Tuesday, November 22, 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.

Windows 10 seems to changed the privilege rules for local internal networks, and while there may be some logic in what they have done I haven’t found any explanations I understand. I see all my other computers and RAID storage devices; I can read some of them, but I can’t copy them. When I try to change sharing, one approach seems to say they are already shared. Another says the folder can’t be shared. This is nuts. It was easy enough under Windows 7, but now they have improved it all to the point of unusability. Thanks, guys. You really make sure Windows Gurus have jobs. Unfortunately I have always been a mere user, and Microsoft never gave a tinker’s curse for mere users.

I can use the cloud as a sort of sneaker net, but that seems absurd; and my network of storage devices has become unusable, or nearly so. Fortunately I still have big multi-terabyte hard disks and easy external connections, and that’s easy to use, but I’m back to sneaker net; which is a protection from ransomware, but great heavens. Why is this an improvement?

The news from Washington depends on who’s telling it. Of course it always did: CNN always did have a picture of Washington that didn’t have much to do with what I saw when I was there, and the other media sure had more of the Ted Kennedy “Star Wars” notion of Strategic Defense and SDI than I saw, even when I was chairman of the group that was inventing SDI, and my view from Newt Gingrich’s office had little resemblance to what the media was reporting. There doesn’t seem to be much improvement since. The media reports what it wants you to believe, which may or may not reflect the real world, and it seems more subject to the belief of the reporters and editors that to what’s happening.

As an example, during the campaign Mr. Trump said that Hillary Clinton ought to be in jail. That’s pretty extreme, but the plain fact is that if I or anyone I knew had abused the security regulations on classified information in the way she did, I’d have certainly been fired, never again entrusted with classified briefings or documents, and I certainly would have violated laws that carried incarceration as a possible penalty. Now Mr. Trump has said he has no intention of prosecuting her. That’s a policy decision that certainly squares with my view of history. Prosecuting elected chiefs of state usually ends badly, and criminalizing political decisions has never been a good idea.

It has been an exhausting two days. Roberta is getting better. We need to do a lot of preparation for her to come home.

Trump Will Not Prosecute Clinton

I can see your response already, “Did you think he was really going to appoint a special prosecutor?”

<.>

President-elect Donald Trump won’t subject Hillary Clinton to a criminal inquiry — instead, he’ll help her heal, his spokeswoman said Tuesday.

<…>

“Look, I think, he’s thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign are not among them,” Conway, who is now on the Trump transition team, said in her interview.

</>

https://nypost.com/2016/11/22/trump-wont-pursue-charges-against-clinton/

So, what’s on his mind right now is not what he was saying during the campaign. Business as usual. And he wants to help Clinton heal?

What planet are these people on?

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I will repeat: prosecutions for former chiefs of state for official actions has seldom ended well, No one has asked me for my opinion, but I would be very wary of doing that; and I would certainly not call the last few days business as usual.

The possibility of the existence of a reactionless drive overshadows even the election.

Mr. Trump has expressed his intention to re-focus NASA away from LEO navel-gazing and towards deep-space exploration.

He needs to be made aware that we may very well have the keys to the Solar System in our hands; and all NASA efforts, including the shilly-shallying around we’ve been doing with the so-called ‘space station’ should be redirected towards figuring out if this is indeed what we hope and pray it is.

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

EmDrive

Jerry

So the EmDrive produces 1.2 mN/kW. If my dimensional analysis is correct, that’s about 120 mg at 1 m/s^2. That’s pretty good return for 1000 Watts. In the Conclusions section, the authors note that a Hall thruster will produce about 60 mN/kW, but that requires a reaction mass.

One thing, though: in illustration 19, without extrapolations it looks like the thrust tops out at about 88 micronewtons/kW, about 0.088 mN/kW – both at 60 watts and 80 watts. I don’t trust made-up curves (I see a lot of them in my business). Curve-fitting depends on your choice of curves. So I’d like to see a machine scaled to deliver 1 kilowatt before I decide what an EmDrive can do at that power.

Other than that, I can only wonder what the US Navy and the Chinese have discovered.

Ed

Reactionless drive rough calculations

Hi Jerry:

I ran some back-of-the-envelope calculations on the reactionless drive, and it looks pretty disappointing for interstellar work, but promising for the solar system, at least with current technology.

The GHRS-RTG radioisotope thermoelectric generators used in the Cassini and Galileo missions have the highest power-to-mass ratio of any RTG: 5.2 to 5.4 W/kg. With the thrust of the drive at 1.2 mN/kW, if you neglect the mass of the drive and just count the mass of the power source, this works out to an acceleration of 6E-7 m/s2. Because the thrust force scales with the mass of the power source, mass of the power source falls out of the equation–i.e, building a larger, higher power (more massive) power source does not improve acceleration, assuming power source mass is proportional to output power.

So an RTG powered craft, accelerating at 6E-7 m/s2, would achieve the following velocities and distances over time:

1 year; 18 m/s (about 40 mph); 540,000 km (to the moon and beyond)

10 years; 180 m/s; 54 million km (over half way to Mars at closest approach)

The amount of time it would take to get to relativistic speeds (say c/10) is 1.7 million years. Unfortunately the half-life of the 238Pu in the RTG is 87.7 years, so it would never reach those speeds.

Things are better with solar panels, limited to use in the inner solar system. Solar panels used in space deliver about 300W/kg, so acceleration could be 3.6E-4 m/s2. This would give:

1 year; 11 km/s; 324 million km (taking into account acceleration and deceleration, perhaps one round trip to Mars)

Accelerating to c/10 would now take 2800 years, and would have to be achieved by shining a laser on the craft as it left the vicinity of the sun.

So I think we would need some quantum leaps in power source density and drive efficiency for the system to be useful for interstellar work, but it might be useful for inner solar system missions in the shorter term.

Hoping for you continued health and Roberta’s continuing improvement,

Doug Ely

Enlisted

President is Constitutionally responsible for commissioning all officers, and not one person should be commissioned who has not served at least four years as enlisted personnel.

———————

An acquaintance of mine, former navy, gave me this story.

When a new device of some sort was introduced, the contractors would wine and dine the enlisted to solicit their opinions as the the suitability of the product. This lasted only until the officers heard about this practice. From then on it was the officers who were wined and dined.

B-

I’m not sure either officers or non-coms ought to be meeting with lobbyists.

Officers and orders, giving and taking

Dear Doctor Pournelle,

Has Mr. Harrington served? He seems unaware of a basic fact of military

organizations: commissioned officers follow orders much more often than they give them. Also, the vast majority of commissioned officers in the United States armed forces do not come from the service academies, even if you throw in such state operated schools as The Citadel, Texas A&M and VMI. Most of the officers come from ROTC along with a Golden Few from the ranks through Officer Training School. It’s always been easy and a bit “fun” to bash the federal academy grads. Terms like “Ring Knockers” are easily uttered by chairborne commandos. “Throw the brute out, but when the bullets begin to fly, it’s “thin red line of ‘eroes!”

We ask eighteen-year old men and women to give up ten years of their lives (that’s what it takes if you go the full four years at one of those Federal academies), with a fair chance of being killed or maimed on active service, and then some choose to sneer at them for acting a bit like boys and girls now and then while at school?

Petronius

There is a reason for insisting that commissioned officers have more education. It might be worth discussion another time.

on the Chicago shootings

http://heyjackass.com/

A one page summary.

—

Phil

Enlightening. Also frightening.

Liberals who claim history’s on their side got a cold wake-up call

One of the more thought provoking essays:  http://nypost.com/2016/11/17/liberals-who-claim-historys-on-their-side-just-got-a-cold-wake-up-call/

Democrats haven’t been this upset since Republicans took away their slaves.

J

Claiming to be in step with the march of history was one of the communists’ most persuasive arguments.

Suggestions for the new President

Those news organizations (CNN, NYTimes, et al) who were so obviously in the tank for the Clinton campaign should have their press credentials revoked and/or lose their seats in the White House Press Room. Alternatively, if that’s too radical, there should be a news blackout for the Press Room for a week or a month, however long it takes to get the point across. They need access to perform their function but the Administration doesn’t need them. Let them sit in the Press Room endlessly. Maybe once a day a low-level staffer could come out and tell them “We have nothing for you today. Come back tomorrow if you feel like it.” and then walk away. Just let them stew in their own juices.

Tim

I have many other Draconian suggestions; the question is whether it is the best policy; will that produce the best results when you do make drastic changes in law enforcement and regulatory policies? How much strain do we need? There’s going to be a lot.

