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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

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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)

 

PREFACE: THE FREEDOM OF CHOICE

by Larry Niven

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

The map is not the territory.

Alfred Korzybski

Today was our regularly scheduled conference, and Larry and Steve and I conferred on our book, then went to lunch. A very productive day. I think this will be our best interstellar colony book yet. It’s late, and this will be short.

Comey has released most of his coming testimony to the Congress, but there has been little reaction by the main stream press, probably because no one can find and criminal activity or obstruction of justice in it. There remain the possible security violation charges due to negligence of Mrs. Clinton keeping classified information on an unsecured private server resulting in the revelation of that information to at least five foreign governments (presumably including the Russians), but I do not think there is anyone in authority from President Trump down who wants to see Mrs. Clinton indicted on criminal charges, and it is unlikely that anything will come of that.

Apparently after a year of investigation there is no evidence of collusion between Trump campaign officials – or relatives – with the Russians to commit any criminal act, which should mean the end of this rather costly investigation, but probably will not. There may be surprises tomorrow (Thursday), and of course I only have secondary accounts of what is in the Comey documents, but there appears to be nothing new and no hint of obstruction of justice.

As to the rumors about the Attorney General being out of favor with the President, the President has not said so directly, and he does not have the reputation about being obscure about such matters.

Basic Income, Automation, Jobless People…

Maybe a solution for people who have a Basic Income but who are jobless due to automation was suggested by Tom Sawyer and his fence whitewashing project – rent jobs to people. 

Charles Brumbelow

To be serious: a great deal of the traditional work that defined a great part of the population is going to be automated, leaving a lot of citizens – very likely a majority – with little sense of purpose. The schools do not seem to be addressing this. Judging by recent activities on collegiate campuses, what they teach in high school is political action as a purpose in life, and encouraging graduates to participate by any means necessary. The theory of tax supported public education is that it is investment in the future; an investment that will benefit those who have no children in schools but nevertheless must pay school taxes as well as those with more personal reasons to see their children educated. There is little evidence that students are in general being taught any skills that any sane person would pay them money to do, although that is certainly an overly broad generalization, and of course one can always find exceptions; but teaching of actual habits and skills that justify the expenses of our school system are increasingly harder to find.

One obvious step to take is to assume that local authorities are more likely to know what it would be valuable for youngsters to know than experts in Washington devising nationwide policies. This seems obvious, but of course is vigorously opposed by the education experts, particularly those who no longer have classrooms (if they ever were classroom teachers).

It would seem reasonable to have the people in charge of our schools report on their perception of the value of what they teach; it might even make interesting reading. Of course it is unlikely that we will ever see such reports.

I was in the Army at a time when there were still remnants of the old volunteer peacetime Army, and they universally had the view that they were in the Army for life; and that it was the Army’s job to find them things to do. “If all I get left is one arm and all I can do is answer the phone, it’s the Army’s job to put me to work answering the phone,” one long time buck sergeant told me in Basic Training. He meant it, too.

In other words, he expected to get fed, clothed, and housed, and be given a bit of pocket change (basic pay even for sergeants in 1950 was pretty low) pretty well for the rest of his life; but he also expected to be given work to do, even if it was only bringing coffee to the officers. There is the germ of an idea in that expectation; think on it. I’ll come back to this issue, I promise.

But I do think it reasonable to conclude that the schools must make some changes in what they teach, and the students must be given a different view of their obligations: that they are not entitled to be paid for mere existence.

Bird-killers

Jerry

President Bush took flak from the liberal press when he pardoned a farmer who accidentally poisoned eagles who fed on the carcasses of the coyotes who were his real target. He killed the coyotes, but he did not know eagles eat dead things. Since the law was written with no intent requirement (is that legal?) he was guilty of a felony. See, e.g. — http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/01/nation/na-eagle-pardon1

Windmills kill birds, and eagles too. See http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/new/us-windfarms-kill-10-20-times-more-than-previously-thought.html

Shouldn’t the operators of these wind farms be classed as felons?

Destroying biodiversity is a non-monetary price we pay to liberals for their climate religion. Back in the 1980’s Popular Science ran some articles on how vertical tunnels could catch the wind and produce electricity that way.

Instead, we get bird-killers.

Ed

Fighting Terror

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

This article by a Muslim in the UK points out to me the most sane strategy we can take — domestically anyway — to combat the fanatics.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/london-bridge-terrorist-attackers-british-muslim-man-islam-saudi-mosques-wahhabi-different-a7775116.html

“I am the same age as Salman Abedi, the Manchester suicide bomber, and almost the same age as the recently named London Bridge terrorists; I also profess to be of the same faith. Thankfully, these are the only two things we have in common. As well as studying medicine at university, I currently serve as the president of the UK Ahmadiyya Muslim Students Association. I spend a lot of my time working to organise interfaith dialogues and peace conferences. So how exactly did we turn out so different? And could knowing the answer to this help reduce the numbers of young people being brainwashed into extremism?

The primary answer to this is education. Even in childhood, I always asked questions about my religion – and as I grew up, I had access to imams and elders ready to answer them. I was free to challenge them, to ask the toughest and most sensitive questions about the most “controversial” aspects of Islam.

…

Defeating extremist ideology therefore lies to a large degree in the hands of Muslim imams and scholars. If they are able to educate their congregations from an early age about the true peaceful nature of Islam, then there is no threat that these individuals will become radicalised in their later life.

