Monday, October 10, 2016

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

James Burnham

Rudolph Giuliani: Trump is right about ‘stop and frisk.’ Lester Holt should apologize

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.

The news media concentrates on locker room remarks made by Donald Trump a decade ago. Speaker Ryan decides it’s the most significant issue of the day.

Paul Ryan won’t defend or campaign for Trump ahead of election

A decision Monday by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) to not campaign with or defend Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump through the November election sparked a public feud with his party’s standard bearer within a matter of hours, suggesting that a widening split within the GOP could reverberate long after the presidential race is decided.

Ryan’s move — and a blunt assessment of the race that he and other congressional leaders delivered during a conference call with House GOP lawmakers Monday morning — underscored the perilous choice Republican officials now face in the wake of Friday’s release of a 2005 videotape in which Trump made lewd comments about women. [clip]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/10/10/paul-ryan-wont-defend-or-campaign-for-trump-ahead-of-election/

I think there are more important issues in this election than whether Donald Trump unsuccessfully tried to seduce married woman ten years ago. He wouldn’t be the only President to have had raunchy relations with women before entering politics. 

Hillary Clinton calls for no-fly zone in Syria

10/01/15 09:24 PM—Updated 10/01/15 09:37 PM

By Alex Seitz-Wald

In an apparent break with the Obama White House, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called for the creation of a no-fly zone inside Syria Thursday, the day after Russian warplanes started bombing rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

“I personally would be advocating now for a no-fly zone and humanitarian corridors to try to stop the carnage on the ground and from the air, to try to provide some way to take stock of what’s happening, to try to stem the flow of refugees,” Clinton said in an interview with NBC affiliate WHDH in Boston after a campaign event nearby.

U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday that Russian planes had started bombing anti-Assad forces in Syria, but that they did not appear to be targeting Islamic State forces as promised. “I think Putin is playing a very dangerous and cynical game. He’s clearly doing everything he can to prop up Assad and to establish sort of a Russian presence in Syria and the broader Middle East,” Clinton added.[Snip]

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-calls-no-fly-zones-syria

This is brinkmanship, and risks war. America is superior to Russian and Iranian forces in numbers of aircraft and certainly so in production capacity, but in airpower local to the eastern Mediterranean, the Russians have the technological advantage. They have mobile Surface to Air systems superior to all but our very best and already deployed in the region.

The S-300V/S-300VM/VMK/Antey-2500 is the world’s only truly mobile Anti Ballistic Missile system, and later variants are claimed to be capable of intercepting 4.5 km/sec reentry speed targets. The large size of the Grill Pan phased array and TELAR command link and illuminator antennas is evident. The system provides the capability to engage very low RCS aircraft at ranges in excess of 100 nautical miles. Below: 9M82 Giant round The highly mobile Antey S-300V and S-300VM remain one of the most lethal area defence SAM systems ever developed, firing hypersonic missiles designed to engage aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
Designed from the outset for high mobility and effectiveness against targets at all altitudes, the S-300V would have been a key player in any late Cold War conflict. This weapon was developed to provide not only long range area defence, but also to engage and destroy ISR assets like the E-3 AWACS, E-8 JSTARS and U-2, and tactical jammers like the EF-111A Raven and EA-6B Prowler.

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Giant-Gladiator.html

Note the capability against AWACS and JSTARS. Declaring a no-fly zone is a matter of words; imposing one is a matter of forces within 100 nautical miles.

We can’t afford more wars in the Middle East. We already owe — every man, woman, and child each owes – some $60,000. We can’t pay for another war.

We have chosen the anti-Slavic side in the European conflicts. We have allowed the invasion of Kosovo by Albanian refugees, then used the presence of those refugees to force the Serbians out of Kosovo. We then bombed Serbia and dropped the bridges over the lower Danube, destroying the economy of nations dependent on Danube transportation. We bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade; something the Chinese are unlikely to forget just as we have not forgotten attacks against our various embassies. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese love us, and our service to China in the Open Door era is long forgotten, as is our industrial contribution to Russia in the Second World War.

Imposing no-fly zones on Russia will be expensive if even possible.

There are other issues. The economy is “recovering” from the “Great Recession”, but after 8 years of enormous budgets and doubling the national debt, it seems like a depression to a great number of Americans who don’t have jobs but officially are not unemployed.

The schools are an act of war against the people of the United State; actually an act of war of the federal government against the children in both the states and the District of Columbia. If we knew how to build great schools by spending lots of money, the DC school system should be a model for all the world; I submit that it is not.

The present administration acquired more debt than all the previous presidents from the founding of the republic, and there are no signs of slowing down deficit spending.

We have the most regulated society in our history, making it impossible for new businesses to start up with burning capital for compliance officers.

We have the question of open borders including refugees.

I could go on, but I submit these are more important issues than a locker room seduction story told ten years ago. Sure it was raw, and embarrassing. We would rather have a President who was more dignified. But after all, he was a Democrat when he told that story. Now he knows better.

Missing voters

It’s not just sloth or disinterest at the root of the ‘unregistered’ white voters. Not in my case.
I’ve lived in the same town for thirty-four years, voted in over 90% of the elections and in this heavily Democrat town sometimes my ballot was a very thin gruel. But I never thought about the need to register because I was registered. I thought.
After my wife’s passing, the thought occurred to me that I should ensure that her name was removed from the voter registration rolls. As the old joke goes; My grandmother lived in Chicago for twenty-five years and always voted for the GOP, then for the last five years she started voting for the Democrats, What changed? She died. So I did that and a few years later I went back to check that she was still not listed. She wasn’t, but then neither was I.
The bland and thin explanation was that periodically they purge the rolls of ‘inactive voters’. I’m sure that they are careful to purge the ‘inactive’ Democrats as well as the Republicans and in my case Independents. Not only had I voted in the last town election, but I was a poll worker and waved a sign outside the polls. I was the one guy with a red sign against the half dozen with blue signs. Of course, the half dozen were all union members, who were happy to comment that ‘They’ were all getting paid for their time.
Perhaps it’s why we haven’t been able to fit our problems in this country at the ballot box, it’s the old struggle of individual piece work against the ‘Machine’.
For what it’s worth, I’ll be back at Town Hall the week before the election with my water bill in hand, and while I’m there I’ll check to see if I’m still ‘Inactive’. Again.

Good on yer.

