Wednesday, December 7, 2016

PEARL HARBOR DAY

If Republicans want to force through massive tax cuts, we will fight them tooth and nail.

Senator Elizabeth Warren

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

James Burnham

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

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

Any science consensus without Freeman Dyson is not a consensus.

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

Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

Trump surprised no one when:

Trump Picks Scott Pruitt, Climate Change Denialist, to Lead E.P.A.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/us/politics/scott-pruitt-epa-trump.html

although a number of Greens pretended astonishment, and the groans could be heard throughout the land. “Denialist”, like “Racist”, is a term of art among some political commentators, and has no real meaning any more than “Fascist” other than as a term of disapproval. It is applied to anyone who does not accept the full “Climate Change” Party Line, complete with guilt and determination to do anything including bankrupting the United States to reduce the amounts of CO2 released into the atmosphere. Even those who accept the various climate change models as “agreed upon science” but point out that the remedies proposed harm the UDS economy but reduce the world CO2 generated by very small amounts as developing nations build fossil fuel plants by the megawatt and increase their CO2 “pollution” as we reduce ours are called “Denialists.” After all, isn’t the science question over? Isn’t there a consensus? How can anyone raise doubts?

Yet some do. And as I have said, even those who agree with the climate models do not all agree on the mitigation practices. One way to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere is to produce enough energy to allow extraction of CO2 to stabilize it at levels we can all agree are safe. We can debate what those levels should be – increased CO2 in the atmosphere increases crop yields and lowers the price of food, and warmer climates make large areas, presently sparsely inhabited, much more attractive.

Of course energy production increases CO2 – or does it? Nuclear power increases it not at all. The danger of being killed by a nuclear power disaster is small compared to the projected climate disasters predicted, yet strangely enough we hear little about that from anyone but – wait for it – Denialists. And if you are still afraid of industrial nuclear power, there is always space solar satellite power, which has no nuclear accident fears attached, and could be used to build power stations in the deserts where we could also put CO2 reduction plants, which are likely to be unsightly and you wouldn’t want them in your back yard…

In any event the confirmation hearings are likely to be interesting, and perhaps we will get some actual rational discussions of climate, energy, and wealth; but I doubt it.

Pruitt to head EPA!

http://www.climatedepot.com/2016/12/07/trump-ignores-gores-advice-instead-picks-skeptic-to-head-epa-dismantle-climate-agenda/

greenies heads are exploding all over the world. Hurray!

—

Phil

Verily.

An Economist’s Cautionary Note on Free Trade.

<https://shylockholmes.blogspot.ca/2016/12/an-economists-cautionary-note-on-free.html>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

A lengthy disquisition, much of which I could have written. A good rational discussion of a situation we have raised before. Those interested will find this very interesting.

In case you missed it, I give you Mike Flynn’s explication again; it is well worth a second reading.

Facts and Theory

Jerry
Your correspondent, Mr. Porter, asks what is the difference between a Fact and a Theory. This was not a question much asked in the 19th century, when the difference was clear, but the certitude with which many Theories have been repeated in the Late Modern Age give them many of the appearances of Facts, so the question does now need some clarification.
Basically, there is a three-layer cake in science: Facts, Laws describing regularities in the Facts, and Theories that provide a narrative explanation from which the Laws may be deduced and the Facts predicted. (Especially, New Facts.)
1. Facts.
Mr. Heinlein once said that Facts are “self-demonstrating; but this isn’t true. Fact comes from factum est, “that which has the property of having been accomplished,” “something done”; cognate with feat. This is clear in German: Tatsache, “deed-matter.” Down to Jane Austen’s time, the expressions “in fact” and “indeed” were used interchangeably.
In modern terms, a Fact is a product produced by a measurement process and in general two distinct processes will produce two distinct sets of results. For example, there are at least two ASTM-approved methods for measuring the coefficient of friction of packaging materials. One uses an inclined plane and translates the tangent of the angle at which the package begins to slide into its CoF; the other employs a dynanometer to pull the package and translates the Force at which the package begins to slide horizontally into the CoF. The same package, tested by each of the two methods, will in general return two different values. In other words, there is no such thing as the coefficient of friction. There is only the result of applying a specified method of measurement.
I recollect a situation, lo, these many years ago, when we discovered that the thickness of an aluminum can depended on the technician who measured it. Tech B consistently obtained thinner sidewall measurements, even when measuring the same can. The reason, as it turned out, was that she thought the micrometer was a C-clamp and screwed the barrel as tight as she could. But unlike steel, aluminum is compressible; so…. 
Dictionary definitions are often of little help in the practical problem of actually producing the measurement; and whether a measurement meets a requirement or not may depend on how that measurement has been defined operationally. In another case, a dimension on a beverage can lid was measured differently by ourselves and by our customer. Both gauges gave the same result on the gage block, but different results on the lids. The customer’s gauge was hand-held and the part dangled vertically from the pin. Our gauge was mounted vertically on a granite block and the part sat in a “nest” holding it at a certain angle. We were not actually measuring the same dimension, and the difference was enough to put one set of measurements out of specification and the other set in.
Even so simple a problem as determining the diameter of a pipe is fraught with questions. A pipe has infinitely many diameters, so in practice we can only take a sample of them. So how many diameters will we measure? At which locations on the pipe? Shall we use a pair of calipers or some other instrument? Will we report the mean of these diameters? The median? The extremal average? Far too many folks show a touching faith in the reliability of measurements. Hence the straight-faced reporting of political opinion polls and who has gained or lost ground since yesterday. What does the GNP mean when it includes not only the tons of steel poured but also the gallons of martinis poured? It’s not that combining these figures means nothing, John Lukacs once wrote, but that it might not mean what you think it does. Can we legitimately add values for manufacturing and for service? What about popular vote totals for States with different rules for eligibility? Or temperatures for Anchorage and New Orleans?
Now throw in questions of accuracy, precision, linearity, reproducibility, and stability of the measurement process.
2. Laws.
Regularities in the Facts are called Laws, preferably stated in the privileged language of mathematics — Euclidean geometry in the case of Newton, or differential equations in the case of Maxwell. For example: that a body moving under uniform acceleration will cover the same distance as a body moving at the mean velocity during the same time was demonstrated by Nicholas Oresme using Euclidean geometry in the 14th century. But the thing to remember is that Laws are descriptive, not causative. Objects do not fall because of the Law of Gravity; rather the Law of Gravity simply describes how they fall.
3. Theories.
A Theory finally is a story we tell ourselves so that the Facts and Laws “make sense.” From the story you can deduce the Laws and predict the Facts. More importantly, you can predict New Facts that were not used in developing the Theory in the first place. To the instrumentalists, that is all they need to do. They need not be True in any cosmic sense. In fact, any finite body of facts can support multiple theories that can account for them. There are today several theories that account for the facts of quantum mechanics: Copenhagen, standing wave, multiple worlds, transactional. (They are called “interpretations” for some reason.) This Duhem-Quine Theorem in Logic is what lies at the root of falsification mania. There is always more than one way to skin a cat, and more than one theory to explain a fact. Sometimes a new Fact can blow a well-established Theory clean out of the water. The Ptolemaic model explained the motions of the heavens tolerably well since the second century. (Motion around an epicycle around a deferent is mathematically equivalent to motion on an ellipse.) And the Aristotelian physics on which it was based had stood even longer. But when the phases of Venus were discovered by Lembo and others (all within the same month!) Ptolemy went down the tubes and his model was replaced with Tycho’s model. (Both Tycho and Copernicus explained the same data. They were mathematically equivalent, given only a shift in the center of the coordinate system.)  It was only with the discovery of stellar aberration, Coriolis effects, and stellar parallax between the mid-1700s and mid-1800s that geomobility was proved in fact.
So we might say that Falling Bodies are the Facts while Gravity is a Theory meant to explain them. To Aristotle, this was a tendency inherent in the bodies themselves by which they moved toward the center of gravity. To Newton, it was a mysterious action-at-a-distance by which bodies reached out (somehow) and “attracted” other bodies (somehow). To Einstein, it was a property inherent in mass that “bent” the space-time manifold so that other bodies would move along geodesics toward the minimum gravitational potential. Each of these narratives (in of course greater detail) pushed our understanding of mechanical motion forward.
Similarly, the Evolution of species is a fact, and Natural Selection is one theory put forward to explain it. Sexual selection, neutral selection, natural genetic engineering, et al. are other theories.
This may be more explanation than the question wanted, and we are overlooking

#4. Models. In the third phases of Modern Science, oftimes data itself is actually model output masquerading as data. For example, when some of the measured data is missing or if the instrument is broken or out of calibration, the missing data may be replaced by kriging or some other model output and then treated as if it were data. Or Something Else might be measured, such as tree rings, and translated to temperature by means of a statistical correlation model. A Model is sort of a hybrid of Facts, Laws, and Theories, partaking in many cases of the worst flaws of each.
Mike Flynn

 

On the subject of facts:

The Great Wines of Vineland

Dear Jerry:

I  have a duty to take issue with  what you wrote  on  December 5th :

“We know that in historical times the Earth has been warmer than it is now. In Viking times. Leif the Lucky and his cohorts built dairy farms in Greenland that are still covered by ice; and the Vikings planted a colony on Nova Scotia which they called Vinland because they could grow grapes and make wine there. Needless to say it’s still to cold to grow grapes in Vinland.”

This is simply not true: grape growing in Nova Scotia has been documented as early as the 1600s, when colonists planted  vines in Annapolis Royal.where wine production continues today.

