I blame Bob Murphy for this. Ignore the simple, inadequate theories of the mechanics (but NOT the politics) of the WTC collapses, and pay attention to the rest - cuts from “Zeitgeist”, “Loose Change”, “Freedom To Fascism”, and more, intercut with Alex Jones, John Taylor Gatto, and David Icke explaining in detail how we are constantly being manipulated to do the bidding of the elites. It’s fascinating, powerful, and, despite the odds, it works. Check out Joh Nada’s “Wake Up Call”.
Archive for the 'technology' Category
30
Jun
Wake Up Call - The Movie
- NOTE: I Don’t See An Oiler In This Diagram
Lew Rockwell had a great post this morning (with video goodness!) about “Little Three” union officials slacking off and engaging in personal “business” (shopping, beer-buying) while on the clock. I wrote and related this story to Lew;
Hi Lew,
It is amazing to see a news organization, particularly one in a “union town” covering this story, since such abuses are longstanding and widespread. But there is nothing unique about what the two union reps in the story are accused of.
In 1993 - 1994, I was the safety and health manager of a large construction project ($280M) at a major oil refinery. Being a union plant, of course all of the contractors on the project were forced to hire union “labor” to do all tasks, including some that in a free market would not be done.
Before any work could commence, the contractors on the project had to sign a “project labor agreement”, or PLA, which set forth staffing requirements, work rules, and union jurisdiction. The number of unions involved in the endeavor was mind-boggling. We had carpenters, cement finishers, dockbuilders, electricians, laborers, millwrights, pipefitters, plumbers, teamsters, operating engineers, and one or two others I am sure I am forgetting.
Because the refinery was under a state-imposed environmental compliance deadline for completion, the project ran 2 12-hour shifts per day, 7 days per week to try to meet the deadline. Such mandates and deadlines always present tremendous opportunities for graft. I’ll spare you the details, except at one point the civil contractor was paying a “pipefitter” to make sandwiches for sale to the project personnel, which at 300 - plus workers undoubtedly handsomely enhanced his own personal profit.
Some of the unions even had subgroups, such as one class of operating engineers that ran pumps and generators up to a certain size, others that operated smaller loaders and excavators, another class of operators that ran larger excavators, and finally the “top” class of operating engineers, the crane operators.
The operating engineers’ contract at the time required that all equipment over a certain (arbitrary, low) horsepower be staffed by an operating engineer and an oiler, whether the maintenance regime for the equipment required continuous hand-oiling or not. I will leave it to you to ponder whether modern machinery made in the last 50 years would have such an intense need for maintenance.
Because this requirement undoubtedly caused many objections, an alternate “compliance” method was for the contractor to pay the operating engineer an extra hour for “grease time” (how apt), ostensibly to compensate the operating engineer for coming in an hour early to maintain and prepare his equipment for the start of the shift.
Except, remember, the project operated on 2 12-hour shifts, 7 days per week, which meant that during “grease time” the equipment was still being used by the operator on the previous shift. So we in essence have two operating engineers being paid to work 13 hours per day each, for a total of 26 hours of labor pay per qualifying machine per day.
It gets better. In the construction trades, the union representative is paid a little more than the highest-paid worker on the project. Because of the size of the crew, the project labor agreement mandated that the operating engineers have two project-paid union representatives, a “shop steward”, and a “master mechanic”, who were each paid “grease time’ also.
I’m not entirely sure what the duties of a “shop steward” are, but since the project already had 3 or 4 actual full-time mechanics, the “master mechanic” had few if any remaining visible duties. If you were lucky, you could get hold of him over the project radio system 3 to 4 hours per day at best. Allegedly one would have had better luck looking for him on the golf course most days, weather permitting. Yet because his position was mandated by the PLA, he was being paid 26 hours per day, 7 days per week.
After about 6-8 months of this, it became so embarrassing that the union itself actually put a stop to it, assigning a second-shift “master mechanic”, an extremely able, competent, and hard-working operating engineer who performed all of his union “duties” and operated equipment as well. But this was only one small instance of union abuse on the project.
