What's this debt that we're talking about? (reposted from Friday, July 29, 2011)

http://innovation.cq.com/media/debt_components/

Of the 14.3 trillion, the Fed holds 1.4 trillion, which I wrote about before.   That must mean that the Treasury owes the Fed this amount.  If the Treasury coined 1.4 trillion, it can then be used to pay off this debt, thereby lowering the debt outstanding by that amount, right?  Then "new" debt could be issued that would be under the debt ceiling imposed by Congress.  I know this probably sounds crazy, but what could prevent it?

The Treasury has the power to mint coins, if what I read is true.  Now, I don't know that they should really want to do this, but it may all be legal and above board.  If all of this is indeed true, then all we have here is a lot of huffing and puffing over nothing.

Update:

Now, it looks as if the government has set up accounts for Social Security Trust Fund.  Are checks drawn on this account?  If so, how can checks not be sent out if there's a government shutdown?

Nevertheless, the government could move the account to the Federal Reserve and not change anything at all.

The monthly checks that pay benefits would go out each month and it would be drawn on the Federal Reserve, not the Treasury.

The Federal Reserve is not the government.  It is a government sponsored entity, so that is a distinction.  It may be easier to make that distinction if the checks were coming from the Federal Reserve instead of the Treasury.


Update: Here's the chart with some comments attached.

Elon Musk says $500 pound to orbit is achievable

SpaceX

Comment:

I think he will succeed.

But what would you do with something like that?  If it is a heavy lift design, as he indicates that it would have to be, then it may be useful to deliver fuel to fuel depots.

It reminds me of the question I sent in to the Space Show with respect to the Sea Dragon.  It was called "dreamy".  If Musk accomplishes this, he will achieved what I was attempting to refer to with respect to the Sea Dragon--- low cost, but high volume of matter delivered to space.  The sheer bulk would be useful as fuel.

With fuel, you can get anywhere in the solar system.  But not necessarily fast.

For a trip to Mars, you need a million pounds per astronaut.  For $500 pound to orbit, that 500 million bucks each.  That means a crew of 4 could be sent to Mars for the fuel cost of 2 billion bucks.

The rest shouldn't be any heavier than the fuel.  As a matter of fact, the biggest part of the cost is getting the fuel up there.

Mars will be conquered.  When Musk says in 10 to 20 years, he ain't bullshitting.  It's going to happen.

Next Big Future: First Day of Solar City IPO going well

Next Big Future: First Day of Solar City IPO going well: WSJ - SolarCity's shares opened at $9.25 on the Nasdaq Stock Market NDAQ -0.29% on Thursday, up 16% from their $8 IPO price. The stock conti...

Prediction:

Another one of Elon Musk's deals.  But this one will flop.

Next Big Future: Spacex President talks Air Force Launches and Says...

Next Big Future: Spacex President talks Air Force Launches and Says...: The president of SpaceX said the U.S. domestic space launch market has “changed dramatically” in the last two weeks as a result of an Air F...

Prediction:

SpaceX will own space in the future.

A little help in claiming your identity

That last post introduced the possibility of confusion everywhere.  Well, let's de-confuse everybody and see who's who in this here country.

Obama's fairy tales

He says that he's a moderate Republican.  Guffaw.  Tee hee.  Lol.

But get this--- there's a regulatory tsunami heading this way.  Of course, Obama's telling his fractured fairy tales and forgot to mention this.  I mean, it might have hurt his re-election or something.

Well, let's look at a few quotes

You have no doubt heard the term “unfettered capitalism” bandied about by the left over the last several years. This refers to the left’s idea that American businessmen are a bunch of robber barons who practice a kind of predatory capitalism not seen since the gilded age.

Even Krugman admits that general well being improved during the Gilded Age.  Looks like we need some more robber barons.  But no.

It’s a cute bedtime story, but anyone who uses the term “unfettered capitalism” to describe how American business operates in the 21st century is an ignoramus. The Federal Register, published every week day and containing all proposed rules and regulations — most of which govern business activities — was 81,000 pages in 2011 alone. 

And we're going to get more?   And Obama claims he's a Republican?

Well, if Bonehead agrees with his tax hikes, he might be right.  It looks like this fractured fairy tale.  Nobody knows who they are anymore.