Regulations and Bunny Inspectors

Jerry,

As has been mentioned, all federal regulations should have sunset clauses. Each new regulation will require 5 regulations to be deleted from the CFR.

Proposed regulations will have a base review period of 30 days, a day of review is defined as a day when both houses of congress are in session. The review period will be extended one day for any day both houses are not in session. For any proposed regulation with more than 1000 words in length the review period will be increased 1 day for each additional 1000 words or less. A word is defined as 5 characters.

So for a proposed regulation of 3,450 words, it will have a base review period of 35 days when each house is in session. As an example of how the review period works, take October and November 2016 and assume the regulation is presented for review on October 21, 2016. So far from 10/21/16, both houses have been in session for 5 days from 10/21/16 to 11/18/16, so the review period will have had 5 days thus far. So there would remain 30 days for the review to be completed. So for this example there will be at least 58 calendar days for review of the regulation as of today.

Lagniappe for you — No new regulation shall be entered into the CFR nor any current regulation in the CFR be modified until regulations for bunny inspectors for magicians are deleted from the CFR, or magicians are exempted from inspecting bunnies. Deletions of regulations from the CFR may be made during this period.

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

We’ll have to see. I’m betting we will still have bunny inspectors and no one will know why.

Secretary of Space

Matthew Joseph Harrington had some interesting ideas in his letter. For first Secretary of Space, I’d like to nominate Mr. Steve Barnes.

Michael D. Houst

It is unlikely, but it’s not a bad idea. NASA could use some common sense and a non-political administrator. Perhaps more likely:

N in NASA stands for Newt

Dr. Pournelle,
Thought you might find this amusing. Newt for head of NASA:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442308/newt-gingrich-nasa-he-can-fix-it
-d

Yeah, really

https://www.washingtonpost.com/classic-apps/2016/11/12/e72b9856-a859-11e6-8042-f4d111c862d1_story.html?wpisrc=nl_draw2&wpmm=1#comments

Notice the juxtaposition of those quoted in the article, and the comments of the readers of WaPo…

Enjoy, 

Couv

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

Something old, yet something all too new…

Jerry,

I would suggest the incoming administration regularly reaffirm John Quincy Adams’ ides in his address on July 4, 1821.  His warning is all too true L

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

<http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/speech-on-independence-day/>

Speech on Independence Day, John Quincy Adams, United States House of Representatives, July 4, 1821

An address, delivered at the request of the committee of arrangements  for celebrating the anniversary of Independence,  at the City of Washington on the  Fourth of July 1821  upon the occasion of reading  The Declaration of Independence

“….what has America done for the benefit of mankind? let our answer be this–America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, equal justice, and equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations, while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama, the European World, will be contests between inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit…..”

I am fairly sure Mr. Trump has read that speech.

Working and eating

“This is the old argument which used to be important in considering “entitlements”: government decrees face taxpayers with enforcement. To whom do we nave a binding – not moral – obligation? Are all men to be paid for existing, and that payment to be extracted at the point of a gun?”
Dr Pournelle, this argument has been lost since 1965, when voting became a “right” and we moved to a warm-body (at best; Chicago waived that requirement at least 5 years earlier) democracy. There used to be something called a “pauper’s oath”; it hasn’t been a factor in my lifetime, but it basically said that if you were unable to support yourself you no longer had the privilege of voting how the guns would be employed to threaten the productive.
We are encountering an increasing number of people whose only goods of value are their votes in those warm body elections, or their bodies for riot and insurrection. That population is only being expanded by open borders, and also by the increasing percentage of jobs that can’t be performed by the left side of the bell-curve. I realize that there are lots of people who claim that better technology has only increased job opportunities, but that was on a lower level of technological sophistication.
I’m not sure there IS a good answer; any attempt to restrict voting to the productive will require a second Revolution, since we otherwise won’t be able to pass the changes through the current machinery, but it is something that someone needs to contemplate.

SDN

Matthew Joseph Harrington

Here are my objections.

————–

Veto any budget that exceeds the previous year’s Treasury revenue, on the grounds that the wording of the Constitution makes it quite clear that the United States can operate on credit only in time of declared war, and only to pay the costs of said war.

————–

Bush Sr tried that, and Congress played the game of political blackmail in that they then submitted a second budget equally objectionable.

Reagan also ran in to that obstacle.

————–

Congressional selectees be damned, sadistic training centers run like British boys’ schools likewise: the President is Constitutionally responsible for commissioning all officers, and not one person should be commissioned who has not served at least four years as enlisted personnel. Before anybody gets the job of giving orders he ought to have some fucking clue of what is involved in carrying the goddamn things out.

————–

Can a distinction be made regarding combat and non combat officers?

—————

The President should propose to the States that all election days be holidays.

—————

In my State they have early voting, on weekends including Sunday, as well as extended hours. Don’t know about other States, but maybe a requirement that an employee get 2 hours off to go vote.

—————-

This loss of privileged status will extend to government mailings.

—————-

And apply Anti-Trust to USPS.

—————-

The President should declare a general amnesty on taxation of income from all forms of creative work, such as art, writing, and music, on the grounds that the First Amendment protects both freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and therefore equal treatment should given to both.

—————-

Why should Creative People not have to pay their share of taxes? And what is a Creative Work? Inventions? Does the New York Times become a Tax Exempt Charity?

B-

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

Saturday, November 19, 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.

Suggestions for Government

1. Foster effective education with a focus on the Trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric — in that exact order), critical thought (start with survey, question, read, recite, review), and general semantics (both books by Johnson at least).

2. Develop and maintain the largest possible reserves of reliable energy in the shortest amount of time with minimal cost and maximum abundance.

3. Maintain and expand access of information, data, and opinion.

4. Maintain and expand the individual rights to self defense and rights to protect property.

5. Explore and exploit space and the oceans for resources, travel, commerce, pleasure, and the general business of advancing the human species.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

The first is worth considering, but I would suggest it should be considered by the states, not the Federal Government, which ought to abandon the notion of telling the states how to educate their children. Wise states would then delegate that responsibility to local schools and locally elected school boards. Most would not adopt your proposed curriculum, but a few might. It would be worthwhile establishing such a school as a voluntary magnet in the District of Columbia (Congress certainly has that power) as example for the states to consider. There is no chance that the Congress would impose such a classic curriculum on all schools everywhere, and such a Federal imposition would rightly be considered an act of tyranny. Of course you know that.

Dictating to everyone because the government knows what’s best is not constitutional even when what is dictated may be wise and certainly better that current practice, and would not have the consent of the governed.

The other points are certainly worth considering and some of them have powerful advocates.

I post this now because it’s either a terrible mistake by what seems to be sincere and dedicated people, or the best news I have heard since the Fall of the Soviet Union; it is also a significant development in the integration of Newtonian, Einsteinian, and Quantum models of the universe.  I have read the paper. I understood most of it.  I have not checked the accuracy of their calculations, and clearly I have no way of verifying the observations; the error analysis appeals to me, but others more familiar may be able to show errors. Having said all that, it looks good to me. It appears to be a 1 mN/KW spacedrive.

 

 

EmDrive study published.

<http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/full/10.2514/1.B36120>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Friday, November 18

I suppose I should call this a “Mail” rather than a View since it will be mostly a presentation and discussion of comments on yesterday’s View, but since the subjects are of present concern, my comments will be about my views, and I expect that’s enough of that fuzziness. Roberta looks better every day, and she’s talking better. She’ll be in Holy Cross hospital at least two more weeks, which is great; their program sure got me back on my feet and the road to recovery.

Free Trade

I concur with David Friedman about free trade. When I am told that a treaty that’s hundreds of pages long is a free trade treaty, I wonder what definition of free trade they’re using. That’s a managed international trade treaty, which may or may not be freer than the current situation.

Fredrik Coulter

The debate on Free Trade as opposed to the various complex pacts we have negotiated is a certainty.

Furor over Mr. Trump’s election continues, as does the yammer of criticism. Cabinet posts are not usually announced before December, but much of the main stream press can’t resist reporting confusion and doubt at Trump Towers because he hasn’t named his cabinet yet. Of course if he had, they would pound him for being hasty. I would think this unrelenting criticism would become tiresome; I know it causes me to wonder if they have anything accurate to report on anything in the world. I also wonder why no one asks why the current sitting President, or someone who speaks for him, doesn’t tell those protesting the election to tone it down before either a protester gets hurt, or the protesters work themselves into a frustration fit and hurt someone or loot a store, or, as has happened in the past, both. I’m not sure what they want; the results are certain, a recount would be expensive and would not find enough evidence of fraud to change the results, and Mr. Trump is not going to resign because they’re showing how unhappy they are. Surely they know that?

