Unshaving a yak


Well, Microsoft Malware (Windows 10) accomplished its assigned task speedily. MM is designed to OBSTRUCT all normal computer activity and DESTRUCT the computer. It works better than most off-brand malware.

Back in December I went through a true yak-shaving process to "solve" a "problem" that turned out not to be a problem. I kept the yak (new computer with Microsoft Malware) because I've been in the middle of work and didn't want to gamble on UNshaving the horrible thing. MM was fighting me with every keystroke, taking 5 times as long to do EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING, and constantly grinding grinding grinding grinding grinding grinding the HD. I tried all the tricks to get rid of the worst parts of the malware, but they kept returning. Nurse Ratched WILL NOT ALLOW you to get around her rules.

This morning the new computer started emitting a CLUNK sound every minute or so. I fiddled with the acoustic foam to see if it was somehow related to the case, but it was clearly coming from the HD. The grinding grinding grinding had done its job.

So I went ahead and UNshaved. Brought the old Win 7 computer back to the desk, switched all the cables over, and copied the backup USB. Strict daily backup discipline paid off. Absolutely everything I need for work was on the USB. There are a few 'recreational' files that didn't get backed up, but if I really want them I can either download or remake them easily.

TREMENDOUS RELIEF. Now the computer is MINE again, which was SUPPOSEDLY THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT OF PERSONAL COMPUTERS. Now everything happens INSTANTLY again, which was SUPPOSEDLY THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT OF COMPUTERS UNTIL WINDOWS 10 RESTRICTED COMPUTERS TO PENCIL-AND-PAPER SPEED.

Online videos run smoothly again, without stuttering and infinite audio echoes. Offline processes like editing text and looking for files happen instantly instead of taking 20 seconds for every action.

It's like walking through deep mud for several months and then returning to clean dry pavement.
  ¶ 10:15 AM

  The importance of symmetrical scapegoating
If we can believe various stories, the Youtube suicider was a Persian who had been successful in the world of Youtube videos. When Youtube abruptly cut off her income, she rebelled.

Consistent: Most suicides and acts of mass violence, including riots and revolutions, are triggered by a sudden betrayal. When you work hard toward a goal, with good feedback along the way, and then the feedback SUDDENLY reverses for reasons outside your control, your soul breaks. You have nothing left to lose, so you lose everything.

Contradictory: Her manifesto brings together a set of beliefs that CUT ACROSS all of the Sorosian divisions. Because she's Persian, her overall goals are reasonably consistent and logical. Because she's Persian, her goals are closer to Natural Law than any set of Sorosian goals. Not nearly as close to NL as Sharia, but definitely tending toward that side of the axis.

Because the total pattern is anathema to BOTH sides of our carefully cultivated Symmetrical Scapegoating, her suicide won't start a revolution. BOTH sides will ignore it.

(For clarity: Not starting a revolution is good. All revolutions lead straight to hell. Being ignored by both sides is bad. Both sides are losing a chance to learn something new.)

Labels: Make or break, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 12:52 AM

  One down
Nature celebrates the end of Winnie Mandela's existence.



One demonic monstrous mass murderer down, unfortunately too many still existing.

Oddly, the demonic media have barely noticed this existence-cessation. Normally they would focus all of their attention on the "tragic and untimely death of a universal hero of Human Rights".

Maybe they can't find a way to blame Russia for the cessation.

Labels: Zero Problems

  ¶ 11:17 AM

  Frequency sharing, face sharing
Another dumb convective question.

The latest item at American Radio History is a 1940 promo booklet from WLLH in Lowell Mass. The station was technically interesting because it had two separate studios and two separate transmitters, in Lowell and Lawrence. Both studios operated as WLLH, and they split the schedule. When a local program originated from the Lowell studio, both transmitters carried it. When a program originated from Lawrence, both transmitters carried it.

Many stations had frequency-sharing arrangements, where two completely separate stations operated at different times of the day on the same frequency. KSAC in Manhattan and WIBW in Topeka shared 580 kc. WIBW took the mornings and evenings, when advertising paid best, and KSAC (educational station at K-State) took the unprofitable afternoons. Nice efficient arrangement.

Very few stations operated like WLLH, because there was no obvious financial advantage.

