Frediano

So the Soviets were going to be relatively imprecise if and when they directed a relatively few ... 60+ MT warheads at us using any means. I guess that is what is called Cold War Comfort. Screw that MAD endgame, their biggest threat to freedom was their organizational concept, and that threat is lingering like a fart in a taxicab. That concept was the basis for the conflict, and ours could no more exist in a world where theirs was dominant than theirs could in a world where there was even just one America; that experiment was already run in post war Berlin, and they could not possibly build the walls high enough or thick enough to keep their victims chained in place as long as there existed one free nation on earth. Yet America, too, has fallen in love with the idea of centralized and centrally planned command and control 'the economy' running. Who needed H2 bombs when we've got the over-run chokepoint Ivies to lead us to Hell on Earth?

How come we do not have a functioning conspiracy? Why is freedom on the defensive? How did they get so powerful? Can anything on Earth stop them? "Once upon a time, there was a perfect society. (Garden of Eden; or communalist hunter-gatherers; or 19th century capitalists). But, the Devil came in. (The serpent; property; socialism.) And we lost it because it was stolen from us. (Here we are.) But if we all pull together, we can create a wonderful new world, not for ourselves, but for our descendants." In The True Believer, Eric Hoffer says that a mass movement can exist without God, but no mass movement can succeed without a devil. How come we do not have a functioning conspiracy? The leftists of Occupy and the Academy claim that we do. They see the globalist capitalist hegemony as their Devil. And so "we" opppose "them" over whose devil really rules the world. Makes you wonder if the real rulers are not pulling the strings on both sets of puppets... We had, we don't have; the attack w as not by the current generation of once instructed robots, pouring out of those mandrels of thought, regurgitating their instruction. That is just the phlegm left overfrom the Cold War. The attack was by those who once instructed those who once instructed the current crop of self-replicating instructed robots. What is left is not 'functioning' -- for sure. But is still spouting gibberish anathema to freedom, and still must be coughed up. America is like a sick patient that took half of its anti-biotics after an infection. 1989, the Berlin wall collapses. Two years later, Carville is selling America "It's the Economy, Stupid!" -- as if centrally planned command and control 'the economy' running had just been demonstrated to be a great thing to move towards. And America kept coughing. And is still coughing. That phlegm just won't give it up.

Brant: That's the basic danger. But another is, because of our open borders, non-police state, and wide open campuses(attributes we cherish/enjoy, but which were usable to attack us so they did), a lasting danger is they infiltrated the tiny(and somewhat receptive for some goofy reason)Ivies, over-ran them, and sent intellectually crippled robots out to disproportionately man the machinery of state and academia and spout nonsense anathema to freedom. These tiny places are too inbred, too easily infiltrated and overwhelmed, too elitist and authoritarian. They are like mandrels of thought. The indoctrination is hamfisted and thick and at least partially effective. Assuming that we were once in a global conflict with smart, totalitarian leaning competitors, what was it about any of the above that was going to prevent them from deliberately attacking us at these tiny chokepoints? Look at the credentials on the USSC. Look at the last two cookie-cutter former radical Princeton feminist nominies to the court, remarkably nominated by a man who shares pillow talk with a ... former Princeton radical feminist. Princeton has about 4000 undergrads; it's like a HS. The USSC really needs two former Princeton radical feminists on it? Seriously? Our nation craves that much inbred thought from these mandrels of PC right-thinking? Look at the credentials of the last several presidents. Look at the credentials in Congress, and throughout all the machinery of state. Look at the faculty of non-Ivies. These little clubs have a dispproportionate to their size representation in the machinery of our nation, and our once enemies would have been fools to leave them unmolested. That attack might be decades over, but it left a self-propagating residue of instructed robot goo, endlessly respouting the same left wing gibberish. We screwed up. We study cancer freely on universities, but we don't advocate actually giving everybody cancer. In the context of a free America, so should have been the study of Marxism and similar themes anathema to freedom; restricted to a search for the cure. We carried a theme too far when 'complete academic freedom' embraced the active selling of ideas totally anathema to freedom. Our once enemies must have been laughing their asses off at America. That is, right up until the time they started eating their shoes. What would have possibly stopped that once deliberate attack? Our borders? Our non-police state? Our open campuses and devotion to complete academic freedom? The well wishes of our adversaries, and their desire for us to remain as a successful nation living in freedom? (We ran that experiment, and they couldn't build the walls high enough...) We relished our freedom, and they used that against us, and we let them. When their slop was being pushed on those campuses, not nearly enough laughter met them. "You want to spread cancer in a healthy nation? The Hell you say..." regards, Frediano

My father was a WWII vet, and was incensed over Vietnam, just incredulous. He(and I to this day)don't understand why a nation enters a war, commits all those resources into harms way and yet, under goofy rules of half-war managed far away in DC, only in the end to claim "Never mind, we didn't really mean it, what were we thinking?" If that outcome was acceptable, then never waging the war to begin with was acceptable, and 50000+ American heros on a wall in DC is criminal. It begins to look as if the purpose of Vietnam was to wage war, period; a reason for being for IKE's MIC to be at war levels of production. That was not the case with WWII; losing that conflict was not acceptable. We can't even imagine what life would be like today as a global Germania.(Fortunately, our European scientists built the bomb first.) And that is why a nation of 140 million put 16 million in uniform and sent 400,000 to their graves. But dammit, they didn't do that just so their clueless kids could gleefully sign up for Totalitarian-Light, else why bother? Fortunately, our kids are reading The Hunger Games, so there is some hope of coughing up the phlegm left over from the Cold War.