CNN lists some demands that are popular with protesters. The first is “Dump Trump” in hopes the Electoral College – which never meets, each state electoral group assembles separately – but that is rather unlikely. You may peruse the others here: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/11/politics/trump-protests-key-demands/

I am told that Mr. Trump will reinstitute the National Space Council https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/249501/ with the Vice President as chair. Long time readers may recall that General Graham, Max Hunter, and I had a session with Vice President Quayle, then Chair of the National Space Council, regarding recommendations of the Citizens Council on Space Policy (http://home.earthlink.net/~jerryp/Citizen.html and https://books.google.com/books?id=v6eTVBEDA54C&pg=RA2-PT32&lpg=RA2-PT32&dq=1989+Graham+Pournelle+Quayle&source=bl&ots=CvpGVNNQD1&sig=bwV4wZcZWE7hMmhKXTapO9Zr4_A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwilq7Lkx7PQAhWkqVQKHTSWDjkQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=1989%20Graham%20Pournelle%20Quayle&f=false ), regarding the SSX project we recommended; the result was the DC/X which flew a few years later, as well as other developments for commercial space. The National Space Council was an important institution. Mr. Clinton was no space enthusiast, and abolished it in his first term of office; it should be revised.

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Richard and his family arrive in hours, and before that I need to get out to the hospital to see Roberta, so this will be brief. Yesterday was consumed by household activities.

There is much furor and terror, much of that feigned and more stoked by the media, over Mr. Trump’s announcement of Attorney General. I am surprised; I expected Mr. Giuliani. Whoever is Attorney General will find that rounding up and deporting the two million illegals convicted of felonies will be both difficult and expensive, and will pretty well exhaust his available resources. There will be few left for the more controversial task of dealing with law abiding undocumented immigrants, and determining which of those have ever been involved in federal crimes like voting in an election will take resources he may not even have. Once that is done we can come to a decision about the remaining millions. Of course, if they call attention to themselves by rioting (which the vast majority of them do not) that will go a long way toward resolving any moral contradictions we feel; it will also be at least two years, and perhaps progress will have been made in getting the borders under control.

Of the “dream” immigrants – — I  those brought here illegally while of a tender age – I would think there is a simple solution for many: let honorable service in the armed forces be accompanied by a green card upon honorable discharge, and for those who have served multiple enlistments a path to citizenship. I imagine a bill establishing that policy would be adopted by Congress and Mr. Trump would sign it without difficulty.

Of course the first principle of populist government is to obtain the consent of the governed. The best way to obtain that is to leave many critical decisions in more local hands. The immigration laws determine who gets to consent, and who must obey consent or no. We do not ask felons for their consent to be punished, nor should we. And migration without any intent of assimilation remains invasion.

End Of The World As We Know It?

Judging from what I’ve seen and read, we’re around Stage l.5 or 2 right now, maybe 3, election results-wise, for most. A few ‘clairvoyants’ have jumped to the later stages, but it’s mostly for publicity’s sake.
The five stages of grief:
1. Denial: The first reaction is denial. In this stage individuals believe the diagnosis is somehow mistaken, and cling to a false, preferable reality.
2. Anger: When the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue, they become frustrated, especially at proximate individuals. Certain psychological responses of a person undergoing this phase would be: “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; ‘”Who is to blame?”; “Why would this happen?”.
3. Bargaining: The third stage involves the hope that the individual can avoid a cause of grief. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek compromise.
4. Depression: “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I’m going to die soon, so what’s the point?”; “I miss my loved one, why go on?” During the fourth stage, the individual despairs at the recognition of their mortality. In this state, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time mournful and sullen.
5. Acceptance: “It’s going to be okay.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.” In this last stage, individuals embrace mortality or the inevitable future.
Based entirely on what I’ve seen from the younger members of my family on election night and in the following days, the formula is tracking right along, without deviation. The tragedy the young and empathetic feel when they assume that their particular ox will be gored is palpable. I doubt sincerely that the Donald or the young mourners have a fine appreciation for how the system works and how deeply embedded are the contractors, lobbyists, and ‘civil servants’ involved in making that ‘system’ ‘work’, however poorly the ‘system’s’ performance may be evaluated by many Americans.

D

Interesting observation.

Piers Morgan, of all people, tells millennials to suck it up and learn from Trump.

<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3942278/PIERS-MORGAN-Memo-millennials-awful-feeling-ve-got-called-losing-happens-want-know-win-stop-whinging-bit-learn-lessons-Trump.html>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

In another conversation I said:

“Actually, the problem is we do not lag; we manufacture plenty, more than we used to, with a lot fewer workers.  Our productivity is good for profits, but lousy for labor.  Those employed are paid well, but far fewer are employed.  As Moore’s law continues to raise the productivity of robots, this will cotinine.

“And the schools are so dammed lousy that we aren’t teaching kids to think of things to do that others will pay money for, nor do we teach them the lesson from last Sunday, Paul to the Thessalonians, those who do not work shall not eat.  In this era of amazing productivity things are not that stark, but is it government’s job to feed those who do not feed themselves? Do those who want to eat have any obligation at all other than being born?

‘When all men are paid for existing, and none shall pay for their sins…’ “

Which elicited this reply:

Those who do not work shall not eat.

From an anecdotal standpoint I’ve got plenty of friends (younger than I) who either are working, but struggling to make ends meet or are simply struggling to stay employed at all. I’ve got friends who seem to get stuck in temp position after temp position with one one seemingly willing or able to give them a proper job. 

Then I have other friends who complain about getting lowballed on salaries and the like.

Hell, its only in the last few years that I myself have begun to feel like I have any amount of my own affairs in decent order and I still feel behind the curve on account of not owning my own home or feeling like I have anywhere close to enough socked away for retirement, and I am getting pretty well compensated these days.

Not saying that these two groups are connected, but I think often times when rhetoric gets tossed about regarding govt handouts and what is the responsibility of the govt I get the impression that sometimes folks may think that the people are the ones who are failing the system and I think that this may not necessarily be the case. I realize that it is a complex subject but lets not forget that at the end of the day were talking about fellow citizens and try to not paint things so black and white. Apologies if this is somewhat stream of consciousness.

D

It is well to keep in mind that there are moral obligations for us all; but those are moral obligations. Obligations imposed by the government are enforced by armed men and the threat of prison. Paul is not relieving the Thessalonians of their obligation to look out for the poor amongst them, but he is pointing out that those obligations are not unlimited. This is the old argument which used to be important in considering “entitlements”: government decrees face taxpayers with enforcement. To whom do we nave a binding – not moral – obligation? Are all men to be paid for existing, and that payment to be extracted at the point of a gun? No one suggests that you may not voluntarily help the “undeserving”; we are debating the obligation to do so. Ann Rand would say no one has such an obligation to anyone. The Congress of the United States and the President say there are a great number of such obligations upon everyone.

The Department of Defense needs to lose 25% of the Admirals/Generals/SES. Extend all Permanent Change of Station tours one year. Stop requiring all senior enlisted get college degrees. Quit trying to force women into combat, don’t put them on subs. Curtail the F-35 (they’ll be good comms/control nodes & sensor platforms), upgrade F-22s, F-18s, F-15s, F-16s. Keep working on drones. Death beams require all-electric Cruiser sized platforms & lots of power, so bring back nuclear reactors. Reduce crew size. Recognize & encourage the essential value of Tradition. Reduce the Social/Gender/Race Indoctrination.

Increase standards.

On 11/18/2016 5:15 PM, Dan Steele wrote:

The single thing that would improve America’s fiscal condition more than anything else – abolish COLAs.
(from someone who will be receiving 3 government checks in a few years)

Suggestions for President Trump

Doc, you asked for ideas for President Trump’s agenda.

To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, I have some here.

Veto any budget that exceeds the previous year’s Treasury revenue, on the grounds that the wording of the Constitution makes it quite clear that the United States can operate on credit only in time of declared war, and only to pay the costs of said war. Also veto any budget which does not include payment of annual interest and an equal amount in principal on the debts we already have, since any other course of action violates the Constitutional ban on repudiation of government debt.

Congressional selectees be damned, sadistic training centers run like British boys’ schools likewise: the President is Constitutionally responsible for commissioning all officers, and not one person should be commissioned who has not served at least four years as enlisted personnel. Before anybody gets the job of giving orders he ought to have some fucking clue of what is involved in carrying the goddamn things out.