Trump = more wars in the Middle East

“We can’t afford more wars in the Middle East. We already owe — every man, woman, and child each owes – some $60,000. We can’t pay for another war.”
Donald Trump committed himself to another war in the Middle East, this time against ISIS. He said so in the debate the other night. He was very clear on the subject.
I only point this out because you’ve spent months, now, convincing yourself to vote for this man using all the intellectual rationalisations at your disposal. It’s been fascinating to watch.
Please, however, do not consider me intentionally impolite or disrespectful. I grew up reading your books and regard you very highly. I’m just a little bemused over the whole Trump thing.
But perhaps it’s none of my business. I live in the UK. I voted to Remain because I don’t want trade tariffs, I think free movement of people and goods are both good and beneficial things, I want to work and play across the continent without encountering unnecessary bureaucratic barriers, I like my European Health Insurance Card because I think the idea is very civilised, I like the protections granted to the populace by a supra-national regulatory body that reigns in the vicissitudes of each new government, and provides welcome oversight of our leaders because, frankly, I don’t trust any of them and prefer that they exist as small fish in a big pond, not big dictatorial fish in a small pond. And, finally, as a student of history I appreciate the fact that Europe has been quite peaceful all these years, and that closer union between the member states helped that a lot.
However, I’d take a so-called ‘Hard Brexit’ over Trump, any day. Hillary is a text-book politician of the kind we’ve had in the UK and Europe since the year dot. She lies, she manoeuvres, she games the system and so what? It’s called politics. We in the Old World don’t have the luxury of voting for people who are pure in word and deed. We don’t even subscribe to such fallacies. We deal with the situation as it is and make the best choice we can, with our eyes open and no illusions to cloud our judgement about the messy, dirty business called governance. We do not demand that our politicians be pure, we demand that they be competent. Trump went bankrupt 13 times! Does that make him competent? Trump didn’t pay his taxes, but is now asking to be elected to a position in which his job will be to spend other peoples taxes! Doesn’t that make him a hypocrite?
As I said, I mean no disrespect. I hope you won’t interpret my remarks as polemical for its own sake. I simply struggle to understand the appeal of Trump. Is he just not Hillary? In which case, the Republican party has really gone to the dogs if the biggest selling point of their candidate is that he’s not someone else.
Regards,
Mike Ranson

You are of course correct: I should have been more clear.

I maintain that we are now in a war with ISIS, so we cannot avoid it; and if we do have to have war, I prefer it to be on other people’s territory.  We stuck our fingers into the hornets’ nest once too often.  Fortunately, this is an already declared war (they declared it; we haven’t reciprocated, but we’re in it all the same). What we do with that must be decided, but it won’t be cheap, and it will not go away. I have said this so often that I weary of repeating it, but of course I should have done so,  Clinton, like Obama, has no idea of what we should do.  Mr. Trump might manage to get the Saudis to pay much of the cost, and give some of the benefits of victory to Jordon, thus working to restore the balance lost when we eliminated Iraq from the balance of power. Trump  wisely does not discuss specific tactics, but we must restore some balance of power to the Middle East, and it is clear that Mr. Obama does not know how to do this.

If you want it all done by the UK, I encourage you to do it; it affects you more than us.  On the other hand, we are natural allies, and the UK enjoys a privileged position in American hopes and dreams; and Middle East stability is desirable for us; not that it matters because we are already in a declared (by the Caliphate) war anyway. At this point we get deeper into grand strategy than I care to go at this time.

You don’t like Trump, but you aren’t asked to. He pays all legal obligations of taxes; you may be certain of that. So do the Clintons.  I should have made it clear in the above that I am not advocating full isolationism; merely that we conduct our affairs with a view to our own interest, and recognize that we are not omnipotent, and with our debts we are no longer so rich.

Thank you for your views, and for reminding me of the ambiguity; we are already in a war with ISIS even if we do not act as if we are. Do understand, we have no choice but to finish the war we are in; I wish we didn’t have to.  What I want is to avoid new ones, particularly in Europe. The world is a far more dangerous place now than when Mr. Obama took office. I do not think Mrs. Clinton has much notion of how to get out of this situation. She certainly did not exhibit an understanding of world affairs when she was Secretary of State.

Trump = more wars in the Middle East

We can not afford any wars today (we are dead broke). But we have them. Obama is busy having us supply (covertly) the weapons to overthrow Assad. (and since we are not defending ourselves that is a war crime — but who pays attention to the sovereign treaties that we sign.

Back in my day I was baby sitting 48 hydrogen bombs north of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile we were fighting a war that LBJ started as a result of an erroneous report of an attack on destroyers that were involved in covert operations.  Even though a correcting message was sent LBJ pushed Congress into a war declaration.

Today we have Obama supplying weapons to overthrow Assad (with the help from the UK and France) because he will not allow a pipeline through the country. We bomb the enemy after telling him we are going to attack, but somehow miss our targets and hit the government forces. We airdrop weapons but miss our target and give them to Al Qaida (which in the CIA dictionary means “base” but colloquially means toilet – what self respecting army would call itself the toilet?) . This is a war of deception, but the people being deceived are the American public. So Trump wants to end the war (that we are already “fighting”)– decisively. The way the Romans ended the Punic wars – no Carthage.

Clinton on the other hand wants to start a new war – with Iran. Now we have been having a covert war with Iran for years – billions spent funding the terrorist groups in Iran, sabotage on the industrial facilities along with Israel. Murdering their researchers. – but no overt warfare. But Russia has now started to defend the Iranian state because it sees that it is also in our target list and would prefer to have a war outside its territory. The trouble is that war will not stay contained. It will go nuclear just like the Cuba missile crisis nearly went nuclear. Kennedy had IRBMs based in Turkey but felt it was impossible to let the Soviets have similar missiles on our doorstep. So he threated a blockade and invasion. Not knowing that the Soviet general had nuclear weapons on site and permission to use them if attacked. So officially the crisis was averted by the Soviets pulling back. No one mentioned that we also pulled our missiles from Turkey.

As Pogo says “ We have met the enemy, and he is us”.

Earl

We got out of the Cold War without any nukes going off. I count that a success, even if we later abandoned an ally in an invasion from the North. Korea was fortunate: their North State had a close and believable protector; North Viet Nam had to depend on luck and their Soviet allies. Fortunately, for them, domestic US politics prevented US intervention in their last massive invasion. Most American schools now pretend that Viet Nam fell to locals in black pajamas, rather than to massive invasion from the North.

Second Debate

I haven’t often made comments here of a political nature, but, well, things being what they are . . .
Every professional career politician — and those who serve their interests — knows that image means everything and substance means nothing. That’s an important thing to keep in mind as we see all the campaign messages. The most important task for the politician is to win the current election and prepare to win the next one. That means creating the most favorable image for him/herself and the most negative, destructive image of the opponent.
Nothing new here.
What we are seeing in the most recent “revelation” about Donald Trump is simply an illusion created by the Clinton campaign and their media cohorts. It is the illusion that the man in the 11-year-old video is the same person as the man who is running for President.
And it has worked, at least to an extent. Witness Jason Chaffetz, John McCain, and Paul Ryan’s self-righteous rescinding of their “support” of Trump. In reality, these people — and others of their ilk — have been living with deep-seated angst ever since Trump walked away with their party’s nomination. Horrors! Now they can pretend to have principles, which, conveniently, allow them to bail on Trump while creating the image (illusion) of still being loyal to their party.
Where were their principles when they passed Obama’s budget request without making any significant changes, giving the minority party everything they wanted. Every. Single. Thing. And much else besides. Is this what they think they were elected to do — act just like the Democrats they replaced? Did the Democrats take Republican’s wishes into account when they were in the majority? This whole matter, taking everything into account, crisply illustrates the farce that is the GOP’s OB club — the GOPe, or Republican establishment. Some have openly declared that they will vote for Hillary.
I, for one, am far more troubled by what Hillary has actually done than by what Trump has only said.
It is to be hoped that the millions who voted for Trump in the primaries will join their local Republican clubs and take control of the party away from these imposters.

Richard

Establishments die hard.

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

Sunday, October 9, 2016

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

James Burnham

Rudolph Giuliani: Trump is right about ‘stop and frisk.’ Lester Holt should apologize

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.

We continue to struggle up to normal here, and we’re making progress. Goy a fair amount of work on fiction done. And thanks for the subscriptions, support, and renewals.

