{"id":27649,"date":"2016-05-28T00:54:41","date_gmt":"2016-05-28T07:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/?p=27649"},"modified":"2016-05-28T01:05:24","modified_gmt":"2016-05-28T08:05:24","slug":"trump-up-from-vegetating-dithering-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/trump-up-from-vegetating-dithering-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"TRUMP; Up from vegetating; Dithering continues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p align=\"center\">Chaos Manor View, Friday, May 27, 2016<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">Migration without assimilation is invasion.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">Under Capitalism, the rich become powerful. Under Socialism, the powerful become rich.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">Under Socialism, government employees become powerful.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"> <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> <\/p>\n <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> \n<p>I&#8217;ve been working in the Monk\u2019s Cell, fiction only, and making considerable progress. I\u2019ve worked on Mamelukes, and I have all the problems sorted out, who ends where \u2013 well mostly. The Avalon novel, about the first interstellar colony, has also some work done. And I am doing the Five Tibetan Rites, which I recommend to everyone at any age. I\u2019ve written about them many times. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/view\/2009\/Q4\/view596.html#Tibetan\">Here\u2019s one link.<\/a> You can also find a good demonstration by Hugh Howey and Amber. Just Google. I\u2019ve been neglecting my exercises, and it shows, but I am returning from vegetation, and I won\u2019t relapse again this time. I stopped early this year when I got the flu, and any excuse not to exercise, and besides I was having problems with the computer up in the Monk\u2019s Cell. Whereupon vegetation took control. Not again.<\/p>\n<p>Of course I also stopped going up there because the old ThinkPad I kept up there had problems adjusting to updates and some other wireless problems, and I used that as more excuses to avoid work. I have the ThinkPad working well enough for now &#8212; long enough to buy time deciding on its replacement, anyway. The candidates are the new 15\u201d ASUS, and a MacBook Pro running OSX and Office 365. The keyboards of both ASUS and MacBook are superior for my needs. When I was a touch typist \u2013 before the stroke \u2013 I used a ComfortCurve keyboard whenever possible including wirelessly to the ThinkPad when it was up in the Monk\u2019s Cell; when the ThinkPad came with me on trips, of course, I left both ComfortCurve keyboard and external monitor up there. This time I probably will not use the upstairs machine for road warrior duty \u2013 I have a Surface Pro for that \u2013 but I will try using the laptop\u2019s keyboard. In fact, I will try using a 15\u201d screen and all. I\u2019ll be sitting close to it, I\u2019ll buy the right furniture if it works, and maybe I won\u2019t need a big external screen; it\u2019s for word production and not much else. I will still have to stare at the screen when I type two fingers, but I just might see some of a laptop\u2019s screen as I type. I miss seeing what I am typing and I\u2019d sure love to get back to that.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I am back in the Monk\u2019s Cell producing words daily. (Well right now I am in the back room with Swan, but that\u2019s where I go at night, walker and all.)<\/p>\n<p>I have just got some information on the possibility of an elevator to my upstairs front office and Great Hall. Apparently they have a new, inexpensive, small and compact design that I could afford \u2013 we\u2019ll see. I do my columns \u2013 did my columns \u2013 in the upstairs library. But that\u2019s for another time entirely. Right now it\u2019s exciting enough that I\u2019ve got the Monk\u2019s Cell again.<\/p>\n<p>For those puzzled about just how big IS Chaos Manor, it\u2019s big. Built in early 1930\u2019s as a physician\u2019s house with his consulting office \u2013 now my downstairs office \u2013 it was a bit deteriorated and I got it very cheap. My old college roommate and I fixed it up enough to live in, then Sarge Workman and I did a lot more work, and after my first best-sellers I managed to add a new upstairs, Great Hall and Office and book storage room and bathroom and cable closet; that is the suite I can\u2019t get to now, and if I get another best seller I may put an elevator to. The original house had two upstairs rooms at the back of the house with a gentle staircase. That\u2019s where the Monk\u2019s Cell is. The two upstairs do not connect, not even through an unfinished attic. There are unconnected attics, too. So it sounds confusing, but don\u2019t worry about it; it IS confusing. And a rather big house for two people, but it\u2019s paid for and in a good location. And enough of that chatter.<\/p>\n <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> \n<p>It\u2019s official. Trump has enough delegates to win a majority on the first ballot, so barring an assassination \u2013 not an impossible event \u2013 he will be the Republican nominee. The Republican Establishment got both houses of Congress and a majority of Governors, but was a miserable failure at opposition. The deficit rose and rose, the budget grew and grew, the size of government went up and up, government workers got more and more pay, and meanwhile the Depression continued. Unemployment officially went down to manageable levels, but only because definitions were changed, so that those who just gave up and stopped looking for employment were no longer \u201cunemployed\u201d and were not counted in figuring the unemployment rate.