WWII provided all kinds of lessons. What % of armament flew out of Beth Steel? How was Beth Steel able to ramp up so quickly coming out of the Depression, even before the US entered the war? It was 100% the fortuitous planning of Beth Steel ownership and its employees, who struck a deal during the Depression. Instead of widely laying folks off and cutting the workforce in half, the concept of 'shared work' was instituted during the Depression. Workers shared a single job. Something was better than nothing, and folks squeaked by. And when it was time to ramp up production, they already had a full emplolyment trained workforce ready to go. They just flipped a switch and were able to come up to full production. That fortuitous fact had nothing to do with government planning or foresight. Beth Steel employed over 300,000 at its peak. The existential threat / wartime crisis mode led to enything goes wartime contracts, and the workforce that had sacrificed during the Depression wanted to be made whole, and maybe then some. And Beth Steel management became acclimated to the downhill breeze of wartime contracts. But make no mistake about it, what poured out of Beth Steel and other similar elements of do-or-die Arsenal of Democracy was crucial in defeating the Axis. It was necessary, no avoiding it in that existential threat to American freedom against meat eating totalitarian alternatives pressing the point globally. But the cost was, America stood up its own version of soft-fascism -- cozy crony relationships between industry and the guns of government, IKE's MIC. And bidness was good. And human nature being what it is, IKE's MIC has clung to the gig until it's fingers bleed, long after the existential crisis. It has been nothing but "War On [fill in the blank]" ever since. Cold War. Korea. Vietnam. Hunger. Crime. Drugs. Poverty. Agression. Terror.... Obesity.... JFK: $100B at the peak of the Cold War....Obama: $3800B at the peak of the Wars on [Hunger,Crime,Drugs, Poverty, Aggression, Terror, Obesity,Unemployment]. America's unfettered soft-fascism never stood down after WWII. It transitioned seamlessly to the Cold War. We didn't so much win the Cold War as we caught the Cold, and we're still coughing up phlegm. We forgot why we fought WWII: to defend American and world freedom against Totalitarianism. And yet today, in America, we are lurching every year closer to a centrally planned, command and control 'The Economy[sic]' governed from DC. If the Greatest Generation knew that their clueless children were going to someday willingly surrender America internally to the bereft of freedom ideas promulgated by the same German philosophers that drove Germany insane, would they have bothered to send 400,000 of themselves into a meatgrinder to prevent it? They would have never believed it. Today, I have to wonder; even with all those bases overseas, what is going to feed them? The biggest $100 billion valued IPO capital attracting excitement this year was Facebook...who employ 3200 in maintaining a self-subscribing marketing data collection platform aimed at a nation of happy consumers. Some fraction of that 3200 work at making bitmaps dance. The rest are monetizing marketing data and selling ads that push boner medicine to Boomers. We going to war with that to fuel the next Arsenal of Democracy? Or maybe the next arsenal is silicon based, not iron and steel. Yeah, that like helps the analysis. We better hope that the next war is based on financial engineering, period. Except that we've managed to empire build ourselves into financial oblivion. America could afford to be AMerica when America was America, and still growing as part of 2D surface growth paradigm that is rapidly coming to a close. JFK almost bootstrapped us into a 3D growth paradigm, but Nixon's jealosy over JFK's flagship program killed it even as it was exploding off the surface of the earth. (The Shuttle spent the next 30 years travelling no farther off the planet than DC is from NYC, idling, looking for a mission that would never come.) There is no reason that we aren't walking outside tonite, looking up, and showing our children the lights of the new colonies on the Moon; that was the only high ground that ever mattered. The choice to not be doing that was purely political, not technological. So what did we get instead? We're spending $3800B/yr these days in an end game, a 2D cul de sac, going nowhere and jockeying for position as we try to downshift to stasis without the clutch. As we hit the brakes on our 2D surface development growth wave(that drove mankind for two thousand years), without transitioning to a 3D development growth paradigm, all the economic opportunities have slammed into the purely intellectual end of the spectrum, and no longer generate broad economic opportunity. (Facebook employs 3200, Beth Steel once 300,000...) Humanity is not adjusting to this nearly fast enough to avoid massive displacement and a sinking level of prosperity. It has created a rats on a sinking ship end game, directly from our lack of vision. The only foreign bases that would have helped were on the Moon and eventually Mars and beyond. JFK's Moon program wasn't about 12 sets of footprints on the Moon. It was about re-invigorating gradient all the way back to Bethpage, NY, Huntsville, Al, Los Angeles, CA, Houston, TX, and Cape Kennedy, FL. Maybe 1% of Americans even know what gradient is. It is not just an old fringe engineering school joke (Gradients drive everything.) That joke is kind of funny only because it is absolutely true. Life itself depends on gradient. Think of gradient as a difference in something with respect to something else. Light/dark. Cold/hot. High/Low. Without gradient, everything is exactly the same everything. Stasis is a total lack of gradient, and is another word for death. It drives all fundamental process in the universe, and that includes not just human biological life, but economies as well. Negative events, like wars and natural disasters, create gradient to drive economies. JFK's Moon Program was an example of a positive gradient restoring event. It created a gradient of opportunities all the way from the pointy end of exploration all the way back to the factories that serviced the factories that serviced the factories... Restoration of gradient is not the most radical idea floating around these days; the most radical idea is that mankind can somehow target stasis and survive the attempt. And in a fundamental way, the various totalitarian movements -- the attempts to marshall mankind into an orderable colony of bees under a central control -- is the response of existentially terrified children to the end of the dirt simple 2D growth paradigm on earth. Panicked German philosophers from the 1800s, freshly sobered by the warnings of Malthus and decades before Kitty Hawk, saw no alternative but to marshall all of mankind and target stasis in a new, manageable end game. They were wrong; stasis is death. And a transition to a 3D growth paradigm is doable. We just needed to choose to do it. We lacked the vision, because on average, we're average. And so we've chosen the rats on a sinking ship end game, and we're living it.