The nation with the largest petroleum production in the world is the United States of America. The reason oil is imported from other countries is that Federal regulations set an unrealistic limit on the price of domestic oil when sold domestically; consequently most American oil is sold abroad, and much of it is bought back at OPEC prices… and none of this oil moves across our borders, as these transactions are all on paper. The President can sidestep this insanity by having all domestic oil production purchased by the United States Navy, over which he has full command and need not consult Congress until such time as a Constitutional Amendment is passed to the contrary. This oil will be bought at a reasonable profit for domestic producers, and will in turn be sold to the domestic oil processing industry at a markup of ten percent, which is still well below OPEC prices and should do much to support my next step. The United States Navy will of course have in its physical possession just as much of this oil as foreign transshipment dealers do now.

As the President is Constitutionally obliged to decide whether to veto or approve any bill within ten days of receiving it, and therefore has to be able to read the goddamn thing within ten days, I recommend that he automatically veto any bill which has not been read aloud in the presence of everyone who votes on it, on the grounds that it is an attempt to circumvent the Constitution.

The President should restore the Air Force to the status of a Corps within the Army. The fifth side of the Pentagon should then be the domain of the Space Force. This will take over the job of high-altitude intelligence gathering, and will be responsible for maintaining a manned presence in orbit. It will also take over the launch facilities currently being wasted by NASA in its mission to make the Universe safe for robots. Since the Space Force will require the most competent and versatile flyers it is possible to have, spacecraft operators will be recruited from the ranks of Naval aviators. Pilots from other branches of the military who wish to join will be permitted to do so after being trained up to the standard of aviators. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of years for applicants who have the right stuff. (The job description of the Secretary of Space should include a requirement that any appointee must have sold at least one hard-SF story, but trying to explain the concept to Congress would be a nightmare.)

The President should, in the event of a vacancy on the Supreme Court, interrogate all potential candidates for the position on exactly one question: “What powers currently exercised by the Congress are both necessary and proper?”

The DEA should be made into a branch of the FDA, and the FDA should no longer have the authority to prevent the issue of products of any kind. However, the FDA would have Draconian authority over product labeling, and any product not yet found to meet FDA safety standards, or which has not been found to be effective for whatever people have claimed, or both, will have a big red stamp right across the front of the product that says so. Heroin and cocaine and meth and so on had damn well better be inspected and accurately labeled as to weight and content, too. Federal laws against their possession and use will of course not be enforceable, since the precedent of the 18th Amendment establishes that all such laws are unconstitutional; but their manufacture and sale are covered under the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Any bureaucracy which is responsible for disbursing money to people, and spends more money on its employees than is received by the people the money is meant to get to, needs to experience mass firings until this situation no longer obtains.

The President should propose to the States that all election days be holidays. The only people with a rational motive to oppose this will be the ones who don’t want people with jobs to vote. (Though an amazing number evidently took time off from work on the most recent occasion.)

The President should restore the office of Postmaster General to Cabinet status, to wit: Secretary of Communications. This officer will be in charge of the Post Office and FCC, and will be tasked with making certain nothing inhibits the free and ready flow of information. The first step will be to review regulations of the FCC for Constitutionality and revoke all which do not meet black-letter standards of what the government is permitted to do. In particular these regulations will be required to qualify as both necessary and proper. The next will be to remove privileged status from mass mailings, which will henceforth pay the same cost by weight as first class mail. This will ensure that actual information is not lost in the shuffle. This loss of privileged status will extend to government mailings.

The President should also play Flight 93 before each State of the Union Address:

<iframe width=”854″ height=”480″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/OPYMS9a8ELE” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>

The President should issue pardons to everyone the EPA has ever gone after without a warrant, and require the return of all fines imposed in those cases.

The President should declare a general amnesty on taxation of income from all forms of creative work, such as art, writing, and music, on the grounds that the First Amendment protects both freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and therefore equal treatment should given to both.

Matthew Joseph Harrington

Clearly you raise some arguments that not all would agree to. The requirement that no officers be commissioned unless they have served years as enlisted personnel is clearly mad: doctors and nurses are commissioned, and to impose four years as ward orderlies in addition to their medical training would insure a shortage of doctors. There are other objections to this proposed rule, and to other rules you propose. I would certainly be in favor of exempting authors from self-employment taxes, but I might be thought prejudiced on that subject. I’m still paying for self-employment.

DEA was once under the FDA. I have long advocated that FDA have labeling authority, but not to restrict sales but not blanket authority trod prevent medical professionals from using product. Periodically that is raised in Congress, usually as an exception for “Last resort” and hopeless cases but so far without success. The urge to mind other people’s business is extremely strong, and the FDA protects its turf.

sc:bubbles]

Space junk – it’s what’s up there…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3950304/One-million-pieces-space-junk-hurtling-planet-spell-disaster-life-Earth.html

“Currently the biggest piece of junk flying 225 km (140 miles) above the Earth is Envisat, an Earth observation satellite the size of a double decker bus launched by the European Space Agency in 2002.

“Other hazards include a swarm of 2,000 pieces of debris left by the collision in 2009 of a defunct Russian satellite, Cosmo, and a US commercial satellite.”

Includes link to video. 

Charles Brumbelow

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

Thursday, November 17, 2016

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

Senator Elizabeth Warren

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

Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

Suggestion of the day.

SUGGESTIONS for our new president:
1. Put a list of the 100 things Trump hopes to accomplish on a site labeled “Trump’s 100 goals” and update it regularly to show what he has accomplished.
2. Put a list of what Obama promised to do when he was elected and describe what he did for each item.
Emma L. Cate

It is very likely the first item has been done and is waiting for inauguration; the second may not have been thought of, and coupling them is a good idea. Thanks.

On another thought would be to tax money that is held off shore by American corporations at 10% and use the money for funding for infrastructure or debt reduction. See what happens when you retire, you have soo much time just to think of stuff. ;^)

Tim Bolgeo

Coupling the two might make the tax cut more palatable to Democrats (although presumably not to Ms. Warren); we do have infrastructure problems. Alas, the Trillion spent on stimulus since the 2008 collapse didn’t go to infrastructure improvements; indeed, from here at least, it’s hard to tell who did get all that money. It’s gone and I don’t know where. I make no doubt the incoming administration could keep better track of it; but writing into law some allocations of the new taxes would make sense.

Suggestions for incoming government

I think ADA is here to stay. I expect you have experienced the more beneficial aspects of ADA because of your reduced mobility. ADA works very well when dealing with new construction; we adjusted and now it is ingrained in the design. Where it drains us is when dealing with existing structures. Places that can be retrofitted economically have been completed. So exempt existing structures from ADA compliance.

Greg Brewer

I like that. ADA has its good points but a federal rule protecting the rights of drunks against being fired for being drunk on duty seems a bit extreme; but altering ADA is not simple and will not happen quickly. This could be implemented quickly, and would have an immediate economic effect without being a drastic change in ADA.

I have often pointed out that free trade does promote economic growth: we have the numbers. We also have the remains of our industrial centers, and the rust belt, where once we had thriving industries; we have people who have left the work force and are not officially unemployed – yet they are unemployable and unwillingly on welfare, absorbing tax money paid by those who are employed.

I asked my friend Dr. David Friedman if he had any suggestions for the incoming President. As always, he was forthcoming:

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.

Beyond that, most of it is obvious. Support vouchers in D.C.. Get the education bureaucracy to stop pressuring universities to use a civil standard of proof in sexual accusation cases. Permit interstate health insurance sales.

One piece of advice which he might or might not listen to … . A brain drain is a problem when you are the country it is draining out of. It’s a good thing when you are the country it is draining into. If a hundred thousand or so of the smartest people in India and China migrate to the U.S. that is a good thing both in the short run and the long run. In the short run it means we have more smart computer people, more competent physicians. In the long run it means that the average intelligence of the population goes up, even if not by very much.

David

We also have:

Free Trade

I wouldn’t be surprised if all these free trade deals did lead to more rapid economic growth, when measured on a global scale. But the benefits were not so evenly distributed, both among competing countries, and among the workers in our country. Clearly, the damage to blue collar factory workers was considerable. The changes produced by globalization happened too rapidly, relative to the ability of many people to make adjustments to their careers.
Unfortunately, history does not allow do-overs. Even if renewed tariffs or renegotiated trade agreements does shift the balance back toward the US, you know perfectly well that only a fraction of the jobs that left will be coming back, due to automation. And part of the cost of leveling the field for US workers could well be overall slower growth globally. Whether or not the US could escape the impact of a further global slowdown isn’t clear to me.
I will also point to recent article in the New York Times which discusses a little mentioned trend, namely that global trade has been flat, or declining recently:
Craig
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/upshot/a-little-noticed-fact-about-trade-its-no-longer-rising.html

I do remind you: increased productivity leads to a higher paid work force, but a more productive work force produces more goods with fewer workers: that is, increased productivity per worker makes your nation more competitive as compared to other nations, but increased productivity does not automatically lead to new jobs: without economic growth it has the opposite effect.  Increased productivity – robots – can lead to new jobs, but generally that is in new firms. Regulations that discourage startups mean fewer new firms, and in a time of growing capability of robots – increased productivity per human worker – those regulations generally guarantee first unemployment, then what Mrs. Clinton called the deplorables.