The debate went as expected. Whoever won and who lost is not relevant; those watching saw that a very famous politician has not been able to do anything for 30 years, and those who think we are worse off both at home and abroad now than we were 8 years ago were invited to think about that. The Obama Presidency spent more money than any other President, doubled the national debt, and few people are actually working than they were before. Unemployment may be down, but that’s because of the narrow definition of unemployed. The work force is down. There may be an underground economy keeping us afloat, the way the off the books economy kept the Soviet Union going, but that’s a dangerous game that the Obama government will put a stop to – after they raise the minimum wage, forcing ever more people into the underground economy.

One reason Obamacare is in a financial crisis is that employers don’t have the money to pay for the compulsory health care, forcing more and more workers either to pay rising premiums or search for government subsidies – which are paid for with borrowed money. Obamacare is an entitlement and entitlements must be paid for.

Education in America

With respect to Mr. Jordan’s recent report of the PIACC assessment of adult skills, the situation is, if anything, even worse for the vaunted tech-savvy American millennials ages 16-24, including those with college degrees, as this article by the American Educational Testing Service summarizing earlier PIACC data indicates:
http://www.ets.org/s/research/30079/millennials.html
Given the regression to twitter and texting in their communications, it’s no surprise that half of these millennials scored below Level 3 on literacy and numeracy, which is considered the minimum international standard for functional literacy and numeracy. The millennials were also well below the average of OECD countries on problem solving with digital technology, and the younger cohorts among these ranked dead last.
This is the culmination of a trend of deterioration in our schools that began in 1964 with the Johnson Administrations “Great Society” programs and has progressed ever since. The SATs that have been used since the early 1950s as perhaps the principal basis for admission to the selective colleges have had to be dumbed down twice since that time, not just to accommodate the expanded population taking the test as the conventional wisdom has it, but also because the percentages of 17 year old Americans scoring at the elite levels on the SAT Verbal declined by over 60% by 1994 (the time of the first SAT dumbing down). SAT Math scores didn’t decline as much over that period, and because the STEM subjects were taken more seriously, the progressive high school STEM curriculum was largely jettisoned and standards tightened up, with the result that SAT Math score bounced back to somewhat above the original 1963 baseline – though it appears from the various educational assessments that they have resumed their decline since.
The other international comparison study for schools is the PISA assessment. Even though the taxpayers in this country are soaked to pay more than 30% more per pupil than the average of the OECD developed countries, our schools rank dead last, 23 out of 23 in educational results in the most recent international PISA assessments:
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2012/pisa2012highlights_5.asp
For example, the unscientific leftist true believers in the thoroughly discredited AGW hypothesis (now renamed “climate change” as an equivocation), are a perfect match for the unscientific rightist true believers in Creationism, and both are indicative of the scientific and mathematical illiteracy of the vast majority of Americans (American 15 year olds ranked 28th in the world in the 2012 PISA assessment of scientific literacy). I don’t mean to imply with these examples that any of the sweeping versions of these theories (the AGW hypothesis, creationism, evolutionism, whether in its classic Darwinian form, or in any of the other far more sophisticated versions that have emerged over the last 100+ years, can be considered scientific hypotheses in the first place, because none of them are subject to clear definition, let alone falsification. Rather, it’s the fact that few Americans, and only a minority of those with science degrees, are even equipped by their education to understand what a scientific hypothesis is, and why it is different from any other assertion of truth.
Then there is the sheer ignorance of most Americans of the basics of the various sciences. Richard Dawkins, in an appendix to his anti-creationism book, The Greatest Show on Earth (2009), reported the results of a poll question presented to various populations annual by the Gallup organization (the %s marking each choice are shown in parentheses):
Which of the following questions comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings?
(1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process. (36%)
(2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process. (14%)
(3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. (44%)
The sheer scientific illiteracy indicated by the plurality choice tracks with the results of the PISA assessment.
Then there is the US National NAEP assessment. According to the most recent (2015) NAEP statistics only 37% of high school seniors were proficient in reading at that level, and only 25% were proficient in math.
The intellectual development of most people, and the corresponding plasticity of their brains, comes to an end by age 25, though a tiny minority of people have during their developmental period learned how to learn, and managed to preserve their intellectual curiosity into adulthood. For virtually all societies, though, the only way new more effective modes of thought can possibly emerge is through generational changeover. Thus, thanks to two generations of dumbed down education (starting from a not very impressive level to begin with) cum brainwashing in the government madrassahs, the US is stuck with the population it has, and it would take 10-20 years to begin to make any improvements to the intellectual capabilities of our young people, even if we could immediately jettison the present system and return to the school standards that you and I grew up with.
Glenn Seaborg was right in his 1983 comment that what had been done to our educational system by then was tantamount to an act of war, and now we are a defeated and failing people. You say don’t sell the American people short, but the American people you are referring to are now in their 60s and beyond, and I don’t see them manning the battlements, rejuvenating American industry, or radically revamping American government in their declining years.
John B. Robb
P.S. There are any number of other indexes of the failure of American society over the last many decades. For example, I remember in one of the last National Review theme issues a year or two after Reagan stepped down as president (about the end of the Buckley era when I ended my subscription of some 30 years) undertook to refute the proposition that the 1980s had been a “decade of greed” – a charge that seems quaint in light of subsequent developments. Studies had shown that there was significant socioeconomic mobility among the five quintiles of American society, with rags to riches to rags being a non uncommon pattern. A recent international study of socioeconomic mobility commissioned by the Pew Charitable Trust (and featured in this month’s Hillsdale College Imprimis piece, Restoring America’s Economic Mobility, by Frank Buckley) found that as of today, the US is nearly as stratified a society as the UK. According to an index of economic mobility in which high numbers represent extremes of stratification, while low numbers denote high mobility, the UK was scored at .50, the US at .47, compared with France at .41, Germany .32, Australia .26, Canada .19, and Denmark .15.
When the US ranks below all the European semi-socialist welfare states, and far below our neighbor to the north, in the very social characteristic that was once the most definitive characteristic of America, and the idea of America, you know that something is seriously wrong. Canada today also ranks much higher than the US in measures of economic and personal freedom, and of course has an immigration policy that works, since it’s the same one that we had before the 1965 Ted Kennedy “reform” bill that replaced selectivity for skills with family reunification as the main immigration criterion: Canada allows in only immigrants with work skills and deports illegals.===

Our education system is failing. We clearly do not have a working policy at the federal level. No one has one, We once had a splendid educational system; we left it to the states, they competed, and we had real education without Federal Aid to Education. None. I realize that many of you do not know, but before Sputnik we had no US Department of Education and no Federal aid to education. At a Federal level we funded the District of Columbia and some schools on ,military bases for military dependents. They were pretty good schools, but they competed for military dependents with the local state schools in some areas. The debate over Federal Aid was long and involved and not all that long ago. We tried it, and got union controlled schools, credentialism, workshops, and other embellishments, and went from the best schools in the world to the present mess.

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

breaking out the long johns for another cold war

Dr. Pournelle,
This epic failure belongs completely at the feet of the current administration and both current and former Secretaries of State: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-missiles-confirm-idUSKCN1280IV
If you’ll remember, president elect Obama traveled to Russia to talk disarmament with Putin, Secretary Clinton repeatedly discussed nukes with Russia, and Secretary Kerry, at the off (as the British might say) threatened Putin with the irresponsible, uncreditable, and impossible forward deployment of fighter-borne nukes to Eastern Europe if Russia didn’t get out of East Ukraine.
As stated previously, the U.S. is not in a position to play games with nukes. We couldn’t reconstitute our cold war strategic force if we had to, and without a better strategy than MAD, we shouldn’t. If this little legacy of Obama’s doesn’t represent “high crimes” as a cause for impeachment, then sheer incompetence should.
-d

We do not have nuclear superiority and the splendid high morale force that was SAC has been disbanded. We cannot impose no-fly zones in Syria if the Soviets don’t want them; we do not have air supremacy, and we don’t have an Army over there. The days when the US could order the Soviet Union to abandon Tehran ended years ago.

