Libya, England, Executive Orders, and more

Mail 689 Monday, August 22, 2011

A mixed bag of items on many subjects. I can’t publish all the interesting mail I get, but I try to keep up.

‘It would be an even more dreadful outcome if all we have done by intervening militarily in Libya is to advance the Islamist wave now sweeping the Arab and Muslim world.’

<http://www.nationalreview.com/david-pryce-jones/275180/where-responsibility-lies>

Roland Dobbins

That has always been my concern. I remember when President Carter abandoned the Shah hoping for a liberal democratic regime in Iran. We have regretted that ever since.

Jerry

Subj: STRATFOR:Friedman on Libya and the Arab Spring

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/georgefriedman/2011/08/22/re-examining_the_arab_spring/page/full/

Jim

A decent summary of the possibilities and perils in the “Arab Spring.” We seem to have learned little, and our State Department professionals have never studied actual strategy. I am now told that to become a Foreign Service Officer one’s qualifications, say degrees in history and mastery of Mandarin with business experience in China is insufficient: you need to go join the Peace Corps and spend time delivering blankets in West Africa. One does not build a Diplomatic Corps of any great ability that way. God help the Republic.

One should build golden bridges for one’s enemy to retreat across; but of course that never occurs to those shouting for justice though the heavens fall.

Ernest Rutherford

Apropos an annual variation in radioactive decay rates. I do not know how good the evidence is for this, but I am sure that Rutherford would have been fascinated or thrilled by the evidence rather than shocked.

Peter D Morgan

Yes, I completely agree. Rutherford would have been thrilled.

Do understand, some dispute the evidence, but last time I looked the data were pretty solid: the variance in decay rates with seasons is small, and hard to detect – you have to be looking for it—but repeatable. There is so far as I know absolutely no acceptable theory that allows this. (The reference is the last bit of mail in https://jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=1559)

The Man Who Sold the Moon gets the last laugh.

Over the last several months, SpaceX has been hard at work preparing for our next flight — a mission designed to demonstrate that a privately-developed space transportation system can deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has given us a Nov. 30, 2011 launch date, which should be followed nine days later by Dragon berthing at the ISS.

Would they name it the Heinlein?

From the FYEOD group

Letter from England

The following paper applies to a lot of issues in public policy, not just information security: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/econ.pdf

Latest on the phone hacking scandal: http://tinyurl.com/437de2z It’s not going away for the Government, Police, or Murdoch.

UK running low on university places: http://tinyurl.com/3opfj6y

Corruption in India. Police have to back off attempted suppression of the protests: http://tinyurl.com/3p2qjhy

It looks like recession: http://tinyurl.com/3eb7xn3

—

Beware Outside Context Problems–Harry Erwin, PhD

Unemployment in the UK

It’s starting to take off, and the Government is now retrying failed solutions from the past.

See http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-stimulation-good-intervention-bad-2339456.html

—

Harry Erwin, PhD

"If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning." (Catherine Aird)

Tony Blair has a prescription for what ails the Brits

Wait for it…

More government intervention.

"By the end of my time as prime minister, I concluded that the solution was specific and quite different from conventional policy. We had to be prepared to intervene literally family by family and at an early stage, even before any criminality had occurred."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/20/tony-blair-riots-crime-family

A case worker in every living room, and all will be well. Government can fix every problem.

Steve Chu

It looks like the global downswing when the Great Depression got worse after it was thought there was a way out. Look for more floundering.

"How dare you hire H-1Bs when there are so many unemployed Americans out there that fit the job description better?"

<http://www.pcworldme.net/2011/08/16/outsourced-and-fired-it-workers-fight-back/>

Roland Dobbins

Intimidation of Lawyers

<.> The attorney-client privilege assuring confidentiality between the two parties is one of the most cherished rights of the American law system, but according to internationally recognized lawyer, author and professor Francis A. Boyle of the the University of Illinois-Champaign, government agents violated that privilege in a jarring summer 2004 visit.

Speaking to The Arab American News, Boyle confirmed recent reports that he was visited by two agents from a joint FBI-CIA anti-terrorist fusion center located about a 90-minute drive away in Springfield, Ill. in his office in Champaign, who attempted to persuade him to become an informant on his Arab American and American Muslim clients.

He said he repeatedly refused their requests to violate his clients’ constitutional rights, only to find himself placed on the U.S. Government’s terrorist watch list.

"There’s five or six of them, and my lawyer informed me that I’m on all of them," Boyle said

"I filed an appeal but they told me, sorry, I would stay on the watch list forever until the agencies that put me on there took me off." </> http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/08/21/antiwar-com-vs-the-fbi/

I have nothing constuctive to add here; my wry comments are probably in everyone’s mind anyway so I won’t repeat the obvious.   —– Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC Percussa Resurgo

I have no confirmation of the story. Clearly no comment beyond the obvious is needed if this be a true account.

RE statement you made about Soc. Sec.

Jerry:

In a response to an email, you wrote: "Those who paid into Social Security have both legal and moral rights to what they were promised in return." I can only agree with that statement in part — the "moral" part. And I disagree not because I want to, but simply because I don’t think that’s how it works (though it ought).