Nova Scotia’s Kentville research station where experimentation with grape varietals began about 1912

Commercial grape growing and wine production in modern Nova Scotia began in  1979  at Grand Pre Winery, owned by Roger Dial, founder of Appellation America, who also began  growing the L’Acadie Blanc variety and others began  at  vineyards in Grand Pre , and Jost Vineyards winery on  the Malagash Point peninsula has been in continouous production since the early 1980’s

.

Gaspereau Vineyards vines are situated on a south-facing slope to maximize sun exposure

In 2003, the Wine Association of Nova Scotia (WANS) was created, and there are now a score of wineries in the province, with  over a square mile of vines in production.in 2015. 

Mark Steyn may  deny  warming has driven the  northward spread of viticulure on both sides of the Atlantic, but the alarming  reality is that in former Viking haunts far north of  Nova Scotia ,  wine production has begun in Scotland  and  Northumbria  as well.

—

Russell  Seitz

Fellow of the Department of Physics Harvard University     

       Senior Research Fellow,  The Climate Institute   

 

 

I have never been to Nova Scotia, and I stand corrected.  I have been to Greenland, and I have seen Viking dairy farms emerging from the ice; the ones I saw looked to be still half covered by ice, and I would not care to try to raise dairy cattle on the herbage growing on the parts not under ice. 

 

Vines since 1600 lead me to believe that Nova Scotia enjoys a far better climate than I had supposed and did so even during the Little Ice Age. I will remove it from my examples; but the fact of the Viking Warm period remains.

 

 

Air force one

I worked for a company that sold fans for aircraft. Back when Marine One was a Westland helicopter project we sold a fan to ventilate the shower in the helicopter. Unless it was for some radiation decontamination protocol it is hard to imagine the need for POTUS to shower between Andrews and the White house

Alec

You never know. And I suspect the service inspections were pretty expensive.

article on telepresence

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/07/i_was_a_robot_and_this_is_what_i_learned/

Telepresence as a means of dealing with physical limitations.

Chris

I used to write about teleoperation a lot; I should look into it again.

Trump’s Conflict of Interest.

The recent phone call from Taiwan’s president to the President Elect was just another

“End of Civilization as we know it” episode.

Mainstream Media starts harping on Trump’s business interests in Taiwan. It’s going

to be a regular talking point from now until the end of time.

Trump has business interests all over the globe. There’s a difference between Trump’s

business interests and Clinton’s. Trump’s business interests are real business that

creates jobs and is constructive.

Hillary’s interests were just selling out the U.S. out for personal gain and the war profiteers.

It’s pretty clear that Obama was just a front man for the Clinton/Podesta Lobbying group

handing out Clinton Foundation cash to buy influence in Washington and the press.

Obama is just a likable guy that serves as a distraction. I voted for him.

Had me fooled.

It would be okay if they just went away.

Eric Sabo

I have always believed Fleishmann and Pons were on to something; so, incidentally, does the US Navy; at least they have continued to fund their research. We don’t know everything about atoms; we don’t even claim to.

It’s Not Cold Fusion . . . But It’s Something.

<https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/its-not-cold-fusion-but-its-something/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

I don’t know what the something is, but it’s not fraud.

Petronius’s proposal on Robots

Hi
I read Petronius’s proposal on free robots to each citizen. However I would like to point out that it would be easier to give every citizen the right to license the creation and existence of one robot equivalent.
When every citizen has licensed a robot the number of robots a citizen can license would be increased to two and so on.
Parents would license the rights of minor children or alternately the licensing authority would be a present awarded as part of a minor’s ‘coming of age ‘ birthday party.
All Industrial automation would be examined and assigned a number of robot equivalents and illegal unless licenced by the required number of citizens.
Licensing would be for a fixed period and have to be renewed periodically.
The advantage of this is that the market would presumably set the licensing fee without the involvement of government, except for declaring (once a month?) what are the maximum no. of licenses a citizen can issue and keeping a central registry of the licenses every citizen has issued(to protect the poor industrialist from the rapacious greed of the citizens). Banks and mutual fund like organisations which would presumably come into being would ease the whole process.
just an idea.
Ramesh

Of course this assumes that you can’t own a robot without the approval of the government…

Lincoln’s Epigram & the Cost of Trade

Jerry,
One of your contributors wrote a rebuttal to your use of Lincoln’s epigram on trade. While your contributor was correct that there is more accounting to be done in the shirt purchase, the additional accounting does not negate Lincoln’s point. The first point Lincoln was making is simple: if the United States was to grow its wealth, we needed to purchase from each other and export to foreigners. By purchasing from each other, we keep our wealth at home, while exporting to foreigners brings their wealth to us.
The second point is more subtle. If we export the cotton to make one shirt to England, we will bring some British wealth to the United States. If we then purchase a British shirt, we send even more wealth to England than we received for our cotton. Raw materials are a low value commodity. A shirt is a high value commodity. Any nation that mainly exports raw materials and imports finished goods is mining its economy for the benefit of the nation exporting the finished goods. This can be a path to wealth, but only if the raw materials exporter uses the trade money to build its own industrial base, minimizing its purchase of foreign made finished goods along the way.
The United States was once a net exporter of raw materials. We became a world power by investing in our own industrial base to become a net exporter of finished goods. We have been very hard at work reversing this achievement in our trade relationships with third world countries and China. This has had a massive impact on our economy and our growth in GDP. We are trading our way back to the 18th century.

Kevin L Keegan

Well, we were, anyway. Perhaps not so now.

REDUX: Tax Code and Carrier Deal

Eric Sabo’s post on the Carrier Deal got me thinking. The leftists on NPR were critical of Trump’s deals, saying the Federal Government is now in the business of picking winners and losers…as if the Affordable Care Act or the bail outs didn’t happen… But, when you consider the breakdown presented by Eric Sabo, it is clear that Trump is merely micromanaging the tax code.

The Federal Government picks winners and losers inter alia through the tax code, which Republicans wish to reform and they will oppose Trump on tariffs to secure his cooperation on tax code reform and corporate tax breaks to solve the problems of free trade, according to my reading yesterday.

So, it seems government will begin subsidizing US businesses through tax breaks — most likely similar to the Carrier Deal whenever possible — to make free trade work because that’s the compromise Trump seems left to have. Perhaps, Trump can use these deals inductively to create better principles for a new tax code?

Do you think the Congressional GOP position of using tax code reform and tax breaks can fully address the problems of minimum wage and regulations? If so, how? If not, why not? These problems are not going away and we’ve been dealing with this since I was a child.

NAFTA was supposed to be this wonderful thing and now we’re still dealing with it.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

 

Free Trade

You summarized the quandary aptly. One solution to this problem is world governance; I noticed Kissinger went to Trump tower so I assume that voice is being heard today.

Another solution is trade agreements — this is how the EU started.

Trump says these trade agreements are not fair. I’m not sure whether to classify these as “fair or unfair”. Compared to what? From whose point of view? Under what conditions?

Let’s say “fair” means that either we all have minimum wage or we all agree to race to the bottom and see what grotesque acts of self abasement we’re willing to perform in our assault on what Johnson referred to as “the bastions of success”. Let’s say health and safety regulations are also necessary for a “fair” agreement.

Now, you’re Korea, Japanese, whatever and suddenly you’re told that you’ll need to start doing business according to American health and safety regulations and pay a comparable minimum wage to participate in the common market. How is this not governance? How does this not affect the social and cultural progress of all members to the agreement?

This is what I believe we are really looking at and I wonder how could we make it work. Is it possible? What do you propose?

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I’m working on what I propose, but my actual goal is to make people aware of the rational arguments…

dark matter

Dear Mr. Pournelle,
As I read about “dark matter” and “dark energy,” I keep being reminded of “luminiferous aether”…
Yours,
Allan E. Johnson

Read Einstein Plus Two and maybe you’ll think again about ether…

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Petr_Beckmann

Feds deny key permit for Dakota Access pipeline

http://www.gopusa.com/?p=17981?omhide=true

CANNON BALL, N.D. (UPI) — After weeks of growing protests, the federal government announced Sunday it will not issue a permit for the construction of a stretch of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.

The Army Corps of Engineers said it will not give an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline to build a stretch of pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe, saying it will work with Energy Transfer Partners, which is building the pipeline, and other groups to find another route.

About 2,000 veterans joined protests at the site this weekend, forming a human shield around the growing group of protesters against the pipeline.

It may get interesting up there shortly…

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

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

If Republicans want to force through massive tax cuts, we will fight them tooth and nail.

Senator Elizabeth Warren

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

James Burnham

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

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

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

Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

 

  

 

Meet Tinky. He comes with Ryan and Kelly, who are taking care of Roberta. They live upstairs, as does Tinky, but he wanders the house as dogs do and he cheers Roberta up. Ryan and Kelly are settling in, and Chaos Manor is slowly returning to the mild but chronic chaotic state, or at least I certainly hope so. I have been working with the iPad 2, which I have neglected lately, and now that Eric has pretty well restored Precious, the Surface Pro 3 with Pro 4 Keyboard to the Standard Windows 10 rather than the Insider more frequent upgrade versions I am able to get some work done at the breakfast table. Eric restored the latest release of Windows 10 using a thumb drive since Precious doesn’t have a DVD drive; a fair number of updates to apply in order, but no serious problems.

Except one. When I tried to use the Microsoft Pen with the Surface Pro, nothing happened. One Note would open when you pressed the “eraser” key, but otherwise it didn’t exist as far as the Surface is concerned. We fussed with it for an hour, resetting the machine and otherwise fooling with it, but always with the same result. Bluetooth was working, the computer said it saw there was a pen and they were coupled, but the pen didn’t work. Eventually we figured it out: the pen battery was burned out. That takes a AAAA battery. Those aren’t easy to come by.