Walter Lippmann observed that diplomatic demands were like a check; they had to be drawn on a reserve of military ability. We can’t write larger checks against the Russians in the Middle East. But we do have Obamacare and other entitlements.

Thought this might have a place on your blog somewhere.

There Is No Room For Hyphenated Americanism Theodore Roosevelt Address to the Knights of Columbus New York City- October 12th, 1915 “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.”

“This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.”

“But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.”

“The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English- Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian- Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic.”

“The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.”

B

Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

America’s ‘quiet catastrophe’: Millions of idle men – The Washington Post

After 88 consecutive months of the economic expansion that began in June 2009, a smaller percentage of American males in the prime working years (ages 25 to 54) are working than were working near the end of the Great Depression in 1940, when the unemployment rate was above 14 percent. If the labor-force participation rate were as high today as it was as recently as 2000, nearly 10 million more Americans would have jobs.

The work rate for adult men has plunged 13 percentage points in a half-century. This “work deficit” of “Great Depression-scale underutilization” of male potential workers is the subject of Nicholas Eberstadt’s new monograph “Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis,” which explores the economic and moral causes and consequences of this: 

Since 1948, the proportion of men 20 and older without paid work has more than doubled, to almost 32 percent. This “eerie and radical transformation” — men creating an “alternative lifestyle to the age-old male quest for a paying job” — is largely voluntary. Men who have chosen to not seek work are two-and-a-half times more numerous than men who government statistics count as unemployed because they are seeking jobs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americas-quiet-catastrophe-millions-of-idle-men/2016/10/05/cd01b750-8a57-11e6-bff0-d53f592f176e_story.html?utm_campaign=pockethits&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pocket&utm_term=.801154eb0e3b

John Harlow

The sea ice is gone – NOT

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/07/experts-said-arctic-sea-ice-would-melt-entirely-by-september-201/

J

As I repeatedly say, we just don’t know the climate future; we do know it has been doth warmer and colder in historical times. Probably in Viking times the Arctic was nearly ice free and there was a Northwest Passage. We don’t know about in Roman Warm times.

Subject: r.e. Petronius’ Election Data Point

Dear Jerry,

I’ve encountered the same lack of local organization here in Florida.  Nevertheless my wife and I have been encouraging people to register (this ends October 11 here in Florida) and turn out.   Our interest in The Donald lies solely in the fact that he was the only candidate this year willing to address both trade and immigration.

The Donald’s lack of ground game is reasonably well known now.   This leads into the real reason he’ll lose, if he does lose which seems very possible.   This link has the most significant article of this election in my opinion.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/missing-white-voters-could-elect-trump-but-first-they-need-to-register/

“Here’s a scary stat for Democrats: In 2012, President Obama won re-election by almost 5 million votes, but about 47 million eligible white voters without a college degree — including 24 million men — didn’t bother to vote. In 2016, these nonvoters are part of the demographic that is most strongly in favor of Donald Trump.”

“If Trump rouses even a fraction of these notoriously disaffected Americans — like this grease-smudged, 61-year-old first-time voter in western Pennsylvania — he could surge to victory. There’s just one catch: If we’re on the cusp of a blue-collar Great Awakening, it’s not yet showing up in the registration data.”

These disaffected white people are why John McCain and Mitt Romney lost.  But I don’t see any rationale reason they should have turned out at all for these individuals or anyone else in the GOPe.  All the GOPe ‘ers ever do – at the behest of their Donor Class masters – is work to send their higher paying industrial jobs overseas and also displace them with immigrants in the minimum wage service jobs left over. 

Why the GOPe doesn’t want to mobilize these people is evident, at least to me.  After mobilizing to elect Donald Trump they would certainly primary Paul Ryan and the entire Koch Bros network out of existence in 2018.  As for the Bush and Romney families, they might as well move to Mexico and try reviving their political fortunes there.  Once mobilized these people would prove to be a dynamic, dangerous and uncontrollable political force.  At least not controllable by the Donor Class, their bought GOPe poltroons and their contentless CON ideology.

Think about the Missing 47 Million the next time the New York Times, the Bush Family and the rest of the GOPe come around with their Unlimited Immigration/Unlimited Trade manure and the need for Latino Outreach and cave-in on immigration, etc.

Now why Trump also refused to attempt to mobilize these 47 Million can fuel some interesting speculations.  He certainly had abundant time and opportunity since June 2015 to build a massively entrenched local organization.  But he clearly chose not to do so.

Best Wishes,

Mark

I would not say that Mr. Trump refused to mobilize those voters, but I am not privy to his strategic decisions.

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

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

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

James Burnham

Rudolph Giuliani: Trump is right about ‘stop and frisk.’ Lester Holt should apologize

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.

Still trying to get back to normal. Good conference and lunch with Larry and Steve today. Considerable work on our new book this afternoon, My typing remains rotten and it’s tough writing – every line needs corrections, sometimes lots – but the ASUS ZenBook keyboard makes it easier.

Newt is calmer about the Vice President debate than I am.

The Vice Presidential Debate was a great example of the power of a good case reinforced by solid preparation. We are at the traditional

Governor Mike Pence had done his homework. He had studied the Clinton-Caine program and their debate style. He understood how Senator Kaine would debate and he was ready for him.

It was said that Abraham Lincoln was the best lawyer in Illinois with a good case and Stephen Douglas was the best lawyer with a bad case.

Last night Pence did well with a good case but Kaine did not do so well with a bad case.

There were two clear indications of how much Kaine was on the defensive.

http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=3872bad904308135ca41de823&id=252efa193a&e=2692b32928

First, he relied again and again on canned responses that were supposed to be clever but came across as robotic and not in touch with the topic at hand. Pence was prepared for this tactic, and he repeatedly pointed out the canned nature of Kaine’s answers. It stripped Kaine of a lot of authenticity and reduced him to a normal politician who had been well coached.

Second, Kaine was so hyper and eager to disrupt Pence’s presentation that he interrupted an estimated 70 times. His intensity came across as manic and juvenile. Pollster Frank Luntz reported that his focus group believed “Mike Pence is winning because Tim Kaine cannot debate like an adult without interruptions.” [snip]

All of which I suppose is true, but Kaine’s “I know it all” smirk – worse than Hillary’s – set my teeth on edge, and he has the manners of a bully with his constant interruptions; particularly when Pence was about to make a telling point or mentioned anything about Mrs. Clinton’s emails or the Clinton Foundation. I suppose the watching audience was already aware of those points, and Kaine’s frantic bullying, with the help of the “moderator,” may well have had the effect of emphasizing them. There was no “debate” in the sense of a civil exchange of ideas or arguments. I don‘t usually let politicians get my goat, but Kaine achieved that. In Spades, with Big Casino.

National Space Society Congratulates Blue Origin for Its Successful In-flight Escape Test of New Shepard as of course do I.

Jerry,

After watching Mike Pence’s performance in Tuesday’s Vice President Debate any questions or concerns I might have had about Donald Trump have been put to rest.

