An Introduction to the Philosophy of Liberty and The Swiss Cantonal System

With any luck, the libertarians will have more of a voice as we move along. Maybe move us along to the Swiss model of governance (great article below). I'm sure we'll hear from those who benefit from the entrenched, status quo (TPTB) as to why such a system or philosophy will not work well over here. Strangely enough, it seems to achieve all of the loft goals and values that those who envision a modern, utopian state model here in the U.S. wish to achieve.

Perhaps what they say they want and what they TRULY want are two different things, but that may be the cynic in me speaking.

Take a look at the Swiss article and see if you don't think that they may have things right over there. It's a real eye-opener.

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An Animated Introduction to the
Philosophy of Liberty

http://isil.org/resources/introduction.swf

Even if you're a confirmed libertarian, you'll enjoy this simple yet attractive and intelligent introduction to libertarian ideas. Tell your non-libertarian friends about it! It is currently available in 20 languages. To view. . .

THE SWISS CANTONAL SYSTEM
– A Model Democracy –
by Frances Kendall

http://isil.org/resources/lit/swiss-canton-system.html

In this, the first of the "ISIL Solutions" series, we examine the "Swiss model" of government – a highly-decentralized system which Swiss economist Robert Nef more accurately describes as an "ongoing experiment" than a "model."

The concepts of devolution of power, local autonomy, and participatory democracy have produced the world's most peaceful and prosperous country. Of course, Switzerland, with its compulsory military service, state controlled monetary system, railroad and telephone services, and taxation, is not a pure libertarian society – but for those interested in reining in out-of-control governments in other parts of the world, there are large parts of the Swiss cantonal system that are worthy of emulation.

The word "democracy" is derived from the Greek words for people (demos) and power (kratos). Inherent in the concept is the idea that ordinary people should keep control of the decisions that effect their lives. In an ideal democracy, the power of those who govern is limited by safeguards that ensure that citizens can prevent their elected leaders from abusing their powers.

The key to Swiss success is not to be found in natural resources (which are in extremely short supply); nor does it lie in the temperament of its 6.4 million people, who are essentially no different from the Germans, Italians and French in the remainder of Europe. It lies rather in Switzerland's political institutions, which ensure that ordinary citizens are involved in political decision-making, and that no one interest group is able to benefit unduly at the expense of another.

– Advantages Of Decentralization –
Embraces Diversity. One important reason for this de-centralization of power in Switzerland is that, unlike most European countries, Switzerland is made up of several different major ethnic groups – Germans, French, Italians, and Rhaeto-Romansch. Over the centuries, whenever conflicts have arisen between these language groups, and between Catholics and Protestants, the Swiss have resolved the conflict by allowing each of the warring groups to govern themselves. Thus single cantons have divided into half-cantons, new cantons have been formed and border communes have opted to leave one canton to join another. In this way the Swiss have developed a system which permits people of different languages, cultures, religions and traditions to live together in peace and harmony. This makes the Swiss system particularly well suited to ethnically-divided countries.

Maximizes Competition Among Policies. Because so many decisions are made at the local level, the Swiss are closely involved with the laws and regulations which affect their lives – and because each canton is different, they are also able to see for themselves which policies work best. For example, one canton might have high taxes and expensive welfare programs, while another might opt for low taxes and private charity. Each Swiss citizen can then decide which policy suits him best and "vote with his feet" by moving to the canton which he finds the most attractive. The result is that good policies tend to drive out bad.

– Advantages Of Decentralization –
Embraces Diversity. One important reason for this de-centralization of power in Switzerland is that, unlike most European countries, Switzerland is made up of several different major ethnic groups – Germans, French, Italians, and Rhaeto-Romansch. Over the centuries, whenever conflicts have arisen between these language groups, and between Catholics and Protestants, the Swiss have resolved the conflict by allowing each of the warring groups to govern themselves. Thus single cantons have divided into half-cantons, new cantons have been formed and border communes have opted to leave one canton to join another. In this way the Swiss have developed a system which permits people of different languages, cultures, religions and traditions to live together in peace and harmony. This makes the Swiss system particularly well suited to ethnically-divided countries.

Maximizes Competition Among Policies. Because so many decisions are made at the local level, the Swiss are closely involved with the laws and regulations which affect their lives – and because each canton is different, they are also able to see for themselves which policies work best. For example, one canton might have high taxes and expensive welfare programs, while another might opt for low taxes and private charity. Each Swiss citizen can then decide which policy suits him best and "vote with his feet" by moving to the canton which he finds the most attractive. The result is that good policies tend to drive out bad.