Though this is an ideological battle, our Government can help with this too. A study conducted by an Islamic Studies expert at Newcastle University in 2007 found that around a quarter of UK mosques were found to have malignant and hateful literature. That literature’s publication and distribution was all linked to the Saudi Arabian government, and many of the mosques were Saudi-run. Wahhabism, the type of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia, is an extremely severe form of Islam which is often cited by Isis as an inspiration.

…

We must stop allowing Wahhabi mosques to be built in the UK, and do more to root out extremist preachers already here. One way of doing this, as mentioned by a prominent Muslim leader, is to monitor mosques, particularly Friday sermons, to weed out potential threats.

The most efficient way of preventing radicalisation is by removing from our nation hateful clerics who have influence over young minds.”

==============

I think he’s absolutely right. There was a time, and I think you remember it, when Muslims did NOT blow themselves up as suicide bombers. Pakistani soldiers fought alongside the rest of the British Empire during two world wars and were steadfast allies against the Soviets just a generation ago.

What’s gone wrong since then? Simple. The Saudis made a devil’s bargain with their Wahhabi extremists. The Wahhabists will support the Saudi royal family at home in exchange for funding overseas and religious control over everyone in Saudi Arabia who’s not a member of the royal family.

For decades, then, Saudi money has been sowing dragon’s teeth in Muslim communities worldwide, converting mosques into extremists, which in turn make angry young men into terrorists.

So perhaps we can do more than simply follow this man’s advice and start monitoring/shutting down these mosques and their propaganda.

Perhaps we can also stop bowing to the Saudis (Obama) or accepting medals from them (Trump) and start treating them as the enemies they are.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Yet even the Israelis are beginning to see the Saudi Royals as potential allies. I think the Royals must give some thought to this problem as well. And I doubt that our treatment of Qhadaffi after he made frantic efforts to make nice with the United States gives much encouragement to the present rulers of many of these nations, including the Jordanian Royals.

The Cold Civil War

Jerry

I think this explains much:

http://www.claremont.org/crb/article/the-cold-civil-war/

It’s a middle-sized piece, but the main ideas are in the first few paragraphs. I can’t begin to do it justice.

Ed

: more on The Cold Civil War

Jerry

http://www.claremont.org/crb/article/the-cold-civil-war/

The ideas that keep haunting me: “The government apparatus identifies with the ruling class’s interests . . . Ever since Woodrow Wilson nearly a century and a half ago at Princeton, colleges have taught that ordinary Americans are rightly ruled by experts because they are incapable of governing themselves. Millions of graduates have identified themselves as the personifiers of expertise and believe themselves entitled to rule.” <snip>

There are those who hope President Trump was elected to drain the swamp. Of course the President had no idea how difficult that task would be, or how brutally the denizens of the swamp would defend their right to rule.

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

Monday, June 5, 2017

The map is not the territory.

Alfred Korzybski

Electricity has become a luxury good in Germany.

Der Spiegel

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

The world is “laughing (and) crying at the President of the United States, who clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry

General hysteria prevails among the untrained journalists of the mainstream media, but there seems to be little discussion of the actual effects of President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Accords on the actual global temperature. If the US had implemented the goals promised by President Obama, the actual effect on global temperatures of the policies, which would almost certainly have been detrimental to the US economy would, by their own estimates, have been lost in the noise; US CO2 contribution has been very low compared to that of China and India, who promised only to keep building energy plants working as efficiently as they can make them; but will include plenty of fossil fuel plants. That will inevitably raise CO2 levels no matter what the US does.

A great deal of hysteria has been displayed on both sides of the Atlantic after President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations in 2015. But the “sky is falling” chant should be ignored. A much louder and far more authoritative chorus has chimed in: the Dow Jones Industrial average hit a record on June 1, surging upward after the President delivered the news. And it hit another high the following day. Everyone whose business it is to understand economics knows that lifting the burden of the UN climate campaign off the United States will be good for energy generation, industrial production, job creation and all the national prosperity that will follow.

One of the most inaccurate as well as hostile statements came from former Secretary of State John Kerry who helped negotiate the Paris deal: “The president who promised ‘America First’ has taken a self-destructive step that puts our nation last. This is an unprecedented forfeiture of American leadership which will cost us influence, cost us jobs, and invite other countries to walk away from solving humanity’s most existential crisis.” Let’s take each sentence in turn. The President’s decision clearly put America first by giving priority to national economic growth rather than retarding it by imposing pointless Green regulations that would have crippled it. The impact would be dire both domestically and in competition with other countries, like China, who had made it clear than accord or no; they would not limit their expansion of production and energy use.

Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-real-world-supports-trump-on-climate-policy?f=must_reads#ixzz4jB5ve5gs

For a reasonable summary see the above.

There seems to be no movement toward research into CO2 removal technology. I think that is a mistake. CO2 levels are certainly increasing although so far not to any level worth worrying about; but they are rising, and it seems reasonable to at least study ways we could reduce them at need.

reader comments on sunspot levels

I’m a little confused by the comments by Stephanie Osborn.
I believe that the Maunder minimum is sometimes suggested as the cause of the little ice age. This was a prolonged (28 year) period of low sunspot levels, roughly coincident with a pronounced, decades long cooling in Europe. It seems a stretch to draw any conclusions by comparing a couple of months of sunspot data to short term weather variations.
Also, it seems like I’ve been seeing stories about low sun spot levels for years, usually accompanied by suggestions that cooling is about to start happening. Yet directionally, temperatures are still either flat or rising, depending on the time frame you use. So if we have flat or rising temperatures during a period of low sunspot activity, what will happen when sunspot levels return to normal?