Free trade and automobiles and the Iron Law

Jerry,

I’m currently a retired union member, and I was one for most of my working life since I got my first job at GM in 1968, right out of High School. 

Speaking from my personal experience of five years (68-73) working at GM, the union (UAW) killed the American auto industry. No one in the entire factory ever worked more than about 70% or 80% of the day. The final hour & a half or two hours of every shift were spent hanging around, reading, BSing, playing cards, drinking coffee and complaining about Japanese cars. When I first started, I tried to work all day. My co-workers sabotaged my equipment, put parts into bins instead of onto the conveyor lines to slow me down and physically threatened me. The UAW supported and defended these actions.

I gave up – I knew I wasn’t going to work there long — I was going to college at the same time — so I just did my quota each day and spent the rest of the shift studying.

My brother is 15 years younger than I.  He also worked for GM and the same dysfunction was also apparent to him.

Management might have been out of touch too, but the unions played their role as well.

Praying for Roberta,

Best,

Tom Locker

Bottom-up view of US auto industry

Dr. Pournelle:
Having a two-generation intimacy with the auto industry, I can vouch for the effectiveness of Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy in Detroit, although my second-hand experience was in Cleveland.
My father worked at the Ford engine assembly plant for 30 years and my brother for two while he saved money for college. There was an inverse relationship between the ascendency of the United Auto Workers union and the quality of US automobiles.
When my father started at Ford in the early ’50s, the balance of power between Ford management and the UAW favored management. As the US became richer and more cars sold, Ford’s goal transitioned from producing quality cars at a profit to producing a profit for the least investment.
Along with this, the UAW’s goal changed from protecting its members to enriching and protecting itself. Union feather-bedding grew to nearly unsustainable proportions, both in union management and on the factory floor. Union management was populated by people who’d never set foot on a factory floor, while nearly illiterate line workers filled the ranks of the hourly workers, workers with an entitlement attitude.
My father, who worked in maintenance, told stories of equipment going offline because of parts pilferage and workers finding out-of-the-way places to drink, gamble, or sleep.
My brother’s job was to break down engines that were inoperative and send the parts back through the assembly line; about one in five from his experience in the ’70s. He told stories of missing valves, pistons installed incorrectly, and hamburger wrappers and other trash found inside cylinders.
All the while, wages and benefits skyrocketed as the UAW became de facto management. He told stories of engines with missing parts because female line workers were put into positions where they did not have the strength to install parts, so they just didn’t. Incompetent employees were unfire-able, instead reassigned to less-and-less demanding positions.
Lay-offs were obsolete. Unneeded employees were put in “employee banks” where they were supposed to show up for “work” and sit in employee lounges on the off chance they might be again be needed. Guess how many actually showed up. Those actually laid off were paid 75-percent of their base pay not to work.
My family did benefit from the rising wage and benefits tide, moving from the lower middle class to the upper middle class, but the joke was that when my father died and his retirement benefits ceased the average cost of a Ford dropped $3.
It’s little wonder that better, less expensive, higher-mileage offshore cars brought an end to Detroit.
Pete Nofel

Electoral College

In the aftermath of Mr. Trump winning the Presidential election despite having lost the popular vote, there has been a lot written and said lately about States Rights, Federalism, and the structure of the electoral college. While not a deep student of history, I have at least a basic understanding of how the system we have in place came to be. I have an appreciation of how the system was intended to provide protection for the interests of smaller states, and thus gives them some advantages, such as equal representation in the Senate, and extra weight in the electoral college. (The extra weight they have in the House of Representatives seems an aberration of changes made in the early 20th century, and not the handiwork of the founding fathers.)
What occurs to me as I watch this debate play out is that just because something was once historically relevant and important, doesn’t mean it is always remains relevant or important. This was driven home to me recently, reading an essay in National Review in which the author suggested that the popular vote shouldn’t be as relevant as the electoral college, and offered this observation:
Do we want a president who wins by running up the score in one or two states, or do we want a president who wins by garnering narrower victories in a wide array of states?
This was jarring and somewhat bizarre question, because, in terms of my political identity, I have never ever thought of myself primarily as a Resident of the The State of XX, where XX is the code that terminates my address. I have always thought of myself of as an American. The state that I live in just happened to be a side effect of other more important decisions that I have made in my life, or that my parent made. I was born in Wisconsin, and since have lived in Ohio, Missouri, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Minnesota, and then again Ohio. At no point have I ever felt a strong political affiliation or association to any one of those states. Thinking about my news viewing habits, I am far more knowledgeable about what is happening nationally, than I am about local and state developments. I watch mostly national news, read mostly national newspapers. Perhaps this is because the longest I’ve ever lived in any one state was 14 years, and many times my periods of residence have been much shorter.
Perhaps if I had been born in 1750, in the one of the original states, spent my whole life that state, fought in their militia as part of the Revolutionary War, and paid attention mostly to Local and State politics, I would have a different feeling about the importance of States Rights. But that hasn’t been my life. Nor has it been the life of most of my family or colleagues.
So the idea that it should matter to me that a candidate was “running up the score” in another state just seems foreign and bizarre. At a visceral level, I find it hard to accept that a vote cast in California, or New York, or Texas should matter less than a vote cast in Wyoming, or Montana, or the District of Columbia, just because it might have mattered in 1776.
It seems an inevitable consequence of a highly mobile society that people will come to expect that basic rights, and the value of their vote, should remain constant as they move around the country. In particular, as mobility homogenizes the nature of the country, as every state become ethnically and politically more diverse, organizing the electoral college around state geography seems to be more and more antiquated. The big divides these days are not so much defined by state geography as by the divide between rural and urban. So, despite the historical usefulness of the electoral college, it does seem that outcomes like this will eventually have a negative effect on public perception of the legitimacy of the outcome.
Craig

the Electoral College

Dear Dr. Pournelle:
I have encountered people saying that the Electoral College ought to be abolished. Obviously the votes to do it aren’t there. But practicalities aside, the usual argument for doing so seems to be that the Electoral College sometimes produces results different from the outcome of a nationwide popular vote; and this seems to be taken as self-evidently unacceptable.
Really? The United States is a federal state, not a unitary one. In a unitary state, the population votes as a whole (if voting is allowed, of course). But a federal state is made up of subunits, and those subunits have to have some separate influence on political decisions, or they’re no more than a facade. So the claim that not following the nationwide popular vote seems to be equivalent to the claim that federal states are always unacceptable, and only unitary states are legitimate. Do the people saying this really want to claim that every federal state on Earth is illegitimate? It seems a bit arrogant to prescribe that every state must have the same structure, no matter what its founders proposed or its people consented to.

William H. Stoddard

Precisely.

I was born in the Depression (1933) in Louisiana ad we moved to Tennessee when I was a very early age. My Tennessee grade schools had a year of state history as well as a year of national history, and I certainly thought of myself as a Tennesseean as well as American.

There would have been no United States save for the Connecticut Compromise that gave the smaller states some means of resisting the majority votes; just as debate on the electoral college is moot since ¾ of the states will never voluntarily ratify any such amendment. We’ll amplify this subject later, but does it not occur to you that the big problem is we have given the Congress too much to do? Too much power over our personal lives? Made us in our personal lives subject to one (national) rule to fit all, when there are many different and defensible opinions about what are good laws and what are mere opportunities for bureaucrats to mess about in our affairs?

Mr. Trump has often pointed out that Roe v Wade imposed a national rule on abortion, but if that ruling were overturned, the subject would be the responsibility of the States; meaning that local majorities would govern a matter on which there seems to no overwhelming agreement? The result would be different laws in different states; precisely as intended by the Convention of 1787 which did not grant Congress any power over abortion whatever. (Or over a very great many subjects which are now controlled by the Federal Government, making it easier for lobbyists: they only have to give money to 100 Senators and 435 Representatives, not importune 50 different state legislatures. I invite you to contemplate this.)

The War of Northern Aggression

(To distinguish from current calls for repetition of the late unpleasantness…)

Jerry,

As you know, the Civil War was fought for many reasons. Slavery was one, but states rights, and protests of tariffs and taxes on southern agriculture that benefited the industrializing north were among the reasons. The latter part gets forgotten.

