| Tuesday,
July 6, 2010 ============
forgotten man
Jerry,
These headlines from Drudge suggest that we're in for
a repeat of the Great Depression -- and that government has, and is, making
it worse rather than better. Obama apparently hasn't read his copy of The
Forgotten Man...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance
/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7871421/
With-the-US-trapped-in-depression-this-really
-is-starting-to-feel-like-1932.html
<snip>
Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the
jobs market altogether over the past two months. That is the only reason
why the headline unemployment rate is not exploding to a post-war high.
Let us be honest. The US is still trapped in
depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing
(QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of
GDP.
The share of the US working-age population with jobs
in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. This is the real stress
indicator. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have
been lost. <snip>
http://www.cnbc.com/id/38092759
The Dow Jones Industrial Average <http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/.DJIA>
is repeating a pattern that appeared just before markets fell during the
Great Depression, Daryl Guppy, CEO at Guppytraders.com, told CNBC Monday.
“Those who don’t remember history are doomed to
repeat it…there was a head and shoulders pattern that developed before the
Depression in 1929, then with the recovery in 1930 we had another head and
shoulders pattern that preceded a fall in the market, and in the current
Dow situation we see an exact repeat of that environment,” Guppy said.
<snip>
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/
barack-obama--the-great-jobs-killer-97758294.html
<snip>
It's time to call Obama what he is: The Great Jobs
Killer. With his massive spending and tax hikes -- rewarding big
government and big unions, while punishing taxpayers and business owners
-- Obama has killed jobs, he has killed motivation to create new jobs, he
has killed the motivation to invest in new businesses, or expand old ones.
With all this killing, Obama should be given the top spot on the FBI's
Most Wanted List.
Meanwhile, he has kept the union workers of GM and
Chrysler employed (with taxpayer money). He has made sure that most
government employee union members got their annual raises for sleeping on
the job (with taxpayer money). He made sure that his voters got handouts
mislabeled as "tax cuts" even though they never paid taxes (with taxpayer
money). And he made sure that major campaign contributors collected
billions off government stimulus (with taxpayer money).<snip>
Jim
No. He has not read The Forgotten Man, or even
Since Yesterday. He as with most Americans really believes that Roosevelt
and the New Deal "got us out of the Great Depression." He also believes
this is not a depression.
Until employment grows -- there are more new jobs
than people leaving the work force in despair -- we are not recovering.
Technically this is a recession, but it sure looks like depression to
those looking for work.
============
RE: White House
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
As a Canadian, I was educated, that British troops
attacked and burned the Presidential Palace in 1814, which was subsequently
painted white, giving it its modern name. However, it is not true. Many
people do not know (or choose not to remember!) that Upper Canada
Governor-General Sir George Prevost requested the retaliation after American
troops attacked York (now Toronto) and looted the city and burned the
Legislative Assembly. It was a simple mission, attack and burn the symbol of
American leadership, and retreat. No casualties were reported, and the
British troops did not resort to the looting that the American soldiers did
in York.
The Presidential Palace had been referred to as the
White House as early as 1811, three years before the burning. The building
was constructed using porous sandstone, and was covered by a mixture of
lime, rice glue, casein and lead, which gave the familiar color. It was
certainly white-washed to cover the char marks, but it did not get its
modern name due to the burning.
The differences between the British version of the War
of 1812, and the American one is interesting. Canadians are told how
Americans, greedy for Canada’s resources, attacked Upper Canada, while
Americans are told that the war was started due to the British habit of
shanghaiing American sailors from merchant vessels. We are also told that
the war was a tie, with no clear winners. I disagree, the US most certainly
won, as the British were forced to recognize the US as a sovereign nation.
The cause is, I’m sure, a mix of both stories.
Stay well!
Bill Grigg
It also gave us Andy Jackson.
===========
Afghanistan
Jerry,
Regarding Afghanistan: IMHO the only viable exit
strategy requires that the Taliban shall not be a future threat to the
stability of either Afghanistan or Pakistan -- otherwise, we'll have the
same thing to do over again in five years.
Unfortunately, the only ROE that leads to that exit
without a decade-long commitment involves "The Grave of the Hundred Head"
writ large -- or what was, in the days immediately following 9-11, called
the "Lake Afghanistan" option with pained, dark humor.
J
You may recall I advocated monuments. Far less
expensive than wars and occupations.
===========
NASA - "New" Primary Mission
This just cannot be believed.
http://www.sfexaminer.com/politics/
NASA_s-new-mission_-
Building-ties-to-Muslim-world-97817909.html
Paul Gilles
Yes we can. We are the ones we have been waiting
for.
