COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Friday, February 09, 2018

There are Approximately 23 Million Government Workers in The USA

It is time, to start cross training them for the civilian work force:

Pew Report

“The increase in the potential labor force will slow markedly,” The declining number of U.S.-born working-age adults with U.S.-born parents means that they will become a smaller share of the working-age population, Pew found. 

They will make up 66% in 2035, compared with 74% in 2015. Meanwhile, U.S.-born children of immigrants will make up a growing share of working-age adults: 13% in 2035 versus 6% in 2015. 

The immigrant share of working-age adults will also tick up, from 20% in 2015 to 21% in 2035. That fall in working-age adults born in the U.S. is due to ageing baby boomers and low birth rates since the 1970s.

Deuce Report

The increasing immigrant share of workers is not necessary:


  • Increase education standards and gear training and college degrees to actual job needs
  • Using automation, start reducing public employees by 40,000 per month using economic and cross-training incentives feeding them into the private economy
  • Discontinue agencies and programs that are tax payer subsidies to the so called public servants
  • Increase the working age to 70
  • Workers over 70 can continue to work without paying into social security
Many, many more simple fixes will stabilize US population growth while maintaining and improving our quality of life and retaining our culture.



67 comments:

  1. “Holy cow”

    The FBI did not notice that some emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server were marked classified with a “(C)” when they were sent, until the Intelligence Community inspector general caught them, according to texts between FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

    “Holy cow,” Strzok texted Page on June 12, 2016 — less than a month before the investigation into Clinton’s email server ended. “If the FBI missed this, what else was missed?”

    “Remind me to tell you to flag for Andy [redacted] emails we (actually ICIG) found that have portion marks (C) on a couple of paras. DoJ was Very Concerned about this,” he texted.

    “Found on the 30k [emails] provided to State originally. No one noticed. It cuts against ‘I never sent or received anything marked classified,’” he texted, in reference to Clinton’s denials.

    However, Clinton cited as late as July 2, 2016, that she had never sent material that was marked classified.

    “Let me repeat what I have repeated for many months now,” Clinton said July 2, 2016. “I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified.”

    Comey only revealed the existence of those emails when he announced on July 5, 2016, that he was not recommending any charges against Clinton. He said in his statement that a “very small number” of her emails containing classified information were marked as classified.

    Comey’s revelation prompted PolitiFact to downgrade Clinton’s denials from “Half True” to “False,” and to note that Clinton should have known if any of her emails were actually marked “classified” since she had access to them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "A military parade is third world bullshit," O'Neill tweeted. "We prepare. We deter. We fight. Stop this conversation."

    Amen.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Let the Government workers drive tractor for awhile !

    ReplyDelete
  4. A military parade seems a good political idea.

    Most people would probably support it, at least silently, and get pissed off at those that don't, and vote Trump.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. If Marie Harf-Barf is against it, how can one not be for it ?

      Delete
  5. Q-Fool Polling seems to have been only polling its own desires in its recent predictions Trump would not get over 40% -

    POLL: TRUMP APPROVAL NEARS 50%....DRUDGE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. One often heard criticism of Q-Fool Polling is that "it never thinks or polls downrange".

      Delete
    2. .

      Drudge (and his minion Bob) out poll shopping.

      A couple days ago Bob used a Quinnipiac Poll to make a point on something (forget what it was as I often do with what Bb puts up).


      Yesterday, he used a Rasmussen Poll (aka 'GOP Butt-Boy Polling') to say Trump's approval rating was 48%.

      However, the same day Quinnipiac had the approval rating at 40%.


      Today Bob put up a 50% approval rating by famed polling expert Drudge.

      Today's RCP average for Trump approval is 41.8 down from 42.3 yesterday.


      ,

      Delete
    3. It's Rasmussen that has Trump just under 50% -

      http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/prez_track_feb09

      Delete
    4. Drudge doesn't favor any particular poll.

      They just throw up the newest and hope for some clicks.

      Delete
    5. Why do they want clicks ?

      It's the ad men.

      The ad men run the world.

