Category Archives: View

View 793 Wednesday, October 09, 2013

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

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

I am recovering from whatever I got in San Diego, and trying to get some work done. I continue to be amazed by the mess in Washington. Congress is down to 11% approval level. The Mayor of DC attempted to tell Senate Majority Leader Reid that DC has money but Congress won’t let them spend it, but he got no satisfactory answer. The President talks about negotiation, but it still sounds as if his model for negotiation is MacArthur on the deck of the USS Missouri in the Tokyo harbor.

The government shut down is a farce. It’s hard on the civil servants caught in the middle of it all, but it’s not a disaster. A default on the public debt would be. The President apparently will not even discuss spending cuts to reduce the deficit and is saying that he will put the nation over a cliff before he will stop the inexorable growth of government. I don’t know who he talks to, but apparently he believes he is winning. Winning! But continued rises in the deficit is a sure path to an eventual default; at the moment the nation has to take a heavy dose of salts to recover, but it can be done. We could live on a budget 1% lower next year than it was this year, and continue to cut back like that as the economy grows; but it doesn’t look as if that will happen.

Despair is a sin. The nation is not doomed == the people remain, we are not in ruins (other than in some inner cities) as Germany was in 1945. We still have our resources. All that is needed to get out of this mess is energy and determination. We even know this. The German Economic Miracle is as nothing compared to the American Economic Miracle that happened in World War II, and the second American Economic Miracle after the war that made the blue collar workers middle class and changed the old notions of class limitations. They are now changing back but that need not happen. Economic freedom, energy, and determination will still do the job.

Of course that would end the rule of the bureaucrats and we have yet to see anything like that. President Obama threatens international financial disaster if we do not continue to pay the Bunny Inspectors and give them raises. So it goes.

Soldier’s Load

The article is comment enough.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20131009.aspx#startofcomments

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 Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

Heavy Infantry has been the decisive arm for most of history, and the tension between heavier armor and lightening the load to increase mobility is the stuff of military historical analysis.  The reforms of Gustavus Adolfus changed the nature of combat.  The analysis and debate will continue forever.  This is an excellent summary of what’s going on today.  Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Why would the government want to take care of you?

Jerry:

Some of your correspondents and a couple of my friends think it would be good for the government to take control of their medical care. As my elderly retired friend (a medical doctor and an admitted spendthrift who saved nothing for his retirement) put it, "I just want to rest and let the government take care of me."

I asked him, "What makes you think the government will want to take care of you?"

When government controls your medical care, it follows from the Iron Law that your medical care will be no more than a tool for implementing the government’s social and political agendas, whatever those may under the fashions of the day.

Every day you can read articles about how government medicine works in other countries. For example, we read this week about a mother in China who was six months pregnant when she was taken from her home at night to a hospital where her unborn baby was killed. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/4/china-family-planners-drag-mom-forced-abortion/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2443753/Mother-dragged-home-middle-night-forced-abort-baby-SIX-months-pregnancy-China.html

Also this week we read that a doctor in The Netherlands was happy to kill a 70-year-old woman because she was blind. http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/360668/euthanasia-blind-netherlands-wesley-j-smith http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2448611/Blind-Dutch-woman-euthanised-loss-sight.html

Your readers who expect themselves to be under the care of a physician at some time before death, may be interested in Dr. John Patrick’s lectures on medical ethics. Dr. Patrick is founder and president of Augustine College in Ottawa, Canada. http://www.augustinecollege.org/

Dr. Patrick considers what might happen as our society reverts to ancient pagan practices where doctors are employed not only as healers but also as killers. In such a society, when going to the doctor one must always wonder: Has someone else paid more for my death than I am able to pay for my life?

Good starting points are Dr. Patrick’s talks on Hippocrates and his oath at: http://www.cmf.org.uk/media/?context=entity&id=301 http://www.cmf.org.uk/media/?context=entity&id=302

Dr. Patrick has traced the inevitable logic that has led from contraception to occasional abortions to millions of abortions to coerced abortions to euthanasia. Dr. Patrick describes this sequence in several lectures. Your readers might find his reasoning interesting and useful as they try to deal with medicine’s new modes of thought. See for instance:

"The Domino Effect of Legalizing Abortion" http://blip.tv/lcc-videonet/the-domino-effect-of-legalizing-abortion-dr-john-patrick-md-2745200

"How Did We Get to Here? How Abortion Became Acceptable Parts One and Two"

These are the first two videos at

http://www.lutheranchurch-canada.ca/videonet.php?s=lectures_lovelife2009

"Pursuing Justice and Community – Hope for the unborn"

http://www.cmf.org.uk/media/?context=entity&id=300

As ObamaCare takes hold and our doctors work not for us but for the government bureaucracy, we all will be wondering: Why would the government want to treat me? What’s in it for them?

