Vivek's latest scandal will give the Democrats the Ohio Senate seat and the governor's mansion. Because VP Vance spoke admirably about the ad in question, he has shamed himself so bad that he can never be elected President in his own right. The worship of CEO heroes in the tech world has been shown to be amateur hour. It takes a combination of values/empathy and intuition/ethics to serve effectively as President. CEOs are either wired to run their operation based on their values - including enriching themselves - or based in thinking, but both kinds lack what it takes for moral leadership.
The way the DNC works, VP Harris will get another turn. The way the GOP works, the Koch money will find Governor Haley.
This week was a good week for Nikki.
The only way Vance is president is if Trump dies or is removed. Whether Xi or Trump un-alives first is a question for Kalchi - with Putin thrown in with what may be an imminent coup. I wonder what the odds will be.
Almost there. God does not judge at all. We invented the original sin of knowing the good and bad of other people. No atonement is ever needed. Instead, the sacrifice of the Christ was to show the availability of forgiveness and the divine vision quest to experience the pain of being forsaken - which we do to each other and which is part of human existence. When he said "I thirst" he was sealing the kingdom with his blood/Eucharistic wine. In John, he drank it. The synoptics are not clear - but they do reflect that a promise was made to not imbibe until after trial was done and salvation had been achieved - which it was when Jesus cried out in despair.
There is actually real time evidence of God's mercy. NDE survivors relate that Love (who Jesus would have known as Shekinah) holds onto us when we go through our life reviews. We accuse ourselves and experience our failings - God does not do that to us.
Last week, DJT showed visible discomfort when he and Xi were honored with a flyover. How high was the pass? As a former AF civilian who was stationed on an active base, I know what getting buzzed by a squad of fighter planes as they kick in the afterburners. Not fun, but definitely memorable.
My point is, Trump's reaction, like his diet, points to autism, which is often comorbid with ADHD.
There was a time when we did not comment on other people's disabilities (or neurodivergence). Maybe we need to take a step back and not make fun of Trump for things he cannot control.
Have there been other neuro-divergent presidents? Let me know in the comments - or do a video.
Comm-Symp MAGA v Cooperative (Libertarian) Socialism
He who must not be repeated should have his picture in the Dictionary next to the term Communist Sympathizer. He loves his Soviet Dictators (and Putin is the ultimate Soviet - a KGB Lt. Colonel brought into the government because of his service) - especially the little dictator from the North. He even gave up Bargrham AFB in Afghanistan - which was the perfect base to take out Chinese Nukes.
I spent my early career in the DoD buying stuff to nuke those who would nuke us. I will never support a President who sympathizes to those who I would nuke.
Usually Soviet supervisors hang with other communist supervisors. Team Crazy was full them. Rudy's little tour of Ukraine and the associated plot was Kremlin funded. Gen. Flynn (along with Tulsi Gabbard) received honors from Putin. Byrne, a minor American capitalist, used to sleep with GRU/KGB/NRA agent Maria Butina. As far as I know, only the Kraken lady was not a Soviet spy.
If you support a Kremlin Sympathizer, what does that make you?
I would still run GOP (but not MAGA). My great grandfather, who helped found the Farm Bureau and Land O' Lakes (both cooperatives - which is short for cooperative socialist) was a Lincoln Republican. As a GOP nominee, I would advance making all stock sales to employee owners entirely tax free - not just from private shareholders - but public as well. I would not seize productive assets - we cannot do that without compensation - but I would give those who sell them a tax break. I would also give a 100% refund (not simply an exclusion) to people who collect sales taxes for the taxes they pay. If the states do that refund, there would be no federal refund. There would absolutely be a 100% federal refund - not just a deduction.
I would also give every family a $4000 per year per child tax credit increase - through employers or Social Security/UI checks - for a total of $6000 per year - or $500 per month per child, distributed with payroll. This is straight up Communism - it is also part of the GOP agenda - and the Democratic agenda. We talk about it. It is time to do it.
Have a great Sunday. Especially if you give up being a KGB-MAGA sympathizer.
1. The AI bubble and how it relates to the asset bubble - where billionaires borrow against their wealth rather than selling it and paying capital gains taxes. The problem is if their assets crash, their loans default and the bank takes their stuff - which could crash the economy as the banks try to sell it. The AI bubble will pop because the large language model dream will not produce AI - singularity or otherwise.