==============
Scaling
This just arrived on my virtual desk top. It deserves
to be widely circulated.
http://www.wimp.com/budgetcuts/
David Couvillon Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired.;
Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of
the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog
Excellance; Collector of Hot Sauce; Avoider of Yard Work
It certainly makes it graphic for those who don't
think in big numbers.
===========
: Finally Some Good News! Implantable telescopic
eye!
Jerry,
Finally! I've been waiting my whole life for this.
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/
PressAnnouncements/ucm218066.htm
By the time I am your age, I am hoping I'll have
thermal and night vision eyes, dermal plating--giving an exoskeleton over
vulnerable areas, wired reflexes--allowing me to react before I even know I
am reacting, and muscle replacement--making me strong enough to lift a car.
These are the simple dreams of an American citizen in
2010. =)
-- BDAB,
Josh
============
You TWIT,
Dear Jerry:
It was fabulous seeing you on TWIT.( http://twit.tv/twit
TWIT 255) And while I understand that your memory doesn't
work quite as well as it used to (what does?), and the exact right word is
sometimes hard to find I loved the fact that through persistence and weight
of logic you got the panel to (finally) agree that a "signal strength" meter
on a digital device doesn't make a ton of sense.
Except in this case: I use my iPhone with a wired
headset almost 100% of the time, and thus have the opportunity to actually
watch the signal strength as I move around. When I see the bars drop I'm
warned that signal strength is fading and I may soon be disconnected. A
binary red/green "gumdrop" would only tell me what I'd already know; the
bars give me some (however limited) prognosticative ability.
I hope Leo has you back soon!
I was also heartened to hear you are turning into an
iPad fanboi. Me, too. It's like you've always said about cameras: the one
you'll use is the one you have with you. I carry my iPad everywhere, and
that's exactly the result.
Second best thing overall, I think, is the "no delay"
startup and shut down. I've had a bunch of ASUS laptops with their "Expressgate"
Linux quick-start OS but it's basically useless in function and still takes
15 seconds or more to boot. With the iPad, on the other hand, if I want to
check a fact on the Net it's the matter of a second or two and I have full
access. That instant effect is seldom discussed but, in my opinion, is one
of the iPad's best features.
You take care & stay well,
Tim
Thanks for the kind words.
===========
Andy Grove on US Jobs -
Hi Dr. Pournelle,
I just ran across this article <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/
2010-07-01/how-to-make-an-american-job-
before-it-s-too-late-andy-grove.html> by Andy Grove on Bloomberg.
He seems to be expressing the same sort of concerns you've written about on
many occasions about jobs for the large number of folks who are, for
whatever reasons, simply not able to perform "high value-added" jobs.
Bill Hembree
We've mentioned the Grove article before but for
those who missed it, it's worth reading. The times are critical.
==
What kind of society,
Jerry
And Grove, in his excellent piece, asked, 'But what
kind of a society are we going to have if it consists of highly paid people
doing high-value-added work -- and masses of unemployed?'
Cyril Kornbluth predicted it in 1951, with his story,
"The Marching Morons." Falling birthrates among the intelligent, burgeoning
births from the dim. "Would you buy it for a quarter?" Indeed.
Ed
I think the "Would you buy it for a quarter?" was
from "Search the Sky" by Pohl and Kornbluth, wasn't it? But it was the
same theme. And "The Little Black Bag" by Kornbluth was I think the best
story on that theme.
The normal state of mankind is subsistence
poverty with a layer of rich oligarchs above it. I think we're headed
there again. At the moment Federal employees get 14% higher pay than
private workers with the same job. I expect that to rise to 114% percent
soon enough. (It's already that for the jobless, of course. And the
federal workers can't lose their jobs.)
============
'China is destroying itself and threatening the rest
of us. And, like useful idiots, we are helping the Chinese do it.'
<http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/mirsky_07_10.html>
-- Roland Dobbins
=============
'If many children growing up in these neighborhoods
think of education as the exclusive domain of whites, that's because they
think of almost every mainstream aspiration as the exclusive domain of
whites.'
<http://www.slate.com/id/2257453/pagenum/all/#p2>
-- Roland Dobbins
Astonishing
==========
Natural rights & Ninth Amendment
Hi Jerry-
I don’t believe that humans are endowed with
supernaturally-derived “natural rights.” On the other hand, I do think that
humans cannot be fully human without having and exercising what others would
call “God-given natural rights.” So I am interested in learning from where
Kagan (and you, for that matter) think the unenumerated rights cited by the
Ninth Amendment come. If the Ninth Amendment means anything, it means that
humans have rights that are not listed in, or even implied by, the text of
the Constitution. How do we discover what those rights are? If the rights
aren’t “natural” (that is to say, I suppose: arising out of our “nature” as
human beings), then are they un-natural, and if so, what is their source? Is
the concept of rights merely a religious concept? But if enshrined in an
amendment to the Constitution that supersedes previous text guaranteeing
freedom of/from religion, then is religion actually a fundamental, original
part of our Constitutional system, regardless of what the First Amendment
says?
