OpSec and Babel
Continuing with Del Giudice's magnificently productive question about mental defensible spaces against pathogens.

I noticed an example of dreamtime vs waketime spaces tonight. Words from the incoming OTR episode slipped into the dream and got reinterpreted. There wasn't any reason for the reinterpretation; it started a new subject that wasn't already in the dream's plot.

Previously I had considered this to be a peculiar accident. Per Del Giudice, this is necessary. The purpose of dreamtime is to jumble and repattern incoming data, so that data generated by pathogens can't serve its intended purposes.

= = = = =

How about defensible cases? Languages are certainly distinct mental spaces. Well known. An idea or a joke rarely transfers properly between languages. I've noted before that a well-structured language with good internal modularity protects people against invasive ideas.

Often-invaded cultures and languages like Russia develop sophisticated complexities that are impossible for invaders to understand.

Invading cultures like USA and invading languages like English are simple and crude. We are the pathogen, so we don't need to defend against other pathogens.

Babel tells us that God wanted modularity, not universality. Why? To protect us against both physical and cultural pathogens.

Globalists FORCIBLY break all of these defensible spaces and cases. Globalists want one universal language and one universal culture and one universal mindset. Why? So the Imperial pathogen can spread into all lands. Globalists are like the seed-pod fungus.

= = = = =

Do globalists in fact bear one single bacterium in our gut biomes, or one single virus in our nervous systems? Does this bacterium or virus cause the genocidal disease of globalism?

Labels: defensible cases, defensible spaces, defensible times

  ¶ 12:11 AM

  OpSec vs virus
Via Phys.org, a genuinely fresh and PRODUCTIVE idea that sounds silly at first glance.

Del Giudice doesn't claim this is a theory, just an open question to spawn new ways of looking:

Did the brain develop defenses against behavior-controlling parasites?

Many parasites try to control the host's behavior. The most horrible example is the fungus that takes over an ant, turning it into a seed pod that walks up to the top of a plant and explodes. Most viruses alter the host's behavior in more subtle ways. Familiar example is chicken pox, which digs into the nerves and pounces years later, causing pain or paralysis.

This type of attack has been going on for millions of years, so it makes sense that the brain and nervous system would have developed electronic countermeasures.

The most interesting part of the question deals with signaling and OpSec:

The central nervous system uses neuroactive substances as internal signals between neurons, brain networks and between the brain and other organs. Parasites can hijack these pathways to alter behavior by producing overriding signals or, as Del Giudice points out, corrupting existing ones. This entails breaking the host's internal signaling code.

Thus, a more complex signaling code is more difficult for a parasite to break. Instances of such a complexity increase include the requirement of joint action of different neurochemicals, or releasing neuroactive substances in specifically timed pulses. Expanding the set of transmission molecules and their binding receptors also increases complexity. More elaborate internal signals increase the time required to break. From an adaptive standpoint, this can close off the parasite's options, forcing it to develop other means of manipulation.

Genuinely inspirational and immediately thought-generating. Most discussions of neural signaling miss the infinite complexity of the real neurons and glia. Del Giudice gets it and adds something new.

His concept happens to fit with the question I was asking yesterday about separate mental spaces.

= = = = = START REPRINT:

I'm under the weather this week. Trying to boost my spirits, this "thought" popped up:

When I'm feeling bad, I forget what it's like to feel good. I forget that I was feeling good just two days ago, and the last time I felt bad was only a few days. BUT: When I'm feeling good, I forget what it's like to feel awful.

NO, WAIT.

That's not a BUT. Not a paradox. It's the same rule.

Feeling good vs feeling awful are separate mental universes in some way, just as dreamtime vs waketime or sober vs drunk.



How does the brain keep these spaces separate? When does the brain decide to create a new space? How many spaces can we contain?

= = = = = END REPRINT.

A separate mental space during illness would be an excellent way to protect normal memories and decisions when under attack. The memories and decisions formed while the parasite is in control are outside the regular space, thus not affecting the regular space.

How is this space formed? I have only a vague semi-guess. I doubt that the brain opens up a special room or nucleus. More likely it's a different tuning, a different carrier modulating the signal.

Analogy: The pattern of electromagnetic waves washing over the whole earth includes billions of separate transmissions at any moment. Each receiver tunes to its desired frequency to pick up one harmonic.

Closer analogy, though less familiar: Subcarrier systems. Even on the same main frequency, subtle frequency or phase modulation can create signals that aren't readable by an AM receiver.

= = = = =

Later thought: Chicken pox might be a good test case for Del Giudice's idea. Shingles follows the timeline of the seed-pod parasites. Infiltrate, wait, explode. But it doesn't actually do anything to help the virus spread. It just messes up some pain and motor nerves, creating annoyance and damage. Is this the result of an ancient countermeasure that diverted the parasite's efforts?

Labels: Carver, defensible spaces, defensible times

  ¶ 3:09 PM

  Deepstate gets its revenge in Italy
I've been wondering for a year now why Italy's Deepstate went along with Salvini. The reason appears today. They were giving him rope.

Now Deepstate takes its revenge. Will the 2/3 respond? Remains to be seen.

A sudden return to globalist tyranny after a brief taste of national sovereignty is an excellent way to get a revolution.

Labels: 2/3

  ¶ 1:43 PM

  Biggest sucker filter yet
Via ZH:

An Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) spokesperson said foreign interference and espionage was happening at an "unprecedented scale" but refused to detail tactics used to recruit refugees and migrants.

"The security threat comes from the actions and intent of the small number of individuals who seek to do Australia harm," the spokesperson said.

The ASIO warning comes after the ABC uncovered a secret recording of an alleged Rwandan spy, filmed in a Gold Coast car park late last year. The man can be heard explaining how the Rwandan Government runs espionage operations out of its embassies and high commissions. "When there is an embassy, the Ambassador is in charge of the secret agents," he said on the tape.

This fake news is an attack on logic and common sense in four ways.

1. "Unprecedented scale" and "small number". Huh?

2. Illegal migrants are NOT effective spies. They can't get into positions where they learn anything. China has been using thousands of PERFECTLY LEGAL tourists and students as spies for 40 years, and Sorosian governments have been WELCOMING AND SUBSIDIZING AND ASSISTING the Chinese spies to penetrate hi-tech and military research.

3. RWANDA?????????????? WHY IN THE HOLY FUCK WOULD RWANDA WANT TO SPY ON AUSTRALIA? There's no trade between the two countries. Australia was thinking about investing in Rwanda, but there's no way the ILLEGAL MIGRANTS could spy on bank executives making investment decisions. I suppose they could get hired as domestics in the exec's house. If you're dumb enough to hire illegals, you deserve to be spied on.

4.


This is a UNIVERSAL CONSTANT PERMANENT ETERNAL FUCKING TAUTOLOGY. The sole fucking PURPOSE of an embassy is to spy on a foreign nation. When intel agencies became formalized after WW1, they always worked out of embassies. This has been publicly known for a long fucking time.

= = = = =

So this "information" is beyond the usual Sucker Filter. It's a Sucked Filter, a Quality Control Test for Deepstate. If you believe all three of those bizarre distortions of fact and logic, we can be sure that we have sucked out 100% of your brain and replaced it with toxic goo.

Labels: Sucker Filter

  ¶ 1:08 AM

  Are we really burning?
Listening to a 1947 episode of 'Man called X'. Despite the name, the series was more like a regular cop show than a foreign spy show.

This episode deals with a Federally sponsored sawmill in Oregon (unthinkable now!!!!!!) that was being ruined by some kind of protection racket.

In the intro the announcer says:

"Did you know that every year over the US, forest fires burn an area equal to New England?"

Sounds a lot like the crap we hear every day now.

Was it true then?

New England is 72000 sqmi.

Using data from NIFC, the total burned in 1947 was 36k square miles, half of New England.

The announcer may have been obliquely referring to a specific event in 1947: Maine suffered from a major outbreak of fires that burned a significant part of the state. But that's not what he actually said.

Here's the long-term pattern:



(XLS here.)

Overall, we've been a LOT less burny since 1952. The total is creeping up in the last 20 years:



but not dramatically. The "endangered" "species" act was passed by progressive hero (heh) Nixon in 1973, and got really serious under progressive hero (heh) Reagan in 1982. The fires seemed to reach a new baseline on the graph in 1992. Typical annual mileage in recent years is about 10k sqmi, 1/3 of the 1947 total.

Let's compare the fires with annual precipitation for the western third of the country, where most fires burn.



Aha! Just like the media says! It's a straight line downward! We're getting DRYER AND DRYER EVERY ... oops. There's no pattern, no trend, no correlation to the wildfire graph.

Simple and UNDENIABLE conclusion: Fires vary with a complex combination of spring rains and summer droughts. They MOSTLY vary with forest management practices, and with arson and powerlines and cigarettes and transient campfires and railroad hotboxes and so on. The variation is mainly human-caused, but it has ZERO connection to "global warming", whatever the fuck that means.

Turns out old Smokey was precisely correct.