But the PEOPLE in Lowell are far more interesting than the tech details. Lowell was mainly Italian at that time, and many of the pictured employees have Italian names.

In general Americans were more varied and distinctly ethnic in 1940. Greeks were greeker, Italians were italianer, Jews were jewer, Blacks were darker, Brits were pinker, Scots were more translucent.

But in these pictures EVERYONE looks Italian, even the people with Anglo names.

Question: Are faces permanently shaped by habitual contacts?

It's certainly true with Okies and Injuns. Okies of hillbilly descent picked up the stoic stiffness of the warrior tribes.

A similar pickup was at work in Lowell.

Does this acquired muscular pattern shape the variable parts of the genome?

Later and simpler thought: Maybe everyone in Lowell WAS Italian. The Anglo names came from non-Italian fathers, who were genetically insignificant when Mamma was Italian.

Labels: Asked and partly answered

  ¶ 8:50 AM

  "Rights" vs duties on Assange, better thought
The allegedly "independent" webbies are still protesting uselessly because Assange's "right" to communicate was busted.

I wrote a "rights" vs DUTIES item earlier but slid past the real point.

Reviewing:

Nobody has a "god-given right" to anything. Details here and here.

We do have a GOD-ASSIGNED DUTY to make more life, more beauty, more value, within the limits of our talents and opportunities.

Assange's DUTY is to publish consequential leaks that break the control of Deepstate by exposing its METHODS.

When you are engaged in fulfilling your DUTY, you have a secondary subduty to keep your opportunities open and your talents sharp.

When your DUTY is making beautiful pottery, you don't want to lose the kiln and wheel in a fire. So you keep the shop clean and maintain the burners carefully, even though you might be able to make a few more pots if you weren't cautious.

When your DUTY is raising kids, you don't want to lose the kids because you're homeless. So you do what's needed to keep the husband or the welfare office happy.

When your DUTY is communicating leaks, you don't want to lose your channels of communication. So you do what's needed to keep the channels open.

Assange knew what was needed, and he still broke the deal. He chose to satisfy his prissy and precise love of abstract "rights" at the expense of his IMPORTANT DUTY.

Labels: From rights to duties

  ¶ 10:05 AM

  Purse and purpose revisited
In discussions of branding and product planning, Sloan's Rule is basic.

A car for every purse and purpose.

But it wasn't quite that simple. GM and Ford and Chrysler had different approaches to status and choice.

GM used Sloan's rule with a tight correlation. A car for every pursepurpose. If you wanted a limousine, you had to buy a Cadillac. If you wanted a business coupe, you had to buy a Chevy.

Chrysler applied it without the correlation. A car for every purse, AND a car for every purpose. During the '30s you could buy a limousine in all four brands, and you could buy a business coupe in all four brands. This gave Chrysler an advantage in specialized markets like taxis (cheap limos) and company cars for executives. The real purpose of a business coupe wasn't the large trunk, it was the missing back seat. When a company supplied cars to its employees for business use, the business coupe insured that the car couldn't be used to haul the kids to school. A company that wanted its executives to drive high-prestige cars could buy a New Yorker business coupe.

Ford didn't use the rule at all because Ford didn't have separate brands until 1936, and even then didn't really bother to distinguish them until after WW2. (Yes, Lincoln was part of the corporation, but a product that sold 1500 units a year wasn't really a step in a brand hierarchy; it was just a way to keep Edsel respectably busy.)

GM had another rule which is often mixed in with Sloan's rule, but the mix isn't necessary.

Earl's rule:

Forward in time and upward in price. The hierarchy must drive you to purchase this year's model AND purchase the next step up the ladder.

Earl understood that status is measured by both temporal and spatial deltas. Thus GM insured that this year was visibly different from last year, and insured that the brands could be mapped onto a visible status scale with fine divisions. If you had a Chevy and your neighbor had a Pontiac, you felt the pressure. If you had a Chevy 210 and your neighbor had a Chevy Bel Air, you felt the pressure.

Chrysler didn't use this rule until 1955. DeSoto didn't LOOK more expensive than Plymouth. Each brand had standard and deluxe trim levels, but they were identical in appearance.

Ford didn't catch on until 1956, when it finally made the Lincoln LOOK more expensive than the Mercury. Before 1956 the Lincoln had looked cheaper or even unfinished.