Somewhere in this sorry tale I should mention that the construction ‘managers’ for the project were Kellogg, Brown, and Root (nee Brown and Root Braun), a particularly ill-named group of losers and no-accounts who actually impeded safety and progress on the project during their tenure.
Please use my alias if you print this.
UPDATE: This was funny.
"Friends" Isn't So Funny Now, Is It?
Some friends and I were just discussing this - we all agreed that the proper way to think about NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, or anything else connected to General Electric is that it should generally be treated as if it were being beamed to earth from the Death Star;
“The Death Star was the code name of an unspeakably powerful and horrific weapon developed by the Empire. The immense space station carried a weapon capable of destroying entire planets. The Death Star was to be an instrument of terror, meant to cow treasonous worlds with the threat of annihilation. While the massive station is evidence of the evil that was the Galactic Empire, it was also proof of the New Order’s greatest weakness — the belief that technology and terror were superior to the will of oppressed beings fighting for freedom.”
Also see this hilarious “Schoolhouse Rock” -style parody about corporate media;
Katrina VanDenHuevel displays a popular ignorance of economics in this piece, in which she enthusiastically endorses Future President Obama’s proposal to create hundreds of billions of dollars out of nothing (in addition to the trillions in bailouts which US taxpayers have already been obligated to fund) for “infrastructure” spending (refer to our previous piece for the relevant definition).
Am I being petty when I ask why, if government spending on infrastructure is SO important, we haven’t done this before now? Even Ron Paul pointed out in the debates our crumbling roads and bridges as a higher use of the trillions being blown on wars abroad, for instance.
So why wasn’t this already done, particularly in the wake of such catastrophic infrastructure failures as the levies in New Orleans, and the I-34 bridge in Minneapolis? Do the billions of dollars lately wasted on the Big Dig, or being lavished on a tiny handful of residents of Manhattan’s East Side, 1, 2 qualify, and count toward some ideal level of infrastructure spending? WTF is going on here?
I suspect that a big reason Bush and his co-conspirators “ignored” the need for an “adequate” level of infrastructure spending in this country in favor of invading the world relates to an old, old engineering joke;
Q: What’s the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?
A: Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets.
09
Dec
When The Emperor Moves
On Lew Rockwell’s blog today (YAY!);
re: More Pentagon Homicides
Posted by Lew Rockwell at 12:04 PM
Writes Vince Daliessio:
Saturday was the Army-Navy game here in Philadelphia.. I was taking my son to karate practice at about 9:45 am, when he yells “DAD, LOOK AT THE BIG PLANE!” When I looked, I saw Air Force One approaching from the Southwest and banking steeply above us at no more than 4,000 feet. The plane then swung crazily around, and back West toward the airport. All I could think of was how cavalierly the plane was being operated, and the likely carnage on the ground that would have ensued if the pilot had made a mistake. The old saying “a fish rots from the head” comes to mind. I had little thought for the passengers on board, who were no doubt the instigation for such behavior.
A couple of days prior, we were overflown by squads of military helicopters, and of course during the game we could hear F-18s overhead.
UPDATE: This was the reaction of the father come home to find his family all killed by the government;
“I believe my wife and two babies and mother-in-law are in heaven with God,” Yoon said at a news conference afterward. “Nobody expected such a horrible thing to happen, especially right here, our house.”
Yoon said he bore no ill will toward the Marine Corps pilot who ejected safely before the jet plunged into the neighborhood two miles west of the runway at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. “I pray for him not to suffer for this action,” Yoon said. “I know he’s one of our treasures for our country.”
Maybe Mr. Yoon is a better man than I - I really don’t know. But my reaction would be much different.
The Broken Clock Corrollary
We last discussed the learned Professor Reich with regard to his (correct) observation that the failed companies on Wall Street, Detroit, etc. should be allowed to go bust rather than be bailed out, which struck us as an eminently sensible idea, particularly coming from the hard-socialist former labor secretary.
This morning I awoke to his mellifluous, yet vaguely elfin voice giving the second half of what is now apparently a one-two punch - his Pinko ideas of what the government should instead do with the bailout money;
He proposes to have Obama spend $600 Billion dollars for his ‘recovery’, ’stimulus’, or ‘infrastructure’ plan (he uses all three labels).