Mike: A teenager does not need to read Das Kapital to understand why the street lights in his neighborhood are out, but a busride away everything works just fine. I've read Das Kapital, and I'm not sure any of us fully understand the why. The implication is that street lights all fail on average at the same rate, without any local help (like, by parentlless louts, some who actually have parents but are still parentless) hurling rocks at same. Or even remote encouragement, while a busride away, government is repairing those streetlights, and in his neighborhood, they are left to decay. No, he doesn't need to read Das Kapital; he only needs to be within earshot of your basic politico, selling a palatable meme. It isn't government breaking those windows. It isn't government spray painting those walls. It isn't government busting the street lights. And it isn't those folks a busride away, either. Behaviour yields outcomes, and yet, it is politically more sellable to claim otherwise. It is the easiest, cheapest sell there is, especially when there is never any payoff, even though it is always implied.

Our tribal perseverance on normalization has the DSM exploding. I heard a talk recently at a Williams Syndrome convention in Boston, in which the speaker (Dr. Thomas Armstrong), discussed his theories re; 'neurodiversity.' Instead of characterizing folks as deviating from norms, another approach would be to focus on the fact that our testing sometimes uncovers folks who would be excellent at certain things that require intense focus on details, for example. Computer programming field is filled with examples of folks who would clearly be diagnosed as autistic. It takes a special mind to actually dream in code. There are enough sources of legitimate frustration and challenges without adding to the list by tacking on any that have as a primary foundation our concerns over deviation from the norm and not being the same as the rest of the locally normalized herd; normalization is a potential cul de sac, and not something to overly worry about. He illustrated with the example of 3D spatial navigation skills in the island nations of the South Pacific leading to a kind of local filter for rising up the local tribal power structure, whereas in DC, we have folks who can't find their BMWs in the parking lot claiming to run the most complex economies in the world(even if they belie the ability to do that by insisting on referring to them as an it...) Our tribe normalizes itself into a cul de sac when the highest valued political skill is the ability to lie convincingly to others. (My youngest, with Williams Syndrome, would be a terrible politician.) The frustrations and challenges that are based on our own perseverence on 'normalization' is largely the doing of the tribe itself, manufacturing additional sources of frustration and challenge.

He articulates the issues extremely well, and clearly brings into focus the differences between the two campaigns. But other than this initial buzz in August at the end of the Olympics and before the conventions, will the press give him much opportunity to clearly speak? Other than a single debate with Biden, and individual campaign speeches at stops across the nation, the message that he is uniquely able to articulate is broadly and severely filtered. And although the message that is narrow-cast is much more complete, too much of that ends up reverberating in echo-chambers to have broad impact except in those echo chambers; the positive light in some is balanced by the negative light in others, in terms of any impact on the impact-able at this point. This choice bends a longstanding trend; in the past, for either party, it seems like the last thing in the world they wanted was a clear statement of the political debate. With Ryan's selection, Romney has broken out of that model. It is in some ways a bold gamble as well as a huge leap of faith in the electorate. But in some fundamental way, if that faith is unfounded, then we've been long lost and the outcome of the election was never at issue anyway. So in that sense Romney had nothing to lose in making this choice.

Hints of Christian dominance in our legislation: the Virginia Bill of Rights: 16. That religion, or the duty which we owe to our CREATOR, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity, towards each other. for·bear·ance    [fawr-bair-uhns] Show IPA noun 1. the act of forbearing; a refraining from something. 2. forbearing conduct or quality; patient endurance; self-control. 3. an abstaining from the enforcement of a right. 4. a creditor's giving of indulgence after the day originally fixed for payment. Where is there even a hint of a theocracy, in a majority Christian nation, under which by law there is a directed obligation for forbearance? Not to mention, the explicit wording of the federal Bill of Rights. My devout agnosticism is second to none, but one of the primary ways we defend our freedom from each other is to defend each other's freedom. The only hint I see of any growing Theocracy in America is not from the Christian Right, but the Progressive (as in Scott Nearing's 'Social Religion') Left. "S"ociety is God, and the state is its proper church. We're living it.

An earlier post mentioned concern for what students are taught in school. Martin Luther King's Dream Speach was, if not the greatest, one of the greatest anthems to liberty ever spoken, anywhere, and it is beneficial that students in freedom are taught his words, as well as the full context that he spoke them in. But when they are, are they taught that MLK was a Republican? Or that the Southern governers -- Faubus, Barnett, Wallace -- that were clinging to their hatred and Stars and Bars -- were all Democrats? Or that when federal troops were sent down to Little Rock to enforce civil rights and turn those National Guard bayonets in the other direction, it was a Republican president(Eisenhower)who ordered those federal troops? Because in 2012 -- somehow, long after the actual lynchings and abuses in the Dixiecrat South, when local governments were thin cover for the local KKK, it is the GOP that is today painted as the party of hatred and bigotry, and with more than a little irony, the party of LBJ -- LBJ for crying out loud -- is the party that freed the slaves, not Lincoln. And the modern result -- in times far from the actual lynchings -- is that in exchange for cheap promises never fulfilled, minorities in this country sell their vote cheaply to the Democratic party and are effectively kept on a plantation. Do they ever notice, even after over 50 years of this, that those pictures from Detroit look worse, not better? And even in white Appalachia, all we've done is convert a few stills to Meth labs? The poor in this nation sell their vote to the Democratic party and in return get ... nothing but implied promises. Like Romney, I had a fully disclosed offshore Caymans corp in the 90s. I used it to further overseas business, exports out of the US. And one thing I learned from that experience is that of all the people collecting frequent flyer miles to Georgetown, nobody in the US was collecting more than Ted Kennedy, on his way down to visit daddy's rum running money. Then, he'd fly back north and buy some more votes of the poor with nothing more than cheap talk, boob bait for the desperate. Take all the time needed to figure this one out; in the meantime, the only people paying the price for this are those buying it, cheap. In some way, this defines 'social justice.'

Here is a factoid that illustrates how out of control federal spending is. In 1966, Medicare started out at $3B/yr. If we apply that same conservatrive factor for inflation and population of x15, that adjusts to $45B today. And we are spending over 10 times that inflation and population corrected amount. And yet, imagine this; if we were to eliminate 100% of defense, and 100% of MEDICARE/MEDICAID in some kind of latest 'grand bargain' less guns and less butter deal, we would -still- barely be half way trimmed between the current $3800B/yr in spending and JFK's fully adjusted $1500B/yr in spending... ... and that essentially counts defense twice, because over half of JFK's adjusted $1500B was for defense. Do we understand the enormity of how much federal spending overbloat is out of control since JFK's America?

