One Great Big War - NYTimes.com (David Brooks)

One Great Big War - NYTimes.com: "What’s the biggest threat to world peace right now? Despite the horror, it’s not chemical weapons in Syria. It’s not even, for the moment, an Iranian nuclear weapon. Instead, it’s the possibility of a wave of sectarian strife building across the Middle East."

David Brooks hits the nail on the head. While most of the talking heads and commentators in the popular media seem to talk and bloviate about the problems in the Middle East as political with political solutions, it's patently clear that this is first and foremost an Islamist sectarian conflict that is based in their religious splintering.

Political boundaries of these Islamist countries mean little in this conflagration.  The battles are about religious ideologies, not borders and about religious belief and practice, not about economics or politics.

The West has precious few options, as Mr. Brooks points out.  I believe TeamObama has made a mess of it by believing naively that the revolutionary forces at work would produce democracies, when many of the rabid rebel forces prefer theocracies or caliphates.

Perhaps if we became energy independent, the U.S. could avoid being the policeman in that area, but what of the other Western nations that depend on the region's oil? And Israel?

Crucial Rule Is Delayed a Year for Obama’s Health Law - NYTimes.com

Politics trumps policy!

Crucial Rule Is Delayed a Year for Obama’s Health Law - NYTimes.com: "WASHINGTON — In a significant setback for President Obama’s signature domestic initiative, the administration on Tuesday abruptly announced a one-year delay, until 2015, in his health care law’s mandate that larger employers provide coverage for their workers or pay penalties. The decision postpones the effective date beyond next year’s midterm elections."

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How Technology Is Destroying Jobs | MIT Technology Review

How Technology Is Destroying Jobs | MIT Technology Review: "­Brynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and his collaborator and coauthor Andrew McAfee have been arguing for the last year and a half that impressive advances in computer technology—from improved industrial robotics to automated translation services—are largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years."

I read Brynjolfsson and McAfee's book in 2011 and remain persuaded they are correct in their analysis. This piece in the MIT Technology Review is highly recommended reading and, of course, the hundreds of comments following in are equally insightful. Read the book if you have the inclination.

I am also convinced that nearly all our policy-makers and politicians are clueless about what to do about the job dislocations in the short term. Meanwhile, government policies are driven not by reality, but by perceived political power and gains. Traditional thinking that the Great Recession will end and things will improve for the U.S. based on past history is likely wrong, particularly so Keynesian economics which drives so much government policy and spending which does not produce the same results as previously. The fundamentals have changed.

Some experts argue (Harvard economist Lawrence Katz in this piece argues that this technological upheaval of the past two decades is merely part of a long term trend that began with the Industrial Revolution.) this is just a continuation of the technological progress of mankind

I think we are in a period of profound change driven primarily by advances in software and extremely capable and fast hardware that can mine and capture the value of 'Big Data.' The combination of technologies is creating capacity and capabilities that supplant the need for more and more human labor to produce goods and services that drive the economy.

"W. Brian Arthur, a visiting researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center’s intelligence systems lab and a former economics professor at Stanford University, calls it the “autonomous economy.” It’s far more subtle than the idea of robots and automation doing human jobs, he says: it involves “digital processes talking to other digital processes and creating new processes,” enabling us to do many things with fewer people and making yet other human jobs obsolete."

The wild card of course is that the negative effects of technology on jobs is seen mostly in advanced economies and less so in the underdeveloped world where manual processes prevail. The big question is will these countries and peoples grab the advantages of these advances in technology and raise their living standards or will religious, ethnic and cultural factors retard economic gains and better living conditions?

From the Story:

WHY IT MATTERS

Economic theory and government policy will have to be rethought if technology is indeed destroying jobs faster than it is creating new ones.

Our Broken Social Contract - NYTimes.com

Mr. Edsall aptly captures the arguments that underlie the talking points of today's political class.

Unfortunately, we have no consensus about how to resolve this looming crisis principally because we have no agreement on the root causes.  It's in neither political party's interest to solve the problem because they would lose leverage and power by agreement on the factors that are driving the decline in values, income and the common good.

We have become mired in the narcissistic "What's in it for me?" approach to life and unwilling to embrace the 'common good,' assuming we could agree on what that is in today's world.

At bottom, we have the lost the 'glue' that binds a healthy society together.

Our Broken Social Contract - NYTimes.com:
"If these trends continue, and most evidence suggests they will, one of the central ironies of the Obama years will be that a Democratic administration committed to pushing back against the unjust distribution of resources and to the promotion of morally cohesive communities will in fact have overseen an eight-year period of social disintegration, inequality and rising self-preoccupation."

I strongly recommend reading the commentary by David Brooks, The Solitary Leaker, in the New York Times dated June 10, 2013. Brooks provides thoughtful insights into why Snowden acted as he did and the deeper societal problems spotlighted by his actions.

TINPOTI: Privacy and Anonymity Have Long Since Disappeared

For more than 10 years I have maintained there is no privacy on the Internet. When a person chooses to enter the electronic age, expectations of privacy and anonymity disappear. Yet Americans want to believe otherwise and politicians yammer and stammer, but have little or no control over metadata, thinking that passing laws to restrict access to the content of communications will insure privacy. NOT!