Physicists extend entanglement in Einstein experiment

Free Republic

After reading the phys.org article that the above linked Free Republic post refers to, I have a headache.  It is couched in so much scientific jargon that I'm feeling a bit entangled myself.

Seriously, if there's a way to use this, it may be possible to make some super futuristic devices with it.  But if you tried to explain how, you'd get some funny expressions on people's faces.

Quantum physics is strange shit.


Update: My most popular video ever.

Party Discipline

Seems like I read something ( sorry I cannot provide the link ) which illustrates how they keep members of Congress in line:   If you don't vote the right way, you get crummy committee assignments.

Why not retaliate for this?  If you get a crummy committee assignment, then threaten to not vote for Bonehead for Speaker.  If nobody else is nominated on the GOP side, then threaten to vote for Pelosi!  If that gets you booted from the so-called party, then join the Libertarians.  If there's no Libertarians in Congress, then be willing to be the only one.  At least the Libertarians might like you.

You don't need their friendship if their friendship costs too much.  Selling your soul isn't worth the world, you know.

Cassini spots mini Nile River on Saturn moon

esa

12 December 2012

The international Cassini mission has spotted what appears to be a miniature extraterrestrial version of the Nile River: a river valley on Saturn’s moon Titan that stretches more than 400 km from its ‘headwaters’ to a large sea.

 Looks to me like it is a better candidate for colonization than Mars.  It has most of everything for life except energy.  You can bring your own energy if you use nuclear energy, but alas, that is not in favor these days.

Government Scientist Threatens “Murderous Rampage” After Watchdog.org Exposes Massive Spending at Secret Junk Science Lab

thegatewaypundit via Free Republic

A woman angered by a Watchdog investigation into the government lab where she works retaliated by threatening mass murder against this news organization in several Twitter posts.

Comment:

Albert Einstein thought up the Theory of Relativity while working as a clerk in the patent office.  Besides that, the government couldn't have funded a search for a theory that doesn't yet exist.  It can only fund a theory that they already believe in--- like global warming.

Just a reminder that real science doesn't have to be funded by the government.

Pundit Press: Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven

Pundit Press: Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven: Everybody wants an “A” but nobody wants to study.   Everybody wants to be rich but nobody wants to save.   Everybody wants to lose weigh...

Grow up, people.  But being a perpetual kid is kinda the way they want us to be.

Hey, don't be a gloomy gus. Maybe this will cheer you up.

Caltech engineers invent light-focusing device

The computers get smarter while we get dumber.

Well, at one area is improving by leaps and bounds.  /sarc

Thoughts on the road, 12/13/12

Some ideas that I thought up while working yesterday:

The idea of the Trillion Dollar Coin for a Social Security Lockbox is too provocative.  Another possibility is to do it like it is done generally -- the Treasury will issue bonds and put them up for sale, the Federal Reserve then buys them in open market operations.  It would entail the use of accounting entries in the creation of money.  It wouldn't be a coin, but it would be the same doggone way they are doing it now in order to fund the government.  If you still don't like that idea, then use $100 bills printed up for that purpose.  Then deposit these bills in a vault and draw the money out for Social Security checks.

With respect to getting stuff into space on the cheap, I thought up this doozy.  Put a John Hunter type Gas gun on a plane.   After further thought, and a quick review at the link, I nixed this idea as impractical.  I figured the gas gun wouldn't be quite so doggone big.  Even a small payload takes a really big gun.  So this wouldn't fit on a plane.  Shoot, I thought that was a good idea.  Not so good after all.

Hunter's idea seems like a good one though.  It doesn't appear to be gaining much traction out there.  I saw no progress on achieving his goals.  This allows me to segue into a post that I started yesterday morning, but didn't finish.


Do you observe attempts to predict the future which miss the mark widely?  Hmm.  Is there a conspiracy to maintain the status quo?  Why haven't things improved as much as was thought?  Why aren't there colonies on Mars and flying cars and so forth? Could it be by design?  What are some possible conspiracies to keep us down at the lowest possible levels of societal development:

1. To keep Molten Salt Reactors off the market
2. To suppress Cold Fusion research
3. To refuse to fund alternatives to tokomaks--- any alternatives which would be more economical
4. To refuse to fund alternatives to big rockets in the space program
5. To maintain copyrights and other intellectual property even though doing so would be unreasonable
6. Using union violence to maintain special privileges, such as what is happening in Michigan

There may be more of these, but I think this covers a wide range of possibilities that could be transformative if even one of the above was to be adopted.