My first reaction to this, before the TeaParty/Democrat/OWS/Black Bloc parade, was based simply on the pHD Neuroscience candidate/drop out description. It is 2012. Today's youth have been living with the current economic malaise and have heard the same hollow 'jobs, jobs, jobs' speechs in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and now 2012. During this period, young folks like this James Holmes have been stressing themselves out in school taking on curricula like 'Neuroscience' ... with only news of decreasing opportunities awaiting them. If 99.999% of America bucks up under the current pressure and does not wig out, that is not yet 100%. The current economic stress is making everyone edgy, which means, those already on the edge are getting pushed right over. Consider this. Compare the graduates of 2012 with the graduates of 1962. In JFK's early 60's, his federal government was spending $100B/yr, over half of which was for defense at the peak of the Cold War, in a nation of 180million people, a little more than half our present size. We can inflation(x7.5) and population(barely x2) adjust that $100B to $1500B/yr today, and we are at $3800B/yr today. That America paid for SS. That America was going to the Moon. That America was building the Interstates. That America was righting old civil rights wrongs. That America was sending its youth to the best schools in the world. And that America was sending out a generation of young Americans with enthusiasm and more importantly hope for the future. If there was any credence at all to the theory of federal spending stimulus with a positive dollar multiplier, then our current $2.3T above and beyond JFK's level of federal spending should have American economies on a tear. Paul Krugman wants to sing the praises of JFK's America and its high marginal tax rate, paid by six rich guys with lousy accountants, while the broad American middle class labored under a payroll tax that was half of what it is today. I say, if Krugman wants to bring them both back, then no problem, as long as we are also going to cut federal spending back to JFK's adjusted $1500B/yr, which is the real killer of the engines that drive our economies. Public spending is not priavte spending; public debt is not private debt. What human on earth wakes up tomorrow with fresh, new incentive to go out and create new value in order to ... pay off public debt? Nobody. The evidence is irrefutable, this aint working, and fringe 'going over the edge' like this pHD Neuroscience candidate in Colorado are the canaries in the coal mines. What species does this to their young? If we stay on our present political course of ever bigger government, then we are going to see ever more of this fringe violence from every corner of the political spectrum.

Would you have unprotected sex with a woman who probably has several STDs if it gives you pleasure? --Brant When I was 20? I did not. When I am 70? I can only hope so.

Then he defended his remarks, which to me appear to be a ding-dong problem involving mistaken causality. I mean, I guess I could be wrong on that but for fuck's sake. rde "I got it from the toilet seat." --Frank Zappa Maybe he just read 'fracking' too fast. He is a lawmaker.

He is advocating a Super Swindle. Well, at least his is open about it. Ba'al Chatzaf Judging by the similarities in this image to Paul Krugman above, it would not be unreasonable to call this "The Corbomite Maneuver" Maybe he meant Star Trek?

Wow. That's assuming that the federal government doesn't run up any additional debt in those 60 years... JFK's America: 100B in federal spending. 50 years. Population has not even barely doubled. Federal bloat has exploded by a factor of 38. (7.5% annual growth over 50 years.) 3800B today. No sign of slowing down. At this rate(of course it can't be sustained) the federal bloat in another 50 years will be 145 trillion dollars/yr. A factor of 1,444 times JFK's America. And the population will only have grown by a factor of about 2.7 Long before that happens...maybe weeks from now, the wheels will have long fallen off the federal spending train. The ratings agency downgrade was decades late, to do any good.