Best regards,

–Harry M.

You have of course asked the proper question, and one which few ask. Of course there is a good feeling reward for taking care of someone else, particularly if you are paid to do it and it is done with other people’s money, but sometimes there are other motives.  Pournelle’s Iron Law applies here as always. Doctors who care do not generally become administrators.

Obama’s feds

Here is a link I received today. I don’t know if it is accurate or not.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/armed-park-cops-locked-up-yellowstone-tourists-during-shutdown/

Cheers,

Peter

I don’t know whether or not it is true either.  Not many years ago I could have laughed and said it was certainly an exaggeration, but now, I can’t dismiss such stories out of hand.

View 793 Tuesday, October 08, 2013

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

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

 

Christians to Beirut. Alawites to the grave.

Syrian Freedom Fighters

 

What we have now is all we will ever have.

Conservationist motto

I was going to get my flu shot this week, but the flu struck first; Saturday night I noticed a developing sore throat, and although I got through Sunday with its four panels and a book signing – hoping I wasn’t contagious – I was pretty miserable yesterday driving home. I hope I won’t be incoherent this week, but no guarantees.

The President opened his speech by saying that raising the debt ceiling doesn’t increase the debt – at least that is what I heard when I listened to today’s speech, and others seem to believe they heard that too. This is certainly not a true statement – the whole point of raising the debt ceiling is to allow the government to borrow more money – and I am not able to comprehend what he thought he was saying. He also said that he would negotiate but he wouldn’t concede anything: in essence he would accept unconditional surrender. The matter of a possible American default is too great to be subject to negotiation. It would be a disaster.

I do have a guess as to what he thought he was saying: that passing a “clean” continuing resolution doesn’t increase spending. He may even believe that, but it is not true. The budget baseline is a 4% increase spending levels, and thus giving a government department an unchanged budget would be a cut; continuing resolutions have a built in increase. That is one reason bunny inspectors get raises.

The President says that default on the debt would be an unmitigated disaster. We presume that is true. But default is not inevitable, even with no rise in the debt ceiling.

The National Debt can be serviced without borrowing more money. The revenue of the United States is much higher than the cost of debt service. The House has already passed, and the Senate ignored (and the White House threatened to veto) a money bill originating in the House that directs the Treasurer to pay the obligations of the United States before paying anything else. The United States does not have to borrow money to avoid default.

Of course that would produce widespread cuts in everything else whether needed or not, which is what is negotiable: if we are to borrow more money, for what purpose shall we borrow it? If the purpose is to try to ease us out of this critical financial situation, that can be negotiated.

If I were in the House what I would say is: “We will raise the debt ceiling, but only under the condition that we begin to wind down the deficit financing of the government in peace time. We borrowed too much money, so much that it will take decades to pay it off, but we must begin that process rather than continue to borrow more without addressing the problem.

“There are many ways to proceed, but we will begin with this one: in the past, continuing resolutions were actually an increase of about 4% in spending on each and every department and enterprise of the government. That will cease. Henceforth the baseline will be a 1% decrease in the budget. There can be some exceptions, but each must be specific: the general resolution is that each and every department of the United States will get 1% less money than it got last year. Any exceptions must be in a separate bill.

“That is every program including entitlements: 1% less next year than last. Of course that will be hard on many people, and we will consider exceptions, but no blanket exceptions. They must be specific. By specific I mean, for example, that if we want to except Veteran programs – and we should – it is to be done program at a time, not as a blanket exemption to the entire department. The same will be true of all departments – agriculture shall spend 1% less next year than last. If there are programs that some interest groups want exempted, such as subsidies to turn corn into alcohol, those must be defended publicly – and subject in that debate to having their budgets decreased, not increased.”

