Rebane's Ruminations

‘Obama was unaware…’ again? (updated 3nov13)

George Rebane

Forget the latest Obamacare website fiasco for a bit.  A very surprising piece of news is making the headlines this morning about Obama’s reported ignorance that NSA was tapping the phones of certain world leaders.  (more here)  My surprise is not of the kind reported, and perhaps I’m the only one who is surprised by this “official’s” claim of yet another area of his administration’s activities about which this community organizer is also unaware.  But what are we to make of the claim?

1.    Obama is lying again, and he was fully aware, as he should have been, of NSA’s phone surveillance of peer world leaders and the relevant contents which were reported to him regularly.
2.    Obama’s minions did tap friendly world leaders’ phones on their own (lower level) recognizance and purposely failed to report the policy and contents of such taps to their boss.  If so, then how much more of such high level unawareness is going on in this administration?

The point here is that Obama’s ignorance of his regime’s monitoring of peer world leaders was disclosed as an official statement by a lower level lackey.  Whether true or not, this does not project a good picture of our government being run by a cadre of competent leaders.  (Lest some local liberals think that this view is again limited, check out Bob Woodward's asessment that this administration is "a rat's nest of concealment and lies.")

Now we are in danger of Obama doing the next sophomoric thing by issuing some ‘guarantee’ that we’ll never do it again.  Or worse, that we’ll only do it again under the ‘guarantee’ that Obama is definitely not told about it.  Or …?

For the bit of tricky logic involved here, I want to emphasize that I’m not advocating that we base our foreign policy on information made incomplete by purposely blinding ourselves to things we can see and  should view.  I question 1) how such surveillance policy is conducted within this administration (internal ignorance, incompetence, rogue agencies, …?), and 2) how we respond to charges of such surveillance from foreign leaders (further damage to our deteriorating image of being a trustworthy, strong, and competent ally).

[30oct13 update]  H/T to RR reader.


[3nov13 update]  I'm reminded of certain prescient readers who last spring assured us that all of the Obama scandals would be forgotten beyond recall by this time, most of all what happened in Benghazi on 11 September 2012.  Reality is a bit different.  Obama's job performance is so poor that he even invites the lamestream to start ressurecting the history of his administration's disasters.  Last Sunday '60 Minutes' revived Benghazi with a re-examination of the events of that day and the treasonous response from Washington and the Snowden revelations.  While today Sen Lindsay Graham (R-SC) has vowed to hold all remaining Obama appointments from Senate approval until Obama permits the Senate to hear from the Benghazi survivors before concluding its investigation.  (Can you imagine the thinking that is going on in that puzzle palace to continue denying Congress that testimony?)  Hillary should be scheduled for some industrial grade teflon treatments before all this is over.  I think some reporters out there are beginning to smell one or more Pulitzers in the growing pile of garbage that continues to be buried in the Rose Garden. 

The Liberal Mind – Government Evil Unseen

George Rebane

A couple of weeks ago I sent The Union a letter mostly to see what they would do with it.  It was time sensitive and related to the cynical aspects of the partial shutdown.  Since the letter was not published during the shutdown, I assumed that it was rejected.  But lo and behold, several readers informed me that it was published today (also available online behind their paywall) under the title ‘Who told National Parks to ‘make life difficult?’  For the record, I reprint it below –

It will be harder than ever for our progressive neighbors to deny that platoons of federal agency workers are just a phone call away from reverting to local units of government goons. Recall that these people are in jobs of last resort. They would not be hired by anyone in the private sector. They are utterly loyal to the only hand that will feed them. And the beast reveals itself more with every passing month and opportunity.

Of all the reports coming in about the conduct of federal agencies during this government shutdown, the editorial “The Park Police” in the Oct. 21 Weekly Standard is most revealing of what we are really dealing with. No surprise then that one park ranger explained to the Washington Times last week, “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can.”

