Search Results for: Pohl RIP

A quiet Labor Day; Fred Pohl, RIP

View 788 Monday, September 02, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barrack Obama, January 31, 2009

It has been a pleasant day to spend with family and friends. The end of summer. Time to put away my white pants – which I guess I never wore this year. Sable is still happy most of the time, and we had a pleasant walk in the evening just before sundown. And Time Warner made peace with CBS so I don’t have to make a change in cable companies or worry about getting a better antenna…

clip_image002

Fred Pohl, RIP

Fred was one of the first of the legendary writers I met after I started hanging around science fiction conventions in the 1960’s, and one of the first to befriend me when I turned pro. He had an intuitive grasp of science, and no actual education. This was generally more than good enough, and in fact his lack of formal education allowed him a free reign of imagination that many can’t have, but it also led him to make some pretty dreadful scientific mistakes that marred otherwise really great works. It also led him to believe some strange misconceptions about the world of war, and we quarreled over several of those. What we didn’t quarrel about was the writing profession. Fred was scrupulously honest his opinions, and could and did change his views when presented with the right evidence. It just took patience. And I suspect he understood QED better than I did.

When I left office as President of SFWA one of my tasks was to insure that the outfit would be headed by conscientious writers who understood the professional aspects of a writer’s life. That made the decision simple: I talked Fred into running for the office. He accepted on the condition that I would continue to do certain tasks I had undertaken as president, and we worked together splendidly. I always looked forward to seeing Fred at conventions and at the annual get together put on by the Writers of the Future, and I was sad when his health got bad enough that he stopped coming to them; and of course neither of us have gone to many conventions in this millennium, so we have seldom seen each other for a decade and more. But I’ll damned well miss him. He was one of the giants.

http://io9.com/rip-frederik-pohl-the-man-who-transformed-science-fict-1241405614

clip_image002[1]

clip_image002[2]

clip_image002[3]

clip_image002[4]

clip_image004

clip_image002[5]

Deep Government and the Constitution; Trump and establishment rules; climate; and more

 

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Saturday, June 10, 2017

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Constitution of the United States. Article One, Section One

bubbles

I recommend “The Tyranny of the Administrative State” by John Tierney in the Wall Street Journal http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2017/06/the-tyranny-of-administrative-state.html which is based on the work of Phillip Hamburger, author of “Is Administrative Law Unlawful?”  The book is scholarly.

 

Why the return of the royal prerogative? “The answer rests ultimately on human nature,” Mr. Hamburger writes in The Administrative Threat, a new short book aimed at a general readership. “Ever tempted to exert more power with less effort, rulers are rarely content to govern merely through the law.”

Instead, presidents govern by interpreting statutes in ways lawmakers never imagined. Barack Obama openly boasted of his intention to bypass Congress: “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone.” Unable to persuade a Congress controlled by his own party to regulate carbon dioxide, Mr. Obama did it himself in 2009 by having the EPA declare it a pollutant covered by a decades-old law. (In 2007 the Supreme Court had affirmed the EPA’s authority to do so.)

Similarly, the Title IX legislation passed in 1972 was intended mainly to protect women in higher education from employment discrimination. Under Mr. Obama, Education Department bureaucrats used it to issue orders about bathrooms for transgender students at public schools and to mandate campus tribunals to adjudicate sexual misconduct—including “verbal misconduct,” or speech—that are in many ways less fair to the accused than the Star Chamber.

 

The  article does well in summarizing English history from James 1, absolute power by divine right, his son Charles I (King Charles, martyr, in the Anglican Church) who continued that policy until the Parliamentary army (Roundheads) overthrew him in the Civil War and Oliver Cromwell had him executed; Cromwell’s Commonwealth, under which Puritans abolished Christmas; the Restoration which brought back  the Stuarts; and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 which established William and Mary and the Constitutional Monarchy with its Bill of Rights, but which left much authority to the Crown.

The Philadelphia Convention of 1787 which framed the Constitution was well aware of the history of England and the English Civil War; and they were well aware of the tendency of government to assume authority when it feels a need to do so. The States had such residual authority; the Framers were determined that the federal government of the United States would not. After the Preamble, the first words in the Constitution are:

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Constitution of the United States. Article One, Section One

The President was given no such powers. Instead, the President is enjoined  to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”. Only Congress can make law;  the President has no such power, This was not enough: the Constitution was not accepted until it contained a Bill of Rights which explicitly stated that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

 

This was an explicit command: the Congress could not delegate its authority to the executive. Restrictions and duties , commands and prohibitions on the people of the United States could only come from Congress. The President was to enforce the laws. This was understood through most of our history until Franklin Delano Roosevelt conceived of the New Deal and insisted on Federal Authority to regulated the economy.  This was conceived as a necessity because of the Great Depression, and then as a war power; most Americans have forgotten that delegation of power by Congress to regulation agencies is a relatively new thing, not yet 100 years old, it is disputed to this day.

 

We are all aware of the regulation authority. In addition, Presidents have asserted authority not granted by law; faced with a recalcitrant Congress, President Obama famously stated “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.”   We also know that President Trump campaigned on a platform of eliminating much of the administrative swamp. This article does a good job of explaining why that is necessary for the restoration of constitutional government.