      Delete
  6. .

    Crazy

    - Market down 10%.

    - Volatility up. Over the past week, the market has moved (up and down fluctuations) almost 17,000 points.

    - $3 trillion market value drop.

    - Losses in the past week equal 50% of 2017 gains.


    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My broker says it's the robot algorithmic trading.

      I've moved into gold under the mattress, and farm/ranch/timber land.

      Delete
    2. "An honest broker is one that is willing to talk himself out of a trade"

      Delete
    3. I thought "An honest broker" was a cliche.

      Delete
    4. Have you ever experienced a broker that was able to talk himself out of trading other people's money ?

      I though not.

      Delete
    5. Wayne's my honest broker.

      He told me to get into gold under the mattress, farm/ranch/timber land, and cattle.

      I've already saved 5% in brokerage fees.

      Delete
    6. Wayne is also into Warren Buffet Index Funds.

      Delete
    7. .

      Sorry, it's often difficult to discern the meaning behind the prose of English majors. Was that just gold under the mattress?

      Was it gold under the mattress, farm/ranch/timber land, and cattle?

      Regardless of which it is, isn't it a little uncomfortable sleeping.

      .

      Delete
    8. Not at all.

      The gold is under the mattress, the .45 is beside the pillow, the dogs are outside and on alert, and it gives a wonderful secure relaxing sleep.

      Delete
  7. President Trump Proposing ‘Biggest Civil Service Change’ In A Generation

    President Trump will seek to “hire the best and fire the worst” federal government employees under the most ambitious proposal to overhaul the civil service in 40 years, officials said.

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/02/report-president-trump-proposing-biggest-civil-service-change-generation/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Trump is using the VA Accountability Act, which gave the Secretary of Veterans Affairs greater authority to fire and discipline workers, as a model. The White House says that law has resulted in the dismissal of 1,470 employees, the suspension of 443, demotions for 83 others last year.

      Under the current system, federal employees get a review every one to three years. Employees whose performance is “fully successful” — as 99.7% are — get a within-grade “step” increase in addition to annual cost-of-living increases.

      Trump’s plan would stretch out the amount of time it takes to go from step 1 to step 10 from 18 years to 27 years, saving $10 billion over the next decade, officials said. That money would then go to high-performing employees either as merit raises or one-time bonuses.

      During his State of the Union address last week, President Trump teased plans for an overhaul, stating, “Tonight, I call on Congress to empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.”

      Rumblings about a shakeup began before President Trump’s address.

      Last month, Robert Shea, a former White House Office of Management and Budget official hinted to Bloomberg Law that, “A pretty substantial reorganization”, may occur in the near future.

      Another source told the publication that, “OPM may be ready for a big shakeup.”

      Delete
  8. Judge Pirro Goes Off on Comey, McCabe: ‘We’re on the Brink of Indictments’ Over FBI Corruption (VIDEO)

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/02/judge-pirro-goes-off-comey-mccabe-brink-indictments-fbi-corruption-video/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, the love of my Fox News lifetime....

      Delete
    2. Fox has been broadcasting interludes of Country, Country Rock and Rock from last year's Summer Concert Series.

      Very enjoyable.

      Ah, too be young and be able to sing....

      Delete
  9. Two members of notorious ISIS death squad known as ‘the Beatles’ captured in Syria
    JOHN SEXTON Feb 09, 2018 1:21 PM

    “These guys had an absolute sense of their own invincibility.”


    https://hotair.com/archives/2018/02/09/two-members-notorious-isis-death-squad-captured-syria/

    ReplyDelete
  10. Well, a rally into the close on a weekend. That will ruin all the fun for the crepe hangers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sounds like a reference to the Ash folk to me.

      Delete
  11. OH MY, THE STATE DEPARTMENT RUSSIAN EXPERTS...

    An Obama State Department official has acknowledged he had regular contact with the author of the controversial anti-Trump dossier – coming forward in an apparent bid to blunt expected criticism from the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

    In a Washington Post column posted late Thursday, Jonathan Winer detailed an extensive exchange of documents with ex-British spy Christopher Steele, a friend of his since 2009.