2. The way out of the AI bubble is to map the 8 Jungian cognitive functions (internal/external) x thinking/feeling + sensing/intuition onto the four cultural ways of life - despotism, hierarchy, sectarianism/activism and withdrawal/non-conformity in a way that individuals and businesses find useful. Watch and share if you want to know human behavior and get rich by knowing it.
3. What to do with FACEBOOK, as an example. The same way people ditch YouTube and do Nebula which they pay for, FB could do to bring back its best features: Group newsfeeds without ads and Notes. Keep Reels - we like that - and quit showing us friends who we do not know - and here is an improvement - follow people within our friend groups who are added by other friends so that we can friend them too.
The problem with social networking (including YouTube, X, Facebook, et al) is that you have Bots that view content and trigger ad revenue to fund contract creators who are also Bots. This is called the Dead Internet. At some point, real people will leave platforms to the dead internet and suddenly the share values used to borrow money rather than simply selling stock and owning assets out right (without leverage), making the billionaires broke. If billionaires actually start selling their companies (quietly) and PAYING their capital gains taxes the debt crisis will also start to wind down.
I have a place to stay and food - with free bus and tuition - regardless of whether anyone shares this or subscribes - however, I would rather than you do.
You've heard most of this before, but life repeats itself.
Trump won in Iran - meaning he accomplished Israel's objectives - note that, even without a treaty, we count Israel as an ally. Iran, for its part, cannot control the people shooting at ships in Hormuz, even though they are the ones hurt. The US has plenty of oil and shale and is winning with every ship that does not sail.
We need to quit using gasoline for cars on highways,, suburbs and urban areas. Not just the US, but the entire species. Then the Gulf states can decide whether to send plastic precursors to China or build local factories to make plastics. China is dying. It has 400 million - a billion less than reported. Africa has the people. It needs to bet the factories - but with modern labor rules.
Forget the East Wing. Building a new strategic center under it was budgeted years ago. The Ballroom was a cover story. Whether the networks blew over or Trump did to save his ass is irrelevant to the question. Even with the secret blown, it is still better to build onsite than risk drone and missile fire on journey to get POTUS to Andrews and into the air.
Quit talking about Donald's hair (it covers skull surgery scars), hands (which show IV pokes) and his marriage. In the past, the press ignored such things. Turn off the tabloid news.
Quit mentioning court packing. It makes moderate pro-life Democratic men nervous - even after they already caught the dog and overturned Roe. We certainly don't need to pack the courts before 2029. Since it is a ways off, someone shut Carville up about this.
Quit talking about the danger of DSA Dems. Most of them are crypto social democrats. They share common cause with much of MAGA - not the loud MAGA racists, but the pro-lifers. Ignore wokeness and focus on getting money to families as a bipartisan effort. Kamala had the right idea on amounts. It should be a universal push ($500 per child per month - but distributed with pay or benefits - including UI). A joint effort in 2028 would be nice. If not, then do it in 2029 when the Democratic coalition finally splits and the GOP is gone.
Quit talking about the Senate representing land. It does not. It represents the governments of under populated western states. Making the states bigger would make government harder. New Electoral College Reform (which should benefit both parties) would be district based voting with one at-large going to state winner and one to national winner. Or we could do regional government, with 6 or 7 regions of equal electoral vote size with 2 national senators and one vice president each - with the 18 or 21 of them choosing the president. They would never have chosen Trump, but may chose someone with ideas rather than media savvy.
Change the debate on the national debt. I have an e-book about that. Book id is http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0833MWRD1 The book is called Settling (and Squaring) Accounts. Search on my name.
The reason 2 rating agencies have downgraded US debt is not the size of it, it is the fact that House Republicans flirt with not increasing the debt limit and refuse to adequately fund it through progressive income taxes on business income. Capital Gains/Dividend/Interest/Pass through/corporate income taxes need to go up to at least 26%, if not 31%. I have a plan. Look for my http://fiscalequity.blogspot.com Search for the Center for Fiscal Equity and you should find it.