Labels: Metrology

  ¶ 1:59 AM

  BIG finding
This is a BIG finding!

First author Anish Mitra, PhD, and Andrew Kraft, PhD – both MD/PhD students at Washington University – and colleagues decided to approach the mystery of the ultra-slow waves using two techniques that directly measure electrical activity in mice brains. In one, they measured such activity on the cellular level. In the other, they measured electrical activity layer by layer along the outer surface of the brain.

They found that the waves were no artifact: Ultra-slow waves were seen regardless of the technique, and they were not the sum of all the faster electrical activity in the brain.

Instead, the researchers found that the ultra-slow waves spontaneously started in a deep layer of mice’s brains and spread in a predictable trajectory. As the waves passed through each area of the brain, they enhanced the electrical activity there. Neurons fired more enthusiastically when a wave was in the vicinity.

Moreover, the ultra-slow waves persisted when the mice were put under general anesthesia, but with the direction of the waves reversed.

Nothing new about the existence of slow waves in the brain. Known as long as EEG has been around. The BIG part is the triggering or polling effect (enhancing electrical activity), and the BIGGEST part is the reversal when unconscious.

How do senses come in to awareness and memory? Vision and hearing are processed first in a complex series of filtering centers in the brainstem. The resulting CODED signals describing movements of colors and shapes, and movements of frequencies and intensities, are then sent out to the cortex for high level comparison to memory templates. Match the formants with intonation, phonemes, morphemes, and grammar. The results of the match are then stored in memory for use in the next comparison.

The outward polling would enhance or speed the movement of coded data from brainstem out to cortex.

What happens when the polling shifts into reverse? Memories and patterns from the cortex flow better toward the centers of awareness in the brainstem, where they are treated as sensory data. DREAMS.


= = = = =

Later thought: The radial fibers (corona radiata) of the white matter wouldh't care much about this outward-moving stimulation. They are essentially wires from the cortex to the brainstem. The passage of charge waves might help to encourage flow of ions, especially on the part of the axon inside the myelin, which is a candidate for subconscious or dreamy action.

The charge waves would have their best effect on the association fibers that tie various parts of the radial fibers together permanently or temporarily, creating patterns and templates. You can imagine them being activated in sequence:



If we think about polling or scanning, the waves would be similar to sonar or radar, multiplexing different types of association into a time series. With normal sonar (bat or electronic) the sender calculates location of an object by the time between sent pulse and received pulse. In this type of scan the sender would be activating the various circumferential associations in sequence, and picking up the sequential results in the radial fibers. Maybe a better analogy would be the old acoustic delay line computer memories.

= = = = =

I went ahead and bought the full paper. For once the paid part contains more info than the abstract. Usually you don't get extra by paying. The first thing that stands out: In the mouse, each complete scan is about 10 seconds, though the wave as observed by experimental methods is not strongly periodic. This is much slower than breathing or heartbeat or motor response time. It's suggestively close to minimal attention span, which is 7 seconds in humans. We can be trained to hold attention longer, but TV producers know how to lock in phase with the 7 second basic span.

Labels: Answered better than asked

  ¶ 4:13 PM

  Interesting direction
Russia has formally presented a list of 14 questions about the Skripal incident to the SorosUK dysgovernment. 9 of the 14 questions push in a direction that hasn't been a public focus until now: the deep involvement of France in the investigation. The vector sum of these questions isn't clear to an outsider, but presumably it's crystal clear to the SorosUK dysgovernment. Only one of the non-France questions is new and sharp:

2. What specific antidotes and in what form were the victims injected with? How did such antidotes come into the possession of British doctors at the scene of the incident?

Good question. If the police medics were READY for this specific poison, how did they know?
  ¶ 11:04 AM

  Accidental wisdom
Atlanta's mayor is the perfect Sorosian. Humanoid entity of indeterminate gender and indeterminate race, wearing trapezoidal glasses and trapezoidal mouth. During the "crisis" of the bitcoin ransom, she or he or ve emitted the standard fashionable boilerplate.... with ONE highly unfashionable exception.

I noticed the exception several days ago, but didn't really appreciate its salience until today. When I tried to relocate the quote so I could write this little Bravo, I couldn't find it again. I'm fairly sure I saw it in a Techcrunch article, but now Techcrunch seems to have nothing on Atlanta at all.