It turns out you can take certain 9 Volt batteries apart, and Lo! there are AAAA batteries inside it, and you can unscrew the pen, and replace the 1.5 volt AAAA battery you find inside with one from the 9 Volt battery. http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Get-AAAA-BATTERIES-OUT-OF-9V/ will tell you more. Of course it still didn’t work after we did that. AAAA batteries are not common and not very standard, and the polarity isn’t well marked. Once we got the polarity right, Eric took a piece of aluminum foil and folded it up to go inside the pen, and that tightened things up enough that it now works, so I’m busily using the Surface again; but I’ve also ordered some standard AAAA from Amazon. I don’t know how long the Microsoft stylus batteries last, but I got Precious several years ago, and the pen stylus worked until this Summer.

A long time ago, I had a Compaq tablet/laptop, with handwriting recognition, and OneNote; the combination was one of the best research tools I have ever had. I’m hoping the Surface Pro will have the same capabilities. I know you can take notes with the Apple iPad, but I don’t know of a good handwriting recognition program. You get pdf files, so they can be copied, but the notes are not searchable. You can use the keyboard to put searchable text in among your handwritten notes. The iPad is small, light, easily carried, and will serve nicely as an electronic notebook (there are a lot of good apps for organizing them; https://9to5mac.com/2016/04/06/the-best-ios-apps-for-taking-notes-with-apple-pencil-ipad-pro/comment-page-1/ summarizes some of them).

I haven’t much hope that the Surface handwriting recognition program will recognize my handwriting: since my stroke I can’t read all my own notes – but we’ll see. More on The Surface Pro with OneNote another time.

The news media seems to be divided into several camps regarding President-Designate (not quite yet President Elect until the Electoral College returns are counted and certified by Congress) – regarding Mr. Trump taking a congratulatory telephone call from the President of Taiwan. Those who don’t like Trump – most of the usual media – are convinced that he is a bumbling ass who probably didn’t know what he was doing, and we will have to leave it to the professional diplomats to straighten this out, if it can be done at all, but it probably can’t be fixed, o woe, WOE!

The others are themselves divided into various camps. There are those who think he probably doesn’t know what he was doing, but it’s not all that bad, and we can fix it (possibly with some well placed bribes). There are also those who think Mr. Trump knew exactly what he was doing: he was sending them a personal message. We do not yet know if the President of the United States will accept phone calls from the President of Taiwan (Once known as the Republic of China); it hasn’t happened yet. But Mr. Trump, personally can and has; if you want the next President of the USA to not take those calls, well, possibly we can make a deal. How much is it worth to you? Our current President is not all that unhappy about your actions in the South China Sea, for example; but Donald Trump certainly is not happy and has said so. What the next President will do is not yet known… And so forth.

I tend to the latter view. Many of Mr. Trump’s “mistakes” turned out to serve him well. We’ll just have to see. At the moment he is not in control of the foreign policy of the United State, and will not be for weeks.

More on Free Trade

Lincoln’s epigram

Dear Dr. Pournelle:
Of course Lincoln was right that if he bought a shirt made in England, his money would go out of the United States and to England. But his accounting for what happened then was inaccurate. England, in turn, imported quite a lot of things from the United States; in fact, England had free trade precisely to make it easier to do so. The Anti-Corn-Law League had stood up for free trade in grain because they recognized that the high price of grain supported by English tariffs meant hunger for many working people. England was one of the world’s great centers of textile manufacture, but one of their major sources of raw material was American cotton; in fact, the laborers in the North of England who stood up against slavery did so knowing that the blockades of the Civil War would shut down some of the factories that employed them, which I have to call heroic. In normal times selling that shirt to the United States provided money to buy American food and fiber, keeping the factories running and their workers fed.

William H. Stoddard

 

Are robots good for democracy?

“A topic for another time; but are robots good for democracy? And what do we do here?”
I don’t know. But droid armies might be just the thing to protect the interests of the cloistered, wealthy elite from the seething masses. The Sci Fi movie Elysium captures the idea pretty well.

Craig

 

Jerry

Robots will make things and perform essential services. But we need not pay the people thus displaced to sit on their keisters. As I have suggested in the past, we can move to a full employment model. The ADA suggests that there are no disabled. We will find something for everyone to do.

There are many things that are difficult to automate: supervisor at sheltered workshops, for example. Other tasks we can deliberately fail to automate. Removing high corners and replacing them with wheelchair-friendly corners, for example.

Making everyone employed means that all will have health insurance . . . except the unemployed. And we only employ those who are citizens, or at least those who are here legally.

Cost more? You bet. Cost less than welfare? The robots are a comin’.

Ed

 

I noticed that recently you mentioned the wealth that had ‘developed’ in Hong Kong. With respect, I must disagree.
Hong Kong is often used as a counter-example to the overwhelming historical evidence that, for countries without an open frontier, sustained rapid population growth guarantees poverty for the many (moderate population growth does not guarantee prosperity, but only makes it possible). But it is not.
Another example: in 1960 Saudi Arabia had a very small population of about 3 million. They hit an oil bonanza, and their population doubled and then doubled again, but they remained rich. This is not because more people allowed them to ‘develop’ more wealth. This is because the Saudis stumbled onto a pot of gold large enough to support their (in absolute terms) small population.
Now Hong Kong: they developed nothing. They only stumbled onto a pot of gold. That was to be the toll booth for shipping goods made with (de facto?) slave labor on the mainland to the wealthier west. For a long time most goods stamped “made in Hong Kong” were in fact made in China (I know people who grew up there: it was an open secret).
And yet, even with this bonanza – which is NOT repeatable for most societies – outside of the fancy banks, most Hong Kong residents are quite poor (A person with a gallon of water valued at $1 in Hong Kong is on paper richer than a Canadian with 50 gallons of water valued at ten cents total – but who is really better off? GDP/capita misleads). And now, with no resources, limited industry, and China now able to ship goods directly to other countries, Hong Kong is headed down. Low tariffs won’t help the people of Hong Kong.

Pentagon waste

I didn’t know if you had seen this report regarding Pentagon waste. They have over a million pencil pushers making an average of $200K a year in salary and benefits, constituting 25% of the defense budget. And they tried to bury the report. Truly disgusting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/pentagon-buries-evidence-of-125-billion-in-bureaucratic-waste/2016/12/05/e0668c76-9af6-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html?utm_term=.10347604d104

 

Long ago, Dan Golden fired over a thousand senior civil servants at NASA headquarters. When I visited him a few weeks before he fired them, the 8th Floor was humming, lines at the copy machines, loud sounds of typing and printing.  A couple of weeks after he dismissed them I visited Dan again.  The place was quiet. People working at their desks.  I asked a senior career engineer “What did all those people do? You seem to be handling it all.”  He looked up and said, “You know, we can’t figure out what they did.”

Another of Pournelle’s laws of bureaucrat: work expands to fulfill the requirement that bureaucrats look busy. ” Don’t take this one too seriously.

 

More query than suggestion to Trump on “sanctuary cities”
Dr. Pournelle –
I am so glad to hear that Mrs. Pournelle is doing better.
I am somewhat torn about sanctuary cities. While I believe the policy is ill conceived and detrimental, I recognize that it is very Madisonian. Madison presumed that one of the checks and balances would be that local magistrates would not enforce mandates from the national government that were deemed to be unjust or onerous. [There is a history of this: the Fugitive Slave Act was ignored by many sheriffs and individuals, not just in the northern states but also by some in southern states.]
However, I don’t think it appropriate that cities and states with policies to not remand criminal aliens to federal authorities should receive immunity in federal court for the acts of criminal aliens. My understanding is that a suit is not allowed unless it is reasonable to presume that the city or state could have predicted a specific act.
Is it possible for legislation to remove this protection from lawsuits in Federal Court or would this require a constitutional amendment?
Pieter

I tend to favor local control whenever possible; but immigration and border control are national matters, and I doubt many courts would hold otherwise. It certainly does not take a constitutional amendment to make states deal for favors. If they want independence from Federal control, they should not accept Federal tax money…

The Case Against Dark Matter.

<https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161129-verlinde-gravity-dark-matter/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

 

Until we understand gravity and its propagation speed, we cannot assume there are no explanations other than dark matter for the unexpected movements of far away objects. I would not lightly throw away the uniformity principle.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby (left), recently said that dealing with the religiously-motivated violence in Europe “requires a move away from the argument that has become increasingly popular, which is to say that ISIS is ‘nothing to do with Islam’… Until religious leaders stand up and take responsibility for the actions of those who do things in the name of their religion, we will see no resolution.” (Image source: Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

For the first time, a European establishment figure from the Church has spoken out against an argument exonerating ISIS and frequently peddled by Western political and cultural elites. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, speaking in France on November 17, said that dealing with the religiously-motivated violence in Europe

“requires a move away from the argument that has become increasingly popular, which is to say that ISIS is ‘nothing to do with Islam’… Until religious leaders stand up and take responsibility for the actions of those who do things in the name of their religion, we will see no resolution.”

Archbishop Welby also said that, “It’s very difficult to understand the things that impel people to some of the dreadful actions that we have seen over the last few years unless you have some sense of religious literacy”.

Continue Reading Article

A German court has ruled that seven Islamists who formed a vigilante patrol to enforce Sharia law on the streets of Wuppertal did not break German law and were simply exercising their right to free speech.

