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<\/p> <\/p>\nChaos Manor View, Wednesday, March 16, 2016 <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the most transparent administration in history.\u201d <\/p>\n
Barrack Obama <\/p>\n
Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide. <\/p>\n
Under Capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under Socialism, the powerful become rich. <\/p>\n
Under Socialism, government employees become powerful. <\/p>\n
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The saga of my Windows 10 hijacking continues. Alien Artifact, an Intel Core i7 2600K CPU running at 3.4 GHz with 16 GB of memory \u2013 a sweet spot computer when he was built \u2013 has run Windows 7 until Sunday morning \u2013 see Sunday\u2019s View \u2013 when I found that during the night he had been hijacked by Windows 10, and there didn\u2019t seem to be much I could do about it. <\/p>\n
Before you start writing me about that. Some notes. First, I know that I could have done something about it; it\u2019s simple and easy or nightmarishly complicated depending on your computer sophistication, mental awareness, patience, and time available. For various reasons I decided to accept the fait accompli and live with Windows 10. I had an awful experience with Windows 8, and better but still dismaying experiences with early versions of Windows 10, but I have also got Windows 10 on my Session Pro 3 (not much choice there) and on two desktops, both built later than Alien Artifact, so I have been learning to use 10; but my main system was Windows 7 until it was hijacked. <\/p>\n
Second note: if you want to know what your CPU is, you have to remember it\u2019s Control Panel > System. Cortana doesn\u2019t know. And when you do find it, don\u2019t expect to copy it to paste into what you are writing. For reasons known only to the Microsoft Genius Club whose members think of ways to annoy users, you can\u2019t copy any of the data in Control Panel > System. <\/p>\n
Today I was trying to catch up on Luanne, a comic strip that\u2019s in my wife\u2019s newspaper but not in mine, and discovered that Windows 10 allows terrible things to happen with Firefox. Firefox looks the same on Windows 7 and 10, but on 7 I never had this problem, and now I\u2019ve got it: I\u2019m getting hijacked by popup ads, and if that wasn\u2019t bad enough, popup new tabs taking me to all kinds of places I don\u2019t want to go. It has been happening all week, but generally when I ;look at places I\u2019m not familiar with: but this was the same Luanne tab I have been using for years, only now I get new tabs advertising odd things I don\u2019t want, as well as popup ads that cover the cartoon and can\u2019t be closed. <\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t have all that with Windows 7; I\u2019ve had it ever since 10 was forced on me. And my recovery from my cold is taking a while; I\u2019m not undertaking any tasks that require cerebration. <\/p>\n
For all the irritations \u2013 mostly incredibly silly user interface and help files \u2013 Windows 10 really is more productive \u2013 at least for me \u2013 than Windows 7. And once I recover from this cold \u2013 I just know I will \u2013 I\u2019ll get back to doing other silly things so you don\u2019t have to. <\/p>\n
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‘The benefits from trade to the American economy may not always justify its costs.’ <\/p>\n ‘What seems most striking is that the angry working class \u2014 dismissed so often as myopic, unable to understand the economic trade-offs presented by trade \u2014 appears to have understood what the experts are only belatedly finding to be true: The benefits from trade to the American economy may not always justify its costs.’ <\/p>\n <http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/03\/16\/business\/economy\/on-trade-angry-voters-have-a-point.html<\/a>> <\/p>\n ————————————— <\/p>\n Roland Dobbins<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I\u2019ve always intended to write a rigorous analysis of free trade, in particular looking at the assumptions, both explicit and hidden, in David Ricardo\u2019s theory of free trade and the various extensions since then. It is a standard belief of libertarians and most conservatives that free trade is a nor very mitigated good, and that free trade nations are nearly always better off than their counterparts. <\/p>\n The alternative to free trade is protective tariff; a tax on imported goods because they are imported, collected at the customs houses; tariff for a long time was the principal source of revenue for the United States. When I was a lad, we learned in school that the Democrats wanted \u201cTariff for revenue only\u201d (don\u2019t raise tariff, but keep it reasonable so you get more money) while Republicans were for \u201cprotective tariff\u201d (keep tariff high so that industry can develop here; they only sell you cheap goods so that you won\u2019t develop industries). <\/p>\n In the \u201csolid South\u201d I grew up in, there were few Republicans; it was almost a joke. One reason for that was that the Union States, where most of the manufacturing and weaving and general factory goods production was centered, imposed very high tariff on industrial equipment. This kept the prices of manufactured goods high by preventing the South from competing; the South had not many factories, and had to pay the high prices charged by the North, since we couldn\u2019t buy the equipment to build our own factories. <\/p>\n I won\u2019t argue the truth or falsity of this proposition: I merely state that it was taught in public school classrooms and was universally believed. <\/p>\n Lincoln did not believe in free trade (which was a good reason for Southerners to relish it). His famous analysis on tariff was: \u201cAll I know is that if I buy a shirt from England, I have the shirt and the money goes to England. If I buy it from Massachusetts, I have the shirt and the money stays in the United States. The arguments then centered on whether we had a favorable balance of trade: did exports exceed in dollars brought in the money that imports cost in dollars paid out? That argument is made to this day. Except for China, the US generally exports more dollars\u2019 worth of goods (airplanes, for example) that it imports. With China it is not that way, and the US economy was once described as opening containers of consumer goods and borrowing the money to pay for them. <\/p>\n The usual arguments against free trade generally come down to \u201cdon\u2019t export jobs.