TINPOTI = There Is No Privacy On The Internet

From the NYTimes June 9, 2013:

"United States laws restrict wiretapping and eavesdropping on the actual content of the communications of American citizens but offer very little protection to the digital data thrown off by the telephone when a call is made. And they offer virtually no protection to other forms of non-telephone-related data like credit card transactions.
Because of smartphones, tablets, social media sites, e-mail and other forms of digital communications, the world creates 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data daily, according to I.B.M.
The company estimates that 90 percent of the data that now exists in the world has been created in just the last two years. From now until 2020, the digital universe is expected to double every two years, according to a study by the International Data Corporation.
Accompanying that explosive growth has been rapid progress in the ability to sift through the information.
When separate streams of data are integrated into large databases — matching, for example, time and location data from cellphones with credit card purchases or E-ZPass use — intelligence analysts are given a mosaic of a person’s life that would never be available from simply listening to their conversations. Just four data points about the location and time of a mobile phone call, a study published in Nature found, make it possible to identify the caller 95 percent of the time."

Sailboat Bellissima from New Bern, NC to Shelburne Bay, VT 4/30/13 - 5/22/13

Distance and daily locations for Bellissima, a 42' sailboat, from New Bern NC to Shelburne Bay, VT 4/30/2013 - 5/22/2013. Bill Brown and Dave Usher, captain and crew.

From/To Distance (Nautical Miles)

New Bern, NC  - Norfolk, VA 180

Norfolk - C&D Canal (West) 197

C&D Canal   17

C&D Canal (East) - NYC 190

NYC - Troy Lock 134

Champlain Canal   60

Whitehall, NY - Shelburne, VT  63

841  (968 statute miles)

Day-by-day

Apr 30 Tues  Set off into Neuse River to Pamlico Sound (ICW)
May 1 Weds  Albemarle anchorage (nasty NE winds; sailing until 2300)
May 2 Thurs  Albemarle - Coinjack Marina
May 3 Fri   Coinjack Marina - Portsmouth anchorage
May 4 Sat  Portsmouth Anchorage - Cape Charles Marina
May 5 Sun  Layover Cape Charles Marina (unfavorable winds)
May 6 Mon  Layover Cape Charles Marina (unfavorable winds)
May 7 Tues  Cape Charles to Cornfield Harbor anchorage
May 8 Weds  Cornfield Harbor anchorage- Poplar Island anchorage
May 9 Thurs  Poplar Island anchorage - Rock Hall Harbor Marina
May 10 Fri  Rock Hall Harbor Marina - Delaware Bay anchorage (Reedy Point)
May 11 Sat  Reedy Point anchorage to "18 Mile anchorage"
May 12 Sun "18 Mile anchorage" - Cape May, NJ anchorage
May 13 Mon  Layover Cape May (unfavorable winds)
May 14 Tues  Cape May to Sandy Hook anchorage (fish weir snarl 0415)
May 15  Weds  Layover Sandy Hook anchorage
May 16  Thurs  Sandy Hook anchorage to Haverstraw Marina 
May 17  Fri  Haverstraw Marina to NY State yacht basin (north of Poughkeepsie)
May 18  Sat  Yacht basin to Catskill Hop-o-Nose Marina (mast down)
May 19  Sun  Hop-o-Nose Marina to Champlain Canal, Mechanicville NY town dock.
May 20  Mon  Mechanicville NY town dock to Lock 12 wall tie-up in Whitehall, NY
May 21  Tues Lock 12 Whitehall, NY to Partridge Cove, NY anchorage 

May 22  Weds  Partridge Cove anchorage to Lake Champlain Yacht Club mooring in Shelburne Bay VT

A Battering Ram Becomes a Stonewall - WSJ.com

A Battering Ram Becomes a Stonewall - WSJ.com: ""I don't know." "I don't remember." "I'm not familiar with that detail." "It's not my precise area." "I'm not familiar with that letter."

These are quotes from the Internal Revenue Service officials who testified this week before the House and Senate. That is the authentic sound of stonewalling, and from the kind of people who run Washington in the modern age—smooth, highly credentialed and unaccountable."

This story may be behind the WSJ paywall, but Peggy Noonan is right on target. She recommends that an independent counsel be appointed and a full investigation of the IRS politically targeting conservative groups seeking non-profit status.

I agree this is needed. If the IRS is targeting groups , liberal or conservative, unequally for special scrutiny when they apply for non-profit status, how can we trust the IRS in other affairs, particularly now that they have additional authority under ObamaCare?

'via Blog this'

Laying-by Waiting for Better Winds

At Port Charles, VA on Chesapeake Bay.

Nice day as wind moves to East from NE. Shower and clean-up later in the day, then dinner at Kelly's pub. Off early in the morning for Cornfield Harbor on the west shore of the Bay.

Tight Deadlines and Lagging Funds Bedevil Obama Health Care - NYTimes.com

Read this NYTimes story and you will see that ObamaCare is a slow motion trainwreck and the wheels are about to come off the tracks. There's no way this can be successfully implemented on the present schedule. I'll bet a dollar to a donut (maple flavored, of course) that the schedule will be extended. When more people are opposed than favor ObamaCare, you must believe we have a serious problem.

This is shaping up as a bureaucratic nightmare destined to fall/fail of its own weight and lack of sufficient support from the American people.

The supporters make a case that ObamaCare would control health care costs. Perhaps in the very long term, but not without rationing of care and global budgeting that would force systemic changes.

There are four payers of healthcare costs, the government, private insurers, self insured companies,and individual people. Unless costs are controlled for all of these payers, rather than shifted among them, reform will be a failure.

Tight Deadlines and Lagging Funds Bedevil Obama Health Care - NYTimes.com:

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Corned beef and cabbage

Today's Amici luncheon of the VT Italian Club was held at the Rotisserie restaurant in South Burlington. They were quite busy but the corned beef and cabbage was not as good as last year's. It was a bit on the salty side.
Nevertheless, a dozen of us enjoyed the camaraderie reminding ourselves that St. Patrick had Italian parents.