Friday, October 29, 2021
Tucker: This is the most deranged story in history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffmhcph_oPs
When I hear stories like this, my first reaction is to think that it is fake.
The China Pill - How the USA is more Socialist than China
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9bAk_mhPIo
Given how little China provides for its citizens, it might be better if it were a little more socialist.
Re: A crazy history of Autism Treatment
Comparing the current "experts" to a past quack is logically a poor connection. It is saying that the experts were wrong in the past so they are wrong now.
I have defended Fauchi. The moment he seemed inconsistent about anything or changed his mind then people attacked him as a liar and claimed that everything he ever said was wrong. They branded him as an authoritarian. However, Fauchi has been pretty consistent about following the latest research. I think that sometimes he goes too far, for example by saying that children should wear masks in school. This probably should be decided on the local level based upon risk assessment.
The attacks on Fauchi seem to equate things that are not equivalent. We provided a grant to the Wuhan lab for cataloging bat viruses that had nothing to do with gain of function of research. The lab may have done gain of function research on their own accord, therefore the grant was funding gain of function research.
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On Fri, Oct 29, 2021 at 8:44 AM Larry wrote:
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
What the Founding Fathers intended
The other day I briefly saw a cartoon that went like this...
"That's not what the founding fathers intended."
"The founding fathers didn't intend women to vote. They didn't intend you to vote either since you are not a landowner, so I don't want to hear anything more about what the founding fathers intended."
In other words, we should throw away any constitutional limits on government power, which is what protects your rights, because the founding of this country was not perfect. This sounds like an excuse to give government unlimited power.
Fwd: Insanity
Meanwhile, former Sacramento Kings broadcaster Grant Napear is suing his former radio station for wrongful termination. Napear was fired last year during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement for responding to former Kings center DeMarcus Cousins by saying that "All lives matter…Every single one." The radio station immediately fired him and claimed that his comments about all lives mattering did not reflect its views or values. Seriously.
Take the case of Twitter suspending the account of Republican Rep. Jim Banks, who correctly stated that health official Rachel Levine "was born and lived as a man for 54 years." Banks criticized the idea of calling Levine the "first female four-star officer to serve in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps'" because Levine's sex is male.
Friday, October 22, 2021
Thursday, October 21, 2021
Socialist Richard Wolff Learns How Capitalism Helped China
Richard Wolff seems to engage in cognitive dissonance. His speech comes across as angry.
The choice of words can frame arguments in a way that obscures the truth. I dislike the way the word "Capitalism" is used, which reportedly was once made popular by the socialists as a way of denigrating the free market. It makes it sound equivalent to other "isms". People have told me that it does not matter which economic system we use; we can and should choose whatever economic system we want as if they are all equivalent.
The correct term is a "free market", which is a system where individuals are allowed to own the means of production, i.e. a business, and engage in voluntary exchanges. True socialism is the opposite of this in every way, which we can logically conclude is a serious loss of freedom. If the government either owns or controls the means of production, then the individual cannot make free choices and is at the mercy of the government. I don't see a difference between this and a slave plantation. Socialism might be a less obvious form of slavery, but the government technically has full control of the individual.
"Democratic socialism", if such a thing can really exist, just means that the individual is at the mercy of the mob. In reality, socialist systems that claim to give power to the people just really give power to the thugs in charge.
For a country that calls itself socialist, China has reportedly very little the way of social programs. Almost everyone has to fend for themselves. Chinese "socialism" just means capitalism with an authoritarian government. This is what the Italian Fascists believed in. The term "fascism" is often misused and is equated to Nazism or racism, but the slogan of the Fascists was, "Everything in the state. Nothing outside the state." Mussolini started as a Marxist and was a proponent of socialism.
The one universal complaint that I hear about "capitalism" is that people have to work for others. First of all, this is true for any kind of economic system. Second, I look at this philosophically in the sense that we come into this world with nothing. The world owes us nothing. We can only obtain things by exchanging our labor for what we need. In a free market, we can choose how we do that and not have those decisions forced upon us.