\u201d American workers can\u2019t compete with people who work for what is to us starvation wages; imports bring good at lower costs, but you don\u2019t save THAT much on consumer goods \u2013 the savings don\u2019t have that much effect on your life \u2013 while the worker whose job is lost has been ruined. Look at the hell hole Detroit and its environs have become! In 1940 to 1045 Detroit was the symbol of American know how, and produced tens of thousands of tanks, artillery weapons, airplanes, trucks: we won the war with that, and we would not have had we been buying our cars from Japan and China! <\/p>\n A compelling argument in its way, and not easily refuted, especially when talking to a once middle class family now living in an old house requiring a great deal of maintenance and eating surplus cheese and whatever is available for food stamps; possibly with a little subsidiary income from under the table hiring out for handyman work. You are unlikely to convince that family that Ricardo\u2019s theory of comparative advantage proves they are better off than they would be if we put tariffs on imported cars. <\/p>\n I will add that that family\u2019s friends, who still have middle class jobs, are paying the taxes for those food stamps, and Obamacare for our worker family and are terrified that their jobs may be exported; or to the more skilled worker who discovers that his work as a house painter is being automated on new construction houses, and meanwhile he can\u2019t save money because he must pay the taxes to pay for Earned Income Tax Credits, otherwise known as negative income taxes. From his point of view, if they were all working, he wouldn\u2019t have to pay taxes to support his out-of-work neighbor and kids with Entitlements; and perhaps he workers who will pay for his entitlements when his job is gone. <\/p>\n And I\u2019m out of energy, it\u2019s time for a dinner I don\u2019t feel like eating, and we can return to this theme when I\u2019m feeling better. I know that economists say there is no question about it, you just have to read Ricardo and you\u2019ll know that free trade is better that high protective tariff; but I\u2019ve read Ricardo and I didn\u2019t see anything about the externality of Negative Income Tax and Entitlements; and I\u2019ve yet to see an economic model that does take account of them. I do know that we have a median personal national debt of over $50,000 for every man, woman, and child (illegal immigrants excluded I sup[pose) and while I just might be able to come up with my wife\u2019s share, and my share, I don\u2019t think all of us together could pay off the debt owed by my wife and I and our children and grandchildren, or what we\u2019d have left to live on if we did; and I know I\u2019m nowhere near the worst off of my friends and acquaintances. <\/p>\n So I really think the economists need to do a better job of explaining free trade rather than just saying Smoot-Hawley over and over. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n CJCS <\/p>\n http:\/\/www.defenseone.com\/ideas\/2016\/03\/keep-americas-top-military-officer-out-chain-command\/126694\/?oref=defenseone_today_nl<\/a> <\/p>\n Salient points made here. Our government\/military mix has always been that the military is commanded by the President – a civilian. The JCS was created to provide that military advice to the President and coordinate military actions\/budget across the services – in effect liaison to the Congress and President. Even without being in the chain-of-command, the CJCS still wields considerable power and influence – but cannot direct troops anywhere. <\/p>\n David Couvillon <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n ‘Instead, the design of the QWERTY keyboard was designed for Morse code, with significant regard given to putting the most frequently used letters on the home row.’ <\/p>\n <http:\/\/hackaday.com\/2016\/03\/15\/the-origin-of-qwerty\/<\/a>> <\/p>\n ————————————— <\/p>\n Roland Dobbins <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Amusing; I must admit I always believed in the standard theory, but on reflection I don\u2019t know why. Neither will you after you read this. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free. <\/p>\n Chaos Manor View, Wednesday, March 16, 2016 \u201cThis is the most transparent administration in history.\u201d Barrack Obama Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide. Under Capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under Socialism, the powerful become rich. Under Socialism, government employees become powerful. The saga \u2026 Continue reading ![\"Air%20Guard\"](\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Air20Guard.gif\" "\\"Air%20Guard\\"")
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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 <\/p>\n<\/p> \n\n
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