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Emancipation Proclamation Redux | Don't Tread On Me:

“Government has NOT grown monstrous by taking our rights, but has grown monstrous by assuming our responsibilities. The politicians didn’t say, ‘Vote for me, I will take away your rights.’ They said, ‘Vote for me, I will take away your responsibilities. I will raise and teach your kids. I will save for your retirement. I will be charitable on your behalf.’ Personal responsibility is being liable, accountable, to the consequences of our actions. Consequences teach us. Wisdom and virtue reward us. Recklessness and vice punish us. At gain, we are moral. At peril, we are immoral. Democracy allowed the majority to cheat the natural law of ’cause and effect’, by giving our personal responsibilities to the government, disconnecting our actions from their consequences. Government responsibility has taken from the productive to reward bad behavior and laziness, which over time has made us passive, weak, dependent, and finally obedient because we think we have NO choice.” – Michael Cloud, Massachusetts Libertarian Activist"

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Quote of the Day | Don't Tread On Me:

“The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.” -Anonymous"

The 11th Circuit vs. the Health Care Law: A Manifesto - Andrew Cohen - Politics - The Atlantic

Bye-bye Obama-care. So-called health care (in reality sick care) in this country is a bit of a joke. But this approach was nowhere close to an answer. Time to hit the delete key and start over on this one.


The 11th Circuit vs. the Health Care Law: A Manifesto - Andrew Cohen - Politics - The Atlantic:

"A bad week for the White House got worse Friday when a federal appeals court in Atlanta struck down the 'individual mandate' portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Whatever else it portends, the 2-1 decision by a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals guarantees that the United States Supreme Court will have to resolve this legal dispute on its merits, probably by next spring. Even if they want to, the justices in Washington won't be able to duck this one.

It took the 11th Circuit 304 pages to announce its findings and conclusions in Florida et al. v. Dept of Health and Human Services: The 'individual mandate' provision of the law, which requires the uninsured to buy health insurance, violates the Constitution because it is beyond Congress' power to regulate such activity. But other provisions of the new law, including its expansion of Medicaid coverage, which also were struck down by a Florida trial judge in January, are permissible. In other words, as bad as this ruling may be for supporters of the Affordable Care Act, it could have been much worse."

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Atlanta Appeals Court Crushes Obamacare Argument in [Market-Ticker]:

"Who's left?  Healthy persons who forego purchasing insurance.  In other words, the government penalizes you for being of normal weight and taking care of yourself.  If you do so and by doing so decide you do not need to purchase this medical insurance, you are forced to either become sick or pay a penalty!

That's just a bit backward, don't you think?

The court also rejected the mandate on the principle of federalism.  This is an important finding, for it is one of the few decisions I've seen of late that recognize the inherent distinction between federal and state regulatory power.  In fact, this is exactly what our founders intended - 50 'laboratories' in which one could choose to live, and should one not like the outcome in one of those laboratories of government they could move and enjoy the experience of pleasure (or pain) in a different one!

Federalism is at the core of a limited federal government with most regulatory activity taking place in the States.  It has been lost over the decades, and as such it is vitally refreshing to see this argument raised 'front and center' in the Obamacare litigation chain - and defended by the 11th Circuit."

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The Case Against President Obama's Health Care Reform: A Primer for Nonlawyers
by Robert A. Levy

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12972&utm_source=Cato+Institute+Emails&utm_campaign=318a0dde46-Cato_Today&utm_medium=email

Multiple challenges to President Obama's health care reform are percolating through the federal courts. Soon the Supreme Court will be asked to weigh in on perhaps the most important question of the post–New Deal era: Are there any remaining limits on the breadth and scope of federal power?

Reinforced by decades of Court decisions that have gutted the Framers' original conception of limited government, the Obama administration has embraced an unprecedented expansion of centralized control. This paper addresses the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which includes a mandate that individuals either purchase a government-prescribed health insurance policy or pay a penalty.

The Department of Health and Human Services has asserted three constitutional provisions as sources of authority for the mandate — the Taxing Power, the Commerce Clause, and the Necessary and Proper Clause. Each of those purported sources is deficient.