Adam: I'm also somewhat familiar with special education issues; my wife and I have a son with Williams Syndrome(a genetic deletion.) He was diagnosed very young, at 18 months, when a genetic test was just introduced for Williams, and he's just turned 18 years old. He has largely been mainstreamed in our district. Our oldest son also had a state mandated IEP, but for the opposite reason (high IQ, not low IQ.) We call them our bookend sons. I worry more about the oldest than the youngest, because the youngest is a love monkey, everybody loves him, he has the most amazing personality, and is not a burden in the least. We are very fortunate, he is also healthy as an ox. He has also kept his older 'gifted' brother from becoming a complete a-hole, they are quite close. He's very asymmetric, can't add like you or I do, he must use adaptive means based on memory to perform the most basic of math, but has excellent memory and 'word' skills. He does very well in subjects like history or geography and even some science, but not mathematical science. I figure, the world has enough folks who can add, and it doesn't always seem to help. He is driven with an innate need to please others, is infatuated with people, is very empathetic towards others, and has little deceit, guile or cunning in him. When they were younger, playing hide and seek was impossible; "Where are you? I'm here." His older brother tried to teach him, but he found it impossible not to want to please others, even when playing hide and seek... The point of that being, we were fortunate in that he was easy to mainstream, is not a behavioral problem in class. He loves school, he loves his teachers, wants nothing more than their approval, he is anxious to participate, and he makes great efforts to learn. He is aghast when a fellow student misbehaves, he perseverates on such incidents with us at home after the fact. If that were not the case, and he was disruptive, I would be uncomfortable with him being mainstreamed. It is rare, but a child screaming constantly cannot be permitted to disrupt the process of education for others. Of course, no doubt, it helps that my wife is president of the school board. But one of the things that drew us to this district was its commitment to addressing special education, it was a key issue with an earlier superintendent. Unfortunately, there are parents of non-special needs students who have no issue at all with their children being disruptive in the classroom, and that is more of an impediment to education than fringe special needs mainstreaming. But, my sister taught in the same district for decades, and I've often heard the flip side of this policy from her. She has felt at times that she's been placed into intractable positions with disruptive behavioral problems in class and no approved means of dealing with them, the result being, a failed learning environment-- another example of responsibility without authority. Her complaint was not the mainstreaming, per se, but the manner in which it was done, with apparently insufficient regard to individual instances, as if students were 'mainstreamed' via pitchfork and not selective process/design. And, her complaints about disruptive behavior were by no means limited to or even necessarily focused on special needs kids. The issues are orthogonal. I did some consulting work for the state a few years back, working on a prototype system for special needs assessment/IEP administration. The pilot program was with some districts near the capitol. The admin did not know that I had a special needs child in a district far away, and what I heard come out of their mouths in closed door meetings... shocked me. It was crystal clear that they saw the whole topic as an unwanted and pointless state mandated imposition, something to pay lip service to and manage by shoveling with pitchforks. I didn't resent them for that, but it was an eye opener. Unrelated to mainstreaming, my brother-in-law, her husband, also a teacher in the same district, was in the hall between classes when a middle school boy came up to him and punched him in the face-- because he could, with impunity. My b-i-l reacted by grabbing the student by the shirt and forcefully holding him up against the lockers, restraining him until add'l teachers came to his aid and the kid was taken to the office. (He placed hands on the child.) In an earlier time and culture, this reaction (and worse) would have been called 'education.' But the modern outcome was, my b-i-l was sued by the child's parents for use of excessive (ie, any) force. The administration admonished him for letting the situation get out of control, and physically touching a student with force. The teachers union did not back him up. Clearly, the parents didn't back him up--they were suing him. Stories like that abound, nationwide. It also seems like a policy deliberately designed to destroy our civilization. At best, it is someone's pet Soc. grad school theory run amok, at worst it is same run amok deliberately to attack this free nation and cripple it, rendering education impossible. In an earlier age, a child coming home with a story like that would have received a well deserved second certain beating, probably far more severe than simple restraint, not a trip to the family lawyer for some cash. ... How can a topic so crucial to our freedom -- education-- be ... so screwed up? I guess, like everything else, because it is undertaken by we imperfect naked sweaty apes. But there are times when the attack seems like it must have been deliberate, it is so perfectly destructive. An academic question I have often pondered: suppose this nation was, at one time, in a global conflict with totalitarian leaning adversaries who were pushing a paradigm anathema to freedom. (It clearly was, and was called the Cold War.) What would have kept them from deliberately attacking this nation by way of its handful of academic choke points, universities and college campuses? Would it have been this nation's open borders? Would it have been our total lack of an oppressive police state? Would it have been the open campus nature of those universities and colleges? Would it have been an abusable policy of complete academic freedom on those campuses, ironically turned around to consume freedom? Would it have been the benevolent nature of our adversaries, who in their spirit of fair play and good wishes for us, would have self-constrained themselves from attacking this open nation by way of its academic instituions? Would our own nation's sense of benevolence and well being have made it difficult for us to believe that our own college campuses and universities were being turned into internal threats to our own freedom? Would we uncomfortably laugh along when the perps snickered at McCarthyism during the height of this attack from within, and say, 'Surely, that is paranoid over-reaction to something that isn't happening because....because....because we are snickering at it!' A world with 190 totalitarian leaning nations could yet not coexist with 1 free nation left on earth, because they would not be able to build the prison walls high enough. That one nation could not be allowed to stand, free, with no walls, with its citizens free to leave, and yet, with the flood of fleeing immigrants forever in the inward direction. Why attack that free nation via its academic institutions? Because a nation unable to define 'freedom' is unable to defend 'freedom,' and freedom cannot stand in such a nation. So, my question is: did this happen to America? Was it over-run, and was it then attacked internally? Does it continue to be attacked internally? When this free nation once faced external freedom eating totalitarian threats, the result was a united nation. When this nation faces an internal totalitarian freedom eating threat, the result is a divided nation. What is America today? What is the source of its vehemently bitter divided politics? Is individual freedom and liberty intellectually defensible in this America, or has that battle for freedom long been lost?

My wife is president of our local school board, she's in her third four year term. It is a largely thank-less job, increasingly filled with responsibility without authority. But, thank-you for taking on the heavy lifting of managing education. Even though I believe education is primarily taken, not given, it still must at least be well offered, and that is the job of school boards to oversee, to make sure that education remains well offered in this nation. It largely is, but the fact that we can only strongly influence the 'well offered' side of that equation is part of what drives the frustration of debate on education in this nation. How do we as a matter of public policy influence the unequal taking of education? We don't. And so, we focus on the 'well offered.' But by continuously claiming that there is something wrong with the system, we foster the mistaken belief that education is primarily given, not taken, and so, students are encouraged to slouch into their seats and treat the process with contempt...because they are told that something is wrong 'with the system.' That doesn't encourage the taking of education, certainly not in some cultures that largely show up and treat the process with little more than contempt. If we wanted to design a program to destroy the process of education in America, it would be hard to beat one that focused on the meme that education can be unilaterally given, if only we design the right system. Which makes me wonder; is that where this national debate came from? An internal attack on the spine of the nation? It is what great teachers do, when they well offer education: they encourage, cajole, and entice students into actively taking their education. But teachers are not emperors, and can only strongly encourage. Students must be receptive to the suggestion, and not slouch in their seats with contempt. Worse, the most fundamental obligations of parenting are too often not being met--even in districts with free/suibsidized breakfast programs, many students are not showing up for school having eaten a decent breakfast. They all but fall asleep in class, malnourished. The best teachers in the nation cannot fix that fundamental failure of culture. This is an actual lament, observation from teachers in a local 'failing' urban district that was once a thriving successful district. How can they teach students literally falling asleep in class because they show up malnourished? Poverty is no excuse, these same districts have had free/subsidized breakfast programs for decades. It is a matter of culture, of basic parenting failures. I'm trying to imagine my mother ever allowing me to leave the house for school without having eaten breakfast; it was like a religious ceremony every morning. She was a fanatic about it. How do we fix that? Who does not know this? Way too many mandates from over the horizon and little means of funding them. A favorite is 'English as second language.' The state provides about 36,000/yr to implement the program, the district spends about 700,000 yr to implement it )out of a budget of about 140 million.) I suggested they buy some flashcards and sit folks in an auditorium until the 36,000 runs out, then check that mandate off, 'Done.' I don't understand why they spend 700,000 on a mandated program funded at 36,000, and I am wondering how immigrants to this nation managed this issue a hundred years ago, without this nonsense. Because they did, and built the biggest economic beast the world has ever seen. As well, the latest challenge is tax assessment appeals awarded by the county, outside of the control of the local school board; they must just deal with the massive loss of tax revenue, but have little discretionary leeway, other than to simply cut programs. So, the school board becomes the local punching bag for tax policies set elsewhere. PA legislature has an absurdity that teachers may not be furloughed purely for economic reasons, although complete programs can be dropped, so that is what they are forced to do. They have squeaked by so far by relying on retirements without replacement, and have the lowest millage tax rate in the region, but this isn't going to last for long. She told me this is her last term(in PA, this is an unpaid elected position), she is ready for others to serve as the unpaid bearers of the bad news. You know, in JFK's 60's, those economies barely breathed hard to provide the worlds best everything. Economic opportunities, education, infrastructure/Interstates, Apollo Moon Programs. Government's at every level weren't in constant fiscal crisis mode...and they attempted far less. And, those economies roared. What are we actually achieving with the massive governmental bloat? It is becoming increasingly clear that not only is public spending not the same private spending, but our national balance of the two is far out of whack, and killing the engines that drive our economies. This is a many generation trend, and our crack addiction to public spending is so deeply felt that it isn't going away soon. The wheels are just going to fall off. Thanks again for what you do. I know how much effort school boards put into their responsibilities.

