a competent manager over a flamboyant celebrity any day.

[end quote]

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Mike Flynn, our collaborator on Fallen Angels, is always worth attention. If you haven’t read that book you may like it.

A small, self-governing island may hand over its roads to self-driving cars (WP)

By Matt McFarland February 2 at 10:21 AM

Phil Gawne, the transportation minister on the Isle of Man, is working 16-hour days on two projects rooted in radically different eras.

First, he’s trying to salvage the island’s horse-drawn carriages that date to 1876. At the same time, Gawne is leading a project to potentially lure companies that make fully self-driving cars, vehicles without steering wheels or pedals.

Such is the life of a bureaucrat on one of the world’s most unusual islands. The self-governing island — nestled between Ireland and Britain — has a population close to 90,000 and a land mass about the size of Chicago. It claims to have the oldest continuous parliament in the world, dating back more than 1,000 years.

Its reliance on tourism dictates keeping the horse carriage in business. Driverless cars probably would draw visitors, too, and the government’s ability to move quickly given its small size could make it an appealing destination for companies developing such vehicles.

“We like to be innovative on the island,” Gawne said. “We like also to be independent. This helps both those areas in terms of our international image and reputation.”

Gawne said the government has had discussions with multiple companies interested in bringing driverless cars to the island. Any needed adjustments to the island’s laws could be finished by early summer, a speedy timeline compared to the pace of larger countries, which at times have drawn criticism from the companies developing autonomous vehicles.

For some, a small island — far from the lumbering bureaucracies and swarming cities of large nations — would be an obvious launching point for the first large-scale public trials of fully autonomous vehicles.

“Things can be tried on an island that may not be practical in a city,” said David Alexander, an analyst at Navigant Research. “On the mainland there will always be someone who wants to go beyond the range of the trial and will then proclaim how useless autonomous cars are.”

He added that small island nations generally can’t afford new transit systems on their own. A big company willing to invest in the local infrastructure would probably find a willing government, Alexander said.

The Isle of Man’s government has set up a group to weigh the merits of the technology and determine what laws need changed and what incentives would attract companies, be it office space or warehouses. The effort, which Gawne describes as “fairly urgent,” will be finalized within a month. Gawne says any new regulations could then be pushed through in two or three months. He anticipates broad support in the government.

“We’re very keen. We can see a lot of potential advantages for the island,” he said. “It also helps in terms of the image of Isle of Man.”

But others caution that launching self-driving cars on a small island would not convince people around the world that the technology is trustworthy. Thilo Koslowski, an autonomous-vehicle analyst at Gartner, expects that once companies are ready to release fully self-driving cars — a step he says isn’t imminent — they’ll want to unleash them first in a bustling mainland city.

“That will be the proof in the pudding, to show these technologies are reliable in a real-world environment where most people would come to see those cars,” Koslowski said.

Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, cautions that locations that want to court driverless cars should move carefully.

“One of the public misconceptions about this field is that a state that passed a law on autonomous driving must be ahead. It must be signaling it’s friendly for this kind of development,” Smith said. “That has not been the case.”

In 2015 Google expanded its tests of self-driving cars to Austin, despite Texas not having passed legislation on autonomous cars.

Smith describes new state laws in the United States dealing with autonomous cars as superficial because many of them don’t address key issues. For example, can cars be built to flout laws like human drivers do, such as speeding and crossing double yellow lines in some situations?

There’s also the lingering question of how to determine an appropriate safety standard for driverless cars, Smith said.

So although the cars may eventually be an option for the Isle of Man, it should probably make sure to keep that horse-drawn carriage service running for now.

I have a great interest in the affairs of the Isle of Man although I have never been there. I may have an announcement on that in near future.

The fastest thing ever on earth

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-fastest-speed-of-any-object-on-the-earth/answer/Talon-Torres?srid=hAm9&share=66667ee7

—

Phil Tharp

You will love this story.