 

 

Kipling: The Old Issue  which is very relevant to this issue of Deep government and the administrative state. Suffer not this king!

bubbles

I have long been an admirer of Peggy Noonan, but she seems lately to have been converted to the obligatory Trump bashing of the neo-cons and the editorial authorities of the Wall Street Journal. The paper’s policies are curiously contradictory, in that they seem to believe some reform of the Washington Establishment is needed, but they are so much a part of the Establishment that they can’t resist whacking Mr. Trump whenever possible; and Peggy Noonan has now joined that crowd,

What Comey Told Us About Trump

Peggy Noonan

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-comey-told-us-about-trump-1496962205

She opens with this subtitle:

“The president has no understanding of the norms, rules and traditions of his job.”

And while her analysis is well written – she’s a very good writer – she – but you will have to read it for yourself.

I do note that she carefully points out that none of Mr. Trump’s objectionable actions were criminal or illegal; that no laws were broken. Yet they cannot resist talking about Mr. Trump’s defects.

The worst part of the testimony is when the president pressed Mr. Comey for his personal loyalty. Presidents don’t lean on FBI chiefs in this way. It is at odds with traditional boundaries, understandings and protocols. It was embarrassing to read. It was the move of a naïf who’s a cynic—I know how the big boys play. Actually it’s not how the big boys play, it’s how someone who learns about government by binge-watching “House of Cards” would play. It was bumptious with the special bumptiousness of those who think themselves savvy.

I’m not sure what this means. Mr. Trump is the elected president of the United States. It is no secret that many holdover officials were explicitly not loyal to the President, and some were proud of dragging their feet or even sabotaging Mr. Trump‘s action. Why should the President not expect loyalty from the Director of the FBI? Is the top investigating agency not subject to control by elected officials? This insistence of Administrative Independence is the very essence of the deep state, of the experts who have a right to rule not subject to the elected officials; it is a resurrection of the old divine rights, only the deep state is superior to everyone else: they and only they have a right to rule.

Mr. Comey had spent months “investigating” the Russian question without finding anything to prosecute. It consumed time, distracted from proper government, and to what purpose? Was the President improper for asking when this very expensive and distracting investigation would end? Do we want the FBI “investigating” whomever it wants to, subject to no elected authority?

As to the President not being subject to the norms, rules, and traditions of the Presidency, is there a person in America who thought this president would be? Was it not clear from the moment of his announcing his candidacy on the escalator in Trump Tower that he was not going to be subject to the rules, norms, and traditions of the Establishment? He made all that very clear throughout his campaign, and only a ninny could believe otherwise; indeed, he was denounced for it right up to the election. Yet he was elected.

A Republic’s government must be responsible to SOMEONE. There is no Monarch to be the fountain of justice. The President must take care that the laws are faithfully enforced. And the Establishment may insist on norms, rules and traditions all it likes, but they are not laws, and elections count.

Mr. Obama had a pen and he had a phone, and guess what, he won.

Mrs. Clinton was his designated successor. She did not win.

bubbles

One story about “professionalism” in government. George H. W, Bush, Bush I, was the essence of the establishment, and believed in government professionalism and competence. The Foreign Service is the professional diplomatic establishment. When Saddam Hussein became a problem and threatened Kuwait, our Ambassador, Ms. April Glaspie, a professional, went to him and formally delivered a message, which I have read many times over – and for the life of me I can’t see that she says don’t invade Kuwait or we’ll do something about it.

Her message is diplomatic and polite, professional, and traditional. It is also ambiguous about the US position on Saddam taking Kuwait.

Would we not be better off today had we had a traditional ambassador, an old chum of the President who could speak for him and say “Saddam, old boy, you’ve been kind of our favorite over here because you resist Iran. We know Iraq was glued together out of provinces of the Turkish Empire, and maybe you have some claim to Kuwait from that, but we don’t agree. We can’t allow you to invade Kuwait, and if you do, we won’t like doing it, but we’ll come over here and throw you out. Now, let’s talk about what we can let you do, or even do for you.”

In which case, there would not have been the two Iraqi Wars costing a $Trillion or more.

bubbles

Dershowitz: Comey confirms that I’m right – and all the Democratic commentators are wrong

image

By Alan Dershowitz

In his testimony former FBI director James Comey echoed a view that I alone have been expressing for several weeks, and that has been attacked by nearly every Democratic pundit.

Comey confirmed that under our Constitution, the president has the authority to direct the FBI to stop investigating any individual. I paraphrase, because the transcript is not yet available:  the president can, in theory, decide who to investigate, who to stop investigating, who to prosecute and who not to prosecute.  The president is the head of the unified executive branch of government, and the Justice Department and the FBI work under him and he may order them to do what he wishes.                    

As a matter of law, Comey is 100 percent correct.  As I have long argued, and as Comey confirmed in his written statement, our history shows that many presidents—from Adams to Jefferson, to Lincoln, to Roosevelt, to Kennedy, to Bush 1, and to Obama – have directed the Justice Department with regard to ongoing investigations. The history is clear, the precedents are clear, the constitutional structure is clear, and common sense is clear.

