Life As A Surfing Metaphor

 I listen to Andy Stumpf's Cleared Hot podcast, and he most recently had former NFL kicker Steve Weatherford (episode #158) as a guest. A couple things from their conversation struck me as potentially important to living life, possibly ever, but certainly here in the early decades of the 21st century.

First Steve Weatherford's contribution to my continued growth; Roman's 5: 3 - 5:

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Whatever the source of your (or my own) faith, possibly the most important result of that is your individual sense of hope, regardless of external circumstances. Keeping yourself open to inspiration and insight, regardless of source, is an important aspect of developing one's humanity, I think. Taking what we learn and adapting that to our individual circumstances might be the most important lesson we each learn about ourselves. We should make a better effort to learn that (and pass it along) in a more organized fashion.

In the same podcast, Andy Stumpf equated life to a series of wavetops and troughs. Not to equivocate with a man with the accomplishments he has managed to live through accumulating, but I think his view is a bit limited (or more likely his opportunity to discuss it in the context of a podcast is the constraining factor). Whatever the case, I think that a better rendition of this life view is that life is a series of wave-building individual and group efforts that, when successful, result in a wavetop we can all surf down into the next trough. Which is where we start the cycle all over again; build the wave to be able to surf down into the next trough.

I understand why my fellow vets contemplate, and all too often choose, suicide; we spend a lot of time wandering around in life's troughs trying to find the next wave to build after the military spent "x" years trying to drown us in wave after wave to surf down the face of. I do that contemplative thing a lot, personally (one of the "benefits" of retirement). The main reason I listen to Andy Stumpf's podcast is because he so often talks about learning how to build your own life wave (I'm waxing on metaphorical; work with me here!). I was never a Navy SEAL; if not for the Coca Cola bottling company I never could have qualified to just be in the same (if earlier version) Navy as him. That said, all of us can find life lessons from our fellow humans if we're willing to see them and find the connection to ourselves.

Thus endeth today's sermon.

Help us, Obi-Won Elon

The Brooking Institute just published an economic analysis of the latest US Presidential election with some interesting findings. Most prominent of these is the division of aggregate wealth (GDP) apportioned over America's 3,142 counties (or county equivalents). Roughly 600-odd counties account for production of 70% of the country's total GDP, with the overwhelming majority of those counties containing the majority of US citizenry and urban development as well. The authors of the article focus on political/electoral analysis, but my interest is on the potential for market growth illustrated by the remaining 30% of current US GDP generated by the other 2,400 or so counties.

As Elon Musk's Starlink project continues through its development beta phase, the financial growth potential in the 2,400 counties identified by the Brookings Institute article linked above strikes me as being most easily realized by a communications network effectively identical to that which Mr. Musk is in the process of building out as you read these words.

As ever, the devil (and the trick) is in the details of how one goes about doing the deed.

As we approach the final decline of the Old Republic (or alternatively, the growth into the New People's Republic of the United States of America), there remains the presence of Opportunity (a basic strategic premise being that all confrontations inherently present opportunity to those who position themselves to take advantage of same). Opportunity to connect, train, support, and develop a network of individuals creating financial gain for themselves and those new or existing businesses they work with in markets that literally do not exist as of yet being my specific point of interest today.

One market few seem to consider is that of financial support, a credit union (I suggest calling it The Spacers Guild Credit Union) that serves anyone working directly or indirectly in support of off-planet enterprises (and thus all potential members of The Spacers Guild), providing traditional banking services as well as legal representation and continuing education (delivery and certification) for its members (and their families) would be both the most prominent and most basic of these, I think. Such a business, being intended to serve an off-Earth clientele from inception, would seem a natural enough fit to service any Luna, Mars, or Asteroid Belt based market should such develop in future.

In the interim, and given that these underfinanced counties are scattered over all 50 states (and one assumes all 5 US Territories as well), they begin with easy access to the already developed regional networks already centered around existing urban markets to draw upon for potential labor and other networked resources. The lower costs of residing and doing business in rural regions (relative to heavily developed urban environments) are probably not as pronounced as is commonly assumed, but nevertheless are a reality to some degree; it is the previous-to-now lack of connectivity that has been the stopper. Which segues neatly into the next opportunity I spy.

