Silicon Valley Redneck

Which is the War Party, again?

Today's headline:

Obama authorizes more sanctions against North Korea in Sony hack

This despite evidence that the Norks had nothing whatsoever to do with it, and that the perpetrators were disgruntled Sony (ex-)employees intent on financial gain.

Clearly, the soon-to-be Republican majority in both houses of Congress is to blame for this executive action.  The President's hands are tied!  Tied, I tell you!

Afterthoughts:

Apparently the Administration is using the same standard of proof it insists on for campus sexual assaults, i.e., Factual Innocence is No Excuse!

As for sanctions, well: When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last.  The already-starving peasants get the worst of it, and Big Bad Uncle Sam gets the blame.

I still like the idea of Blintzkrieg, i.e., carpet-bombing poor hostile countries with food.  Though blintzes, per se, might not be appropriate.

The Constitution requires equal protection of the law, but big enough campaign contributions can buy one some gloriously unequal protection.

Remember the Maine!

Speaking of wooden rubles

The crude-oil cartel has been boosting production and cutting prices in an effort to discourage North American crude development.

The rumor mill suggests that Russia is behind this.

In any case, it's a fine example of predatory pricing, and it's been generating headlines.  You've seen them.  Oil prices fall, there's no point in investing in domestic extraction, nor transportation of Canadian crude, all that stuff.  Also, cheap crude will totally destroy the economy (I'm still not clear on how that's supposed to work).

But... isn't there a YouTube vid of an interview with Milton Friedman, in which he explains that predatory pricing doesn't actually work?  I can't find it at the moment, but there's this from Thomas J. DiLorenzo at the Cato Institute.

And what evidence is there that it doesn't work?  Why, after only a few months of selling below cost, Russia is having a grand economic crisis, with the ruble in free-fall.

Maybe there's something to this Austrian economics stuff after all.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre...

... The idiocy swoops 'round again.

Remember the Snowden files?  Or was that all year-and-a-half-ago?

And the NSA was snooping on Angela Merkel?  And this was a great scandal?  (C'mon, spying on foreigners is what spy agencies are supposed to do.  Leaking information on which foreigners are being spied on is a bad move, though, especially when they're heads of allied governments.)

Anyway: seems the spying-on-Merkel thing may have been a fabrication.

?

And what did I say, way back in June of last year?

Now, let's consider the Snowden Files.  They're computer documents, released to the public by a person of dubious reputation.  They look official... but how many among us know what actual official NSA documents look like, and would comment on the matter in public?  And how many of those could verify the actual authenticity of the documents, or even the plausibility of the content, even in general terms?

Right.  Hardly anyone.

But!  We now have metadata.  Specifically: various government departments have been sending forth directives cautioning their employees not to look at the classified documents (or not to do so on government networks reserved for unclassified material).

And now the Germans are telling us that at least one of these totally authentic documents over which the government went into such a tizzy... was a forgery.

So, is the German prosecutor doing the cover-up that our own government forgot how to do?  Or is our government so incompetent that it can't even tell that a document dump is fake, and it took this long and a foreign official to figure it out?

Kipling on Eric Garner

Yes, as usual, there's something to be found in the timeless verse.

To be drowned or be shot
Is our natural lot,
Why should we, moreover, be hanged in the end---
After all our great pains
For to dangle in chains
As though we were smugglers, not poor honest men?

Tobacco smuggling is hardly a new thing, and the King's revenooers are, as always, thuggish and deadly.

Because if we didn't kill smugglers, people would take untaxed goods for granted, and the whole structure of society government would fall apart!

My, what a radical idea!

After all these decades of people airily dismissing concerns about the insane overreach in the language of so many laws - "Oh, don't be silly!  It'll never be enforced that way!" - suddenly there's a new meme: Don’t support laws you are not willing to kill to enforce (here, elaborated on here).

Or, as P. J. O'Rourke put it so many years ago: "Would you kill your grandmother to pave I-95?"

Remember the Maine!