At any rate, she or he or ve said roughly: We've been handling city business on paper for many years. The system always worked well. It can still work.

Bravo to the mayor. Even if her UNfashionable quotation has been Rectified, she definitely said it.

Non-digital methods are CRIMETHINK. You're not supposed to mention the FACT that analog or paper methods ACTUALLY WORKED BETTER THAN DIGITAL METHODS.


A separate piece of doublethink: As I was tracing through various aggregators to relocate the quote, I kept seeing the more fashionable parts of the articles through a gray screen. The fashionable messages were saying "All of us need to be more vigilant and increase our cybersecurity." The advice to increase our cybersecurity was obscured by a gray screen saying "Whoops! We notice you're using an adblocker. Please turn it off so you can see the content."

We must increase our security and we must remove our security. We must increase and remove our security. We must incremove our security.

Comrade O'Brien is happy.

Labels: defensible spaces, defensible times

  ¶ 9:12 AM

  Not universal, unique
About five years ago I bought a bowl at Safeway. It wasn't a normal part of their stock, just one of those special things they offer at various times. At the time I was starting to make omelets, and my existing soup bowls weren't large enough to do quality control and mixing for three eggs. The new bowl served the purpose beautifully, and immediately became my only bowl. It held ramen in the morning, egg quality control at lunch, and chili at supper, along with helping to sort and thaw vegetables for the chili. It was perfect.

Two weeks ago I got careless and broke it. Fortunately it was empty at the time.

Well, no problem. If Safeway carries something, it can't be a rare custom-made item. Must be super-common and easy to replace.

Wrong. The dimensions are apparently NOT standard, and I'm having a hard time finding something that matches.

Fortunately I took a picture of it when I was pointlessly writing about the chili recipe.



Measuring against the spoon, the bowl has to be at least 8 inches in diameter, probably 8.5 inches. I've returned to the small bowls which are 7 inches, and I know for sure they're smaller than the good bowl, because that's why I bought and kept the good bowl in the first place. The eggs are crowded and hard to mix, and the soup is too close to the top.

There are standard "salad bowls" with the right diameter, but they're all too shallow (2 inches deep). I ordered a couple of "salad bowls" and tried the Archimedes trick. Filled the small bowl with water up to the usual quantity of ramen, which is too close to the top in the small bowl, but was safely under the edge in the good bowl. Poured the water into the alleged "salad bowls". It's WAY too close to the top, almost sloshing out.

So the correct bowl needs to be 8 or 8.5 in diameter, and 3 inches deep. This is NOT common.

I'm tempted to commission one of the potters on Etsy to make several of them so I'll have a backup the next time I get stupid and break one.

A bit later: As usual, writing about a problem helps to loosen the assumptions. SE-LU. It turns out that bowls of the correct dimensions do exist, but they're known as "serving bowls" instead of "salad bowls" or "soup bowls." Perhaps because they "serve" a purpose, while the others don't. Found one on Ebay, after making sure the picture showed the actual height of 3" on an actual measuring tape. Ordered it. We'll see if it SERVES my purpose.

Later: Got it. Nice bowl but too large. Well, now we've got brackets around the correct size. Time to apply the method of adjustment.

Next day: Decided to try the "salad bowl" again with real food. The depth doesn't match the original, but it does work. It holds my usual portion. Diameter is the crucial dimension, not just for egg-mixing. 7 inches doesn't leave any room for error when pouring from pan to bowl. There's always a little spillage where the liquid 'backtracks' along the side of the pan. 8.5 inches is enough to keep all the liquid inside the bowl. So I'll use this one while looking (with less urgency) for the Mama Bear Just Right item.

Labels: Metrology, Nonzero problems

  ¶ 2:58 AM

  Saluting Ecuador
Polistra and friends offer a SPECIAL salute to Ecuador.



For accompaniment, we'll add Ecuador's Himno Nacional.



See below for the reason.

Labels: #DeplorableLivesMatter

  ¶ 10:26 AM

  Not unique, universal
Reading some of Kim Schmidt alias Kim Dotcom's writing. Always entertaining even if I'm not quite sure which side he's on. Started "thinking" about his alias. Seems odd to pick part of a URL as your official name. Wonder if anyone tried the equivalent in earlier times, using their business or address.......