First, with regard to the size of his plan - where do these fascists and socialists get these figures - focus groups?
Does he think its comparatively responsible (or simply cute) to propose to spend $100 billion less than Hank Paulson demanded of money that simply doesn’t exist?
We have shown elsewhere that the $700 billion number is a fabrication, that the total we are all on the hook for is over $7 TRILLION. So this already is enough to make one want to burn him in effigy. if for no other reason than the fact that he is reinforcing a stereotype of little people as being ‘cute’.
Then he launched into a description of what he, if appointed emperor of the economy, would do to save us all from ourselves. Here is a helpful lexicon of Robert Reich, the study of which will hopefully be more illuminating then actually listening to his pleasantly-presented, slick socialist program; (Reichspeak = Actual meaning);
Infrastructure = pork for blue states
Bridges To Nowhere = pork for red states
Infrastructure spending = payoffs to trade unions and union contractors
Pork-barrel spending = payoffs to non-union contractors
Investing = payoffs to politically-connected interests
Investment = massive increases in government indebtedness
Green Technologies = payoffs to connected interests in the name of energy autarky (see Nazi Germany)
Starving Wall Street of money = Saving
Services = welfare
Stimulus = see Infrastructure
Lower future deficits = more spending now
Welfare for rich people = Tax cuts
Rebates = payoffs to China
Capital Budgets = pork for Federal and state favored interests
02
Nov
Liberty’s Best Week Ever!
NO, I am not talking about the impending undemocratic, non-election about to be perpetrated on us a couple of days hence between Wall Street Candidate A and Wall Street candidate A’ This one has been decided already - ordinary Americans have lost, and the banksters have won.
I am, rather, calling attention to the surprising upside to the continuing global financial collapse. The completely deserted checkout lanes today at my local wholesale club underscored the rapid retreat of consumer spending that’s occurring now. What is occurring now in the public intellectual mind is both thoroughly awful, and blindingly brilliant.
Awful, due to the present and future suffering of millions, nay, billions of people around the world, but brilliant, because the fact is that the economic predictive power of Austrian-School economics has been thoroughly vindicated, no matter what stupid, nonsensical things the Keynesians and Friedmanites say. We were right, we told them all what was coming, and they failed to listen. More Important, we have the correct answers.
And, better late than never, even some mainstream journalists, conservative Republicans, and left progressives are trying to re-orient their thinking in the midst of an unprecedented global financial calamity, where suddenly “Liberal” nor “Conservative” (as we have been brainwashed to call Socialist and Fascist policy ’solutions’) ideas seem to have no discernible relevance at all.
This week two astounding interviews took place, between serious people of the left, and two of the current stars of the Austro-Libertarian movement.
On Thursday, the charming, brainy lefty journalist Rachel Maddow of MSNBC interviewed Ron Paul, focusing on his eerie (not to us of course) prescience on the economic meltdown, and on the significance of his recent campaign, and what it portends for the future of Republican Party as well as the electoral system.
On Friday, Lew Rockwell, founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute interviewed Naomi Wolf on his podcast. This is a MUST LISTEN interview with the principled, thoughtful left-wing journalist. Ms Wolf, author of several books, including “The Beauty Myth”, and more notably “The End of America”, was last heard of in libertarian circles promoting, along with Ron Paul the American Freedom Agenda, calling for an end to America’s belligerent foreign policy and its depredations on domestic liberty.
Listen to her questioning Lew about definitions of libertarianism, and her response to his answers - I half held my breath throughout the unedited 50-minute conversation, waiting perhaps to hear Lew say something to make Ms Wolf ‘fall out of the ether’ as they say in the car business.
He doesn’t, and she didn’t. It is an extended dialog on the principled embrace of universal liberty, in honest, non-agendized terms that will speak to the heart of every thinking, compassionate person on the left, right, or middle. This shows how there is not, and never has been, such a thing as Democrat liberty, or Republican liberty, only Liberty For All.