    He said he shared “more than 100 of Steele’s reports with the Russia experts at the State Department” over a period of two years. These weren’t related to American politics – but he would later share information about the Trump dossier with the top levels of the Obama-era State Department.

    ReplyDelete
  12. THE USUAL SUSPECTS

    A former State Department official has confirmed that he played middleman in relaying anti-Trump smut from two Hillary Clinton operatives to dossier writer Christopher Steele who passed it to the FBI.

    It is a further thickening of the plot by Democratic Party agents to get unverified dossier material into the news media and the Obama Justice Department before election day Nov. 8.

    Jonathan M. Winer, who was former secretary state John Kerry’s special envoy to Libya and his Senate adviser, disclosed the the behind-the-scenes get-Trump operation in a Washington Post op-ed.

    Mr. Winer confirmed a redacted Senate report released on Tuesday that said information on candidate Trump flowed between Mr. Steele and Clinton operatives, with Mr. Winer as the middleman.

    Mr. Steele, a former British spy, wrote the anti-Trump dossier with money provided by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, through Fusion GPS.

    The Hillary Clinton agents are Sidney Blumenthal, a well-known fierce Clinton defender and freelance intelligence gatherer, and his collaborator, Cody Shearer.

    ReplyDelete
  13. MORE FUN FROM THE YEAST HOST


    Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has announce he will next investigate the dossier roles of the State Department and Mrs. Clinton’s operatives.

    To date, his investigation into FBI and Department of Justice abuses has turned up a series of new disclosures.

    He found out who financed the discredited dossier. It alleges a still-unconfirmed “extensive conspiracy” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 election.

    Mr. Nunes also discovered that the FBI used the partisan dossier to convince a judge to issue a wiretap warrant on Trump volunteer Carter Page.

    He disclosed that the FBI cited a Yahoo News story as corroboration when in fact it too came from the dossier.

    He further found that the FBI planned to pay Mr. Steele to continue investigating the candidate who came to be President Trump. The FBI suspended the relationship after Mr. Steele went to the press with his allegations days before the Nov. 8 election.

    The Senate report is Mr. Grassley’s criminal referral asking the Justice Department to investigate Mr. Steele for lying to the FBI. The referral said Mr. Steele assured the FBI he did not talk to Yahoo News when in fact he did.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies



    1. .


      "a congressional nutjob who conjures conspiracy theories out of nothingburgers and likely wears a tinfoil hat to church on Sunday's."


      .


      Delete
  14. Former CIA director John Brennan: More coming out on him:


    In the old days, America’s top spies would complete their tenures at the CIA or one of the other Washington puzzle palaces and segue to more ordinary pursuits. Some wrote their memoirs. One ran for president. Another died a few months after surrendering his post. But today’s national-security establishment retiree has a different game plan. After so many years of brawling in the shadows, he yearns for a second, lucrative career in the public eye. He takes a crash course in speaking in soundbites, refreshes his wardrobe and signs a TV news contract. Then, several times a week, waits for a network limousine to shuttle him to the broadcast news studios where, after a light dusting of foundation and a spritz of hairspray, he takes a supporting role in the anchors’ nighttime shows.

    Former CIA Director John Brennan (2013-17) is the latest superspook to be reborn as a TV newsie. He just cashed in at NBC News as a “senior national security and intelligence analyst” and served his first expert views on last Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press.


    MORE LATER

    ReplyDelete
  15. .

    The Tao of Quirk

    [Deep Thoughts and Insightful Analysis]

    The Trump Effect

    A darkness is spreading across the nation in a broad negative feedback loop with Trump at one terminus and his base at the other. It feeds upon itself with a steady diet of lies, fake news, misrepresentations, speculation, doubt, and conspiracy theories. The miasma is centered in D.C. and feeding into the loop is the GOP in Congress which recent events prove has been totally coopted by Trump.