I’ve grown up with the Stars and Bars all of my life, and have seen it as a symbol of states rights and defiance against federal overreach, not of racism. Of course, other people will differ in their interpretation of any symbol (just as the swastika started as an Indian subcontinent peace symbol – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika).

Coming from southern Kentucky, I also had relatives who fought on both sides of the “late unpleasantness” (my great-great-grandfather apparently crossed into Tennessee and fought as a Confederate, and one of his brothers died in a Union prisoner of war camp; at least one of their uncles supported the Union); as appropriate, I tend to decorate their grave markers with the Confederate battle flag.

Jim

Tariff very much so. A tropic we will discuss another time.

Dear Jerry Pournelle:
Anthropologists distinguish between ‘honor culture’ and ‘dignity culture’. In honor culture, there are superior persons with honor, and inferior persons without; one must earn the privilege of being treated with respect. In dignity culture, respect is a right, had equally by all; it denies that there are superior or inferior persons. Honor cultures tend to exist in places without prosperity or reliable rule of law; dignity cultures tend to exist in places with those blessings.
Therefore dignity culture denies that there  are superior and inferior persons; yet considered as a culture, it is manifestly superior to honor culture! And conversely, honor culture demands that all under it must earn the privilege of being treated with respect, but when compared to dignity culture, and if you go by results, then it has clearly not earned that respect!
There is a chicken-and-egg problem here; are honor cultures that way because they’re too poor to afford a working rule of law, or do they lack effective rule of law because they’re that way? Does dignity come from prosperity, or does prosperity come from dignity? I suspect that the flow of causation is to some extent circular.
This also involves a fallacy of composition. Characteristics of the individual are not necessarily characteristics of the society.
– paradoctor

I will publish this with comments, but I do not concede your “therefore” that the second paragraph is proven by the first. 

Query: is an army company an honor or a dignity community?

The Dignity/Honor Paradox

I’m not sure. Ask an anthropologist. Within the company, it’s all for one and one for all; that’s dignity. But rank does have its privileges; and the company’s purpose is to rudely defend the honor of the nation. So equality and inequality intertwine; the altruism of individuals supports the egotism of the collective.
Maybe I was too judgmental about entire ways of life. But where would you rather live: Sweden or Pakistan?

I grant that the ‘therefore’ between paragraphs 1 and 2 is incomplete; the causation probably also flows in the reverse direction. Folk in lands without law or wealth must defend their honor; and honor culture in turn ensures that the land acquires neither law nor wealth. (This is a memetic/cultural variant of the Iron Law of Bureaucracy: cultural memes have a vested interest in the evils that make them necessary.)
And conversely: does innovation and prosperity support a culture of inherent worth, or does a culture of inherent worth support innovation and prosperity?
Like many paradoxes, the Dignity/Honor Paradox can be darkly comic. Consider the spectacle of the Limousine Liberal, who preaches equality and thus attains superiority. Now consider his dark shadow, the Deplorable, who preaches the existence of inferior persons, and proves it by his example.

I will do this as a dialog, but I do not accept that dignity and honor are mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustive. Of course I would rather live in Sweden, and would have even in the days of Gustav Adolphus.  Of course my ancestors left to go defend Normandy for the French.

Perhaps ‘dignity’ is not the exact term. “Principle” may be closer, or “self-worth”. “Sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me”; not an honor-culture concept. And just as honor culture sins by pride, self-worth culture sins by vanity.
I agree that opposite concepts can coexist in societies and even individuals. Honor is emotional, dignity is intellectual; and emotion and intellect often coexist at cross-purposes in individuals – and even societies.

Mexico’s Diplomatic Network

You have this quotation you like to use, “immigration without assimilation is invasion”. Through that lens:

<.>

Mexico has 50 consulates in the United States, the largest diplomatic network deployed by any single country in any other worldwide.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, there were 11.6 million Mexican immigrants in the United States in 2014. Of those, 5.8 million were undocumented, according to the Pew Research Center.

There are also more than 23 million U.S.-born people of Mexican origin, most of whom could be eligible for dual citizenship under Mexican law.

</>

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/mexican-government-launches-plan-to-protect-immigrants/ar-AAknOmR?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

A diplomatic network of 50 locations that services 11.6 million of its citizens and potentially 23 million more dual citizens? This is significant.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

The current immediate policy is to deport all the illegal aliens convicted of felonies, and to do so as soon as possible. Since there are up to two million of these this will be complex and expensive. It will also cause a fair amount of internal stress and disaffection, but there is an overwhelming popular agreement that it should be done – extending well into the American-Latino communities who are the victims of many of the crimes that got these people convicted in the first place. What will be done with “status offenders” – those whose only known crime is being here without papers – particularly those who were brought here well before age of consent – will be subject to considerable discussion and I suspect negotiation, and won’t happen immediately anyway.

I repeat, voting without citizenship is a federal crime, and how much of that actually happened will influence the debate on status offenders.

The Media’s Mea Culpa

The NYT’s soul searching would be rather more believable if they had a soul.

Cordially,

John

NYT “rededication”

The thing about the NYT “rededication” is that after going powder puff easy on Obama for eight years and pushing Hillary and trashing Trump, they will “rededicate” and trash Trump for four or eight years. They’re not apologizing, they’re laying groundwork in the guise of being almost an “apology”.
J

Porkypine’s Analysis:

(MK 2 revised version) (long) Porkypine on Brexit Effect & Vote-Manufacturing

(Rewritten, as I noticed a pattern in the iffy states after sending the

original.)

Jerry,

Indulge me while I start this off with a bit of bragging on election predictions I made privately to you the night before. They’re also useful background for what follows, but yes, I’m enjoying myself for a moment here.

“If the current RCP state-by-state poll averages are dead-on, Clinton wins tomorrow, 272-266. In the national polls, her lead has crept back up to 3%. I’m deeply suspicious of that number, as it includes a whole bunch of recent-days 4, 5, 6, 7% leads from polls that had her up by double digits two weeks ago. But, it doesn’t matter if it’s 3% or (my

guesstimate) 1-2%, other than for her odds of winning the popular vote while (one hopes) losing the election.” (I was too conservative – Clinton’s latest popular vote lead is 0.6%.)

I went on to describe the amount of “Brexit Effect” (under-polled Trump

voters) needed for him to win as being around 1% if there were no surprises whatsoever, but multiple points if any losses in the nominally closest states caused him to need some of the less close ones – Pennsylvania, Colorado, Michigan, etc.

Yeah, I wimped out and put his overall odds of getting enough Brexit Effect at 60:40 against. But I called the course the win actually took pretty closely – there was 0.9% Brexit Effect in RCP’s “Battleground States” overall, with 3.1% in Pennsylvania and 3.7% in Michigan enough to overcome the anti-Brexit surprise losses in New Hampshire and Nevada.

(I’ll freely admit that Wisconsin also coming in at Brexit 7.5% just gobsmacked me. Do NOT mess with Scott Walker.)

Cheating!

All that said, let me bring up one earlier prediction I also made to

you: That the election would hinge on how much Trump’s Brexit Effect might exceed the Dem “margin of cheating” – that typical 1-2% edge in close elections they hold in states where they have major vote-manufacturing operations. Places where it can look close, till the late tallies from Chicago or Philadelphia come in with just enough graveyard votes for a D win.

My view, FWIW, is that this goes on in a LOT more places than Chicago and Philadelphia these days. Any place local law enforcement turns a blind eye (IE Dem-controlled urban enclaves) there are dead people voting, illegals voting, busloads of people from the next state over voting, collected loads of mail-in ballots marked straight D, voting machines mysteriously tallying D votes for R button pushes… There’s a reason DOJ has been rabidly anti-citizenship proof for registering and anti-ID requirement for voting for the last eight years. (Try that on Customs or the TSA.)

Ah, but can I prove it? Well, I was watching the numbers pretty closely this year for other reasons, but I had that in mind too.

Clue #1: The final RCP national average showed 2.7% Brexit Effect. The ten best-polled battleground states (nobody really expected Minnesota or Missouri to flip) averaged 0.9% Brexit effect, only one-third as much.

Say WHAT?!

Now, states vary. (That’s a major reason for having them.) But you’d think that a sample of ten states out of the fifty, as “battlegrounds”

by definition right across the middle of the political spectrum, polled intensively by most of the same national pollsters, really ought to come in reasonably close to the overall national poll average.

But we see almost two points less Brexit Effect in the core battlegrounds than nationally. Both sides were campaigning all-out there, which should roughly even out. Even with the huge effective sample sizes, I’d not be surprised by a point of slop. But two points?