Net interest is not really a problem, unless you want to get rid of capitalism. Right now, it all goes into funds that keep buying debt - funds which then fund liquidity in capital markets. The reason we need higher taxes is that the speculative market is way too big. It is making junk, from the AI bubble to the housing (mortgage) bubble to the Crypto bubble. Higher taxes and lower debt means less investment liquidity. Note we need some liquidity or capitalism collapses - not a bad thing as long as the economy is owned by the workers. That is not today, however.
America marked this milestone by staying in air conditioning, or at least I did. Trump did not ruin the celebration - he was irrelevant to it. His national state fair was planned before he was elected again - it was just another version of the annual folk-life festival. The ferris wheel was tacky in the way the London Eye is tacky - but I bet the view would have been great in cooler weather with crowds on the Mall.
Blame climate change. Scientists will not say that warming caused the heat dome - but given the way the Barents Sea has warmed and its effect on the Artic Ocean, with the Arctic's effect on the jet stream - and that this keeps happening year after year - its a good bet that whatever changed since 1960 (cars everywhere) is at fault.
If Trump put the blame for the quiet of the holiday on warming rather than his imagined enemies and then did something about it, he would be seen as great in hindsight.
This year, however, we just ignored him. Probably the best result. Protestors showed up on both sides, with the worst Trumpers among them, and no one watched his big speech. I was watching the World Cup.
Frankly, the best thing about America 250 was hosting the tournament - even as I write this after America's loss to my ancestral Belgium (which included Luxembourg when my great grandfather left). My mother's people were from England and Norway, with a dash of German. Will the winner of that gain make it into the finals? Not likely. My bet is Argentina v. France. And yes, I plan to keep watching.
Does the carbon footprint of an enterprise include commuting by employees and travel by customers (as well as climate cost of vehicle and road construction)? That gets at the real cause of heat domes, which is arctic warming driven by the warming of Barents Sea, which has been steadily warming by 3 or 4 degrees per decade since 1980 (and possibly since 1960). In summer, the Arctic does not have the force to stop these domes - and stopping driving using gasoline wherever possible is the only solution that matters. The next level is employee driving to shop - unless someone else is counting the shopping.
To really do something, employers need to cooperate in any given city to install limited access (i.e., zero pedestrian) tethered electric vehicles which drive home after taking commuters to transit. Transit has a last 100 yard - 15 minute problem. If it takes 100 meters to get to it and waiting takes more than 10 minutes, people will drive. It would almost (ok, it will take) some form of corporate socialism to get this done - although I would love it if capitalism surprised me on this.
Climate budgeting without considering this factor is just green washing, as is planting trees in unprepared soil which die within a year.
The end of government by sharpie and campaign finance
The Trump executive order on Birthright Citizenship has been quashed by the Supreme Court, and arguably the ability for Trump to change the Constitution is repudiated.
Where it matters, Trump lost. He lost on citizenship. He lost on the Federal Reserve, his victory on FTC hiring is hollow, as in 2029, heads will roll in all the alphabet commissions - with liberals taking unanimous majorities on labor law, campaign finance, securities, trade and commodities. Most importantly, the E.J. Carrol denial of cert will have an impact on whether the fraud case against Trump can go forward. Indeed, his latest bunch of frauds are in danger from this one case.
The Court itself has a 3-2-2-2 lineup, with Roberts and Barrett becoming a reliable centrist faction. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are moderate conservatives, with Alito and Thomas being the lunatic fringe on the right. The three liberals and two lunatics each have the freedom to dissent because it is safe to do so without changing what is usually a reasonable result.
As for court-packing, quit talking about it. Pro-life swing Democrats are easily scared out of the voting booth - or worse - into the GOP column. Obama knew not to give them cause to worry. Clinton and Harris alienated them - giving Trump two unearned victories. The only solution to abortion (assuming fundraisers let one go through) is a ban on the more gruesome procedures, but fetal hospice when a pregnancy is best ended later in the term. Such a move must be bipartisan. Now that coordination between parties and candidates is allowed, the power of the factional issue group is greatly eroded.
The Democrats have been out-fundraising the GOP for years. Now they are allowed to coordinate. While there will be outrage, Democratic fundraisers are crying all the way to the bank.