First, the penalty for not buying health insurance is not a tax. Even if the penalty were a tax, it would fail the constitutional requirements for income, excise, or direct taxes. Second, the power to regulate interstate commerce extends only to economic activities; it does not permit Congress to compel such activities in order to regulate them. Third, the mandate is not necessary; indeed, it is merely a means to circumvent problems that would not exist if not for PPACA itself. Nor is the mandate proper; it cannot be reconciled with the Framers' original design for a limited federal government of enumerated powers.

An essential aspect of liberty is the freedom not to participate. PPACA's directive that Americans buy an unwanted product from a private company debases individual liberty. And it's unconstitutional.

A somewhat younger Herman Cain schools Bill Clinton specifically and liberals in general regarding Health care.

Hermain Cain Educates Clinton on Economics in 1994 HC Town Hall Forum
http://youtu.be/vy542UgSelQ


Liberal Confronts Herman Cain!
http://youtu.be/mOJxQ7umeVw

The Eleventh Circuit nullifies the essence of ObamaCare with these words:
“the individual mandate exceeds Congress’s enumerated commerce power and is unconstitutional"

American Family Consumer Debt Facts

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists. - Earnest Hemingway

Home Plate Collisions — Baseball or Rugby? | The Sports Economist

The Posey Rule issue re-dux from the perspective of those that view from a "culture of the game" perspective versus a more legalistic, economic point of view.

“Welcome to the big leagues, hayseed. Next time, don’t stand on the tracks when the train’s coming through.” — Jack Parkman, “Major League II”

Diamond decorum: It’s all about respect - KansasCity.com:

"Consider this Baseball Etiquette 101: Unwritten rules, enforcers and controversial plays that toe the line between hustle and recklessness.

“Bottom line: It’s a game,” Kendall says. “If you (give a player room to slide), and that happens, it’ll be taken care of.”

Kendall is talking about justice — baseball style.

Baseball is filled with unwritten — and sometimes obscure — rules: Don’t steal second with a big lead. Don’t swing at the first pitch after back-to-back home runs. Don’t walk in front of the umpire and catcher when stepping into the batter’s box.

The list is long and varied, and of course, depends on whom you talk to.

And if these rules can be cobbled together to create some unofficial code, Kendall will tell you that, in his mind, the catcher should act as a team’s unofficial law enforcer.

“Absolutely,” Kendall says. “It’s about the team.”"

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Home Plate Collisions — Baseball or Rugby? | The Sports Economist:

"Warning: Readers who think about sports rules and practices solely as “that’s the way it has been so that’s the way it should be” probably won’t like this post.

The collision between Florida Marlin Scott Cousins and SF Giants Catcher Busty Posey severely injured Posey’s ankle and likely ended his season.  The famous 1970 All-Star game collision between Pete Rose and Ray Fosse broke Fosse’s collarbone and, arguably, diminished the rest of his career.  Why does MLB promote violent home plate collisions by permitting catchers to block the plate and/or players to barrel into them? Most discussions of the issue revolve around limiting runners, but it’s really the blocking of the plate or the expectation of it that often initiates the violence.  In the Cousins-Posey case, Posey does not really block the plate, but one might argue that Cousins expects that scenario, and at high speed, last second adjustments aren’t practical.

From an economic standpoint, there are two essential issues;  i)  “property rights” — who has claim to a base or pathway; ii)  the objective of the game (the product being offered) and what constraints/property rights maximize the quality of this product."

U.S. Political Ideology Stable With Conservatives Leading - Gallup

If this Gallup Poll data is accurate, then it seems like what went on in Iowa this weekend will be the starting gun in the race to determine who the next POTUS will be. I don't mean to minimize the chances for the other guy who may be in the race. He appears to be doing a good enough job of that on his own, with the help of Messrs. Geithner and Bernanke.

Odds from intrade.com
Barack Obama to be re-elected President in 2012
http://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=743474

With any luck, we settle our differences here at the ballot box and not in the streets, like other countries around the world.

Let the games begin.

U.S. Political Ideology Stable With Conservatives Leading:

Bottom Line

The U.S. political culture is a broad mix of conservatives, moderates, and liberals, with conservatives continuing to be the largest group by a slight, but statistically significant, margin over moderates. This pattern first emerged in 2009, driven by increased conservatism among independents, and has since persisted. Partly as a result, the country is more polarized today than it was in 1992.

All three ideology groups coexist under a divided federal government that has struggled to reach agreement on how to raise the nation's debt ceiling. The source of congressional leaders' difficulty unifying their own members on the matter is evident in the finding that even within the parties there exists a mix of moderates and liberals (in the case of Democrats) and strong conservatives and not-so-strong conservatives (in the case of Republicans) tugging their respective parties in different directions."