The ruling, which effectively legitimizes Sharia law in Germany, is one of a growing number of instances in which German courts are — wittingly or unwittingly — promoting the establishment of a parallel Islamic legal system in the country.

The self-appointed “Sharia Police” sparked public outrage in September 2014, when they distributed yellow leaflets which established a “Sharia-controlled zone” in the Elberfeld district of Wuppertal. The men urged both Muslim and non-Muslim passersby to attend mosques and to refrain from alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling, music, pornography and prostitution.

Continue Reading Article

No Peace Within Islam

The headline for this was said something about a “shock poll”

involving British Muslims:

<.>

Forty-three per cent of followers of the religion living in the country believed that parts of the Islamic legal system should replace British law while only 22 per cent opposed the idea.

Researchers also found “deeply worrying” levels of belief among British Muslims in conspiracy theories such as blaming the US government or “Jews” for the 9/11 terror attacks on America.

</>

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/738852/British-Muslims-Sharia-Law-enforced-UK-Islam-poll

Life could get interesting in England, especially considering “Mohamed” is the second most common name in the United Kingdom according to an article I read the other day.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

NPR Lost the Plot

As the English say, NPR lost the plot. I got in the car this morning and had to drive over an hour to get to my destination and listened to NPR. I heard about some nut that allegedly shot a bunch of people in a church because he didn’t like their melanin content when compared to his own. That story took most of the morning because he was defending himself and they had to interview people and discuss this.

This piece segued nicely into a segment on the hate mail sent to mosques in the Greater Los Angeles area. And this was a lengthy piece. I suppose pieces like this need to be done, but I doubt the writers of the letter were tuned in and the piece was constructed in such a way that you were made to feel as though you were part of a large public outcry to get the writers of these letters to come and debate their ideas with the people in the mosque. We were told the FBI and LAPD are involved in investigating this “hate incident”, which is “not a hate crime”.

After that, NPR focused on Trump’s business ties and how he could be violating the Constitution and how the Democrats need to have a plan for the next two years and so forth. This went on for a period of time.

Then NPR did an in-depth segment about a group of white supremacists in a small town in Montana. So far as I could tell they never interviewed the white supremacists themselves, only a few local towns people. Nobody had much to say; so some people somewhere have strange beliefs and they’re no longer relegating themselves to cabins in the woods but living among us in small towns in places like Montana. This is not new, but it is new to them and very important — requiring much of my drive to showcase.

At no point did NPR discuss the Daesh attack by a Somali immigrant in Ohio at a university. What an oversight. I couldn’t believe it! I went to their webpage, surely they covered it on the website — NO!

Why is NPR leaving out an important story? Why does NPR ignore domestic terrorism?

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I think you know the answer.

Dear Jerry:

Forget the Climate Wars– they  just don’t make existential threats like they used to.

Here’s the nice note Nikita Khrushchev sent to  Fidel Castro , in response to  that great humanitarian’s  request  to blow us off the face of the earth:

https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2016/11/castro-still-dead-science-stocks.html

—

Russell  Seitz

Fellow of the Department of Physics Harvard University     

       Senior Research Fellow,  The Climate Institute    

 

https://weather.com/forecast/national/news/early-december-first-arctic-blast

 

Global Warming and Consensus

I was reading in your update your reply to Robert Porter’s query on just what is known on Global Warming. It reminded me of an incident from one of the new Cosmos episodes hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
In the episode, Sisters of the Sun, Tyson showcased the women of astrophysics, those women at Harvard who worked for Pickering in classifying stars; they were called “computers.”
In this episode, Tyson tells the story of Cecilia Payne whose doctoral thesis, “Stellar Atmospheres, A Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars,” correctly identifies the composition of stars.
At the time, the accepted wisdom – the “consensus,” if you will – was that the composition of stars was similar to that of Earth. Payne concluded that this was not so; that hydrogen, for example, was a million times more abundant.
When she submitted her paper to Henry Russell, an astronomer of note at Princeton, he convinced her to not make such a conclusion, so she succumbed to popular pressure – again, the “consensus” – and modified her paper accordingly, admitting that something must be wrong with her analysis.
However, the fact is, Payne was right and the consensus was wrong. But, because the consensus was popular, science accepted it as the Truth.
We are supposed to accept Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming – AGW – merely on the weight of “consensus.” A consensus that is, in my opinion, in addition to be not in keeping with the Scientific Method, highly suspect.
We have “climate change” rammed down our throats because of the hallowed “consensus.” Not because of any PROOFS, but merely because it’s popular.
Those who question the validity of this popularity are shunned, ridiculed, ostracized, even called to be killed.
Why?
Because those who support man-made “climate change” can prove what they claim?
Not in the least.
Because it’s “popular;” there’s a “consensus.” Skepticism, the foundation of science, is ignored.
Well, as the story of Cecilia Payne demonstrates, just because there’s “consensus,” doesn’t mean it’s right.
Cam Kirmser

Mike Flynn, one of the coauthors of Fallen Angels, presents a disquisition on the classical problem of facts and theories; this used to be taught in schools, but is not much so taught today. I urge you to read it. Twice.

Facts and Theory

Jerry
Your correspondent, Mr. Porter, asks what is the difference between a Fact and a Theory. This was not a question much asked in the 19th century, when the difference was clear, but the certitude with which many Theories have been repeated in the Late Modern Age give them many of the appearances of Facts, so the question does now need some clarification.
Basically, there is a three-layer cake in science: Facts, Laws describing regularities in the Facts, and Theories that provide a narrative explanation from which the Laws may be deduced and the Facts predicted. (Especially, New Facts.)
1. Facts.
Mr. Heinlein once said that Facts are “self-demonstrating; but this isn’t true. Fact comes from factum est, “that which has the property of having been accomplished,” “something done”; cognate with feat. This is clear in German: Tatsache, “deed-matter.” Down to Jane Austen’s time, the expressions “in fact” and “indeed” were used interchangeably.
In modern terms, a Fact is a product produced by a measurement process and in general two distinct processes will produce two distinct sets of results. For example, there are at least two ASTM-approved methods for measuring the coefficient of friction of packaging materials. One uses an inclined plane and translates the tangent of the angle at which the package begins to slide into its CoF; the other employs a dynanometer to pull the package and translates the Force at which the package begins to slide horizontally into the CoF. The same package, tested by each of the two methods, will in general return two different values. In other words, there is no such thing as the coefficient of friction. There is only the result of applying a specified method of measurement.
I recollect a situation, lo, these many years ago, when we discovered that the thickness of an aluminum can depended on the technician who measured it. Tech B consistently obtained thinner sidewall measurements, even when measuring the same can. The reason, as it turned out, was that she thought the micrometer was a C-clamp and screwed the barrel as tight as she could. But unlike steel, aluminum is compressible; so…. 
Dictionary definitions are often of little help in the practical problem of actually producing the measurement; and whether a measurement meets a requirement or not may depend on how that measurement has been defined operationally. In another case, a dimension on a beverage can lid was measured differently by ourselves and by our customer. Both gauges gave the same result on the gage block, but different results on the lids. The customer’s gauge was hand-held and the part dangled vertically from the pin. Our gauge was mounted vertically on a granite block and the part sat in a “nest” holding it at a certain angle. We were not actually measuring the same dimension, and the difference was enough to put one set of measurements out of specification and the other set in.
Even so simple a problem as determining the diameter of a pipe is fraught with questions. A pipe has infinitely many diameters, so in practice we can only take a sample of them. So how many diameters will we measure? At which locations on the pipe? Shall we use a pair of calipers or some other instrument? Will we report the mean of these diameters? The median? The extremal average? Far too many folks show a touching faith in the reliability of measurements. Hence the straight-faced reporting of political opinion polls and who has gained or lost ground since yesterday. What does the GNP mean when it includes not only the tons of steel poured but also the gallons of martinis poured? It’s not that combining these figures means nothing, John Lukacs once wrote, but that it might not mean what you think it does. Can we legitimately add values for manufacturing and for service? What about popular vote totals for States with different rules for eligibility? Or temperatures for Anchorage and New Orleans?
Now throw in questions of accuracy, precision, linearity, reproducibility, and stability of the measurement process.
2. Laws.
Regularities in the Facts are called Laws, preferably stated in the privileged language of mathematics — Euclidean geometry in the case of Newton, or differential equations in the case of Maxwell. For example: that a body moving under uniform acceleration will cover the same distance as a body moving at the mean velocity during the same time was demonstrated by Nicholas Oresme using Euclidean geometry in the 14th century. But the thing to remember is that Laws are descriptive, not causative. Objects do not fall because of the Law of Gravity; rather the Law of Gravity simply describes how they fall.
3. Theories.
A Theory finally is a story we tell ourselves so that the Facts and Laws “make sense.” From the story you can deduce the Laws and predict the Facts. More importantly, you can predict New Facts that were not used in developing the Theory in the first place. To the instrumentalists, that is all they need to do. They need not be True in any cosmic sense. In fact, any finite body of facts can support multiple theories that can account for them. There are today several theories that account for the facts of quantum mechanics: Copenhagen, standing wave, multiple worlds, transactional. (They are called “interpretations” for some reason.) This Duhem-Quine Theorem in Logic is what lies at the root of falsification mania. There is always more than one way to skin a cat, and more than one theory to explain a fact. Sometimes a new Fact can blow a well-established Theory clean out of the water. The Ptolemaic model explained the motions of the heavens tolerably well since the second century. (Motion around an epicycle around a deferent is mathematically equivalent to motion on an ellipse.) And the Aristotelian physics on which it was based had stood even longer. But when the phases of Venus were discovered by Lembo and others (all within the same month!) Ptolemy went down the tubes and his model was replaced with Tycho’s model. (Both Tycho and Copernicus explained the same data. They were mathematically equivalent, given only a shift in the center of the coordinate system.)  It was only with the discovery of stellar aberration, Coriolis effects, and stellar parallax between the mid-1700s and mid-1800s that geomobility was proved in fact.
So we might say that Falling Bodies are the Facts while Gravity is a Theory meant to explain them. To Aristotle, this was a tendency inherent in the bodies themselves by which they moved toward the center of gravity. To Newton, it was a mysterious action-at-a-distance by which bodies reached out (somehow) and “attracted” other bodies (somehow). To Einstein, it was a property inherent in mass that “bent” the space-time manifold so that other bodies would move along geodesics toward the minimum gravitational potential. Each of these narratives (in of course greater detail) pushed our understanding of mechanical motion forward.
Similarly, the Evolution of species is a fact, and Natural Selection is one theory put forward to explain it. Sexual selection, neutral selection, natural genetic engineering, et al. are other theories.
This may be more explanation than the question wanted, and we are overlooking #4. Models. In the third phases of Modern Science, oftimes data itself is actually model output masquerading as data. For example, when some of the measured data is missing or if the instrument is broken or out of calibration, the missing data may be replaced by kriging or some other model output and then treated as if it were data. Or Something Else might be measured, such as tree rings, and translated to temperature by means of a statistical correlation model. A Model is sort of a hybrid of Facts, Laws, and Theories, partaking in many cases of the worst flaws of each.
Mike Flynn

