The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

[I found this as a draft after I said I was ending the blog but I hate leaving things unfinished, so THIS is the last post for AotF]

The "social media" which is supposed to connect us is also a catalyst for distilling previously hidden differences which will push us apart.  I know people who insist on spewing their pet causes and political ideals all over the news feed, and I have "unfriended" several over things they insist on inflicting on everyone they know. 

Once upon a time there were rules for polite company, and not discussing politics or religion played a large part in them.  Now everybody knows what (almost) everybody thinks about pretty-much EVERYTHING, all the time, and familiarity does indeed breed contempt.  "Social Media" encourages a great deal of what I consider to be anti-social behaviour, specifically ad hominem attacks.  I will go after peoples' IDEAS, but not them personally; if I feel that negatively about the person I won't waste my time or effort on them.

Of course what happens when people know who you are pales in comparison to what happens when people can be anonymous.  Yes, I know that sounds hypocritical on my anonymous blog, but I have work-related reasons to keep things the way they are. More importantly, I never say anything here that I would not say in person to whoever I'm talking about, violent idiots excepted; I'd rather deal with them through a rifle scope or the business end of a cosh.

My point?  I couldn't deal with 600 real friends, I see no point in aspiring to have that many cyber acquaintances.  How many of your Facebook "friends" would help you move?  Show up to a BBQ? It's now like people have anywhere up to thousands of pen-pals, except that you are sharing your life in 140 characters or so at a time.  What do we really know about the personalities of these people?  Knowing their taste in cat videos is not the same as knowing their hopes and dreams or having those "you-had-to-be-there" in-joke memories from the stupid things you've done together.

Facebook is a tool, and like all tools it can be misused and hurt people.  The anti-bullying efforts that are being made today are being stymied if not outright thwarted by the fact that if people are hassling you, it doesn't end at school.  Even if you try to avoid them online, once those parasites have their sights on you they will spread horrible shit about you via whatever social media is trendy at the time.  My personal solution for bullying is to meet it with superior force or at the very least surprise and violence to make them think twice about messing with you, but the sort of kids who get bullied are picked on because they are incapable of standing up for or organizing amoungst themselves.

The title refers to a Kipling poem about cutting through bullshit and identifying basic truths:

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

One look around the world indicates that our part of it at the very least is trying entirely too hard to ignore objective reality in favour of what we'd LIKE to see. This blog started modelled on "Arithmetic on the Frontier" (hence the name, go figure) but as it has moved along over the years I think the message is more in line with the above.  New and shiny is not necessarily better, and that applies to ideas as well as gadgets.  Certainly things have improved immeasurably since the Bad Old Days, but hard times taught some hard lessons which we would do well to remember lest we need to constantly re-learn them the hard way.

Not the End of the World, just the end of this.

It's been over a month since I've had any real drive to write anything here so I think this'll be it.  I just don't feel that I have anything new to add, in effect I have run through all of my opinions on anything I'd write about; I really wanted to stimulate some discussion here but that has not really worked either.  I'm not sure exactly what happened but I find it much harder to get worked up about this stuff, and the intemperate rant was the lifeblood of this blog. 

The problem is of course me and not whoever is/is not reading my stuff, but the good news is that the demise of AotF won't disappoint too many people.  The blog has survived a lot of upheavals in my life including a combat tour to Afghanistan, but it's tired so it's time to retire it.  Maybe when I retire as well I'll find a new life for this, but that's a few years off yet so don't hold your breath. 

There are some real diamonds in all of this rough, so I remain pleased with the six years that AotF has skulked in its' obscure corner of the interweb.  At the end of the day, if I have managed to make even one person actually THINK about something as opposed to just parroting what the schools and media indoctrinate them with, I will count it a sucess. 

That (Big) Bird has Flown

I have been quite remiss in keeping this up-to-date, but you get what you pay for as always and I'm back, so let the rejoicing begin. With that out of the way, I have not managed to whip up a sense of righteous indignation/outrage about anything of late but I do have some observations on recent events and these follow, maybe (no promises) even in some coherent fashion.

At this point it has been universally recognized that Mitt Romney clobbered "The One" in the first candidates debate last week, and I really wish I didn't understand why so many people were surprised by this.  Take a look at Romney's accomplishments vs Obama's and you'll see the difference between someone who gets (real) stuff done and someone who talks a good game.  At least, until the latter doesn't when faced with someone as smart as him (surprise!) who has an actual plan, or at least direction.

Some online poll says that I agree with Romney's positions about 85% versus something like 12% for Obama so full disclosure on which way I'm leaning on the faint chance that it wasn't blindingly obvious.  Also irrelevant since I don't live there and won't be voting for anyone, but I will say it here (and I'm not alone) that America needs to dump Obama's crew if they are to have any chance to get back on their feet.  There is no magic bullet that will do it, but the axe has to swing around the bureaucracy quite a bit, and PBS is but the leading edge of it.

If domestic issues bore you (though they shouldn't, since you live "there") we have vast room for foreign policy improvement from the last 10 years.  I use 10 years to encompass not getting out of Afghanistan in 2002 and the invasion and occupation of Iraq (for no material or geopolitical gain) from 2003, not to mention the mess Obama made to compound all of that.  Following the "triage" approach I advocated in the last blog entry one needs to know one's enemies, and no amount of ignoring people who want you dead will change how they feel; just ask Lara Logan, she should know.

Apparently the current US administration's assertions that the assault on the Benghazi consulate was "spontaneous" never convinced many people (and none who paid any attention).  This, especially including the murder of the US Ambassador and other US nationals on what is under international law US soil, is grounds for some major payback; indeed wars have been started for less in a less pussy-footing age.  What has Obama done?  Sent the FBI who spent less than a day investigating, and no time at all running the terrorist fucks to ground and killing them with smart bombs and Spec Ops guys.

I have always asserted that there is no point having a big stick unless people believe that you will use it.  The way to make them believe is use said stick to kill people who mess with you.  This will make your enemies think twice and your friends multiply when they see that you both can and WILL protect them.  Instead, the Obama legacy to America's already dismal foreign policy is to lose what influence they had, even a year ago, in the Middle East.  Just ask Hosni Mubarak; oh wait...

Since everyone (whose opinion matters) likes a plan versus mere complaints, here's what I think the US has to do to get back on its feet:

1. Cut all aid to countries which are not actively helpful to US/Western interests;
2. Pull all major ground forces out of everywhere in Asia and the Middle East;
3. Leave a "trip wire" in startegic areas; intel-gathering locations with robust defence and enough offensive punch to punish anyone who whacks the hive. Back this up with Carrier Task Forces, weighted toward the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
4. More work for these Carrier groups, keep Chinese territorial aggrandizement in check, particularly in relation to the legitimate territorial claims of China's neighbors.  The second-biggest (but the biggest practical one) stick in the arsenal had better be good for something other than hoovering up taxpayer dollars.
5. At home, chop, de-fund and repeal as necessary to trim the bureaucracy and cut red tape which holds  back economic progress and energy security.

Practically I see the establishments on either side of the US political landscape keeping any useful changes from being made, the proliferation of special-interest and NIMBY groups having made any decisions on the simplest of projects virtually impossible.  I see Romney as a better choice than four more years of Obama (and it increasingly looks like O sees it that way too!) but I'm not so naive as to think there's a magic bullet.  Well, "enlightened despot" has the best chance, but that's the rarest of beasts, and not on the menu in the States anytime soon. 

BFFs no more, Pakistan

First I have to laugh at the ironic black humour of this:

One of the participants of the rally, Abdullah Ismail, passed away after he was taken to Mayo Hospital. Witnesses said he had complained of feeling unwell from the smoke from US flags burnt at the rally.

That's out of sequence in the linked article with the below, but ya gotta lead with something like that. The "meat" follows:

Hafiz Saeed alleged that the film, Innocence of Muslims, had been produced with the backing of US establishment. He said the director, the producer and all those involved in the production and release of the movie must be hanged publicly. “The US must make a law against blasphemy – or we will not let the US consulates in Pakistan function,” he said.