Selecting Mike Pence as his running mate demonstrates that Trump knows how to find and recruit the absolute best people, one the most important jobs for a President.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has chosen what appears to be an impolite nattering idiot as her running mate. As I watched the debate I thought that Kaine looked like someone. I finally figured it out. He looks like Teller, the silent half of Penn and Teller. After listening to Kaine for 90 minutes I understand why Penn decided to have Teller be silent.

It looks like Hillary’s ability to recruit the best advisors is as lacking as her ability to tell the truth.

Last chance to save the Republic. Vote for Trump.

Bob Holmes

Windows Journal 

Jerry,

I’ve been using Windows Journal for several things since it was first introduced with Windows 7.

With the 9/19 Update, MS elected to uninstall all Windows Journal implementations due to an undisclosed security problem with the tailored .xml used for the Journal’s .jnt file format. The apparently remedy is to install a “updated version” the sole revision of which is a security warning on opening files – and a tendency (well, if you can call a 100% failure rate a tendency) to crash if I attempt to open any existing files, either by double click or from within the open program.

Two hours with the Microsoft help desk (chat) was of no actual help.  (That’s no surprise; the surprise was that both people I spoke with had a good command, at least of written, English).

Do you or the Advisors know of anything?

Thanks,

Jim

Peter Glaskowsky says

I used Journal for a while myself; it was a nice lightweight program for taking handwritten notes.

But Journal was superseded by OneNote many years ago, and only stuck around because disk space is relatively cheap and Microsoft tends to hang onto things.

At this point, I think the only sensible thing is to restore a backup of Journal, or go to an older machine, and migrate any remaining Journal notes into OneNote. A tool for this purpose was released in 2007; it might still work:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/johnguin/2007/12/21/journal-to-onenote-importer/

.             png

Election Data Point

Dear Jerry,

This is one small data point, but it seems significant.

Six months ago I went to Mr. Trumps’ campaign site and left my information, and offered to work as a volunteer.

Today, six months later, and barely more than one month before the

election, they got back to me.

They think I might be of some use telephoning, or perhaps travel to

Nevada, all as part of getting out the vote.

I am a California resident. I know California is about as Blue as a

state can be, but six months later and they want me in a state where I

know no one, and where I have no knowledge of local issues or conditions?

Prepare for four years of scandal and hack appointees, not to mention a

Supreme Court rubber stamping every Progressive Agenda Item.

Petronius

I suspect that recruiting Californians to work the ground game in Nevada was not approved at a very high level. As you note, building a ground game in California is not likely to be a good investment of resources.

SUBJ: Science Is Sexist Because It’s Not Subjective

http://thefederalist.com/2016/09/29/feminist-phd-candidate-science-sexist-not-subjective/

We are appalled. But not surprised.

Cordially,

John

Loopy

Donald Trump’s plan for ISIS

Dear Mr. Pournelle,
I agree that it would not be prudent to announce, in detail, plans for defeating ISIS. (Which, as far as I can tell, seem to be going rather well at present.) On the other hand, announcing loudly that you HAVE a plan, and it’s better than anybody else’s plan, but of course you can’t say what it is — that’s just shoddy.
Beyond that: it seems that much of Donald Trump’s argument is: I’m brilliant. Elect me, and I’ll fix everything. Day one.
Is he running for President? Or Emperor?
Yours,
Allan E. Johnson

He would not care for the responsibilities of emperor, and the military is not likely to accept him if he did want the job. I find it interesting that he says the Caliphate must be defeated and quickly; I have heard little from his opponent since they were identified as the junior varsity. I do not recall any revision of that appellation

Introducing myself — Max Hunter’s son

Greetings Dr. Pournelle. I’m Matt Hunter, Max Hunter’s second son (out of three sons and two daughters). I came across a photo of you, my Dad and Dan Quale in the meeting that kick-started SSTO development leading directly to the Delta Clipper program.
My father spoke very highly of you and I thought you might enjoy being updated on recent activity and actions taken on behalf of his legacy. First, we have established the Maxwell W. Hunter Foundation, a non-profit educational foundation whose mission is to inspire a new generation of space enthusiasts and potential aerodynamicists through, among other things, support for secondary-level aeronautical engineering curriculum.
Second, we are completing a complete overhaul of his old website which can be viewed at http://www.maxwellhunter.com. The website is described as “providing a journey through America’s golden age of space exploration through the eyes of Maxwell W. Hunter II. His unique perspectives on projects and policies in which he had a leadership role are reflected in his extensive library of technical and policy papers, correspondence, speeches, photos, video and family records.”
Finally, in honor of the 50th anniversary of its original publication, ”Thrust Into Space,” his famous textbook on rocket science and propulsion systems for space travel, has been reissued by the Foundation. It’s available on Amazon.
That’s it! I hope to meet you at some point and hope all is well. Feel free to contact me

Matt Hunter

I wish you well. Max was a giant.

It seems that American adults are, on average, more incapable than most humans. “Researchers tested about 166,000 people ages 16 to 65 in more than 20 countries”. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve hit the iceberg as our governments and bureaucracies re-arrange the deck

chairs:

<.>

It’s long been known that America’s school kids haven’t measured well compared with international peers. Now, there’s a new twist: Adults don’t either.

In math, reading and problem-solving using technology – all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength – American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results released Tuesday.

Adults in Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland and multiple other countries scored significantly higher than the United States in all three areas on the test. Beyond basic reading and math, respondents were tested on activities such as calculating mileage reimbursement due to a salesman, sorting email and comparing food expiration dates on grocery store tags.

</>

https://nypost.com/2013/10/08/us-adults-are-dumber-than-the-average-human/

This dovetails with a Vice News article that points out that most bureaucrats and intellectuals surveyed think that Americans don’t know anything about policy. Vice presents this as a “study”, which I don’t consider it to be since I can’t find any reference to an article in a scholarly journal, but it references a book that seems to include original research:

https://news.vice.com/article/washingtons-governing-elites-think-were-all-morons-a-new-study-says

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

The average public school is awful, and getting the schools to run for the benefit of the pupils rather that preserving the tenure of the teachers is one of the most important tasks ahead. I suspect we are up to it, but it takes someone with a thick skin. I’d say more but my typing is awful tonight. I would not sell America short. Hitler and Tojo made that mistake.

Warthogs & Strategy

I have a crackpot theory about the USAF’s A-10 “strategy”. It has everything to do with the F-35’s modern communications capability and the ‘fact’ that the A-10 is a forty year old airplane wrapped around a big gun. Modifying it seems out of the question. Duplicating its capabilities would probably be cost prohibitive.
Everything I have read about the new generation of aircraft, in particular the F-35 and the F-22, and the new networking capabilities those aircraft (will) have makes the Air Force’s desire to replace the A-10 with a ‘smart’ system more understandable. Wrong, especially from the ground pounders’ point of view, but understandable.
See http://aviationweek.com/defense/how-get-f-35s-f-22s-talking-fourth-generation-fighters. It takes a little reading between the lines to reach the conclusion I did, but it seems to make an otherwise incomprehensible decision less so.

Darryl

It’s a pilot’s air force, and subordinating to the ground army kills your career. The A-10’s need protection from missiles and the hot jet jockeys can fight missile bases; but no one wants that mission. You don’t get to zoom your hands in war stories about how you won air supremacy by attacking ground targets. Perhaps I am overly cynical.

sc:bubbles]

HSV-2 Swift destroyed off Yemeni Coast by Anti-Ship Missile

http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?D=10/04/2016&SO=&HC=2&ID=469303

“The futuristic looking HSV-2 Swift, an ex-U.S. Navy experimental high-speed logistics catamaran now being utilized by the UAE government, was struck by a missile on the evening of October 1, according to multiple reports.”