State Department "Security" Officers In Benghazi Were Unarmed

Ace of Spades

This was the security situation Obama and Hillary engineered -- five dudes, with no time together to form any sort of group cohesion, without guns. The serious military security had been sent away in August, over the objections of the consulate's security chief.

Comment:

This was no accident.  This administration wanted this outcome and then wanted to blame America for it.

How do people fail to see this?

You mean follow the Constitution? Who'd a thunk.

Senator Jeff Sessions: Here's A Crazy Idea, Maybe We Should Follow Constitutional Procedures And Not Backroom Deals To Handle The Fiscal Cliff

quote:

This is the exact opposite of the hidden negotiations to avert the so-called fiscal cliff. Washington has become possessed by the idea that a small group of negotiators, meeting in secret, can solve the deep, painful and systemic problems plaguing this country with a single "grand bargain," produced at the 59th minute of the 11th hour. This is a siren song.

Comment:

I smell a rebellion in the air.  The leadership can do what they want, but the rank and file may not follow.

Mitsubishi Reports Toyota Replication [of Iwamura's LENR transmutation of elements]

New Energy Times via Free Republic

The physicist, Yasuhiro Iwamura, told the ANS audience that the Toyota researchers confirmed that nuclear changes from one element to another took place without the use of high-energy nuclear physics. Most scientists who have not followed this field closely consider such profound claims inconceivable. Toyota used a LENR deuterium-permeation transmutation method that Iwamura invented.

Comment:

I've almost forgotten about cold fusion.  Despite all of the skepticism about cold fusion, there simply isn't explanation for why stories like this pop up from time to time.  There must be something there that is getting suppressed.  The powers that be just don't want to have their rice bowls overturned.

Fed Bond-Buying Bonanza: $85 Billion a Month Until Unemployment Hits 6.5%

Breitbart via Free Republic

• the Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it will keep interest rates near zero and will purchase $85 billion in bonds every month until unemployment falls from its present 7.7% to 6.5%
• The newly unveiled numerical policy guidelines offered the most specific suggestion yet that the Fed is willing to tolerate slightly higher inflation as it tries to juice up a moribund economy and spur stronger job growth. ( Reuters link)
• Since that effort failed to create economic growth, and the Fed has no more short-term securities left to sell, the Wall Street Journal says the Fed will “effectively print more money” out of thin air to fund the scheme.[emphasis added]
• Since 2008, the Fed has more than tripled the size of its portfolio of assets to $2.861 trillion.

Comment:

Put the coin in the Social Security lockbox which currently has only IOUs.  How is that any different than this story?

Using maglev for launch boost

 ( MAB part 9, part 8 here)

There was something somewhere, I forget where, that said there was a study about that.

Speculation alert.

Now, imagine this:  You could use this maglev to accelerate a launcher that would have enough lift to get airborne.

From that point, it would then switch to air breathing boost mode using beamed microwave energy from the ground.  This would take the craft upward according to Parkins doctoral thesis.  Not a traditional trajectory, but a rather steep one.  The idea is to get above the atmosphere. Parkins wanted to do a super burst of speed to get to orbit at that point.  But let's consider another possibility.

Instead of continuing at high acceleration from there, it releases a second stage and then returns to base to be launched again.  The idea here is to minimize the amount of jet power needed, and thus the amount of energy needed to get to the release point.  This is accomplished with the maglev and the minimized amount of mass needed to be lifted.

A thought just occurred to me.  Why not accumulate gases on the way up?  These would be used for the next rocket burst up to the release point.  A bit more mass for tanks and gas collection machinery, but you may need to do this because you will be going to rocket mode once you get high enough in the atmosphere.

The second stage is now considered as follows:

Would use a light weight design that would deliver a small payload to orbit.  A Centaur design is actually a bit bigger than I envision.  Anway, it may be a carbon composite design that was attempted with the X-33 system.  But since the design is minimized in terms of mass, it may have a better chance of working.