<\/p>\n<p>So we don\u2019t have long lines of people looking for work; instead they sullenly stay home, or a few joyfully take the dole, food stamps, and all the other entitlements. Most Americans don\u2019t like doing that. They want jobs. But the jobs are gone, sent overseas along with the equipment they worked with, and the economy settled into one of opening containers of goods from China, and \u201cpaying\u201d for these cheap goods by borrowing the money from China to give it to the not-unemployed people who used to have jobs but don\u2019t any more. And the deficit grows, the economy stagnates, people get more angry, and many of the Republican establishment long for the old days when nobody expected them to WIN for heaven\u2019s sake. They were the permanent opposition, always employed with great benefits and retirement, and no ambition to be much more. They ran the only man Bill Clinton could beat in 1996, after which the defeated candidate made Viagra adds.<\/p>\n<p>It may be that Mr. Trump can\u2019t put America first, but he says he wants to. No one else even thinks it is a good idea. At which point I conclude that what the Republicans want to conserve is their jobs as opposition leaders who don\u2019t have to govern. Maybe I\u2019m just bitter. Of course for a while they did govern. They invaded the only real opposition Iran faced, hanged the former leader, disbanded his army, set an oppressed majority up to govern after disarming their former master, were shocked when the Shia began to oppress the Sunni \u2013 shocked, I tell you. But it was done democratically, wasn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n<p>Any business run the way the government conducts its business wouldn\u2019t be in business long; fortunately they have an infinite capacity for borrowing money. Each of us owes north of $50,000 so far. You say that\u2019s not that bad, and I point out that each means just that: a family of man, wife, and two children owes more than $200,000, each baby born owes $50,000. Sand that\u2019s this year. Four years from now it will be well over $60,000 each. And the debt goes ever upward.<\/p>\n<p>Salve, Sclave.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Trump is not an ideal candidate; but when we did run what looked like good candidates, they grew in office, and the budget went up, the deficit went up, the Depression continued, we entered wars in which our interest was not easily discerned and certainly was not served. I guess I had better get me a Trump hat.<\/p>\n <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> \n<p>I will have more to say on this another time, but spend a couple of minutes watching this.&nbsp; You will not regret it.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"http:\/\/metrocosm.com\/us-immigration-history-map.html\" href=\"http:\/\/metrocosm.com\/us-immigration-history-map.html\" class=\"external\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/metrocosm.com\/us-immigration-history-map.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> \n<blockquote>\n<h3>Donald Trump will win in a landslide. *The mind behind \u2018Dilbert\u2019 explains why.<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/comic-riffs\/wp\/2016\/03\/21\/donald-trump-will-win-in-a-landslide-the-mind-behind-dilbert-explains-why\/\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/comic-riffs\/wp\/2016\/03\/21\/donald-trump-will-win-in-a-landslide-the-mind-behind-dilbert-explains-why\/\" class=\"external\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/comic-riffs\/wp\/2016\/03\/21\/donald-trump-will-win-in-a-landslide-the-mind-behind-dilbert-explains-why\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><b><\/b><\/p>\n<p> <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> <\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Laptop.<\/p>\n<p>After the ThinkPad line was sold from IBM to Lenovo, I have changed to HP ZBook line of laptops. They are easy to service and have spareparts available several years after the purchase, and the spare parts shop of HP and it&#8217;s technical manuals are the best in business.<br \/>I am working on a HP Zbook 15 G2, but there is now a Zbook 15 G3:<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/store.hp.com\/us\/en\/pdp\/business-solutions\/hp-zbook-15-g3-mobile-workstation---customizable-m9r65av-mb--1\" class=\"external\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/store.hp.com\/us\/en\/pdp\/business-solutions\/hp-zbook-15-g3-mobile-workstation&#8212;customizable-m9r65av-mb&#8211;1<\/a><br \/>I prefer a somewhat heavier laptop, as is has better expansion and service options, but if you prefer less weight, the Zbook 15u G3 or the Studio Zbooks are slimmer and lighter.<\/p>\n<p>Bo Andersen<b><\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I have many good reports on reliability of HP laptops. Alas, their keyboard is not usable by me; I need key separation. This seems to be true for many other brands, The ThinkPad hasn\u2019t really enough key separation for me since the stroke. The Apples and ASUS systems are much better that way. And I am using a Logitech K360 wireless. I still hit multiple keys, but not as often.