This is constructivist folly, incarnate. Complete with America's new intellectual capital: dancing bitmaps. Here's a tradeoff: JFK's total federal budget, in the early 60's, at the height of the Cold War: 100B, fully half of which was defense. CPI/inflation adjusted: x 7.5 = 750B Population adjusted: barely x 2.0 = 1500B. (Half of which is defense.) JFK's America funded Social Security. JFK's America funded the Apollo Moon Program... at 0.002 trillion/yr for ten years. Scan ahead to the current 'budget' game: we are spending 3800B, not JFK's fully adjusted 1500B. That is an extra 2300B of public spending, taken away from private spending. Is public spending equivalent to privater spending? When you earn(run uphill) and spend(run downhill) a dollar, is it really spent with the same discipline as when you earn(ie, run uphill) and I spend(ie, run downhill) that same dollar for you? Hardly. I find spending a dollar that you earned to be both pleasurable and painless, for me. Running downhill is not the same activity as running uphill. The definition of 'GDP' that equates public spending with private spending assumes that they are. It is not close to true. And so, how does the cute set of set them up and knock them down cartoon bitmaps reflect those fundamental choices? Never mind cartoons with wired-in conclusions, how do we explain the difference between JFK's fully adjusted 1500B/yr in spending and our 3800B/yr in spending? If we were to not raise the debt ceiling, that 3800B would be trimmed to about 2300B/yr. Are we saying that JFK's America could get by on a fully adjusted 1500B, but there is something about our nation that demands we need 3800B in public spending, and we could not eke by on 2300B/yr? 2300B/yr is far in excess of JFK's America and its adjusted 1500B/yr. JFK's America was at the height of the Cold War. JFK's America funded Social Security. JFK's America provided the world's best economic and educational opportunities. JFK's America was in the midst of a huge infrastructure building program -- Ike's Autobahn, the Interstate system. JFK's America launched the Apollo Moon Program, at 0.002 Trillion/yr for ten years. JFK's America gave him a 100B budget (CPI and population adjusted to 1500B) Forget for a moment that most of that 100B to 1500B adjustment is due to government spending induced endemic inflation -- a broad regressive tax on the entire nation. Fully half of that budget was defense. Medicare in 1966 was 3B. That same CPI/inflation and population adjustment brings that up to 45B/yr. Compare with the actual 466B/yr or thereabouts. And yet, even though JFK's 1500B was fully half defense, today, from our 3800B/yr in spending, we could get rid of 100% of defense, and 100% of Medicare, in some kind of 'grand compromise' -- and still barely be halfway between the current record level 3800B/yr and JFK's 1500B(which was half defense!) How in the world do we explain that, except to admit that our political system of determining 'public spending' is totally broken and out of all control? Which is evident when you look at the exponentially increasing rate of increase of debt required to keep this gluttony fed? JFK's American economies barely breathed hard to provide world leading beast building economies; that is because they could breathe. Folks can make all the pony show arguments they want about the for-show highest marginal tax rates(paid by 6 folks with terrible CPAs), but that story totally falls apart when the population adjusted 1500B is compared with today's 3800B. OTOH... JFK's American broad middle class paid a 3% payroll tax on a much smaller ceiling... Finally, we can't point to 'The Great Society' -- the pathetic pictures of Detroit and Appalachia once used to launch the last glut of massive public spending -- and claim anything other than FAIL, because those same pictures after 50 years look worse, not better. We managed to replace stills with meth labs, and alcohol with crack. Not worth the effort. OTOH, an America that once spent 0.002 trillion/yr for 10 years on the Apollo Moon Program needs to seriously ask itself: what exactly is it that our federal government undertakes these days for that extra 2.3 trillion/yr above and beyond JFK's fully adjusted 1.5 trillion/yr that justifies the extra 2.3 trillion/year? Is the real estate market in Northern VA really supposed to inspire the nation, like the Apollo Space Program once did? Seriously?