Do yourself and your loved ones (particularly intelligent, leftish and rightish ones) a favor and get them to listen to this podcast to give them an understanding why you are a principled, onsistent advocate of liberty.
Then go to www.campaignforliberty.com , and get involved.
UPDATE: If you are still, for some unfathomable reason a McCain supporter, PLEASE watch this video of Dr. Paul taking apart McCain’s dumbass foreign policy prescriptions in the St. Petersburg debate;
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q9WzCrLuC4]
Ah, Close, But Not Exactly
We have been listening for years now the the claims that science has ‘proved’ that man’s activities on the planet are causing a malignant accelerating warming of the atmosphere, which portends disaster and possibly the end of life on earth. Having some background in the sciences, we are nonetheless loath to point out that while the evidence for some warming is pretty convincing, and the fact that man contributes some measurable CO2 to the atmosphere is plausible, the mechanism is far from proved.
Moreover, the proposals (cap and trade, 2, carbon tax, technology subsidies) that have been seriously floated to try to slow or halt “Global Climate Change” (renamed that because the warming isn’t happening everywhere, and in some places cooling is being recorded) require an even heavier hand of government, have unknown efficacy, are vulnerable to cheating, and will have detrimental effects here and especially in developing countries. These proposals will disrupt the fundamental social and economic patterns of our civilization, and cost trillions of dollars, potentially for little to negative effect on the buildup of greenhouse gases.
So what do we do then? We have come up with a plan that;
1) Will measurably reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in the US
2) Is guaranteed to work, if conscientiously and carefully implemented
3) While not costless, will require no forced transfer of funds from taxpayers to polluters
4) Will actually free up trillions of dollars for productive investment
5) Will massively incentivize innovators in clean energy-production technologies.
Our plan to reduce greenhouse gases, and clean up the environment?
The SSS Plan.
What does that stand for?
Stop Subsidizing Sh*t.
Stop subsidizing ethanol.
Stop subsidizing coal (by “permitting” pollution and destroying property rights in our lands and bodies).
Stop subsidizing oil (see coal above, also military intervention in the middle east, South America, and coming soon, Russia)
Stop subsidizing nuclear (state PUCs, the NRC, the DOE, and Price-Anderson have fundamentally retarded this very important energy source).
Stop subsidizing hybrid and electric vehicle development (it rewards the biggest culprits (GM, etc) while disadvantaging innovators).
Stop subsidizing highways (causing massive pollution, energy wastage, corruption, and economic malinvestment / dislocation)
Stop subsidizing airports and airlines (airports and skies jammed with planes jammed with people, absolute violations of 2nd, 4th, 7th , 9th, 10th, and 14th amendments).
And while we are at it, stop subsidizing solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, waste-to-energy, all of it.
When you get right down to it, pollution is a property-rights problem, but more importantly, it is an ECONOMIC problem, and a GOVERNMENT problem. Government disadvantages sustainable methods when it subsidizes unsustainable methods. Moreover, government investment in new technologies, meant to correct the previous mistake, serve to misdirect investment down particular avenues favored by particular interests, the very opposite of allowing the market, correctly incentivized, to determine the pace and direction of innovation.
It is said that if government could have seen the automobile coming, it would have outlawed it. It is, by its policies, outlawing sustainable energy policy economically. Before our leaders commit us to a path of dubious efficacy and certain harm, let us insist that they go through the books and strike every law, order, and policy that has the net effect of destroying property rights against polluters.
In just the coal-fired power generation sector alone, the costs of pollution, if fairly assessed, would make the industry as currently constituted extinct almost overnight. The resulting increase in the cost of electricity would both force conservation and incentivize innovation and production. all without a single cent of tax or seziure of property.
SSS.
(Image from Paul Goscicki’s blog)
30
Aug
Who Killed Bell Labs?
Wired has a story on the closing down of basic physics research at the former Bell Labs (now Alcatel - Lucent) in Murray Hill, NJ;
Alcatel-Lucent, the parent company of Bell Labs, is pulling out of basic science, material physics and semiconductor research and will instead be focusing on more immediately marketable areas such as networking, high-speed electronics, wireless, nanotechnology and software.