Also, you want to use the heat resistant tiles used on the Space Shuttle.  Nobody is onboard, so even if they fail, you only lose your vehicle.  In addition, there shouldn't be any foam strike possibility which caused the Shuttle Columbia loss.

Starting at row 16, look at various combinations of rocket formula using Centaur as a model, and Falcon 9 data from a recent post, result is that you may achieve reusability with a craft weighing as little as 20000 lbs. that will deliver 1000 kg to orbit.

Counting the MAB aeroshell, the entire wet mass of the vehicle on the ground could be comparable to an aircraft being launched from an aircraft carrier.  True, it will only deliver 1k kg to space, but it could launch frequently.  This could add up to a significant mass over time.

Update:

The x37b spacecraft doesn't weigh too much more than the minimum payload here.  The x37b was based upon the x40 which would be close to the 3000 lb payload listed above.  If 3000 lb is used, then the weight would be considerably more than an aircraft on an aircraft carrier.  But much less than a typical rocket.


Update:

Next in series here.  It jumps up to 12, so there's two missing.  The text on number 12 says there are only mentions, so it may not have been a full post.

Space may turn into science fantasy--- not fact, nor fiction

For me and the general public, that is.  There's nothing I can do about this subject personally except to write about it.  Nothing for the general public either.

The big players, like Elon Musk, will be the ones driving this forward.  All anybody like me can do is to watch from the distance.  Hell, you can't even invest in it.  SpaceX is private.

What this will mean to the general public?  It all depends on how successful Musk will be.  I figure that his reusable rocket proposition has a great chance of success.  It is what he decides to do with this technology that puzzles me.  He wants to go to Mars, but for what exactly?  He wants to take a colony there.  What will they do there?  What is the purpose for being there?

Terraforming Mars is a fool's errand.  It won't last even if it's successful.  It may make sense to mine the asteroid belt using Mars as a jumping off point.  Nobody is discussing that at the moment.

If all I can do is watch and speculate, then it is a bit disappointing.  But I am game to do even only this much.  The thing that I can do is thought experiments.  Nobody will take up the experiments most likely, but at least it will be discussed here.

Next Big Future: Carnival of Space 279

From the carnival, a couple of items caught my interest:

1. Tranquility Base: A Moonwalker Invents a Mars Cycler: Before he traveled to the moon, Dr. Buzz Aldrin completed a PhD thesis exploring how to dock spaceships  in the event of instrument failure....
2. Next Big Future: Orbital Sciences Replaces SpaceX on Stratolaunch P...: Space.com - After the exit of launch services provider SpaceX as its rocket subcontractor, Stratolaunch Systems has turned to Orbital Scien...

Comments on the two links:

1. There was a 8 part series on this blog about terraforming asteroids to be used as cyclers.
2. A shocker.  I really like the idea of using an airlaunched assist in order to get to space.  Without SpaceX here, this may be a fatal blow to the project.  Another way of looking at is that SpaceX doesn't need them.  Furthermore, SpaceX isn't a public company.  That leaves out the possibility of investing in them with common stock.  SpaceX is disappointing me.

An additional thought:

While I'm at it, there was something on Instapundit on terraforming Mars.  In my opinion, that is a mistake.  The entire reason that Mars is a cold, dry planet is because it doesn't have a magnetic field, as Earth does.  It will only lose its atmosphere again if it is restored.  The sun will strip away its atmosphere with the solar wind.  There's no magnetic field to protect the atmosphere as we have on Earth.

GOP leadership has Stockholm Syndrome

It is inevitable.  Since leadership is determined by seniority, it is inevitable that these politicians that stay long enough in DC start to act like a typical DC insider.  They've been captured and brain washed like a battered wife.  No wonder they aren't distinguishable from the Democrats.

Cheer Up! There’s A Lot We Can Do!--- Dick Morris

Dick Morris TV: Lunch Alert!

Yeah, there are a lot of things we can do, but the same-old same-old won't cut it.

Thoughts on the road, 12/10/12

1.