<\/p>\n <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> \n<blockquote>\n<p>Are You Sitting Down???<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft Minesweeper for Windows 10 from the Microsoft App Store (Free, but with in-game purchases)&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230; is&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230; wait for it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230; Are you sitting down?&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230; a 98.7 megabyte download.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/clip_image001.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"clip_image001\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"clip_image001\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/clip_image001_thumb.png\" width=\"244\" height=\"141\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Minesweeper debuted on Windows 3.1 or so, which ran in 4 Megabytes.&nbsp; 300 megabytes was a fair-sized disk in those days.<\/p>\n<p>98.7 MEGABYTES???<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;John R. Strohm<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Re: Are You Sitting Down???<\/p>\n<p>Well, that explains why Minesweeper for Windows 10 is a 98.7 megabyte download.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019ve stuffed it to the gills with high-tech graphics animations and sound effects and probably all kinds of nifty trash.<\/p>\n<p>Not to mention it wants me to log into Xbox Live! when I start it up, and complains if I tell it to jump in the lake.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019ll still let me play the game.<\/p>\n<p>If Microsoft paid one-quarter as much attention to software quality as they pay to this kind of crap, they would not have the world\u2019s biggest security-related buglist, and they wouldn\u2019t have to stuff operating system upgrades down the throats of their customers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;John R. Strohm<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I can remember when 100 megabytes was a BIG download. And calling Office \u201cbloatware\u201d when it reached 300 megabytes. Not all that long ago.<\/p>\n <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> \n<blockquote>\n<p>http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/big-government\/2016\/05\/27\/hiroshima-censure-obama\/<\/p>\n<p><b>President Barack Obama told the world on Friday in Hiroshima that the American decision to drop nuclear bombs on Japan in 1945 arose from humanity\u2019s worst instincts, including \u201cnationalist fervor or religious zeal.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The war that ended in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he said, \u201cgrew out of the same base instinct for domination or conquest that had caused conflicts among the simplest tribes, an old pattern amplified by new capabilities and without new constraints.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/05\/28\/world\/asia\/text-of-president-obamas-speech-in-hiroshima-japan.html?_r=0\" class=\"external\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">speech<\/a> \u2014 delivered on the eve of Memorial Day weekend \u2014 was billed by the White House as anything but an apology, but Obama\u2019s words betrayed his true sentiments.<\/p>\n<p>Obama, a native of Honolulu who grew up near Pearl Harbor, said nothing about the fact that Japan started the war; nothing about the fact that the Japanese were responsible for the slaughter of millions of civilians throughout Asia and the Pacific; nothing about the fact that the Japanese refused to surrender after hundreds of thousands had already been killed in conventional bombing.<\/p>\n<p>Obama implied that Americans had not yet considered the human cost of the atomic bomb: we had to \u201cforce ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell\u201d and \u201cforce ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He described the moral dilemmas of nuclear warfare as if no president, and no American, had considered them before. But he left out the moral case for ending the war, and the hundreds of thousands of deaths avoided because of Hiroshima.<\/p>\n<p>The contrast to President Harry S. Truman could not have been clearer. [snip]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> \n<p align=\"center\"> <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"> <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"> <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/clip_image002-5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"clip_image003\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"clip_image003\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/clip_image003.jpg\" width=\"244\" height=\"14\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"> <p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-26270 noborder\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\" alt=\"bubbles\" width=\"240\" height=\"8\" style:\"border='0';box-shadow:none;\"  \/><\/p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chaos Manor View, Friday, May 27, 2016 Migration without assimilation is invasion. 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. I&#8217;ve been working in the Monk\u2019s Cell, \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/trump-up-from-vegetating-dithering-continues\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-view"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}