Yet virtually every Democratic pundit, in their haste to “get” President Trump, has willfully ignored these realities.  In doing so they have endangered our civil liberties and constitutional rights. [snip]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/06/08/dershowitz-comey-confirms-that-im-right-and-all-democratic-commentators-are-wrong.htm

bubbles

It’s the upkeep

Dr. Pournelle,
As predicted in the article I linked for you a couple months ago, A10 has been neglected long enough that shortfalls in the supply and maintenance chain will cause a degradation in the fielded force: https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/06/09/air-force-mulls-cutting-three-a-10-squadrons/
Even though the aircraft may have been saved from retirement, it may have been killed off by fiscal attrition, and managed into its grave through neglect. This linked article refers to the wing structural repair/upgrade program, but even not being involved with the program I’m aware of at least two other maintenance issues that are affecting the program.
And, of course, the F35 is having teething problems, similar to problems encountered with other aircraft: http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/06/09/air-force-grounds-f35-operations-luke-afb.html
The cases just illustrate that it isn’t the purchase price, but maintenance costs that drives operational capability. Perhaps if we could take care of our toys better, we’d deserve new ones?
With hopes for yours and Roberta’s continuing recovery,
-d

But the A-10 is the most effective ground support aircraft ever made, and an important part of our ability to project military power.

bubbles

This link leads to a large number of charts and graphs, with sources, that indicate there is no consensus among qualified climate scientists: there is legitimate evidence for doubt everywhere. The subject is complex, and emotions run high; but there is a vast quantity of data that contradicts the theory of a sudden rise in annual Earth temperature, and considerable debate cover how one would calculate such a number, particularly over centuries.

Climate Change “Consensus”

You might like to check this out.
http://notrickszone.com/2017/05/29/80-graphs-from-58-new-2017-papers-invalidate-claims-of-unprecedented-global-scale-modern-warming/#sthash.ktF0tSb7.4vgDMzN5.dpbs

Tim

There is also:

Subj: Tweet from Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi)

Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) tweeted at 7:25 AM on Sat, Jun 10, 2017:
Greenland, for example, has been losing one cubic kilometer of ice every single day
Another flat out lie from AL Gore,Check reality below https://t.co/pBuv75POgq
(https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi/status/873516541593108480?s=02)

bubbles

 

PREFACE: THE FREEDOM OF CHOICE

by Larry Niven

image

Jerry Pournelle is out to make the whole world rich.

He’s been at this for some time. Like a good many of his colleagues, Jerry was sucked into the space sciences by science fiction. He was building rockets for the government back when they had to steal the parts from other projects, and get the work done by sneaking back into the plant after clocking out. He’s been building the future since I was in grade school, and he’s still at it.

Of course, he would prefer to build it his way. Jerry has less of the ability to “suffer fools gladly” than anyone I know. (I’m not too good at that myself.)

His ambitions are impressive. In this book you’ll find laid out for you several routes to a future in which the entire world is as wealthy as the United States is today . . . and that is as wealthy as any nation has been in human history. He does not intend that we should confine ourselves to Only One Earth.

Well, you’ll get to that. Let me deal with another question. Do we want the whole world rich?

I happen to think we do, but I’ve heard other opinions.

Do you feel that your soul and body will benefit if you eat nothing but organically grown fruits and vegetables? You may well be right; but there’s a reason why those scrawny carrots are so expensive. Without fertilizers and bug sprays the tomatoes, etc., might not come out of the ground. (Ours didn’t!) Wealth lets you pay someone else to grow it. If you go the whole route, forming a commune, living as your ancestors did, eating only food you grow yourself without technological help . . . then wealth lets you go on eating after the crop fails.

More generally, the right to live as if you were poor is inalienable. What you stand to lose is the right to live otherwise. Through your laziness or your inattention or through listening to the wrong saviors, you may condemn all future generations to involuntary poverty.

Nobody can be forced to spend wealth. That applies to you as thoroughly as it applies to the Indian rice farmer or Brahmin mendicant. Either can simply ignore the wealth that Dr. Pournelle proposes to drop on his head.

Granted that there are problems. A wealthy world would aggravate the servant problem no end.

Remember when people could sell themselves into slavery in order to eat? There was a ready market, because machines did not yet compete with muscle power. Those halcyon days are gone. With no good reason to fear for their jobs, servants have already become arrogant enough that most people would rather let a machine do it.

Well, why not? In the past few decades we’ve developed ultra-dependable ovens, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, washer-dryers, soaps and detergents and other specialized chemicals for tasks each of which was once served by elbow grease (and somebody else’s elbows, with any luck). The controls on my microwave oven have a better memory than my mother’s cook, and my mother’s cook quits more often.

In an age of inflation, the price of computer capability is going down. Ten years from now, your chauffeur may well be a computer; and why not? It would take up less room in the car and far less room in the house.

Consider backpacking. Over the decades, what was once a test of survival has become comfortable. Roads carry you into the wilderness. There you carry freeze-dried food and a lightweight mummy bag and air mattress on a contoured pack with a hip belt. Naturally the trails grow crowded. The population increases, the wilderness decreases. Already people propose to put glittering solar power collectors all over perfectly good deserts, instead of in orbit, as God intended.

If four billion people could afford to buy Kelty packs and sleeping bags, a certain minute percentage would go backpacking. And the world’s wilderness areas would be jammed! What happens to the original backpacker, the man who needs the solitude of an empty trail?

No sweat. If we follow Jerry’s route, we’ll be moving a lot of our industries into Earth orbit and beyond. We’ll be mining the Moon and the asteroids, and using free fall to keep heart patients alive and to manufacture ball bearings and single-crystal whiskers and strange new alloys. Let’s continue that process. Move all of Earth’s industries into Earth orbit. Turn the Earth into one gigantic park. There’ll be room for the backpackers.