One of Elon Musk's other companies, Tesla, has been straining under the great expense required to achieve the final few percentage points of engineering necessary to achieve device autonomy. I suggest a better financial expenditure (and potential societal, or even civilizational rescue) can be achieved by creating the trained people to operate a semi-autonomous technology, linked together through the Starlink network. These people create businesses analogous to over-the-road drivers, who are organized, trained, and certified through the Spacers Guild. The provision of legal counsel, analogous to that provided to firearms owners by the US Law Shield  legal group, would be one of the benefits available to the membership of the Spacers Guild Credit Union (which, like any other credit union in the US, is a member-owned business, so not a bank).

The jobs Starlink trains these Americans (and, fairly quickly I predict, citizens of other countries too) to perform are as mundane and necessary as the truck drivers I associated them with earlier. One purely space oriented job is that of "orbital garbage collector". When you take into account the huge expense invested in putting all of that now-scrap metal (and other substances and materials) that currently create a hazard to navigation and structural integrity to orbital platforms and satellites, just pushing them into atmospheric burn-up doesn't make sense. Instead, contracting with a (presumably large-ish) number of individuals to capture each object (some of which will require many different operators to coordinate their thrust efforts) and drive it into stable orbit at the L-4 point for eventual re-use seems a much more financially useful alternative (side note: the L-4 La Grange Point is also the logical place to build the infrastructure necessary to converting asteroids into products). Supervising the semi-autonomous fleet of logistical transport and delivery vehicles on the Earth's land and liquid surface would be an even more numerous job opportunity.

Enabling the transition of the digital content creators present day efforts into what I have seen described as a Blog 2.0 structure - that is, a more text-driven melding of the heavily visual presentation technology we currently associate with YouTube and the like - that bypasses the gatekeeping efforts of existing technology providers will be a civilizationally transformative outcome all in itself.

There is apparently a vast pool of money just floating in the air over more than 2,400 largely rural counties in the US today (and no one has any idea how great the potential is elsewhere on the planet). Bringing that down to Earth, and expanding it to the edges of our Solar System, is a challenge we humans simply must succeed at ... or quite literally die not trying.

A Molehill To Die On

The Trump Administration, and to an extent the GOP more generally, argue that there has been fraud committed in the 2020 election for the US presidency. I have heard/read it argued that since there appears to be an insufficiency of fraud to alter the projected outcome the media has announced, we shouldn't make any effort to discover the extent of the fraud or punish the perpetrators. 

The question seems to be that there hasn't been enough cheating to merit any corrective action being taken. Let me offer this analogy; the Democratic party seems to be arguing that the amount of rape that occurred in Nanking isn't enough to justify any effort at punishing the occupying Japanese troops in 1937.

In the several states in which criminal influence on the 2020 election can be proven to ordinary US criminal standards, the ballots that cannot be proven to have been counted honestly must be dis-allowed. The individuals that can be proven to have made that occur should be prosecuted for that crime(s). If that action changes the electoral outcome (one way or another), then that is the result of the 2020 election. The states appoint the electors the legal vote count establishes. The Electoral College informs the Congress, which then certifies the election, just as the Constitution requires.

The amount of criminality prosecuted makes no difference as far as the legitimacy of the election (or the identity of the candidate subsequently sworn into office) is concerned, so long as the Constitutional requirements are satisfied. It should be the minimum standard expected by any citizen that legal, transparently honest elections be the only acceptable mechanism allowed to determine US elections.

Like rape, a little bit of fraud is unacceptable, and anyone arguing otherwise must be considered to be pursuing an equally unacceptable outcome.

2020 isn't done with us yet, it seems

Investment Watch Blog is not one that I'm personally familiar with. That notwithstanding, the reporting here seems worth further attention.

In 2017, the DHS assumed authority over US election infrastructure. Machine Identification Code micro dot technology is well-established, making identification of the particular machine that printed out a document not exactly trivial but certainly a straightforward process. The concept and technology involved with including a not-visible-to-the-unaided-eye watermark isn't a particularly novel or difficult security feature either. After a not-that-comprehensive or thoroughgoing look at DHS and election security related .gov websites, I can say that there seems to be remarkably little public discussion about including such technology into the printing of mail-in ballots. Make of that what you will.