It is an inherent property of human beings that they like to make free choices, own property, do things for profit by making voluntary exchanges. A person who works for someone else is still trying to profit off his labor.
I think that people suffer from what I call the "free lunch fallacy." They think that government can provide for them. But for government to do that they have to take it from someone else by force. There are consequences to coercive economic actions in how it affects incentives and economic activity. There aren't enough resources for the government to provide for everyone, so society depends upon having a large number of producers.
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Follow the (Climate Change) Money | The Heritage Foundation
Worldwide the numbers are gargantuan. Five years ago, a leftist group called the Climate Policy Initiative issued a study that found that "Global investment in climate change" reached $359 billion that year. Then to give you a sense of how money-hungry these planet-saviors are, the CPI moaned that this spending "falls far short of what's needed" a number estimated at $5 trillion.
Margaret Klump: Global warming is a hoax - Opinion - The Daily Telegram - Adrian, MI - Adrian, MI
"The world temperature is 1.08 degrees cooler than it was in the late '90s"
I find this claim questionable. I will investigate further.
Monday, October 18, 2021
China circles globe with nuclear test
China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that circled the globe before speeding towards its target, demonstrating an advanced space capability that caught US intelligence by surprise. Five people familiar with the test said the Chinese military launched a rocket that carried a hypersonic glide vehicle which flew through low-orbit space before cruising down towards its target. The missile missed its target by about two-dozen miles, according to three people briefed on the intelligence. But two said the test showed that China had made astounding progress on hypersonic weapons and was far more advanced than US officials realised. The test has raised new questions about why the US often underestimated China's military modernisation. "We have no idea how they did this," said a fourth person. The US, Russia and China are all developing hypersonic weapons, including glide vehicles that are launched into space on a rocket but orbit the earth under their own momentum. They fly at five times the speed of sound, slower than a ballistic missile. But they do not follow the fixed parabolic trajectory of a ballistic missile and are manoeuvrable, making them harder to track. Taylor Fravel, an expert on Chinese nuclear weapons policy who was unaware of the test, said a hypersonic glide vehicle armed with a nuclear warhead could help China "negate" US missile defence systems which are designed to destroy incoming ballistic missiles.
Hillary’s Hypersonic Missile Gap
The Dan Bogino "conspiracy theory" is based upon this article.
Did Hillary help Russia build a hypersonic missile ?
Although Dan Bongino is interesting, he tends to lean toward conspiracy theories.
So much has been said about the Clintons using The Clinton Foundation as a slush fund. The Wikipedia article states that the FBI investigations were dropped because nothing was there. It is hard to know the truth.
'Favorite of presidents' Colin Powell dies of COVID-19 complications | Reuters
The Republican party wanted Colin Powell to run for president. He could have been the first black President. He actually turned it down because he thought that he would be assassinated.
Weiss explains to Steltzer why the world has gone mad
"Where can I start? Well, when you have the chief reporter on the beat of COVID for The New York Times talking about how questioning or pursuing the question of the lab leak is racist, the world has gone mad. When you're not able to say out loud and in public there are differences between men and women, the world has gone mad. When we're not allowed to acknowledge that rioting is rioting and it is bad and that silence is not violence, but violence is violence, the world has gone mad," Weiss said. "When you're not able to say the Hunter Biden laptop is a story worth pursuing, the world has gone mad. When, in the name of progress, young school children, as young as kindergarten, are being separated in public schools because of their race, and that is called progress instead of segregation, the world has gone mad. There are dozens of examples."
Friday, October 15, 2021
Thursday, October 14, 2021
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
Daily Wire Backstage: Live at the Ryman
The normal Daily Wire Backstage show is just a bunch of people sitting around in a room talking about political issues. To celebrate their relocation from California to Tennessee, they took this discussion to a stage with a very enthusiastic audience. They also added some other bits that are more theatrical. This felt more like a Trump rally. The audience's enthusiasm seems to indicate that this is a political movement that is energetic.