Labels: Answered better than asked, Carbon Cult

  ¶ 1:42 AM

  Not a but
I'm under the weather this week. Trying to boost my spirits, this "thought" popped up:

When I'm feeling bad, I forget what it's like to feel good. I forget that I was feeling good just two days ago, and the last time I felt bad was only a few days. BUT: When I'm feeling good, I forget what it's like to feel awful.

NO, WAIT.

That's not a BUT. Not a paradox. It's the same rule.

Feeling good vs feeling awful are separate mental universes in some way, just as dreamtime vs waketime or sober vs drunk.



How does the brain keep these spaces separate? When does the brain decide to create a new space? How many spaces can we contain?

Labels: Asked and unanswered, blonde moment

  ¶ 4:43 PM

  Mac's filter
McAfee's recent activities smell like a Sucker Filter, but I haven't been able to figure out his goal. Finally pinged.

His Bitcoin Giveaway, in close association with the tantalizingly fiction-or-fact South China Zombie Research Center, is the filter.

The deal is: Send in your bitcoin address, and I'll put some bitcoin in it.

What does he get? He gets the addresses (or wallets or whatever they're called) of everyone who is dumb enough to join the club. Now he knows who the suckers are, and now he can cultivate you and filter you more closely. He can manipulate your wallets if necessary.

This is identical to the call-center scammers who persuade you to provide your bank account number and mother's maiden name in order to receive a free gift.

Labels: Sucker Filter

  ¶ 11:50 AM

  Why mfg is a SKILL
This is why manufacturing is a SKILL that can't be picked up in a few weeks.

Front seat of a Tesla less than one year old.

A couple of handy comparisons from items I happened to be reading today:

Front seat of a 1963 Chevy Nova, used steadily for 56 years.

Front seat of a 1967 Ford truck, used steadily for 52 years.

All three seats are plastic. Chevy and Ford know how to select and test materials, and how to watch for consistency. Tesla just bought cheap.

(For fairness: Those pix are atypical. Most 50-year-old car seats are cracked and busted, but they weren't cracked and busted in the first year like the Tesla seat.)
  ¶ 4:36 AM

  The scary part
Via ZH, a psychiatrist is emitting the usual mechanically predictable crap about Trump.

1. Dr Stupid doesn't understand how impeachment works. He thinks impeachment will revert to Hillary, not Pence.

2. Dr Stupid doesn't understand how the government works. He believes Trump has power.

3. Dr Stupid believes that Trump is "doing" something unprecedented and new to ruin the world. In fact Trump is not doing anything. The government continues doing exactly what it's been doing since 1974, obliterating everything except NYC and Israel. Trump's job is to make populists look horrible. That's all he does.

4. Dr Stupid believes that "global warming" is human-caused and human-solvable, and that it began with Trump.

The scariest part of all:

5. Dr Stupid proudly confesses that he wrote part of DSM.

DSM is used in LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE COURT PROCEEDINGS that can imprison or free a defendant, or invalidate a will or contract.

This profoundly hyper-retarded antibrain is helping to run the REAL government, which is actually DOING the things that he blames (or pretends to blame) Trump for "doing".

Labels: infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite lunacy

  ¶ 3:53 AM

  No, it's not Amphenol
The Tesla skeptics are missing the main POINT on Elon's solar roof problem. They're accepting Elon's attempt to lay off the blame on Amphenol plugs.

The POINT is that you don't build an electrical system OUT IN THE WEATHER with hundreds of exposed plugs and jacks and wires. You keep all the wires in conduits, and keep the junctions in junction boxes, connected with appropriately rated screw terminals, not plugs and jacks.

As soon as I saw a picture of Elon's solar setup, I could tell it was stupid and dangerous. You don't need to be a degreed engineer to see it.

Labels: $TSLAQ, Shared Lie

  ¶ 11:29 PM

  Dumb finding, interesting advice
A study on how mule deer migrate reaches a stunningly unsurprising conclusion: Deer have brains.

Scientists had long presumed that migratory behavior was dictated by availability of food resources and other external factors. Where you find resources, you will find species that exploit them, the theory went.

The UW team found it is not that simple. Without the intrinsic factor of landscape memory to guide deer between seasonal ranges, the long-distance corridors of western Wyoming's Green River Basin, for example -- exceeding 300 miles round-trip in some cases -- would not exist in their present form.

Scientists have always presumed that only scientists have brains. Everything else just rolls along gradients, like pebbles rolling down a curved slope. Scientists are always SHOCKED to find that non-scientists are capable of complex thinking.

Despite the usual fake surprise, these particular scientists came up with some smart advice:

This is critical for conservation, because it tells us that, to conserve a migration corridor, we need to conserve the specific animals who have the knowledge necessary to make the journey.

Excellent thought. Now apply it to non-scientist humans. To preserve a civilization or an economy, we need to conserve and LISTEN to the specific people who have the skills that we're trying so fucking hard to obliterate. We can't just transfer the skill to another country or to a pack of incoming foreigners.

Skills are not facts. Skills and routes can't be preserved in books or maps or USB sticks. They have to be preserved in the cerebellum of an animal or human who acquired the skill through EXPERIENCE.

Labels: skill-estate

  ¶ 3:34 PM

  Absolute vs relative calendars
Women may have been excluded from slang, but they were NOT excluded from invention and technology in earlier times, contrary to the nonsense emitted by Die-Versitarians.

I've been perusing old telegraphs and similar communication devices. Finally found a document containing Jacob Brett's original patent and drawings, along with other patents from the same year.

The formalities in these patents are fascinating. Legal boilerplate [railroad slang] was even denser and more florid then, including some Latin scribal abbreviations. Despite the floridity, the language was precise and unambiguous.



An 1846 patent issued to the said Laura Laughton for making soap.

Note the scribal forms of executors and administrators. Also the simultaneous use of Anno Victoriae and Anno Domini. We think of Emperor Calendars, still common in the Orient, as extremely primitive, but we were using Reign Time not so very long ago.

Geographical sidenote: All of these patents refer to "England, Wales, the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, the Isle of Man...." What's going on? The Isle of Man is known for autonomy, but why Berwick? Per Wikipedia, Berwick is the northernmost town in England. For several centuries it was in constant dispute between Scotland and England. Since 1705 it was legally part of England, but clearly it was still felt to be separate enough to need a specific mention.

Labels: defensible times

  ¶ 3:02 PM

  Galluping lie
Classic case of a Shared Lie, steering all argument to the wrong question.

Gallup Poll on Persia:

What do you think the United States should do to get Iran to shut down its nuclear program -- take military action against Iran, or rely mainly on economic and diplomatic efforts?

Starts with the assumption that everyone wants to disarm Persia, and we only disagree on the fine details of how to do it.

Skips the REAL question. Should we do ANYTHING to force Persia, or ANY country, to shut down its nuclear program?

The correct answer is NO. I don't want us to shut down other countries. I don't want us to tell other countries how to run their countries. I do want to see EVERY COUNTRY bristling with BILLIONS of heavy nukes, all aimed at DC and NYC.

Then we might have peace, especially after all those nukes are fired.

Labels: #desistance, Shared Lie

  ¶ 10:01 AM

  Must be wondering
Sorosian media are hitting HARD on wildfires in Brazil, which are nothing special or unusual or new. When Sorosian media focus on a subject that doesn't deserve focus, you can be sure regime change is coming next.

Bolsonaro must be wondering why he bothered to enslave himself to Israel, and why he bothered to take the USA STRONG side against Venezuela. Those actions clearly didn't spare him from Bolton's target list.

His neocon antics did spoil his relationships with his neighbors in South and Central America, many of which are either pro-Venezuela or strictly neutral.

This would make sense as Sorosian strategy. USA STRONG persuaded Bolsonaro to alienate his neighbors, and now he's easier to break.

Even more sense: Maduro and Bolsonaro are both working for CIA. Their job is to stir up a total war that flattens South America. Why? Because obliteration is sex for Soros.

Labels: Sorosia

  ¶ 1:53 AM

  Odd mismatch
Just an oddity, expressed as a dyssyllogism....

Premise 1. Women have the strongest innate language talents. Much bigger and better brain equipment for language.

Premise 2. Women do most of the talking.

Premise 3. Women teach kids to talk.

Dystherefore: Women's jobs and women's concerns are nearly absent from slang and metaphors. The oldest slang comes from hunting and armies. Older American slang comes from railroads and telegraphs and cars and sports. Newer slang comes from black men, first in the jazz era then in the gang era.

We don't have many common terms from the technical aspects of nursing or teaching or housework. We have a few from the general experience of families.

Labels: Language update

  ¶ 12:52 AM

  Quality control nation
An article in an old Collectible Auto mag includes an advertisement that tells a big story.



Nothing unusual about implying that your product has high quality. Of course the Pontiac wasn't an expensive car; people bought it to get a Chevy with an 8. It also had some neat gimmicks and gadgets that you couldn't get in a Chevy. Pontiac dashboards were often more attractive and luxurious than Cadillac dashboards.

What's distinctive about this ad is the unspoken assumption that readers were familiar with quality control procedures. The picture shows a magnet pulling the Pontiac up from a line of Brand X cars. Specific implication: Pontiac has more steel than Brand X. Broadly, the magnet is a metaphor for all kinds of sieves and selectors.