Anyway, I think Kagan dodged a question that a
potential Supreme Court Justice should definitely answer, it not completely
and in detail, then at least more thoughtfully than she did during recent
confirmation hearings. I don’t think you can understand the Ninth Amendment,
much less swear in good conscience to protect a Constitution that includes
it, without having a definite (if not well-developed!) concept of
unenumerated rights, which I’ll bet most people would call “natural.” What
do you think?
James Anderson Merritt
I think the Framers included people like Adams
who were familiar with English history, believed that government was a
dangerous friend and a fearful master, and understood that without strong
government there would be chaos and worse; that creating government from
scratch was extremely dangerous and had led the English to restore the
monarchy; and understood that most of the people were far more loyal to
their states than to any "United States". They did not want a democracy.
TRhey had to unite or die, so they built a limited government leaving the
question of ultimate rights and natural rights to be determined in state
legislatures and courts, because they could never agree on what were the
"natural rights" of mankind, or for that matter just who held them.
The Constitution was a series of compromises not
an exercise at establishing perfection. The tricky questions could safely
be left to the states. Some would go one way, some another.
Which is still the best way to settle such
matters. Get the Feds out of state affairs and yes, that will result in
some places in what many will consider injustice. Union and Liberty, now
and forever. Only that does not seem to be seriously believed by anyone
now.
The pursuit of perfection is the destruction of
both government and liberty.
==========
: Daily Kos on Why Liberals Should Love the Second
Amendment.
Of course, they fail to mention all the *restrictions*
and *regulations* abridging First Amendment rights which liberals typically
support, and say nothing at all about the Tenth Amendment - nevertheless, a
strong polemic based upon and in support of originalism from a surprising
source:
<http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/7/4/881431/-Why-liberals-should-love-the-Second-Amendment>
Upon reading, it's hard to escape the conclusion that
authors of this piece haven't really thought through all the implications of
their rather strident call for originalist consistency in Constitutional
interpretation - else they'd not be liberals, anymore.
-- Roland Dobbins
The Constitution was a contract. The Parties to
the contract were both the People (in general) and the States. Like most
contracts it was a series of compromises. Trying to make it something else
has nearly destroyed it.
=========
California Budget
Jerry,
Once again, the first of July has come and gone and
the California Legislature has failed to meet it's responsibility to create
and pass a budget for the new fiscal year. This really isn't surprising, it
seems to happen every year.
I would propose that a ballot initiative to amend the
State Constitution is needed.
This initiative would amend the State Constitution so
that the following events would occur if the Legislature failed to adopt a
budget prior to July first.
The previous year's budget with all items reduced by
ten percent would be deemed to be adopted.
Both Houses of the Legislature would be dissolved and
new elections to fill the remaining terms would be held on the first Tuesday
in August. Current holders of the seats would not be allowed to stand for
election to their existing seats or any other seat in this special election.
A real "throw the rascals out" moment.
Bob Holmes
Sent from my iPad
==========
Subj: Genetics vs Insurance: Economic Questions
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2010/07/
new-problem-for-insurance-markets.html
>>[S]cientists have identified genetic markers for
the proclivity to live a long life. ... Will insurance companies start
offering better life-insurance rates to those with these markers? Will
they require annuity purchasers to take this test and offer the long-lived
worse rates? ...<<
Etc. Etc. Etc.
Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com
===========
For those who need enlightenment:
: Women, mores, society, hooking up, etc
You really should spend time reading through the
archives at roissy.wordpress.com, or at the-spearhead.com, or at any of the
variety of other blogs discussing "Game" and human biodiversity. The
analysis is not too complicated, it just requires abandoning the illusions
equalitarians and liberals have left us with.
Some essential points:
- Women are hypergamous. A woman wants a man of higher
status than she is. If she perceives the man to be of equal or lesser
status, her desire fades, and in the absence of strong restraining factors
she will abandon him and move to another.
- A woman wants a man other women want, because all
those other women can't be wrong. A woman doesn't want a man other women
don't want, because all those other women can't be wrong. The analysis
hardly ever goes past that level.