    This has been a winning formula for Trump and the GOP as the continued support of his base proves. That base at its core consists of both the lower middle-class who feel aggrieved and ignored and the alt-right, an amorphous conglomeration of racists, nativists, and hate-mongers. The Trump formula involves aggressively pitting one side against 'the other', creating false narratives, and providing the daily 2 minutes of hate tweets to keep the troops riled up. It’s a bread and circuses policy that provides trinkets for the natives and a bonanza to corporation, banks, and the 1%. Promises made, promises broken.

    The overriding meme of the Trump movement is that America is broken and must be fixed, that we are growing weak militarily and that our culture is devolving (read it is no longer the ‘white, Christian, Ozzie and Harriet’ culture of the 1950’s as depicted in ‘I love Lucy’ and ‘Leave it to Beaver’). They point nostalgically at an idealized past and ignore everything that has changed in the last 60 years, demographically, economically, socially, politically, technologically, scientifically, as well as other factors. Instead they provide one simplistic answer to every problem in America, ‘the other’.

    This simplistic view results in Trumpkin comments like…

    This country was officially over when Bush reneged on the fence in 2007.

    {...}

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. {...}

      Trump’s military policies have been criticized because they appear to be simply a rehash of the existing Obama policies while adding more money and troops to kick it up a notch. Promises made, promises broken. His domestic policies put to a lie the meme ‘conservative Republican’. We have seen this same thing play out over the past 30 years in previous GOP administrations (Reagan, Bush) where supply-side economics were used as excuse for deficit spending and further debt. In both cases, it ended up in major recessions by the end of the president’s second term. The only winners were the wealthy, the banks, and Wall Street. In this instance Trump finally deserves the superlatives he habitually gives himself. The tax cuts are the ‘huuugest’, biggest giveaway to the rich in American history while at the same time increasing the debt by $ trillions and automatically increasing it to the ‘huuugest’ debt ever. Promises made, promises broken.

      However, this is just the macro view. There is also a localized effect, a corrupting influence centered on and spreading out from Trump himself. It slowly degrades everything and everyone in his vicinity. I’m not talking the cabinet secretaries and agency heads chosen by Trump all of which have histories and philosophies directly opposed to the purported goals of the organizations they now lead. That is simply crass cynicism. I’m not talking about the alt-right nutjobs like Bannon who helped Trump achieve the presidency. That is Trump the opportunist. I’m not talking the political hacks and campaign contributors Trump has nominated for the judiciary. I’m not talking the irrational appointments of unqualified and callow campaign volunteers such as the one to help run the opioid program. There is no reason for that. I’m not talking the hanger-ons, the political opportunists like Sarah Sanders willing to tell any lie to keep her spot in the limelight. No, I am talking about the well-respected people who now work for Trump, people like Pence, Kelly, and Mattis, people who have sold their integrity and their souls and slowly moved to the dark side under this president.

      {...}

      Delete

    2. {...}

      Mike Pence

      When Trump won, the only positive that some could take from the victory was Mike Pence, perceived as the only adult in a gang of rowdy juveniles. If everything hit the fan there would always be Pence to steady the ship.
      Wrong.

      Pence’s reputation has been steadily degraded as he shown himself not to be an independent counter to Trump’s impetuousness but rather a pandering yes-man and sycophantic ass-kisser.

      Pence’s part in the cabinet meeting (see link below for video) following passage of the tax law has been widely mocked and satirized. The saccharine praise and obsequious adulation he showered on Trump in a 2 minute panegyric was nauseating.

      Pence Panegyric

      Pence’s performance was quickly followed by the other kowtowing Mandarins in the cabinet.

      When viewing the video, note Trump’s posture. It appears he is getting ready to confer a “Dilly Dilly” on Pence’s performance (one that the rest of the cabinet would no doubt affirm with a resounding “Dilly Dilly” in response).

      More troubling is that Pence seems to be taking on the position as Trump hitman approaching the job with evangelical zeal and messianic glee replacing Jared and Tillerson in key hotspot situations like the Near East and North Korea. He was panned for his visit to Israel and is now playing bad cop on North Korea.

