Barrack Obama <\/p>\n
Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide. <\/p>\n
![\"bubbles\"](\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\")
<\/p> <\/p>\n
I had numerous errands today, and although I didn\u2019t drive\u2014I haven\u2019t since the stroke\u2014I did go on numerous errands without the walker; cane only. Quite tiring, surprisingly so, but I did fine. Practice makes perfect, they told me in rehab, and it proves to be true. <\/p>\n
Sunday I did 4000+ words on what ended up as the February, 2016 continuation of Computing at Chaos Manor. You will find this at <\/strong>Chaos Manor Reviews<\/strong><\/a>, and I hope you\u2019ll enjoy it.<\/strong> <\/p>\n The Iowa caucuses produced only one big surprise, Rubio\u2019s close third place. No surprise at all that Cruz, who invested heavily in his ground game\u2014get your own voters out\u2014was able to pull off a bare win by one delegate. Trump spent very little money and did nearly as well; had he not also been concerned with his reputation regarding the media and showed up at the Republican debate, he probably would have won; but second place is certainly good enough to show he is a serious candidate, and Iowa has far too few delegates to justify spending money to get delegates; it\u2019s the reputation you need, and the proof that you can get the voters out, and he showed that in Spades, but without Big Casino. <\/p>\n Most analysts do not understand Trump\u2019s appeal, or they are so afraid of him that they will not admit it: Trump is not a conservative, although he is pro-business, and he has a rather conservative view on social issues much like most people his age. He is not religious, particularly, but he respects piety and approves of it, and he certainly is not anti-religious. Judao-Christian ethics and principles are natural to him, and he respects them as do most Americans. He is certainly no liberal or socialist. He\u2019s a pragmatist, utterly and completely\u2019 <\/p>\n He is certainly not a strong party adherent, having been registered as both Independent and Democrat as well as, at present as he was many years ago, Republican. <\/p>\n His appeal is two fold: he despises the existing establishment, and he says he can get things done. Of course enemies and would-be pundits demand that he tell them how he will do them, but he won\u2019t, largely because he can\u2019t, just as if you asked him how to build Trump Towers he could not tell you. He\u2019s neither architect nor engineer: he hires architects and engineers and watches their progress. <\/p>\n In one way he\u2019s like Obama: he tells you to trust him and offers Hope and Change. Believe me, I\u2019ll get the Wall built, and I\u2019ll make America respected again. That\u2019s the sort of thing Obama told us, and enough people believed him to elect him; by 2012 most Americans understood that he wasn\u2019t bringing us Hope and Change, but the Republican establishment promised only more of the same policies that got us into this mess and ran one of the establishment as proof that whatever you would get from them, reform wouldn\u2019t be in the package; and enough people stayed home, and others voted for Republicans in Congress because Obama they were pretty sure they didn\u2019t want what they got after 2008 even if they didn\u2019t trust Republicans with the Presidency. <\/p>\n A lot of Americans hate their government. Perhaps that\u2019s too strong a word, but their experiences with government tend to expose them to arrogant incompetence for which their Civil Masters, oops Servants give themselves bonuses when their performance warrants discipline\u2014look at the VA as a fine example\u2014and they are afraid to stand out in a crowd lest they draw the attention of government. Streets aren\u2019t paved, laws aren\u2019t enforced equally, water pipes burst, drinking water has lead in it in Flint, and generally things don\u2019t work so good; while all around us is the Internet of Things, marvels and miracles, yet somehow government gets bigger, pays itself more, and presents us with arrogant incompetence. <\/p>\n Trump has fewer \u2013 not many fewer but fewer \u2013 government credentials than Obama had when he started toward the Presidency. He was briefly in the Illinois legislature, hardly long enough to learn that job, before he became a Senator, and he hadn\u2019t been there long before he was the candidate of hope and change, and he didn\u2019t need to tell people how he was going to do it. Trump has less government experience; but he has built buildings and golf courses, and he has done things; he hasn\u2019t been a community organizer or an unpublished law professor whose students don\u2019t remember him; but he had made a lot of money, not from government; and he is not beholden to contributors or anyone else. His appeal is that he say he will do things, and although he is not a great public speaker, he has done things he is proud of. He knows how to choose people to get them done; or so far he has. <\/p>\n This is not an endorsement of Trump; it is analysis. He needed to show that he was a serious candidate, and he did so. He spent little money, he built no organization, he had time to manage his business, and the polls show him winning in New Hampshire; and once again his appeal is that he is not a Bush, he is not Bernie Sanders, he is not a Clinton, he owes no one, and he certainly is not an old line country club Republican. He was gracious to the winner and the close third, he was not contemptuous to the losers. He showed that he has legs, and he is a serious candidate. <\/p>\n The Clinton\/Sanders tie was fascinating. The older Democrats went for Hillary; the younger ones, who have never seen real socialism in action, and know of real socialism only from attending Cuba Libre rallies, rejected her; which is to say, they rejected Obama and the Democrat establishment. The Democrat strategists know this. I look forward to seeing what they\u2019ll try next. <\/p>\n And the Soviet Union keeps rolling along\u2026 A song we used to sing in the old days. Its theme was the ineptitude of Americans. \u201cJohn Foster Dulles is