Check out the Supreme Court case "Flemming v. Nestor". There’s a Wikipedia write up on it. I would assume more information is available around the web. If I understand the ruling, it comes down to the unhappy fact that people do not have a legal right to their Social Security pay-outs. If I’m wrong … well, here’s one instance in which I’d really be happy to be wrong.

Cheers.

–rick grehan

Perhaps I should have said “moral and political” right? I do not believe any government could survive that asserted a right simply to confiscate Social Security.

Jerry,

Remember when Bernanke said that he could not tell you where the money went? As an aside, I lack the time to find the video; the uniformed can find the video on Google.

Here is where 1.2 trillion of it went: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-21/wall-street-aristocracy-got-1-2-trillion-in-fed-s-secret-loans.html

Bank of America (BAC) may be insolvent; that was news more than a year ago now and it is not news now. It seems only a matter of time. Even with the 91.4 billion U.S. Dollars (USD) in bailout funds — BAC’s market capitalization is only 70.64 billion USD — BAC remains in danger of collapse in 2011!

But, we no longer have free markets in the United States — the concept of a "bailout" defeats the purpose and implementation of such markets. So, who knows? Maybe Santa will keep giving away bags of money to losers who still trade shares and do business with a neoclassical model that is largely irrelevant in 2011. I believe the so-called "Global Financial Crisis" proved that, but you won’t get that story from the corporate media. Why?

The corporate media want you to tune in. If you can do your own trades and fiscal thinking then why would you tune it to see some hack like Kramer — literally (I mean it, tune in) — screaming and squealing and hitting things with mallets like he’s on Looney Tunes? He reminds me more of a clown I saw at a circus when I was a kid than a real person, but most people on TV are clowns and their audience seems to be mainly clowns as well.

You won’t get any truth from the corporate media because the truth sets you free and they want you to remain heavily invested in their company by tuning in and generating ratings. The beat goes on… But, thankfully, we have more than one beat.

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

The decline of US manufacturing

Can we reverse it? I’d say it is doubtful, because to do so will require substantive changes, both in society and in government.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/17/why-amazon-cant-make-a-kindle-in-the-usa/

RW Salnick

can’t make a kindle in the US

Jerry: Three part article on the results of outsourcing, and the destruction of manufacturing capability in the US.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/17/why-amazon-cant-make-a-kindle-in-the-usa/

Chris C=

See also http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/20/does-it-really-matter-that-amazon-cant-manufacture-a-kindle-in-the-usa/

Regulations and decrees

I saw this coming for years, and so did others.  The President likes to use federal regulations as if these were laws.  The State Department can for several pages of documents and asks several pages of questins to get a passport now — the letters the come with these requests site federal regulations; not United States Code. 

Obama planned to close the power plants; and offer GE a greater hold on the market.  Who is advising the President, isn’t it a GE guy?  Well, smack me in the head with a brick.  I think I see a conflict of interests and if government was on the other side of this thing you would probably see an investigation.  Well, the President will wait to implement a carbon tax after he beats Perry or whatever hack the GOP runs this year. 

But, what Obama does now is reduce our power and take more of our money viz. financial power.  The government is literally taking your power and not just the kind that comes in little black wires.  But, the kind in the little black wires is the kind I want to talk about:

<.>

Two state utilities said this week new federal pollution rules will lead to higher electricity costs come January.

</>

http://www.jsonline.com/business/128109718.html

Prices increase even as I type this email:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-18/u-s-july-consumer-price-index-report-text-.html

It could strain Texas’ already lackluster grid:  http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/08/19/3301808/new-epa-rule-could-lead-to-rolling.html

<.>

Over the next 18 months, the Environmental Protection Agency will finalize a flurry of new rules to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants. Mercury, smog, ozone, greenhouse gases, water intake, coal ash—it’s all getting regulated. And, not surprisingly, some lawmakers are grumbling.

Industry groups such the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, and the American Legislative Exchange Council have dubbed the coming rules “EPA’s Regulatory Train Wreck.” The regulations, they say, will cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity. Given that coal provides 45 percent of the country’s power, that means higher electric bills, more blackouts and fewer jobs.

</>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/getting-ready-for-a-wave-of-coal-plant-shutdowns/2011/08/19/gIQAzkZ0PJ_blog.html

Well, the President created one job — my research project vis-a-vis living elsewhere.  If you like, I may write a small technical summary of my findings for the community.  I am not sure when I would do it, but I might be inclined to work on it if enough people want real solutions.  I’m convinced that Wall Street will continue to rip us off, the politicians will continue to lie to us, and the media will continue to whore to anyone it can. 

Thank you for ruining this country, Mister President.  Yes we can!

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I remind you that despair is a sin. Cheer, for the devil is none so black as he is painted…

Wisdom of Pournelle

I have done a new series of quotes from the last year and a half of Chaos Manor http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2011/08/more-political-and-economic-wisdom-of.html

and also added it as an update to the previous one.

http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2010/02/economic-political-wisdom-jerry.html

Regards

Neil Craig