As dismal as we are at responding to the threat of Islam, I don't see that happening any time soon. Also, as things are at the moment (protests and embassy assaults all over the "Muslim" world) I think this is an easy "either/or" choice.

He said a resolution condemning the movie in the parliament was not enough. Instead, President Asif Ali Zardari must announce jihad against countries like the US that supported attacks on Islam. The Organisation of Islamic Countries Conference should announce a boycott of US goods. Ijazul Haq, the PML-Z chief, said the people had shown their loyalty to Islam. He said the government leader’s silence was shameful. He said no one had dared commit blasphemy during his father Ziaul Haq’s rule.

There we are (emphasis mine), the "j" word which useful idiots in the West refuse to understand. My response to that: "Fucking bring it, assholes." I encourage everyone in Pakistan who isn't an idiot to get the hell out if you can before these guys get their way, because I don't see things improving even if all of us infidels pack up and let the region fall (completely) apart.

It's late, but nonetheless still diplomatic triage/cost-benefit time. Afghanistan: FUBAR, leave now. Pakistan: circling the drain, leave soonest. Egypt: c. 70M people who don't like us, tread carefully with essential staff only. Libya: either "you broke it you bought it" or (my advice) write it off after busting the heads of the people who killed the US Ambassador. Tunisia: we can and should help them smack down the Salafists as there are enough people there who don't want them.

For that small sample we're 1 for 5 and I could keep going but things don't get a lot brighter with the trouble spots of Asia and the Mid East. The upshot is that "we" have limited resources and should spend them defending our actual interests and friends (e.g. Israel, Tunisia) and let the rest of them do whatever they want within their own borders, much as is happening in Syria right now.

Some people wring their hands (when they are actually paying attention) and think we should intervene there a la Libya. I say: take a look at how well that's worked out (and Iraq, and Afghanistan) and tell me again that we should take sides in this thing. Turkey, Iran and Saudi are all players in that region, I say leave them to it. Hell, those three are players in Iraq too so leave them to it. Afghanistan has China, Iran, India, Pakistan and Russia to tug at it, so why are we dragging things out.

When I was in Afghanistan five years ago these "Green on Blue" killings were essentially unheard of, now there's at least one a month. When it's at the point when you suspend training with the host nation because you're afraid they'll kill your trainers you're long past doing any good.

Back to Pakistan, where I began this. While there are elements of Pakistani society which are not inimical to our own, if we have to choose between them and, say, their great rival India, we can and should work with the latter. India is a bulwark against both radical Islam and China growing unchecked, both of which are in our interests.

Undoubtedly the Chinese would see this differently, but China shares the first problem, so all of us getting along is a plan if we can swing it. I encourage you to read "The Clash of Civilizations" by Samuel Huntington if you haven't already for a bit more in-depth realpolitik than you will get in a few posts here. There is both the original article from 1993 and the book, both worth your time.

Speaking of threats to Consular staff...

Some disaffected Copt in the US has made some anti-Islam video (I can totally see where this came from) and people are dying again:

The US ambassador to Libya is among four Americans killed in an attack on the US consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, President Barack Obama has confirmed.
Unidentified armed men stormed the grounds on Tuesday night in a protest over a US-produced film that is said to insult the Prophet Muhammad.

I can't say this is a big surprise; the "democracy" we've enabled in Libya is an armed free-for-all. You will note the lack of embassy attacks while Qaddafi was running the place. I'm so glad we helped bring things to this point; I guess we can hope that it gets better, but things are looking pretty Mad Max for the near future.

Egypt has done a similarly ineffective job of defending the US embassy, thankfully without lethal result, and the Muslim Brotherhood (in its' English Twitter feed at least) has condemned the attack. The problem as always is with hard-case Muslims, of which there is a nigh-inexhaustible supply in places like Egypt. The offending video was put on the Internet (what isn't?) and it's not like it was beamed from space onto the sides of the Pyramids and to the mobile phone and TV of every Muslim in the world. Even if it was, that is merely a nuisance not exactly "eye for an eye" stuff.

Canada cut ties to Iran for a bunch of reasons, but one of them was a belief (based on the storming of the UK embassy late last year) that Iran was not serious about protecting consular territory and staff. It looks like we can put a few other places in that category, although to be fair these things sometimes catch host governments by surprise. I won't give Iran the benefit of that doubt, as they have a bit of a track record of storming embassies...

Particularly disgusting in this case is the declaration of the US Embassy in Cairo apologizing for "the abuse of freedom of speech". The inside dhimmi threat of "our" people kowtowing to "radical" (read: observant) Muslims is FAR more dangerous than any number of rioting protesters in foreign lands, even armed ones. The loss of an embassy and/or staff is a tactical loss, but at least serves as a litmus test of who our friends really are. When Western governments start apologizing for violence against THEM, that is a disaster.

Fortunately in this case Hillary has come out strongly against the Cairo Embassy "statement" so things at least aren't any worse in the big picture than they were before the attacks. It is interesting to speculate on whether there would have been such a strong repudiation had the White House not been in the middle of an (actual) election campaign. As I write this I expect (as do many others) that the latest paroxysm of Islamic rage over something stupid is not yet spent.

A stick in the spokes of the "Axis of Evil"

A couple of days ago, the Government of Canada cut diplomatic relations with the Islamic republic of Iran, closing our embassy and booting out theirs. I say: about bloody time.

There are the usual (Prime Minister of Canada) Harper-haters who seem to love every repressive Islamic regime the world over and have been chiming in on this, but the truth is that Iran's current government is NOT a friend we want. Working off the "company you keep" model of character, let's see who Iran's friends are; this should convince most people that we are right to keep our distance.

1. Syria, specifically the Assad regime. Do I really need to go into detail here?
2. Hezbollah. Regardless of the general anti-Israel bent of much of the media and the Left, Hezbollah is not the sort of neighbour anyone wants, at least not if they want to do things their own way. Of course the usual suspects don't care as long as it's just "Zionists" who are being killed...
3. China. China is all about business and expanding their influence, and as close to amoral about who they deal with as you care to get. China is also blocking the UN Security Council on votes to do something about the mess in Syria.
4. Venezuela: Chavez and his cronies are big fans and have gotten a lot of arms and training from the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah affiliates.

This gives you the idea. I was going to include Russia on that list, but they have been distancing themselves from Iran for a while now. I have said it before and I say it again now: the Iranian PEOPLE are not our enemy, just the current regime (which many Iranians have been tortured, raped and killed for opposing). If anything this move by my government is long overdue. When they get a decent government back in we'll reestablish regular relations; until then there is no point in even talking to them.

And if Israel/whoever else attacks Iran? I don't think going after their nuke program is worthwhile, but bombing the #%&k out of the IRGC would be a step to the good for everyone. Well, everyone we might want to help, anyway.

RIP Neil Armstrong, 5 Aug 1930 - 25 Aug 2012

I have linked to Jerry Pournelle's post for this sad but not tragic day since I wasn't around when Neil went to the moon and obviously not for the Space Program that led up to it.

What man has done other men can do; not just anyone of course, but that's what "The Right Stuff" was all about. With closing on 7 billion people on this Earth, there are lots of "one in a million" types to choose from, so let's get them back out there and see what else we can do. From the Armstrong family:

“While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his
remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people
around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be
willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a
cause greater than themselves.

“For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple
request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty,
and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon
smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."

Back to the 80s, a new Cold War for the 21st Century?