There's a lot of angst on the conservative side of the aisle with the expected cave-in on taxes.  Republicans are preparing for the next election, but none of this floor show will make any difference to me.  Where's the problem solving?  Where's the creative leadership?

2.

The leadership seems to be on the other side.  This is not meant to be in admiration, but simply an observation.  In spite of the craziness of the proposals, there doesn't seem to be any response except for rejection to any new ideas.

All of the focus on entitlements are well and good, but that's not the only area in which government spending is out of control.  Besides, the people are already paying for their social security.  They are not paying for the other things that government finances.  When Republicans try to get control over this spending and shut down the government, the left just threatens to withhold social security checks.  So, the Republicans have no effective means of opposition that will work.  The Democrats just make the threats to do things like make trillion dollar coins, or threaten not to send out social security checks, and the GOP just caves in.

So, why not try to be creative?  Why not put a big ( trillion dollar ) coin in the social security trust fund, which currently has nothing but IOU's in them?  You could then separate the social security budget from the rest of the budget and concentrate on each separately.  From that point on, all social security checks will be backed up by a funded account.  The threats to senior citizens will hold no more force.  Once that account starts to run out of money, they will have to go before the public and raise taxes in order to keep it solvent.  Just break down the problem into smaller parts and it will not be so insurmountable.

By separating out social security, they will be able to shut down the government and it won't have the sympathy of the public.  Why?  Well, how are you going to get sympathy when a big company doesn't get its subsidies?  Fight that way, and you have a chance to win.

3.

We don't have any creativity like this, nor any backbone.  It makes me suspicious that they really don't have any intention to do anything at all.

Evidently, they have this faith that fiscal moves like tax cuts are going to be the salvation of us all.  We are going to need more than just that.  We need growth drivers, like the world wide web was in the nineties.  But how?

There's a current model for success in the space program.  As Bill Whittle discussed in his video, it comes down to a matter of how these space programs get funded.  If it is cost plus, it almost guarantees a bloated, gold-plated government program, like Constellation or its replacement--- the SLS.  If it is fixed price contracts, the incentives assure that the spending will be effective and produce results that are on budget---like Spacex's Falcon 9 rocket.

You can expand that model throughout government and have a leaner, more efficient government that can do the big things again.  Or it can do the mundane things that it already does and do it better, cheaper, and faster.  There's simply no excuse for the government to be this big and this inefficient.

But their stuck-in-the-mud oppositional tactics guarantee failure at every turn, and the country loses by default, just as Romney did in this last election.  Our problem isn't just big government, its bad government that has no ideas, nor solutions to our problems.  All it seems that it has is useless floor shows like the current one in the GOP and the bigger one in Washington DC.

You Haven't Realized, Goldman Sachs Is Predicting A Major Economic Turn To Happen In 2013

bi via Free Republic

The call is based on an expectation of private sector releveraging, coupled with the end of the fiscal drag.

Comment:

But why?  Bi says,

The clearest area of macro improvement in the US so far has been in the housing market, with that trend expected to continue into 2013. Over the past year, many housing indicators – housing starts, home sales, permits issued and house prices – have turned higher. The NAHB Homebuilder survey indicates that although housing activity remains below “neutral” levels, it is improving rapidly.

If that's true, we may soon see the inflation scenario.

Europe clings to scorched-earth ideology as depression deepens

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard via Free Republic

Austerity takes a greater toll on GDP during a deleveraging crisis than orginally thought, doubly or triply so in countries that cannot devalue or cushion the blow with monetary stimulus.

Comment:

Could it be that leveraging caused the problem in the first place?  I don't know about Europe, but in America, we have a fractional reserve system.  That is leverage.  I am persuaded that leverage is asking for trouble, because it tends to magnify failure in a cascading event that we are observing.

If it is based upon ideology, as the title suggests, it is another example of how ideology can make you stupid.

Of wolves and sheepdogs

Bill Whittle used to have a website called Eject! Eject! Eject!  He wrote a number of interesting posts and one of them that was quite memorable was called Tribes.

In that post, he mentions a Vietnam-Era colonel who said that there are three kinds of people-- wolves, sheep, and sheepdogs.  The wolves prey on the sheep mercilessly and the sheepdog protects the sheep from the wolves.