Does the world need to be rich? Suppose the worst: suppose none of the money is yours. What does the wealth of a society do for you?

The last time I spoke on this subject, someone in the audience called me a “bourgeois” for the first time in my life. Do we bourgeoisie tend to overemphasize wealth? Maybe. Someone else pointed out that, if we were all to spend most of our time in meditation, in seeking out the strengths and weaknesses of our own souls, we would use very little of the world’s resources.

She was right, of course. I did have to point out that one would get the same benefits from being dead; but even that isn’t the point. Choice is what matters. You have the right to choose your profession or lack thereof, your friends, when and whether you get married, what clothes you wear, how and whether to- cut your hair and shave your face or legs, and whether you spend twenty-four hours a day meditating. But that right depends absolutely on your ability to walk out! If the pressure from your parents or neighbors is too much, hop on a bus and go. Change cities, if necessary. You don’t have to resist the pressure to conform. There are people living exactly as you would like to. Find them!

What does it take to maintain these freedoms? Not much. Classified ads in newspapers, a nationwide telephone network, your car and a network of highways and gas stations, several competing airlines, a public police force—actually a fairly recent invention, that one.

Fred Pohl’s biography speaks of another freedom—a freedom you will hopefully never need. Fred grew up during the Depression, in a society that could not yet afford Welfare. There was no bottom to failure in those days. You could starve in the street, just like in India. Far and few were those willing to claim it was good for their own souls.

Oh, there’s one more freedom worth considering, for those of the female persuasion. Laws tend to pragmatism. Your legal right to be considered the equal of a man depends on physical strength being irrelevant; and that depends on machines. Women have been slaves in most societies throughout most of human history. Sophisticated contraceptives help too; they allow you to avoid compulsory pregnancy. Peasants don’t manufacture contraceptives.

If you’re my age (forty) or younger, you’ve been living in a wealthy world for all of your life. Perhaps you haven’t noticed. It’s time. The sources of our wealth are running out. Dr. Pournelle will show you where to go for more.

Larry Niven

https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0491029411/0491029411.htm

bubbles

Europe: Choosing Suicide?

by Judith Bergman  •  June 10, 2017 at 5:00 am

  • “We need urgent, wholesale reform of human rights laws in this country to make sure they cannot be twisted to serve the interests of those who would harm our society.” — UK Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, January 2015.
  • Swedish intelligence deemed him too dangerous to stay in Sweden, so the immigration authorities sought to have him deported to Syria. They did not succeed: the law does not permit his deportation to Syria, as he risks being arrested or executed there. Instead, he was released and is freely walking around in Malmö.
  • “It would simply never in a million years have occurred to the authors of the original Convention on Human Rights that it would one day end up in some form being used as a justification to stay here by individuals who are a danger to our country and our way of life…” — UK Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, January 2015.

image

As UK Justice Secretary in 2015, Chris Grayling said: “We need urgent, wholesale reform of human rights laws in this country to make sure they cannot be twisted to serve the interests of those who would harm our society.” (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

After the Manchester terrorist attack, it was revealed that there are not “just” 3,000 jihadists on the loose in the UK, as the public had previously been informed, but rather a dismaying 23,000 jihadists. According to The Times:

“About 3,000 people from the total group are judged to pose a threat and are under investigation or active monitoring in 500 operations being run by police and intelligence services. The 20,000 others have featured in previous inquiries and are categorised as posing a ‘residual risk”‘.

Why was the public informed of this only now?

Notably, among those who apparently posed only “a residual risk” and were therefore no longer under surveillance, were Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber, and Khalid Masood, the Westminster killer.

Continue Reading Article

bubbles

You might enjoy:

 

https://medium.com/@ellenmmartin/a-farewell-to-star-wars-a-memoir-of-love-and-disillusionment-on-the-40th-anniversary-of-star-wars-f400249fe6dd

image

bubbles

Obama Admin Not Exactly Clean on Clinton Email

Jerry,
Surprise, surprise. It looks like the Obama administration tried to pressure the FBI into down-playing the Clinton email server mess. “Comey ‘confused’ by order to refer to Clinton email probe as a ‘matter'” (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40206255).
On another front, Comey admitted to the Senate that he purposely gave his transcripts of his closed-door meetings with Trump to a friend with explicit instructions to give them to the press. He said the purpose of this action was to encourage the appointment of a special counsel — “Comey: Trump White House ‘lied’ about the FBI” (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40205461). It is disheartening that a man who is claiming honesty and integrity did not take his problems to the Senate, but instead went to the press to get what he wanted. While these meetings were not classified, there is a presumption of privilege, unless the President waived it.
We have governance by popular opinion and justice by embarrassment. How little is left of theses Unite States!