I do wonder if Pres. Trump's seemingly unshakable confidence in the 2020 election outcome isn't due, at least in part, to his knowledge of the ballot integrity security technology in place for this election cycle. If in fact all official (that would be legal) US General Election mail-in ballots do have a MIC micro dot unique to each machine producing that ballot, and there is a watermark visible only under a particular wave length of light unique to each voting jurisdiction on every mail-in ballot, then I can only assume there exists sufficient physical evidence of election jiggery-pokery necessary to seeing somebody (and possibly a great many somebodies) into jail ... and Donald Trump continued residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for another 4 years.

Assuming that there is physical evidence that some number of ballots now being counted towards the election outcome are provably fraudulent documents, I shouldn't think the USSC will have too much difficulty ruling that any ballot not provably legally printed and postmarked prior to the close of elections on Nov 3rd be discarded as ineligible. In those instances where ballot counters have ignored the law(s) regarding separating late-arriving ballots from those posted prior to Nov 3rd, it also doesn't seem too much of a stretch for the court to rule all mail-in ballots not posted prior to Nov 3rd as tainted and unlawful.

I personally doubt anyone in DC feels any sense of urgency to cross this particular political rubicon, so I don't expect any attempt at such a ruling very much prior to a week or so before the constitutionally mandated Dec 8 deadline for states to certify elections.

I don't think it that unsupportable to conclude that Donald J Trump very much has this election in the bag already.

Chin up Kevin Baker; it may (or may not) be a simulation, but it's certainly entertaining!

Twitter Tag With Tam

In another iteration of the famous Away Game comes the following:

Tamara K @tamslick: Words I never thought I’d say: “There might actually be too much #bacon on this sandwich.” The #bltsandwich at @halfliter_bbq isn’t kidding around. #lunch #southbroadripple #halfliterbbq #yum #blt #sammich https://instagram.com/p/CHLtqxipy1U/?igshid=1hvxixxvexi6b

Me in response: If you can still take a bite, it's not too much.

Also, for those of us going for the Tom Sellick Magnum PI look, keeping the mayo out of the mustache is a secondary boundary effect.

Point of Order, Ms X

In an overall quite unobjectionable post at The Adventures of Roberta X, I do feel it necessary to point out her oversimplification of the concept of "press".

Specifically, this:

When I wrote about law enforcement apparently targeting journalists, in reports a Federal judge found so credible he grated a temporary restraining order, I received a few comments.  They were...heated.  Vitriolic.  The people who wrote them are free to hold such ideas, of course.  I'm not obliged to post them on my blog, but I will quote from them in order to address the significant concerns they raise.

Followed later in the post by this:

 As for "lefty so-called journalists," there's nothing in the Bill of Rights that limits press freedom to one political leaning or another: John Stossel, Glenn Greenwald, Sean Hannity, Rachael Maddow and some nitwit with a blog are all protected from government interference, even when they're offering up nothing but opinion. " It is generally understood that the government is expected to not shoot them, especially when they have taken pains to make themselves identifiable as "press.

My thanks to Roberta X for including me in her list of protected examples.  :)

All of which to frame my question; what is the practical distinction between "press" and "activist", and does the one necessarily preclude being the other? If so, by what degree, and by what discernible measure available to the average onlooker?

As justification for my questions, I submit the documented actions of Canadian journalist/activist Lauren Southern. A paid (and therefore professional) journalist for online media companies, Southern nonetheless actively participated in the activities she was reporting on as a clearly identified member of the "press", an activity she continued to various degree in her subsequent professional iteration as a documentarian.

As Ms. Southern's past actions make clear, there is a very real distinction that needs to be made between those who "report" from within the ranks of those committing a "political action", and those who clearly, physically delineate the separation between themselves and those they are reporting on, regardless of whether, or by what means, they mark themselves and/or their apparel.