I found the last 20 minutes to be the most interesting. The question of secession came up. It is not that they want to start a civil war, but there is a pervasive sense that the country consists of two sides that cannot agree on much of anything. They think that if this continues then we will no longer have a unified country. For example, they talk about how some states are already resisting federal mandates.
The discussion starts with talking about limiting the power of the Federal Government, but then it also hits many cultural issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3S9hSy0AKk&t=8897s
I think that this is a fascinating discussion.
I found the last 20 minutes to be the most interesting. The question of secession came up. It is not that they want to start a civil war, but there is a pervasive sense that the country consists of two sides that cannot agree on much of anything. They think that if this continues then we will no longer have a unified country. For example, they talk about how some states are already resisting federal mandates.
The discussion starts with talking about limiting the power of the Federal Government, but then it also hits many cultural issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3S9hSy0AKk&t=8897s
I think that this is a fascinating discussion.
Tuesday, October 12, 2021
John Durham and the Mysterious DNC Email Hack
VIPS concluded that the DNC data were not hacked by the Russians or anyone else accessing the server over the internet. Instead, the data were downloaded by means of a thumb drive or similar portable storage device physically attached to the DNC server...
VIPS also determined that the files published by Guccifer 2.0 on June 16, 2016, had been "run, via ordinary cut and paste, through a template that effectively immersed them in what could plausibly be cast as Russian fingerprints." In other words, the files were deliberately altered to give the false impression that they were hacked by Russian agents.
Thanks to the VIPS experts, the Russia-hacking claim — the very prologue of the Trump-Russia conspiracy story — appeared to have been affirmatively and convincingly undercut.
VIPS also determined that the files published by Guccifer 2.0 on June 16, 2016, had been "run, via ordinary cut and paste, through a template that effectively immersed them in what could plausibly be cast as Russian fingerprints." In other words, the files were deliberately altered to give the false impression that they were hacked by Russian agents.
Thanks to the VIPS experts, the Russia-hacking claim — the very prologue of the Trump-Russia conspiracy story — appeared to have been affirmatively and convincingly undercut.
Fwd: Vandalism
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Larry
In a way, the recent vandalism of Columbus' statues is not surprising when one considers that statues of Thomas Jefferson, Raoul Wallenberg, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Julius Ceasar, Earl Grey, Robert the Bruce, Caesar Rodney, Sir Charles Napier, George Washington, General Kosciuszko, Abigail Adams, Calvin Griffith, Indro Montanelli, Winston Churchill, Napoleon, Ulysses Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, St. JunÃpero Serra and other saints, Andrew Jackson, Hans Christian Heg, Robert Peel, Charles Dickens, Jesus, Captain Cook, Francis Drake, Edward Colston, Francis Galton, Miguel de Cervantes (author of Don Quixote), William Gladstone, Sir John A. Macdonald, the Ten Commandments statue, Frederick Douglass, Mahatma Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln have also recently been vandalized by other vandals here and abroad (Earl Grey, Ulysses Grant, Sir Charles Napier, and Abraham Lincoln, if you did not know, abolished slavery while Abigail Adams and Hans Heg were abolitionists). In Boston, these Red Guards also vandalized the Glory monument of the Civil War's African-American 54th Regiment and a statue of the Virgin Mary, along with the Holocaust Memorial, Thompson Elk Fountain in Portland, the "Little Mermaid" statue in Denmark and the UK's Penny Lane (famed by the Beatles), and Robert Baden-Powell (founder of the Boy Scouts). Additionally, The Guardian wants suppressed the image of St. Michael subduing Satan because it is … "racist." Pair that with the looting, the killing, and the burning in cities, and it should be obvious by now that the goal of these vandals is not just against Columbus, or Confederate statues, but against civilization itself, or, put another way, cultural destruction. Regardless of the slogans used to rationalize the vandalism by the self-admitted Communists, the participants are destroying for the joy of destroying.
We haven't been invaded by barbarians; it would appear that we have created barbarians.
And, as someone recently pointed out, history shows that after statues are destroyed, people are next.
