SKYE’S LINKS 05/18/23
Government Falsehoods and AI Malinvestments.
We Have Been Here Before.
Today's Skye's Links continues our discussion of energy and the terrible malinvestments made to save the planet. The technology cannot work as promised because of undeniable physical science, material resource, and financial constraints.
Various smooth-talkers are demanding the United States nationalize and then triple the capacity of the electrical power grid to fit intermittent solar and wind's 24-hour needs. It won't work because it cannot work, while the balance of the grid becomes less reliable by the day.
Remember the efforts to ban natural gas appliances? At the root, the plan is to deny the escape hatch created by home emergency generators fueled by natural gas, creating a Cloward-Piven energy crisis.
Immigration is now entirely out of control, and Texas Governor Abbot has his own Cloward-Piven strategy to move migrants to blue cities. While New York and Chicago have received a tiny fraction of the immigrants flooding Texas, the blue city systems are so brittle that they fail from a feather. Politics in New York and Chicago cannot withstand substituting the new preferred minority for the old minority, and things are getting hot.
It was not just the CDC and NIH that lied outright about Covid, but the FBI, DOJ, and the rest of the government knowingly pushed the false Trump Collusion narrative. They did this to expand institutional power at the Constitution's and the nation's expense. The Durham report is 300 pages of shame and dishonor. It names the names, including Obama and John Brennan, as masterminds working to elect Hillary and Xiden. And, of course, their massive supporting casts.
AI technology is very good with language but less with math, science, and idea generation. The core technology predicts words likely to follow a query using trained databases. ChatGBT can use, in theory, up to 32,000 keywords at once to refine its work product. Google taps out after eight keywords. But whatever is asked, it relies on the user having a correct premise to define a problem. So far, it is excellent with standardized tests such as the LSAT, but it must search for existing information to generate solutions. This characteristic makes errors self-reinforcing and a potential investment advice disaster.
Money flows into AI ventures faster than any investments in history, yet armies of poorly educated minimum-wage workers are training the programs. Their worldview and politics are being baked into the cake.
CALIFORNIA DEMS SOWED THE REPARATIONS WIND AND ARE REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
One day, America’s black citizens will realize that Democrats always make promises they will not or cannot fulfill. The latest example is the reparations folly currently playing out in California. Black Californians are beginning to realize they were watching Kabuki reparations theater.
Last week, the state’s “Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans” approved a comprehensive “reparations” plan costing $800 billion. Despite the task force only being advisory, blacks really believed that its recommendations would send money their way.
Not gonna happen. Knowing that the state was running out of money may explain why Gavin Newsom announced that there would be no reparations money for any blacks.
The problem is that, once you’ve raised people’s expectations, you can’t pull an Emily Litella and say to them, “Never mind.” Do that, and people will feel as if you’ve defrauded them, making promises you never intended to keep. Dems, you in a whole heap a’trouble, boys…
WEAPONIZING DEATH
Recently there has been a spate of horrific murders.
The killers, whether committing mass shootings or single homicides, are hard to stereotype.
They can be clearly either mentally ill or simply innately evil. They can kill for revenge, for ideological purposes, out of hatred, for notoriety—or for no known reason at all.
Unfortunately, these tragedies increasingly have become politicized. Our media and politicians do not apply a common standard of reporting about either the victims, the killers, or the apparent motives and circumstances of the violence.
Instead, each horror is quickly analyzed for its political usefulness. Then its details are electively downplayed or emphasized, depending upon the political agenda at work. Here are the current examples.
THE TO SUA SWIMMING HOLE OF SAMOA
“To Sua” means “giant swimming hole” in Samoan. It’s a collapsed lava tube hole on the south coast of Upolu in Samoa. On top of lava cliffs overlooking the South Pacific, you clamber down the ladder for a memorable swim. To Sua is but one of the attractions of Samoa: gorgeous waterfalls, marvelously friendly people, and the historic home named “Valima,” of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), where he and his wife Fanny spent his last years.
On a hilltop rising above Valima is the gravesite of “Tusitala” – Stevenson’s Samoan name, meaning “Telling of Tales.” Engraved on the side of his tomb is his famous epitaph he wrote himself:
Should you be lucky enough to come here, you’ll fall in love with Samoa as did Tusitala. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #136 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you 'grave for me:
Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
DO WE GET TO HANG ALL THE LIARS NOW?
Federal prosecutors last week announced the indictment of U.S. Representative George Santos (R-N.Y.) on a host of charges, including misuse of federal campaign funds and wire fraud, almost all of them resulting from his pathological lies.
Certainly, Santos deserved the attention of prosecutors for lying on federal documents and affidavits that may have helped him win a congressional seat as well as personal lucre.
Are federal and states prosecutors now setting a new moral and legal standard by criminalizing Santos’ lies? If true, congratulations—it is long overdue.