K

After investigation Mr. Comey decided that there was no indictable crime, because Mrs. Clinton didn’t mean to break the law. I doubt I could have pleaded that if I had carelessly released classified materials, but he was Director of the FBI

bubbles

Leadership: Secrets Are Not What They Used To Be,

Jerry

This is fascinating:

https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20170609.aspx

An excerpt: “Other revelations from the Moscow archives revealed that the Soviets had already created schemes that were indeed stranger than fiction. These included a plan to move saboteurs from Nicaragua across the Mexican border and into the U.S. disguised as illegal aliens. Radar stations, pipelines and power towers were all targeted in great detail as were port facilities in places like New York City. Other archive documents, available to researchers for a few years in the early 1990s (when a fistful of hundred dollar bills could work wonders) delivered all manner of disturbing and now well documented proofs. The Rosenbergs were indeed Russian spies, Alger Hiss was mixed up in Russian espionage efforts and the American Communist Party was in the pay of the Soviet Union and served as a tool for espionage, subversion and propaganda. Many left wing writers and politicians were either on the Soviet payroll, or eager to assist Soviet espionage activities.” <snip>

Ed

bubbles

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

bubbles

Not really a New Year Post

Thursday, January 5, 2017

“I am very optimistic about — about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.”

Joe Biden on coming great achievements, 2010

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

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

Mark Steyn

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

James Burnham

If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

bubbles

bubbles

Protests against Trump continue in New York City, with promises that the Democrats will desperately oppose any Trump appointment to the supreme court

bubbles

Schumer Poised to Oppose Trump Supreme Court Nominees

http://dailysignal.com/2017/01/04/schumer-poised-to-oppose-trump-supreme-court-nominees/

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is reinforcing his opposition to any Supreme Court nominee President-elect Donald Trump will nominate.[snip]

The ‘most transparent’ president in history issues record number of ‘midnight’ regulations

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/5/obama-issuing-record-number-midnight-regulations/?utm_source=RSS_Feedutm_medium=RSS

 

image

 

President Obama has issued 145 “midnight” regulations with a cost of more than $21 billion since the election of Donald Trump, the most by a lame-duck president in a generation, a study has found.

The conservative American Action Forum said Thursday that Mr. Obama’s rules, issued from Nov. 8 through Dec. 31, include 31 “economically significant” regulations with a cost of at least $100 million each.

“The administration has published more than 21 million hours of final federal paperwork requirements since November 8,” said Sam Batkins, AAF’s director of regulatory policy. “At the current pace, the Obama administration is going to be the most active ‘midnight’ (period from Election Day to Inauguration Day) regulator in more than a generation.”

The Republican-majority House on Wednesday passed the Midnight Rules Relief Act by a vote of 238-184. It would amend the Congressional Review Act to allow Congress to repeal any regulations finalized in the last 60 legislative days of an administration under a single disapproval resolution.

The measure now goes to the Senate for consideration.

The House also on Thursday passed the REINS Act, a bill that would require any executive branch rule or regulation with an annual economic impact of $100 million or more to come before Congress for an up-or-down vote before being enacted.[snip]

This should be interesting. In addition to opposing Trump’s Supreme Court appointments, some Democrats are also trying to oppose his Cabinet appointments. A few are fishing for anti-Trump Republicans in hopes that they can delay any Trump actions against Obama regulations, and stop the Senate from accepting the bill that gives Congress control over financial and other executive department regulations. The Obama administration has issued a record number of regulations since the November election, including several they claim cannot be undone by Mr. Trump; and with a vacancy in the Supreme Court that is possible. The Republicans, of course, are “the Party of No”.

Apparently some Democrats are hoping that a constitutional crisis will shut down the government and they will emerge in better shape than the November, 2016 election left them in. I do not wish them good luck with that reasoning.

bubbles

The week has been expensive, and I have to get to work trying to stay even, or at least not get too far behind. Last year was more expensive than I hoped; this year threatens to be worse. Today I was told that repairs to the leaking washing machine will cost more than a new one,. And they won’t warranty their work on the old one. Roberta has always bought Maytag, and I suppose I need to look for a new one. Any sane suggestions?

Roberta is slowly improving in speech and general coordination, but it’s a lot slower than any of us thought it would be. Alex and I went to Larry’s New Year Party – Roberta couldn’t go, but we had people to take care of her, and she was well in bed before the changing of the year. I didn’t feel very festive, and we left not long after the ball fell. Roberta was asleep of course, and all was well. I saw some of the people we see only at New Year. I hope we can take Roberta next year.

Everything is on hold in Washington and New York, and it’s been pretty quiet out here. Things will heat up after the inauguration. CES is going well, and Eric and Alex are there, so we’ll have some reviews next week. Steve Leon and his associates will have over 100 exhibitors at his Show Stoppers party; I wish I could be there,

It was a quiet year in technology, everything moving forward, but we’re so used to new marvels that we barely notice them now. Multi-terabyte drives for under a hundred dollars. Yawn. Solid state drives moving up the gigabyte scale. Yawn. Data transmission speeds unimaginable a decade ago. Yawn. We’re seeing the consequences of exponential growth, and we’re getting used to it.

But think on it. I’ve said before, by 2024 (and I think sooner) technology will allow over half the present jobs in the United States to be done by a robot costing no more than the annual salary of the person now doing it. The robot will last ten years (after which it will be replaced by a more efficient robot). At least ten of those robots can be “supervised” or operated – think of the operators of the Spinning Jenny – by a single human, and the number that of robots human can supervise will be growing constantly, although he may need robot assistants. Of course his job is not eternally guaranteed.