Unless and to the degree the effort is undertaken to make that distinction between press (those observing and commentating on others visible, or at least demonstrably known to them, but of which they are discernibly not a part) and activists (those who participate in the activities which they may or may not be also reporting on - regardless of any 1st Amendment-begging disguise they may affect while doing so), there can never be any practical means for police (who are by design the action arm(s) of government's enforcement efforts) to make any reliable distinction between them. Are we as a society to accept that any random seditionist or scofflaw is to be permitted carte blanche because of a questionable mastery of a Sharpie pen? Taking the opposite tack, where in the 1st Amendment is delineated the means and mechanisms by which "press" must be identified to qualify for the stipulated freedoms therein?

As should be clear by now, the concept of "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" are not at all simple in their instantiation, nor are they amenable to simplistic applications of theory or principle by any of the involved parties. Those who choose to take active part in reporting on events of the day, especially those who do so in the moment, necessarily must also assume an elevated degree of personal responsibility for what befalls them as a result of their immediate presence to events. Similarly, we citizens should make a regular practice of joggling the elbows of our state and national legislators to craft legislation that assists government (and citizens more generally) making spontaneous distinction between bystander observers, and those involved more directly, a greater degree of likelihood.

It truly is essential that a self-governing people have ready access to knowledge of events effecting the function of their society. Reliably being able to discern who said what to whom, and within which topic or activity that all took place, really has to be the minimum necessary knowledge base that any society needs to develop the means for its citizens to obtain in a clearly discernibly biased fashion. Unless and until we do that, we are going to continue to suffer examples of police applying the tactic(s) of the day (more commonly night) to all and sundry they come in contact with "in the heat of the moment", and the content of the news of the day to be opaque and misleading at best. I think we can all agree that the status quo is far less than desirable, but the currently available alternatives seem at best less than satisfactory either.

Oklahoma, the Sooner AND Later state.

Granted that nobody really knows what the Supreme Court ruling issued today regarding tribal reservation land within the Oklahoma state boundaries, at this point in time (hours after the SC ruling was published) the only change in the legal status quo appears to involve tribal members being charged and prosecuted for state law violations committed within tribal reservation territory as established when Oklahoma was made a US state. As with all tribal reservations recognized by the US government, federal law enforcement has the primary responsibility for investigating and prosecuting crimes committed by tribal members on tribal reservation lands.

Of course, the interwebs are going  ... what's the clinical term? Batshit Crazy, that's it!

This is certainly going to make the rest of 2020 much more interesting, but I don't think anything substantive will happen in the next several months. What needs to happen is that the Secretary of the Interior needs to immediately establish a commission to address the consequences of this latest SC ruling between the involved parties (the US .gov, Oklahoma state .gov, the various tribal interests involved, at the least - and hopefully most) to determine what they regard as an equitable resolution available under existing legal agreements. Only if that fails of an acceptable resolution should Congress be invited to finally complete Oklahoma's acceptance to statehood by declaring the resolution to the tribal reservation question that Congress failed to resolve at the time.

Building Our Soup Bowl*

Recently, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX will begin building "floating superheavy-class spaceports" for its launch and recovery of spacecraft; IOW VTOL aircraft carriers. One presumes these vessels will include repair and re-condition capabilities for Falcon and Starship vehicles as an initial minimum standard, with all that that includes engineering-wise.

It probably shouldn't go without saying that the usual run of blue-water vessel crewing requirements will also be necessary; Captain, bridge watchstanders, communications and radar operators and maintenance workers, both ship and flight deck engineering and maintenance personnel, culinary and other human support crew ... it's a long list of ship handling and maintenance specialties whose tasks have to be provided for both in personnel and in logistic support, along with all of the financial commitments doing that entails. I presume Mr. Musk will operate these ships under Texas registration and regulations; if so he might want to strongly consider creating a Texas-based security company which employs Level III licensed guards trained to function in a nautical environment (trained EMT's/Paramedics and maybe rescue swimmers combines several potential requirements), particularly in light of the threat potential such a complex investment seems almost certain to attract. (See: Update below)

There is plenty of existing commercial experience to draw upon to develop a shore support effort (all those oil well platforms in the Gulf and elsewhere); and let's face it, aircraft carriers have been in existence for a century now, as has replenishing them logistically underway - hardly cutting edge science there. A lot of additional features to develop of course; making sure your boat doesn't catch fire and explode every landing and launch understandably being high on that list. Mr. Musk and his team will be fully occupied for some years getting all of this underweigh.