Hey China, welcome to the 1980s in missile tech:

News first emerged of the planned ‘super missile’ from defence industry bible Jane’s Defence Weekly last week, according to South China Morning Post.
It apparently claimed that a Dongfeng-41 (DF-41) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), had been fired in testing last month by the PLA’s Second Artillery Corps.
This third-generation missile, US military sources told Jane’s, contain multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) – effectively multiple warheads – meaning they would be almost impossible for current US defences to take down.
This sounds a whole lot like a Minuteman III or some such from the height of the Cold War, and by itself is nothing to get exercised about, despite flying in the face of current Arms Control agreements. What this sort of rumour/announcement really signifies (if you somehow missed the rest of the signs) is that China has plans to expand.
The Americans have of late finally noticed this, and will hopefully allow the Arabs etc. to kill each other in the Middle East and concentrate on something which actually threatens their position in the world (almost as much as the current system of government). Mitt Romney, presently the de facto Republican Presidential nominee, has just pushed out a plan for North American energy independence which is a step in the right direction, but he has to a) be elected and b) actually follow through on the plan for it to make a difference.
I really don't know what China intends with this; that sort of a missile is a threat to both the US and Russia, overkill against India (or less likely, Pakistan), but doesn't materially change the deterrent of either of the major powers. Likely it's for internal political consumption and it's possible they're not even seriously pursuing it, at least not as an ABM-busting strategic weapon.
In any event, the world is re-aligning, and China is doing itself no favours in the international community by backing places like Iran and Syria. The truth of the matter in the South China Sea is that without the US Navy none of the smaller regional actors have a chance against China, and everyone knows it. In order therefore to defend its' broader national interest (e.g. global trade) the USA needs to get its' house in order by boosting it's economy in real terms.
A rational energy and regulatory program will help that a lot, another four years of Obama binding the country up in red (green?) tape and having an indefinable foreign policy will not help at all. Romney et al might be an improvement, but the system is now so ponderous and corrupt that I have my doubts that anything short of armed rebellion will make much of a difference. Note that none of this is an endorsement of such an uprising (Canada can't absorb that many refugees if nothing else), but I will for what it's worth say that I see Romney as the best of a bad lot.
The next five years or so are critical to the trajectory of the USA and of China, and whatever happens it'll affect the whole world. The big question seems to be: new Cold War, or a Hot one?

World's not gonna end just yet, Chicxulub willing...

I loved P.J. O'Rourke's book All the Trouble in the World , and this Wired article is more in that same vein:

Religious zealots hardly have a monopoly on apocalyptic thinking. Consider
some of the environmental cataclysms that so many experts promised were
inevitable. Best-selling economist Robert Heilbroner in 1974: “The outlook for
man, I believe, is painful, difficult, perhaps desperate, and the hope that can
be held out for his future prospects seem to be very slim indeed.” Or
best-selling ecologist Paul Ehrlich in 1968: “The battle to feed all of humanity
is over. In the 1970s ["and 1980s" was added in a later edition] the world will
undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in
spite of any crash programs embarked on now … nothing can prevent a substantial
increase in the world death rate.” Or Jimmy Carter in a televised speech in
1977: “We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by
the end of the next decade.”

Predictions of global famine and the end of oil in the 1970s proved
just as wrong as end-of-the-world forecasts from millennialist priests. Yet
there is no sign that experts are becoming more cautious about apocalyptic
promises. If anything, the rhetoric has ramped up in recent years. Echoing the
Mayan calendar folk, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday
Clock one minute closer to midnight at the start of 2012, commenting: “The
global community may be near a point of no return in efforts to prevent
catastrophe from changes in Earth’s atmosphere.”

I particularly like Ridley's description of humanity as a "moving target" and strongly encourage you to read the whole article.

A lack of historical (even recent) perspective bedevils efforts to compete with the hectoring Luddites who would hold us back. The "climate change" crowd for example will ignore all "inconvenient" information which would detract from their agenda of dismantling our technological society. Points of No Return are routinely passed without undue incident, increasingly destructive weather events are taken out of context of the development which has occur ed in that area since the last "worst" hurricane, flood, tornado, etc.

I'm picking on the Warmists again, but in this case it's because they encompass all of the goals of Greenpeace, The Club of Rome and all the rest of them, e.g. there are too many people, and bundle that with the dogma of CO2 as the worst thing since dioxin. The problem with all of these people is that they only have influence in First World countries, places where the birth rate has already plummeted, in most cases below replacement rate and what industry that remains has cleaned up far past where it was even during the Acid Rain era of the 1980s.

The hope of this planet to absorb the ongoing population growth of the Third world and the pollution of the Second is the technological base of the First. Technological advances require prosperity, prosperity requires not being straightjacketed by red tape and excessive taxation. If the world does end due to something less catastrophic than the sun exploding, it will probably be something that sufficiently advanced tech and production capacity could have at least mitigated.

There are PLENTY of "world-ending" bolide (asteroid) impact examples to choose from, so let's take the Cretaceous dinosaur killer as a case study. As things stand, one of these comes our way we're fucked; what could change the odds? Enter Planetary Resources, or other private sector asteroid mining outfit. Yay! Capitalism will save us all out of the goodness of its' altruism, right?

Of course not. What they would however do in their self interest is develop the means to get to asteroids whipping around our system and then take them apart. The tech to do that will also include a highly motivated system to find and track NEOs, the essential first step in averting a bolide catastrophe. In warfare it's "Find, fix, strike" and the principles apply here too.

It is an inescapable fact that motivated people accomplish much more than plodding clock punchers, and the best way to motivate most people is money. Making money off of asteroid mining will require the same tech that one would need to have a chance of averting a major asteroid strike. It may also require large thermonuclear devices, currently held as a monopoly by governments, so there is certainly room for Public and Private to work together here.

None of this matters to the malcontent misanthropes who would have us all living in huts, and then complain about all of the trees we cut down to build and heat them. Well fuck them; the rest of us would like to avoid the "nasty brutish and short" lives of our ancestors and we need to fight those idiots to keep things moving forward. After all, if Mankind is to survive

For all but a brief moment near the dawn of history, the word 'ship'
will mean simply - 'spaceship.' (Arthur C. Clarke)

Mamelukes out, stupid politics in (as always)

I saw this coming but I hoped to be wrong, and "here we go" as said previously. The Army could still stand up and run a counter-coup against Mursi, but the moral is to the material as three is to one. All of the moral (morale) is on the side of the Brotherhood, the Army seems to have lost its' mojo.


Ok, what else is happening right now? The Olympics (London 2012) wrapped up yesterday without anything blowing up, so I'll count that as a win for our side. Syria is dragging out longer than Libya did earlier this year/last year which shows you what a difference it makes not having a major power (Ok, the USA) throwing in on one side. It's turning into a three or four-sided proxy war with the CIA arming some of the rebels, the Saudis et al arming the Islamist ones, Iran backing the Assad regime and the Turks worrying about the increasingly autonomous-looking Kurdish area along their border.

Closer to home, the low and high points of Canadian politics there will soon be a Provincial election in Quebec, and the Parti Quebecois (PQ) is promising to crack down on the use of English in Quebec. There are regressive forces everywhere so we can only hope that the PQ don't get back in, but we've heard this tune before and survived.

Also with Canadian news, this time with an international bent, the Europeans are trying to get us to pony up cash to bail out their poor relations. PM Harper is so far holding firm on the "no" to that and I hope that line is maintained. I see no reason whatsoever that anyone, let alone countries with no direct connection to the "Eurozone" should spend their taxpayers' money bailing out people who couldn't be bothered to balance a budget.

I thought I had more on all of this, and certainly if I was discussing all of this with people I'd have more to say, but I'm not so I don't. So There.

Better the devil you know...

Completely and totally predictable, inevitable even:

"There were always Christians in Qusayr -- there were around 10,000 before the war," says Leila, the matriarch of the Khouri clan. Currently, 11 members of the clan are sharing two rooms. They include the grandmother, grandfather, three daughters, one husband and five children. "Despite the fact that many of our husbands had jobs in the civil service, we still got along well with the rebels during the first months of the insurgency." The rebels left the Christians alone. The Christians, meanwhile, were keen to preserve their neutrality in the escalating power struggle. But the situation began deteriorating last summer, Leila says, murmuring a bit more before going silent.

"We're too frightened to talk," her daughter Rim explained, before mustering the courage to continue. "Last summer Salafists came to Qusayr, foreigners. They stirred the local rebels against us," she says. Soon, an outright campaign against the Christians in Qusayr took shape. "They sermonized on Fridays in the mosques that it was a sacred duty to drive us away," she says. "We were constantly accused of working for the regime. And Christians had to pay bribes to the jihadists repeatedly in order to avoid getting killed."