Quality control is still crucial in manufacturing, but manufacturing is such a small part of our fake "economy" now that a mass advertiser wouldn't consider this image.

= = = = =

Graphic sidenote: The artist wasn't trying very hard to create generic Brand X. All of the cars are '38 GM models, identical to the Pontiac except for details. The one on the left is an Olds. The others don't have distinctive taillights so I can't say for sure.

Labels: Alternate universe

  ¶ 12:00 AM

  Scratching the OSTK itch
The "confession" by Overstock CEO Byrne is wrong in several ways, but I can't pin it down.


Polistra doing her JJ Angleton impression.

Thinking out loud:

1. There's no info in the story that hasn't been on TV. Anyone could read the NYTimes or watch CNN and concoct this story.

2. Supplying old info is standard intel practice. A revelation that reveals nothing.

3. If you wanted to convince people that you'd broken OUT of Deepstate, you'd tell us something we don't already know. Byrne isn't trying very hard to convince us.

4. Aside from the jazzy Hunter Thompson vocabulary, the story seems 'canned'. It reminds me of Tom's biography, which I later read in a Buckley novel.

The above could add up to Deepstate distraction, or could add up to a grandiose drug-fueled confabulation. In either case the details are pretty much meaningless.

Labels: Bemusement

  ¶ 11:09 AM

  Where's Walker Percy when we need him?
Via ZH, Adam Schiff is being opposed in the primary by a female impersonator named Maebe A. Girl.

Love in the Ruins. Old Doc Percy would love it. Trans vs trans, identifies vs identifies, confusion confusing confusion.

On one side we have Joe McCarthy identifying as a "Democrat", which makes him immune to the punishment that the real Joe received.

On the other side we have George McGovern identifying as a "womxn", which makes him immune to the punishment that the real George received.

What does Maebe say about Adam?

I strongly disagree with his War Hawk voting record that includes voting for the Iraq War, voting to keep troops in Afghanistan, his support of the Saudi invasion of Yemen (a still ongoing humanitarian crisis), and his votes to increase military spending -which should come as no surprise considering his large political donations from defense contractors and weapons makers.

That's a straightforward and coherent statement of non-intervention, even if there's nothing else straightforward about Maebe. It's a lot more coherent than most political noise.

Labels: #desistance

  ¶ 8:49 AM

  Fake "protection"
TAC still has some pretty good articles on urban planning along with the newer Sorosian crap. This article gives the history of college dormitories, which isn't really as surprising as the headline says.

Dorms were supposed to protect students from the corrupting influence of town life. They were especially meant to protect the girls.

Phillips in Enid was a small Christian college, advertising itself as a refuge from big-city iniquity. The campus was a perfect example of the alleged intention and the real-life failure.

Since I'm in blinkyGIF mode this week, here's another one.



The classroom buildings are at the north of this view. Phillips was just four square blocks containing about six main buildings. Nice compact campus, not much walking needed.

The boys dorm (lower right) was right across the street from campus (blue path), and it was a typical one-story '50s school building. From the nearest classroom to a dorm room was about one block of flat walking.

The girls dorm (lower left) was an old three-story brick building without an elevator. It was "protected" from the boys by the valley, which is a lot deeper than this view shows. The main route (orange path) went south on a rutted gravel road past the college maintenance department, then down a steep unlighted hill to the narrow bridge across the creek, then up the same hill to the dorm. The alternate path (purple) was better lit but equally hilly. You walked two blocks west DOWNhill along Maine, passed a car repair shop and a sleazy no-tell mo-tell, then turned steeply UPhill on 19th, east on Cherokee, south on Lakeview, and finally into the dorm.

Distance wasn't the problem; big campuses require all students to walk vastly longer distances. The fake "protection" was the problem. Boys could get to campus without ever leaving lighted and safe areas. Girls had to pass through an unsafe area day or night.

= = = = =

City planners always believe that public parks and greenbelts are good for safety and health. Lethally false. In Spokane the planners gave us the long Centennial Trail, allegedly ideal for walkers. It's also ideal for muggers and rapists, who can hide in the bushes and watch the steady flow of traffic for a likely victim.

Walking on ordinary streets is safer for the walker, and ALSO helps to keep the neighborhood safe. Walkers who are IN THEIR OWN TERRITORY are quick to detect suspicious situations, and muggers can't find a secure hiding place on private property next to an occupied house.

Labels: defensible spaces, Heimatkunde

  ¶ 5:36 AM

  #Resistance = #Assistance
I was trying to think of a "clever" way to make this point with an electronic analogy of resistance vs reactance, but the analogy is unfamiliar and unhelpful. I'll just stick to plain words.



#Resistance is really #assistance.

When you join a protest or a movement, you are joining Deepstate. It doesn't matter which "side" you think you're resisting. You are HELPING Deepstate to create chaos.

CHAOS IS THE PURPOSE.

There are no sides. There is only ORDER vs CHAOS.

Order is life. Chaos is death. This is plain biology.

When two "sides" are fighting in the public arena, the fight is always fixed. Deepstate knows in advance which side will win. What matters to Deepstate is the betting, the collateral damage.

The dead cops and protesters are irrelevant. What counts is the loss of money and loss of power for EVERYONE who supported the losing fighter. Everyone who cheers for the losing fighter can be identified and punished, through loss of jobs, arrest and imprisonment, and most of all public slander. Everyone who rooted for the loser is "terrorists" or "supremacists" or "fascists" or "commies" or "hippies" or "soyboys"...... Fill in this year's dozen top terms of opprobrium. The terms don't matter, only the slaughter matters.

The only good choice is #DESISTANCE. Cease. Halt. Quit. Give up. Stay out. Don't join either "side" of the puppet show. Don't lend your infinitely precious skills and talents and LIFE to Satan's fixed fight.

Lots of people have already made this choice. Some intentionally, some unconsciously. When you do everything the system demands for many years, and you see that your efforts are creating only harm for yourself and your family, you DEsist.

Labels: #desistance, defensible spaces

  ¶ 12:55 AM

  Speaking of calibrated trust....
And speaking of hardass realism....

Back in the '70s when I was working night desk at motels, I learned to trust and listen to whores. Nobody understands the ENTIRE WORLD better than whores, nobody is more REALISTIC than whores. This is a classic example.

Labels: Entertainment

  ¶ 2:48 PM

  The GIF ticket
Hardass realist McAfee is welcoming his "opponent" Lincoln Chafee to the "candidates" for the Libertarian Party. Chafee is famous for ..... um ...... pause for googling ..... Aha! Famous for supporting the metric system, and for never knowing where he actually stands. Not a paradox, since the metric system was designed to destroy our natural sense of place and measure.

One nice thing about this pair: If these two end up as the P and VP candidates, they will be the first ticket representable as a blinkyGIF.



Incidentally, McAfee has managed a neat trick. If we can believe his story, he has taken refuge in sane Russia, but without exactly mentioning it. He's also not mentioning how the refuge happened.

The fact that Russia allowed him to settle is a valid measurement of his intentions. Unlike the metric system, Russia is a trustworthy calibration standard for trustworthiness. If Russia allows you to take refuge, you're unquestionably NOT Deepstate.

Labels: metametrology, Metrology

  ¶ 8:28 AM

  2/3 and Boris
An interesting shift shows up in the public statements of UK vs EU, as seen in the pattern of headlines at Politico.eu. I'm super-cautious about believing public statements, but nevertheless:

1. It appears that Germany now wants to help Boris achieve Brexit, and other EU leaders are pulling in the same direction.

2. Only Corbyn is firmly opposed to Brexit now.

3. It also appears that Boris is actually SERIOUS about achieving Brexit. He has eliminated some obstacles (created by May) that prevented British businesses from negotiating new contracts with their EU counterparts.

Must admit that 3 surprised me. I was assuming that Boris, like Trump, was a useless noisemaker. I was apparently wrong.

But the EU change isn't surprising. Bullies give way when they realize their victims are SERIOUS and immovable. May was not serious. She spent three years fucking around with endless meaningless details, solely concerned with pleasing one or two MPs who were crucial to her narrow plurality. She was only working for herself, not for the country.

It's the 2/3 rule again. Leaders who GET SHIT DONE don't need to worry about preserving narrow pluralities and coalitions. Leaders who GET SHIT DONE have the firm support of 2/3 of the country, an overwhelming majority.

Labels: 2/3

  ¶ 12:02 AM

  HIstorically disastrous
A black-robed demon in Mexico has "legalized" cocaine, for EXACTLY TWO PEOPLE. The TWO plaintiffs in the case are now authorized to use, possess and transport cocaine, and NOBODY ELSE is authorized.

The article describes the decision as historic. More like historically disastrous.

STOP AND THINK.

If these two people are able to deal in cocaine legally, either

(1) These two people will instantly become the biggest drug lords in the world

or

(2) These two people will immediately be killed by the existing drug lords.

Those are the choices. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

Aside from consequences, this decision is the EXACT OPPOSITE OF LAW. The entire sole point of a law is that it applies to everyone. A privilege given to a few people is just pre-civilized brute force.