Craig

Perhaps I am dense, but I do not understand your confusion. During the Viking Medieval times, the Earth was warmer than it is now; how much warmer we do not know, but some working dairy farms, hundreds of years old, are just now emerging from Greenland Ice today. In the Northern Hemisphere growing seasons were longer (according to both European monastery and Chinese bureaucracy records) in Viking times; there is less evidence concerning climate in the Southern Hemisphere, but there is some evidence, and not much to contradict that conclusion. Needless to say, there are no working dairy farms in todays warming but not yet warm Greenland; it’s a reasonable conclusion that the Earth was warmer then, in historical Viking times, than it is now.. This Warm started in about 850 AD and ended rather abruptly in the early part of the 1300’s.

The Earth is currently in a recession of the Ice Ages that covered much land with kilometers of Ice; this remission was thought to be temporary when I was in school, but the general notion that we are in an Ice Age but fortunately in a period of remission was not really questioned. There was no general agreement on what caused the Ice Ages. Ben Franklin, having witnessed some violent eruptions of Iceland volcanoes, hypothesized that it might be volcanic ash raising the reflectivity of the Earth to Solar radiation.

What caused the Ice Ages, and whether we are still in an Ice Age, was a popular topic of high school and collegiate debate.

Whatever the cause, the Viking Warm period ended rather abruptly with a very wet period in the 1320’s, and a period of cooling began. This has become known as the “Little Ice Age.”

Several hundred years intro this period, sunspots were discovered and serious study of them began. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum During much of this period very few sunspots were observed. About 1750 the number of sunspots increased, and – perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not – the Earth began to warm. It was still cold enough in 1776 for the cannon captured by Ethan Allen from the British fortress Ticonderoga to be carried across the frozen Hudson River to General George Washington in Harlem Heights, facilitating his retreat and the survival of the Continental Army. Sometime before 1850 the Hudson was no longer freezing hard enough to walk across, and little ice forms now; it is safe to say the Earth was colder in those day than it is now.

Dr. Osborne has been recording the sunspot counts for the past few years; this may or may not be an indication of future solar activity and thus insolation of the Earth. That is independent of any estimate of Earth temperature, which is difficult; the operations taken to generate a number called the annual Earth temperature for any given year are very complex, and the same procedures are not always – sometimes cannot be – used each year. There are a number of ‘adjustment’ variables, and these are not generally discussed nor does everyone agree on the adjustments.

It is generally agreed that there was a general warming trend beginning in the 1700’s and continuing until the end of the Twentieth Century. There are conflicting theories on the role of solar activity and the interpretation of sunspot numbers in predicting it.

 

Just a few things to possibly clarify:

1) Yes indeed, I have been following sunspot numbers for many years now. And while sunspot numbers have been decreasing steadily for several cycles to date, the current dearth is very unusual — especially for this point in the cycle — and, to quote my favorite Vulcan, “Fascinating.” I am definitely continuing to keep an eye on the activity, or rather lack thereof.

2) There is a new model out (the “double-dynamo” model of the solar interior), only about 2 years old, which does a reasonable (though not perfect; it’s still not complex enough, IMHO) job of predicting extended solar minima, as well as the somewhat unusual “two-hump” shapes of recent solar cycles (when sunspot numbers vs. time are plotted). This model is predicting an extended minimum beginning in about 10-15 years, and this roughly matches my own considerations based on observation. (I think I referenced the model’s prediction in my original email, which you excerpted, though I may not have been clear enough; sometimes I forget not everyone is in the astronomical field, hence not familiar with the things I am. My bad.) If it is, indeed, not complex enough (as I strongly believe), then it may be that said extended minimum may begin sooner or later than predicted. The current rather precipitous decrease in sunspot numbers so soon after a solar max — which was itself somewhat paltry — may indicate an early start…or not. We will have to wait and see.

3) The “Little Ice Age” was actually a significantly extended cool period lasting several centuries, and no less than FOUR extended minima occurred during its “tenure.” These include, in order, the Wolf, the Spörer, the Maunder, and the Dalton minima. These extended minima were not all of the same “depth,” in that the minimum numbers of sunspots were not the same across all of them — the Maunder was far deeper than the rest — but as I mentioned previously, there are indications that we are hitting numbers in the range of the Dalton already. [Note that, during the Maunder Minimum, sunspots became so rare, that a grand total of only ~50 were observed over 28 years — this corresponds roughly to two and a half solar cycles. In a “normal” cycle, we would expect to see around 50,000 sunspots in that same timeframe, some three orders of magnitude more.]

4) The fact that, as sunspot numbers go down, the overall energies output by the Sun also go down is an indication that, in this instance, correlation may well equal causation, at least to some degree. Add in a few large volcanic eruptions to complicate matters — and there usually ARE some large volcanic eruptions in such timeframes, as a matter of course — and it may well prove interesting times ahead, as well as in the past.