Carrier Deal

One thing you didn’t mention in your note:
“The Trump Carrier Deal
Carrier gets $7 Million in tax incentives.”
That’s *over 10 years*. So the wage base is $490M to offset those against. $49M is for one year.
So, an even better deal. The state gets $1M in revenue from those workers over a year (or so) and it “pays” 700K for the deal.

A Modest Proposal Concerning Robots

Dear Doctor Pournelle,

Rising productivity through greater efficiency leading to lower employment and the problem of how to fairly distribute the wealth is indeed a vexation.

One solution: If robots will do the work, but humans receive the benefit, then create a right to robot ownership. I suppose the courts will have to find an emanation from a penumbra of this somewhere in the constitution. Let each citizen receive title at birth to a certain number of robots. Five? Sounds like a good number to me. A new entitlement, the right to robots!

Of course there are a lot of devilish details. There will be a robot market. People will offer to manage your robots, for a portion of your robotic’ earnings. Maintenance will have to be done, replacement and upgrade robots purchased.

The lawyers will have a field day with this one.

Of course, we will have to pass Robot Laws. It will be illegal to teach a robot more than it need know to perform assigned labor. Robots may not travel without a pass from their owner. Anyone caught preaching Robot Rights will go to Coventry.

Perhaps we can count them as three-fifths of a human being and allow their masters to vote for them?

We might even free and grant limited civic rights to a few, very intelligent robots.

Just a modest proposal!

Petronius

PS

Actually, this is a form of Distributism. . It might be possible. Alas, robots as we have them today are not very fungible. But they might get there.

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

Sunday, December 4, 2016

If Republicans want to force through massive tax cuts, we will fight them tooth and nail.

Senator Elizabeth Warren

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

James Burnham

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

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

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

Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

Roberta is home and we are frantically rebuilding to accommodate her confinement to a wheelchair. She is recovering, a bit slower than I did, but we’re confident that it’s only a question of time. It has been a rather frantic week, bringing her home and setting up to dare for her, and I am behind on essays; I also have works of fiction to work on, and I got dome of that done, but I can only do one thing at a time, and if interrupted I take a while to resume focus. That sounds like an excuse, and I grew up not to make excuses; but while there are never adequate excuses, there are sometimes expiations.

Things to remember when considering free trade.

There are always nice things you want to do for your workers. Minimum wages are one of them. High minimum wages coupled with free trade produces a paradox. If you require minimum wages in all your factories, companies will compete to bring other costs down; one way they will compete is to raise productivity: to make more widgets with a smaller work force. This means fewer jobs.

If you also have free trade, and you trading partner does not require a minimum wage, he will generally produce widgets cheaper than you can make them; particularly if you keep raising the minimum wage. Surely this is obvious? You continue to raise productivity and employ more robots who do not get minimum wages or annual raises, and perhaps you can compete with your overseas trading partner who has neither minimum wages nor annual raises, so you stay in business; but you do so with fewer workers. This is efficiency, but those who used to work for you must be supported: food stamps, free “surplus” foods grown and bought at government price support prices (it’s cheaper to give them away than to store them), unemployment compensation, government retirement, etc. That means taxes on everyone including those who do not want or need widgets; or of course you can put a sales tax on widgets, including imported widgets, and hope the need for widgets is great enough to keep the widget market healthy.

Now comes a regulation requiring all businesses to give healthcare insurance to all employees. If it applies only to businesses with x or fewer employees, this will work to prevent widget businesses from ever growing past X employees; again limiting the number of people employed. We can also add various health and safety regulations, and inspectors to come around periodically and enforce them. They will have to be paid, of course, either out of the general fund or from the revenue from widget sales taxes. Meanwhile, your trading partner, who has neither minimum wages nor health and safety requirements, continues to export widgets. We can expand the complexities, but surely the point is clear?

There were two relevant articles in the Saturday Wall Street Journal.

First, Peggy Noonan’s weekly column entitled “Trump’s Carrier Coup and a Lesson From JFK” will be interesting to those who do not remember John Kennedy’s experiences with business, about which he knew nothing. (He never had a paycheck from anyone but government, and he didn’t cash those; he endorsed them and gave then to charity.) It isn’t long, and it’s worth reading.

On the same page is a column by Holman Jenkins, Jr., not my favorite journalist, called “Trump’s Charm of Not Being Obama” which injects some much needed realism into the energy debates. It is very well done, and perhaps Mr. Jenkins’ best work this year, also well worth your time.

If the goal is to increase jobs and people working, cheap energy and fewer regulations and restrictions is the way to bring it about. There are many wonderful things you can do for workers, but requiring companies to do them is more likely to shrink the work force than grow it; and free trade will accelerate that unless your trade partners give their workers equivalent goodies. That is why Free Trade with England is not like Free Trade with China or Mexico. But surely you knew that?

And I will say it again: doubling the size of the number of employees exempted from various laws and regulation – as in this regulation applies to companies with 10 or more employees, making it 20, and if 20 making it 40, etc. – is the quickest and simplest way to raise employment.

Aleta Jackson, RIP http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=66229

She was the executive secretary of the L-5 Society; later I recommended her to General Graham where she did invaluable service in his High Frontier organization. Her biography is well told in the announcement, and I will miss her greatly. Farewell, good and faithful friend.

Global Warming Explained Please

Dear Dr. Pournelle,
First I am very happy to hear your wife (and you!) are doing better! I have read your columns since the Byte days and truly enjoy your style and content. With that in mind, would you please take a crack at explaining what is and is not scientifically known about Global Warming in laymen’s terms? There has been a huge amount of discussion on your site about it, but to be honest I am left with a rather murky picture of what is and is not fact vs. theory.
Thanks in advance!
Robert Porter

One of the problems is disagreement on just what facts we have. I have been required to measure temperatures to a tenth of a degree (both C and F) and I found it very difficult and expensive; yet we discuss tenths of a degree differences in average year-round global temperature, and most of those discussing that seem to have no notion of the difficulty of obtaining that data. I give you one example: what is the average temperature of your back yard over a 24 hour period? Surely easier to measure than the average temperature of the entire Earth for a year, no? But if you attempt to discover it, you will find it no easy task. Take a copper globe, four inches in diameter, and put a good thermocouple inside it. Solder the thermocouple to a dime sized disk of thin copper, and let that hang free in the center of the globe. (While you are at it, put another thermocouple soldered to a small copper disk inside a beaker of ice water, preferably all water including the ice having been distilled. This will serve as the reference temperature and presumed to be 0 degrees C.) Hang the globe out where it will be exposed to the sky day and night.

You will notice that your temperatures will vary considerably from day to day, and even hour to hour. You are getting a combination of conductive air temperature and the radiation environment temperature, and while air temperature varies more slowly, the radiant temperature varies a lot, and quite quickly, depending on cloud cover. When there are clouds in daytime the temperature will be lower than when it is exposed to the sun. At night it’s even more variant; the radiant temperature of clear night sky is some -270 degrees; the Romans used to make ice cream in the desert by taking advantage of this. The radiant temperature of cloudy environment will be much higher. OK, put you thermometer in the shade; but have you really got the temperature now? Just what is the temperature of your back yard averaged over a 24 hour period? Your answer will depend on how you measure it. Now look at the source temperatures fed into the climate models.

I could list some more problems; but my point is that the “consensus” of the scientists includes people who never think about measurements and how they are obtained. The models are not sensitive to cloud cover. And if we try to compare temperatures from long ago to today’s, none of those from long ago – even fifty years ago – were accurate to a tenth of a degree. In the 12800’s and for much of the 20^th Century, sea temperatures were taken by drawing up a bucket of water and measuring it with a hand-held mercury thermometer. At night, by a seaman who didn’t have a magnifying glass.