      Evidently, Trump is upset that South Korea is kind of walking around him with their push for a peace initiative with North Korea centering on the Olympics so he sends Pence over there in what appears to be a petty effort to dump water on the deal. I expect for the next two weeks, we will see Pence over there playing wet blanket at the party.

      Yesterday, he announced that the US was planning on laying the most aggressive sanctions ever on the Norks. He gave the speech while standing in front of a line of military. The lighting was probably bad but it showed him with dark, deep set eyes, a furrowed brow, and his signature chrome dome white hair making him look like the central character in a 1930’s Nazi propaganda film, that or Darth Vader from Star Wars (or Deep Helmet from Space Balls depending on your movie preferences) giving the Imperial troopers the order to juice up the Death Star and take out the rebel coalition. Not a good look. All we need now is him calling a meeting of all US gay Olympic athletes so that he can introduce them to the idea of ‘Gay Conversion Therapy’.
      In this latest effort to intimidate both North and South Korea and in keeping with the Star Wars reference, I guess we could say Trump is playing the evil Emperor, a role he would probably jump at if it were offered.

      {...}

      Delete

    3. {...}

      Kelly

      Kelly, one of the ‘my generals’ Trump likes to talk about, a man hired to bring organization and stability to the Trump White House, unflappable and reserved, steady, now, after a mere six months in proximity to Trump seems to be losing his cool.

      Admittedly, Kelly has always been a Debbie Downer when it comes to any kind of immigration policy, but in a speech touting the Trump deal on DACA the stoic façade seemed to drop as he went off in a bitter diatribe in which an obviously agitated Kelly criticized (with extreme prejudice) those Dreamers who were too scared or too lazy to sign up for such a sweet deal.

      And in the latest incident, Kelly is being attacked by the Dems and in the press for not only allowing Rob Porter to continue in his job as Staff Secretary to Trump sans full security clearance but also for vociferously defending him against the physical abuse charges. Hard to tell how things will turn out but there is already talk of him being replaced as Chief of Staff. Trump is standing by him at the moment but we all know how fast that can change. Six months around Trump and you are damaged goods. Beyond redemption?

      Mattis

      Mad Dog Mattis, another of Trump’s ‘my Generals’, universally praised, confirmed as Secretary of Defense by a 98-1 vote in the Senate. Viewed as a steady hand, he stressed the need for diplomacy over military action.
      He’s been on the Trump team since the beginning and though he has resisted the Trump effect, it is starting to show.

      When Trump turned over authority for conducting military operations to ‘my generals’ (not something recognized in the Constitution), Mattis and his boys took Trump at his word and did what the military is best at, increasing troop strength and money spent in areas of conflict across the globe.

      More troubling, however, is his promotion of the $1.5 trillion upgrade to the US triad system. To be more specific, it is not only the cost of the upgrade but the fact than this represents a provocation on the part of the US since it can quickly result in a new arms race. Further, there are troubling new changes tied into the latest upgrade.

      For instance, Mattis was praising the development of smaller nuclear weapons an option he states will provide us an additional option if we are being overwhelmed by conventional forces in any particular area. He stressed these developments are all defensive to which I say Bullshit!

      This will quickly bring us back to those days back in the eighties when both sides were talking about the ability to ‘survive’ a nuclear war. When Mattis in speaking of the budget says, “We can afford to survive” it brings back disturbing memories.

      In the hands of some bully, a man not know for impulse control, not to mention any names, this would be a dangerous option which would provide the ability to wage a limited nuclear war within a specified area. The day that happens, the jigs up because if it doesn’t spread immediately it will eventually.

      Obama is the one who started us this risking journey. Trump could be the one that ends it.

      .

      Delete
    4. Stick with the 'dilly dilly' and at all costs avoid Promises made, promises broken.

      If you do this in future scribblings you will continue to have a few readers, if not, none.

      Delete
    5. You might even throw in a little dilly dally occasionally for sensuousness and sex interest.

      That's why Ernie had to put that nonsense about Maria into For Whom The Bell Tolls.