5) The fact that cosmic ray fluxes are increasing is further indication that solar activity is decreasing, as the solar wind normally tends to provide a shield of some (relative) substance against cosmic rays, which originate outside our solar system, mostly from galactic sources (supernovae, active galactic nuclei, etc.). But as solar activity declines, the solar wind also declines, and so too would the cosmic ray flux increase, as the plasma which shields us from its entrance into the inner solar system decreases. (We still have the magnetosphere shielding us.)

I’m simplifying, of course; things are always more complex than meets the eye. But given the steady decrease in numbers for a good 3 or more cycles now (with considerable fluctuation for several cycles before that), I will be surprised if, at some time in the next few cycles, we do not enter an extended minimum, even if only of moderate depth. And it really isn’t a matter of “if,” but of when. Many variable star astronomers (and that’s what I studied in school — spotted variables, no less) consider that the Sun is at the very least borderline variable; some consider it outrightly so. I tend to fall in the latter camp; it all depends on the percentage of variability, and we are only now obtaining the kind of data we need to determine that. But it doesn’t actually take much.

At any rate, I’m back from my sojourn as Science Guest of Honor at ConCarolinas this past weekend, and starting to get rested up (they kept me busy!) so if I can answer any additional questions, just yell.

~Stephanie Osborn, “The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”

http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com

Award-winning author of the Division One, Gentleman Aegis, and Displaced Detective series

Thank you.

 

Shuffling off this Mortal Coil, Jean Sammet, Co-Designer of COBOL, died May 20, 2017

Jerry,

In case you didn’t see this.

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

<http://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/04/technology/obituary-jean-sammet-software-designer-cobol.html?_r=0>

Jean Sammet, Co-Designer of a Pioneering Computer Language, Dies at 89

By STEVE LOHRJUNE 4, 2017

Jean E. Sammet, an early software engineer and a designer of COBOL, a programming language that brought computing into the business mainstream, died on May 20 in Maryland. She was 89.

She lived in a retirement community in Silver Spring and died at a nearby hospital after a brief illness, said Elizabeth Conlisk, a spokeswoman for Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, where Ms. Sammet had earned her undergraduate degree and later endowed a professorship in computer science.

The programming language Ms. Sammet helped bring to life is now more than a half-century old, but billions of lines of COBOL code still run on the mainframe computers that underpin the work of corporations and government agencies around the world.

Ms. Sammet was a graduate student in mathematics when she first encountered a computer in 1949 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She wasn’t impressed.

“I thought of a computer as some obscene piece of hardware that I wanted nothing to do with,” Ms. Sammet recalled in an interview in 2000.

Her initial aversion was not unusual among the math purists of the time, long before computer science emerged as an academic discipline. Later, Ms. Sammet tried programming calculations onto cardboard punched cards, which were then fed into a computer.

“To my utter astonishment,” she said, “I loved it.”….

The Basic Income

An idea which apparently has deep roots and can spring back to life after a burn over is that every person in a society is entitled to a Basic Income just for existing. A corollary is that this Basic Income should be adequate to support a self sufficient life style – what one might call a living non-wage. 

Robert A Heinlein used the Basic Income as backdrop for his novel “Beyond This Horizon”. Others have made similar excursions with the idea. 

The threat of artificial intelligence and its ability to replace workers has caused the idea to spring up once more. 

http://reason.com/archives/2017/06/03/the-indestructible-idea-of-the

An early proponent was Thomas Paine…

“Agrarian Justice, which was ultimately published in 1797, posited that “the earth, in its natural, uncultivated state was…the common property of the human race.” Therefore, Paine argued, each landowner “owes to the community a ground-rent” to compensate the dispossessed for their loss.” 

“Paine was proposing…money for everyone just for being alive and of age, delivered as a matter of “justice, and not charity.”

“[Congress can take a]…subsidy with strings attached—food stamps, Section 8 housing vouchers, anything like that—and instead simply send money to the people who qualify for it, letting them choose how to spend it.”

“Right now the system is set up to ask whether someone is poor enough to qualify for housing assistance, for health assistance, for food assistance, and so on. What if it just asked if someone is poor enough to qualify for assistance, period?”

Questions which came to mind as I read the article: 1) Can a Basic Income keep up with human desires? 2) Does every citizen (and legal resident) qualify for the Basic Income as a matter of right, or must additional conditions be met? 3) Can today’s bureaucrats who administer the many welfare programs be dispossessed of their jobs with their “Basic Incomes”?

Charles Brumbelow

 

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm

 

It is an economics axiom that the demand for a free good has no limits.

Arizona Finds Simple Way To Get Rid Of Entitled Muslim Refugees: 1,000s LEAVING!

http://occupydeplorables.com/arizona-finds-simple-way-to-get-rid-of-entitled-muslim-refugees-1000s-leaving/#.WTRG2BqmI6M.facebook

 

Trump’s only mistake,

Jerry

I heard it said back in the 1970’s that Nixon’s big mistake was to leave all those holdovers from the LBJ era in place.

We all know that the bureaucracy has become a nest of Democrats, going back to the Kennedy days, and maybe the FDR days. Now, President Trump is reportedly leaving some 450 political appointees in place – and he wonders that his administration is so leaky. Probably the sole mistake he has made is to leave these Democrats in their jobs.