JESUS CHRIST! DUMBEST QUESTION EVER!

ALL SURNAMES developed from jobs and addresses!!!

So in fact Kim Dotcom has resurrected the OLDEST and MOST COMMON way of developing a name, but he's just about the only person since 1750 who has used the technique to build a NEW name.

The technique was unused for a couple centuries because street addresses and phone numbers are mostly numerical, and modern job titles are clumsy. "James 555-2368" or "Roberta 6517 SW 154th Place Apartment 41" or "Herman Assistant Supervisor Of Custodial Services" are impractical. When the web switched back to short alphabetic addressing, the technique became usable again, but nobody used it until Schmidt.

= = = = =

Random sidenote, since I'm in dumb wondering mode: I wondered if 666 is a rare address, along the lines of the 13th floor. Tried googlemaps. Entered 666 in the blank, and googlemaps obligingly found local items first. The first Spokane address listed is an apartment building at 666 South Helena Street. Helena is pronounced the Montana way, so the address is a nice three-piece pun. Accidental or intentional? Dunno.

Overall 666 is not especially rare, which is not especially surprising. The religious significance of 666 was obscure and scholarly until televangelists made it famous around 1970. Most three-digit addresses were formed much earlier, when 666 was just an interesting number like 999.
  ¶ 2:41 AM

  Why a disaster?
Why do we always describe oil leaks as "environmental disasters"?

Caveat: I'm weary of the Things are better now line in general. Most of the alleged betters are actually worses, and some are a matter of taste.

One unquestionable better is our mastery of high-value energy sources from coal to petroleum to nuclear fission.

One aspect of this better that isn't properly appreciated: We have SLOWED DOWN oil leaks dramatically.

Look at any long-term history of petroleum and you'll see that oil was leaking and spewing all over the place UNTIL we tapped and controlled the wells. People had been using petroleum for thousands of years in North America and the Middle East, because it was bubbling to the surface where they didn't need technology to find it. Oil still spews and flows through the ocean floor constantly.

Oil doesn't flow openly on land now because we've drawn down the overflowing reservoirs. The occasional rare leak from wells or pipelines can't remotely approach the scale of the constant seepage through the seabed.

Secondarily, we know from the controlled experiment of the Exxon Valdez crash that NATURE cleans the area better than our desperate efforts to scrub away the oil with detergents. Several years after the "disaster", the areas we hadn't touched were more alive than the areas we'd sterilized. THIS SHOULDN'T BE A FUCKING SURPRISE because petroleum is an ORGANIC CHEMICAL that breaks down and provides NOURISHMENT for bacteria. The unscrubbed areas had MORE FOOD than the "cleaned" areas.
  ¶ 2:23 AM

  We really don't need Assange any more.
Assange hasn't published anything new since November, but this is OK. It looks like his duty is done. He has broken enough seals in enough places that the leaks are becoming automatic and unstoppable, like a dike breached by one hole. Thanks, Julian! Beautiful work, now you can rest.

Two parallel developments today:

1. A Federal District NON-DEMON rejected a Saudi motion to dismiss, allowing the giant class-action suit on 9/11 to move forward a few more steps. The discovery process on this suit is going to blow out lots of rocks.

2. The Saudi leader openly admitted in a BezosPost interview that the Wahhabi movement is a CIA-sponsored agent provocateur to make Islam look horrible. We started paying Saudi to run the AP in the '80s when we were trying to break Russia. During the brief period when we were NOT trying to break Russia because we thought we had already broken it, our Current Enemy turned to Islam. CIA-sponsored Wahhabi mosques spread the most extreme mutant of Islam in one part of the world, while our CIA-sponsored Taliban spread the most extreme mutant of Islam in another part of the world.

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED by our Final Solution to the "problem" of Islam, which WASN'T A FUCKING PROBLEM until we created it.

Both of today's revelations are old news to some extent.

Everyone understands that 9/11 was a Saudi operation, even though we tried to hide it from ourselves. I was among the worst offenders in that department from 2001 to 2006, when I finally started to open my eyes.

The Wahhabi AP wasn't nearly as obvious, so the Deepstate line remained broadly unquestioned. Now it can't be hidden.