The first question that comes to mind is: ; 'Who did the telling?' But my more urgent question is: 'Where in hell are the local county sheriffs when the federal government straps on their brown shirts and jack boots?'

George Rebane, Nevada City

Obamacare – legis horriblis (updated 26oct13)

George Rebane

This piece of legislation is turning out to be horrible beyond prediction and measure, and we are nowhere near discovering or experiencing the full extent of the damage that it will do to our republic.  I just want this dated post to become a matter of record on RR, one that joins its precursor forebodings that have populated these pages for some years now.  Every assessment and prediction here has been short of the mark.  The cynically named Affordable Care Act is much worse than anyone who understands a smidgeon of things Austrian, to things bureaucratic, to things about systems design could have imagined.  In short, Obamacare is a disaster already made and still in the making – the ‘best’ is yet to come.

But what the saga to date has corroborated is the absolute depths of hubris, pandering, opacity, and corruption that this administration, along with its congressional minions, has perpetrated.  Every beneficent claim for that abhorrent attack on our healthcare system and economy has been shown to be a purposive lie.  For this, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius should be impeached and then criminally prosecuted.  Assuming that she is not stupid beyond belief, she did indeed know her errors and omissions over the last three years, and she most certainly knew the lies she streamed out during this interval.  And if she told the truth to the President, then he is at least equally guilty.

The tragi-comedy for our nation is how many of the ignorant and informationally deprived this administration has still been able to bamboozle.  The only real benefit to its perpetrators that all this has brought about is the disarray into which the affair has thrown the Republicans.  But they are recovering, and given the stream of horrors that Obamacare is generating by the day, the GOP might even come out of this smelling like a rose as the putrid mess begins to sink under its own weight.  Its prescient opponents need only remind people that not only did they tell us so, but they also proposed alternative approaches to improve our healthcare system that were rejected in toto by an all progressive government.  As someone said, ‘Elections have consequences.’

[24oct13 update] The abbreviated criticism above is meant to draw attention to the congressional hearings corroborating the nation’s concerns about the dire straits of Obamacare, and to invite some typical responses from the Left claiming that things are running normally and pretty much as expected (by technically knowledgeable people) in the fielding of the ACA.  Mr Michael Anderson, who runs a computer services business in Nevada County, was able to supply such an assessment in his 928pm comment below.  My response to that is in the sequel.

[26oct13 update] Has everyone googled the growing litany of 'admissions' by the terminally incompetent Sebelius.  The one that really drew some belly laughs was AP's quote that she "admitted" to the President that she has to now fix the website - 'admitted'!!??  I have changed my mind and agree fully with those calling for her to stay until  she again pronounces healthcare.gov ready for prime time.  I do believe that the President deserves the full measure of her services.  We already paid for that entertainment once, so let's now enjoy it.  (The following was sent to me by a reader who admitted pilfereing it from ZeroHedge.)

Sheriff Mack in Nevada County – Reflections

George Rebane

The Nevada County Republican Women Federated should feel justifiably proud for putting on one of the best organized and attended public speaking events in recent memory.  More than 600 people showed up last night in the Grass Valley Veterans Hall to hear Sheriff Richard Mack deliver a rousing defense of local governance against the established overreach of the federal leviathan.

Former county supervisor Ms Fran Freedle (pictured lower right) chaired the small committee of women who worked months to plan, organize, and bring about this occasion that was attended by a broad spectrum of political interests and perspectives from Nevada County and environs.  My Jo Ann was a long and hard working member of that committee, so I was privy to the bumps and progress as the sheriff’s visit drew nigh.

(I was also one of the husbands conscripted to assist, serving as the projector guy and Nevada County chauffer for Sheriff Mack.  Friends Russ Steele and Norm Sauer handled the lights, and friends Jim and Mary Booth next door contributed their guest house for the sheriff to decompress and freshen up before the night’s reception and talk.  Earlier in the day Sheriff Mack attended a luncheon at the National Hotel with Sheriff Keith Royal and other local law enforcement officers.  Needless to say, I also had ample opportunity to talk privately with Sheriff Mack.)