Fraud in Iowa

Dear Dr. Pournelle,
With luck like this, Mrs. Clinton missed her calling ; she shoulda gone to Vegas and been a professional gambler.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2016/02/02/sometimes-iowa-democrats-award-caucus-delegates-coin-flip/79680342/
6 of the delegates were awarded by a coin toss. Mrs. Clinton won all 6.
MEANWHILE, in Polk County, C-SPAN reports additional regularities and mis-counting by Clinton operatives.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4578575%2Fclinton-voter-fraud-polk-county-iowa-caucus
And that, my friends, is how you turn a defeat into a 0.2% victory.
“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” — Joseph Stalin.
Respectfully, 

Brian P.

I would not say fraud; but it is an extraordinary streak of good luck. Let the Wookie Win also comes to mind.

“The Fermi paradox might be more accurately called the ‘Hart-Tipler argument against the existence of technological extraterrestrials’, which does not sound quite as authoritative as the old name, but seems fairer to everybody.”

<http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-fermi-paradox-is-not-fermi-s-and-it-is-not-a-paradox/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

I suppose, but Fermi Paradox is what I learned and what I will continue to use in discussions. It is intriguing, and has a part to play in the new book Steve, Larry, and I are doing.

Noticed this article (among several about this):
http://gizmodo.com/ge-will-no-longer-make-cfl-lighbulbs-1756344245
“GE just announced that it no longer make or sell compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) lightbulbs in the US. The company will wind down the manufacturing of CFL bulbs by the end of 2016, and it will begin to shift its focus on making the newest and most energy-efficient lightbulbs, LEDs.”

And I note that Chaos Manor Reviews had an entry on LEDs mid-January (http://chaosmanorreviews.com/bright-ideas/ ); it generated a few comments from readers.

…Rick….

I have sufficient mail on Intelligent Design, and the subject is of sufficient importance to deserve more time that I have to give it tonight. It’s coming.

Clinton’s Email Saga Worsens

Why is Clinton still running for president? This question gains new momentum following this:

<.>

Highly classified Hillary Clinton emails that the intelligence community and State Department recently deemed too damaging to national security to release contain “operational intelligence” – and their presence on the unsecure, personal email system jeopardized “sources, methods and lives,” a U.S. government official who has reviewed the documents told Fox News.

The official, who was not authorized to speak on the record and was limited in discussing the contents because of their highly classified nature, was referring to the 22 “TOP SECRET” emails that the State Department announced Friday it could not release in any form, even with entire sections redacted.

The announcement fueled criticism of Clinton’s handling of highly sensitive information while secretary of state, even as the Clinton campaign continued to downplay the matter as the product of an interagency dispute over classification. But the U.S. government official’s description provides confirmation that the emails contained closely held government secrets. “Operational intelligence” can be real-time information about intelligence collection, sources and the movement of assets.

</>

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/01/official-withheld-clinton-emails-contain-operational-intel-put-lives-at-risk.html

So, “the Clinton campaign continued to downplay the matter as the product of an interagency dispute over classification” but the agency that won’t release the 22 emails that are too “damaging to national security to release contain ‘operational intelligence’ – and their presence on the unsecure, personal email system jeopardized ‘sources, methods and lives'” is the State Department.

So, is Hillary Clinton now a government agency? I ask because this childish rhetoric might make sense when it was the State Department vs. the entire intelligence community over what was and was not classified. But, when the State Department no longer supports Clinton’s position, what agencies are in dispute here, exactly? It seems to me she is the only one in dispute…

If we add all this up: Obama said that he didn’t know about this until he heard about it in the news, though he emailed Hillary at least 13 times on her private account. Many people in the IC and FBI want to see her indicted. The State Department played defense for her until now when they say they cannot release 22 emails in any form, even with heavy redaction.

If Clinton has any support left, it’s in DOJ and the White House. And if she’s not charged, we’ll now the reason why.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Subject: Credible Threat

http://warontherocks.com/2016/02/known-unknowns-iraqi-wmd-13-years-later/

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

US Pacific Ocean Policy

We have our act together in the Pacific, at least in terms of rhetoric:

<.>

While the U.S. government takes no position on the competing sovereignty claims, “the United States does take a strong position on protecting the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea and airspace guaranteed to all countries, and that all maritime claims must comply with international law,” the spokesman said.