The Historical Falsification of Columbus' 'Crimes' | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Monday, October 11, 2021
My Facebook post from 5 years ago.
I believe in freedom. I think that freedom leads to economic growth. I think that we need economic growth, especially since we are 20 trillion dollars in debt, not counting unfunded liabilities which are much larger. I think that there is strong evidence that larger more intrusive governments reduce economic growth. Studies have been done on this, but on the simplest level, you can compare countries on one extreme, like North Korea and Cuba, to countries on the other extreme like Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. All countries tend to be on a linear scale where the freer are the more prosperous.
It is not consistent with Freedom to have the government steal from one person to give to another.
People are worried about corporate power. The Libertarian solution is to not give the government so much power that the wealthy can influence it.
Natural immunity
There was some early research that claimed that the vaccine worked better or longer than getting the disease, which makes no sense. In the last couple of months or so there was some new research saying that having the disease provides better immunity. Getting vaccinated after the disease creates the best immunity, which does make sense.
On Sat, Oct 9, 2021 at 11:35 PM Albert wrote:
I just read an article which showed research done by Pfizer's own scientist that those who have contracted COVID-19 and survived have better and longer lasting immunity than those who have taken the vaccine.
Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov speaks at Purdue lecture series
I find it interesting that the former World Chess Champion is speaking out about freedom.
Sunday, October 10, 2021
A Portrait of Love and Struggle in Post-Industrial, Small-City America | The New Yorker
'As she writes in a newly published book of the resulting work, "Upstate Girls," Troy was once a wealthy industrial city, the kind of place that "embodied the idea of America as a land where every person's dreams were realized." But, by the time Kenneally was a teenager, in the nineteen-seventies, the industrialization that originally distinguished the city had contributed to its demise, as factories left the region to chase overseas deals. Except for one aunt, who became a teacher, no one in Kenneally's family had any higher education. Kenneally herself quit high school and hitchhiked to Miami when she was around the same age that many of her subjects were when she met them. But she found her way to A.A. and then, through her sponsor, to photography; the process of applying to college, where she studied sociology and photojournalism, further transformed her life. All of this granted her enough perspective to keep her from being destroyed by misplaced shame.'
'A timeline hung in the living room, like a monstrous mobile, tracking the decline in public health alongside once-lauded American products—tobacco, high-fructose corn syrup—and their code-switching, class-based marketing campaigns. These products had a particularly ruinous impact when they trickled down to North Troy residents, whose safety nets were being eroded by attacks on public education and other social supports. Kenneally had been studying inequality long enough to know that countering arguments about "personal responsibility" required that she expand the frame of her work to show exactly how lies about meritocracy cloak, and normalize corporate greed. She obsessively gathered evidence—she calls it "hoarding"—to make us see these lives as she saw them, and to memorialize them as part of our nation's history. At the Peoples' Museum, this exhaustive contextualizing made it impossible to treat her subjects with contempt.'
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-portrait-of-love-and-struggle-in-post-industrial-small-city-america?source=content-paid-kepler-141160194
'A timeline hung in the living room, like a monstrous mobile, tracking the decline in public health alongside once-lauded American products—tobacco, high-fructose corn syrup—and their code-switching, class-based marketing campaigns. These products had a particularly ruinous impact when they trickled down to North Troy residents, whose safety nets were being eroded by attacks on public education and other social supports. Kenneally had been studying inequality long enough to know that countering arguments about "personal responsibility" required that she expand the frame of her work to show exactly how lies about meritocracy cloak, and normalize corporate greed. She obsessively gathered evidence—she calls it "hoarding"—to make us see these lives as she saw them, and to memorialize them as part of our nation's history. At the Peoples' Museum, this exhaustive contextualizing made it impossible to treat her subjects with contempt.'
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-portrait-of-love-and-struggle-in-post-industrial-small-city-america?source=content-paid-kepler-141160194
I have many relatives who lived in poverty. They were the product of the Great Depression and World War II. They worked their way out of poverty and enjoyed comfortable lives. This is the benefit of a free society and industrious people. Having lived through much worse times, when they see the kind of things that we fuss about today, they think that we have lost our way.