FERGUSON ERUPTS

Yeah.  Was all primed for it, and this stuff sells newspapers (and/or eyeballs).

The mainstream press has been setting this up all along.  Even after evidence supporting the cop's story started dribbling out, serious, professional columnists for well-established publications were asserting as fact that the deceased* was murdered by a cop while attempting to surrender.

The spirit of William Randolph Hearst is alive, if somewhat attenuated.

When you ponder who might benefit from unrest and war, remember who distributes the divisive propaganda, and observe that they also profit from covering the tragedies they help to incite.

And they don't even need stealth warships.

* Invariably referred to in terms which implied a harmless child.

Of shirtstorms, catcalls, and building codes

Two related items have grabbed the Internet's attention in the last few days: the foofaraw over a garish shirt, and the attention a curvy young woman attracted while walking through certain areas of New York City.

The catcall video: Surprise!  Some lower-class men can be rude, by the standards of the privileged classes.  This is of course completely unprecedented; in all other times and places, surely the lower classes were unfailingly polite to their betters.

The shirtstorm: Curiously enough, some creative people don't have the specific set of social skills and conventions-of-the-week to mix well with the modern clerisy.  This is absurd, as surely they can take time out from painting masterpieces and landing spaceships on comets to attend finishing school, and the weekly and annual refreshers.

We seem to have acquired a collection of classes - ruling, chattering, and academic - drawn from the wealthy and privileged ranks of society, and completely unaware that anyone outside their bubble even exists - or, when they're forced to notice, their reaction is that such people ought not to exist.

Which brings us to that third item.  Building codes certainly serve a good purpose; if I buy or rent a building, or take a job in one, I do want assurance that it's been built to proper standards, and duly inspected and certified as structurally sound and fit for use.

And yet: Many jurisdictions insist that building codes apply to structures that will be occupied solely by the builder, and make violations (including failure to secure the government's blessing) a crime.  So, buy a cheap bit of land out of sight of anyone, build a shack from scrounged materials, and live in it alone, without modern amenities, and just for that you become a criminal.

Back when we had that big recall election in California, and anyone with a few bucks and a few dozen acquaintances could run for Governor, I toyed with the idea of running on an Evil Overlord platform.  One of the planks was this: I planned to eliminate poverty in California though a system of regressive taxes which would force the poor to move out.

Alas, this notion has now gone mainstream, backed by a submerged version of the sentiment commonly misattributed to Marie Antoinette: "The peasants have no bread?  Well, can't they eat cake?"

The ones who make the rules, and who define (with ever-shifting social conventions) Polite Society, simply can't imagine any lifestyle other than their own, let alone anyone wanting to live that way.  Homesteaders, hillbillies, carnies, artists (the talented kind, not the rich and famous kind), or even the workmen who keep the cities running but can't afford posh penthouses: those people, if we must notice them at all, are scary!

The same attitude, by the way, is behind the Affordable Care Prevention Act, whereof the premise is that everyone is entitled to, and must have, the sort of comprehensive health plan to which the professional classes have become accustomed, and details of how the lower classes will pay for such a thing are of no consequence.

We must force everyone into the same mold!  Full conformity of lifestyle and opinion (apart from certain approved deviations for members of certain approved groups) must be attained!

Because we simply cannot tolerate the presence of Unmutuals in our society.

Cluemeter reading: negative.

Hey, look!  You can shut down a major transportation hub just by choosing a silly name for your smartphone's WiFi hot spot!

And some of the comments on the story... oy.  These bozos should go work for the Boston PD, motto "Bombs are covered in blinky lights, therefore anything with blinky lights on it is a bomb."

And the Penguin's henchmen always wore thug uniforms that said "HENCHMAN" on them, so....

Afterthought: Maybe I should change the SSID on my phone's hotspot from "NSA HONEYPOT #360971" to "Ebola patient tracker CA6892" or something.

That latest Secret Service fiasco

Whatever it may be; at the time of this writing, it's the fence-jumper with the knife, but by the time you read this there may be another one.