As corroborated by other attendees, Sheriff Mack is not the most polished of public speakers, but that makes his heartfelt monologue come across more genuine and peer-to-peer to his audiences.  He dwelled on his successful case against the ‘Brady Bill’ that reached SCOTUS from which it received a favorable landmark ruling that further corroborated the Founders’ intents as to the rights and powers of the several states when confronting the federal government.

Scattershots – 18oct13 (updated 19oct13)

George Rebane

*** Busy day today; Sheriff Mack is in town to speak tonight at the GV Vets Hall.  My sweetie and the Nevada County Republican Women Federated have been busy for months on this major speaker event, and now I and a few other husbands have been put in harness to help out.  I’m told tickets have been selling like hotcakes, and all sides will be represented when the band starts playing.

My take is that Sheriff Mack’s wake will be at least as large as his bow wave in this community.  Thinkers on the Left and Middle are still trying to find some specifics about the good sheriff’s political and social beliefs that they can disagree with without embarrassing themselves.  The rest of the town’s progressive pundits (pinheads?) will do their usual thing of just keep calling him an extreme rightwinger, and leave it at that.

Nevertheless, Sheriff Mack’s coming has exposed a passel of unexpected strengths and weaknesses in certain people and organizations of our politically polarized county.  And these will be dissected in the coming days, for some of them will definitely cast a long shadow.

Can Kicked, Crisis Calmed (updated)

George Rebane

The House will accept the Senate’s version of jacking up the debt ceiling and resolving to continue spending like drunken teenagers with their parents’ credit card.  You can follow streaming coverage of the fiscal cliff dance here.

But the Ponzi scheme that is our Federal Reserve system continues unabated.  Faith based money is flooding the economy with the banks acting as profit skimming intermediaries between our Treasury and their Federal Reserve Bank (banks own the Fed) as these two institutions busily trade IOUs backed by nothing but our dogged faith that this listing Titanic will not sink.

For those who are interested in how ‘The Biggest Scam in the History of Mankind’ works, please take some time to watch this informative fourth episode in the series about money presented by the Hidden Secrets of Money hosted by author Mike Maloney.  Of interest also are the vignette interviews with Ron Paul, Steve Forbes, and others at the end of the program.  To refresh your education, you might then also watch the first three episodes titled ‘Currency vs Money’, ‘Seven Stages of Empire’, and ‘From Dollar Crisis to Golden Opportunity’.

It all kinda puts the ongoing Washington circus into perspective; and who knows, you might even walk away with an item or two for your own agenda.

[update]  Paul Emery, KVMR News Director and RR reader, just broadcast an excellent interview with Sheriff Richard Mack.  Paul's questions covered the points of interest that surround Sheriff Mack's message of constitutionality and local government.  Important and heartening was the way Paul let the sheriff speak his piece in responding to each question.  A professional job well done.

If you missed the broadcast, you can hear the entire 20 minute interview online as a KVMR podcast available here.

Sheriff Mack will speak this Friday 18 October at the GV Veterans Hall starting at 630pm - doors open at 545pm.  The event is being sponsored by the Nevada County Republican Women Federated.

‘Gravity’ – from implausible via improbable to impossible

George Rebane

Fair warning, this little critique of the hit movie ‘Gravity’ will greatly reduce your enjoyment of it, especially if you recall your high school physics.  Based on the rave reviews it has been getting (I read Joe Morgenstern in the WSJ), we and another couple went to see it last Sunday.  The saving grace of our double date was the dinner afterwards at the Northridge.

