Month: June 2013

Quote of the Day – Jerry Pournelle Edition

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Sort of a twofer:

I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.

John Adams, letter to John Taylor (15 April 1814).

The remedy, of course, was to form a Republic, and for over two hundred years the Republic endured. Now it is to be converted into a democracy, and the result is predictable and predicted. There are many good studies of what happens when a democracy commits suicide. If it is fortunate it gets a Claudius Caesar, but more often it must first endure a Caligula so that Claudius seems a blessed relief. And after Claudius as likely as not comes Nero. But I digress. For the moment we do not yet have Marius.

Take My Money! Entertain Me!

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OK, I’ve just finished Larry Correia‘s latest, Warbound: Book III of the Grimnoir Chronicles eARC (Electronic Advanced Reader Copy).

This is not my normal cuppa tea. I’m not a particular fan of… well, I was going to say “fantasy,” but that brings up images of orcs and elves and stuff, and The Grimnoir Chronicles does not fit into that genre. It’s literally unlike anything I’ve ever read, but it does have magic! Let me see if I can find Tam’s description of the earlier two books in the series… Here it is:

See, Larry writes stories about people. People with complex drives and goals and motives, who don’t always categorize easily into ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’. People you care about. The fact that they’re people that run around on top of a zeppelin shooting teleporting ninjas with shotguns is just a bonus.

It’s a genre-defying storyline, and probably one of the more original I’ve read in a long time. It’s got the magic thing, sure, but it’s also well-researched alternate history, with a sort of superhero flavor… Imagine a prose version of The Watchmen, but with fedoras and Tommy guns, and a supporting cast that runs from Buckminster Fuller to Black Jack Pershing. And the thing with shooting the teleporting ninjas on the dirigible with shotguns, which will make you realize that, no matter how highbrow your tastes, sometimes you need to just shut up and eat your awesome.

I’ve read all of the Monster Hunter series and his joint effort with Mike Kupari, Dead Six. 

At this point I will read anything that man writes, including his grocery lists.

Larry announced recently that his writing has allowed him to quit his normal dayjob as an accountant to concentrate full time on writing.

Faster, Larry.  Take my money!  Entertain me!!

Bordering on Tyranny, Piers?

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OK, here we go again with Piers “I hate the Second Amendment” Morgan a few weeks ago:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKO8A285Rr0?rel=0]

And here he is just a day or so ago (sorry about the ad – can’t strip it out):

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_embed_2x_container.swf?site=cnn&profile=desktop&context=embedwww&videoId=us/2013/06/07/pmt-guardian-greenwald-nsa-prism-program.cnn&contentId=us/2013/06/07/pmt-guardian-greenwald-nsa-prism-program.cnn

Even Glenn Greenwald is outraged!  Or is he just trying to sell more dish soap?

So I ask again:  Merely bordering on tyranny?

…And Now We’re Down to Three

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When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we’ve brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they’re making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity — y’know what? There’s only four things we do better than anyone else:

music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery

— Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

Well, we can scratch “high-speed pizza delivery” off the list:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on4DRTUvst0?rel=0]
Yeah, it’s Domino’s, but it’s in the UK, not Silicon Valley.

Quote of the Day – New York Times Edition

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When you’ve lost the editorial board of the NYT, you’re in deep, deep guano:

…the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.

The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it.

Hey, NYT editorial board, here’s a clue: It’s not just the executive branch, and it’s not just “this issue.”

But hey!  Nice start!

Oh, and “overreach”? There’s that term again.

UPDATE:  Aaaaand the NYT felt it necessary to soften the tone, apparently:

The New York Times edited its damning editorial condemning the Obama administration for collecting phone call data from Americans to make it less stinging shortly after the editorial was published online Thursday afternoon.

The editorial originally declared that the Obama “administration has lost all credibility” as a result of the recently revealed news that the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been secretly collecting call data from American users of Verizon under the authority of the Patriot Act.

But hours later the stinging sentence had been modified to read the Obama “administration has now lost all credibility on this issue.” [Emphasis added]

IOW: They got it right the first time.  And no, they did not note that the piece had been altered.

Full disclosure:  I’ve edited this piece twice now.

Clayton Cramer Wrote a Book About This

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A family’s mentally ill son buys a gun with the intent to perpetrate a massacre. Prior to this, he’d planned on doing it with a knife.

http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/cbsnews_player_embed.swf
Note that they can’t get their son institutionalized, even though it’s apparent that he’s dangerous. Clayton Cramer in his book My Brother Ron: A Personal and Social History of the Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill discusses the changes in America’s mental health system that has led to dangerously violent people wandering around free until they finally do something that will get them incarcerated.

Kudos to the parents. By age 21 I would imagine the daily grind of dealing with a mentally ill son would have worn most people out.

The Singularity is Coming

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Back in 2004 when I wrote Those Without Swords Can Still Die Upon Them, I cited Steven Den Beste’s piece The Four Most Important Inventions in Human History:

In my opinion, the four most important inventions in human history are spoken language, writing, movable type printing and digital electronic information processing (computers and networks). Each represented a massive improvement in our ability to distribute information and to preserve it for later use, and this is the foundation of all other human knowledge activities. There are many other inventions which can be cited as being important (agriculture, boats, metal, money, ceramic pottery, postmodernist literary theory) but those have less pervasive overall effects.

I still think he was correct.

Thanks to David Whitewolf at Random Nuclear Strikes, I listened to what I think is a critically important speech given by Juan Enriquez just a couple of weeks ago at the 2013 Fiscal Summit presented by the Peterson Foundation.

It’s twenty-five minutes long, but well worth your time, I think.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpUV4BRqkf0?rel=0]

Change continues, and it’s still accelerating.

If we don’t go off the cliff first.

“Foolish but Not Partisan” – Go Ahead, Pull My Other Leg

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Ex-head of the IRS Steven Miller testified recently that the targeting of “Tea Party” and “Patriot” applicants for 501(c) tax-exemption by the IRS for “extra scrutiny” was “foolish” but not partisan:

“I want to apologize on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service for the mistakes that we made and the poor service we provided,” Steven Miller, who has been acting IRS commissioner, told the House Ways and Means Committee as the panel held Congress’ first hearing on the episode. “The affected organizations and the American public deserve better. Partisanship and even the perception of partisanship have no place at the Internal Revenue Service.”

At a hearing that saw lawmakers from both parties harshly criticize his agency, Miller conceded that “foolish mistakes were made” by IRS officials trying to handle a flood of groups seeking tax-exempt status. He said the process that resulted in conservatives being targeted, “while intolerable, was a mistake and not an act of partisanship.”

Right. Tell that to Becky Gerritson:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N8TykuZvTY?rel=0]
You GO girl!

I am not here as a serf or vassal. I am not begging my lords for mercy. I’m a born free American woman, wife, mother and citizen. And I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place. It’s not your responsibility to look out for my well-being, and to monitor my speech. It’s not your right to assert an agenda. Your post, the post that you occupy, exists to preserve American liberty. You’ve sworn to perform that duty. And you have faltered.

Damned straight.

UPDATE: Say Uncle makes a salient point.