The moral of the story is to stay out of the littorals unless you have proper defenses, and excellent intelligence. 

Graves

Some reports say that it has been salvaged. It was no longer a US ship in any event.

for your observations…

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
 

Here’s the vital U.S. security interest in Syria

James G. Wiles

A major objection to American involvement in Syria appears in the form of a question: “why is this our problem?”

It is indeed our problem, for cold reasons of geopolitics which have nothing to do with humanitarian intervention, R2P or liberal internationalism.

In Caroline Glick’s latest column in the Jerusalem Post, is the stake for U.S. security interests around the world.

Here’s the money quote:

By adopting a strategy of total war, Putin has ensured that far from becoming the quagmire that President Barack Obama warned him Syria would become, the war in Syria has instead become a means to transform Russia into the dominant superpower in the Mediterranean, at the US’s expense.

“In exchange for saving Assad’s neck and enabling Iran and Hezbollah to control Syria, Russia has received the capacity to successfully challenge US power. Last month Putin brought an agreement with Assad before the Duma for ratification. The agreement permits – indeed invites – Russia to set up a permanent air base in Khmeimim, outside the civilian airport in Latakia…

…The Russians have also decided to turn their naval station at Tartus into something approaching a full-scale naval base.

With Russia’s recent rapprochement with Turkish President Recip Erdogan, NATO’s future ability to check Russian power through the Incirlik air base is in question.

Even Israel’s ability to permit the US access to its air bases is no longer assured. Russia has deployed air assets to Syria that have canceled Israel’s regional air superiority.

Under these circumstances, in a hypothetical Russian-US confrontation, Israel may be unwilling to risk Russian retaliation for a decision to permit the US to use its air bases against Russia.

America’s loss of control over the eastern Mediterranean is a self-induced disaster.”

(emphasis added)

It’s an open secret in Jerusalem that Caroline Glick often reflects the thinking of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

What has happened in Syria, as Glick demonstrates, is that Mr. Obama has enabled Putin to reverse one of the three great foreign policy accomplishments of the Nixon Administration: the ejection of the Soviet Union from the Middle East.

This is what this president has done to the U.S. defense posture in Europe and the Middle East. Meanwhile, in the Far East, the Chinese are trying to flip the new Philippine government into the anti-American column.

If they pull that off, Beijing will have successfully broken out of the nine-dash island chain and penetrated the U.S. defense perimeter which contained China since the end of the Korean War.

As Victor Davis Hansen wrote this week, “a hard rain is coming.”

 

 

 

“ Russia has deployed air assets to Syria that have canceled Israel’s regional air superiority.

Under these circumstances, in a hypothetical Russian-US confrontation, Israel may be unwilling to risk Russian retaliation for a decision to permit the US to use its air bases against Russia.

America’s loss of control over the eastern Mediterranean is a self-induced disaster.”

Russia’s air asset have not CANCELED Israel’s regional air superiority, but certainly have induced a challenge to it. There are 3 levels of air control – Air Supremacy; Air Superiority; and Air Parity.  In Israel’s case they have have enjoyed Air Supremacy for quite some time – this WITHOUT augmentation from the US.  I would suggest that Israel (and certainly with US [other friendly?] reinforcing assets continues to maintain air superiority.  (NOTE: that Russia putting all it’s eggs in one airfield is NOT tactically sound – distance prevents fighter and fighter/bomber support from Russian or Iranian airspace).

I will concur, however, that the Russian re-introduction into the eastern Med is absolutely a disaster.

s/f

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
 

From: Leonard
David makes a good point.  Nevertheless Israel has sought not to rely on US direct military involvement in its wars.  I can’t imagine that policy changing.  I suspect the basing of US planes was for the sake of US force projection given the loss of naval power in the Mediterranean Sea and the frayed ties to the Sunni Arab powers in the Gulf.  But extending the invite to US air power now, given Russian presence in Syria, puts natural gas fields in eastern Med at risk!

The broader issue turns on uncertainty of commitment.  Would any allied government bet on a Democratic Party administration to keep its security agreements when the base of the party is 40% or more supporters of Bernie Sanders?  

Here is the reason to vote for Trump, as despicable a person as he has proven himself to be.  It is not just the possibility of conservative judges on SCOTUS but also a possible rebuilding of military capabilities and commitments.  

Note my use of the word possible.  I have no assurance that Trump will keep his commitments or even remember them.  But there is a chance.

With Clinton and the Dems their track record cannot be ignored.  Who would trust them?   Remember how the democratic congress repudiated the agreement to resupply south Vietnam after the Nixon – Kissinger peace treaty with the North?

Len

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

Thursday, September 29, 2016

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

James Burnham

Rudolph Giuliani: Trump is right about ‘stop and frisk.’ Lester Holt should apologize

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.

But according to candidate Hillary Clinton and moderator Lester Holt during Monday night’s presidential debate, stop and frisk is “unconstitutional.” They are wrong. In Mrs. Clinton’s case, it’s the usual misrepresenting she does when she does not know what she is talking about. As for Mr. Holt, if a moderator is going to interfere, he should do some homework and not pretend to know the law when he does not. Mr. Holt and NBC cannot overrule the U.S. Supreme Court.

Stop and frisk is based on an 8-1 decision of the Supreme Court, Terry v. Ohio. That ruling hasn’t been overturned or even modified by the court since it was handed down in 1968. Stop and frisk is constitutional and the law of the land. The majority opinion, written by then-Chief Justice Earl Warren, approved the constitutionality of stopping a suspect if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that a person has committed, or was about to commit, a crime. If the officer also has a reasonable suspicion the person is armed, he can conduct a pat-down—that is, a frisk—of a person’s outer clothing.

Rudy Giuliani

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/09/28/rudolph-giuliani-trump-is-right-about-stop-and-frisk-lester-holt-should-apologize.html

I wasn’t astonished when Lester Holt tried to prop up Mrs. Clinton in the debate, but actually to interrupt Mr. Trump to insist that he knows the law when he doesn’t was a bit surprising. Perhaps he does know the law and this was planned? He knew the question would come up. He presumably was briefed on the law and Terry v. Ohio. Yet he interrupted Mr. Trump to assert a falsehood. This did not come as an astonishment to many;

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/09/27/lester-holt-spins-debate-for-hillary-6-huge-ways-plays-gotcha-with-trump.html

One Federal Judge did decree that because more black and Hispanics were stopped and frisked, the practice as employed in New York City was racist. That governs no one in Chicago, where Mr. Trump recommends the practice be applied.

Mayor Bill de Blasio rushed to declare Donald Trump “literally all wrong” in saying Monday that stop-and-frisk is effective and constitutional. But the NYPD put out a statement that proves him wrong.

De Blasio was on MSNBC defending Hillary Clinton, who claimed that “stop-and-frisk was found to be unconstitutional” and “ineffective,” adding that it “did not do what it needed to do.” Trump disagreed on both counts — and the facts back him up.

As the NYPD release rightly notes, “Stop, Question and Frisk is not unconstitutional,” and even Judge Shira Scheindlin’s disastrous 2013 ruling never said so.

Fact is, the Supreme Court found it constitutional back in 1968 and has never reversed or even modified that decision. Scheindlin ruled merely that the NYPD’s use of the tactic had shown “deliberate indifference” to constitutional rights, claiming racial bias.