The movie deals with the aftermath of an irresponsible Russian satellite intercept test that creates a debris field of satellite and missile pieces which happen to be co-orbiting with the Hubble telescope, the International Space Station, and China’s space station.  The movie’s two astronauts (its only characters) undertax the talents of George Clooney and Sandra Bullock; but hey, they had to cast some names to carry a story line that suffers as much damage as do the shuttle, space stations, and the Hubble telescope during this explosion riddled space thriller.

Stratfor’s Friedman on the Government Shutdown

George Rebane

Dr George Friedman, founder and chairman of the global intelligence outfit Stratfor, writes a workmanlike and useful analysis, ‘Roots of the Government Shutdown’.  Therein he traces the roots of the current shutdown and its surrounding political environment to the transformation of our political system from one of patronage run by political bosses, to the current one dominated by political activist organizations seeking reform of American politics.  In short, the battle became one of ideas and how well these ideas could be formulated and disseminated to the voting public, all of which required money and vast amounts of it.  Friedman writes – 

Political parties ceased being built around patronage systems, but rather around the ability to raise money. Money, not the bosses' power, became the center of gravity of the political system, and those who could raise money became the power brokers. More important, those who were willing to donate became candidates' main constituency. The paradox of the reforms was that in breaking the power of the bosses, money became more rather than less important in the selection of candidates. Money has always been central to American politics. There has never been a time when it didn't matter. But with the decline of political bosses, factors other than money were eliminated.

Well enough.  And through this sea change we saw that the contending ideas washing over the land came from belief systems or ideologies that sought to distinguish and brand themselves as conservative, liberal, classical liberal, libertarian, progressive, socialist, tea party, …, and even my conservetarian.

Ruminations - 13oct13 (updated)

George Rebane

NSA strikes deeper into our lives.  The IEEE reported last week that NIST has compromised its random number algorithm to our nation’s electronic spymasters.  Specifically –

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has an image problem. Last month, revelations surfaced indicating that the National Security Agency (NSA) may have planted a vulnerability in a widely used NIST-approved encryption algorithm to facilitate its spying activities. And cryptographers are also questioning subtle changes that might weaken a new security algorithm called Secure Hash Algorithm-3, or SHA-3. Encryption experts say NIST’s reputation has been seriously undermined but that the security community would like to continue using it as a standards body if it can show that it has reformed.  (more here)

Given the muffled diktats by secret court orders, there is no credible reform that NIST can profess.  And Forbes reports that the private secure email company LavaBits has also shut down, rather than compromise its customers, subsequent to the FBI demanding that it open ‘back doors’ to allow the bureau to read emails sent through its servers.  (more here)

New Fed chairman nominee Dr Janet Yellen does not perceive America’s systemic unemployment problem.  Economist Yellen made her bones under her mentor, nobel economist James Tobin (of Tobin’s Q Ratio fame), whose Keynesian interpretations of monetary policy held sway in the US through much of the Cold War years.  Yellen believes that the prime function of the Fed is to manage the business cycle by tuning money supply and interest rates so as to minimize unemployment.  (more here)  She gives no hint that she recognizes how accelerating technology has changed the economic landscape for the country’s workforce, and seems to be convinced that continuing to apply the demonstrably failed policies of the 1930s is the way to fix and maintain America’s economy.

As an economic Austrian, I shudder to think about the immediate future years as she inherits the debt, deficits, and debilitating policy of perpetual easing (currently at $85B/month).  That the latter is now an established and freely accessible spigot will give her great comfort as the rest of us worldwide scramble for alternatives to the dollar.

[update]  The problem of evil.  I was perusing the AP news site in bed this morning and came upon a piece reporting that ‘Shutdown Driving Debate Over Role of Government’.  In it this center-left news service describes the purposive atrocities that our federal government has instituted “to make things as difficult as possible” for Americans during this shutdown.  The piece echoes RR’s long-held notions about big government – better late than never.