Labels: infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite infinite lunacy

  ¶ 11:02 AM

  Constants and variables 138, old and pointless edition
More unnecessary and useless research on gestures vs speech.

Look, this is EXTREMELY OLD KNOWLEDGE. For instance, the 1866 Manual of Signals written for the Army Signal Corps covers the same ground in a systematic way.

Constant: Every living thing communicates. Therefore the genes controlling communication must be the same for all living things, with added bells** and whistles in some species and added smell-sprays and radio broadcasts in others.

This "new" study doesn't even begin to work on the question it claims to ask.

Variable: Why are humans especially good at sending and receiving and remembering long sequences of musical chords, [aka speech] when no other mammal does it? Why is our peculiar talent shared with birds, who are not close to us genetically? How was this bird-like variation on the communication gene preserved through thousands of mammals who didn't use it, only to suddenly surface in humans? Horizontal gene transfer?

= = = = =

** The wordplay on whistles was intended, but bells raise a question. Nearly all of the signaling devices "invented" by humans were first invented by plants and animals. Whistles, guns, radio, flashes... but bells? I can't think of anything that naturally uses a clapper in a reson.... WHOOOPS. That's called a LARYNX. Or even more literally a UVULA. Sorry, Nature. I should know better than to doubt you even for a moment.


Time for a song!

Hey there Captain, do you see?
There is a clapper in a chamber!

No that's not what it is at all.
That's a signaller people call a LARYNX.

I see.
But it still looks like a clapper in a chamber
To me!

Labels: Constants and Variables, Grand Blueprint

  ¶ 7:01 AM

  Ten-time winner
The usual drably predictable shit, the usual ten-time winner. In this case the comments worked out rather neatly:



Why in the holy FUCK do we continue wasting money and police effort over and over and over and over? Why don't the police STRIKE for better enforcement of laws by the OTHER parts of the system?

Cops are doing their job splendidly. The rest of the system is totally failing, thanks to NYC Copkiller Condon serving Bloomberg loyally.

Labels: #bluelivesmatter

  ¶ 5:43 AM

  Major change in direction
Via Reuters:

Planned Parenthood said on Monday it was withdrawing from a federal program subsidizing reproductive healthcare for low-income women after the Trump administration banned participants in the program from referring women to abortion providers… the policy [also] requires financial and physical separation between facilities funded by Title X and those where actual abortions are performed.”

This looks like a major win for the pro-life side, because PP gave up and OBEYED THE LAW.

Normally PP just roars forward at full speed, knowing with 100% certainty that all lawyers and black-robed demons will instantly break through all momentary fake obstacles placed by pesky little fake legislatures or fake governors or fake presidents.

This time PP was NOT CONFIDENT OF TOTAL SUCCESS, so it voluntarily obeyed the law. For a moment anyway. Undoubtedly this is just a smoke screen to distract the peskies while the next major attack is prepared.

Labels: Alternate universe

  ¶ 4:46 AM

  Not so strange after all.
Listening to the powerful dramatization of the Neck Verse by Hix's anonymous actors in 'Strange as it Seems', packed with empathy for the poor and downtrodden.



Benefit of clergy.

Sudden question: WHY did they exempt clergy from punishment? It's a peculiar ancient custom, impossible for secular moderns to understand.

Sudden answer: It wasn't because the clergy could read. That was just the marker. The benefit was provided because the clergy heard confession.

Priests knew everyone's secrets. They could reveal everyone's secrets if they were threatened with any loss of privilege.

Sudden insight: That's why our Web Lords are also exempt, why the SEC and FTC and DOJ and FCC can't touch them.

Zuck knows all of our secrets because he built the confessional and requires us to attend daily. We can't receive full sacraments unless we use Devices that confess all to Zuck.

Elon knows the secrets of his cultists because his rosaries on wheels are constantly reporting location and driver behavior as part of the "machine learning" for the heaven of FSD, which will not arrive until the Second Coding when Lord Elon resurrects as the Holy Emperor Of The Terraformed And Gloriously Carbon-Free Mars Kingdom.

Bezos knows the secrets of his customers, Kalanick knows the secrets of his riders, and so on.

Not so strange after all.

Labels: Asked and finally answered, Carbon Cult, Deadthink, Language update

  ¶ 10:48 PM

  Aquifery quakes
Via ZH, an article by DoomPorn champ Michael Snyder.

Unusual patterns of quakes in Okla and Kansas. Some of these quakes are normal. The cluster west of Enid is on a geological hotspot that always produces small quakes. The group north of Enid is not normal.

The article focuses on the group around Hutchinson, also not normal. This looks to me like the result of an aquifer changing its pattern, either suddenly growing or suddenly shrinking. Given the distinctly wet spring, I'd bet on growing.

I made a blinkyGIF to show how this pattern sits on the edge of the Ogallala. The group of quakes is circled in red on one step of the GIF.



Hutchinson and those Okla quakes are all on a known salty area. Connection unknown but interesting correlation.



Spokane had a swarm of quakes in 2000, centered on our aquifer. In that case the likely culprit was a decrease in aquifer volume caused by the quick shutdown of about 30k septic tanks in the Valley. That's a lot of flow, diverted to the sewers and thence to the river within a few years. Thanks, EPA!
  ¶ 2:54 PM

  What is fraud?
Random and stupid thoughts.

The financial twits are full of the latest "whistleblowing", exposing bad accounting practices at GE and Disney.

Is this fraud? Not really. It doesn't steal money from anyone. It might give a wrong impression to big investors, but big investors can afford to form their own impressions using objective data. If hedge funds aren't doing their own checking before spending a few billion, too fucking bad.

How about Tesla? When Elon promises full autonomy but can't possibly deliver because full autonomy is physically impossible, is that fraud? Not really. The cultists are happy to spend the extra money because they're not really buying a car. They're buying Gaian indulgences with wheels. Spending more for an indulgence buys more glory and salvation. The real harm is the partial autonomy itself, because it deprives drivers of skill. If the cultists were paying for FSD and receiving nothing, they'd be better off.

Let's take it down to a much lower level. Last year I had a contractor build a sidewalk from the porch to the street, partly because I'm getting too old to shovel snow off grass, and partly for a pointless and misplaced sense of neighborhood pride. I ordered the sidewalk plus porch repair, but the contractor never did the porch repair. Is that fraud? Not really. It's just an overpriced sidewalk. I still got the easier shoveling and the pride.

The only case where you can unambiguously define fraud is payment in advance for work not done. Most such cases are small and not worth the trouble of prosecuting. Some are understood to be charity, not purchase.

What's worth prosecuting? Paying for benefit and receiving actual harm.

I mentioned two "frauds" yesterday in the context of early radio: JB Brinkley's goat glands and Aimee MacPherson's religious cult. Aimee was performing a positive service for her customers. Prayer gives confidence, and prayer accompanied by a talisman is even better. Confidence is a great healer. Brinkley was giving confidence, but he was also doing real harm. Surgery is always harmful, and only worth doing when the benefits are likely to be much greater than the harm. His surgery was sloppy and inexpert.

= = = = =

Later note: I wasn't really trying to fit this into a subject, just rambling... but it does fit the theme of economics as a verb.

Labels: skill-estate

  ¶ 7:33 AM

  Impressively depressive
Strether at NakedCapitalism has put together an impressively depressive chart.

He's asking whether the alleged "manufacturing renaissance" actually happened. The answer is a resounding NO. All categories of mfg have decreased since 2002. The categories usually cited by the optimists have declined worst of all, as in 50% down since 2002.

Must admit my own optimism is gone. 8 years ago I was saying that we could turn things around if we chose to. Now I doubt it. Turning around is possible. Other countries have done it. CHOOSING is impossible. There's no way a sane human can get ANYWHERE NEAR a position of power.

Specifically, the blasphemous "leftists" with their Green "New Deal" are pushing in exactly the wrong direction. They want to eliminate ALL physical work and replace it with welfare. They want education to consist of memorizing the 57 "genders".

The satanic "conservatives" aren't even pretending to seek change in industry or education. They want the entire economy to belong to Bezos because Bezos is the Holy God Of Tax Evasion And Share Value. This is already happening without any effort. They want education to consist of memorizing the Peloponnesian Wars.

Neither "side" wants to take any of the steps needed to rebuild the infrastructure FOR physical industry, and rebuild the skills FOR physical industry.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter, skill-estate, Sorosia

  ¶ 4:39 AM

  Forgotten advice
Looking for info on old telegraphs, ran into an interesting moment of political transition in 1847.

From Illustrated London News, p 113 in the PDF.

The systems once common to all nations, by which they each endeavoured to gain advantages at the expense of others, without rendering any in return, are dying out of themselves. The modern principle rather is that it is better to have rich communities to trade with than poor ones. For ages the British Parliament, on principle, endeavoured to keep down manufactures and trade in the Colonies of North America; and most fortunate is it for us that it wholly failed. As a rich and powerful State, America returns us more in every way than if she was the most obedient of settlements, bound to us by the red tape of Downing-street.