Part of the consensus comes from the agreement of many models; they nearly all use the same inputs, and they give the same predictions. They all attempt to account for all known energy sources, but of course those aren’t all predictable. The year 1816 is known as “The Year without a Summer” (also known as 1800 and froze to death). This is because the volcano Tambura blew off and polluted the Earth’s atmosphere, reflecting sunlight that normally would have reached Earth; the result was year round winter. The models could not have predicted that, nor could they predict most other volcanic eruptions. As an aside, Benjamin Franklin, observing an Icelandic volcano pouring gup into the sky that reached England and beyond, proposed the theory that something like this caused the Ice Ages.

No one sane denies that raising the CO2 levels without limit would have great and very likely deleterious effects on Earth’s climate. If those levels get a good bit higher, something ought to be done. We were told the Iraq war would cost $300 Billion. I said at the time that for that much I could build 100 1000 megawatt nuclear power plants (the first ones would cost maybe $15 billion, but by the time we had 20 or so they would be more like 1 or 2 billion each, leaving plenty of money to mine Uranium); with that power we could tell the Arabs to drink their oil, and build plants to take whatever amount of Carbon we liked out of the atmosphere. Of course that wasn’t done, the war cost far more than $300 billion, but that’s for another discussion.

We know that in historical times the Earth has been warmer than it is now. In Viking times. Leif the Lucky and his cohorts built dairy farms in Greenland that are still covered by ice; and the Vikings planted a colony on Nova Scotia which they called Vinland because they could grow grapes and make wine there. Needless to say it’s still to cold to grow grapes in Vinland. In those Viking times we find middle European monastery records of longer growing seasons, and we find similar records of agricultural yields in China. It was warmer in Viking times. We have pretty good evidence of a Roman Warm period, and of climate variations during the Bronze age. It is unlikely that human CO2 contributions caused those. I don’t know what did, but it seems clear that in historical times we have been warmer.

Clearly it has been colder. In 1776 cannon were brought across the frozen Hudson River to the relief of General George Washington in Harlem Heights, thus saving the Continental Army and the Revolution. The Hudson hasn’t frozen hard enough to walk on, much less drag cannon across it, for a century.

It has been warmer and colder in historic times. The models say there is a sudden great rise in temperature now, but the data don’t show it.

And in a way it’s all irrelevant anyway: give me enough electric power and I’ll take the Carbon out of the atmosphere if we have to do that, and if we don’t have to and it’s getting colder again, I’ll have power to heat homes. Our Climate Problem is an economic and energy problem, and that’s true whether we are in for warming or cooling.

Erik Verlinde’s Gravity Minus Dark Matter | Quanta Magazine

Might not be dark matter out there after all. Maybe we just don’t understand gravity.

> But the dark matter hypothesis assumes scientists know how matter in the sky ought to move in the first place. This month, a series of developments has revived a long-disfavored argument that dark matter doesn’t exist after all. In this view, no missing matter is needed to explain the errant motions of the heavenly bodies; rather, on cosmic scales, gravity itself works in a different way than either Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein predicted.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161129-verlinde-gravity-dark-matter/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

Thanks,

John

I have long said that until we understand gravity better, we should not adopt a new physics and assume 75% of the universe is invisible…

‘My research was attacked by thought police in journalism, activist groups funded by billionaires and even the White House.’

<http://www.wsj.com/articles/my-unhappy-life-as-a-climate-heretic-1480723518>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

In this Land of the Free. I thought the point of university tenure had to do with free exchange of ideas, but apparently it’s just more rent seeking.

 

Poems from Paradoctor

Hsin Ku and Quads

    By Nathaniel Hellerstein
    In May of 1993, I participated in a poetry festival at Lincoln University, then in San Francisco. At this conference, Dr. Kenneth Fan called for poems of a new form: “Hsin Ku”, or “New Classic”. Its form and rules are summarized by these two hsin-ku I wrote:

New classic poem form;
four words, four lines
Any topic, any image
Second, fourth near rhymes.

“Let Reason rule Rhyme,”
Decreed the sage Master,
“So our audience be
(I hope) much vaster.”

I admit that I couldn’t resist some sardonicism there. I hope much vaster!
Here are some more:

A single look reveals:
Airplane left, bird right
Climbing, crossing; silent passage
In the evening light.

Me, praise a pearl?
Or its owner, ma’am?
Or its inner grit?
I praise the clam!

O love, we wonder;
Through you, I’m wise;
How deeper we see
Than only two eyes!

Mr. Fan wanted poems in honor of an ancient Chinese king who prayed for world peace. Alas, I could not resist delivering the following snark:

“May all war cease,”
The high lord sings;
But when there’s peace
Then who needs kings?

There are also “quad” poems, which are hsin-ku with 4 letters per word, abab rhyme, and telegraphic grammar. Here are some:

This quad poem form;
Four word, four time
Four each word; also
Even line good rime.

Don’t rule over rime!
You’d feel like fool
When even this time
Says rime over rule.

Hill tent camp rest
Even dark sees afar
Late nite view best
Land, lake, moon, star.

Dear love, what song
What best true rime
Will show them long
This love thru time?

I also composed these science-fictional hsin-ku and quads:

Science, myth and fantasy
Future joy and sorrow;
Dreamer, come enchant me
With life beyond tomorrow.

Don’t take time trip!
Push days into spin
Make just tiny slip
You’d ain’t even been.

This book make slip;
They don’t show rite
That move that ship
More fast than lite.

“This plug,” says punk
(make such huge deal)
“fill head with junk
That ain’t even real.”

Just what does Zugs
From afar star hurl
With eyes like bug’s
Want with Urth girl?

“We come in peace,”
The green man said.
“Came we for war
You’d all be dead.”

Said robot to man
“You low human slob!
Behold my evil plan;
I’ll take your job!”

Build cities in space?
It doesn’t seem fair
Pay owners of place
Food, rent – and air.

“What is true reality?
Computer, say the word!”
It answered with finality,
“Your question is absurd.”

“I seek your boss,”
The star man sings.
“That is your loss;
We have no kings.”

Why read science fantasy
Mostly thud and blunder?
I seek marvels, mystery,
Vision, sense of wonder.

 

The Trump Carrier Deal

Carrier gets $7 Million in tax incentives.

If average Carrier employee salary =$23/hr x 40 = $920/wk x 52= $49k/yr x 1000 jobs =$49Million

Federal Income Tax paid by 1000 employees = $7,350,000/yr

State Income Tax paid by 1000 employees = $1,127,000

That leaves ~$40 Million/yr that people have to spend in the local economy and bills.

Only an idiot would think this is a bad deal.

No wonder Trump made all the other candidates look like silly children.

Of course, employees don’t concern themselves with details like these.

Obama administration is more concerned with “Bathroom Bills”, Muslims and

continual stupid race dialog.

Trump Protesters don’t have jobs (That’s why they have time and energy to protest.)

so they don’t pay income tax.

The Carrier deal is the kind of policy change every working American has been waiting for.

ericsabo

“British officers don’t duck!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrauBQf7FpI

With examples, historical testimony, and explanations as to why.

Fascinating.

He’s cheeky, but quite serious and worth hearing out, this Lindy beige chap.

Petronius

Stephen Hawking: AI will automate middle class jobs – Business Insider

I think he is spot on and understating the danger to society. 

We’ll have Univ Basic Income and a lot of people spending most of their lives in boredom with nothing to do and no sense of accomplishment. Drug use will soar. We think our schools are bad now. Wait until no one has any real reason to get a good grades since they have no future to worry about. 77% of China’s population with no work is really worrisome.

I see this as a far greater threat to our survival as a species than climate change will ever be. 

A report put out in February 2016 by Citibank in partnership with the University of Oxford predicted that 47% of US jobs are at risk of automation. In the UK, 35% are. In China, it’s a whopping 77% — while across the OECD it’s an average of 57%.
And three of the world’s 10 largest employers are now replacing their workers with robots.
Automation will, “in turn will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the world,” Hawking wrote. “The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small groups of individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-hawking-ai-automation-middle-class-jobs-most-dangerous-moment-humanity-2016-12?r=UK&IR=T

John Harlow

A topic for another time; but are robots good for democracy? And what do we do here?

Origin of the second amendment,

Jerry

How far back does the Second Amendment go? According to David E. Vandercoy (http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/89vand.pdf),

Blackstone credits King Alfred, who ruled England from 871 to 901 A.D., as establishing the principle that all subjects of his dominion were the realm’s soldiers. Other commentators trace the obligation of Englishmen to serve in  the people’s army to 690 A.D. Regardless of the beginning date, an Englishman’s obligation to serve in a citizen army is an old proposition. Coupled with this obligation to defend the realm was the obligation to provide oneself with weapons for this purpose. …

Charles  II  disbanded  the  army  except  for  troops  he  believed  would  be  loyal  to  his government. Parliament assisted by enacting the Militia Act of 1661 which vested control over the militia in the King. Charles II began molding a militia loyal to the throne by directing that his officer corp assemble volunteers for separate training and “disaffected persons … not allowed to assemble and their arms seized.” In 1662, the more select militia was authorized to seize arms of anyone judged dangerous to the Kingdom. In addition, gunsmiths were ordered to report weekly on the number of guns made and sold; importation of firearms was banned.

A move toward total disarmament occurred with passage of the Game Act of 1671. The Game Act dramatically limited the right to hunt to those persons who earned over £100 annual income from the land. More importantly, and unlike any prior game act, it made possession of a firearm by other than those qualified to hunt illegal and provided for confiscation of those arms.