Today’s news is full of horror stories about the gratuitous and intentional shutdown of services, closing of facilities, and denying access to public venues that have nothing to do with the normal workings of government staff.  In fact, staff has been added where possible, and asked to work extra in order to intimidate and deny Americans what they could still enjoy during the shutdown.  A sinister case in point is TSA now announcing at airports that you may be arrested for making jokes about their security procedures which today includes regular groping of your genitalia.  (more here and here and reaction to shutdowns here)  

A highlight of AP’s light bulb going on is their questioning of what the country would be like if most of those 800,000 federal workers were dismissed (recall my interim plan was to furlough them permanently with full pay).  Many (most?) Americans are beginning to understand that life could be much better without them, and most certainly no worse than it is with them 'doing their jobs'.

These pages record my (and our readers’ wide ranging) thoughts on the more ideal and/or proper role of government.  But here I want to just touch on the notion of evil that invariably is spawned in all organizations (public, private, religious, …) as they grow.  After a certain size the complexity of such institutions gets to be such that the constructive feedback paths are reoriented and replaced by feedbacks that are destructive to the original intent and mission of the institution.  Add to that the inevitable dark side of human nature, and you get the large scale atrocities that decorate ‘modern history’.  And in the small scale you get the unavoidable product of central planners with examples like Obamacare (read Anthony Watts’ recent experience with California’s insurance exchange).

But what is evil?  Dictionary definitions are mostly lame and confusing (example here).  Most definitions make evil out to be a notion that is understood only relative to a belief system that contains certain mores, religious beliefs, ideology, and/or legal code.  But in the real world most of us understand that evil is simply something that increases human suffering in an intended way or through purposeful neglect.  De facto (vs de juris) evil is ecumenical, it exists in and of itself, free of any interpretations from approved belief systems.  According to my lights, all big governments naturally exude evil, as do many small ones and as do other bloated institutions wherein proper feedback and feed forward paths have been corrupted and/or severed.  Evil seems to spontaneously arise through the mixing of power and ignorance in various measures suitable to the occasion.  More to be said about it on a future post.

Manmade Global Warming – The Smoking Gun

George Rebane

I recently looked at the most revealing graphic on global warming that I have seen.  The link to it was sent to me by a regular RR reader who was equally amazed by what he saw.  It was assembled by Nir Shaviv of sciencebits.com and is reproduced below.


The figure illustrates the uncertainty bounds for global temperatures predicted by climate theory over the years since 1979.  These were obtained from computer models which implement the relationships (equations) prescribed by the then best available climate theories assessed by the IPCC, and as most recently vouched for in their just released AR5 report.  Do you by chance notice anything odd in that figure?

Federal Overreach at Local Level Grows Unabated

George Rebane

[This is the linked transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 11 October 2013 with an addended video Sheriff Mack made specifically for his upcoming 18oct13 talk in Grass Valley.]

It turns out there is a considerable benefit to having a government shutdown every now and then, for it exposes the belly of the beast.  Going about our daily affairs year after year, we don’t notice the added weight and involvement of government in our lives, pruning our liberties and freedoms bit by piece.  And this is true also for local governments at the country and city levels.

The 800,000 or so federal employees now on furlough are highlighting how many hoops they maintain and monitor daily for us to jump through.  For example in our Central Valley mundane projects like a farmer extending or replacing his irrigation system before the winter freezes have ground to halt, why?  Because the feds have inserted regulations to have them inspect and approve various stages of the work, and today these guys are collecting their pay with their feet up somewhere.  The same goes for farmers all over the country trying to get federal agricultural loans in order to buy seed and fund operations.  No can do, because today the federal ag loan offices are closed.

National Park Service – American Brown Shirts (updated 10oct13)

George Rebane

It will be harder than ever for our progressive neighbors to deny that platoons of federal agency workers are just a phone call away from reverting to local units of government goons.  Recall that these people are in jobs of last resort, they would not be hired by anyone in the private sector.  They are utterly loyal to the only hand that will feed them.  And the beast reveals itself more with every passing month and opportunity.