Anyway: this brings to mind one of my less accurate predictions about Obama, which was this: he wouldn't finish his first term.  Either he'd get bored around the two-year mark and wander off in search of higher office, like Queen of the Space Unicorns, or the Chicago Mob would decide he'd be more valuable as a martyr than as a live distraction, and have him bumped off ahead of an election.

Well, he's still alive (unless he's been replaced by a Disney-made audioanimatronic contrivance, which would miss the point entirely), but we're coming up on a midterm election, and then there's 2016, so there are still two opportunities for martyrdom.

And an ineffectual Secret Service might just be part of the grand plan.  Makes it easier for some random loser to do the deed.  (Of course, said loser mustn't be taken alive.  Can't have him shouting about single-payer, or snackbars, or whatever, when the propaganda machine is trying to label him as a Tea Partier.)

Come to think of it, 2016 would be a better time; we'll be clearly at war then, and having some fanatic (of whatever stripe; we can count on his fanaticism being misidentified anyway) kill the wartime President would surely give Her Inevitableness a big boost.  Also, we'd only have 3-4 months of Plugs.

Or, maybe the decline of the Secret Service is just another symptom of general decay, and not part of any specific plot.  Gramsci, anyone?

Paging René Magritte

From a tale of school-admin idiocy:

The school district says it has a very strict policy forbidding students from wearing any clothing that has a weapon on it….

Has a weapon on it?  We're not talking mini-revolver belt buckle, here.  The article of clothing in question was a T-shirt with a picture of a weapon on it.

If the school administrators can't tell the difference between a picture of a thing and the thing itself, maybe we should give them a picture of a school to administer and get some new administrators.

(Via Insty.)

Would you like to buy a clue?

Seems the National Forest Service intends to require permits for commercial photography in wilderness areas.  (Via Popehat on Twitter.)

Aside from all the snarky comments promptly directed at it, there's this:

By contrast, the Forest Service is giving its supervisors discretion to decide whether a news outlet's planned video or photo shoots would meet the Wilderness Act's goals.

"If you were engaged on reporting that was in support of wilderness characteristics, that would be permitted," Close said.

So... it's a discretionary permit, and may be issued or not based on viewpoint?

Can anyone tell me what's wrong with this picture?  Anyone?  Any distinguished ConLaw scholars out there?

Doom and gloom

A look at economics, positive feedback loops, and perverse incentives, from a Brit perspective, over at El Reg.

Or, why it's vitally important to the national interest (any nation; makes little difference) that you buy a new iThing every two years, and remain addicted to cigarettes and whiskey.  (Wild, wild women don't count unless they're taxable in your area.)

Didn't I mention, a few years back, that the global economy was in something very much resembling an aerodynamic stall?  And that there were 57 idiots in the cockpit arguing over whose turn it was to pull back on the stick?

Meanwhile in China: discouraging economic data (via).  Not that numbers from China are even as trustworthy as numbers from the U.S., but still: it's been obvious for a long time that rich Chinese have been moving assets offshore (investing in Silicon Valley businesses and real estate development, buying or building crazy expensive houses in Palo Alto, etc.) rather than plowing everything back into the domestic economy, so presumably those in the know are anticipating hard times there.

This may be good news for the Valley, in the short term; the more alarming things look in China, the more capital will get dumped here... right?  But, sooner or later, the flood of capital will dry up, and all those amazing companies whose business model consists of attracting ever more investment will find themselves in a pickle.

Huh. Not as close as I'd thought.

So, Scottish independence lost, 45 to 55.

If this is anything like correct, there were huge incentives for the referendum to fail.  As in The Powers That Be could not, under any circumstances, allow it to succeed.

But I'd expected it to be rigged to fail by just a hair, to create political leverage for the Scottish political establishment.  Maybe more people than expected actually voted No?

WTF hypothetical of the day

Spotted here:

"What if I'm out walking my dog and someone attacks me because she's right here producing a date rape drug," questioned neighbor Karen Cox. "I don't feel safe anymore."

What is this I don't even...?