I am sure a better speech can be made, including by me when I don’t have a headache and sinuses filled with cotton wool, but that gets the idea across: Yes, we will increase the budget ceiling to avoid a crisis, but accompanying that is a turnaround in the vector of public spending: it is no longer set to increase but to decrease, and every increase must be justified.

Everyone can live on 99% of what they get now. Most government departments can also. Turn the vector to a 1% yearly decrease in government spending, and economic growth will allow us to pay off this debt in two generations. Allow it to continue as it does, and default will be inevitable – not this December, but one not so many years away.

Were I Speaker I would have the House pass a bill making the budget base reflect a 1% annual decrease, and include in that bill an exemption to servicing the national debt. Doubtless other specific exemptions will be put forward – but that’s what compromise and negotiation is all about. The House can pass such a bill, guaranteeing that the United States will not default. If the President vetoes that it is his business. It is the task of the House to assure the financial survival of the United States. The Constitution says so.

View 793: Sunday, October 06, 2013

ComicFest is over, and a good time was had by all. About 1200 attendees including some of the founders of ComicCon, one of who assured me that my ComicCon Gold Card is still valid and they’d love to have me show up next year. Perhaps I will do that. It sounds strenuous, but it could be great fun. Meanwhyile it was great to have dinner with Greg Bear and Astrid Anderson Bear, and their son Eric whom I haven’t seen in a while. For some odd reason he wants to be a writer…

The shutdown as politics continues:

‘The determination of which services continue during an appropriations lapse is not affected by whether the costs of shutdown exceed the costs of maintaining services.’

<http://jonchristian.net/2013/10/01/white-house-memo-shut-down-government-sites-even-if-its-cheaper-to-leave-them-online/>

—-

Roland Dobbins

Actually I know nothing about this source, so I do not say it is reliable.

I have managed to remove the Yahoo Tool Bar which has ended Y! as my search engine. I am assured that it wasn’t FireFox that snuck the dreaded Yahoo into my system, so I have no idea how it got in there, but it has been removed, and I am back to Google.  Sometimes I prefer Bing, but I have never found a situation where I wanted Y!. Anyway it’s done.

And I seem to have picked up a sore throat and a mild cold at ComicFest,  Ah well.  I’ll have a Sudafed before bedtime.

And I remain very tired, and I have a long drive tomorrow. Good night.

View 792 Saturday, October 05, 2013

It has been a long day. Dinner with Niven. Greg and Astrid Bear, Tim Griffith, Michelle, and Steve Barnes. Long discussions.

I put this up on yesterday’s view this morning.

Shutdown and e-mail 

Dr. Pournelle,

Just a quick couple of comments on shutdown rules.

If the employees are essential, e.g., the various federal police you mentioned, they are required to go to work on the hope of eventually being paid and the threat of punishment for skipping work if they don’t show up. They are required to do their normal jobs, plus extra duties caused by the shutdown, except they are severely constrained in any action that may involve spending money.

Non-essential employees are sent home and are not allowed to access offices, use computers, access official e-mail accounts, or work at home on projects from their job. They must have a method of being contacted in case they are called back by being declared essential (either temporarily or permanently), or their agency or office within an agency is funded.

–

Bryan

"Son, crying into your drink is bad enough;

crying into a hot fudge sundae is disgusting." — Heinlein

From a long term veteran

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/nbc-police-remove-vietnam-war-veterans-memorial-wall_759267.html

"After one group of veterans went around the barricade, "the park ranger told them the wall was closed," NBC’s Mark Seagraves reported <http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Closure-of-War-Memorials-Continues-to-Cause-Conflict-226481851.html> . "Later another group of vets showed up and moved the barricades. At that point, the memorial filled with vets and tourists. That’s when police came and moved everyone out.""

It must be a terribly thing to have the contempt for humanity those making these decisions must have. It costs no money to operate a wall, but it does cost money to have police chase people away from one. Is there a way to interpret this other than a naked attempt to punish the public?

I understand something similar happened at the Korean war memorial. It costs nothing to operate it, but it does cost to police it and keep people out. This is saving money?

Sometime tomorrow I will figure out how to take the Yahoo Tool Bar out in the alley and shoot it, and consign Yahoo Search to the nether regions. They slipped in with a Firefox update. Shame on Firefox. I never liked Yahoo much. Not I hate it.

I am very tired and I have early panels tomorrow. Good night.