Add to this the GIANT ALL-INCLUSIVE ALL-EXPLAINING REVELATION that



and this has been quite a week for leaks. Maybe we should stop using the word leaks and use tsunami?


= = = = =

Later: Apparently the communication blockage is caused by Assange's support for Catalunyan president Puigdemont. In that case FUCK YOU, JULIAN. You're a fucking idiot. You can't even tell the difference between good and evil. You're supporting the SOROS side, and brave little Ecuador is the only ANTI-SOROS country on this side of the world. I'm strictly and purely with Ecuador on this.

Labels: From rights to duties

  ¶ 4:58 PM

  "Rights" to duties, Assange edition
The independent side of the Web is all weeweed up about Ecuador's sudden decision to halt Assange's communication links. The indies are claiming that Julian's "right" to communicate is violated.

Ratshit. "Rights" don't exist. Duties exist. Ecuador's government has a DUTY to defend and advance the interests of its OWN people. In assisting Assange, Ecuador went WAY beyond the call of duty in both the original sense and my peculiar sense of the word. Ecuador does NOT have a duty to maintain Assange's links.

It's an EXTREMELY SAFE BET that USA STRONG has put Ecuador in an untenable position by pulling some blackmail files or threatening to cut off trade.

In that case public pressure on Ecuador won't help. Ecuador can't afford to disobey the USA STRONG monster, so you'll only make things harder for Assange.

If you're really indie journalists, you need to do your journalism and find out where the pressure is coming from. Expose the pressure. Then Ecuador might have more breathing room.

It's also possible that Assange has soiled his own nest. He deals in high-level pure abstractions like "rights" instead of concrete realities like a government's need for survival. If that's the case, the journalists should tell us what's going on.

= = = = =

Later: Apparently the blockage is caused by Assange's support for the Catalunyan president Puigdemont. In that case FUCK YOU, JULIAN. You're supporting the SOROS side, and brave little Ecuador is the only ANTI-SOROS country on this side of the world. I'm strictly and purely with Ecuador on this.

Labels: From rights to duties

  ¶ 10:11 AM

  How crazy?
Just how crazy are we?

From the front page of DW. I didn't juxtapose these items, DW did:



The current Kraut dysgovernment approves the Russian pipeline to bring gas and oil to Krautland.

The current Kraut dysgovernment brings charges against former leader Schroeder for "serving Russian interests".

= = = = =

Today, USA STRONG dysgovernment speaker Heather Nauert says:

"Russia has many arms and many tentacles. It's a beast from the deep sea."

Meanwhile in Boston, the beast from the deep sea arrives carrying natural gas to keep the East Coast from freezing to death. Presumably the beast has approval from the USA STRONG dysgovernment to connect its arms and tentacles to Boston's port pipelines.
  ¶ 8:17 AM

  Restoring the monarchy
Returning to the mysterious period of non-intervention from 1920 to 1946. Hard to imagine now. The US GOVERNMENT refused to make wars for 25 years, and the culture and media (with government approval!) helped to maintain the attitude. Government really didn't need to help, because we had ACTUALLY LEARNED SOMETHING from the period of imperial aggression that started with McKinley and spun out of control with Wilson. We UNDERSTOOD that aggression was bad for the aggressor, and we ACTED ON THE UNDERSTANDING.

Non-intervention wasn't just an American imperative; other nations were equally tired. Only the Japs and Krauts continued aggressing during those years, and finally had to be stopped.

The pattern of RE-ESTABLISHING NORMALCY was also happening in Afghanistan. Nadir Shah RESTORED a sane government after a revolution.

An article on Afghanistan in a 1936 BBC magazine found at the incomparable American Radio History website. This is important, so I've transcribed instead of screencapping.

But a very few years ago these men, now once again a unit, were split into factions by the misrule of one who promised to be a great king, and the men who have accomplished this gigantic task of unification have been his late lamented Majesty King Mohamed Nadir Shah and his brothers.

And how did Nadir Shah manage to re-establish the order of the kingdom after the revolution? The deeds of his gallantry and the sacrifices that his family made may now pass into a legend. Here we are more concerned as to the actual progress which his plan produced in Afghanistan, to the extent that within a surprising space of five or six years, that mountain country is now well-nigh her old self again.

What did he accomplish?