Charles II’s successor, his brother James, pursued the disarmament. James, however, was the object  of  suspicion  because  he  was  Catholic.  As  King,  James  was  also  the  official  head  of  the Anglican Church. He sat on the throne of a country that barred Catholics from holding appointed office. …

James continued disarmament by enforcing it in Ireland. The common perception was that James was disarming Protestants in Ireland and the new Whig party that opposed him. James then asked Parliament to repeal the test acts that precluded Catholics from holding office, to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and to abandon the militia concept in favor of standing armies. Parliament refused.

James responded by having his Judges find that the laws of England were the King’s laws and the King could dispense with them. The King replaced Protestants with Catholics at high government posts, including the military; he then placed 13,000 men of his army outside London. In 1688, James’s son-in-law, William of Orange, a Protestant, landed in England with a large Dutch army. James’s army deserted him and he fled to France.

William and Mary became sovereigns in 1689. Parliament restricted their powers by adopting the Declaration of Rights. William and Mary were required to accept the rights enumerated in the Declaration as the rights of their subjects and to rule in accordance with Parliament’s statutes. The Declaration  recited  the  abuses  by  James,  including  the  raising  and  keeping  of  a  standing  army without  Parliament’s  consent,  quartering  of  troops  in  private  homes,  and  disarming  Protestant subjects. The declaration set forth the positive right of Protestant subjects to have arms for their defense, suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law.

Well, there you have it. I have read this elsewhere, so it is not just one guy’s notion of history. The Founders wrote the Second with history and past abuses in mind.

Further, in a series of essays collected in A People Numerous and Armed, John Shy makes the case that it was the militia who won the Revolution. Wherever the Brits ventured the Militia rose up and fettered them, preventing them from gathering fodder and food, even fighting with them. When you think about it, that’s just the way it happened: they left Boston and took over NYC. Yet (as detailed in Washington’s Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer) the New Jersey militia made any extension to NJ impossible. And when they leaped down to Charleston, the militia and the Swamp Fox slowed them, pestered them and hobbled them.

So with both negative and positive examples to guide them, the writers of the Bill of Rights wrote this amendment, and placed it second, following only the amendment concerning the freedoms of speech and religion.

It makes sense when you look at it this way.

Ed

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

Thursday, December 1, 2016

If Republicans want to force through massive tax cuts, we will fight them tooth and nail.

Senator Elizabeth Warren

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

James Burnham

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

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

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

Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

Roberta is home and recovering slowly, but getting better each day. The vectors are all toward improvement.

I got the Fire Department’s bill today. Unlike the one I got for myself, most of this one was covered by various insurances; since Roberta and I have the same insurance, I’m not sure why I got the whole bill, but we only pay less than half of this one, but I’m not going to complain. I will note that the Fire Department paramedics and ambulance used to be paid by the city – after all, the major expense is salaries of the Firemen and medics, and they’d have to be paid whether they were on a call or not – but again I’m not going to complain. They were there when needed, and they did their work efficiently and smoothly. But I do wonder who would have paid for their time while they took her to St. Joseph’s if she hadn’t needed them.

Continuing the discussion of Free Trade, national production, robots, productivity and wages:

You will recall that Dr. David Friedman said when I asked him what advice to give Mr. Trump,

“Unfortunately, the best advice I could give he can’t follow, politically speaking. That’s to declare unilateral free trade, the policy of Britain in the 19th century and Hong Kong in the 20th. That would not only be good for the country and set a good example for the world, it would eliminate the current practice of using free trade negotiations to pressure other countries to adopt policies popular with American voters in exchange for the agreement.”

Hong Kong’s policy is “Hong Kong is a free port.  We pursue a free trade policy and do not maintain barriers on trade. No tariff is charged on import or export of goods.  Although licensing is required for the import and export of some goods, this is only to fulfill obligations undertaken by Hong Kong to our trading partners, or to meet public health, safety or internal security needs. The licensing procedures are as simplified  as possible in such cases.”

Whether that is strictly true now that Hong Kong has reverted to being under the Chinese People’s Republic, it was certainly true in the British rule period, and the licensing regulations were continually scrutinized to be sure they were regulatory and not protectionist. Given Hong Kong’s quite limited natural resources (essentially none) and the wealth developed there, it is certainly worth study.

Of course most trade agreements are not really for Free Trade even if that is the treaty’s name. Many of them run to hundreds of pages. Some products and industries and companies are favored, and quite often newcomers are so regulated that the startup costs of entering a particular market are prohibitive.

The theory of Free Trade is that there will be more goods to consume, since each country will make the stuff it does best with, and buy the stuff that it finds expensive to make from somebody else: thus consumers pay the lowest possible prices, regulation costs will be kept to a minimum – over-regulation drives costs up, and thus over-regulated nations cannot compete – and so forth.

The theory does not take into account “entitlements” which must be paid to those no longer employed because what they used to make is now produced elsewhere; since these entitlements must be paid for, generally by the consumers who enjoy the benefits of cheaper stuff, the benefits may not be as large as supposed; indeed, sometimes the savings might be negative, depending on the goods under discussion. There is not a great deal of analysis of this, and there should be more.

The United States makes a lot of stuff; by some accounts, more than ever before. What it doesn’t have is as many people employed in making that stuff. Look at an automobile assembly line, and compare it to one in the 1950’s. The older lines had far more people turning out fewer cars. Today’s factories have a lot more robots turning out more cars. Workers tend to assist and supervise the robots, not actually make some part of the product. At one time a great proportion of the work force was involved in agriculture; now a tiny fraction of those formerly employed produce far more food at a cheaper price. So it appears to be in manufacturing. A lot more robots, a lot more product, a lot fewer workers at decent wages.

That trend will continue. More stuff, fewer human workers. I have said before: by 2024, and I think a great deal sooner, over 50 % (and I think more) of the existing jobs in manufacturing, sales, and distribution will or can be done by a robot costing no more than a year’s salary for the human the robot replaces. Humans should be employed in jobs not easily taken on by a robot. Since our education system seems unable to turn out graduates who can do jobs that other people will pay them money to do – one might wonder if the system is designed for this result – we are left with some obvious questions I will at present leave as exercises for the readers.

True free trade produces more goods. It also cares not for dignity, community stability, or many of the other civic values we used to prize so highly. Yes, I think the US better off with jobs remaining in the US, not exported to Mexico or further away, and I do not think we are better off for turning Detroit into a wasteland; on the other hand, Detroit contributed to this by remaining inflexible and counting on government protection (Labor Relations Act, Union Shop, Protective Tariff, etc.) until the costs of “Made in America” became just too high. Detroit also had a great deal of capital sunk into investments of early World War II productive instruments, while Germany and Japan were bombed flat and had to start from bare floors; but that is another story and not part of this discussion.

We need education institutions aware of national trends, who can turn out graduates who can do jobs needed that robots can’t do. Clearly we don’t have those.

Abraham Lincoln said that if he bought a shirt from England, he had the shirt. England had the money which would be spent in England. If he bought it from New England he probably paid more, but he had the shirt and the money remained in the United States, to be spent again and again. When considering free trade, that simple and undeniable observation needs to be kept in mind.

Porkypine sums up the first weeks since the election:

Jerry,

Early days yet, but the President-Elect is disappointing widespread fears of chaotic amateurism. Thus far he’s picking competent people for his Administration in a competent manner.

As I see it, the focus should shift from how soon will he shoot himself in the foot, to how soon they’ll manage to send enough alligators at him to completely distract him from draining the swamp.

That, and to the necessary tradeoffs between which parts of the swamp he thinks most important to drain and which parts are most practically drainable. Because even absent alligators he will not have unlimited resources.

All Presidents do end up as full-time alligator-wrestlers eventually.

The mark of a good one is how much swamp he gets drained before that sets in. So far, it’s mainly the left siccing ‘gators on him, and they don’t yet seem to realize how toothless theirs have become.

But the truly fierce ones are out there, in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, in jihadist enclaves all over, in obscure corners of this economy, and tucked away among factions of his own nominal party. The question now is how long he can keep enough of those threats deterred, distracted, or at least directed elsewhere so swamp-drainage can proceed.

Porkypine

And that, I think, sums it up quite well. When you’re fighting the alligators it’s hard to remember the mission was to drain the swamp. Of course the best way to drain the swamp is to choose the right people and support their efforts, while choosing others to fight the alligators.

I note that Trump said he would accept the results of the election, and so did Hillary; then there emerged the odd attempt to reverse the election in the electoral college (with about one in a billion chance of honestly doing so), and Trump began to question the popular vote total and illegal voting practices. Voting by non-citizens is a federal felony and thus a deportable offense whether you have documents or not; and of course there are counties in Illinois rumored to have ballots cast by voters known to have died in the Chicago Fire…

Free trade

Good evening

Dr. Pournelle, may I suggest the possibility of a connection between campaign finance and free trade? Free trade is primarily about business advantage, a would-be car salesman in a city that already had dealerships for the Detroit brands was likely very receptive to a pitch for Toyotas and Datsuns. A shop owner looking for a better profit margin would be interested in oriental electronics. These people would suggest the benefits of free trade as they contributed to political campaigns, politicians who acted on these suggestions received more donations and enjoyed more success. The benefits to consumers were a happy accident, it was not the original intent.

I hope Roberta’s recovery continues, good health to you and yours, Tim Harness.

Beware the fury of the legions

“Obama Administration Tells Medal of Honor Recipient He Cannot Attend Marine Corps Ball”

http://tribunist.com/news/obama-administration-tells-medal-of-honor-recipient-he-cannot-attend-marine-corps-ball/

“Why? Because Meyer has been an outspoken critic of the Obama administration.”

Words fail.

Cordially,

John

Newt on Trumps 3 greatest challenges

http://www.gingrichproductions.com/2016/11/president-elect-trumps-three-greatest-challenges/

Very good.