It's too bad we've forgotten this realization. We rigorously enforce Graybill on all of our neighbors and "partners", ruthlessly destroying all industries and resources that compete with Saudi oil or offend the psychopathic blood-fetish of Lord Bibi and Lord Adelson. We want our colonies to be poor and chaotic, and we also want the non-NYC parts of USA to be poor and chaotic.

China and Russia are following this old British realization. China helps its African colonies to grow richer so they can provide better minerals and crops to China.

Labels: skill-estate

  ¶ 11:48 PM

  How do you know it's Soros?
I was fooled too many times by "color revolutions", so I tried to pin down the Soroleths.

It comes down to three criteria. None are absolute, but taken together they form a pretty good leth.

Number 3 is the clincher.

1. If the protest is covered heavily and steadily by Sorosian media, it's Soros. By comparison, the Yellowvests have been largely ignored.

2. If the protesters are in a country that is doing pretty well, or a section of a country that is prosperous compared to the rest, it's Soros. Catalunya and Hong Kong are comparatively prosperous. The Yellowvests represent poor parts of France.

3. If the protesters are fighting over an obscure issue that doesn't affect their real lives, it's Soros. Obscure issues = the name of Macedonia or an extradition law or "global warming". The Yellowvests were fighting over taxes that ruined their already precarious livelihood.

Labels: Leth, Sorosia

  ¶ 4:14 PM

  Mobius day 2
Keeping to the theme....

What if Maduro is the real CIA agent?

He's doing everything that the CIA normally accomplishes through its puppets. Like Yeltsin, he's destroying the economy and culture and letting crime run rampant.

He hasn't been assassinated or overthrown. Our supposed agent Guaido failed, thus strengthening Maduro's hold on destructive power. Maduro didn't arrest or prosecute Guaido, which a proper leader of a proper nation would have done instantly.

Russia and China are not trying very hard to help him. This could be because of his natural incompetence, but it could also be from his INSTRUCTED incompetence.

Labels: Alternate esrevinu, Sorosia

  ¶ 9:13 AM

  Mobius day!
Like other out-of-shape codgers, I have trouble keeping pants up. On this morning's store trip the pants seemed unusually steady, staying in place without any adjustment at all.

As I waited for the return bus, I realized the accidental solution: The belt is mobiused. Somehow the clasp side got twisted 180 degrees, and the twist was nicely clamping inward just above the iliac crest, maintaining just enough pressure to halt the usual slide.

A moment later, a Tesla drove by! First Tesla 3 I've ever seen. Immediate stroboscopic impression: it looks old. The paint is chipped in a way that I normally see on 1970s cars.

Appropriate sighting for Mobius Day.

Labels: $TSLAQ, Alternate esrevinu, coot-proofing

  ¶ 8:31 AM

  Keeping the tools oiled
A quick thought about stagecraft and Shared Lies and Epstein. This wasn't obvious at first, but now that the media pattern is clear, the Shared Lie is clear.

Basic rule: When the media wants us to argue about the details, we can be sure the details don't matter. We should be looking at a different question. We can't always determine what the proper question is, but we can be sure the proper question ISN'T the one we're supposed to argue about.

This was immediately clear with the Skripal stageplay. The media (even incuding RT) gave us lots of alternate details about how and why the Skripals were poisoned. Nobody was asking WHETHER the Skripals were poisoned. Obvious conclusion: There was no poison at all. The whole thing was a stageplay. The only independent witness said he had seen the Skripals APPEARING unconscious, so that's the only fact we can be sure of.

With Epstein, at first the media was presenting only one story with no conflicting details, so this rule didn't seem to apply.

After WaPo gave us the "conflicting" "fact" about the hyoid bone, which normally points to strangulation, we knew where we were supposed to argue. We are required to assume as unarguable background info the "fact" that Epstein is dead.

In this case we don't have any independent witnesses. We're told that the jailers and cellmates were asleep or elsewhere, which guarantees that any story told by jailers and cellmates can be dismissed.

So the Shared Lie is the "fact" that Epstein is dead. We'll never know the truth about anything related to Deepstate, so this is a pointless exercise..... but I like to keep my logic tools sharpened and oiled.

Labels: Shared Lie

  ¶ 2:17 AM

  More glial gladness
Via ScienceDaily, another BIG finding about how the nervous system works.

After neurologists took off their theory goggles 20 years ago, all sorts of strange and wondrous things started to appear.

Theory said that the glia were just 'glue' and packing material between neurons. No reason to look for functions in styrofoam peanuts.

It turns out that the glial cells do a lot MORE than neurons. Some of them maintain and clean up neurons. Some of them build new neurons. Some are gardeners, pruning unproductive neurons.

And some perform part of the sensing task.

This new finding truly DISRUPTS our understanding of the sense of touch.

The abstract is sparse, so I paid $30 for the whole article. Most of the text describes the gene-splicing methodology of the measurement, which is way over my head. If there's anything dramatic in those parts, I wouldn't know it.

The parts about electrical function are within my ken, and there's plenty dramatic in those parts.

We provide evidence for a specialized glial cell type that builds a sensory organ in the skin, initiating the sensation of pain. The nociceptive Schwann cells display a mesh-like network of cytoplasmic sheaths around nerves in the subepidermal border with radial processes entering into the epidermis abutting to unmyelinated nociceptive nerves.

The Schwann cells form a mesh, with connections to neurons.

They transduce nociceptive stimuli into electrical signals that translate into [pain responses by the mouse]. The nociceptive nerve endings in skin also gate responses to various noxious stimuli. Hence, nociceptive nerves and nociceptive Schwann cells form a nociceptive glio-neural complex with two sensor-receptor cell types, the glia and the nerve, both likely influencing the sensation of pain.

Both response and adaptation were very rapid, resulting in similar responses in the subsequent stimuli. The cells tracked the maximum frequency of stimuli that we could generate (60 Hz).

Releasing the force also depolarized the cells. Thus, nociceptive Schwann cells responded to both positive and negative changes in force but much less to sustained force.

So the glial cells are acting as two-way triggers for the neurons, telling the neurons when something has happened. When something pushes on the skin or something pulls away, it's time for the neuron to wake up and do its particular thing.



Question: Are all the senses made this way, with glia serving as the high-pass or low-pass filters and rectifiers and lenses, and neurons serving as the raw sensor? It's certainly true in the retina where glial cells filter and focus specific colors onto the retinal sensors. This setup hasn't been seen yet in the cochlea, but I wouldn't be surprised if it appears. Deiters Cells, though not classed as glia, surround the hair cells in a similar net-like way, with projections from one hair cell to the next.

Labels: Asked and partly answered, Carver, Grand Blueprint

  ¶ 2:46 PM

  Letter of Marque returned to sender
Bravo for Gibraltar!



Via Reuters:

Gibraltar refused on Sunday a U.S. request to seize the Iranian tanker caught in a stand-off between Tehran and the West, as the stationary vessel raised an Iranian flag ahead of its expected departure from the British territory.

We are the Pirate Nation. We're attempting to use Britain and Gibraltar as our privateers. Britain happily goes along, even though Britain was the victim of our privateers in earlier centuries. But Gibraltar, nominally part of UK, refuses to honor the Letter of Marque.

Also bravo to Reuters for getting the facts right.

The two vessels have since become pawns in a bigger game, feeding into wider hostilities since the United States last year pulled out of an international agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear programme, and reimposed economic sanctions.

Most other media are pulling the old Rodney King video trick, leaving out the start of the fight to make it look like Persia started it.

Update from Reuters a few hours later: The tanker has DEPARTED from Gibraltar. Now I'm breathing a little easier. It's always better to GET THE FUCK OUT. I didn't like the way Persia was leaving the ship in place, vulnerable to further Sorosian trickery. Bravo for FAIT ACCOMPLI.

Labels: Sorosia

  ¶ 6:53 AM

  More inancienation
Yet another innovation that is actually an inancienation.

Via Eurekalert:

In medicine, "chronotherapy" considers the body clock when deciding the best time to give a medicine or treatment. This new research suggests that a similar approach could be adopted for future agricultural practice, with crop treatments being applied at times that are most appropriate for certain species of weed or crop.

Wow! Impressive! Farmers never considered "chronotherapy" before. This is a brand new totally unprecedented unexpected fresh innovation! Maybe sometime in the far-distant future we will figure out how plants respond to complex quantum mechanisms like the orbit of the earth around the sun, or the orbit of the moon? Could the earth's orbit produce changes in unknown variables like temperature? Could those changes in unknown variables somehow have unknown effects on plants? Nah. Only CO2 produces changes in temperature. Anything else is DENIALISM ASTROLOGY PSEUDOSCIENCE KKK TRUMP HITLER.

Labels: Carbon Cult

  ¶ 1:11 AM

  Amazing!
Every year Spokane Transit makes major adjustments to its routes. Until this year, those adjustments always made life harder for this part of town. This year's change was proposed to be the worst of all, removing a route entirely from this neighborhood. Apparently I wasn't the only one who complained, and AMAZINGLY they listened to the complaints! They left the routes in place!

Thanks, STA, for staying your hand and letting some Deplorables live for a while longer.

Labels: Heimatkunde

  ¶ 12:21 AM

  Putin = NIcholas 1 again
From Shaffner's Telegraph Companion, 1854. p595 of the PDF.