Like creationism and fundamentalism, these folks children will operate at a disadvantage socially and in college. We will grow out of this BS as the old Trumpers die out.
He is collapsing capitalism with a free market. They are not the same thing. Indeed, what he describes is the essence of capitalism. What he calls capitalism is free market welfare economics.
As both Marx said, Capitalism does the seeds of its own destruction. The answer is not state socialism and it's current incarnation - Putin and his oligarchy (people who say Russian communism but support Trump and Putin crack me up).
Cooperative socialism, aka distributism, aka libertarian socialism, aka democratic capitalism, aka voluntary socialism, aka mutualism, aka anarcho-syndicalism . I call it inter-independence. Employee-owned companies or cooperatives (the difference being share voting and one vote for member) which is expanded into cooperative consumption, finance, human services, education, land ownership, transit, healthcare. Call it an employee owned company town. When employees realize that they can replace Blackrock with their own payments to themselves, they will do so.
The quantum nature of thought fits into a theory that, before the brain has a thought (pre-conscious), chaos theory dances around to cho0se words, actions and reactions using a quantum process and that brain action collapses the quantum field. This is also why the future is, in the moment, indeterminate (free) - before the brain acts, anything is possible - until it acts. If the future were determined, then quantum theory loses its indeterminacy. You cannot have it both ways if quanta are the source of pre-action chaos.
There are four important stories this week. Most importantly, Paris is burning and people are dying due to global warming - but this is not about that. The Supreme Commander of NATO has been asked to retire - I doubt he shares the Secretary of War's view on Russia - so firing him is treason - but this is not about that either. I will take the remaining two in order.
The world has come to America for the World Cup, especially those elites that can afford tickets, and they are having a great time interacting with the America that does not need saving. They will be here through America's 250th Birthday and see that it is celebrated very locally - the way they are experiencing it coming for the Beautiful Game. Even in Washington, the Palisades Parade, fireworks all over the region and the explosion of light on East Capitol Street at the District line, the 4th is largely a local affair. Thousands come to the National Mall to see those fireworks, but in a metro area with millions of people, these fireworks are not the only game in town.
This is how we run elections. Except for the bad old days before the Voting Rights Act, the army of citizen volunteers who run elections do so fairly and impartially - even when officials try to get in their way. The Secretaries of State certify elections on a ministerial basis - they do not get to change the results. While some political elites think they can mess with it - especially those who support the Save America Act - by and large what is better called the Save Trump Act - are few. The proposal and the way Trump is trying to force it down are throats is the textbook definition of abuse of power. This is an impeachable offense that not even Richard Nixon would have tried.
Trump fears that if (OK, when) the Democrats take control of Congress, he will be impeached and likely removed - or be declared disabled and the votes will be there to keep him from coming back. He is correct in that assessment. Oddly, the prior two impeachments came about because the Democrats won in 2018 and, before the 2018 and after the 2020 elections, Trump tried to retain power.
In 2018, in exchange for doing Moscow's bidding on stopping missiles from going to Ukraine, Lev and Igor took Russian money and funded the Protect the House PAC. The "perfect phone call" was misdirection - making the issue a silly political dirty trick rather than bribery and treason. The trick was easier to prove - while the bribery touched members of Congress who the Majority was afraid to go after. It was easy to not remove based on a stupid dirty trick. By the way, the whole idea that Biden removed the prosecutor that was investigating Burisma somehow benefited his son, who was on the board, is absurd on its face. The corrupt act would have been to NOT remove that prosecutor. How Fox News sold that theory is a testament to the art of propaganda and belief to trump reason.
The second impeachment was Trump trying to keep power. Both Jack Smith and the impeachment managers/January 6th Committee were fooled into chasing the cover story (Hang Mike Pence) rather than what actually happened - which was Trump (who could not help himself) telegraphing the purpose of the riot - which was to confront members of Congress to overturn the election (even though under the 12th Amendment, throwing out the votes they wanted rejected would have still left Biden with an electoral college majority) with the threat of violence and likely the spilling of blood of Democratic members. We would not be dealing with this issue had conspiracy to attempt murder been the charge - rather than the political dirty tricks surrounding fake electoral votes. Why did Trump try to stay in office? Because the FBI could have investigated the real Ukraine plot. History shows they did not. Indeed, DOJ did not even want to investigate Trump's involvement in January 6th - and likely did not think it could prove the crime that actually occurred - and because generally there is a tradition in this country of not prosecuting election losers. The FBI could have also prosecuted "Team Crazy," which was filled with Russian operatives - including spy Maria Butina's former lover and Ukraine conspirators Michael Flynn and Rudy Giuliani.