Ed

The superiority of fighting men

Jerry

My father won a Silver Star fighting the Germans. He was on the tip of the southern encirclement of the Ruhr. He had nothing but respect for German soldiers, saying they were very good. Yet by lighting up every house they passed with fire rounds, by questioning displaced persons, by maneuvering around and coming at every crossroad from the rear, he covered 150 miles in 5 days – against determined opposition: after all, “Jerry” was defending his homeland.

So how do I parse what he told me? The Germans were very good, but his troops were better.

Ed

The German General Staff officers were questioned at length about US military performance. Their general conclusion was that unlike European professional troops, American soldiers were sometimes confused by military procedure, and took longer to perform basic tasks; but they did use ingenuity. “They knew less, and learned faster, than any others we fought.”

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

Saturday, June 3, 2017

Sunday, June 4, 2017

Electricity has become a luxury good in Germany.

Der Spiegel

The world is “laughing (and) crying at the President of the United States, who clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry

President Trump formally withdrew from the Paris Accords. Reaction everywhere was highly emotional, but the effects of the withdrawal on US policy are minimal, and there are few scientific claims that US membership in the non-binding accords would have any measurable effect on global temperatures. The accords are a statement of goals, not binding policies.

For a longer and more passionate analysis of the withdrawal, see Newt Gingrich’s comments: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/06/02/gingrich-trump-and-paris-let-negotiations-begin.html

The fact is that the US is not actually committed to anything: the accords are voluntary, and if one assumes the validity of the man-made global warming hypothesis as usually put forward, the US contribution to rising CO2 is quite small compared to India and China, which, as developing countries, are more concerned with economic growth than CO2 reduction, and don’t pledge to reduce CO2 producing energy production until they have built their economies. As I said in A Step Farther Out, the developing nations aren’t worried about the future: they want in on modern wealth, which takes energy; when they’re rich they can worry about the far future. Until then, they’ll burn coal.

Economic needs generally govern investment. Government subsidies – “we know better than the market place, so do it our way, you idiots” – can change that, but gets expensive. Southern California, which uses significant amounts of energy in cooling in summer time under a bright sun, has a different economic situation regarding ground based solar energy from New York where it doesn’t cool off much just because the sun has gone down. When the sun’s not up, ground based solar panels don’t produce electricity, yet air conditioning is still demanded. That means something other than sun and wind needs to produce the base power at night. But this is all obvious and need not be said again.

On that score, note that the Paris Accord was never approved by the Senate, and thus under the Constitution cannot bind a future President no matter what President Obama agreed to. Presidents cannot make treaties the law of the land without the advice and consent of the Senate, and President Obama never got that for the Paris Accords. (The Kyoto agreement failed in the Senate by an overwhelming margin.)

Indeed, most of the “science” has long since vanished from the discussions, and we end with proof by repeated assertion which few other than true believers pay any attention to.

I would be overjoyed to see some serious scientific research into CO2 reduction; we are at present running a long term open ended experiment to see just how high we can let CO2 levels get. There is some evidence that more CO2 might be still be beneficial – plants love the stuff, and that generally means larger agricultural yields; but can we all agree that after we double the amount (we haven’t yet) that will surely be enough, at least for a pause during reassessment? What I would like to see is research into how we can reduce CO2.

That will take energy, and some ingenuity, but we know it can be done. It’s the details that need study. Of course no international agreement is needed for this: we already spend much of the money we would need to pay for the R&D, and in the old days the NSF had ways of allocating research funds that generally paid off. That could be revived.

The main beneficiaries of these large multi-national conferences are the attending staffs, mid-level civil servants who get to stay in interesting cities – they never seem to hold these long conferences in dull places – and stay In first class hotels. Nice work if you can get it.

Sunday, June 4, 2017

Too little CO2?

Hi Dr. Pournelle,

I just ran across this article, When Too Little CO2 Nearly Doomed Humanity,  by Dennis Avery on Townhall. While I have not fact-checked every CO2 concentration number in the article, many of those he mentions are well-known values.

The executive summary is that there is a much greater danger to humanity and the eco-sphere from a modest (e.g., 20%) decrease in atmospheric CO2 than from a doubling or tripling of CO2 concentrations.

My personal take-away on this is that I’m not at all concerned by the current rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and that I’m right to oppose any mandatory CO2 emission control laws, regulations, etc. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Bill Hembree

We need not get into that argument, and there is far too little data; we’ve not studied the “optimum” CO2 levels, and there’s not much reason to believe there would be consensus on what would be optimum.

I think there is, or should be, nearly universal agreement that we don’t want an uncontrolled experiment to find out what the maximum CO2 level we can endure would be; we want to be able to reverse that at need. I do not think we are anywhere near that limit, but the way to reduce CO2 levels is not to impoverish the west (or concede productivity advantage to China and India which will continue to burn coal no matter what we insist on), or to have a nuclear war to impoverish everyone; poverty is not the answer to global CO2, and greater poverty is more likely to lead to more frantic energy production.

Economics will force us to nuclear or space based solar (most likely both) anyway, but may take a while. I’d like to have some investment in developing the means to reverse CO2 trends at need, just in case. The climate change people have not very good models, but their computing ability and thus model accuracies will inevitably improve, and I like to have technology ready at need.

Climate change insurance —

Someone posted this idea on Scott Adams’ blog:

I propose the following system.

Build a big open insurance market like Lloyds of London but specifically for climate change.

Have a global CO2 tax about $20-$40/ton have governments collect the tax via their existing tax systems and have governments use the proceeds to buy climate change insurance on the exchange.