Of all the reports coming in about the conduct of federal agencies during this government shutdown, this editorial in the forthcoming Weekly Standard is most revealing of what we are really dealing with.  “No surprise then that one park ranger explained to the Washington Times last week, ‘We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can.’ ”  (and more here)

The first question that comes to mind is ‘who did the telling?’  But my more urgent question is ‘Where in hell are the local county sheriffs when the federal government straps on their brown shirts and jack boots?’

[10oct13 update]  Congressman Tom McClintock made these remarks on the floor of the House yesterday about "the deliberate decision by the Administration to amplify the public’s suffering and inconvenience during this stalemate.

            This government has gone through 18 shutdowns in the last 37 years but NEVER has a President barricaded open air venues like national memorials. Indeed, he has gone so far as to forbid the use of turnouts on public roads that offer passersby distant views of Mt. Rushmore and Yosemite.  He has ordered people out of their own homes or ordered businesses to close just because they lease their land from the federal government.  He has even tried to close the Atlantic Ocean to Florida fishermen. 

            In the past, Presidents have done everything they could to minimize the impacts of shutdowns; this President is going to ridiculous extremes to maximize the suffering that people must endure.  On park ranger told a reporter, 'We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can.  It’s disgusting.'"

Supervisor Scofield on Rincon Del Rio

[Nevada County Supervisor Ed Scofield represents what we here call ‘south county’.  In his district there is a laudable yet long-suffering development called Rincon Del Rio that has jumped through every conceivable governmental and activist-opposed hoop imaginable.  And yet its proprietors have prevailed, and may yet build the Continuing Care Retirement Community on a riverside agricultural parcel that is well suited for its intended purpose.

One of the three economic pillars of the county is the community of retirees who move here from large urban areas for our country and small community lifestyle in a scenic setting that is home to many cultural and recreational venues.  The retirees are a major cash importer in the county whose presence treads softly on the county’s infrastructure and public services.  These folks are well-to-do and ensconce themselves in appropriate real estate (acreage and/or town homes) when they arrive.

But as they age, sooner or later most of them will find their first homes here to become a bit too much effort to keep up or even to enjoy.  Their schedules become filled with activities that are more cerebral, involve community service, and extended travel.  They are still in the prime of their intellectual abilities and not yet ready for a ‘waiting for God’ type rest home.  These people want to move into a secure community of like-minded people wherein they may purchase a high-end apartment or connected housing that is designed for supporting the next stage of their lives - a community that lets them continue their activities and relationships built up during their previous home maker years.

There currently exists no such community in Nevada County, and this causes most of these cash importing retirees to seek such a lifestyle elsewhere.  Rincon Del Rio is designed to fill exactly that niche for county retirees reaching this stage of life.  Supervisor Scofield sent me the following piece in which he weighs in on his support for Rincon Del Rio.  gjr]

Ed Scofield

I recently was chastised by a good friend for my stand on Rincon Del Rio.  Her comment was that I campaigned for keeping South Nevada County rural and yet supported a project with more of a traditional urban setting.
 
Without getting into the economic benefits to the County and the fact that we are one of California’s most advanced aged populations, here are my thoughts on justification of this project.
 
I am a strong supporter of agriculture in Nevada County.  I support the Williamson act for legitimate agricultural use of property.  I also recognize that ranching and farming can be a difficult way of making a living and agricultural families can end up land rich and cash poor. This often means selling of the land; and typically, this means housing developments.  Perfect examples are Lake of the Pines and most recently Darkhorse and Cascade Crossing.
 
Now we have property that is wonderful range land and has ideal soil for produce, crops, orchards and vineyards.  Sadly, it’s not likely a buyer for the property is going to develop this property for its agricultural potential. So what is the zoning? It does have a Special Project zoning, while at the same time allowing the potential of approximately seventy single dwelling homes.  Yes, it remains rural, and it is similar to surrounding neighborhoods; but, is it the most appealing option for our South County?