One way to tell if you've been to a fake Apple Store in China is, twenty minutes after buying your fake admission to a non-existing community of cool dreamed up by brilliant marketers, you have the same urge to please nameless others that you are just like them, as demonstrated by your i-Amjustlikeyou-con. It is our evidence that we are not really a sadsack living in Mom's Basement, but in fact have virtual dreadlocks flying behind us everywhere we go, wildly dancing en masse to the exact same different beat, in florescent colors. In an authentic Apple Store, that twenty minutes is more like six hours.

There are some obvious questions: Who raised this generation, and taught them their values? Or, maybe, who failed to raise this generation, and who failed to teach them any values? Who sold them out, by tolerating a policy of surcharge taxing the Boomers for their entire working lives, simply to create 'assets' in the SS Trust fund that can only be 'redeemed' either by a] taxing their kids a second time for the same 'asset' or b] further de-investing in future economies by borrowing even more from them? Somebody find Greenspan a mirror. Obama announcing that those SS checks may not show up on Aug 2 is a real hoot. He's implying that the money just won't be there in the 'coffers' to pay those SS checks, and America is reacting predictably. Few are saying 'Wait a minute...these same clowns have been claiming that SS was 'solvent' until 2037, what with all those 'assets' in the SS Trust fund. You mean they really aren't 'assets' after all, and are totally dependent on additional borrowing?' LMAO... Greenspan, Obama, Bush, Clinton, ... Nixon, etc., etc. -- Big Government 'The' Economy[sic] Running by any party, the report card is officially in: F-A-I-L.

-boing!- Sort of like a spring? To me, one of the best symbols of this whole thing is exactly those cute little Polar bears on those cans of carbonated Coke. See, we're not emitting enough CO2 into the atmosphere, so it is necessary to distribute billions of gallons of dissolved CO2 into personal distribution cans, so that green minded, Polar bear loving folks can take their cans of Coke out into the world and freshly release their personal cans of CO2 into the atmosphere. But it's OK...look, the can has a cute little Polar bear on it, and he's green. It's called 'carbonation;' is that even a slight hint? They don't harvest CO2 out of the air to put the fizz in carbonated drinks(as I was once told by some technical illiterate.) That would be an incredibly inefficient(and still net CO2 producing)process to generate the amount of CO2 needed, because CO2 is such a fringe constituent in air. No, they produce it the only economical way possible; by way of industrial CO2 generators, via brand new combustion dedicated to producing CO2 for our Polar bear decorated Cokes. See, here is where the 'minor contribution' argument usually shows up. "But its such a tiny, negligible fraction of mankind's CO2 emissions...surely it is ridiculous to worry about the CO2 in Cokes? I mean,..they are so green." I wonder where that argument is when it is pointed out that all of mankinds CO2 emissions are a tiny, negligible fraction of all CO2 emissions, living as we are in this thin, whispy atmosphere buffered by massive oceans that cover 70% of the earth and hold 99.9% of the atmospheric mass. When the crunchies start campaigning to take the fizz out of the several tens of billions(scary!) of gallons of carbonated beverages sold every year, I will start to at least not laugh at their perseverance on fringe man made emissions of CO2. Meanwhile, when they are ooohing! and ahhhhing! at Coke's green Polar bear campaign, and toasting each other with carbonated beverages, I'm going to deservedly laugh. I picture the execs at Coke, as all this nonsense is taking off, having one of those meetings where guys in suits are yelling at each other, in a panic, until one of them comes up with the brilliant idea "We'll just put Polar bears on the personal cans of CO2 emissions, "go green," and maybe they won't notice that they are drinking carbonated beverages and personally releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere?" It's worked so far. Nobody will ever go poor under-estimating the intelligence of King Consumer. My advice to them when they uncomfortably realize what they are doing? Drink up, because you aren't hurting any Polar bears -- or any living thing on earth-- in the least. regards, Fred

Not the best example imaginable; explain the selective 'freedom' of IRS 1706...especially, given its history and reason for being. In our 'free market', there are laws aimed at some named professions that are not also aimed at attorneys, accountants, photograhpers, painters, window washers which have a significant impact on the ability to participate in the 'free market.' I'm not talking about licensing, but presumption of criminal behavior. In the case of a poorly understood IRS 1706, the chilling effect it has on companies who do not want added exposure to the whims of murky IRS rulings is an artificial impediment effectively defining 'who can be one.' regards, Fred I will never understand why folks do not provide a link IRS 1706 Or while we are at it, a link to a Google search for IRS 1706. The most interesting aspect of IRS 1706 is how and why it came about; IBM's two-fer, by way of Moynihan, who with some irony tried ineffectively later to have it repealed; for his conscience, I guess. In order to 'pay' for other legislation that IBM was seeking, granting them favorable tax treatment of their overseas operations, they sold out independents and murkied the water with this curiously job title specific legislation-- which also had the impact of shepherding technically skilled workers into their very own W2 corral. How did it 'pay' for anything? It was claimed that individuals with these specific job titles have, as a class, a predilection to lie and cheat on their taxes, relative to attorneys, accountants, photographers, and any other professional offering services as an independent small businessman. Or, what I call, revenge of the math impaired, finally getting back at the nerds who used to make them feel stupid in school. It was intended to target third party brokers/no value added job pimps ("technical services companies"), but it has the practical effect of muddying the water for all such independents, including direct/two-party independents, because companies do not want to expose themselves to the arbitrary and capricious whims of interpretation by an out of control IRS in the hands of an activist administration. Not what the law says? Totally moot; when the IRS makes its finding, you can pay your back taxes and penalties, and then appeal...to the IRS. If you have a cent left to your name. As well, there is no such explicit law aimed at construction company subcontractor job titles, and their status, too, is currently being used to pick-off construction companies and put them out of business over similar abuse of the tax code. Close friend of mine just shut down his construction company and walked away after decades, because of recent harassment from the IRS based on exactly this. There is no 'free-market' when out of all control apparatchik activists can continuously fat-finger the economies with heavy handed , point of a gun tactics like this. Oh, but we need MORE!/LESS! H1B visas. Sure we do. More fat fingering of 'the economy[sic]'. You can't throw a rock and not hit an example of the free market getting trampled by 'The Economy[sic]" runners. It's the economies. regards, Fred