I may live to see that. Most of you will. And we’ll still be blowing people up with suicide bombs, running over festive crowds with trucks, and fashioning IED’s.

bubbles

US Army joins dystopian planning…

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/13/pentagon-video-warns-of-unavoidable-dystopian-future-for-worlds-biggest-cities/

Per Mike Davis, author of “Planet of Slums” and “Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb,”…“This is a fantasy, the idea that there is a special military science of megacities,” he said. “It’s simply not the case. … They seem to envision large cities with slum peripheries governed by antagonistic gangs, militias, or guerrilla movements that you can somehow fight using special ops methods. In truth, that’s pretty far-fetched. … You only have to watch ‘Black Hawk Down’ and scale that up to the kind of problems you would have if you were in Karachi, for example. You can do special ops on a small-scale basis, but it’s absurd to imagine it being effective as any kind of strategy for control of a megacity.”

In any event, the producers of the included video and the concept itself seem enthralled with the idea of urban war in large cities – maybe especially those in the States. 

Charles Brumbelow

bubbles

New MIT Study on Dyslexia

Jerry,

I am currently sitting on the local Board of Education. This study should have us all thinking about reading interventions in terms of when they should begin and just how much can be accomplished.

Essentially the research shows that people with dyslexia have less brain plasticity and neural adaptation.

Distinctive brain pattern may underlie dyslexia

Here’s the full study.

Dysfunction of Rapid Neural Adaptation in Dyslexia

Here’s the Gabrieli Lab at MIT: http://gablab.mit.edu/

Sue

Alas that’s Roberta’s domain and she’s not up to commenting. Good to hear from you.

bubbles

Happy New Year, also a few worlds about ICBM detection

Mr Pournelle,

I wish you and Roberta Happy New Year and all successes in recovering features that your family as a remarkable and redundant system had lost yesteryear due to health issues. It’s always very nice to see people of your age not only alive and well, but thinking well and looking into the future. You surely know that Jan 2nd was Isaac Asimov’s birthday; and nowadays, after Frederik Pohl passed away, of all SF writers, who lived through good portion of twencen and stays active in the Net, you’re probably most closely resemble Hari Seldon from Foundation who, when asked why should people concern ourselves with matters of the next centuries and millenia, replied in kind with your blog that while he himself could not be alive half a decade later, he nonetheless identifies himself with that mystical generalization called Humanity.

Also of some interest to you due to hacking elections turmoil may be that article (in Russian)

https://www.gazeta.ru/army/2017/01/02/10460825.shtml

which, along with a journey down the memory lane, says that for the first time in 25 years all gaps in Russian ballistic missile early warning system, left by 1990s military industry collapse and Soviet Union dissolution, are sealed due to upgrade of old ICBM radar stations with new Voronezh-class radars. The article specifically emphasizes that BMEWS of USSR from the Cold War era possessed significant blind spot on its northeastern flank, an artifact of the Perestroika, when Gorbachev had agreed to demolish half-complete early warning station and army base in Yeniseysk, Krasnoyarsk Region, as the United States regarded its installation inconsistent with ABM Treaty of 1972. In some point of time after the US withdrew from the ABMT, construction of Yeniseysk radar station had been renewed and now it’s completed as an interim facility, and three more bases are planned to erect, including, btw, station in Sevastopol, Crimea, on the site of its predecessor, completely deteriorate d and shattered down under scarce Ukrainian maintenance. I think the action of issuing such article, signed by Russian military expert Mikhail Khodarionok, just coincided with the expelling of Russian diplomats for hacking. Or maybe not, who am I to know for sure?

Best regards,

Kirill.

If you are going to twist a bear’s tail, you ought to be sure your powder is dry…

 

8 facts on the Russian hacks

https://sharylattkisson.com/eight-facts-on-the-russian-hacks/

 

bubbles

waves of culture

Dear Mr. Pournelle,
Your correspondent “Petronius” took aim at the notion that “All People Want the Same Things.” I am convinced he’s quite right: which brought to mind some research which deserves to be more widely known.
A readily available source is Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner’s book “Riding the Waves of Culture.” They also have a web site: http://ridingthewavesofculture.com/ What’s interesting is that they do much more than observe that different cultures do in fact want different things: they’ve analyzed some of the differences, and laid them out in an array of polarities.
One that caught my attention was behind the survey question: You are a passenger in a car. Your friend is driving. He carelessly hits and injures a pedestrian. The police arrive. The question: *should* you tell the truth about the accident, or *should* you lie to protect your friend?
What’s interesting is that it’s framed as a *should* question: that is, it’s not about whether you live up to your principles, but rather about what those principles *ought* to be. It appears that Americans tend to assume that justice and truth-telling are principles of high importance; but some other world cultures are at least as much convinced that *friendship* is more important. From that perspective, *of course* you should protect your friend.
Well, I disagree: and I also suspect that “friendship before justice” is also a set of values that makes corruption very easy. So I’m far from arguing for cultural relativism. But I do think their findings are important. It’s not that other cultures are less principled than ours. It’s a deeper disagreement on what those principles ought to be.
I’m far from sure where this leads us. But it certainly seems to be something I need to know.
Yours,
Allan E. Johnson

It’s hardly a new question. Even John W. Campbell, Jr., took a shot at it.