What else might account for near two points of pro-Dem difference in the most closely-contested states? Hmmmmm.

Not proof yet, no. But indicative.

Diving deeper into the numbers, there’s more.

A given number for Brexit Effect is actually the difference between two

numbers: How much Trump exceeded his final RCP poll average, minus how much Clinton exceeded hers. Tabulating those numbers separately, by state, gets interesting.

Nationally, Trump’s final RCP poll average was 42.2%, his (latest) national vote total 47.1%, so he beat his final polls by 4.9%.

Clinton’s final national poll average was 45.5% (a 3.3% poll lead) and her latest vote total 47.7% (an 0.6% popular vote lead) so she beat her final polls by 2.2%.

Keep that national ratio in mind: Trump beat his final polls by 4.9%, while Clinton beat hers by 2.2%. (The difference is our 2.7% national Brexit Effect.) Call it a ratio of a bit over 2:1, magnitude roughly 5% to 2%. Again, you’d expect the closely-polled middle 20% of contested states to at least be close to this, with some individual state variations. You’d expect.

What you actually get is this:

(TBPb is % Trump Beat his Polls by, CBPb is % Clinton Beat her Polls by, states are listed in Brexit-Total order,and a fixed-width font makes it all come out readable.)

Brxt TBPb CBPb

MI 3.7 5.6 1.9

PA 3.1 4.5 1.4

NC 2.8 4.0 1.2

FL 1.1 2.5 1.4

GA 0.9 2.1 1.2

NH 0.4 4.6 4.2

AZ 0.1 3.2 3.1

VA 0.1 2.7 2.6

CO 0.0 4.0 4.0

NV -3.2 -0.3 2.9

Again assuming about a point of slop, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina all look reasonable in light of the national numbers. Brexit totals are all close to the average, Beat-Polls ratios all somewhat over 2:1, Beat-Polls magnitudes all within a point or so of 5% to 2%.

(Regarding PA, turnout in Philly was not outrageous – looks like the Philly machine may have assumed it wasn’t really needed. Ditto Detroit.)

Florida and Georgia both come in at Beat-Polls ratio a bit under 2:1, with magnitudes also a little low, and Brexit totals quite low – I’d guess some possible Broward County/Fulton County effect.

Arizona, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Virginia, now, there’s something quite odd going on. All show roughly equal Trump and Clinton Beat-Polls-by totals. Where’d the extra point or two of Clinton votes come from? Maybe peculiar local demographics. Maybe not.

Some thoughts:

– Clintonista Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe restored voting rights to

60,000 felons right before the election, over 1.5% of the total voting.

– Colorado has universal vote-by-mail, lax controls over who can collect and return ballots, and a largely Dem-ruled metro area around Denver. CO looked to be in play late, so local Dems had reason to make sure it wasn’t.

– Half of Arizona – Maricopa County – has on-request mail-in ballots, a now-Dem controlled city (Phoenix) at its core, a one-day judge-imposed window when bulk collection of mailings wasn’t a felony, and an all-levels Dem effort to beat Sheriff Arpaio (successful.) Arizona as a whole still went for Trump, but don’t count on that lasting on current trend. There was also (premature) talk of AZ being in play, and optimistic local Dems were apparently trying hard to tip it this time.

– New Hampshire has easy absentee ballots, was a crucial state in the

270-268 Trump narrow-win scenario (his only obviously plausible path to winning as of Tuesday morning) and also hosted a close Senate race.

Given those, I wouldn’t rule out a significant Dem vote-manufacturing project in NH even if it does seem out of character.

As for Nevada’s results, all I can say is it looks as if something deeply wrong happened in metro Las Vegas last Tuesday. Harry Reid may be soon finally gone, but his legacy lives. Nevada was, FWIW, also a crucial state in the Trump 270-268 narrow-win scenario, and also had a close Senate race.

Conclusion

Widespread fraud proven? No. But far too probable, by the numbers and the circumstances, to be ignored.

I’d say that merely stopping DOJ’s current war against states trying to ensure their elections are kosher – this DOJ notoriously opposes proof of citizenship to register and proof of identity to vote – isn’t enough.

I’d really like to see a post-cleanup DOJ protecting the rest of our voting rights by actively going after local vote-fraud operations in Federal elections. (This may take a thorough purge of the pro-fraud ideologues currently running that part of DOJ.)

Given that some of these probable fraud efforts may have been done in a last-second rush, I’d think New Hampshire and Colorado – both states only became close late – might be fruitful grounds for investigation.

And given the sheer egregiousness of the results, Nevada might also.

Porkypine

Afterthought: No campaign has unlimited resources. OH and NC Clinton’s campaign apparently just conceded. Organized cheating in FL, NV, and NH makes sense as attacks on the most vulnerable parts of Trump’s narrow path to 270. CO and VA would have been insurance against his taking the most obvious alternatives. And GA and AZ were just an attempt (delusional, it turns out) at spiking the ball, running up her totals.

Trump meanwhile punched deep into their rear and took PA, MI, WI, and almost MN. Looks like they never really believed any of those places were actually at risk. If they’d gone all-out in PA and MI instead of digressing to AZ and GA… Hmm. WI gives Trump the 270 win anyway, 10 EV countering loss of NH’s 4 and NV’s 6. They’d have had to have the imagination to go all-out in WI as well.

No surprise – it looks like Clinton was done in by complacency and lack of imagination.

Thank you. This warrants study.

It is important to investigate voter fraud involving illegal – undocumented – aliens because that really is an act of invasion and it is a federal crime. I suspect some of the places where it was widespread (if it happened) would not affect the electoral college vote, but will affect the narrative about “we won the popular vote” – whish is about the only consolation Democrats have from the train-wrecks for them that were the last two elections. Governorships, statehouse, mayors, even dogcatcher elections…

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

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

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

James Burnham

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

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

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

Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

Suggestion of the day for the incoming government:

There are many regulations with employment level triggers: this regulation (or law) applies only to those firms with 10 or more employees; or 20 or more employees; or 50, or 100, and probably more. DOUBLE those numbers, particularly the smaller ones. Laws that apply to firms of 10 or more now apply only to places with 20 or more; 20 becomes 40; etc.  This would immediately allow small businesses to grow, and doubtless many would do so.  We know that the laws are not vital in the sense that workers cannot live without them, because we permit it for firms of say 19 employees; adding a 20th would greatly increase  costs, which is why the business doesn’t grow. Etc.; surely the point is obvious.  This could be done on the first day of the new Congress, passed by both houses and signed by the President; and it may well have a dramatic effect on the growth of the economy.

I invite readers to send their own suggestions.  I will publish those I can agree with.  Someone might notice.

It’s been a while, and I apologize; I have a lot to do. Just had lunch with Larry and Steve, and Steve came up with a significant plot point that should bolster our growing book on interstellar colonies quite a bit. It took some discussion to get it right, and all’s well. Progress is being made. As it happens, at lunch we met a neighbor who had read all our books, but had never met Larry or Steve.

Roberta looks better than ever, and there is a glimmer of progress with her right hand. Her speech is noticeably better each day, she’s eating better, and her blood pressure is better. Monday I had an appointment at Kaiser, which is more than half way to Holy Cross, so I proceeded out to Holy Cross on my own, then back to Chaos Manor, all on surface streets. No incidents, but it is exhausting, which is why I didn’t have anything Monday. Yesterday was more complicated, but I got some work done after a visit to Roberta thanks to Mike Donahue.

Much of this morning was eaten by simple household problems, none serious, like changing batteries in a wall clock: getting the clock down and changing batteries was simple, but getting the clock hung back on the wall was more than I, or Larry, or Steve could do. I think I just figured out a way but now I have to wait for the Elmer’s Glue-All to dry to see if it worked. Ah well. Obviously I can write this without a clock on the wall. I suppose it could be said I don’t need one at all, but the big wall clock is easier to see than the tiny time and date at the bottom of the computer screen, and that’s not always visible anyway.

As you would suppose, Washington DC is a boiling kettle of turmoil just now as they must fill about 4,000 political appointments, inevitably disappointing some job seekers but more importantly their backers and followers; Trump’s majority is not a loose and variable a collection of minorities and interest groups as is the Democratic Party which is a loose coalition of interest groups, some of whom hate each other. The first appointments I thought masterful: the Vice President Designate as head of the Transition Team, Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff, and Stephen Bannon as “Chief Strategist”; I gather that a Chief Strategist is to a Chief of Staff as a Chief Scientist is to a Chief Engineer: you have to listen to Chief Scientist, but they have no line authority. On the other hand, they have access, and more time to be persuasive.