Quick, send that neighbor to the legislature.  She makes as much sense as the average politician, i.e., less than none.

Sanctions

Seen here, as quoted from elsewhere:

Russia is imposing "self sanctions" on its population to make it seem the Russian people is under attack from the West: not only the elite.

Ayup.

In pondering the longevity of the Cuba embargo, I long ago came to the conclusion that there must be a secret reason for retaining it through so many changes of President and Congress.  My suspicion: after the revolution, Castro demanded the embargo as a condition of honoring the lease on Guantanamo.  Because, without the Big Bad External Enemy, who'd be to blame for the failed economy?

Secret police

Not only have modern "militarized"* cops taken to hiding their faces in public...

Some of them - and this has to be a department-level thing - have taken to detaining people without official record, and refusing to give names and badge numbers.

Guys?  There's a reason the traditional police uniform has the officer's name on it, and the badge has a number.  Turn the cop into an anonymous cog in the machine, and you lose all accountability.  And the angry public has no way of knowing which cop was the bad cop.  This way lies all-out urban warfare.

And the paperwork is there for everyone's protection.  Lose that, and suddenly there's the potential for "losing" detainees who were never officially detained.  (There's enough danger of losing those who were officially arrested, without adding zero-paperwork cases.)  This starts to sound like bad times in Russia or some Third World hellhole.

 

* Scare quotes because the military equipment is not accompanied by the corresponding training and ROE, nor the attitude.

Out-of-state...

Fun Senate campaign (via Borepatch).

Features a totally generic campaign ad, perfectly delivered.

The Indiegogo site notes the huge amount of out-of-state funding for both the "real" candidates in the Senate race in question.

Which leads to the question: why not?

After all: while, in principle, a Senator ought to represent the interests of his* state, with the vast expansion of central power, basically every federal office affects everyone in every state.

So, really, between the national implications of any campaign for any federal office and the effects of party-based organization of the legislature, is it any surprise that these races draw money from all over?

(They have implications for China, Russia, Ukraine, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, too, but none of the candidates are accepting donations from those places.  Officially.  Right?)

And of course there's nothing whatsoever wrong with local grassroots groups taking the Bloombucks, and the centrally-written agenda that comes with them....

* Yes, "his"; if you go back far enough that this might actually have been the case, women didn't even have the vote yet. (Do not assume I'm implying a connection.)

Really?

As the Supreme Court ponders whether non-union non-employees may be compelled to pay union dues, we hear this:

“We're concerned, but it's certainly not going to stop workers from coming together with their unions and fighting to improve their jobs and the quality of public services,” said Judy Scott, general counsel at SEIU, which is a defendant in the case.

Quality of pub... STOP THAT!  Yer gettin' coffee all over my keyboard!

Because it's totally obvious that the best way to improve the quality of public services is to ensure that no government employee can ever be fired... right?

Wait, ISIS just got a tank?

I thought they got one back in April.

Another alarming datum

Most of the megacorp growth around here, for which the small-business habitat has been bulldozed, is driven by companies that, in terms of business, are real-estate development corporations with on-line advertising networks and lots of investment capital.

Well, you can only go so long burning capital on flashy headquarters complexes, lavish parties, and political donations before you need to show some positive cash flow from the advertising-network side of the business.

And, guess what?  Seems the companies that have been paying into the advertising business are getting no return from it.  As in, none.  Throwing money down a rathole.

And that's now becoming apparent.  So, when the on-line advertising market collapses from lack of advertisers, and all the pension funds run out of money to invest, and all the Chinese pension funds run out of money to invest...?

(If you look closely, and are fool enough to play Android games without turning on airplane mode first, you'll notice that the ads in free, ad-supported games are mostly for other free, ad-supported games.  Which I suppose makes sense to an enlightened neo-Keynesian, but to us old fuddy-duddies who ponder how money is spent, and not merely that it is spent, this seems monumentally unproductive: starving programmers pay each other to advertise each other's free games.  But the house always gets its cut, so all's well for Google.  Until the starving programmers run out of advertising money.)