</>

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/pentagon-conducts-warship-passage-near-disputed-island/

The general public doesn’t seem to realize that we don’t benefit much from the security we provide in the world’s sea and air spaces, at least not economically. We created the gulf of military power that leftists don’t understand and rally against so that we would survive as a nation state. Ensuring freedom of the sea ensures that we can invade other countries and they cannot invade us.

In the future, we might work to use our dominance to better our economic position. I hope we’ll start seeing more of that. But, China will continue in it’s area denial preparations. So long as we can stick to the position that we’ve been involved in the geopolitical consensus of the Pacific since the Russo-Japanese War and we solidified our involvement in WWII, we don’t need to say much more than that. But, going further in stating that we have no land interests but only shipping and travel interests, we present ourselves as protectors of commerce and cultural exchange.

We’re such wonderful people. =)

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

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

Chaos Manor View, Sunday, January 31, 2016

Tuesday, Morning:  Yesterday was devoured by household problems, one of which may be interesting; but The February 2016 edition of Computing at Chaos Manor is up at Chaos Manor Reviews, and I recommend it to you.  I’ll work on Trump and the Iowa election this afternoon after a routine medical appointment, but electricians are in the house dealing with a minor emergency; Chaos Manor is old.  One thing: you may be sure that both Democrat and Republican old pro’s are shaking with fear for their power.

Today (Sunday) I did a Computing at Chaos Manor draft; it has gone to my advisors and will be edited and posted by Monday afternoon. I didn’t get a lot else done, but that’s something. Look to Chaos Manor Reviews. {Monday morning: still editing the column, but it should be up by evening; certainly tomorrow.]

Tomorrow I hope to have some thoughts on Trump, but I may wait until after Iowa to publish them: nothing I say will affect the Iowa turnout, and that turnout will have a great effect on Mr. Trump’s showing. He is a serious candidate, and his enemies’ response of contempt and ridicule only strengthens him among his followers. The American people of all parties are disgusted with the professional political class, and their usual contacts with government have not been pleasant experiences. The governing class considers this lese majeste and acts accordingly. Meanwhile the Veteran’s Administration officials award themselves bonuses for what most consider sub-standard performance, bunny inspectors thrive, and licensing ownership of groundhogs has become a Federal Case. Trump knows this. So do his enemies, but they do not want to talk about it.

Monday, 2200: Trump was second and gracious. The campaign continues.  It is not known whether Hillary or Bernie won for the Democrats.  Very interesting.

Intelligent Design

Okay, where do I stand on ID? In the middle. I have long thought that creation/evolution need not be mutually exclusive, since it seems to me that both play a part in the overall reality. I concluded this when I studied the matter in high school, college and in private discussions with some of my professors who became personal friends.

Arguments that favor ID are the presence of mathematics throughout the universe, the existence of natural law and the concept of irreducible complexity.

Math is all over. The patterns of landscape, mountain ranges created by geological action, coastlines created by erosion, the paths of rivers all follow and can be described by fractal geometry. Everything in nature that uses the spiral or parts of a spiral – the whorls of a mollusk shell, the arrangement of leaves around a stem or branches around a tree trunk adhere to the Fibonacci series. Pi, originally used to describe the relationship between the radius and circumference of a circle, keeps showing up in all sorts of places that have little or nothing to do with circles. Can this all be coincidental?

Natural law exists, physics in all its variations, and chemistry are mostly concerned with determining these laws and they cannot be avoided, at least not directly (more about this at some future time). As far as we understand them these laws exist throughout the universe.

Irreducible Complexity (IC) is the idea that many complex systems must have all of the parts present to function at all. A good example is the mammalian/human eye. Consider the parts – transparent membrane, focusable lens, iris to regulate light, receptors to detect light and color (not present in all species), a broadband data transmission cable connected to a signal processor (brain), precise separation between lens and retina, all formed into a ball rotating in a lubricated socket with a shield/wiper in front (the lid), with washer fluid (tears) all enclosed in a flexible housing maintained by a transparent fluid. Take any one of those components and consider how the eye would function without it. Then explain how this system developed by random changes no matter how long or how many small changes happened over time.