Now, we have had a presidential election in which the people, who are the sheep, get to choose who their leader will be.  Obama managed to convince people that he was the true sheepdog and that Romney was the wolf.  People believed it.  I don't buy it at all.  Obama is the wolf and I don't know about Romney.  Maybe they both are wolves.

The trouble with sheepdogs is that they look a lot like wolves.  So the sheep have a hard time identifying them.  A good disguise will fool the folks down home.  Obama has a good disguise and a good ally in the media that helps keep the disguise intact.  Benghazi blew that cover--- and what is so troubling is that the disguise worked in spite of that.  Romney is suspect because he didn't immediately recognize that Obama was the wolf and this Benghazi event outed him--- or he did recognize that, and refused to scream bloody murder about it.   Romney is at least somewhat complicit in maintaining Obama's disguise.  That's the most troubling thing.

We are in a lot of trouble.

reality TV

There's a post on Parapundit that is, shall we say, "interesting".  The lead in to the post is about reality TV and it ends up discussing sex.

As anyone who reads any of this blog will know, I don't watch TV anymore.  Haven't been watching for at least a decade.  Stuff like this just does not get my attention.  Can't say why this article even made it on my radar screen.  But the sex stuff kept my attention and it was interesting to read.

Taking it to its conclusion ends up with a link to this:  A Woman Explains Why Chicks Dig Jerks.  I relate to the post "Life's Disappointments", in which I had a bit of a falling out with my mother about marriage and so forth.

Anyway, I relate to the other and see how ridiculous it all is and was.  It only confirms what I wrote before that Sex is Stupid.

Yep, and that explains how we end up with Obama.  Makes you despair for the whole friggin' human race.

Update:

It should be noted that the author of Parapundit thinks rather poorly upon those with low IQ.  He expresses the ideas that made up the movie Idiocracy.  However, I am not so enamored of the conventional wisdom about the meaning of high IQ anyway.  College professors aren't my idea of the peak of intelligence if it is the likes of Obama that they prefer.

The old man said that there were two kinds of sense---common sense and book sense.  I didn't believe him then, but I am starting to believe that now.

People who follow Obama and leftists in general have no damned common sense.  Lots of Obama voters were women, and they are a lot like the women described in not so flattering terms in the links above.

There it goes again

Back in October, I wrote about the song by The Doors---The End.  It was a song playing in my head for some strange reason that I couldn't figure.  Now it's there again.  I feared something ominous.  Since then, Obama has been re-elected.  The recent news isn't reassuring, either.

Could it be back because of such stories as these?

Freedom threatened by plan to federalize local government in Florida

It worries me because the states are the one entity that can still rein in the Feds.  Now the Feds can get control over them.

Governor Strongly Backs “Assisted Suicide”

It worries me that this suicide could become legalized homicide for inconvenient persons to the state.

Obama administration investigating sergeant who said the Bible condemns homosexuality

Now the government wants to adjudicate the Bible?  Even Hitler wouldn't have attempted this.

Intelligence Institute Study shows Fox News viewers have an IQ that is 20 points lower than the U.S. National average.

Yahoo "News"  via Free Republic

P. Nichols concludes that he wasn't shocked by the studies' results, rather how dramatic their range. "Several previous studies show that self-identified conservatives are less intelligent than self-identified moderates. We have never seen such a homogeneous group teetering so close to special needs levels."

This is something that probably gets repeated so much that it gets believed.  There was so many non sequiturs coming from the Obama campaign that I feared that we are being led by a moron.  Rest assured, this report makes me feel so much better.  /sarc

For the sake of peace, Israel needs to stop being reasonable

Legal Insurrection

I sent my friend at Stanford the link, along with this comment:

I hate being right about this all the time, but this is essentially as easy as picking the winners of a ballgame the morning after.

Insisting that Israel be reasonable with an unreasonable enemy is, as Orwell said of pacifists, objectively pro-fascist.

Isn't it amazing how similar these "fiscal cliff" negotiations are with this Hamas junk?

How dumb can you be?

Alvin Weinberg's post-war evaluation of Hitler's nuclear program

Frank Munger's Atomic City Underground | knoxnews.com via Instapundit

Atomic City Underground.  What a name.