This is about Syria of course, but it can be any Muslim-majority country anywhere in the world as soon as the non-Muslim minorities lose protection. Assad, being from a religious minority himself was the only protection the Christians, Alawis and Druze had from the influx of Salafist idiots who pop up like mushrooms as soon as repressive but stable regimes start falling. Iraq, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, now Syria are seeing the same pattern as al Queda and others rush to exploit the ensuing power vacuums resultant from the respective regime changes.

Solutions? Bullets and Hellfires again I'm afraid, as there is no reasoning with fanatics. The Americans will grease the skids for the jihadis as they have since Iran in 1979 with lamentably predictable results for anyone who doesn't want to live in a dystopian throwback to the imagined "golden age of Islam" of the 6-7th C; in practical terms "the Stone Age" as mentioned in the linked Spiegel article.

I previously suggested setting up border enclaves for the Christians and Druze, and the Golan Heights would serve this purpose well. If Israel will offer citizenship to any non-Muslims who want to re-settle there, they will have a chance to do-over the South Lebanon buffer zone to protect themselves from Hezbollah and whatever Syria metastasizes to post-Assad. It also would strengthen Israel's de-facto annexation of Golan, and in the zero-sum world of the Middle East that which makes Israel stronger makes worse groups (pretty much everyone in the immediate neighbourhood) weaker.

Of course I don't know anything about Muslims so it's all paranoid right-wing fantasy that they drive out everyone who won't knuckle under to them, right? Sorry Genie, the real world isn't what they teach in school these days (if it ever was, to be fair) and Anglo-Saxon males and/or the USA are not the authors of all the ills of the world.

And the Truth shall see you fired

First of all, unless I name somebody specifically I am talking in generalities about groups of people. Groups of people are stupid, and anything I say about them may not apply to individual members of those groups.

Secondly, I will not deny "inconvenient" truth and I will admit when I have been PROVEN wrong. I will not roll over to group think or political correctness, but the real world has ways of putting the screws to you to at least shut you up. With that intro I will wade into this "Wired" article about elements of the US armed forces and Islam.

FACT: "Islam" means "submission", in this case to the will of Allah as promulgated by a certain Mohammad in the 6th Century AD.

FACT: "People of the Book" e.g. Christians and Jews (ha!) have limited rights in Islamic society, such as being subject to the jizya, or poll tax and a proscription on building or even repairing churches or synagogues. All of these restrictions are calculated to make it more attractive for you to convert. If you're a straight-out "pagan" it's simply conversion, slavery or death.

It's in the book, I'm not making it up. If all of this sounds like how you'd like to live, feel free to move to some Muslim country and enjoy. You might want to look into the local interpretation of Sharia before you move though...

Another fact before I jump into the deep end here: most major religions contain all sorts of barbaric old-school ideas which have no place in a modern educated and advanced society. What sets Islam apart is the "mission from God" to make the entire world Submit to it. Again, in the book(s).

Old news of course and a well-trod path here at AotF. However there is an institutional policy in many Western governments to suppress the facts as they relate to Islam and its' (and by extension its' followers) intentions.

A threat can be defined by both intention and capability. If someone intends you harm but is a quadriplegic with no influence, they are not a threat. Intention with capability is always a threat, and 1.4 billion or so self-identified people who to some extent or another think that everyone else is wrong and should convert or else could indeed be considered a threat to, well, everyone else.

Of course, most people are not particularly hard-core about what they believe and Muslims are no exception. For this reason I consider that some of the tactics discussed are a bit extreme under present conditions, e.g. using Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki as historical precedents for dealing with Mecca and Medina.

This was of course within the context of an exercise specifically designed to get people talking about what's really out there instead of the "see-no-Islam" policy of the US government. It's not the first time I've seen the idea of nuking Mecca and it won't be the last. It's a fantastically bad idea under anything less than an apocalyptic Jihad-Gotterdammerung against everyone else, where you'd better be prepared to kill over 1 billion people to neutralize that threat.

The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance, and some simple immigration policy changes could defend SUPERIOR Western civilization (yes, I said it) against creeping Islamicization of our Protestant Work-Ethic-derived societies. It doesn't mean accept nobody from Muslim countries, just screen them effectively for their willingness and ability to adapt to the way we do things. For the record this precept applies to everyone else too; what we need to screen out are ALL of the extremists.

Islam as a religion, even more so as an ideology, is a threat to human progress. Hell, organized religion in general is, but nothing else is so violent about it these days. People don't critique Islam because idiots threaten to kill them for "heresy" (and these are not mere threats), or less lethally they can be fired or demoted by panicky PC types. I read through the .pdf I linked to and nothing there is untrue, as inflammatory as some of it may be. If your only defence against an idea is to suppress it, guess what; you're in the wrong, not the people stirring things up.

The only way to deal with "true believers" of any stripe is to kill them. Avoidably killing a lot of other people while doing it though is both morally unacceptable and counter-productive. Accordingly the current assassination-by-drone-and-Spec Ops squaddies is the best maintenance policy, keeping the leadership off-balance and surgically removing the most pressing problem children. No nukes required, and even bringing that up undermines your message, allowing you to be written off as a crank. On the other hand if it ever comes to that, well, at least somebody is thinking about how to do it.

The enemy of the friend of my enemy is my friend, right?

Right at the top of this blog is my rationale for its' existence, and here is a classic case of refusing to learn from history:

On his campaign website, Romney criticizes Obama for reaching out to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the past but stops short of calling for any direct action to force Assad from power such as directly arming the opposition, as his surrogates like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) are demanding, or establishing "safe zones" for the Syrian opposition, as many of his campaign's foreign policy advisors are calling for.

Romney's official position (or lack thereof) makes more sense to me than McCain's idea since we've been down this road before and McCain should know better. I have yet to see any realistic assessment of what may come out of Syria's "civil war" that will be a distinct improvement for the USA or anyone else whose interests jive with mine. I am reminded of a similar situation in the 1980s when it was decided (in concert with the Saudis) to arm people resisting someone we didn't like, and that has been biting the West in the ass ever since.

Yes, Afghanistan. Syria is a train wreck mishmash of people who don't get along, and a lot of them don't like "us" either. The CIA is involved again, oh happy day, "vetting" who they give weapons to. Assad is using attack helicopters now; will the CIA decide to hand out some Stingers again to help the rebels?

More recent and likely more analogous is Iraq. The Yanks didn't like Saddam (not much to like, for sure) so they regime-changed his ass. Let's look at how that worked out: nearly 40,000 Coalition (mostly American) casualties (Blood) and somewhere around $2 Trillion in financial cost (Treasure). This makes no mention of Iraqi casualties, the "cleansing" of the few remaining Christians in Baghdad, internal and external displacement of Sunnis and widespread destruction of infrastructure. All of that got the Americans none of the oil revenue (enter: China) that might have underwritten giving the Iraqis a "better" government.

Yes, it would be nice to put a stick in the spokes of Iran and by extension Hezbollah by removing Bashar & Co. but would it be worth it in the long term? Doing things half-arsed gives you Libya as it is post-NATO intervention, the full monty gives you Iraq or Afghanistan.

In the bigger picture it's not much of the Americans' concern, as there are plenty of regional powers (esp. Turkey) capable of setting up the "safe areas" or putting the coup de grace to the Assad dynasty. Supporting America's friends at this time is a better use of resources than fighting on behalf of someone who has a better-than-average chance of turning on you later on.

There are plenty of capable friendly-ish countries (Turkey, Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi and Jordan) with skin in this game. Playing this one cagey is appropriate, but Romney needs to be as clear as the circumstances permit about what he is prepared to do about it. After that be prepared to be flexible 'cause things can always change...

Guns don't murder people, a**holes murder people.

There's a lot going on this week, but one of the big international stories is the "Dark Knight" shooting rampage in Aurora Colorado last week. North of the border there was another gang-banger shooting in Scarborough albeit with a smaller body count, but there are important differences between the two ( i.e. lone maniac vs. sloppy and reckless thugs). I'll look at the common element, guns, availability and use thereof.