A technology I think Mr. Musk should look into is Life Proof Boats (I don't have any connection to the company, I'm just impressed with what I've seen so far) . They don't heavily advertise them, but they do offer a 48' version that at first look seems a useful platform to economically provide logistic support to a vessel operating within a few hundred miles of harbor, as well as fire fighting support and crew escape (one of these could easily tow one or two standard 20 person life rafts) while the carrier is on station. Hanging some Oxe Diesel Outboard Engines off the stern would permit an economy of performance hard to beat, I think (no connection to this company either, but one fuel for all vessels just seems a better option to me). Additionally, I can't help believing that Star Link provides a platform by which much of the work involved with one or a fleet of space launch and recovery ships can be equally well performed remotely by operators on shore.

Additionally, I find myself attracted to the idea that, much like commercial yachts hiring their Captain and Chief Engineer to be involved in the vessel build process, potentially being able to watch the development of the procedures and technologies used to achieve the SpaceX fleet logistics requirements during their development strongly attracts me. In part because I served on a USN carrier back at the tail end of the Vietnam war, in part because I like the challenge of small boat handling (on and off the boat), and in part because I worked 15+ years in some aspect of logistics that didn't involve a desk.

We'll see ... and that's the best part of all.  :)

*Jerry Pournelle famously coined the phrase, "It's raining soup in space, we just need to build a bowl and go get some."

Update 6/21/2020: A security force - importantly, one that works for you - that is trained in repelling, investigating, and documenting (to appropriate legal standard) criminal acts both on and off the high seas isn't a needless cost; see: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/world/americas/gulf-mexico-pirates-ships.html

He said, He said.

Kim du Toit posts an argument on the practical necessity to occasionally modify the rights Americans are recognized to possess by our national Constitution, which I have linked to below. It's a well-written argument, as is his usual fashion, which I urge you to read in full, as otherwise what follows won't make a lot of sense. Below is my comment to Kim's post in full (and you probably ought to go read his post first):

File this comment under: Bone; picking thereof.

Your post is quite well argued, Kim, as is your usual. However, in this case, I think you overlook a necessary distinction.

Numerous US courts have ruled that rights cannot be restricted or denied, even temporarily, so your basic premise is flawed as both a practical matter and as a point of law. It is further well established that the mutual exercise of immutable rights can, and routinely are, subject to lawful constraint, so as to provide the maximum opportunity for all citizens to exercise their rights without violating other’s exercise of their rights.

The distinction between possessing rights and exercising rights is not just a pedantic one, I submit, as your post makes clear.

There already is a substantial body of law regulating the exercise of rights by US citizens and residents. Whether, how, and to what extent those laws should be modified (or removed) ought to be a routinely ongoing topic of discussion at all levels of social and political discourse in our country (and any reader of this blog knows that to be the actual case). Framing discussion about emergent or transitory circumstances threatening human existence (or even only general welfare) in terms of specifically limited exercise of rights, which would necessarily include return to the status quo, avoids the question of infringement upon, or denial of, rights entirely.

How you frame an argument is often more than half the battle of winning it, and I suggest you’ve framed this particular argument poorly. Preempt the concept of denying rights by confining the discussion to ways and means of temporarily adapting existing regulations on the mutual exercise of rights between citizens.

http://www.kimdutoit.com/2020/06/11/rocks-and-hard-places/

2nd Amendment anyone?

Famously, the M-16 battle rifle is a development of the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. The fully automatic/semi-automatic difference seems to be the dividing distinction between military rifle and civilian rifle. At the link below a fully automatic turret-style heavy machine gun system is (deliberately) generically described, along with a brief history of its development.

Question: since Gatling type guns are covered by the 2nd amendment as not requiring a special license for a citizen to own, how soon can we expect a privately developed civilian version of the weapon system described in the linked article? Bonus question: what relevance does such a development have regarding civil unrest, or even military invasion, here in the US?

https://strategypage.com/htmw/htweap/articles/20200607.aspx