This is an interesting set of appointments. Mr. Priebus has good friends in Congress, and considerable “establishment” experience; Mr. Bannon is of course an old line advocate of states rights and gets along very well with Mr. Trump’s early and most enthusiastic supporters. Mr. Bannon will cease not to remind Trump that a vast majority of those who voted for him want him to drain the swamp and get the arrogant New Class government officials out of the people’s lives; while Mr. Priebus will remind him that government must go on, and it is important to have experienced civil servants who can do those things necessary and proper for the United States to function.

Put that way, I do not see what the controversy is: there are certainly bureaucratic excesses, regulatory agencies that exist mostly to give work to the regulators and their enforcement agents without regard to the need for the regulatory activity– bunny inspectors come to mind – and we may be sure that the mood of the civil service is fear for losing their jobs. This is not a new controversy, and few of my readers will find anything to regret in having a White House advocate continually reminding the President of who elected him; and I suspect not many who do not understand that some Federal activities are necessary and proper, and some are even vital to the health and even survival of the United States.

Much of the rest of the controversy over Mr. Bannon is artificial and purely political. I suppose there are some who genuinely hate the Confederate Flag, and I have some sympathy with those offended by it flying over their state Capitol buildings; but surely Americans who choose to display the Stars and Bars in front of their own homes have as much right to do that as do Americans of Mexican descent to display the Mexican flag? I was brought up to venerate the Confederate Flag, but not to fly it above the American Flag. I know that many of the troops in Korea during that war fought under the US Flag, but carried Zippo cigarette lighters adorned with the Stars and Bars, some with an old southern Colonel muttering “Forget, Hell.” And quite a few were buried with Confederate Flags although the flag over their coffins (if there was time to get one, which was not often at first) was the Stars and Stripes. Yes, I understand that some still would prefer slavery, although I have never met anyone who would admit it. Some would prefer Jim Crow, and I do know some of them although they never bring it up around me.

I was taken with Robert Burns and “A man’s a man for a’aa that” in high school, and was despised by some of my classmates (but not the Christian Brothers teachers) for doing so; but I had ancestors on both sides in the Civil War, and I have no desire to urinate on the graves of any of them; nor to despise the flags of either side. My generation will soon be gone – most already is – but I for one do not despise those who died defending Lookout Mountain and Atlanta any more than I despise the children of those freed. It was after all a long time ago.

My Viking ancestors used to raid Ireland for slave girls. By some Christian magic they found they had acquired wives, and then a celibate priest was telling them when they could sleep with them. Now in the Scottish Isles, they celebrate Viking holidays as well as the traditional Christian holidays; and both are civilized, with no screaming thralls cast into the peat bogs in Sweden nor Denmark nor Scotland nor Ireland nor Shetland.

I can only wish those offended by flags, and even insults, that they be spared confronting enemies with swords and bombs; and to assure them that my generation and those after me were willing to risk their lives in the belief that we were in fact sparing them that.

No doubt Mr. Bannon has said many things I disagree with. I would have thought he has every right to do so. So have most Democrats, and certainly both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have.

Abolish Electoral College?

The left is still upset that democracy, despite their best efforts, didn’t go their way. Now they want to abolish the electoral college; Reid was making some noise about it but Boxer actually put in a bill:

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Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, who is also retiring at the end of this year, introduced a bill Wednesday that would abolish the Electoral College.

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https://www.newsmax.com/Politics/reid-urge-lawmakers-hold/2016/11/16/id/759279/

Doesn’t this require a Constitutional Amendment?

Abolishing the electoral college will allow increased pandering and it generates a perception of diminished States’ rights. I doubt such notions are popular in the current political climate. Is diminishing States’ rights their objective or does is this simply because they lost one time too many?

And it will be most interesting to see who supports this, parrots it, popularizes it, and funds any activities associated with it. I’d like to know if this is the last hoorah of some old folks at their retirement party or if this is cause for concern.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Of course it requires a constitutional amendment, which requires not only super majorities in both houses of Congress (the President has no say), but also ¾ of the States. The electoral college, which gives each state at least three votes, was part of the compromise that induced the smaller states to accept the Constitution; at the time Virginia was huge (in population) compared to most other states. If you look at the map of the election, you will see that this is unlikely. A bill to abolish the college will not even receive a vote; a resolution of amendment could not possibly gather 2/3 of each house, nor ¾ of the states.

Where was the Secret Service when #AssassinateTrump and #RapeMelania were trending?

As all eyes in America remain trained on the persistent anti-Trump protests spread across several cities and states — there’s a war unfolding in the virtual world that has shockingly remained unaddressed by law enforcement agencies.

Free trade and automobiles and the Iron Law

Dear Jerry –

In your discourse on free trade, you wrote, “A lot of this changed when Japanese and German cars began to be more common, and the improvement was obvious. I put that down to the competition from free trade.” I offer a slightly offset view. One of the assumptions behind free trade analysis is that both parties are economically efficient. In the larger sense, this was not true of Detroit – arrogance and complacency were on full display.

One of my fraternity brothers worked for a summer at the headquarters of GM in the mid 70’s, when the better quality and gas mileage of foreign cars (especially the Japanese) was beginning to give Detroit serious heartburn. He reported that the executives were honestly puzzled by the situation. It turns out that all of the high-level execs had company-provided cars. These cars were, of course, replaced each year with the latest model. Furthermore, each day their cars were refueled and serviced. Gas mileage? Not a problem in their world. Reliability? Their cars ran just fine. Their personal experience contradicted the reports which they were receiving, and in such cases personal experience tends to dominate. At least until the inconvenient external reality comes crashing down on them.

I submit this as an unintentional example of your Iron Law. The organization, in providing for its members (or at least the top level) produced an organization which was ill-equipped to adapt to changes in its market, and thus interfered with the organization’s nominal function – selling cars.

Regards,

Jim Martin

Oh but I completely agree.  One reason Detroit became a rust belt was lack of competition from startups; automation of automobile construction was well developed but Detroit was still using pre-war plants and assembly lines. Germany and Japan had no pre-war factories to preserve. Their competition doomed Detroit.  It is a dirty little secret, apparently: America still makes things and produces goods, and in plenty; but it takes far fewer workers to do that. Workers laid off could seek work in startups, but the political system is rigged to require heavy investment in regulatory compliance officers and experts before a single product is built.  Someone who wanted to hire laid off assembly line workers to work on some new product would have to bear the burden of regulatory costs before beginning; and of course he couldn’t begin a new automobile company. Germany and Japan got new auto plants. New ones could not be started in America.

The robots are coming. Make no mistake. They are inevitable. Productivity will grow. The number of products made will grow. The number of workers required to make them will fall. More things will be made by fewer employed people.

Newt Gingrich on the New York Times

Questions for the New York Times

Originally published at Fox News.

On Sunday, the publisher and the executive editor of the New York Times published a letter to the paper’s readers, promising to “rededicate” the paper to its “fundamental mission”. That mission, they said, is to “report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you.”

This is as close as the Times is likely to come to apologizing to its readers for a year and a half of unbalanced–and often unhinged–coverage of the presidential race.[snip]

C:\Users\JerryP\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Outlook\HTVHUGHO\email.mht

The rest is worth reading if you have any interest. We’ll see.

Steve Bannon 

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

My facebook feed has been blowing up with various people falling into tizzies over Trump’s seeming appointment of Steve Bannon, head of Breitbart, to a key position.

Given this fact, I think it appropriate to listen to what Mr. Bannon says in his own words.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world?utm_term=.pcvbjRJAZ#.tnJMJKG8P

I don’t think this is white nationalism. At least, not unless “white nationalism” has become synonymous with “western civilization”. He obviously thinks that atheism is bad and the world would be a better place if it ran by Catholic principles, but he seems to want to marginalize the racist elements of UKIP and related groups while defending traditional civilization against the tide of secularism.

He seems a lot less objectionable in person than he does in, say, the pages of national review.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442189/steve-bannon-trump-administration-alt-right-breitbart-chief-strategist

Respectfully,

Brian P.

 

I never met Mr. Bannon, and I pretty well disregarded National Review after it became the bi-weekly Trump bash, so I’m really not familiar with him. I have not found a charge and specification that renders him an unperson as the Left seems to be making him. After reading the buzzfeed interview, I find him strongly reminiscent of my (correspondence)  friend the late Sam Francis.  Long time readers of this View will recall that I have often said that unrestricted capitalism will inevitably result in human flesh for sale in the marketplace.

I have now read most of the National Review article linked to, and I do not find it appealing or well reasoned, and felt no need to finish it; I regret to say I have lost most of my confidence in National Review.

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