Then the US Court of Appeals threw her off the case because her “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

And it stayed her ruling — a step usually taken only when a decision is unlikely to survive the full appellate process.

But higher courts never finished examining her decision — because de Blasio, who’d won his race for mayor vowing to end the practice, squelched the city’s appeal.

Trump was also right to call Scheindlin “a very anti-police judge.” One of her own former clerks told The New Yorker that “she thinks cops lie.”

http://nypost.com/2016/09/28/clinton-is-wrong-on-stop-and-frisk-and-trumps-right/

All of this must have been known to someone in the CBDS staff who briefed Lester Holt. Perhaps he fell asleep during the briefings?

Reading the Wall Street Journal’s daily Trump Thump has become painful, and I no longer do it religiously. I probably have missed some articles, because there remain a few neo-cons not yet converted to the official WSJ position.

Another Wall St. Journal column says of Trump, “If he had a plan to win this debate against Clinton, it remains as secret as his plan to defeat IDSIS.” I’m not all that familiar with Mr. Riley, a black conservative, and perhaps he is not very familiar with military action; but Trump had said, many times, that he’s not going to discuss strategy for the enemy benefit, and I agree with that. He has said he will do it rapidly, which suggests that he plans to accept the Caliphate’s declaration of war on the United States, and retaliate massively. I’d recommend a Corps sized expeditionary force, including one heavy armored division, with an air support team including both the A-10 Warthogs and a wing of air supremacy SAM busters. That will do it fast and with few casualties. It is an elementary military principle that you use overwhelming force at the point of contact (if you can); this keeps casualties low and actually costs less than trying to do the job on the cheap. As to what we do when we have conquered ISIDS, it will be our territory; we won’t do it as a favor for Iraq and/or Syria. We will own the oilfields, too. We can dispose of that territory as we will, partitioning it into more stable regions. I suggest we give the King of Jordan a reasonable part of Sunni Iraq, hopefully a portion with some oilfields in it. He can use the income, and the Middle East can use the kind of stability he has brought to his part of it. The Kurds also have a high stake here.

The important part to remember is that ISIS rules only if it rules. Its legitimacy is that it applies Sharia to areas it controls; if it controls no area, if it sovereign nowhere, then it is just another terrorist group; perhaps not the Junior Varsity, but not a Caliphate. Its main attractiveness to recruits is that it claims to fulfill the will of Allah, and Allah favours the Caliphate.

I do not know Mr. Trump’s plans; I doubt he does in detail. I do know he does not consider himself a military expert and will seek advice from those he thinks are; just as when he decides to construct a new building, he does not start with blueprints of the men’s room (or whatever the Federal regulators require in the area he will build it). He will have to decide on policy, he may even choose a plumbing company, but I’d be much surprised if he spent much time on ball cocks. Eisenhower built highways, but he wasn’t a civil engineer.

The Debate

Dear Mr. Pournelle,
I suspect the debate didn’t change much. Those of us who find Trump intolerable saw an intolerable Trump. Those who find Clinton intolerable saw an intolerable Clinton. Those who dislike both of them about equally probably saw little reason to change their minds.
I’m coming to the conclusion that what we need for the next four years is a caretaker President. In a better world, that would not be the case. Our country has work to do, and “steady as she goes” isn’t likely to get it done. However: some years back I read an article maintaining that, in a representative government, it is not plausible to find a strong, visionary leader unless a large consensus of the population roughly agrees on what direction they want to be led.
At present, the vision of one party is more or less the nightmare of the other. For either to claim “leadership” would require demonizing and marginalizing about half the voters. Which wouldn’t bode well for the future of the Republic.
It would be pretty to think that a Presidential mandate could break this deadlock. I don’t see that happening. What is urgent, I believe, is to begin clawing ourselves back from our current polarization. Other crises will be resolved well or poorly; but this one renders leadership impossible.
I’m inclined to think the United States is healthy enough that, if necessary, we could more or less coast for the next four years. There’d be damage; but not nearly as much as trying to impose a “vision” which half the voters detest. That would give us four years to try to find something like a national consensus.
Granted, that in itself would be a challenge I’m not sure we can meet. but hey, the horse *might* learn to sing…
Yours,
Allan E. Johnson

The problem is that we can’t coast. The rest of the world isn’t. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton seek to convert this from a nation of states to a national democracy, majority rules; and with two more USSC Justices, they will succeed.

Then there’s

China actively pursuing space-based solar power.

<https://warisboring.com/guess-what-could-be-totally-missing-from-the-new-u-s-presidents-intel-briefing-9ce4881643e5>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Take the high ground, boy, or they’ll kick hell out of you in the valleys. I learned that as a first principle, and it applies in a technological war as well.

“A gigantic technological race is in progress between interception and penetration and each time capacity for interception makes progress it is answered by a new advance in capacity for penetration. Thus a new form of strategy is developing in peacetime, a strategy of which the phrase ‘arms race’ used prior to the old great conflicts is hardly more than a faint reflection.

There are no battles in this strategy; each side is merely trying to outdo in performance the equipment of the other. It has been termed ‘logistic strategy’. Its tactics are industrial, technical, and financial. It is a form of indirect attrition; instead of destroying enemy resources, its object is to make them obsolete, thereby forcing on him an enormous expenditure….

A silent and apparently peaceful war is therefore in progress, but it could well be a war which of itself could be decisive.”
–General d’Armee Andre Beaufre

From The Strategy of Technology, Winning the Decisive War, by Stefan Possony and Jerry Pournelle

The address is wrong in the invitation to send money. If you care to make a donation, the address is

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

12051 Laurel Terrace Drive

Studio City, CA 91604

We wrote Strategy of Technology almost fifty years ago. It was used as a textbook in the military academies at one time. The principle remain true, although all the examples come from the Cold War. I hope to revise it with new examples some day; it is still important.

Re: Trump’s First Debate

Dr. Pournelle –
Just read your column on the debate and I thought I’d add a little tidbit.
Hillary condemns Trump for allegedly not paying any federal income tax; that he’s “gaming” the system.
She needs to informed of how the tax system works, that the only way to not pay federal taxes is because you have used your money elsewhere in ways of which the government approves and rewards. these include charities, capital purchases, capital improvements, all sorts of things that improve the lives of others. By doing so, the government lets you off the hook on federal taxes.
To imply that Trump is doing wrong is simply bald-faced dishonesty on her part and a hope that her listeners are ignorant enough to fall for her tripe.
Further, I suggest that an examination of her tax returns will show that she “gamed” the system in the exact same way.
I will admit that I was not a big Trump supporter. My mother was from the start, but I was for Walker, then Fiorina, then Cruz. But, once he got the nomination, he won my support 100%. The important thing right now is to ensure Hillary does not make it to office. Then, we can work on smoothing our rough edges for next time.
Cam Kirmser

But it is all irrelevant. We know that the Clinton Foundation will thrive under Mrs. Clinton. We suspect that Mr. Trump will not go broke in office. And all that is trivial compared to exponential growth of the national debt in the past 8 years, under both Democratic and Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. One candidate says he will cut taxes and reduce costs. He may be lying. The other says she will spend a lot more money shoring up Obamacare, giving free college education, increasing entitlements, and so forth. I suspect she is not lying.

Smallpox Vaccinations Aren’t Available

Smallpox vaccinations are not to be had anywhere, at any price, unless you actually work with the virus or you’re part of a “smallpox response team.”
The government claims to have enough vaccine to vaccinate everyone in the U.S.
https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/vaccination/facts.asp

Ray Van De Walker

And you can believe as much of that as you want to.