Out of 190 countries, 182 have lower GDP per capita than the United States. The average outside of the United States is about a quarter of what we make here. At least half of the people in the world would find our poverty level a blessing.
Before COVID, we were in one of the most prosperous periods in our history. Even now, there are 10 million unfulfilled job openings. There is enough prosperity to go around.
I am concerned that there will always be a few people who can't make it. For those who can't manage, we have an abundance of social programs.
What distinguishes prosperous nations from everyone else? There are likely many factors, but the biggest by a huge margin are freedom and peace. The real lesson of history is that economic freedom by far is the best way to bring people out of poverty.
The complaint by the left is one of "inequality." It doesn't matter that the vast majority are doing pretty well, but as long as some people are superwealthy then this is unfair. However, every economic system ever tried has produced unequal outcomes. It is an emergent property of human societies that we organize in hierarchies. This leads to unequal outcomes, but a healthy free society produces the greatest prosperity for the most number of people.
Boohoo. Life isn't fair. Some people grow up in bad circumstances. Most people make bad decisions. Everyone has different levels of natural ability. Some are stronger. Some are healthier. Some are smarter. (Relevant to this is a talk by Jordan Peterson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2mxdrTP-os)
The word "corporation" often is used negatively and is equated with "rich person." They are not the same thing. Not even close. Corporations are a way of democratizing business. Through funds, I own stock in hundreds of companies. So do most people who have retirement funds. If there were no such thing as a corporation, then I might not have a stake in any business nor have a good way to invest my money. In that case, maybe the best that I could hope for is to be a silent partner by owning a tiny portion of a single company. However, this type of investing is risky and could lead to disputes, fraud, and possible bankruptcy. On the other hand, our system of corporations is kept relatively honest through legal regulation requiring that financial information be made public.
Another thing about corporations is that larger businesses tend to be more efficient. This is not always the case, but the market seems to favor larger companies.
America has changed much since the Great Depression. We have grown larger and more crowded. We have a bigger and more corrupt government. Americans have to compete with the rest of the world, and many jobs have gone overseas. We live in a very complicated time. However, to blame corporations for poverty is to ignore a lot of other factors. If anything, businesses have been the engine of our prosperity, and corporations are just a way of allowing people to own a stake in those businesses.
Saturday, October 9, 2021
Re: Fastest gun on earth - beyond neurological speed? Rate My Science
Imagine a future with robot soldiers. I'm sure that we have the technology now to make some sort of small flying drone where a human could select multiple targets on a computer screen. I think that it is likely that this is already being worked on. Cost may be an issue, and you would not want such technology to fall into the hands of the enemy.
On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 8:34 PM Albert wrote:
There has always been a debate about who is the fastest gunslinger who ever lived. It's actually this guy. Science proves it!
Monday, October 4, 2021
Good people?
Generally speaking, I think of people as good, but obviously, that doesn't apply to everyone. History, both current and past, is filled with evil people, some of which are extremely vile. While contemplating the goodness of the human race, I came to the depressing conclusion that we have pretty much made a mess of things. People individually are great, but George Carlin had it right when he said, "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups."
Much of the world lives under different degrees of oppression. I could name countries and details but people would argue over the particulars. Many can't agree on what exactly constitutes oppression because it comes in different forms. It seemed like the world was improving ten to twenty years ago, but I'm pretty sure that things got worse over the last decade. We live not only in an era of despots but also the rise of government power everywhere.
I used to think of political leaders as well-educated capable people deserving of respect. However, recent events make me think that they are no smarter than the rest of us and in some ways worse. They are motivated by self-interest like everyone else, which means that they don't really represent our interests.
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Best wishes,
John Coffey
http://www.entertainmentjourney.com
Much of the world lives under different degrees of oppression. I could name countries and details but people would argue over the particulars. Many can't agree on what exactly constitutes oppression because it comes in different forms. It seemed like the world was improving ten to twenty years ago, but I'm pretty sure that things got worse over the last decade. We live not only in an era of despots but also the rise of government power everywhere.