We had another option. The owners of these 225 acres of land presented the County with a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) instead of the more likely housing development.  Why would a developer of a CCRC be proposed on the Bear River instead of within Grass Valley or Nevada City? I believe it is precisely for the rural environment.  As a senior about to retire, you now have many options for living in Nevada County.  One of the most unique options will be a retirement community overlooking the Bear River complete with open space for walking, boating, and even a community garden.  Many of your basic services will be available within the community and there will be transportation available for trips into the nearest towns.

I believe in some ways this project will have less of an impact on the rural quality of life than the more common option of housing.  I also believe that upon completion, Rincon Del Rio will be a project that South County will take pride.
 
As a Supervisor serving his fifth year representing our South area, you begin to see my thinking more clearly than the new guy just making campaign promises.  Some of you won’t agree with me on my decisions.  Not all agreed with my support of the Higgins Market Place project.  This project has been held up in court challenging our approval.  As of early October, the project won the court case and hopefully we’ll see construction begin soon.

Whether we agree or not, I’ll always listen and try to do what’s best for our wonderful County.

National Dumbth Confirmed

George Rebane

When it rains it pours.  Today the OECD issued the umpteenth confirmation on the deep-seated dumbth that rules our land.  Consider this little cri de coeur to be the sequel to ‘National Ignorance …’ and the most recent in the series on America’s intellectual capital that predates RR.  What I am commenting on here is the just released international ‘Survey of Adult Skills’, reporting on a voluminous study by OECD’s Programme(sic) for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIIAC).  I want to draw particular attention to ‘Adult’ in what follows.  The entire series of 2013 PIIAC reports on adult skills may be found here.  (Warning – if you have any vestiges of conservetarian beliefs, then only approach these reports with a crying towel and a very large glass of your favorite adult beverage firmly in hand.)

The Remarkable Noam Chomsky

George Rebane

In a private communication an RR reader brought up Noam Chomsky and his views on the Singularity.  It appears that the world famous linguist does not believe that the Singularity is possible.  I was not aware of that, since in his 60 years at MIT he has been credited with making contributions to computer science.  The reader included the link (here) to an extremely revealing interview that Dr Chomsky gave to an interviewer who operates a website that belongs to the halo of sites that report on the doings in the Singularity community and comment on these pre-Singularity years (perhaps even RR is one of those sites).

For me, as a former worker in the fields of machine intelligence, the interview revealed a chasm in the knowledge base of an individual who has been in daily elbow rubbing distance from some of the world class AI researchers.  I comment on this chasm here to illustrate its ‘black swanness’ and shudder to think how pervasive such chasms are throughout the fields of technology and science.  The most telling example of that is the deep ignorance of the tools of systems science evinced by so many scientists established in fields such as climatology and meteorology when they attempt to understand the modeling and behavior of large scale dynamic systems in the context of manmade global warming.  (RR readers will recall that I have been the first to admit that no one today can be an expert familiar with all of the long and convoluted shoreline of Man’s expanding island of knowledge.)

But getting back to the good Professor Chomsky and the Singularity (see also RR's Singularity Signposts).  I do hope that the reader will take the twenty some minutes to view the video.  There he will discover that Chomsky still believes that machine intelligence is being pursued through “brute force” programming, and therefore peer or superior to human AI is “beyond the limits of contemporary science” or even a fool's errand.

Ruminations - 3oct13 (updated 6oct13)

George Rebane

Dr Tyler Cowen is professor of monetary theory, financial economics, and welfare economics at George Mason University and Mercatus Center .  He joins a growing list of academics and authors (cf Charles Murray’s Coming Apart) who have now concluded that systemic unemployment and permanent class divisions all will become entrenched features of our future.  To some of us such a future has been apparent for some years now as reported here.