More from Gallup on the Tea-Party and their composition.

Tea Partiers Are Fairly Mainstream in Their Demographics
http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/tea-partiers-fairly-mainstream-demographics.aspx

It's not the image that the loons from the left and the MSM would have you believe. Then again, they have never been ones to let the facts get in the way of a good story, even as so many parrot a familiar hackneyed phrase.

"You are entitled to your opinion, but not your own facts"


Guess who is going to end up being on the right side of this argument.

In response to Republican Senator Lamar Alexander's contention that premiums will go up under reform, the President cites the Congressional Budget Offices report that his proposal will lower costs for individuals by between 14 and 20%. President Obama cites some of the Republican ideas he's included in his proposal and makes it clear that he welcomes additional Republican ideas to contain costs.

Thank God the courts will take care of this unconstitutional monstrosity.

On the D-side of things, I don't put much stock in the "Obama will get a primary challenge" argument. TPTB on that side, that came to the the conclusion that Hillary Clinton and her cronies -- including Mr. Bill -- would be too full of themselves to control, will simply not allow her to mount a challenge, and she is the only one that can.

The far lefts wet dream of a Dennis Kuchinich presidency has as much chance of happening as a Ron Paul presidency. Sounds like a great idea, then you wake up and face reality.

On the R-side,

Note to the Rudy Guiliani's and Fred Thompson's and John McCain's of the world, from the last go-round.

- You did not deem it important enough to roll up your sleeves last time and compete when your country needed you. Don't look to be asked this time. It seemed as if collectively, the Repub candidates steeped back and left John McCain to step forward and take one for the team, in the same fashion that the military asks for volunteers. McCain was the R's sap. If it wasn't for juice that Palin provided unexpectedly, he would have legitimately had a chance to lose a minimum of 49 states and go down as the Republican version of Walter Mondale.

In fact, in hind-sight, I'm a little suspicious now that the Clinton's didn't take a look across the economic landscape -- much of which Bill and Robert Rubin helped create, along with Greeenspan -- and decided to pull his wife back from the firing line and let Barack Obama take one for the D-team.

GO HARD THIS TIME OR GO HOME AS A PARTY FOR GOOD, AND DON'T COME BACK.

There, now that we have set the ground rules.

Three contenders from the Republican team stood out for their business acumen and common sense:

1. Mitt Romney
2. Michelle Bachmann
3. Herman Cain

If pocketbook issues decide the race (and I believe they will), these three will be well-suited to challenge Obama.

If cultural issues become the deciding factor, the following three are articulate and knowledgeable enough, if at times a bit grumpy and persnickety:

4. Ron Paul
5. Newt Gingrich
6. Rick Santorum

Ron Paul could also be placed quite easily in the business acumen crowd, in fact, IMO he would be the front-runner there. But it didn't take long for the others to throw the "Iran getting nukes issue" that will be used to marginalize Paul among the national security / military crowd within the Repub tent. They did a similar dance using 9-11 as the wedge issue last time around.

If Paul runs as a third party candidate he could cause some difficulty. If the lefty-Dems run a third-party or protest type candidate to display their "buyers remorse" that further complicates things.

As for Tim Pawlenty, his performance just reminded me how I feel when I see a little bird fly smashing into a window. At times, equal parts sad, amusing and mystifying to witness.

The good folks at Wild Birds Unlimited offer this explanation for the phenomena, and it seems to suit Pawlenty.

“Some birds bang into windows because they think they see another bird in their territory, some birds fly into windows because they don’t see the window. Other birds fly into windows because they are being chased by predators.”

Anyway, thanks for playing Timmy, here's your version of the home game and hopefully you didn't piss-off the eventual nominee enough to preclude being a viable V.P. candidate. Sorry about your beak.

Pawlenty's campaign chances after Iowa:



As for John Huntsman, he's such a darling of the Democratic, hands across the aisle crowd that I have a suggestion for you guys.....TAKE HIM, HE'S ALL YOURS!!! My gosh, do you mean to tell me that you seriously thought you could run for President without having a coherent economic plan!!! I'm sorry Mr. Huntsman, you've been hanging around the present administration a little to much. Got a little bit of that Stockholm Syndrome thingy on your persona. You might want to try and wash that out.

Anyway, thank for playing Johnny-boy. One Mormon is the field is plenty and you lose versus Romney easily.