Gun control comes up as predictably as the sun every time there's a mass shooting, and I see no reason that will change. There are of course many other ways to kill someone besides a gun, and explosives do a very effective job of it either in concert with or without firearms. As a thought experiment I'll come up with a simple way to recreate the Aurora attack (I will not help immortalize that murderer's name) if guns weren't available to him.

The 'perp's apartment was rigged with explosives, so a remote-detonated car bomb was the least risky way to kill and maim a bunch of people. Want something more personal? He could have made a bunch of pipe bombs and gone into the theatres lobbing them into the middle of the crowd. Neither of these scenarios require access to any specialized or highly controlled items or substances and could have done as much or more damage.

My point? You can't ban enough stuff to keep lunatics from flipping out and going on a spree. Likewise, even in places where it is most certainly illegal to be carrying a weapon around nothing can stop someone who has one (legally owned or otherwise) from doing so. It is a matter of near certainty that all of the gang shootings in Toronto (home of very restrictive handgun laws) were perpetrated with illegal firearms.

My answer? Mandatory concealed carry for everyone with a clean record (capable of handling a pistol) might help to cut these things short when they happen. Otherwise, accept that bad things happen and try to minimize the occurrences and/or your exposure. After that, it's all luck to not be in the path of the rare but inevitable acts of entropic violence that will erupt no matter what the "authorities" try to do to prevent it.

Allies of Inconvenience

I read yesterday about the Tuareg in northern Mali splitting with the al-Queda shitheads who have hijacked their independence campaign, but I can't find the article online so you'll have to take my word for it. It should be easy to verify if you take the time, but in any event events with the Caliphate Clowns are following their now historical pattern.

They come in, ban everything even remotely fun, smash anything that looks like someone put some effort into making it (idolatry!) and piss everyone off. This was done in Afghanistan (Taliban) Iraq (al Queda) and to some extent wherever the Islamic hardcases reach critical mass (Saudi does a reasonable approximation). The program doesn't stop with that however.

In comes the "pissing everyone off" part, and the Tuareg have now realized what sort of tiger they were riding. The Tuareg are too tough to be "eaten" by the likes of al-Queda (much better men have tried), and the refugees streaming away from the jihadis are also doing their approval polls with their feet. Conditions are being set for the one thing that weakens any sort of insurgency: it gets too strong and concentrated for its' own good.

If you lose your ability to "swim as a fish in the sea of the people" (Mao) the big guns can take you out. The Tuareg rapprochement with the international community and the southern Malians vis a vis their autonomy expectations ("like Quebec" seems to be the new version) sets the stage for somebody (USA?) to come in and kick some al-Queda ass.

The tag "unintended consequences" alludes to the position the Tuareg now find themselves in, but more so to the less proximate cause of the current Mali shenanigans, the West's regime change in Libya. The Tuareg are bandits and have been completely outgunned by the jihads loading up in Libya and rolling over the border to set up another "Islamic Republic". If we now need to go in there and kill the latter we have no one to blame but ourselves.

The Libyan Army's arsenal has scattered to the four winds, mostly ending up moving through North Africa to various Salafist organizations. Mali, Egypt, and Gaza, possibly Tunisia and Algeria too will have a lot more guns and bombs, maybe even missiles. I know what needs to be done here and I'm sure I'm not alone, but we'll see who steps in.

It's good to have a King

I opened this up yesterday realizing that I'd written nothing here in the better part of a month, but was at a complete loss for topics. This has happened before of course, but is happening more often the last year or so as I realize i don't have much to say which is new. Well, who does anyway; it's a post-scarcity world for ideas too. With that in mind, here's what I think about what David Brooks thinks about our modern elites.

Everybody thinks they are countercultural rebels, insurgents against the true establishment, which is always somewhere else. This attitude prevails in the Ivy League, in the corporate boardrooms and even at television studios where hosts from Harvard, Stanford and Brown rail against the establishment.

As a result, today’s elite lacks the self-conscious leadership ethos that the racist, sexist and anti-Semitic old boys’ network did possess. If you went to Groton a century ago, you knew you were privileged. You were taught how morally precarious privilege was and how much responsibility it entailed. You were housed in a spartan 6-foot-by-9-foot cubicle to prepare you for the rigors of leadership.

The best of the WASP elites had a stewardship mentality, that they were temporary caretakers of institutions that would span generations. They cruelly ostracized people who did not live up to their codes of gentlemanly conduct and scrupulosity. They were insular and struggled with intimacy, but they did believe in restraint, reticence and service.

This is very much my argument in favour of continuing with our (Commonwealth) constitutional monarchy. The Royal Family is raised like this (and it even takes, sometimes), providing some institutional continuity much pooh-poohed by "progressive" republican elements in our society. To wit:

Today’s elite is more talented and open but lacks a self-conscious leadership code. The language of meritocracy (how to succeed) has eclipsed the language of morality (how to be virtuous). Wall Street firms, for example, now hire on the basis of youth and brains, not experience and character. Most of their problems can be traced to this.

When things are ALL about results it can be efficient, however ruthless efficiency is no way to live. It's also no way to run a business, i.e. for "shareholder value", but this is the trap that publicly owned companies run into. It is almost universally true that short-term solutions are not good in the long run. The corollary is that long-term things have no solutions, just management.

"Nothing ever ends", Watchmen fans. If I could, I'd be setting things up for my kids and great-grand kids, and it once was that the rich (elites) had estates, Duchies, Earldoms, etc. that were handed down. You can look at this as outmoded feudalism, or you can look at it as a multi-generational company providing some certainty for the tenants.

Yes, it's de riguer to be against "the Establishment", but please somebody explain to me what that is these days? The banks? Publicly-traded companies; if you want stop the ridiculous bonuses that executives get, buy up enough stock to vote them down. Unless you'd rather just smash things because life is insufficiently handed to you. Political elites? Don't make me laugh; they are merely opportunistic and know they have a limited shelf life.

Of course there is some shadowy world-wide oligarchical elite and with enough money there is a whole lot you can influence and get done. After that though we're in Yertle the Turtle territory and if the plebes have a real problem things can go seriously sideways in the planning cycle. That's Entropy, and a multi-generational elite will account for it. They would not, for example invade Iraq and have nothing to show for it but a lot of dead and injured troops and worn-out equipment.

We have something to the best of my immediate knowledge fairly unique in history: the USA as incipient Empire which is controlled by the new meritocratic elite. Accordingly it is REALLY bad at the Empire stuff, since that requires a long-term goal and the personal investment of the planners. The latter you will most certainly not get with a "democracy", so expect more schizo foreign policy behaviour from whatever passes for "America" these days.

The Road to Hell is paved by the good intentions of the new intellectual elites in academia (who make their way into politics; hello, Obamas) and the media. The problem of course is the Marxist/socialist cant that people are prefectable, they just need to be shown the way. The old-school view is that most people are fucked and it was your Duty to lead them by example. You will rarely if ever hear a social progressive talking about Duty, as it's viewed as archaic and patriarchal or something. Not surprising, because serving as an example severely circumscribes your freedom to do what you want. The mechanical difference between the approaches is that Example leadership pulls, the Nanny State pushes.

Different elite paradigms, different problems. There is theoretical upward mobility today, but in the old days there was in the Feudal system too (William the Conqueror, anyone?). All systems bloat and ossify over time, and the newer meritocratic version has merely done so more quickly and by different mechanisms. The much railed-against credentialism of today is the prime means of keeping the riff-raff in their place. As each generation gets positions, they increase the qualifications required beyond what they needed to get there. Forty years ago you could get in pretty much anywhere with High School (admittedly they actually taught something useful back then), but that generation turned that into a BA, and in many cases they now want post-grad and experience.

That's enough from me on that (for now) but the more I think about it the more real opportunity there was under the ancien regime vs. the current system. I'll close with an axiom to keep in mind when people talk about "equality": free men are not equal, and equal men are not free.

Some actual "science" in the Climate Wars

"Global Warming" has been losing steam (ahem) for some time now as people realize that the dire predictions of environmental Armageddon have not been manifesting as prophesied. Here is one of the biggest Green prophets recanting in the face of facts. I wish this wasn't noteworthy, but here we are.