Article about an expedition aimed at building a world-circling telegraph system.

But at the same time, while at Yakoutsk we find the best example of those happy consequences of this accommodating disposition of the Russians, it is here also, that in comparing the Russian conquest of the aboriginal inhabitants of the country with the conquests of other nations of which history affords us ample examples, we discover the more essential moral causes of the different results that the sequel of their several wars has produced.

The Spaniards, whose conquests form the greatest contrasts with those of the Russians, carried before them the cross, for which they opened a passage by the sword, and by worse means, carrying on exterminating war against all who submitted not blindly to their authority, and embraced not the faith which was to them a religion of blood with no other moral than that which recognised the right of the strong to commit every kind of violence against the weak.

The Russians, wiser, and better endowed with the true spirit of the religion they profess, have carried with them also the same emblem of peace and good will from Heaven towards man. But the means by which they have opened the passage for the symbol of their faith, and by which they have planted it in new soils, has been justice and equal rights, for the firm establishment of which their tolerant spirit has been the pledge.

Thus, while the Spaniards lighted the flames of war and hatred which are far from being extinguished even at this day, and afterwards converted to Christianity only in name the feeble remains of the people whom they nearly destroyed, the Russians have by their humanity subdued and reclaimed whole nations of far more barbarous races than any which the Spaniards encountered, and added them to the number of which their empire consists, and to whom their laws and their protection extend.

Russia isn't always nice. But history rhymes.
  ¶ 3:57 PM

  The real innovation
Here's a thought that seems valid at the moment....

What is the real innovation in the Innovative Disruptors?

Nothing they do is new.

Amazon is running exactly the same business that Sears and Penneys were running for 150 years. Order by mail, pay with credit, deliver. Sears started with paper mail and railroads, shifted to telephones and trucks by 1950. Amazon is still using telephones and trucks.

Elon is making electric cars, which were common in 1910. His electric cars go faster than the originals, but have the same disadvantages of slow charge time and limited range, plus new bonus features like exploding without warning and involuntary crashes into obstacles.

Elon's other fake developments are equally old, generally around 150 years old. Previous versions worked. Elon's version fails.

Uber is a taxi service that you can call by phone. The only difference between Uber and REAL taxis is that you can call a REAL taxi by landline or cellphone, while you can ONLY call Uber by cellphone. This isn't an innovation, it's a limitation.

Facebook, Twitter, etc, are cults. They draw people in with promises of freedom and power, and then capture their minds.

= = = = =

Here's the real innovation: EVADING LAWS AND TAXES.

The Silicon Valley mob figured out that the web is the same as the post office or the phone system EXCEPT that the web is unregulated.

When you run an old business model through the web, you can get away with all sorts of tricks and frauds and dodges that would be enforceably illegal in the old mail and phone systems.

It's like money-laundering.

The same process happened in the first era of radio, from 1920 to 1934. Cult leaders like Aimee McPherson and fake doctors like JR Brinkley grew fast using the unregulated airwaves. When the Federal Radio Commission clamped down, some of these operators were jailed and others faded away.

Operating without laws, the Valley mob was able to grow BIG in record time. Now that it's BIG, it can evade laws the old-fashioned way by purchasing legislatures. So far there's no sign of a new FRC for the web.

Labels: Deadthink

  ¶ 7:36 AM

  Blockoleth
Listening to an interview with McAfee. He says a lot of uniquely realistic things about life. He talks all the time about privacy and freedom, but he sells Bitcoin.

Exact opposites. Bitcoin places you directly inside NSA.

Is he too dumb to realize it? Well, he's supposedly the original programmer of his eponymous antivirus system. Serious programmers recognize the fraudulent nature of blockchain, and a programmer who worked specifically with viruses should recognize it even more sharply.

Either he's faking the programming experience, or he's a false prophet.

This particular type of falseness is not new, as I noted before. The populists of 1880 to 1910, led by Jennings Bryan, were false prophets. They diagnosed the problem correctly, but recommended moving toward a Nixonian floating currency and toward increasing debt. They claimed to hate the banks but served the banks.

A real populist starts first by BREAKING the power of banks, not increasing it. Deepstate has three legs: Banks, Intel plus data, and Leftist activists. These legs were built in the 1890s and continue to the present. The banks are the foundation. Intel and activists are auxiliaries.

FDR started by breaking the banks. He's our only true populist.

= = = = =

Later and better thought: There's a third possibility. McAfee simply doesn't give a fuck about consistency. He's a REALIST. He knows that nobody uses logic, nobody listens, nobody analyzes. Discussion and persuasion are perfectly futile, though they may be fun for the participants. Bitcoin is a way to make money, so he uses it.

Labels: Leth, Pluponents

  ¶ 12:30 AM

  A better alt-universe question.
In previous item I cited an interesting alt-universe question, then mentioned an unrelated alt-universe question that had been on my mind.

Let's try again with a more appropriate response to the original.

The original alt-universe question from a tech venture capitalist type:

HONEST (not sarcastic): I would LOVE to see the counterfactual world—in a parallel universe (from 1971 to today)—where the price of money, “free markets” and all capital allocation was not distorted by handful of academic decision makers.

Excellent question, gathering the whole problem into one sentence.

Did we have a realistic chance of avoiding Nixon's massive sabotage? As I mentioned in previous item, our offshoring was well under way before Nixon broke real value.

Who recognized the problem in 1958 and could have offered a solution? George Romney.

He was the only sober man in a position of power at that time. Everyone else was passed out, incapable of good judgment. Being the only sober man at a party where everyone else is unconscious has advantages.

He was also firmly committed to SAVING instead of DEBT. Mormon training helped, plus Nash tradition. Nash had made it through the '30s without failing because it avoided debt.

He also had the advantage of Mormon eldership training, which gave him an unusual ability to bring conflicting parties together. He used both his soberness and his negotiating skills to pull Nash up from 'struggling independent' to nearly part of the Big Three, almost knocking Chrysler out of the ring.

At that point someone persuaded him to go into politics. He ran for Mich governor and did the same thing there, fixing problems that nobody had fixed before.

After three terms of success, someone persuaded him to run for president. At that point his sober and accurate judgment bumped into a bigger enemy than GM. When he proposed pulling out of Vietnam, Deepstate destroyed him.

Alt-universe: What if Romney had been a little more sneaky, or had resisted Deepstate's blackmail more effectively? He would have pulled out of Vietnam, turned the country from debt to saving, and countered the threat posed by resurgent Japan and China.

Labels: Alternate universe, Asked and properly answered

  ¶ 11:49 PM

  Two alt-universes
An interesting alt-universe question from a tech venture capitalist type:

HONEST (not sarcastic): I would LOVE to see the counterfactual world—in a parallel universe (from 1971 to today)—where the price of money, “free markets” and all capital allocation was not distorted by handful of academic decision makers.

The question puts all the elements together. Unfortunately the responses didn't seem to understand the subject.

1971 is a huge inflection point for real-value economics. That's when Nixon broke the gold standard and invited China to take over our economy.

What would we look like now? Possibly like Germany, where industry remained in control and grew to fit the times, instead of surrendering to China.

The hypothetical is tricky because other things wouldn't have changed. Germany adjusted its education system to follow the Russian skills-first model. Our ed system at that point still had some skill training, but was rapidly trending toward pure memorized delusions thanks to our idiotic reverse reaction to Sputnik. Would it have turned around to fit the needs of industry? I doubt it.

Also, our offshoring didn't really start in '71, it started in '58. By '71 some corporations had tasted the blood of dead Deplorables and the ecstatic joy of exterminating Negative Externalities. Nixon certainly made the slaughter easier, but it was well under way.

= = = = =

I'd like to pose an alt-universe question about technology. I've covered the ground before, but never quite asked the question.

The telegraph began as a personal communication device around 1832. Wheatstone and Cooke were developing a system inside London, aiming to serve most households. Dial telegraphs, including Breguet's version shown here, required no special skill or talent. Just turn the crank to the next letter, then turn again, and so on. Other early systems had piano-like keyboards and printed output.




The personal system failed to catch on, for reasons that are unclear from available texts, and I've read most of them! In the rest of Europe and US and Asia, development started with government systems using Morse keys or elaborate printing machines. Service and skill were centralized in storefronts or railroad depots. Britain then followed the trend.



What would the world look like if personal text-based communication, with printed output, had developed steadily since 1832, instead of re-starting in 1987? Telephones and (wired) radio would have happened much sooner, and something like a computer would also have developed faster, in a household setting instead of a giant government setting.

Labels: Alternate universe, Asked and badly answered, Morsenet of Things

  ¶ 4:01 PM

  Ground-effect boombox cars? Nothing new.
I've made a tradition of noticing Bantams. Here's one I hadn't seen before, from 1933:



Note that the speaker was 'baffled against the bottom of the car', letting the pavement distribute the sound.
  ¶ 9:25 AM

  Wiggling is fine, but....
This is clearly a fad in modern education.

Marching, wiggling and tapping a beat aids young children to develop their self-regulation skills and improve school readiness, as shown in newly-published QUT early childhood research.