- Women not subject to traditional restrictions
imposed by society - in short, women such as the feminists and women's
libbers aim for - are utterly amoral and cruel. They have, on balance, no
concept of objective justice or ethics; it is always defined subjectively.
- For a woman, everything is derived from and
dependent on her emotions. Anything a woman does can be traced back to
emotion, not reason. There are exceptions, but not many. Whatever a woman
says, if you assume she is motivated by emotions and act to manipulate her
on that basis rather than appealing to reason, the odds of a positive
outcome are much higher.
- A matriarchal society is incapable of accomplishing
complicated things or maintaining a technological civilization. It depends
on the focused energy of men, which in turn depends on those men being
invested in children they know, without a doubt, are theirs. Sexual
"freedom" destroys the point on which it all rests, and recreates the black
ghetto for everyone.
- What women say doesn't matter. NEVER matters. What
matters is what women do. Usually this is the exact opposite of what they
say.
- Men must understand these points and act on them.
Civilization depends on men. Society depends on men. When men abdicate their
responsibilities, everything collapses.
I suppose all this adds up to a rather horrifying
worldview. I would be rather inclined to agree with such a characterization
but after spending the prime of my adult life trying with limited success to
navigate this utter wreck of a society your generation bequeathed us, I'm
about out of patience with "little white lies". I've seen too many
female-initiated divorces and breakups among my friends and family. I've
seen too many men acting honorably get treated like dogshit by women. I've
seen too many women lying to themselves in complete hypocritical
obliviousness. I've seen too many women all chasing the same alpha assholes
while complaining that there are no good men. (The sex differentiation of
rates of herpes infection is a relevant data point here whose significance
no professional researcher will dare admit)
The truth, however unpleasant, MUST be openly
recognized. Women's nature is not that of men. Women are not generally
suited for government or leadership or sexual freedom - not if the goal is a
prosperous and technological civilization. Either our highest good is a
happy and prosperous nation, in which case there must be restrictions on
freedom and an end to what has been called "women's rights", or our highest
good is individual self-determination of every human being, in which case
the end result is the society of the black ghetto and a civilization of
grass huts.
Also, I am a scientist. Applying the principles of
Game works. Applying the principles of chivalry, in the absence of a society
that imposes corresponding restrictions on women's behavior - as I and
countless other young men have been taught to do by teachers, sexual
harassment training, nerd-gets-girl movies, and so on and so forth
throughout our lives - does not. More than anything else, it is real-life
experimentation that has convinced me that Roissy and Welmer and the pick-up
artists have it right, and the pedestalizers of women who have done great
evil.
Do you have any idea how angry a young man can be at
discovering that everything he's been taught, about one of the most
important aspects of life, is not only wrong but a deliberate and total lie
directing him into doing everything exactly the opposite of what he should
have been doing?
This society is going straight into the dustbin of
history. Feminism and sexual freedom are both a symptom and a cause of that.
"White knight" men who champion women's rights and encourage the abominable
family court and divorce system under the pretext of punishing "deadbeat
dads" are not just symptoms and causes, they are also traitors and fools.
The very term "white knight" has become a pejorative.
The society that replaces this one will be one where
the men exert control over their women. It may be Islamic. It may be derived
from more traditional strands of European history and society. Libertinism,
however - along with the idea that women can be treated the same as men -
has reached its limits.
I could say much much more about this. I get angry
easily on this subject. I like women - love several, actually - and know
more than a few that are capable of holding themselves to a higher standard
than what I have described here. Most, unfortunately, do not. The younger
generations have been deliberately taught things and deliberately encouraged
to behave in ways that are totally self-destructive and self-defeating, by
the older generations, whose task it was to teach them to avoid such things.
We have been betrayed on an unparalleled scale - and this betrayal is just
one aspect of a multitude of betrayals developing within this world. As
awareness mounts (and it is mounting, quickly) blame will follow.
I don't suppose anyone has ever said any of these
things before, so I suppose it's my duty to provide this.
==
'Mr. Wu dictated a basic sentence for the boy to
write down. It was riddled with errors.'
So, instead of teaching the children to read and write
and do their sums, the schools are instead playing online detective/mediator
for parents too cowardly and irresponsible to supervise and discipline their
children:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/
style/28bully.html?&pagewanted=all>
-- Roland Dobbins
This story isn't what the pull quote might make
you think. It does fit the mores and signs of the time theme.
============
: home-made shelter
Hi Jerry.
Here's somebody who took survivalism seriously!
http://thereifixedit.com/2010/07/01/
white-trash-repairs-historical-thursday-ark-ii-facility/
Cheers,
Mike Casey
==================w
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