Once you have this basic structure it can be modified to suit local conditions/requirements, and that is where evolution/natural selection plays a role. There is survival value in the eagle’s long-range vision, of the specific musculature of the lion, of the color/pattern of an antelope and so forth. The creator building the system included a mechanism for adapting that system to suit future needs, including needs the creator may not have envisioned. While the species is developing these local improvements the individual can still function, perhaps not as efficiently or effectively, but long enough to pass the adaptation to the next generation.

Then there is man. Many species have remained essentially unchanged for millions of years. Yet man, assuming we actually descended from the early homonids, has only been around for 100,000 or so and has changed dramatically in that time. Modern man seems to just appeared less than 50,000 years ago and rapidly took dominion over the planet. How did that happen and why? Were we prodded a bit? Did a creator manipulate us to become what we are? Or, for some reason or another did man take a “fast track” to develop so dramatically? There has been little change, at least physically, from the earliest modern man to the guy who walks the streets today. Why is that? I have no idea, but suspect that someone flicked the “off” switch for rapid development.

So that’s where I am, where are you?

Take care,

R

You are hardly alone; St. Augustine once speculated that the world might have been created in germinal causes and evolved; this was over a thousand years before Darwin. When you find a watch, you generally expect to find a watchmaker, not a random process; finding a watchmaker logically leads to speculation of how the watchmaker was generated. Evolution of a fully formed eye has been modeled on computers, but it requires many steps, and at each step the animal that has inherited the required change must be more survivable than those without it; but it is difficult to show how some of the steps from a light sensitive spot to a fully formed eye can have been much of an advantage. In any event it requires a very long time, which is one reason evolutionary theorists have been so opposed to the notions of catastrophe in evolutionary theory.

Of course some evolutionary paths are better mapped and intrinsically likely; no doubt there has been survival of the fittest, but it is much easier to believe that certain evolutionary steps thrived because somehow there was a goal; you can get from a light sensitive cell to a fully formed eye if you know the goal in advance. On the other hand, it is difficult to see intelligence in some human and animal features. Why do we have an appendix?

Fully accepting either hypothesis – intelligent design or blind chance as the explanation for finding a watchmaker – requires a fair amount of Faith. Of course it is not likely that a random group of atoms would get together to perform both Hamlet and Swan Lake even in 20 billion years.

 

Hello Jerry,

“Of course it is not likely that a random group of atoms would get together to perform both Hamlet and Swan Lake even in 20 billion years.”

Or, as Fred Reed put it in his column of 17 March, 2005:

“Evolution writ large is the belief that a cloud of hydrogen will spontaneously invent extreme-ultraviolet lithography, perform Swan Lake, and write all the books in the British Museum.”

The quote is from one of Fred’s columns on the subject of evolution, and evolutionists, and can be found here:

http://fredoneverything.org/fredwin-on-evolution-very-long-will-bore-most-people/

It is worth reading for those interested in the subject, if only for the questions he asks.  As a footnote, he also addresses the ‘monkeys typing on a typewriter for long periods of time’ argument supporting the plausibility of evolution.  In short, it doesn’t.

He has written a few other columns on evolution over the years.  They can be accessed from his website:

http://fredoneverything.org.

Bob Ludwick

 

Yes, of course; it was Fred’s phrasing of a rather ancient paradox that I had in mind when I wrote that.  I figured anyone familiar with Fred would recognize it, and it’s good phrasing.  This discussion will continue.

 

 

‘We believe that Trump deserves to be called the only “digital”

candidate in the race.’

<http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/01/strategy_trumps_confusion.html>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

<snip>For those inclined to denigrate what this involves — from calling him an “opportunist” to “eminent domain” bully — Trump’s trajectory seems baffling.  Some think that he came across the bridge from Queens with a chip-on-his-shoulder and some just presume that he “inherited” his empire.  Woe to those who have lost the plot line of his life and shame on those who judge him but have never faced a life defining strategic challenge themselves.