Associate Professor Kate Williams designed a low-cost preschool program focussing exclusively on rhythm and movement activities linked to pathways in the brain to support attentional and emotional development.

When I look through DonorsChoose.org, about 75% of the requests are for 'wiggle seating'. I skip over those and support only specific job-related training projects like cooking and soldering.

But the wiggly stuff has a purpose, especially when it's PATTERNED. Job-related educators 100 years ago turned wiggly stuff into long and precise sequences of moves, building neurons in the hippocampus as well as muscles in the arms and legs.

From Popular Educator in 1918, p223 in the PDF:



Fairy queens and snowflakes and rainbows! Ideal for modern times!

Sarcasm aside, the real point is the PRECISE AND MATHEMATICAL RHYTHM. 8 counts, 16 counts, 32 counts. Step - step - step - dip. Step - step - step - turn. These kids were learning multiplication the easy way, and learning teamwork and cooperation at the same time.

The required music for this dance was the Colombia Waltz, played by the Blue and White Marimba Band. (Youtube has EVERYTHING.)

= = = = =

Irrelevant sidenote: 1918 teachers had one little technical advantage over 2019 teachers, because they were using analog phonographs. The article recommends setting the speed control on the windup phono to 'two points from slow'. Modern MP3 players sometimes have a speed adjustment, but it works by chopping the audio, resulting in poor sound.

Labels: Experiential education

  ¶ 12:49 AM

  Viewing Trump as skills
I'm always looking at things through the lens of skills. Let's try Trump.

What are his proven job skills?

His two careers are (1) Owning casinos (2) Producing reality TV shows.

What is the common skill, the point of intersection, in those careers?

Rigging a fake conflict or battle to keep the suckers coming back week after week.

With casinos, the conflict is Sucker vs Dealer or Sucker vs Slot. The casino tries to rig the frequency and sequencing of wins and losses to keep the sucker hungry for revenge.

With reality TV, the conflict is between two of the actors. Snooki vs Jwoww. The producer tries to rig the wins and losses to keep the viewer hungry for the next episode. Standard cliffhanger technique.

How does this apply to politics? Easy. Trump wants to keep the suckers coming back to vote for R in congressional "elections", and to re-elect Trump in 2020. So he creates a huge pile of fake conflicts and battles between Trump and MSM, between Trump and Fed, between China and the Dow, and on and on. None of these are real because Trump never actually fights, never gives a real order, never changes any laws. The only purpose is to create attributable "victories" just in time for the next election, and "defeats" that will leave the suckers hungry for revenge against MSM or Dems or China or Russia or Persia or Venezuela or Cuba or etc.

Specifically, the current "trade war" with China is a way to rig the Dow roulette wheel. The Fed's rigging wires have passed their elastic limit. The daily back-and-forth with China is a more effective and immediate wire. The Dow is the most important reality show for Trump's REAL establishment Repooflican base, not his FAKE populist base.

In the casino or the studio, nothing really happens except that the owner and the producer get rich. The dealers don't care if you win or lose, and the actors don't even know what they're saying. It's just a script.

Politics is different. The dealers and actors don't care, but lots of innocent civilians are ruined and killed by REAL PROBLEMS THAT REMAIN UNSOLVED and REAL WARS THAT REMAIN UNSTOPPED while the wheel spins and spins and spins.

Leaders with real political skills CAN solve problems. In USA STRONG there's zero chance that anyone ever WILL solve problems regardless of skills; but we're seeing real solutions in a growing number of countries where lifetime politicians use their skills and talents to FIX SHIT.

Labels: skill-estate

  ¶ 8:08 AM

  Re-Strowgering, reprinted
Reading the latest "surprising" revelations about Google's bias, the Strowger analogy occurred to me. I ought to write about it ... turns out I already did, three years ago.

= = = = = START REPRINT:

These two things are opposite ends of a spectrum.

Before Alton Strowger, phone systems were corruptible. Mabel was in the middle of your conversation from the start. She didn't have time to listen to your jabber (usually) but she knew who you were and who you wanted to call.

Alton, an undertaker with mechanical talents, decided that Mabel was corrupt. Another undertaker was paying her to steer calls away from Alton. So he invented a system to make connections without Mabel.

The Strowger Relay was the heart of the system. You dial 371. Relay receives 3 pulses from your dial, turns 3 steps to link you to column 3 in the first row. Relay then acts on the output of column 3. Receives 7 pulses from your dial, turns seven clicks to link the output of first row to column 7 in the next row. And so on. A vastly more complicated version of a combination lock.

= = = = =

The Web has Strowger-like switching elements, but it was NEVER pure Strowger. It was Mabel all the way down. NSA is always at the switchboard, always keeping track of who calls who, always listening when it has time. Because NSA is ahead of the game in language processing, it has plenty of time.

Each new development of the Web goes more Mabel.

Google is EXACTLY the same corrupt Mabel that Alton distrusted. When you ask Google for information about undertakers, Google's first answer is an undertaker who has paid Google to be listed first.

Siri brings back the voice aspects of Mabel, with the same snappy answers that the movie versions of Mabel were famous for. When Apple hears you talking with Siri, AND when Apple picks up location and accelerometer and temperature and heartbeat and metabolism data from your FitBit, Apple can gather INFINITELY more metadata than Mabel could. Your gender, age, ethnicity, stress level, heresy level.

Conclusion: The tech Mensans and Bitcoiners who think they're fooling Mabel with encryption are missing the point. And Mabel wants them to miss the point.

Spies and tyrants have never needed to listen to what you're saying. All they need is WHO you are and WHO you're calling. Modern tyrants can determine a much deeper WHO than old tyrants.

Can we re-Strowge the net?

Most likely there isn't a tech answer. The best solution is the same solution that Resistance movements have known and used for 3000 years. Don't use the channels provided by the tyrant, whether those channels are messengers, mail, telegraph, telephone or Siri.

= = = = = END REPRINT.

I'll add one item that wasn't obvious three years ago. The tech monsters are in fact basing their censorship on WHO, not WHAT. When they make rules and algorithms against "hate speech", they're really censoring "hate speakers". Loyal party members can say anything without punishment. Deplorables must be punished for existing. It's all about caste.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter

  ¶ 4:41 AM

  PG = Nike
While brushing teeth last night I happened to notice the Procter and Gamble logo on the Crest toothpaste.

Started thinking: About 30 years ago P&G was a target of Christian cultists who saw 666 symbols in everything. Now the same boycott-the-symbol mentality is a specialty of globalist cultists, not Christians.

Aha! This runs parallel to the concern with chemical purity. On that subject the switchover is familiar, but the switch on symbols is a new recognition.

Those two fetishes run together. People who worry about fluoride in the water and vaccinations in the arm and carbon dioxide in the air ALSO worry about the power of a logo or a picture on a Crest toothpaste tube or a Nike shoe or a stoplight.

Witchcraft. A word or a symbol or a micropercentage of a substance has total power.

And when you're trained to see witchcraft, you're also trained to cultivate and burn witches.

Inquisitors are always the same type. Only the label changes.

= = = = =

The CO2 switch isn't quite as familiar as the fluoride and vaccine switch. The Carbon Cult really started with the 'Late Great Planet Earth' by Pentecostal prophet Hal Lindsey. CIA took it over and switched it to a secular cult in 1975.

Labels: Carbon Cult, switchover

  ¶ 9:31 PM

  Kennedy dream
Been short on significant dreams lately. This one makes up for the shortage.

I was supposed to pick up Rosemary Kennedy, the "crazy" sister, and take her to a place where she would tell all of the family's secrets. I picked her up in a secret Air Force base near the old leper colony in Hawaii. She was pretty in a square Irish way. She seemed slow from years of official drugging, but she was smart and lucid and eager to tell what she knew. As we drove, she fell asleep and leaned on my shoulder. It was nice.

= = = = =

Where did this come from? I've never been to Hawaii and rarely think of it. I know Air Force bases pretty well, but haven't been thinking of them. The only time a female leaned on my shoulder was 1978. (Thanks, Sharon! I'll always remember that one brief moment of affection in a lifetime of rejection.) Since then they only lecture me on my inadequacies.

The theme of telling secrets is an obvious current reference, and I had been thinking of Kennedys in this context. But why Rosemary? Why Hawaii?

Labels: Entertainment

  ¶ 9:13 PM

  Demonically backwards as demonically always
"Science" demons are screeching and projectile-vomiting over an ultimately meaningless proposed "change" by faker Trump, a "change" which will not happen because none of faker Trump's fake "changes" ever happen.

The first key change to the act, according to The New York Times, involved requiring regulators to take economic costs into account when making decisions related to protecting species from extinction. The law previously required regulators to rely entirely on science in their decision-making.

As fucking always, the meaning of "science" is perfectly reversed. If we really did make decisions based on science, we would abolish the "Endangered" "Species" act. Darwin tells us that the fading and dying of a local population is the HEART AND SOUL of evolution. Adaptation happens when a local population dies out and makes room for species that are more suitable for the current situation.

The ESA explicitly violates evolution by forcing a species to remain in the niche after it should have gone away. The ESA breaks Nature and breaks science.