all confused, these foreign people aren\u2019t what they used to be, they don\u2019t go for these platitudes, about good Christian attitudes, Why the Spanish people didn\u2019t even say Thank You, when we gave about a hundred million dollars to Franco, and the Soviet Union Keeps rolling along\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n Youthful contempt for the establishment is hardly new. Some of it goes left, some goes right, some goes pragmatic. You could hardly call Cruz or Rubio establishment Republicans, and Bernie Sanders isn\u2019t even a registered Democrat. It promises to be an interesting election year. <\/p>\n I have been asked why have both Mail and View categories, and why so much mail in View? Time: I find myself harassed for time, what with health, age, household crises, etc., and sometimes I simply cannot write the essays I want to write; yet I want this place to remain interesting enough to be read. <\/p>\n I have always had more interesting mail than almost anyone else on the Internet; so I use it to keep View interesting when I don\u2019t have time to do all that myself. Often mail will say something that needs saying even if I do not agree with everything in it. I do not edit mail or alter it. I may in comments show agreement or argument. <\/p>\n Posts categorized as Mail will contain little else; I do one once in a while, less frequently now. <\/p>\n I have several major essays in preparation, but I also owe Niven and Barnes considerable work on our next novel, John DeChancie a pass through our work, and a final push to finish Mamelukes. <\/p>\n You can\u2019t say my life is dull. <\/p>\n Also, I haven\u2019t timed it, but I think it is about time for another pledge drive<\/a>. <\/p>\n Public Science is Broken <\/p>\n Dear Jerry: <\/p>\n Professor Marc Edwards from Virginia Tech is much in the news for his role in exposing the Flint, MI water scandal. The “Chronicle of Higher Education” interviewed him. Your readers will be interested in what he has to say about the public’s loss of confidence in science and government. Just a couple of quotes: <\/p>\n “We are not skeptical enough about each other’s results. What’s the upside in that? You’re going to make enemies. People might start questioning your results. And that’s going to start slowing down our publication assembly line. Everyone’s invested in just cranking out more crap papers.” <\/p>\n and <\/p>\n “It’s a symbol of the total failure of our government science <\/p>\n agencies, and also of our academic institutions. I really derive no <\/p>\n personal satisfaction from that. I feel shame. That’s what I feel.” <\/p>\n The complete interview is at <\/p>\n http:\/\/chronicle.com\/article\/The-Water-Next-Time-Professor\/235136<\/a> <\/p>\n As I’ve said in past e-mails that you’ve posted in which I questioned <\/p>\n the integrity of contemporary science, today when government agencies <\/p>\n and their scientists claim to speak in the name of “science” I first <\/p>\n ask: What are they up to? What’s their agenda? What’s the narrative <\/p>\n they are pushing? <\/p>\n It wasn’t like this when I earned my Ph. D. in physics from Brown <\/p>\n back in the 1960’s. It’s all gone dreadfully wrong as the new <\/p>\n Lysenkoism has taken hold. <\/p>\n Best regards, <\/p>\n –Harry M.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Science \u2013 Big Science \u2013 is certainly broken, particularly the social sciences with their unreplicated experiments, but it extends to some physical science as well. I know of no quick fix, but I do think there ought to be funding for some \u2013 not all, but some \u2013 antiestablishment science. How those projects should be chosen I do not know, I wish there were a well funded foundation dedicated to replicating experiments and looking for crucial experiments contradicting previously settled questions. <\/p>\n This fellow clearly has too much time on his hands – and makes money from it on his YouTube channel. <\/p>\n How Many Days Does Bill Murray Spend Stuck In Groundhog Day? <\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HYAx9RX1OmY<\/a> <\/p>\n Really? Yup, he figures it all out and comes up with a number – a very large <\/p>\n number. Poor Bill, but, in the end, he and Punxsutawney ended up better off for <\/p>\n his incredible number of replays. <\/p>\n Figuring this all out must have required an interesting obsession. Is there a <\/p>\n clinical description for it? <\/p>\n {O,o}<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Ground Hog Day. A wonderful film. <\/p>\n Subj: Mike Flynn on the Iowa Caucuses result <\/p>\n http:\/\/tofspot.blogspot.com\/2016\/02\/upset-in-iowa.html<\/a> <\/p>\n [quote] <\/p>\n What the whole circus has illustrated is the fatal flaw of democracy: <\/p>\n viz., the involvement of people. This is the belief that if a bunch of individuals pool their ignorance they will achieve collective wisdom. <\/p>\n Back when the Parties chose their candidates the old-fashioned way, <\/p>\n http:\/\/cookpolitical.com\/story\/8407<\/a> <\/p>\n they wound up nominating the likes of Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, Dick Nixon, and so on. Nomination via beauty contests and media buys gave us Carter, Dukakis, Obama, and two Bushes. The basic divide was between competency and the ability to get things done versus media savvy and the mastery of the sound-bite. There were dud the old way, sure, and Reagan managed to slip though the new way. (And heck, even Clinton I knew how to work across the aisle when he had to.) But TOF prefers a competent manager over a flamboyant celebrity any day. <\/p>\n [end quote] <\/p>\n Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Mike Flynn, our collaborator on Fallen Angels<\/a>, is always worth attention. If you haven\u2019t read that book you may like it. <\/p>\n A small, self-governing island may hand over its roads to self-driving cars (WP)<\/p>\n<\/p> \n<\/p> \n<\/p> \n\n
<\/p> \n\n
<\/p> \n\n
<\/p> \n\n
![\"clip_image002\"](\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/clip_image002_thumb.jpg\" "\\"clip_image002\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n