The idea is to align the research work in the Lab closer to areas that the parent company is focusing on, says Peter Benedict, spokesperson for Bell Labs and Alcatel-Lucent Ventures.
“In the new innovation model, research needs to keep addressing the need of the mother company,” he says.
That view is shortsighted and may drastically curtail the Labs’ ability to come up with truly innovative discoveries, respond critics.
“Fundamental physics is absolutely crucial to computing,” says Mike Lubell, director of public affairs for the American Physical Society. “Say in the case of integrated circuits, there were many, many small steps that occurred along the way resulting from decades worth of work in matters of physics.”
Bell Labs was one of the last bastions of basic research within the corporate world, which over the past several decades has largely focused its R&D efforts on applied research — areas of study with more immediate prospects of paying off.
But isn’r research good? Isn’t it indispensable? What evil force has come along and removed all of the R&D dollars?;
Still for fundamental physics research there will be life after Bell Labs, though it will be dependent on the whims of the federal government.
Increasingly, long-term research is being carried out in universities and national laboratories with federal grants, says Lubell.
OH, THAT evil force.
We Will Miss George W Bush. Seriously.
Please, We Should Thank You.
OK, it’s time to come clean. We at LibertyGuys, and many, many libertarians, minarchists, anarchists, war opponents, and other free-thinkers, while relieved that he can finally do no more direct harm to the entire globe on a whim, secretly miss George W. Bush already. Because, you see, deep down in our heart of hearts, we were really, really grateful for his presidency.
What I mean is this. We opposed all the wars, the spying on Americans, the torture, the crony capitalism, the transparent use of the entire Imperial military apparatus for the benefit of connected flunkies, then, finally, the direct transfer of all of our financial futures to his friends on Wall Street, with more than 80% of the people opposed. All of it.
We opposed all the spending, the creation of vast new entitlements, the bailouts for all of the evil f**ks on Wall Street, K Street, and Detroit. In short, we opposed nearly everything the man stands for or did. But deep down, after every bad thing he did, a little part of us said a small “amen”.
Sure, it was nice to have something to agree with our liberal friends on, the wars, the imperialism, the torture, Katrina, etc. Any and all of those things was reason enough to hate him. But it wasn’t the reason we love him.
The thing, the thing we very much love about George W. Bush is the way he made the case against statism. Every thing the man did included all of the classic statist ingredients; war, demonization of the other (Muslims), socialism, protectionism, polarization and politicization of every sphere, cronyism, and corporatism, covered with a sauce of greed and venality, and served up with a double helping of rank incompetence.
The War on Iraq, the destruction of civilization in Afghanistan, the Katrina disaster, the revelations of massive illegal wiretapping , any one of these would have destroyed a lesser demon, say a Richard Nixon, or a Lyndon Johnson. But not our man George. He plagued us, completely intact, to the very end. Even the collapse of our entire system of corporatism and imperial finance did not unhorse this cowboy. His was a singular reign.
Perversely, this is why we are afraid of the manifestly competent politician who replaced him, the Obamessiah. Our worst fear, all us freedom-loving types who have awakened to the government’s war on civilization, that the man may actually place people of intelligence, merit, and skill in those powerful positions available to his patronage is being realized.
We are alarmed that he has filled his staffs with brilliant, competent idealogues. We might, quite understandably be terrified, absolutely terrified, that Obama, the unitary leader of the biggest, richest, most powerful state ever to exist, might make the trains run on time. Except, we know he can’t.
Oh he will do everything his fans and supporters expect of him. He will mouth all the right platitudes, he will speak “directly” to the people, his armies of PR flacks and press dupesters will dutifully report on his triumphs, while sweeping his failures under a rug. It has been, and will be a brilliant performance.
And none of it will make any difference. The financial crisis is gearing up to become a fiscal and monetary tsunami, one that will sweep away all before it. They, those bright, motivated bureaucrats won’t know what hit them.
But they will enjoy, at least for a while the completely undeserved trust and goodwill of many of the people, even as we all march into the depths of it.
(photo from ratemyeverything.com)