[

bubbles

bubbles

bubbles

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

bubbles

bubbles

Roberta to therapy; Boiling News; comments on immigration; Sweden failed state? And more

Thursday, November 3, 2016

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

James Burnham

If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

“Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

bubbles

bubbles

Yesterday Kaiser decided to send Roberta to the rehab unit at Holy Cross, where I learned how to recover from my stroke. I rejoiced. I don’t know if I had any influence over the doctors, but I sure tried to get her sent there. Last night they were ready to send her, but there was some kind of mix-up, and they couldn’t do it, so they moved her to another room in Kaiser from the intensive care place she had been. This morning my daughter Jenny went out to be handy when they moved her to Holy Cross, but as of 1400 that hasn’t happened yet. We’re hoping that happens soon, and I’ll go see her there.

Jenny’s going to come get me and take me out to Holy Cross when the move’s accomplished, which is why I have some time to be here. Yesterday Roberta was visibly better than the day before, so it’s reasonable to hope – and pray – for more recovery, possibly to a better level than I have. She should still have balance, which I do not, thanks to the radiation therapy, so she shouldn’t have as much trouble learning to walk. We can hope.

As Roberta reminded me after my stroke, it took a while to learn to talk after I was born. And to walk. It all has to be learned again.

bubbles

argue

The election news is boiling, and I haven’t anything useful to add to the turmoil. It is needless to point out that if back in my cold war days I had done what she did I would certainly have lost my clearances and my job, and probably have gone to jail. So would anyone else at my pay grade which was considerably below Cabinet level. It is likely that President Obama will give her a blanket pardon as soon as the election is over, and has not done so because he thinks a pardon would affect the election. That was to be expected.

The bit about a revolt in the FBI with the working agents furious with the Director is contradicted by my sources, who say the working agents are grateful to the Director for taking the blame while under tremendous political pressure. The conflict between the highly politicized Justice Department civilian lawyers and the FBI sworn agents seems to be real; at least I hear that it is. Obviously any FBI agent involved in investigating Cabinet – and above – level officials will be under very great pressure; apparently the Director is doing his best to shield them from it.

If it all reminds you of the Nixon Watergate fiasco, you are not alone in that observation.

bubbles

This came in a couple of months ago at a time when I had other reasons for not looking at my mail. It’s still relevant.

On immigration, employment and welfare

Jerry

Our biggest problem is that we are 65% employed. That’s one third of our non-retired nation sitting on their keisters collecting welfare. We can’t afford it: look at all the things that are not getting done.

So put everyone to work. Follow the ADA. If anyone is “disabled” find them a job they can do. People who can’t walk can watch screens. Ditch-digging today is done with machines. If the labor were free, we’d have people doing the labor. We’d have people to supervise sheltered workshop for EMR. Heck, EMR could dig ditches with their peers. To the point: they’d all be employed. We could ditch welfare because there would be no unemployment.

To supply all those ditch-diggers and clothing-wearers, we would buy only American-made products, putting some people to work in the private sector.

I once talked to an inmate who once worked planting trees. One year his employer didn’t call. He called the employer. The employer told him there was no work. Then the inmate saw company trucks filled with presumably illegal aliens. Now my inmate was in jail. Under the new scheme, he, any citizen who wanted work, and legal immigrants would have work. Their companies, with free labor, would underbid companies with illegal labor.

Yes, we’d have to make something so legit companies hiring legit Americans would not have to compete with free labor; but people hiring illegals would have to have a mighty fine business model to survive.

It’s the kind of solution Fred Pohl trained us to find.

Unemployed illegals, with no welfare in existence, would deport themselves.

One more thing: exempt businesses with less than 1000 workers from all/most regulations.

Name withheld

I’ll consider comments. It does remind me of Fred Pohl.

bubbles

Another sent in late August

SUBJ: A remarkable current example of Pournelle’s Iron Law in action

Dear Jerry,

Hope you have enough energy to read this during or after WorldCom. Hope you had a great time there, though. You deserve it. 🙂

“How We Killed the Tea Party” via _Politico_ magazine

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/tea-party-pacs-ideas-death-21

4164

Money quote:

“In 2014, the Tea Party Patriots group spent just 10 percent of the

$14.4 million it collected actually supporting candidates, with the rest going to consultants and vendors and Tea Part President Jenny Beth Martin’s hefty salary of $15,000 per month.”

Cordially,

John

bubbles

Some like these:

New Hitler Rant

Yep. It’s that same old bunker clip with different subtitles…

(I was laughing so hard, tears were rolling down.)

Hitler finds out Hillary Clinton is back under FBI investigation;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZordPrP2qc

It’s probably not as funny if you actually know how to speak German…..

bubbles

 

Sweden Failed State

Sweden appears to be on a nearly failed state:

<.>

SWEDEN is on the brink of becoming a lawless state as the police force is losing the battle against unprecedented levels of crime and violence amid a growing migrant crisis.

The Scandinavian country is facing an existential crisis with on average three police officers handing in their resignations a day.

If the alarming trend continues, and police officers continue to resign more than 1,000 officers will have quit the service by New Years.

<…>

But police have now admitted the force has reached breaching point as more than 50 areas in the country have now been placed on a “no-go zone” list.

In February a report from Sweden’s National Criminal Investigation Service announced there were 52 areas where officers would not cope with the levels of crime being committed.

Sex assaults, drug dealing and children carrying weapons were just some of the incidents mentioned in the report.

<..>

In September, Swedish officials were forced to add another three areas to the list.