As for names, Weinberg's has been on this blog a few times.  Just updated the index.  I've been remiss in not doing it sooner.

Money, money, everywhere, but not a drop for small conservative bloggers

William A. Jacobson

What I am saying is that giving money to the GOP is not going to fix this problem, because the people who run the GOP don’t even understand the problem.

Comment:

Part of the reason is that they have been captured by DC.  Do you remember the Patty Hearst case?  Or have you heard of it?  I ask the second question because I am assuming you are as old as I am.  Patty Hearst was captured and subjected to indoctrination until she broke down and started to identify with her captors.  I think that has happened to the Republicans in DC.  Until they break free of this influence, they will continue to behave as the enemy does--- and that is bad news for the party and the country.

Yin and yang

That's what Joker is talking about, but he can't seem to explain it to the colonel.




Capitalism seems to fail, and that gives rise to Socialism. In China, Socialism fails and gives rise to Capitalism. Yin and Yang.

Fight the Power is a song about fighting the powers that be. But the oppressed take over and become the oppressors. Yin and Yang.



We all had better get our heads wired up with our asses, or the Man will take a giant shit on us all.

Thoughts

1. Capitalism is the creation of wealth.  Socialism is the redistribution of wealth.  Wealth is a means to an end, not an end in itself.  With Capitalism, you have hope for achieving that end.  With Socialism, seizing wealth is an end in itself and its own end comes when they run out of other people's money--when all hope is lost.
2. Socialists have to demonize wealth creation in order to explain why Capitalism fails.  But Capitalism doesn't fail if it isn't tried.  Socialists strive to make sure that Capitalism should not be allowed to try.
3. People may never get rich, but over time, peoples do.  Poor people today are richer than the greatest kings of yesteryear.  The peoples of today are richer than the peoples of the past.
4. Success doesn't come automatically with the mere passage of time.  People lived the same way for thousands of years.  The most recent times have been the exception--- not the rule.  The lot of humanity was summed up with the quote that "the natural state of mankind...solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short".   The industrial revolution was run by robber barons who made everybody rich in comparison with the past.
5. Socialists believe the proposition that all men are created to be slaves to the state, and are dedicated to the proposition that all must be equally miserable.
   
   
   
   

How Corruption Is Strangling U.S. Innovation

Harvard Business Review via Free Republic

quote:

The corruption to which I am referring is the phenomenon of money in politics.

Comment:

Ka-Ching!  That's it!

What in heavens sake is this crazy Texan referring to, you might wonder.  Well, what is the first reaction that you may have if you are a Republican?  It should be that this is a Democrat talking point and this is just a Democrat telling another one of their lies.  So, you are quite tempted in shutting down your thought process and ignore this article.  But that would be a mistake.  You must read this because it goes after the incumbents who stifle new ideas.  That's what's killing innovation.

quote:

And finally, if you were in any doubt how deep inside the political system the system of contributions have allowed incumbents to insert their hands, take a look at what happened when the Republican Study Committee released a paper pointing out some of the problems with the current copyright regime. The debate was stifled within 24 hours. And just for good measure, Rep Marsha Blackburn, whose district abuts Nashville and who received more money from the music industry than any other Republican congressional candidate, apparently had the author of the study, Derek Khanna, fired. Sure, debate around policy is important, but it's clearly not as important as raising campaign funds.  

Comment:

Glenn Reynolds has been writing about the copyright thing continually.

It's all about money.  Republicans chasing campaign funds.  Limbaugh says that money is the mothers milk of politics.  They are dependent upon this for their power, or so they think.  So, they sell out for money.  Meanwhile, the Democrats run their money machine to buy votes.

Money is the root of this evil.  What do you do about it?

You don't do what the Democrats want.  They want publicly financed elections. No.  There has to be a better way.

Small Craft Advisory: The Fiscal Cliff And The Alinsky President

Damon Koch  via Ace of Spades

quote:

the President spews out this categorically false narrative and a certain percentage of the population laps it up like kittens lapping milk from a bowl

Comment:

The answer isn't to point fingers at them.  The answer is to look in the mirror and see what you're doing wrong.  Republicans can't keep their people united around some core principles.  If the leadership won't do it, how can anybody expect the people to follow them?