Two months ago, James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly “alarmist” about climate change. The implications were extraordinary.

Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist whose Gaia theory — that the Earth operates as a single, living organism — has had a profound impact on the development of global warming theory.

Unlike many “environmentalists,” who have degrees in political science, Lovelock, until his recent retirement at age 92, was a much-honoured working scientist and academic.

Here's the money part:

Lovelock still believes anthropogenic global warming is occurring and that mankind must lower its greenhouse gas emissions, but says it’s now clear the doomsday predictions, including his own (and Al Gore’s) were incorrect.

He responds to attacks on his revised views by noting that, unlike many climate scientists who fear a loss of government funding if they admit error, as a freelance scientist, he’s never been afraid to revise his theories in the face of new evidence. Indeed, that’s how science advances.

Emphasis mine. If you don't revise your theories in the face of new facts, that's dogma, not science. Therefore the "consensus" on "Climate Change" is... Here's a part I particularly like:

As he puts it, “so-called ‘sustainable development’ … is meaningless drivel … We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can’t stand windmills at any price.”

I wonder how many of the people who advocate wind power live anywhere near a wind turbine; anecdotally, everyone who lives near them that I've heard of HATES them. The mere sight of them makes me angry, I guess as a symbol of oppressive "Green" religion and a lack of critical thinking.

In any event, Loveleock has been very influential and the hope is that this will undermine the Gores etc. and make some erstwhile environmentalists actually think. I don't hold out a lot of hope for that as the facts were available before, but every little bit helps. More nuclear power and natural gas, and no more wind turbines and solar farms; abundant clean energy is what will allow us to survive. The universe is about what works, not what appeals to your sense of "social justice".

The 11th plague of Egypt?

Holy fuck, here we go:

CTVNews.ca Staff

Date: Sunday Jun. 24, 2012 10:42 AM ET

Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood has defeated former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq in the Egyptian presidential runoff election.

The country's election commission declared Morsi the winner of Egypt's first free elections by a narrow margin over Shafiq, the last prime minister under deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.

The commission said Morsi won with 51.7 per cent of the vote versus 48.3 for Shafiq.

A lot has been said about what will happen with the Arab world's most populous country under the thumb of the Salafists, but I will add my mite to it. I don't have anything original to add to this, but when big bad things happen I should at least acknowledge them.

While I'm here, the mess in Syria is getting more so (messy) especially with them shooting down that Turkish F4 recce plane a few days ago. Turkey is meeting with NATO under Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty while the Syrians strenuously deny any hostile intent. This is as well, as the Turks would smash what is left of Assad's military in short order, and it's possible that Turkey is looking for an excuse to do so. It is unlikely that this will go to Article 5 (an attack on one is an attack on all), but the Turks don't need any help if they decide to go for it.

Lots of fun in the Mediterranean, slightly more than average potential for widespread mayhem in fact. If the Ikwhan manage to implement their entire platform in Egypt, particularly the "kill all the Jews" part there will be a good time had by all. This is facetious of course and possibly misleading, as even a united and motivated Egyptian Army has no chance against Israel and they know it.

As I write this it is still possible that the Egyptian Army will pull an Algeria a la 1991 and say "no, we don't think so" to Islamists running the place. This didn't work so well there (though the gov't/military won in the end) so all bets are off. The only prediction I'm comfortable standing behind right now is that things are unlikely to be boring over there. For the record, "exciting" is not something you want too much of in your life if you're most people, and most people are.

Watch and shoot...

Blank Cheques and the Whirlwind

I am not commenting here on the merits of this particular case, but on the precedent it sets:

In the 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Navajo Indians and several other tribes must be paid in full for the services they provided in 1994-2001, including education, environmental protection and security.

It said that it was not the fault of the tribes that Congress had imposed a ceiling on such payments because of the lack of funds.

"The government was obligated to pay the tribes' contract support costs in full," the court said in the ruling.

The federal payments reportedly covered between 77% and 92% of the costs, depriving the plaintiffs of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The verdict is a major victory for the tribes, the BBC's Paul Adams in Washington reports.

But the decision also has implications for contractors in general, as the court said the government has to abide by its promises, our correspondent says.

If a service had been performed, the court said, then it was not good enough simply to say the money was not there.

Emphasis mine in the last sentence. I'm no lawyer, but in all civilized places contracts are taken seriously and they should be. The problem is twofold; promises and expectations

Promises first. Politicians/governments make these as a matter of course, and I don't see any end coming to that anytime soon so I guess I'm done with fold 1. Fold two is really the crux, as democratic governments cater to voter expectations via the promises mentioned above. Again, this case seems pretty straight-forward, but the final sentence shows the road to socialist penury that many nations are already on.

The general consensus (right wrong or wherever in-between) on how the EU PIGS got where they mostly (but Greece and Spain in particular) are today is a tale of unreasonable expectations. It's nice to retire at 50 on a secure pension, but not reasonable since you will not likely have put enough money aside for the next 25-40 years of your probable life. If this is the case, whose responsibility is it to pay your way? On what basis is this liability assigned, your "rights"?

In Canada we like our health care system, at least when we're not complaining about wait times and what it doesn't cover. As a society we have decided overwhelmingly that the taxes required to ensure that people aren't bankrupted by the birth of a child or an emergency appendectomy are worthwhile. You pay taxes (more accurately, are a citizen), you are covered, and nobody, not even cynical contrarians like me complain about it until non-citizens are seen to be sponging services that haven't paid into.

Even that is merely a bug in the system. People get the government they deserve, and if that's the case the Greeks in particular are in aggregate a lazy, grasping bunch. "Austerity" is the buzz-word these days, and people are voting against it all over the place, France most recently kicking Sarkozy and his belt-tightening to the curb in favour of Hollande's socialists. Apparently the French think there is still a vein of other peoples' money to be tapped for their short workweeks.

I am lightly slandering entire countries but have no fear, I don't play favourites and will dish it to my motherland should it become appropriate. At this point I will point out the forgotten detail of Austerity: it is merely living within your financial means.

Who is to blame for the current state of perpetual imminent collapse of the international monetary system (again)? The Rich? They may have influence, but the 1% are still only 1% of the electorate and the ballot box balances that influence, if enough of the other 99% choose to use it. OK then, the government? Pusillanimous politicians and parties only concerned about their political survival indeed heed the siren call of the electorate as long as it'll keep them in power, so I'll lay some blame here.

That incidentally is the best argument for rich people with a sense of national service (hereditary or otherwise) being politicians; if they don't need the money and the pension plan they are more able to make difficult/unpopular decisions. Since that is a fantasy of days gone by, the bulk of the blame for people getting hosed by government policy is indeed the people themselves. Yes, we don't know what's good for us in the long run and suffer for all the easy-credit bubbles and Ponzi schemes.

This is no surprise since by definition (Statisticians, leave me alone on the terminology) half of the population is of below-average intelligence by whatever measure you choose to use. Of the right side of the curve, a lot are mentally and/or physically lazy, just plain greedy or entitled because they are too smart for their own good. It is the job of the productive class (crossing IQ divisions) to keep the system going despite various disincentives (e.g. taxes) from entitlement-minded members of the political and electorate class.

The argument for low taxes is that it incentivizes people to live and work in your precinct. To the eternal consternation of commies of all shades, places with low taxes are typically the places closest to a balanced budget. This is because the low taxes mean that the Socialists haven't taken over, and people are still spending their own money, and not other peoples'. Don't give your government a blank cheque that your taxes can't cover. It's your fault if they overspend for more than one term of government, if they sow the wind you'll reap the whirlwind.

Better than all other forms of government, except...

In view of the mob violence which is the increasingly prevalent hallmark of modern "democracy", I saw this and thought it'd make a good counterpoint to the default "Democracy at any cost" school.

Books have been written about it, films have been made about it: Rwanda is best known for a genocide that claimed more than half a million lives in 1994.