If you think climate change is bullshit then you can sell the insurance and just keep collecting those cheques.

All the alarmist can buy insurance and all the sceptics can sell insurance. The price of the premiums will soon tell us if climate change is real or bullshit or if it’s not a worry today it will tell us when we need to worry about it.

If people want more done to prevent climate change then they can vote to put the CO2 tax rate up and governments can use the extra money to buy more insurance (send money to the sceptics).

If coal/power/cement/oil companies don’t like paying the tax, they can get their money back by selling the insurance. This transfers all of the risk from society onto the emitters.

This is how to solve climate change using capitalism. Rather than the communist model of mandating wind farms and solar panels.

Richard White
Del Valle, Texas

Legislators and regulators will understand the need for raising taxes; after that there wont be much consensus.

another career op lost to AI

Dr. Pournelle,
Don’t know if this qualifies as cheap replacement of a worker by automation, but there are two companies making robots to fold laundry: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/schmich/ct-laundry-robot-mary-schmich-0526-20170525-column.html
Now, I think I probably work cheaper (but not faster) than the $800 robot, but I daren’t ask my wife her opinion, at least until I get my union card…
Of course, Bill Gates would have her pay a tax to somehow protect me (or society, Bill, or someone) from my job loss, but somehow, I still think I’m gonna be sacked.
-d

The robot won’t need a pension or maternity/paternity leave…

Hillary Spreads The Blame… Some More

Jerry,
I just came across this article on the BBC news site — “Hillary Clinton told to ‘move on’ from her loss” (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40135541). She has apparently started blaming the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for her loss last November. They now join the ranks of the Russians, the FBI, and the media as a responsible party for her loss. She does not place any blame on herself, though, saying, “I take responsibility for every decision I make – but that’s not why I lost.”
I started thinking of the term “megalomaniac”, but she is so far beyond megalomania. That is when it occurred to me that megalomania is a personality disorder SPECTRUM, running from your basic over confidence issues which classify as simple “lomania”, through various degrees of big-headedness (decalomania, hectolomania, kilolomania), on past the familiar “megalomania” on to Hillary’s level, which has to qualify minimally as “gigalomania” or even “petalomania”.
I write the above, tongue only slightly in cheek, because, in all seriousness, Hillary cannot conceive of NOT being the President of the United States. She honestly thinks that there is no one else out there who could possibly BE POTUS. She, who was the First Lady to a two term President who never won more than 50% of the popular vote — a President who the majority of voters rejected — cannot accept that SHE lost the election. She who questioned Trump’s loyalty to the election laws of this land cannot even say that Trump won. She is claiming that the election was somehow stolen from her, implicitly saying that the results of the election are not legitimate.
Trump may not be the best President who has ever served, but it is quite evident that we could have done a lot worse.

: Kevin

Possibly. After all, many of us were surprised by her loss. We have had government by the established experts who understand things; now we have a different approach. At least the deplorables aren’t in charge. And thanks to Hillary, we can try a non politician President.  We’re unlikely to have that chance again.

Maybe this is the job of the future for young people on UBI…

Like most plot points on HBO’s Silicon Valley, a recent episode in which tech oligarch Gavin Belson receives blood transfusions from a “blood boy” to help keep him young is actually rooted in reality—just ask Peter Thiel. “I’m looking into parabiosis stuff, which I think is really interesting. This is where they did the young blood into older mice and they found that had a massive rejuvenating effect,” the tech billionaire and Trump adviser told Inc. magazine. “I think there are a lot of these things that have been strangely under-explored.”
Jesse Karmazin agrees. His start-up, Ambrosia, is charging about $8,000 a pop for blood transfusions from people under 25, Karmazin said at Code Conference on Wednesday. Ambrosia, which buys its blood from blood banks, now has about 100 paying customers

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/06/this-anti-aging-start-up-is-paying-thousands-of-dollars-for-teen-blood

John Harlow

There is a long tradition of science fiction stories along the theme of using the financially insecure young to medically support the rich elders. You could even argue that this is the theme of vampire stories. Of course egalitarianism complicates the matter.

You are not allowed to sell your own organs, but apparently aborted children’s parts can be sold, at least by the abortion clinic.

China and Space

http://www.space.com/30337-chinese-experiment-international-space-station.html

Mr. Heinlein used to remind us that there was no law making English the language of mankind in space…

I would not rate this as proof of a miracle, and I haven’t anything more at the moment; but I am not astonished.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-israeli-scientists-verify-miraculous-biblical-event/

Vilikovsky had a different explanation, but not one easily accepted. This seems more likely.

The Definition of Covfefe

Jerry,

Covfefe def. The equivalent of dangling a shiny toy in front of the Media to divert their attention from potentially important stories.

It certainly works!

Bob Holmes

I wondered what that meant. Thanks.

I understand a Fox news anchor found a Macedonian under his bed…

The States on Climate Change

Jerry,
I thought you might like this article on climate change from Scientific American — “Governors Pledge Climate Action in Face of Possible Paris Withdrawal” (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/governors-pledge-climate-action-in-face-of-possible-paris-withdrawal/). Whether or not you think climate change is a real thing, this at least shows that the American federal system is working to some degree, with states taking action or not as their constituencies support, regardless or even in spite of the federal direction from Washington DC.