Some who know him, and his business operation, point to a singular event that shaped Trump perhaps more than any others.  On Oct. 11, 1989, Trump’s closest business colleagues died in a helicopter crash in New Jersey.  This accident and resulting adversity forced him to rebuild in a way that few others have experienced.  The fun-and-games had ended.  Going forward Trump and his newly assembled team would have to be far more strategic in their outlook.
Trump’s strategy-centered approach to the GOP primary race reflects the results of these repeated “trials-by-fire.”  Clearly he has out-strategized the television networks — where the “logic” of ratings compels them to cover his every move, saving him millions.  In Iowa, instead of either the classic mailing-list driven, army of volunteers knocking-on-your-door approach or the new-and-improved television “niche marketing” segmentation approach, Trump has relied on the combination of mass-rallies and “social media” — strategically aligning himself with how the voters do their politics today — adding the old-fashioned touch of sending signed Christmas cards to his supporters.
We believe that Trump deserves to be called the only “digital” candidate in the race.  The contrast between how politics was considered fully “established” with opposition-research/consultant/focus-group driven television-advertising campaigns and Trump’s approach is impossible to miss.  Strategically speaking, his opponents are bringing a roller coaster (i.e. television-based campaigning) to an F1 Grand Prix race. <snip>

An interesting analysis.

Russia, Turkey, Problems

I’m amused:

<.>

Turkey warned of consequences on Saturday after saying a Russian SU-34 jet had violated its airspace despite warnings, once more stoking tensions between two countries involved in Syria’s war, but Russia denied that there had been any incursion.

In a similar incident in November, Turkey shot down a Russian warplane flying a sortie over Syria that it said had violated its airspace, triggering a diplomatic rupture in which Russia imposed economic sanctions.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov denied that any Russian plane had entered Turkish airspace, and called the Turkish allegation “pure propaganda”.

He said Turkish radar installations were not capable of identifying a particular aircraft or its type or nationality, and that no verbal warning had been issued in either English or Russian.

</>

https://news.yahoo.com/turkey-says-russian-jet-violated-airspace-envoy-summoned-161738173.html

The Russians were doing pretty well, save for the “propaganda”. This led me to wonder since propaganda is a one-sided position and is distinct from disinformation. So,it led me to think some truth existed despite the Russian denial. But it is the last line that cooks the goose…

I appreciate the Russian insult of Turkey’s lack of technology and laughed hardily and then I laughed harder when I saw “no verbal warning had been issued in Russian or English”.

How could the Russians have known that a verbal warning was not issued at an incident they were not present at? Further, the statement suggests a warning but not in English or Russian. Else, why the specificity? Now I’ll iterate the word “suggests”; I’m not convinced a warning occurred but the language directs me to consider the possibility and this could be from translation. Abstracting from abstractions is like working from a copy of a copy.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Russia and Turkey have been enemies for a very long time. Turkey allied with NATO because it was an anti-Russian alliance. Interesting. Thank you.

Subject: Firefly

https://read.amazon.com/kp/kshare?asin=B0041D843W&amp%3B%3B%3Bid=ExodqKsfSRqUBr0sy9qABA&amp%3B%3B%3Bref_=rsh&amp%3B%3Btag=chaosmanor-20
BTW, Just getting thru with TWBW IIII
Roger Miller
www.rmtcustoms.com
www.haroldwitmer.com

Interesting reviews. I liked Firefly a lot.

Zika outbreak: British travellers told to put off trying for a baby for a month – Telegraph

Jerry,

More on Zika.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/12129072/Zika-outbreak-British-travellers-told-to-put-off-trying-for-a-baby-for-a-month.html

If you were a ZPG Nazi, a disease that deters people from having babies would be almost as useful as a disease that renders people sterile. Keep in mind that most women in developing countries wait until their fertility is declining before they decide to have a child. A delay of a year or two pushes them into infertility.

James Crawford=

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