But in the ensuing years, quiet changes have taken place there. So much so that "The Economist" magazine now asks: is Rwanda "Africa's Singapore?" The World Bank ranks it 45th in the world for ease of doing business, higher than any African country barring South Africa and Mauritius. And Transparency International says it is less corrupt than Greece or Italy.

A (post-Apartheid) Sub-Saharan society with less corruption than two EU members? I wish it was hard to believe, especially considering that Greece and Italy are "democracies", but something else is at work here. In fact, in Paul Kagame we see a pretty good example of that rarest of good governments, the Benevolent Despot.

"Benevolent" does not mean he's a saint, by any stretch. Considering how he came to power there were and remain a lot of heads to be cracked in a notoriously volatile part of the world, so I'm sure Amnesty International won't be giving him a gold star. The scale to measure a Benevolent Despot against the garden variety ones is much like the scale of judgment in the Egyptian underworld; all the bad you do should weigh no more than a feather (although I hear they used a pretty big feather).

There are a lot of places that could use a BD, and historical precedents are any good king, etc. Tito in Yugoslavia is a reasonably contemporary example. All of these occurrences, rare as they are, must be viewed through the lens of their environment, not some armchair human-rights mouthpiece. The world is what it is, most frequently not what you'd like it to be, especially if you get all of your learning from a narrow range of Utopian politically correct sources. The "Arithmetic" of the Frontier that I model this blog on (and as much of my life as I can) is "whatever works is right".

Let's take a situation which is not currently entirely out of control, Tunisia. This is the epicentre of the "Arab Spring" and as Arab countries go, particularly considering the overall state of the world economy, it was in pretty good shape under Zine El Abedine Ben Ali. There was a fairly reasonable level of corruption (real-world assessment), but no freedom of the press. This is a case of "what have you done for me lately", as for the first 20 or so years of his rule he was voted in with massive majorities, and his policies made Tunisia on of the most vibrant economies in the region.

The problem with Tunisia, like all Muslim(ish) countries is that they have too many kids, leading to "youth" unemployment. This is a deliberate plan as it was for the Catholics until recently to out-produce the infidels, but that's an aside. I will lay a significant sum of money against whatever replaces Ben Ali being better overall than what his system managed.

A surprising number of people with nice comfy lives in soft Western countries consider a free press more important than stability, at least in other countries. If the recent foolishness in Montreal was to persist or even better, escalate, being able to blog about it without the secret police (CSIS, I guess?) kicking in your door will likely be a lesser priority than having enough food in the house and/or getting to work to make a living.

Ideally you have stability and freedom of the press, etc. but if you're in a rough neighbourhood which is more important? I personally think that an inability to tolerate criticism is the mark of an insecure leader, and showing weakness in any regard is dangerous when you're on top. If I were despoting somewhere I would let the press say what they want (as long as it's true and they spell my name right) and not waste my scarce secret police resources on hassling journalists. There are plenty of other people who need visits from them, the ones who advocate violence, and secret police are just what is needed for that bunch.

Keep the gears engaged, the lights on and the food rolling in to the distribution centres; that's what keeps people alive and reasonably comfortable, and that's my measure of success. I would indeed make a few bad actors disappear for that, and I have at least some respect for anyone who can hit those benchmarks. Even (especially, to be honest) if some (deserving) heads get cracked for it. Democracy is indeed only one range of options out of many.

Risk Management and Civilization

The title link is to the oil spill from a pipeline in Alberta in the last week. There is the usual bashing of "Harper" and "Big Oil" but as it came the same week as the following I saw some blog synchronicity:

Japan must restart two nuclear reactors to protect the country's economy and livelihoods, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has said in a televised broadcast.

Measures to ensure the safety of two reactors at western Japan's Ohi nuclear plant have been undertaken, he said.

Since last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan's 50 reactors have been shut down for routine maintenance.

The crisis fuelled immense public opposition to nuclear power, but Japan is facing a summer of power shortages.

The leftist Utopian mindset is that we should get something for nothing, whether it be services (rioting "students" in Montreal this spring) or "Green" energy. Shit ain't like that, as Newton encapsulated many moons ago. There are reactions to actions, and while these can and should be be mitigated when possible, changing anything from one state to another will have a range of effects, not all of which we want.

That is where the mitigation strategies come in because radical environmentalist cant aside, the era of rampant pollution is past. Air and water are cleaner (in the developed world) than they were 40 years ago, and it's because of improved practices and technology. This brings us to Diminishing Returns and Risk Management.

It's difficult to ascribe priority to one or the other as I can make an argument either way, but for purposes of this post I'll give Risk Management planning priority. I'll also give my own interpretation of RM which is as follows: with a particular end-state in mind (affordable energy, for example) you decide what will do more damage, the various ways of producing it or the effects of not having it.

I'm sure that's close enough for unpaid work (e.g. here) to work with, and the position of the Japanese PM re: reactors is pretty much a textbook example of risk management. With all reasonable (more on that in a bit) precautions taken, the damage to society would be far greater if the power generation is foregone than the risk presented by the possibility of accident in the production of it.

It's NOT about wringing ones' hands about the worst-case-scenario and assuming that (however unlikely it is) will be what happens. In this case, something pretty close to the worst case happened at Fukushima, and as much of a mess as it is NOBODY HAS DIED because of the radiation released from it. This is after an old (and sub-optimally designed) fission reactor was completely overwhelmed by a massive natural disaster which itself killed over 15,000 people leveled a number of small cities and actually changed the elevation of those seaside areas.

There aren't a lot of ways in which that could get worse in terms of what happened in the end result at the reactor complex itself. The Wikipedia link seems (at tme of writing) well balanced, and even the worst-case reputable estimate for lifetime cancer increase amoungst those exposed (100 cases) pales in comparison to the devastation wrought by any good-sized quake in Japan. Fukushima was rated at the same level of "devastation" as Chernobyl which is questionable at the very least from the point of view of fatalities.

Chernobyl was indeed the worst case (see link above) and I notice that the world has not ended, save for the <300 people who died as a direct result of it. Risk Management in the USSR was a very blunt instrument, leading to bad designs like the RMBK reactors. Three Mile Island marked the death knell of the American nuclear power program and NOBODY even got measurably sick from it.

The word for the reaction to all of these events is "panic". I'm not a fan of panic, but there are times when some healthy caution is in order when things go wrong. It breaks, you fix it, you carry on. You do it with your car (or bike if you're a real Green hardcase), you don't say "OMG, it broke and it could fail catastrophically, cars/bikes must be banned!"

Back to the oil spill. These have happened thousands of times in the last 100+ years and again, the world has yet to end as we know it or otherwise. I am not a fan of industrial accidents, but a certain failure rate is the price of doing anything that accomplishes anything. We take reasonable precautions, the state of "reasonable" being a moving target depending on time and perspective.

Enter Diminishing Returns. Of course if we have no rules we see all sorts of short-term gain behaviour which is why unbridled capitalism is a bad idea. That said, the "worker's paradise" of the USSR and satellite Commie states made a MUCH bigger mess of the environment than the Evil Capitalist West. At a certain point in trying to improve something you will hit that point when a further 1% improvement in x will require increasingly more effort past the diminishing returns point than what led to it.

It happens with schoolwork, it happens at work and it gets to the point where further improvement is either impossible or would be uneconomical in effort or expense. Zero-defect is what we seem to expect these days, and that 's not the way things work. The key to keeping the wheels on is to not getting bogged down striving for perfection, but to keep moving forward as best we can.

Cheap clean energy is the key to the future, and the dividing line on the global warming/climate change seems to involve the definition of what is cheap and what exactly is clean. Right now natural gas seems to split the difference with only radical anti-CO2 wingnuts having a problem with it. The supposed "environmentally friendly" sources of wind and solar are anything but, and hydrocarbon based energy will be with us for the foreseeable future. As we will also be around for the (by definition) foreseeable future, we have to do the best we can to not "shit where we eat".

The best we can do will never completely eliminate human error or materials failure. We can however keep improving things as long as we keep things in perspective and keep the people who are producing what we need honest. People aren't good at thinking rationally about stuff so we'll make a mess of it, but in the meantime we'll keep the lights on and our food coming to us by making as few errors as possible while not making it impossible for people to do the things we need them to. Mistakes will be made, but clean them up, learn the appropriate lessons and keep moving forward.