Now can we please extend the long arm of the law to reach far beyond a bit player like Santos?
Why not reboot with the really big liars? Their lies far more undermined the integrity of our key agencies and indeed our national security. Let’s start with Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan, and work our way through a long list to The Big Guy, the greatest prevaricator of all.
THE TEXICAN STANDOFF
MATAMOROS, Mexico — For two red-hot weeks, this Mexican city across from Brownsville, Texas was the hottest spot for the massive flood of illegal immigration on the southern border.
But no more, thanks to a very unique, forceful and controversial Texas intervention of Gov. Abbott’s that looks to become a long-term influence on national immigration policy. When DHS’ Mayorkas suggested the Texas operation was illegal and under review by the Department of Justice, Abbott doubled down.
This is an extraordinary story unfolding before our eyes. Here is my eyewitness report.
BADAB-E-SURT
The “Springs of Intensity” in Persian are a series travertine terraces in remote northern Iran of such impressionist beauty they look like a masterpiece of Claude Monet. For thousands of years, water flowing down a mountainside from two hot mineral springs depositing carbonates have built these natural multi-colored staircases.
Iran is an enormous country – almost the size of Alaska, four times the size of California – filled with wonders, natural and cultural. We were welcomed in every part of the country in our exploration of it in 2014. While the current political climate does not allow that today, the day will come before long when we will return. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #130 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE ENGLISH GODFATHER OF PALESTINIAN TERRORISM
[Welcome to this Monday’s edition of TTP Archives, to reprise a TTP article of years ago and to ask what you think how it applies to today on the Forum. ‘The English Godfather of Palestinian Terrorism’ was originally published on December 15, 2003. Twenty years later, the headlines of the last few days are full of reports on Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel with Israel responding with air strikes on their locations in Gaza. So it’s timely to be re-familiarized with how this started with one Englishman deranged with Anti-Semitic hatred. The TTP Team is looking forward to your thoughts on the Forum!]
TTP, December 15, 2003
The founder of the Palestinian terrorist movement was Amin al-Husseini (1897-1974).
As Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, he organized Arab rampages killing Jewish settlers in Palestine throughout the 1920s, and formed an alliance with the Nazi Party of Germany in the 1930s.
He met with Adolph Hitler in Berlin in November 1941 to encourage him to slaughter Jews in Europe so they couldn’t escape to settle in Palestine, and ordered Arab families to flee Israel upon independence so Arab armies could invade in 1948.
As one of the founders of Palestine Liberation Organization, he mentored his nephew Rahman Abdul Rauf al-Qudwa al-Husseini, and turned the leadership of the PLO over to him. His nephew assumed the alias of Yasser Arafat.
But just how did Amin al-Husseini become Grand Mufti?
THE SHERMAN TANK THAT’S STILL THERE
The horrifically heroic Battle of Tarawa was fought November 20-23, 1943, with the US Marines determined to take the entrenched Japanese – which they did, both sides suffering ghastly losses. The Marine amphibious force assaulted the Japanese garrison on the small island of Betio in Tarawa Atoll of the Gilbert Islands – now the country of Kirimati.
The spearhead of the assault was led by the Marine’s Charlie Company, 1st Corps Tank Battalion and its M4-A2 Shermans on what was codenamed Red Beach. One particular Sherman sank a few yards offshore and lies there to this day. It’s easy to wade out and clamber upon it, as these friends of mine did when I brought them there in 2016.
We hear a lot about “climate change” causing “the oceans to rise.” But as you can see, the sea level at Tarawa has been the same for the past 77 years. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #124 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – GUINNESS AT THE NORTH POLE
April 15, 1981 – this is the exact moment when I landed on the sea-ice at 90 North latitude, the North Pole, to set a Guinness World Record for “The Northernmost Parachute Jump.”
On a Wheeler Expedition to the top of the world, we landed our ski-equipped Twin Otter on a configuration of ice called an “old frozen-over lead” precisely at 90N. My clients got out, we took the fuel drums out, rear door off, took off again with me, the pilot and co-pilot. I had pilot Rocky Parsons go up to 8,000 feet for a mile of freefall, directed him to the spot – tiny black dots of our people on the ice – told him when to cut the engines, and I was out the door.
OMG what a rush, falling straight down on the very top of our planet, a world of ice below – meadows of rubble ice, rivers of open water called leads snaking through the ice, lakes of water called polynyas, pressure ridges of turquoise ice, terminal velocity, back flips, somersaults, fun in the sky. Altimeter shows 2,500 feet, time to go – pull out the hand deploy, see the canopy furl out in full, grab the hand toggles, spin around for more fun, line it up to come in next to everyone, stand-up landing, Guinness Book. Totally cool. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #5 photo ©Jack Wheeler)