Kevin

Just as the States retained their Established Churches under the Constitution, they retain the right to make what they believe is scientific policy. The federal government was our national government and was given limited powers; all residual powers were reserved to the States.

Renewable is luxury

Dr. Pournelle,

You quoted Der Spiegel as stating electricity is now a luxury in Germany. Isn’t it interesting that Germany has also been cited as having the largest investment in solar electric, so-called renewable energy in the Western world? Germany is simultaneously dismantling its nuclear and coal energy production infrastructure while increasing investment in other allegedly renewable sources. Also interesting is that Germany at least sees itself as the largest financial investor in the EU. Some of the loudest cries of anguish over Brexit have come from Germany, and Frau Merkel is this week the anti-Trump heroine of the U.S.

democrat and republican party extremists.

I wonder if this is all connected.

Hoping for a continuing and smoother recovery for both you and Roberta,

an adamant de-Nye-er,

-d

Ground based solar, like wind, makes economic sense in some places and markets; Southern California uses electricity in the daytime for air conditioning; it makes sense to use daylight solar power for that need whenever possible; the expense comes with trying to store that power for times when the Sun is not shining. In most of California, one needs very little air conditioning when the Sun is not shining.

Military Suicide

Dr. Pournelle,
Since you linked the unz.com article as an implied prompt for discussion, personally I don’t buy it. It seemed to me like a lot of the other alt-right-seeming rants on the internet (Breitbart being another): clickbait that is long on invective, short on information, lacking in useful insight. Perhaps the author has come close to my own opinions on waste and the need for military acquisition reform, but he even admits that it was a position fed to him by a third party.
For example, the quote “the US military was never a very impressive one, certainly not when compared to the British, Russian or German ones.” Really? What standard is used? Can’t be the multiple victories over the the three listed or their proxies, and can’t be world history since Napoleon.
Yes, I agree that GWOT and the (uppercase) Bush wars represented an almost endless supply of un-regulated cash to civilian (and uniformed) war profiteers, but these have been just more recent than a couple other boondoggles that come to mind. Yes, military acquisition is out-of-control. Yes, the intelligence agencies (“community” my aching anatomical expletive) and diplomatic corps are extremely overly-politicized. After around 30 years of spineless non-leadership from the executive and the legislative branches, what should we expect?
Trump’s style is nothing if not entertaining, as it has been apparently effective. I do hope that it is not all show. I don’t think we’ll have another chance for a beltway outsider in that office for a long time, and it remains to be seen whether he can actually govern (could be he’s just a really fat ‘gator, I can’t tell).
Meanwhile, I lately shy away from reading endless invective as it has never been really effective and is no longer emotionally satisfying. I may now have a lot of time to waste, but I surely have something better to do.
With hopes for yours and Roberta’s continuing recover,
-d

 

Dear Doctor Pournelle,

While I agree that it is always a good idea to be skeptical of our own military’s claims as to their level of technological, tactical and material quality, I also am skeptical of such “The Sky Is Falling”

screeds as the “Suicide of the military” piece you posted a link to.

My first reaction is that anyone who can with a straight face claim that the Russian military, historically and/or currently, is superior to the United States armed forces, and worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as the British military quality-wise is someone who doesn’t know squat about military history.

The Russian claim to quality historically rests upon their defeat of Napoleon and Hitler. In both cases they had a huge amount of allied assistance, and in both cases they suffered staggering defeats that any other nation would have collapsed from, but the sheer mass of Russia, both in territory and human resources, allowed them to survive and claim a sort of victory.

The British do have the best military man for man, no doubt. However, we beat them once, and managed a draw the second time. Maybe the best comparison is that the British entered World War One with an army about the size of the US Army when we entered.

They quickly built up a multimillion man army, shipped it to France and

23 months after the war began they attacked on the Somme in July of 1916. They accomplished almost nothing while suffering the largest number of casualties of any one day in their long military history. The United states entered the war in April, 1917 and over the next nineteen months, four months less than the British, built up a two million man army, shipped it not across the English Channel but the North Atlantic, and in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne attacks destroyed two German field armies and effectively ended the four years of slaughter.

As for the German military, well yes they are good. Frederick The Great wrought something new in military affairs, and his work still casts a long shadow. But the United States Army defeated his heirs twice in thirty years, and in each case we did it in less than a year after coming to grips on the European continent with the main strength of the Germans. A West Point graduate has written a doctoral dissertation, published as “When The Odds Were Even” analyzing just how well the US Army matched up against the German in World War Two, picking a little known campaign in the Vosges mountains of northeastern France in the late fall and early winter of 1944-45.

Due to the terrain, weather and relatively minor strategic importance of the region, US forces had little of the artillery, air power and logistic superiority they enjoyed on other fronts, yet they drove the German army out of the Vosge, inflicting major losses in men and materiel, while suffering relatively low losses in comparison. I recommend the book to anyone who thinks the US Army was anything other than a world class force in World War Two.

As for technological superiority, I agree with something you have been beating the drum about for decades: that it is vital. However, it is not necessarily decisive. I offer two examples of second-class equipment used by American fighting men, and in each case they not only survived, but managed to win. The first is the Wildcat fighter in early World War Two. It was slower than the Japanese Zero, had only machine guns while the Zero was equipped with a 20mm cannon firing high explosive shells.

The Zero could turn inside of a Wildcats turn radius, so any attempt to dogfight quickly led to the Zero getting on the Wildcat’s tail and ending the matter there.