Not the best example imaginable; explain the selective 'freedom' of IRS 1706...especially, given its history and reason for being. In our 'free market', there are laws aimed at some named professions that are not also aimed at attorneys, accountants, photograhpers, painters, window washers which have a significant impact on the ability to participate in the 'free market.' I'm not talking about licensing, but presumption of criminal behavior. In the case of a poorly understood IRS 1706, the chilling effect it has on companies who do not want added exposure to the whims of murky IRS rulings is an artificial impediment effectively defining 'who can be one.' regards, Fred

GW is one thing; MMGW is something else. But either way, what definition of 'the global temperature' is being discussed in the GW/MMGW debate? As an engineer, I'd look for that first. And yet, the debate is filled with people who have never asked that most basic of questions even once. Tell me why I should equally weight the opinions of technical illiterates on this topic? Area averaged from sparse surface point data, with a decided bias towards manmade thermal islands? Integrated detailed but indirect surface measurements(of scene radiance, not temperature)from low earth orbiting AVHRR instruments on spaceborne platforms? (If so the question is, how to compare those with the 'same' measurement from the 1800s, etc.? And if comparable to numbers inferred from ice core sample gas analysis(???)then why bother with spaceborne measurements at all? How are spaceborne measurements of scene radiance converted to surface temperatures? As well, how is sounder data converted to layer temperatures? Mass averaged temperatures? As in, an acknowledgement that 99.9% of the earth's atmospheric system is tied up in our oceans? The most informative fact, to me, is the deer in headlights response given to these fundamental questions, when asked of fervent MMGW acolytes; they have no idea-- not even the first clue -- what the basis is for the 'global temperature' trends being reported with an uncertainty of tenths of a degree(matters little if F or C...) Guaranteed, this is surface temperature data. Is it reasonable to ask, if surface temperature data, why a square mile of ten foot deep Gulf of Mexico would be weighted the same as a square mile of 5000 ft deep North Atlantic? And on any basis claiming to influence long term climate or short term weather, on what thermophysical/atmospheric physics basis do we ignore a mass averaged value of something called 'the global temperature?' For an answer to that, look up 'thermocline uncertainty,' and then, understand that we have no way of determining something called 'the global temperature' today with fractions of a degree uncertainty, but surely no means of doing that over hundreds or thousands of years. Certainly not from analysis of ice core data, which unfortunately for the whole MMGW religion provides evidence of CO2 as a response, not driver of those inferred temperatures. We don't angst over mass averaged values because we do not have the first prayer of measuring them to an uncertainty that would cause any politically usable alarmist data. At most, our centers of subsidized research could claim, 'needs more study' as they hold their beggar hands out. There are well understood models of the greenhouse effect. Short wave radiation converted to long wave radiation at the surface, and absorbed by the thermal blanket covering the earth. H20 is the dominant greenhouse gas, C02 is a bit player, both exist in our thin whispy atmosphere primarily as a result of being buffered by our massive oceans. If long term solar variability was the primary driver, we would expect to see mostly surface trends. If increase in the greenhouse effect, then we would expect to see mainly mid troposphere trends-- the middle of that thermal blanket that causes the greenhouse effect. Those are the facts that our physical understanding of the model demand. But there is no observed trends at those mid-altitudes, from two sets of independent data-- radiosonde/weather balloons and satellite sounder data. The trends that are observable are at the surface, consistent with long term solar variability. Also supported by observations of polar caps on Mars, also leading to the same conclusion readily supported by the fact that there used to be massive glaciers over Manhattan; GW is a long term undeniable trend. In our panic to use MMGW as a shortcut to political power, we are told to blow right by H20 as a dominant greenhouse gas, and focus on fringe CO2. Why? What is the science behind that? I never hear any science. What I hear is floating factoids -- 'the residence time of CO2 is very long compared to H20.' Really? H20 leaves the atmosphere 'quickly?' But it also enters the atmosphere 'quickly.' The scientific question is, at what point in its residence is H20 not totally dominating CO2 as a greenhouse gas? It is crystal clear that, regarding our massive oceans, mankind does not have a prayer of influencing the buffered nature of H20 in our atmosphere, nor of 'controlling' mankind's emissions of H20 into the atmosphere. And so...H20 is ignored, and we focus instead on fringe CO2, and cook up theories of CO2 as primary driver of climate, theories that are verified not in the actual record, but only in tweaked computer models that are never calibrated. There is plenty of scientific reason to be skeptical of MMGW. (GW, not at all.) At the same time that Mr. Keen laments the demise of 'engineers' running companies and answering technological questions, he yet gives credence to political science aimed at technological issues by pushing to the front his 'defense' of capitalism as having as its primary reason to be the solving of the MMGW 'crisis.' He is too cute by half. The perversion of capitalism is clearly identified in Rands romantic novels -- the businessmen/industrialists who run to the guns of government for leverage over their competitors. The GMs, the IBMs, all of IKE's MIC. Once stood up as our own version of soft-fascism in a do-or-die response to global totalitarian meat eating alternatives, external threats to freedom. Well, they never stood down. Human nature. That soft-fascist melding of industry and government never stood down. That is exactly what is wrong with 'capitalism' in America. For over 50 years, we've barely seen it. SEC Exempt GSEs? The specter of Mortgage Backed Securities? CRA? 50 sets of state banking and lending regulations systematically replaced in court case after court case and even USSC case by a single-point-of-failure overbearing federal model? And when the perps screwed the pooch, they circled the wagons and cried out 'capitalism did it!' And this Keen fellow is an apologist for this subterfuge. This engineer isn't buying it, not for an instant. He is right to distinguish the HP of Hewlett and Packard from the HP of the Carly-forward MBA generation. Not the same beast. There is beast-building capitalism, and there is carcass-carving capitalism and America has been over-run with the latter, for decades. The bones are showing. We there yet?