—

Phil Tharp

emdrive

a website I’ve been following (I may have first seen it from your columns) has a possible explanation for how the emdrive works and is saying that the NASA experiment may be off by a factor of ~10x
http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/emdrives-dielectrics-nasa-shift.html
I will say that his idea seems to explain a lot of anomalies in one formula that doesn’t require any arbitrary constants or dark matter positioning.
David Lang

EM drive

Dr. Pournelle,
Excellent news that Roberta will be home today. My prayers for both of you to continue your recoveries. I am curious about EM and continue to read everything I can find in lay media, but I am a little confused. I thought that light drive was a known technology (light sail and photon drive). I know that rest mass of photon is accepted as zero, but it must have some mass at c. However, generation of photons does not require the emitting body to lose mass. So, in essence isn’t the EM drive more a photon drive?
Thank you for clearing up my confusion.
Merry Christmas!

Douglas

EMdrive & diamond – not dilithium – crystals….

Interestingly this http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2016/november/diamond-power.html
plus (with a bit of luck) the EM drive….

D J Turner

The EM Drive Subject

Jerry,
Proving that the EM drive is reactionless will take more than an externally powered gravity sling experiment. After all, thrust can be produced by a laser, and an externally powered laser thruster would not lose mass when operated. We would not call this a reactionless drive as we are emitting photons from the test article and the loss of mass in the power supply.
To me, the biggest part of the proof is not to show that the test article produces thrust, but that it produces thrust without the asymmetric emission of ANYTHING, including all electromagnetic bands. If all of its emissions are symmetrical and still a thrust is produced, I will start thinking that this could be a reactionless drive, otherwise, I will remain skeptical.
However, even if the EM drive does not turn out to be reactionless, it may well be the most efficient particle/photon emitting drive ever built. This still makes it very useful.

Kevin L Keegan

I still want to see it hang off vertical in a swing for two weeks.

Ideas and Blue Sky on EmDrive

Dear Doctor Pournelle,

If the experimentum crucis were to prove that even the current lab bench prototype EmDrives are doing that thing they seem to do, I thought of some possible uses for even a low thrust device:

Imagine a tank equipped with such a unit, and suitable power source.

Suddenly the tanks effective weight is lowered by the thrust of the internal EmDrive. It can cross bridges that without the EmDrive the tank was too heavy for. Operate the EmDrive from solar, and you lower the amount of fuel needed to move the tank, because of the effective reduction in weight. Or you can carry more fuel and ammo because the tanks suspension can handle the extra mass with the EmDrive lowering the weight. Ooops, inertia remains for the added mass though, so easy on the brakes there!

Same for long haul trucks. Same for railroading. Put an EmDrive in each car of the train, and you’ve got a massively more efficient transportation system.

Hybrid aircraft. The EmDrive lowers the weight of the vehicle, again, making it more fuel efficient. Put the EmDrive on a zeppelin, with the exterior of the zeppelin covered in solar cell fabric, and you can cruise the world for zero fuel cost.

Aerial crane helicopters now become much more efficient. Same for ground based cranes. Have to lift a load 200 feet by crane? Put an EmDrive on the load, power it up, and your crane is now several per cent more efficient.

Even a few newtons per KW will make some/all of the above possible.

What happens when we can use an ambient temperature superconductor with a working Em Drive? Weight for generators and power cables goes way down, efficiency goes through the roof.

I know this is early days for any proof of concept, but we are talking Richard Seaton watching the experiment fly through the skylight and out of sight territory here if ANY of this is real. Deep change will be upon us. Forty days to Mars, a year to the Kuyper belt, mining the asteroids.

The end of worry over an upper Torino Scale object ending all life on Earth. If some rock has our name on it, we slap an EmDrive and power source on the offensive bit of slag, and shove it on its’ way.

This is H. G. Wells meets “Doc” Smith times Victor Appleton II, with a dash of G. Harry Stine and John W. Campbell. If it works, somewhere they will are having a laugh at our expense, and smiling!

Against all odds, we might have a future worth having, after all…

Petronius

The power source might not be so simple…

Minimum wage increases cause automated restaurants

All-Vegetarian Automated Restaurant Opens in Downtown DC

Rod

Petraeus

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/petraeus-would-have-to-notify-probation-officer-if-offered-state-job/article/2608579

Does this mean that someone in government will actually have effective oversight?

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 Excellence;  Avoider of Yard Work

Having met a few probation officers, I’d say no.

Korey Harvey

Subject: Warning about Chinese Camera Manufacturer’s

The e-mail stream is a bit lengthy but I deleted a lot of the superfluous info. This is from the surveillance folks that have installed all of our surveillance cameras around the City, they come from the military and security groups and now run a private company. The information they pass along regarding the cameras and camera systems might help some of the agencies looking into camera surveillance programs. I left they contact information on one of the e-mails in case anyone needs to call and get more information from them.

Yes, Please do forward this.  The US really needs to become more aware of the threat that China can be on our infrastructure

Yep, do you mind if I send this e-mail on to all the other police departments in Monterey?

Exactly, that is why I included King City and the other PD’s in my email.  They must think security first!  Just imagine this, that the Chinese government gets into the PD’s records, evidence, crime reports, etc… through a backdoor in the surveillance system.  It’s not just a probability that this could happen it has happened.

And having access to surveillance cameras and surveillance systems all over the country is not a bad perk for the Chinese either, make a bunch of money selling surveillance cameras that give you access to the surveillance system. Very smart move especially when most companies (and government entities) worry more about the bottom line and the lowest bid for equipment.

I was on the Information Security Team when Cisco’s Internet Operating System (IOS) software was stolen by Huawei. A Chinese backed networking company who got its start by stealing Cisco Systems source code. 

We were tasked to go through the code and identify the stolen Intellectual Property.  When we looked at their source code it was almost laughable.  We thought that we were tasked with something that would be difficult to prove but Huawei did not even bother to remove the Cisco Copyright statements from huge sections of the code.  Based on my experience with Huawei vs Cisco,  the Chinese are out to steal their way to success at the expense of US companies.

I am passing this information along since I know many cities in Monterey/Santa Clara County are looking to deploy cameras, including the installation of cameras in sensitive areas (PD’s, airports, hospitals). HikVision is now the world’s largest camera manufacturer. They are being extremely aggressive in the Public Safety and Government verticals in the USA.  I’ve seen 2 RFP’s go out that have spec’ed this camera into their bid.  HikVision is a Homeland security concern.  We do NOT recommend or install them. Many integrators are also responding to RFP’s using these cameras, due to their low price point, not being aware of the security risks.

https://security.world/is-the-worlds-biggest-surveillance-camera-maker-sending-footage-to-china/

Regards,

Maria

On Climate Change.

We were all sold by the smooth talking speech giving politician Al Gore with his

2006 “Inconvenient Truth” movement. Now anybody who questions the global warming

narrative and subsequent “Carbon Tax” that results in windfall profits it brings.

Anyone going against the narrative is a “Science Denier”.

But I am pretty sure that we all have been fooled on CO2 and……;

 

I think it’s 10x harder to convince them they’ve been fooled.

(Nobody has the time to become un-fooled.)

It turns out that a group of “scientists” colluded to produce the “Global Warming” scam.

It’s all an effort to fleece the huddled masses of more money in the form of “Carbon Tax”.

Of course, if you listen to Obama, this “Fake News” and Russian propaganda site is to be

ignored. Even though James Corbett is always armed to the teeth with facts and charts.

It’s unfortunate the simple people just want somebody (Obama) to tell them the truth.

They don’t have time to investigate for themselves.

The latest 17 minute (Too much information) Global Warming Corbett Report;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT4133vfTmk&t=69s

Other too much information reports;

(It’s easier to just believe Obama and mainstream media.)

Nobel Laureate on Global Warming;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCy_UOjEir0&t=282s

Noam Chomsky on Global Warming;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJUA4cm0Rck&t=85s

The climate is however, changing and there’s nothing we can do about it.

We know it has been warmer than now in Viking times, and colder in the a8th and 19^th Centuries. Beyond that is theory.

‘Global warming’ hits Tokyo. 

<https://asiancorrespondent.com/2016/11/japan-tokyo-first-november-54-years/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Leftist Propaganda

The propaganda becomes most ridiculous these days. On Yahoo News, sourced to Thompson Reuters, I’ve seen the most incredible piece of “news” yet. This piece holds out hope that one could use the 25th amendment to remove Trump from power:

<.>

There are two options to remove a mentally unfit president, which were helpfully laid out step-by-step by Fusion. The first option requires a majority of the president’s cabinet — positions such as secretary of state and secretary of defense — joining together with the vice president to declare the president is unfit. The second option requires the vice president to convince a majority of the House of Representatives and the Senate to decide the president is unfit. Both chambers of Congress then submit a letter stating such, which removes the president from power.

In both cases, the president can then submit a letter claiming he is fit for office, which then mandates a special session to vote on the issue. Once that special session is called, those trying to oust the president, in this case Trump, would have 21 days to convince a two-thirds majority of both Congressional chambers to vote to keep Trump out of the Oval Office.

While this might seem like a long shot, many are navigating toward it.

</>

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-steps-search-secretary-state-meet-petraeus-180957953.html

Now, how would the GOP Congress, enfranchised by Trump and confirmed through Paul Ryan’s announcement craft such letters and secure a 2/3 majority? Are we to endure four to eight years of this sort of

nonsense? The election ended; these people must get on with their

lives.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I find it rather amusing.

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