Since 1931, practically every village of any size has had a school, and primary education is compulsory; food and books are also given to the scholars. The National University of Kabul trains students even in medical science, and more than two hundred students are having advanced instruction in European and American universities.

Hmm. When we invaded Afghanistan in 2001, we were AUTHORITATIVELY INSTRUCTED that Afghanistan was permanently stuck in the Stone Age. The primitive savages had never learned how to tell time. Were we hearing LIES? Nah, impossible. Our wonderful government always tells the truth. I love Big Brother.

Within the last two years nearly two thousand miles of [paved] roads have been constructed, and it is only now that, through them, the capital has been linked with the Russian frontiers on the Oxus by means of motor roads.

Internal security and the proper organisation of trade connexions have enormously increased Afghan trade activities so that - again for the first time - an Afghan National Bank has been installed at Kabul, with its branches in India, Persia, Russia, and England. The flow of Afghan trade in its turn has enriched the Government exchequer, and the salaries of practically all Government employees have been increased. Since no National Debt, as such, exists, and trade improves every year, life has become peaceful and happy in the country; nor does unemployment haunt Afghan homes.

Was this overoptimistic propaganda? Nope. Many other sources verify the progress made by the RESTORED MONARCHY from 1920 to 1973.

NOTE that the author cheers the lack of debt. You won't catch a Sorosian author doing that nowadays. Debt is holy because debt exterminates Deplorables and enriches the Tribe.

NOTE ALSO that Britain and Russia were WORKING TOGETHER to help restore Afghan trade and infrastructure, because both stood to benefit by opening up Afghan resources.

Typically, the progress broke in 1973, the universal point of inflection. Atypically, it was Russia that broke Afghanistan at that time. Russia had been chiefly defensive, operating by proxy, since WW2. Afghanistan was their first American-style aggression. Russia learned the lesson and stopped aggressing. We still haven't learned anything and won't until we're cured by excising us from the universe.

Faster, please.

Labels: Alternate universe

  ¶ 3:37 AM

  Se-lu 23, sanctuary edition
Reviewing the SE-LU derivation:

Latin soluere comes from Indo-European se-lu, where se is the universal reflexive pronoun and lu is pull apart or untie. From soluere we have solution, solve, solvent.

The most common meaning is untying the knot of a problem. To solve a problem, you must LOOSEN YOURSELF first. Untie the hidden assumptions and habitual connections.

= = = = =

For many years I've been repeating the standard theme song of populism: A nation is a bounded region, just as an organism is a bounded region. Nations and organisms try to maintain their own form of order inside the boundaries, leaving chaos outside. Therefore, the ONLY job of a national government is to control the flow across borders. Halt invaders, control trade to increase INTERNAL order, control immigration to increase INTERNAL order.

The USA STRONG dysgovernment has abandoned all of these tasks. Instead of halting invaders we 'invade and invite'. We bomb every other country and then bring in the displaced populations of the countries we destroyed, forcibly implanting the migrants where they will exterminate the local Deplorables. We do the same with trade. Instead of restricting input to improve our own production, we forcibly invade ourselves with foreign-made shit to exterminate the local Deplorables.

Until now I've also been singing the chorus of the populist song: We should restore the original and natural functions.

= = = = =

SE-LU: Why bother?

Switzerland shows the way with its CITY-BASED referenda on admitting migrants. If Bern wants to be a sanctuary for Libyan leftovers and Luzern doesn't, let them make their own decisions.

We're already there in practice.

The problem is not the sanctuary cities; the problem is the infinitely evil setup of the Black-Robed Demons which FORCES the WORST decisions to go national. This is not in the old Constitution, and it's not even in the laws authorizing District Demons. It's a PURELY CRIMINAL ACTIVITY which nobody has the guts to stop. Without the black-robed demons, we'd already have the Swiss arrangement.

= = = = =

The same SE-LU applies to currency and banking, which is another of those supposedly national functions. There's NO REASON to have a national currency and there's WAY BEYOND NO REASON to have a central bank.

Since the development of the clearing-house process 800 years ago, banking has not required one currency for each nation. You do need some reliable and constant currency units, and it's more convenient when one currency covers a region that habitually trades together. The only serious requirement is that all the units must have a ground reference, which is traditionally gold. The non-Sorosian part of the world is VERY QUICKLY re-establishing this traditional arrangement. China and Persia and Russia are accumulating gold to use as a heavy ground plane for their national currencies.