Now the Police Association have said they need at least 200 new officers to regain control in the south-east of the country.

</>

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/727574/Sweden-chaos-Police-pushed-breaking-point-unprecedented-violence-crime

Apparently, these refugees are lighting cars on fire in the South-East more than in other parts of the country and the area is lawless.

Perhaps this helps explain Middle Eastern autocrats?

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

People forget that Swedes are still Vikings even if they are officially ashamed of once being so. The Normans are just Frenchified Danes/Swedes and once in a while they remember that. Of course the founders of the Kievan State which became Russia were Swedes.

bubbles

China debuts J20 stealth fighter supposedly based on hacked US F22 plans

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3893126/Chinese-J-20-stealth-jet-based-military-plans-stolen-hackers-makes-public-debut.html

I wonder whose server they got those plans from.

bubbles

Why Comey Did It

I’m not sure how connected the former Congressman is, but this is one of the most credible sources saying that Comey had a pile of resignation letters to deal with on this:

<.>

FBI Director James Comey reopened agency’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails last week because “almost 100” agents threatened to resign before next week’s election, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told Newsmax TV on Tuesday.

“A few weeks ago, almost 100 agents were threatening Comey that they were going to resign — and that kind of pressure is what turned him around,” DeLay, 69, the majority leader from 2003 to 2005, told “The Steve Malzberg Show” in an interview. “It wasn’t Comey or his integrity.

“I know he made a huge mistake when he indicted Clinton — though not indicting her — but now he’s trying to turn that around.

“He had to do it now or have all these FBI agents resign,” he added.

“That would have probably been a bigger story than what Comey did.

</>

https://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/tom-delay-email-probe-fbi-agents/2016/11/01/id/756491/

Have you ever seen anything like this in your life? If true, this should be the biggest story of the year — even if they don’t resign.

This is huge.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

My sources do not corroborate this story, although I make no doubt that there was some strong sentiment for indictment; but I suspect most of the resentment is toward the Justice lawyers and of course the White House. Comey did what he thought he had to do.

FIVE FBI probes on Clinton Associates!

In addition to the email probe and the blocked — by DOJ — Clinton Foundation probe, FBI has at least five other probes on Clinton’s inner circle:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3889994/Influence-peddling-acting-Putin-s-ally-hiding-classified-secrets-sexting-FIVE-separate-FBI-cases-probing-virtually-one-Clinton-s-inner-circle-families.html

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I wouldn’t know about this, but I do know they cannot ignore the investigation into the Clinton Foundation undertaken originally by Chelsea in good faith, and apparently leaked by vigilant hackers.

bubbles

This may or may not lead somewhere. I haven’t time to do more. Some will find it interesting.

re-1Y69-4KRRS-E1NJ7H-C04HO@physicstoday-info.org

bubbles

Beware Robots Bearing Beer

http://thesovereigninvestor.com/us-economy/beware-robots-bearing-beer/

“Earlier this week, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV and Uber Technologies announced that for the first time ever a self-driving truck completed a commercial delivery. The 18-wheeler truck drove more than 120 miles from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, hauling Budweiser with the human driver kicked back in the sleeper cab.”

“…Deloitte has previously estimated that 74% of jobs in transportation, 54% in wholesale and retail, and 56% in manufacturing are facing the risk of automation.

“In September, the transportation industry in the U.S. numbered 1.5 million jobs. That’s a big chunk of jobs in danger. And let’s not forget that America’s manufacturing sector is already shrinking painfully. This economic recovery has seen mostly a swelling of low-paying jobs in sectors such as retail — not a good sign when we’re only going to hand the few jobs we’re gaining over to automation.”

Charles Brumbelow

One more move toward robots doing reasonably paying human activities. I have said that by 2024 over half the human jobs can be done by a robot coasting about a year’s salary of the worker.

bubbles

Our elected officials and their bureaucrats at work

Jerry,

Look at the fees for a certificate of citizenship! Remember, these are families adopting kids from other countries. Our “betters” can’t control our boarders, we are flooded with illegals and they want to charge me 1k for a piece of paper? Tar and feathers come to mind, at least.

Phil Tharp

———- Forwarded message ———-

For parents of older children who did not receive a Certificate of Citizenship automatically when your child came home, the fee (after 12/23/2016) will be more than double what it is now.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced numerous fee increases that will take effect on December 23, 2016. The fee to obtain a new Certificate of Citizenship (CoC) will increase from $550 for a minor adoptee to $1,170. The fee to replace a lost CoC or to change a name on an existing CoC will increase from $345 to $555. These fee increases may not affect parents who have automatically received their children’s CoC shortly after arrival, but will most likely have a big impact on parents and adult adoptees who still need to obtain a CoC.

If you haven’t submitted your child’s N-600 application for a Certificate of Citizenship yet, you might want to consider doing so as soon as possible. According to the USCIS website, these increases will not affect applications received prior to December 23, 2016.

To download the N-600 application for Certificate of Citizenship directly from USCIS, please click here

If you would like to read the USCIS announcement, please click here. You can also find a complete list of the fee changes by clicking here.

bubbles

peter thiel gave excellent speech this morning

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

about 12 minutes long. I think you will like it.

Phil Tharp

 

I generally prefer to read than listen. There’s a comment that tells you how to get a transcript.

bubbles

bubbles

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

bubbles

bubbles