I used to think of political leaders as well-educated capable people deserving of respect. However, recent events make me think that they are no smarter than the rest of us and in some ways worse. They are motivated by self-interest like everyone else, which means that they don't really represent our interests.
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Best wishes,
John Coffey
http://www.entertainmentjourney.com
Tesla Autopilot Hits a Deer (and I think it will happen again.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrWH_0YA5XM
Personally, I think that autopilot is a bad idea. Being engaged while driving is important to our survival or at least to maintain our skills.
Can you imagine having an autopilot in a chess game where it only depends upon you to make the most critical decisions? The player would not be fully engaged.
Maybe in a decade, it will be perfect. Maybe the computer will be safer than my own driving, especially as I get older. I can see using the time for something more productive.
The Truth Behind Critical Race Theory
I'm not sure if this is behind a paywall. I don't pay for this site, and they let me watch a limited number of videos.
This is a really good video on Critical Race Theory.
This is a very good technical description of Critical Race Theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rDu_VUpoJ8
Saturday, October 2, 2021
Stephen Hawking
Hawking warned that superintelligent artificial intelligence could be pivotal in steering humanity's fate, stating that "the potential benefits are huge... Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. It might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks."[364][365] However, he argued that we should be more frightened of capitalism exacerbating economic inequality than robots.[366]
Hawking was concerned about the future emergence of a race of "superhumans" that would be able to design their own evolution[351] and, as well, argued that computer viruses in today's world should be considered a new form of life, stating that "maybe it says something about human nature, that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. Talk about creating life in our own image."
Hawking was concerned about the future emergence of a race of "superhumans" that would be able to design their own evolution[351] and, as well, argued that computer viruses in today's world should be considered a new form of life, stating that "maybe it says something about human nature, that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. Talk about creating life in our own image."
Re: Sen Johnson says FDA approved vaccine not available in US
On Sat, Oct 2, 2021 at 1:33 PM Larry wrote:
SEN. RON JOHNSON: We do not have an FDA-approved vaccine being administered in the U.S. The FDA played a bait and switch. They approved the Comirnaty version of Pfizer drugs. It's not available in the U.S. They even admit it. I sent them a letter three days later going "What are you doing?" What they did is they extended the emergency use authorization for the Pfizer drug vaccine that's available in the U.S., here that's more than 30 days later, they haven't asked that very simple question. If you're saying that the Pfizer drug is the same as the Comirnaty, why didn't you provide FDA approval on that? So, there's not an FDA-approved drug and, of course, they announced it so they could push through these mandates so that people actually think, "Oh, OK now these things are FDA approved." They are not and again, maybe they should be, but the FDA isn't telling me why.Here are the fine details from Sept 14th...
COVID death rates
A while back I was surprised to learn that Brazil had lost one out of every 400 people to COVID. It is now 1 out of 356. At the same time, the United States was only 1 out of every 540, but it is now 1 out of 479. For those skeptics who frequently claimed that COVID had a death rate of only 0.2%, that is now the death rate of the entire US population, the vast majority of which hasn't gotten COVID. In terms of known and resolved cases, which is approaching 1 out of 7 people, it is 2.1%.
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Best wishes,
John Coffey
http://www.entertainmentjourney.com
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Best wishes,
John Coffey
http://www.entertainmentjourney.com
Friday, October 1, 2021
Democrat on federal monetary system
"I read Joe Manchin's statement, I've listened to him. He has no understanding of how the federal government monetary system works when he compared it yesterday to his household income. That has no relevance to what we can do," Yarmuth, who represents Kentucky, told CNN Thursday evening.
"It's not a question of what we can afford. The federal government can afford anything that it feels it needs to do, and right now that's what we ought to be focused on," the Democratic lawmaker said
On Wednesday, Manchin released a statement asserting that he would not support $3.5 trillion in new federal spending. "I can't support $3.5 trillion more in spending when we have already spent $5.4 trillion since last March. At some point, all of us, regardless of party, must ask the simple question: How much is enough?" he said.
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