Battle of the Bulge

Today I'm aiming in the general direction of the future of Western countries, staying close to home (Canada, specifically Quebec) to look at the demographic imbalance and expectations for the future.  In other words, wherever this takes me.  According to Statistics Canada, deaths will start to outnumber births in Canada c. 2030, i.e. the near future.  A quarter-century after that the population is projected to be about 42 million.  Here looks like a good spot to wander into the minefield of immigration policy so I shall start there.

It is obvious to sensible people (a rare breed, alas) that we need immigrants, but not just anyone.  Criminals, the mentally or seriously ill, the just plain stupid, we can grow our own, we don't need to import them.  We are looking for people with some kind of skill and/or a good general education including a functional knowledge of English or French (but really English for anywhere outside of Quebec, let's face it) and a desire and ability to go where the work is.

I remember a university class over 20 years ago where this subject came up, and I said something to the effect of the above.  I was promptly branded a "racist" for wanting people with education and skills, the accuser's (stated) assumption that these people could only come from Europe.  As I said not word one about source country, who exactly is the racist here?  I dismembered her quite handily in the brief debate which followed but I'm sure she's running some government department or molding young minds somewhere these days.

The young (and not-so-young) minds marching around Montreal right now are looking into the yawning chasm of the Boomer- Gen X - Gen Y crossover and those working on useless Humanities degrees (the bulk of the ones on the streets) are wondering what's in it (the system) for them.  Good question, but I don't think rampaging through the streets and getting yourself a criminal record is going to improve your prospects.

They are bafflingly getting more support these days, and I suppose we can lay this at the Premier's feet.  The "emergency law" they passed was redundant and just gave the protesters something to rally against.  These things need to be dealt with firmly from the get-go and the vacillation of the government in the early days allowed things to get out of hand.

That however is tactical, and it's the strategic situation which needs looking at.  There is currently a bulge in the population creating an oversupply of labour.  However, just like the bulge which a snake's meal creates, this will eventually pass.  The question is "when" and the answer is not encouraging for these "students".  The tail end of the Baby Boom hit 15 years old (entry to the workforce) in 1981, which means they won't hit the new retirement age of 67 until 2033.

Ouch.  This is not to say that there will be no labour mobility in the next 20 years, but with the general shift in the economy to less labour-intensive modes of production will mean that expanding economy or no, the job opportunities will not be there for many for quite a while.  What do I know, things could change, right?

If I could make accurate economic forecasts I wouldn't be writing my anonymous blog for almost no audience so we can assume there are things I don't know.  Regardless of the accuracy of my model, I would like to see what exactly these protesters intend to happen.  Don't like Bill 78? I've scant sympathy as there is nothing in that "excessive" and "abuse of power" law which will inconvenience anyone who's not invading classrooms and blocking traffic.  The government is corrupt?  No shocker that, but we have a mechanism for throwing the bums out every 4-5 years, so build up a party and get your platform of free education and unicorns for all elected in Charest's place.

All of these movements are problems without viable solutions.  If any of these people can look around at Europe (Greece et al) and remain under the illusion that there is an inexhaustible supply of other peoples' money to pay for their free tuition it's just as well they're not in school right now since education is wasted on them.  Education to me of course means information containing facts, not the hippie/radical feminist/Marxist bullshit the Gender Studies etc. faculty teaches so no wonder expectations are so divorced from reality.

One can rail against the preceding generations for stacking things in their actuarial favour but I fail to see what good that will do the following generations.  Mine (X) is the generation which will bear the brunt of this as we expected to retire at 65 or earlier and now won't be able to.  Life's hard, and we will reap the whirlwind.  It will be a LOT worse for those following us if things aren't reined under control now, and running huge deficits will not accomplish that.  As sad as it is to say, we all have to accept that the skies are not as blue for us as they were for our Boomer parents and grandparents.

Solutions?  Not exactly, but a repeal of the rampant credentialism and grade inflation which has entrenched since the 1960s would be a start.  If it is made attractive once again for companies to hire apprentices or "mail room" level people straight from Secondary school a great deal of money and student debt could be saved.  The days of a "Company" job for life are gone, but something like that could come back with advantages (stability for those who want it) for Labour and Capital.  If it worked before, a version of it could work again.  Banging pots in the streets is not going to help anything unless it by itself can smarten up people and therefore the government that supports it.  I'm not betting on that.

In the event of an actual emergency...

This is just a test to see how well posting things from my phone works.  Not being raised on texting I can't see myself doing a whole lot of this, but one never knows.  No, screw that, this sucks even more than doing it from my work computer with an outdated version of IE; big thumbs and little virtual keys don't get along well. 

Anyway, if you're reading this we know it works.  Yay mobile technology, I guess.

Demographic Adjustment

I was going to go with something about Syria, how the UN and a number of countries have finally decided that slaughtering your civilians in a reign of terror to uphold your regime is a "bad thing", but what's the point?  Gaddaffi was thrown over for much less, the only reason I can see being European economic (oil) interests and a complete lack of understanding of the internal dynamics of Libya.  Since Syria has no oil worth mentioning and Assad is inexplicably given a pass in the international community as a "reformer", I guess his timing was good on this one to capitalize on the intervention fatigue which has come in wake of Libya.

Hmm, looks like I'm talking about this anyway. I'd like to say that this is what happens when I start writing without a plan, but sometimes it happens even with one.  To take this topic as far as I can now see a point in doing, perhaps people did in fact learn something about knocking over the strongman leaders of cobbled-together states.  This could explain the lack of definitive action vs. Assad, but that gives too much credit to institutions which have failed to learn from pretty-much anything else in recent and more remote history.  The disintegration of Libya for example has already spawned an Islamist/Tuareg takeover of half of neighbouring Mali, a direct result of that conflict.

Tito and Yugoslavia, anyone?  Not exactly ancient history and there are plenty more where that came from.  There are no neat endings/answers short of forcible partition (a la Kosovo, as bad an example as that is) so what else do we have?  As always there is lots going on under rocks of various sizes the world over but I am finding myself to be caring less and less about it.  Posing problems without solutions (or at least management) is not my style, and I honestly don't know what to expect in Syria. 

Given the resources I would chop it up I guess, but there's no winning in that part of the world short of some Old Testament ethnic cleansing.  One of my recent posts noted the willingness of a large part of Egyptian society to do this to Israel, but Arabs have been trying to re-do what the Romans did nearly 2000 years ago without success for 60+ years so it's almost boring (from this distance anyway) now.

One thing I have to say is that I'm becoming fond of the idea of a few hardcore Islamic states popping up in certain places.  My rationale is that this gives you something that you can attack as it concentrates terrorist idiots wonderfully.  Northern Mali? A good opportunity to kill a bunch of guys the world will not lament passing; it worked in Iraq and it's working to some extent in Somalia and Yemen right now so it's not without precedent.

And this takes us to Diversity as a policy.  It doesn't work.  People don't like "us" all that much, they REALLY don't like "them" in any quantity too near them.  This is as politically incorrect as all get-out, but it's a demonstrable fact.  The divide can be racial, though far more often it's religious/ideological/cultural, and the more of those differences you combine the worse the animosity is.  The answer to this would seem to be "split them up" would it not?  Yes, but...

People are even in our "enlightened" age essentially tribal and will almost always at least temporarily expand their "us" net to sweep in those with relatively minor differences when faced with a real "other".  Subdividing people too much would destroy these accommodations, so as much as I think maps need to be redrawn, more consideration and less zeal needs to be brought to bear on the process.  And yes, moving people around is the best way to accomplish this effectively (Greece and Turkey in the 1920s).

Back to Syria to close things out, here's a proposal: carve away a section for the Alawites, Christians and Druze along the Lebanese/Israeli border, leave the Sunnis the rest of it, maybe taking off the NE corner as a contribution to "Kurdistan".  Lots of hardship associated with this and a lot of other problems (Turkey's reaction to the Kurdistan idea not the least of them) but you know, omelets, eggs, etc.