      Hollywood would demand the romantic interest be expressed.

      Just some fundamental writing advice from your English Major....

      Delete
    6. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    7. To Quirk -

      Dear Sir,

      I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "Dilly Dilly - The Tao of Quirk". I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork or too much lymph in the temperament were making our Western wits fat and mean. I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment, which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire. I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely of fortifying and encouraging.

      I did not know until I, last night, saw the book advertised in a newspaper, that I could trust the name as real and available for a Post-Office. I wish to see my benefactor, and have felt much like striking my tasks, and visiting Detroit to pay you my respects.

      Bob Waldo

      Delete
    8. .

      Well, thank you ma'am. I appreciate your kind thoughts.

      The encouragement you have offered will be locked away and brought out again in those moments of doubt and frustration (not a sexual reference so please do not sue me) when the effort grows long and hard (sorry, also not a sexual reference) when I am alone and...(oh, hell).

      Thank you, ma'am.

      .

      Delete
  16. F***ing Donald Trump would be impossible to work for.

    Any Free Woman or Man wouldn't last an hour.

    He's better for the country than Hillary tho.

    ReplyDelete



  17. .


    I will not lower myself to entertain, much less address, the possibility of ANY corruption in the DOJ or FBI.


    .


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...it still remains a nagging question to some:

      Why?

      Delete
  18. What the Hindus knew long long ago, long before our 'Enlightenment', before Christianity, before Judaism -

    Is The Universe A Conscious Mind?

    ....We have no direct access to the nature of matter outside of brains. But the most reasonable speculation, according to Eddington, is that the nature of matter outside of brains is continuous with the nature of matter inside of brains. Given that we have no direct insight into the nature of atoms, it is rather ‘silly’, argued Eddington, to declare that atoms have a nature entirely removed from mentality, and then to wonder where mentality comes from. In my book Consciousness and Fundamental Reality (2017), I developed these considerations into an extensive argument for panpsychism: the view that all matter has a consciousness-involving nature.

    There are two ways of developing the basic panpsychist position. One is micropsychism, the view that the smallest parts of the physical world have consciousness. Micropsychism is not to be equated with the absurd view that quarks have emotions or that electrons feel existential angst. In human beings, consciousness is a sophisticated thing, involving subtle and complex emotions, thoughts and sensory experiences. But there seems nothing incoherent with the idea that consciousness might exist in some extremely basic forms. We have good reason to think that the conscious experience of a horse is much less complex than that of a human being, and the experiences of a chicken less complex than those of a horse. As organisms become simpler, perhaps at some point the light of consciousness suddenly switches off, with simpler organisms having no experience at all. But it is also possible that the light of consciousness never switches off entirely, but rather fades as organic complexity reduces, through flies, insects, plants, amoeba and bacteria. For the micropsychist, this fading-while-never-turning-off continuum further extends into inorganic matter, with fundamental physical entities – perhaps electrons and quarks – possessing extremely rudimentary forms of consciousness, to reflect their extremely simple nature....


    https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2018/02/universe-conscious-mind/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No matter, never mind
      Never mind, no matter

      Delete
    2. Buncha lights and chemicals.

      Delete
    3. .

      Is that Ed Eddington from down Appaloosa way?

      .

      Delete
    4. Eddie, aka Chief Eddie.

      His ancestors developed the Appaloosa horse breed.

      He and his group are heavily invested in the Clearwater River Casino now.

      Beats fishing and digging camus roots.

      Don't know where they picked up the Eddington.

      They used to be the Running Foxes of the Running Fox Clan.

      Always had the reputation of being real smart folks.

      Nice too.

      Delete
  19. ...let me know if I missed anything while wearing out my scroller roller.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Is it possible YOU might have a 'Boltzmann Brain' ?