The thesis of Cowen’s recently published Average is Over is “that America is dividing itself in two. At the top will be 10% to 15% of high achievers, the "Tiger Mother" kids if you like, whose self-motivation and mastery of technology will allow them to roar away into the future. Then there will be everyone else, slouching into an underfunded future of lower economic expectations, shantytowns and an endless diet of beans. I'm not kidding about the beans.” according to reviewer Philip Broughton (here).

Dr Cowen concludes that “we will move from a society based on the pretense that everyone is given an okay standard of living to a society in which people are expected to fend for themselves much more than they do now."  In that future, the top 10% will continue to enjoy what we have come to call the ‘American dream’, the middle will continue to muddle on with stagnant or shrinking wages taking their comfort from “cheap education and cheap fun”.  But “the rest (Murray’s bottom 30%) will fall by the wayside, with government less and less able to take care of them.”

President Obama is deftly guiding the nation into default.  He will accept no alternative solution other than his diktat that the Republicans fold any remaining negotiating stance to save the nation from fiscal, monetary, and regulatory disaster.  Bolstered by Reid and Pelosi, the Dems have repeatedly refused to even consider any counter proposals that deviate from their ‘clean’ demands for continuing our country’s wreckless course.

The strongest evidence of this is the Left’s strong and constant opposition to passing the McClintock-Toomey ‘Full Faith and Credit Act’ that would guarantee that the US would never default on its debt obligation that Obama now threatens the world with multiple times a day.  “The McClintock-Toomey bill replicates the guarantees that state constitutions have had for hundreds of years to strengthen investor confidence. It gives the Treasury Secretary discretion to prioritize among other federal obligations until the political deadlock ends, tempers cool and the parties can reach a deal. But it makes his first priority to protect the full faith and credit of the U.S.”  While screaming about the dangers of default, the Dems have repeatedly killed this prudent measure, most recently as it was again included in the latest continuing resolution the House sent to the Senate last week.  (more here)

‘Obamacare wrecks the work ethic’, so argues Casey Mulligan (here), professor of economics at the University of Chicago.  Of the many horrors of this ‘affordable(sic) care act’ as it staggers toward single payer healthcare, possibly its worst consequence is “a reduction in the reward for working”.  The secret lies in what it will do to marginal tax rates (figure) –  “The health-care law, starting Jan. 1, will begin driving up marginal tax rates—well above 50% for many.”   Perhaps more than anything else, this will encourage increased effort and ingenuity expended to switch from being a maker to joining the ever-growing ranks of the takers.

Administrivia – Now TypePad has quit sending comment notification emails to its bloggers (at least this one).  This will require more work on my part to keep up with RR’s commenters.  A little slack will be appreciated while I am actively seeking to move the blog to WordPress as already suggested by several readers.  I have been woefully remiss.

National Ignorance – Proof of Concept Working (updated 6oct13)

George Rebane

The Grand Experiment of America is nothing less than to test the historical question – Can man govern himself?  Our Founders repeatedly asked that question of themselves as they labored to give the new nation the appropriate tools of governance so as to stack the deck in favor of a ‘Yes!’ answer.  Jefferson’s admonishment put a bow on the prerequisites for such an answer – ‘A nation ignorant and free, that never was and never shall be.’  And over the last fifty years we have embarked on a course that has resurrected the worst fears of those courageous and farsighted men now two and a half centuries past.

I look at the inventory of evidence and cannot help but start with our national education system which has spread multi-generational ‘dumbth’ deep and wide across the land.   From its schools emerge legions of young deeply ignorant of history and civics with inadequeate tools to help themselves since they are marginally literate and almost totally innumerate.  They join those millions already on the sidelines from the workforce who have no means to evaluate the steady rain of ‘information’ that drenches them daily through countless channels enabled by an accelerating technology.  These are what are commonly referred to as America’s sheeple.  (cf Bryan Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter)


If we examine some of these deficits operating in the daily round, the picture of where we are headed becomes very clear.