Earlier laws on the subject were PRO-SCIENCE. Laws to control hunting and fishing, and subsidies to encourage crop rotation and fallowing, prevented the most predatory humans from INTENTIONALLY KILLING a population that was doing well in the situation. These laws encouraged the normal process of natural selection.

  ¶ 9:32 AM

  One Shannon unit
We know that we're not going to get meaningful revelations from the Epstein mess. The overall picture is absolutely unsurprising to anyone who knows history. Absolutely constant over 10000 years. Whenever and wherever an aristocratic class was able to take hold, the aristocrats have been infinitely wicked beyond all imagining, and completely unpunished. Think of the recognized meaning of Mandarin, Brahmin, Pasha, Sultan, Eunuch, Emperor, King, Queen, Pope, Bishop, Priest.

Everyone knows what those monsters do.

Every monarch of England until Elizabeth 2 was infinitely wicked. For some reason E2 decided to break the sequence by living clean. Her sons and grandsons have resumed, as we know from the partial Epstein reveals.

Russia had a fairly long stretch of exceptions. Nicholas 1 was frugal and competent, and his son and grandson continued the exception. Lenin resumed the norm, which continued until Putin broke it again, returning to Nick.

= = = =

We have exactly one piece of REAL INFORMATION that contradicts previous definite knowledge. It was a casual remark quoted yesterday about the tech monsters, Elon, Bezos, Zuck, etc.

Previous definite "knowledge" is based on the carefully crafted reputation of the tech monsters. We "know" that they are ascetic TypeA+++++++ workaholics, slaving 26/9/367 to raise share value and slaughter Deplorables, never stopping to have fun.

Nope. Epstein told us that they spend most of their time and money doing Epstein things, just like all other aristocrats. They're not ascetics, they're EPicurians, devoted to every conceivable type of dissipation plus an infinite number of inconceivable iniquities.

That's INFORMATION in the Shannon sense.

Labels: Constfucts and variables

  ¶ 8:36 AM

  Hawley's approach
Josh Hawley is refreshing. A crusader against the worst aspects of tech tyranny who managed to get into a position of power. Will he succeed? I doubt it. Here's an earlier battle along the same front.

= = = = = START REPRINT:

A couple weeks ago I was thinking about wired vs wireless...

In the web era we are sneakily but quickly moving toward the Jap model. Because cellphones were based on the wired phone system, they were paid and licensed 'utility connections' rather than unlicensed 'receivers'. Thus we no longer have the privilege of passive listening.

BUT we're not getting the basic relationship of a rented connection either. When you pay for an AC power connection, you don't expect the AC to be modulated by advertising that forces its way into all of your light bulbs and heaters. With cellphones we're paying for zero privilege and total censorship, and we're forced to endure advertising at the same time.

Broadcasting through modulated AC didn't happen, but it came a lot closer than I thought.

In 1924 power companies were already using the wires for internal dispatching via modulated carriers:



In that case the carrier system was adapted into a transmitter for airborne radio.

The idea of wired radio was ... um ... in the air at that time, and was even tried out:



General Squier, the resident genius of the Signal Corps, was pushing wired radio as an environment where advertising would be permitted:



Note that Squier proposed a separate channel for advertising, which seems absurd now. It wasn't absurd then. Newspapers had (and still have!) separate PAGES for advertising. If you want to see ads, you turn to the ad section. A radio newspaper would work the same way. Squier also proposed a separate channel "for the women", which would get him tortured and hanged as a Russian MEDDLINGINTERFERINGHACKER now.

Advertising on the ether was uncomfortable and 'voluntarily banned' as WFBM's license application shows:



Clearly they knew the expected response.

Why was it unfashionable? The ether was considered a public resource like a park or a street. We still consider advertising on parks or streets to be crass if not illegal, and we still have court cases about advertising on public buses. Wires were owned by the utility, which could use its output for advertising just as a printer can send out advertising in newspapers.

For radio the discomfort was already disappearing in 1924, as the easily used phrase 'sell time' reveals. Selling time was a brand new concept, never done before in any medium. Selling space in newspapers or billboards was familiar. Broadcasting was only four years old, but NYC admen had already switched dimensions, and the rest of the trade followed along.

When wired TV started in 1965, it was launched with the same fake expectation. Pay TV was going to be a subscription service, and your direct payment would protect you from all advertising. Again the expectation failed. Cable TV has just as much advertising as ether TV, often more.

And of course the same sequence happened with the web. In the original implementation as Compuserve, you were paying for a wired service with no advertising. After Berners-Lee "invented" the web again, you were still paying but you also got the privilege of unstoppable advertising and total surveillance.


= = = = = END REPRINT.
  ¶ 1:56 AM

  Gathering is less than half of the problem
An article on the pros and cons of the computer age

So, for example, the ability to perform extraordinarily detailed, second-by-second monitoring of patients in a hospital—that would score high on beneficial personal effect for the individual patients, and it has fairly benign social effects. Plot it in the upper-right quadrant.

The computerized ability to monitor the behavior of everyone in a public setting, however—that has a generally positive score for individuals, protecting us from terror attacks and criminal assault. But it has a negative score for a society stripped of freedom by constant surveillance. Plot it in the upper-left quadrant.

The digitizing of criminal records, making it difficult to dodge the consequences of, say, multiple drunk-driving convictions in different states? Great for society, bad for individuals. Belongs in the lower-right quadrant. And the creation of electronic telephoning, allowing the solicitations of robo-calls? Negatives for both society and individuals. Goes in the lower-left quadrant.

Each of these changes is meaningless. Gathering data is one side of the system, doing something about the data is the other side. Computers have improved the data-gathering side, but the doing side is either unchanged or worse.

With hospitals it's clear that computers obstruct the proper function of medicine. Doctors and nurses have to spend too much time entering data, which gets in the way of direct sensory observation of patients.

With surveillance, we know what everyone is doing, but Deepstate is using that data to CREATE "terrorists", not to control real crime.

Robo-calls have been around since the 1920s. Computers made them easier to produce but also much easier to detect. The five-second blank silence at the start is an instant clue.

With criminal records, the court system is still failing to keep professional criminals in jail.

Nice long example in today's Spokane News:

This morning just after 5:00 a.m., an officer responded to a report of a naked man, who appeared high, standing on the side of the road at 2nd Avenue and Monroe Street. The man was Richard A. Sala. The officer tried to contact Sala, who was completely naked and holding tree branches in both hands, but he ran away.

Sala was taken into custody near Railroad Avenue and Monroe Street after running around the block. He was arrested on the outstanding Department of Corrections warrant and charged with Felony Indecent Exposure. Sala was booked again into the Spokane County Jail.

Previous Release: Felon released from custody immediately after being convicted of felony indecent exposure.

Richard A Sala (29) was convicted of indecent exposure, a class C felony, Wednesday, August 7th. The conviction was a felony due to two previous indecent exposure convictions in 2016. Sala was immediately released from custody Wednesday. Sala was then seen wandering around Downtown Spokane. Sala is currently wanted on a Department of Corrections warrant for Escaping Community Custody due to not abiding by his post-conviction supervision agreement.

Sala has an extensive criminal history which includes nine felony convictions (Criminal Mischief with a weapon, Assault 3rd degree (x3), theft 1st degree, theft 2nd degree, retail theft with extenuating circumstances and promoting pornography). He also has 19 prior Misdemeanor convictions (assault 4th degree, trespass 1st degree (x4), theft 3rd degree, harassment, indecent exposure (x2), disorderly conduct, criminal trespass (x4), resisting arrest, minor consuming alcohol and driving without a license). Sala’s criminal history ranges from 2008 to present.

This is clearly a professional criminal. The data-gathering system pulls together some of his LONG and varied record so we can see clearly that he's a professional criminal. He has crossed the meaningless three-strike threshold many times. And what happens? He's released immediately. We can be 100% sure that he was doing the same things with the same frequency before age 18, but that part of his record can't be published. So despite the gathering, we only get to see half of the problem, and the courts are still doing nothing to segregate him from society.
  ¶ 12:51 AM

  Biggest duh of the month
As usual, in "nutrition" "studies".

A study published today in the journal Nutrients shows why British men aged 18-24 are struggling to eat even three portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

As well as not having the culinary skills to cook for themselves, the researchers found that young men are more focused on gaining muscle and improving their physique than eating a healthy diet.

Young men with the best diets had a more positive attitude towards healthy food, enjoyed preparing and eating a wide range of fruit and veg, and had a more holistic view of health and diet.

It's simple logic.

Popular guys build muscle because muscle keeps the girls around. Girls do the cooking. Girls also want to keep the muscles on the guy, so they cook lots of red meat.

Unpopular guys don't have girls to do their cooking, so they have to do their own housework.

The good part: The unpopular guys in this small sample are wise. They already realize that they aren't going to get girls, so they're rationally focusing on survival without girls. They aren't wasting time in fruitless (heh) pursuit of muscles.   ¶ 4:57 PM

  Simplify, simplify
For some reason the CSS or JS at Jalopnik.com disagrees with my browser. Jalopnik typically shows up like this, with all pictures and no text:



Closed decaptioning for the illiterate!
  ¶ 3:42 PM