    ....Turning to the multiverse hypothesis, the false prediction arises from the so-called Boltzmann brain problem, named after the 19th-century Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann who first formulated the paradox of the observed universe. Assuming there is a multiverse, you would expect our Universe to be a fairly typical member of the universe ensemble, or at least a fairly typical member of the universes containing observers (since we couldn’t find ourselves in a universe in which observers are impossible). However, in The Road to Reality (2004), the physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose has calculated that in the kind of multiverse most favoured by contemporary physicists – based on inflationary cosmology and string theory – for every observer who observes a smooth, orderly universe as big as ours, there are 10 to the power of 10123 who observe a smooth, orderly universe that is just 10 times smaller. And by far the most common kind of observer would be a ‘Boltzmann’s brain’: a functioning brain that has by sheer fluke emerged from a disordered universe for a brief period of time. If Penrose is right, then the odds of an observer in the multiverse theory finding itself in a large, ordered universe are astronomically small. And hence the fact that we are ourselves such observers is powerful evidence against the multiverse theory.

    Neither of these are knock-down arguments. Theists can try to come up with reasons why God would allow the suffering we find in the Universe, and multiverse theorists can try to fine-tune their theory such that our Universe is less unlikely. However, both of these moves feel ad hoc, fiddling to try to save the theory rather than accepting that, on its most natural interpretation, the theory is falsified. I think we can do better.


    https://aeon.co/essays/cosmopsychism-explains-why-the-universe-is-fine-tuned-for-life

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's possible I have a Bozeman Brain.

      Nice country out that way -

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bozeman,_Montana

      Delete
  21. This FRI, Feb 9, the COS resolution HCR32 will be voted on in Idaho for the first
    time ever! History will be made in Committee Room EW40.

    https://causes.anedot.com/states

    ReplyDelete

  22. Senate Introduces Bill Intended to Displace U.S. Tech Workers


    In one of his final official acts before retiring, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced the Immigration Innovation Act of 2018 that would increase the annual H-1B visa quota up to as many as 195,000 from the current 85,000.

    Co-sponsored by lame duck Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., the bill would also allow H-1B visa holders’ spouses and children to work, a provision that then-President Barack Obama’s 2015 executive order granted, and which the Homeland Security Department is re-evaluating with an eye toward ending.

    The news release that announced the Hatch-Flake legislation, also referred to as I-Squared and a nonstarter in the two previous Congresses, is watered down with touchy-feely language, but the end goal is obvious: fewer jobs for American tech workers and more imported overseas labor.

    ...But displaced, highly skilled American tech workers tell a different, more compelling story than the congressional boiler plate pap.

    Craig Diangelo worked at Connecticut-based Northeast Utilities. Like many of his fired IT peers nationwide, his severance package was contingent on him training his H-1B replacement.

    The indifference Congress has consistently shown to laid-off Americans who must, often for the first time in their lives, rely on unemployment insurance to survive propelled Diangelo to become a 2018 congressional candidate in Connecticut’s Fifth District.

    https://www.noozhawk.com/article/joe_guzzardi_senate_bill_intended_to_displace_u.s._tech_workers_20180204#at_pco=cfd-1.0

    ReplyDelete
  23. .

    Many, many more simple fixes will stabilize US population growth while maintaining and improving our quality of life and retaining our culture.


    Well sure, perhaps more free love and fewer condoms and abortions among whites.

    Those guys don't seem to be holding up their end of the compact.


    .

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    Replies
    1. .

      Look at Stephen Paddock, not only did he launch the biggest mass killing event in US history but even after being married a couple times, he didn't have any kids.

      Selfish prick.

      .

      Delete
    2. Look at it this way:

      Paddy didn't pass on his homicidal genes.

      Delete
    3. .

      ...and retaining our culture.


      Is that our culture (2018) or our culture (1955)?

      .

      Delete
  24. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c678a7048e9d96df5e1139f875754ae533be279d/0_110_4811_2886/master/4811.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=4e9e0f01fa08cb0027ffab2c521d1d55

    ReplyDelete
  25. Farthest photos ever taken, from nearly 4 billion miles away
    Associated Press
    MARCIA DUNN
    ,Associated Press•February 9, 2018

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/farthest-photos-ever-taken-nearly-4-billion-miles-181248616.html

    ReplyDelete