Any look at the Save America Act shows that it is the kind of tyranny one finds in Putin's Russia. It could be considered an old man's fantasy except that Trump is serious about stopping business, including the bipartisan Housing Affordability Act, until it is passed. Taking official action to force the passage of tyranny is an abuse of power worthy of impeachment. Trump needs to either sign the bipartisan bill, or at least allow it to become law. Abusing of power is not an official act. Vetoing the bill will trigger an override vote. This takes the same size majority as removal of the President. Trump needs to sign that bill and forget his attempt at tyranny so that this test vote does not happen.
The Iran Deal - Did it raise the Supreme Leader from the dead?
Your analysis leaves out the reality of the situation. We decapitated their leadership, they played the only card in their deck (Hormuz) and we called their bluff. We got higher prices. They lost their revenue stream. And we got someone else to pay for the damage. Like getting the vaccine done in record time, this is a win - regardless of the optics.
In part I demolish multiverse theory by reminding the audience that probabilities are infinite before the wave collapses and infinite before. If determinism exists, the future in the current universe is in some way collapsed - so quantum theory and determinism cannot exist in the same universe. Even if there are other universes - if you go to it - then for you that universe has already collapsed in the past and is infinitely in the future of that universe. For one universe to morph into the other as a separate universe would take an infinite amount of energy in the universe from which you are currently existing.
Even if you can travel to another universe, you cannot take the rest of us with you. In this universe, we all come along for the ride - but as a single universe with infinite possibility before wave collapse and zero possibility after it has collapsed. QED
Part two is going to any other point in the universe at near C, using 1G propulsion to get to C - then reconfigure when at C - go back to deceleration at one G, decreasing to the gravity of the destination. If your craft functions as an orbital space station, you can decelerate at one G. I will let the physicists calculate how long it takes from current position and speed at one G acceleration to near C, as well as how long it takes to decelerate to the destination - and the positions of both inflection points. Moving your habitat modules from the hull to a rotational position is engineering.
The real science is to see if the unbalanced washing machine propulsion drive exists. We can test it with time, money and personnel to go from point a to point b. The mass of your rotating portion must, after rotation, be enough to move the craft at 1 G in comparison with the mass of the hull. If you can put your reactors safely in the spinning mass without losing stability, it becomes a much easier task. Again, engineering.
The second piece of science to be tested (so really, engineering - we know most of the science - or think we know it) is whether or at what speed and radius humans can be rotated from a station without acceleration - but orbital velocity can comfortably exist at one G of centrifugal force.
The second test needs to be done before we go much further with Artemis if the goal is going to Mars - especially if we send not a crew but an orbital JPL with scientists to study whatever planet we go to, with support crew and all of their families. We also have to solve radiation shielding for such an orbital station. In a one G ring, we can do lab grown protein and hydroponics and other gardening (like for potatoes) to feed whatever population is necessary.
I can run a table top exercise to design that station, with me and current NASA staff. Engineers to design the details may or may not be needed for the table top exercise. Drop me a line at bindner.associates@yahoo.com to hire me for this exercise or to further discuss the two gravitational tests.
Here is the video I referred to which talked about entropy and space-time but did not integrate it with electro-magnetism (at least in that segment).
If you know business and government, the title says it all.
Put forward employee owned companies of people who have served in high level positions - one in each party - to serve as contractors and as a pool of appointees for each new administration. Their clearances can be quickly renewed, their ethics paperwork created and, for the current administration, unsolicited proposals should be submitted for both tariff negotiations and to get us out of the Iran war. I would say Israel could handle the negotiations, but Iran will not talk to them.
This could be done tomorrow by each party national committee or by prominent ex-appointees who would invite their colleagues to join them in such an effort. We cannot afford to wait - unless you support the goal of blowing up the world to trigger the Rapture (which is not a thing).