Terrorism Risk Alert

Well, as it often happens, high-risk individuals go missing from military programs and we hear from them again at some odd terrorist attack. I wonder how long before we hear from these boys?

<.>

Several Afghan nationals undergoing military training in the United States disappeared from U.S. military bases this month, according to Pentagon and Homeland Security officials.

“During the month of September, seven Afghan students were considered absent without leave (AWOL) during international military student programs,” Pentagon spokesman Cmdr. Patrick L. Evans said.

</>

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/missing-afghans-raise-terrorism-fears/

Not to worry, I’m sure some federal bureaucracy or other has an Afghani sensitivity training campaign on the shelf for just such an occurrence. After all, being concerned about potential security risks is racist and only enables climate change!

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

We will win the narrative and get Pulitzer Prizes.

You wrote that you’d worry about ADHD. You also wrote that many boys were drugged and this still happens in some places. What would you do if you confronted ADHD in your child in today’s day and age?

My experience has been that most cases described as ADHD occur in rich families and those with really good health insurance. Since the diagnosis didn’t exist when I was in graduate school in psychology, I don’t know the recommended treatments. In my time I once had a psychology practice in association with a leading pediatrician; I only took cases of bright children who were not doing well in school. I tended to teach them self discipline, and give them interesting things to do and read, and this was successful in those cases. I don’t believe I ever recommended drugs, which of course would have to be prescribed by my physician associate. It was a lucrative but time consuming practice and I gave it up.

I have seen kids of rich friends diagnosed as ADHD and have not found one I thought was autistic. That includes relatives of my daughters in law. I generally recommended more interesting schools, which advice was not always taken, but seems to have worked where it was tried. I have no experience with average IQ kids, so I cannot recommend anything. In general, bright kids who are bored tend to exhibit behavior indistinguishable from the diagnosis of ADHD, and since all of those I have encountered tended to respond well to self-discipline and interesting subject matter, I couldn’t say what I would do when “confronted” with ADHD, since I have never actually encountered it.

I have friends who had genuinely autistic bright children, but far more severe than the DSM ADHD. They eventually recovered, but the ordeal was severe and required enormous patience.

Freeman Dyson

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10/13/green-universe-a-vision/

The Green Universe: A Vision

Freeman Dyson

I have not read this, but Mr. Dyson is one of the great thinkers of our time.

Miracles –

Hi Jerry,

I’m blessed to count Mark Mittleberg and Lee Strobel as two friends – they are both best selling apologists, and provide a great filter between academia and the mass market.  One of the really cool parts of their work is that they provide references and citations to the deep academic literature.  

Recently Lee recommended Craig Keeners two-volume set on Miracles.  It provides compelling and powerful case studies and documentation that they really do happen.  I’m halfway through, and it’s absolutely fascinating.

https://www.amazon.com/Miracles-Credibility-New-Testament-Accounts/dp/0801039525/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1474582053&sr=8-5&keywords=miracles&tag=chaosmanor-20

I’ll witness to one myself – I was raised in a non-religious family, not even really C&E.  In college in the late 80’s, I became actively hostile to religion (lovely environment, CU Boulder, so very intolerant).  In 2004 I was in the habit of spending my lunch hour at our local Barnes and noble, often picking up and reading scientific books (Brian Greene, Hawking, etc.).  They had a display with The Case For Christ, and Darwin’s Black Box.  I thumbed through both, thinking I’d debunk them with a good laugh.  But neither was that easy.  That launched a 5 year deep investigation of my own – I read all of Lee’s books, read his sources, and read those sources, and all the counter arguments as well.  In the end, I came to a rational decision that Christianity was true.  Some months later, in late 2009, I came to faith – through a true apologetic, rational path.  My wife had always been a believer, and we set out to find a church to attend.  The second one we tried, just a month later, was Cherry Hills Community Church, which seats about 2500 people in the worship center.  They have a tradition as part of the service to turn around and greet and shake hands with the people around you.  

As I turned, I found myself shaking the hand of Lee Strobel.  We’ve been friends ever since.

God has both impeccable timing, and a great sense of humor.

I challenge anyone to brush that off to coincidence.  Of all the gin joints in all the world….

Cheers,

Doug

One of the Brothers told me in high school that each of us will experience a miracle or two; what we do with that experience will determine much in our lives. This was not Church doctrine, just an observation by a person I admired very much. His name was Brother Fidelis, FSC.

sc:bubbles]

Sweden as a case study

Greetings Doctor
A short mail from Sweden. First to get it out of the way, you’ve been a longtime formative hero of mine. I got my basic world view from then illicit (sold but not kept at the library) Biggles books. World-view was then re-enforced by the Lord of the ring, but not really explained until getting my hands on Falkenberg’s Legion, and go tell the Spartans. Yes, I exaggerate a bit, there were other influences, but yours was important.
No one around here wrote books like that, since I grew up in Sweden, where we of unlimited welfare take our rights seriously and skip lightly over our outmoded duties, except those having to do with paying taxes.
Anyway, Sweden today might be the best case study possible with regards to a comprehensive and declining welfare state and free immigration. Of course, also the best, worst example in the world of poor and slow integration, since we due to feelings of supreme goodness, and strong unions, keep perfectly healthy immigrants out of the work force and on the dole. Twenty years ago I didn’t understand the term “Welfare Islands” when reading the Falkenberg books. I due to language and a less fractured country, envisioned real islands where the govt dumped the refuse. Now, the term makes perfect sense here in Sweden. Linguistically though, welfare is a good word here, encompassing everything the govt handles out as schools, hospitals, unemployment money and the coins you get from your social worker. So, linguistically, here, welfare is good, while money from “soc” the social workers is sorta frowned upon, and being re-named every fifth years or so to avoid pointing fingers at the dolees. So voters mainly care about jobs and welfare, ignoring defense and education. Yeah, recently we worry about immigration too, but the solution is simply more taxation.
I’d say Sweden is the perfect example of politicians bribing the voters with their owntax money, and most people have long lost sight of it. Recently cheap loans and somewhat lowered income taxes have made the middle class dependent on banks instead of politicians, and brought a day to day prosperity but little accumulated wealth, certainly not as compared to the loans. This perceived affluence and increased stratification, basically people living in rentals missed out on the property rally and cant borrow for consumption, have given the middle class a big touch of upper class guilt meaning no one says no to silly ideas. Thus every idiot idea coming out of leftist campuses in the US, or France, or dreamed up by those among us who simply hate civilization, are happily adopted by a very vocal minority and not resisted on fear of being labeled a Nazi.
Sweden; still comfortable, yet increasingly dismal and headed for the abyss, but a great case study, although few around here would admit it. Look it up, if you have any spare time to speak of.
If published, please keep name out. I could lose my job or at least the next three raises over it. As I said above, not agreeing with the lefties ideas makes you a Nazi around here. We take corporate policy one step further and call it something like shared bottom-line values. Said values are then decided on by the employer, and manifestly good, they have to be since they are shared values. Not agreeing with them, is a bad thing.
Thanks for the books. As I said formative.
Carl

I am Norman, which is Frenchified Danes and Swedes who were hired from our homeland in then Denmark (now Sweden) by the King of France to keep our relatives from raiding Normandy. I have a great deal of empathy with Sweden. I am sad to see Sweden used as a social experiment, but it is well that there has been one with obvious results.

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