This flexibility isn't new with blockchain or digital or even telegraphs. Old-fashioned banks keep enough physical cash for their own needs, in a form satisfactory to their own customers, but most transactions run WITHOUT ANY MOVEMENT OF REAL CURRENCY. This setup doesn't require instant communication. It does require some form of reliable and secure messenger service so the banks can reconcile their net debits and credits against counterparty banks, then transfer real currency to null each difference at the end of the month or quarter or year.

When all the corresponding banks agree to price their particular currencies against gold, the local currencies are open to all sorts of numerical proportions. Inflation in one city doesn't force inflation elsewhere, and doesn't need national adjustment. With less inertia and less clamping, values and interest rates tend to adjust automatically to local situations. This was the arrangement in USA until 1850 or so, and it worked reasonably well. It would work much better now with computers handling the arithmetic painlessly.

We EMPHATICALLY DON'T NEED national central banks. Central banks are hypercriminal exterminators of REAL VALUE.

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The same SE-LU applies to tariffs and trade. In practice we're already there. Media demons mocked Sarah Palin for her familiarity with Russia, but she was simply describing the REAL SITUATION in border states. Alaska has been making its own treaties with Russia for a long time because Alaska and Russia share a border. Wash and Montana and ND and Minnesota and Michigan have been making treaties with Canada for a long time. The old Constitution explicitly forbids these treaties, but they happen because they WORK. Trade treaties work best when they're modular and minimal and bilateral.

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In fact we've always been far more confederated and less national than the 1787 Constitution wanted us to be. The words of the 1787 Constitution make it possible for Deepstate to run division games against governors or counties that are on the UNFASHIONABLE side of these legalities, while ignoring states and counties that are on the FASHIONABLE side.

SE-LU. Untie the ropes. Let the confederation run loose. Eliminate the national government entirely. It is ABSOLUTELY FAILING at all of its assigned tasks, and simultaneously costing us trillions of dollars for the service of exterminating us.

It's not even an honest protection racket. It's a FRAUDULENT protection racket. A metaracket. The USA STRONG mob forces us to pay for protection against the violence of the USA STRONG mob, and then SLAUGHTERS us anyway. Hypercriminal.

Labels: se-lu

  ¶ 8:48 AM

  Plus ça charge.....
A few rechargeable batteries now have a BRAND NEW feature: a built-in charge indicator.

Brand-new? Nope.

From a 1935 radio journal:



NEAT GADGET!

The picture is clear but the description isn't. The crescent thing is pivoted at left, and it has a glass-enclosed air bubble at the lower end. When the specific gravity of the electrolyte is higher, the air bubble is more buoyant, so the crescent thing pivots upward and the air bubble covers HALF, then FULL. Similar to the syringe-like tester used with car batteries.

Later: I wasn't convinced that the device actually went into production, because I couldn't find it in later advertisements for Oldham batteries. But Exide had a more stylish variant which was definitely advertised and sold:


  ¶ 2:49 PM

  A quoric question
On this morning's walk I peripherally noticed a leftover Xmas light string tacked to a wall. At first it looked like graffiti of the anarchist alpha-omega symbol.

Which leads to a quora-like question.

Why don't anarchists and atheists have their own alt.Xmas light displays?

Instead of wreaths, alpha-omega and "peace" symbols.

Instead of fake icicles and teddy bears, melting glaciers and dead polar bears.

Instead of Santa in a sleigh pulled by 8 reindeer, Satan in a Tesla pulled by 8 lowbrow toothless honkies all named Bubba. (On Bubba! On Bubba! On Bubba and Bubba!)

Instead of presents wrapped with bows, boxes with instantaneous stock quotes for AMZN, TSLA, GOOG, AAPL, etc.

Instead of stockings stuffed with candy, Birkenstocks stuffed with Bitcoin.

Instead of fruitcake ... Oops, bad word. I mean Cake Of Variable Gender! ... Well then, no substitute needed, except of course that the Cake Of Variable Gender must be GMO-free, Vegan, Gluten-free, Cruelty-free, and in general Food-free.

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**Come to think of it, I already made the Satan in a Tesla scene!
  ¶ 9:53 AM