So American pilots learned not to get into a turning fight, but instead to take a high altitude position, dive on the Zero using the Wildcats greater mass than the Zero to catch up to it as they fell out of the sky together, get in close, use a tactic called the “Thatch Weave” to concentrate the fire of two Wildcats on the enemy plane, and with twelve

50 caliber machine guns, the unarmored Zero, with its non-self-sealing fuel tanks, would be quickly shredded and torched.

The other example is the Sherman tank, which was the worst tank of the European theatre in World War Two. Even the British Comet, not exactly a world beater, was superior. German tankers referred to the Sherman by the same morbid nickname as their American crews::”The Ronson” from the famous ad campaign of the time for the Ronson cigarette lighter “Lights up first time, every time!”, for the way they exploded in an inferno every time a German tank hit one with an AP round. So American tankers learned to use the superior manoeuvrability and speed of the Sherman to get in close, on the flanks and rear of German tanks, and swarm them.

There were always three to four times as many Sherman’s as there were German tanks overwhelming German quality with tactics and numbers.

There are other examples of American turkeys that turned into world beaters due to ingenuity and resourcefulness. The Phantom II of Vietnam fame, the M-16 rifle, even the Bradley AFV.

So I say “”Baloney!” to anyone who thinks the US military is anything other than one of the top three, and often better. It’s the human material that makes it so, and that is still top shelf, despite the best efforts of our schools and universities to destroy it.

Petronius

 

The US military has historically risen to acquire the competence required by the task. Possibly the best example is the problem of German Panther tanks. The German tanks were said to be ten times as good as the ones we deployed; the answer to that was to face each Panther with 11 Sherman tanks. The story is probably apocryphal but the essence is true; just as Grant knew he could not “out general” Lee as his predecessor hoped; but he could always win a war of attrition.

The US has developed Rangers and their elite successors as the need for elite units rose. Of course in the past we could always count on converting our industrial base to war production; expensive and thus not lightly to be undertaken, but pretty well guaranteed to be decisive. Faced with the nuclear challenge, we developed the elite SAC. And in Viet Nam the North sent 150,000 men south with as much armor as the Wehrmacht had in many WW II engagements. That was in 1973, and of that 150,000 fewer than 50,000 men and no armor returned to the North, at a cost of under 1,000 American casualties. Most would count that an outstanding victory. (Alas, in 1975 North Viet Nam had another army of over 100,000 and sent it South; the Democratic Congress voted our South Vietnamese 20 cartridges and 2 hand grenades per man, but refused naval and air support; Saigon predictably became Ho Chi Minh city as we pushed helicopters off the decks of out carriers in our frantic evacuation; but that is hardly the fault of the US military).

Our problem is not military capability, but commitment: no troops can accomplish a mission they are not given. And as von Moltke the Elder observed, it is difficult to win campaigns with a telegraph wire from the Capital stuck up you

Sunday, June 4, 2017

We seem to have had a cooler May in California, and I’ve heard nothing predicting a warmer June (which in Southern California is often referred to as Wummer, winter in summer, or June Gloom).

I have not seen more details, but as of last arch the global cooling trend and low sunspot activity continued; I’ve seen not much on this since. It’s warming up outside today, but cool inside the house. Apologies: I usually try to keep track of this.

Note that this dialog is old, from a time before my pneumonia and subsequent problems. It may not still be relevant:

In a message dated 3/21/2017 5:51:52 P.M. Central Daylight Time, VValkyrie@hotmail.com writes:

…other people are sitting up and taking notice.

https://www.vencoreweather.com/blog/2017/3/20/1130-am-the-longest-stretch-of-a-blank-sun-since-2010

I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet since late last summer, and here are the results, as of today. (First column, year; second, month; third, the percentage of days having no more than 1 sunspot visible; fourth, the percentage of days having NO sunspots visible.)

Year     Month     %dys     %dys

                        0-1spt     0spt

2016	Aug	16.1	9.7
	Sep	23.3	3.3
	Oct	38.7	3.2
	Nov	36.7	13.3
	Dec	67.7	16.1
2017	Jan	41.9	25.8
	Feb	60.7	3.5
	Mar	85.7	76.2

~Stephanie Osborn, “The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”

http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com

 

: Re: And…

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/21/solar-cycle-25-amplitude-prediction/

—

This all fits in with what I’ve been seeing.

I suspect we may enter an extended minimum earlier than even the double-dynamo model forecast. Especially since, arguably, we are already nearly to Dalton Minimum numbers.

~Stephanie Osborn, “The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”

http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com

Award-winning author of the Division One, Gentleman Aegis, and Displaced Detective series

I suspect it’s going to be a cooler summer.

Jerry Pournelle

On Mar 21, 2017, at 7:49 PM, Stephanie <VValkyrie@hotmail.com> wrote:

That’s a distinct possibility, though not a foregone conclusion. We still have to factor in the effects of cosmic rays, which flux is on the increase, as would be expected with a decline in solar activity. And there is a link to cloud formation there, though it is not at all well understood.

~Stephanie Osborn, “The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”

http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com

Award-winning author of the Division One, Gentleman Aegis, and Displaced Detective series

We shall all have to hope fervently for a serious increase in cow flatulence to boost those ol’ greenhouse gasses.

May save us from a mini ice age don’t you know.

Jerry Pournelle

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