As for Perry, Palin and Gov. Chrisite, I just have one message.

GET IN QUICK OR STAY OUT. We don't have the time or the patience for any daisy-picking, she-loves-me, she-loves-me not BS. Thanks.

Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world | Video on TED.com

H/T to the folks at Casey Research for this one. A brilliant presentation re: "algo trading" and "black box trading". Stock market terms that we know by name, but this puts a fascinating and frightening face on them.




Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world | Video on TED.com

About the Speaker

Kevin Slavin
Kevin Slavin navigates in the algoworld, the expanding space in our lives that’s determined and run by algorithms. Full bio and more links

About this Talk:

Kevin Slavin argues that we're living in a world designed for -- and increasingly controlled by -- algorithms. In this riveting talk from TEDGlobal, he shows how these complex computer programs determine: espionage tactics, stock prices, movie scripts, and architecture. And he warns that we are writing code we can't understand, with implications we can't control.






Interactive Transcript:

This is a photograph by the artist Michael Najjar, and it's real, in the sense that he went there to Argentina to take the photo. But it's also a fiction. There's a lot of work that went into it after that. And what he's done is he's actually reshaped, digitally, all of the contours of the mountains to follow the vicissitudes of the Dow Jones index. So what you see, that precipice, that high precipice with the valley, is the 2008 financial crisis. The photo was made when we were deep in the valley over there. I don't know where we are now. This is the Hang Seng index for Hong Kong. And similar topography. I wonder why.

And this is art. This is metaphor. But I think the point is that this is metaphor with teeth. And it's with those teeth that I want to propose today that we rethink a little bit about the role of contemporary math -- not just financial math, but math in general. That its transition from being something that we extract and derive from the world to something that actually starts to shape it -- the world around us and the world inside us. And it's specifically algorithms, which are basically the math that computers use to decide stuff. They acquire the sensibility of truth, because they repeat over and over again. And they ossify and calcify, and they become real.

And I was thinking about this, of all places, on a transatlantic flight a couple of years ago, because I happened to be seated next to a Hungarian physicist about my age and we were talking about what life was like during the Cold War for physicists in Hungary. And I said, "So what were you doing?"

And he said, "Well we were mostly breaking stealth."

And I said, "That's a good job. That's interesting. How does that work?" And to understand that, you have to understand a little bit about how stealth works. And so -- this is an over-simplification -- but basically, it's not like you can just pass a radar signal right through 156 tons of steel in the sky. It's not just going to disappear. But if you can take this big, massive thing, and you could turn it into a million little things -- something like a flock of birds -- well then the radar that's looking for that has to be able to see every flock of birds in the sky. And if you're a radar, that's a really bad job.

And he said, "Yeah." He said, "But that's if you're a radar. So we didn't use a radar; we built a black box that was looking for electrical signals, electronic communication. And whenever we saw a flock of birds that had electronic communication, we thought probably has something to do with the Americans."

And I said, "Yeah. That's good. So you've effectively negated 60 years of aeronautic research. What's your act two? What do you do when you grow up?" And he said, "Well, financial services." And I said, "Oh." Because those had been in the news lately. And I said, "How does that work?" And he said, "Well there's 2,000 physicists on Wall Street now, and I'm one of them." And I said, "What's the black box for Wall Street?"

And he said, "It's funny you ask that, because it's actually called black box trading. And it's also sometimes called algo trading, algorithmic trading." And algorithmic trading evolved in part because institutional traders have the same problems that the United State Air Force had, which is that they're moving these positions -- whether it's Proctor & Gamble or Accenture, whatever -- they're moving a million shares of something through the market. And if they do that all at once, it's like playing poker and going all in right away. You just tip your hand. And so they have to find a way -- and they use algorithms to do this -- to break up that big thing into a million little transactions. And the magic and the horror of that is that the same math that you use to break up the big thing into a million little things can be used to find a million little things and sew them back together and figure out what's actually happening in the market.

So if you need to have some image of what's happening in the stock market right now, what you can picture is a bunch of algorithms that are basically programmed to hide, and a bunch of algorithms that are programmed to go find them and act. And all of that's great, and it's fine. And that's 70 percent of the United States stock market, 70 percent of the operating system formerly known as your pension, your mortgage.

And what could go wrong? What could go wrong is that a year ago, nine percent of the entire market just disappears in five minutes, and they called it the flash crash of 2:45. All of a sudden, nine percent just goes away, and nobody to this day can even agree on what happened, because nobody ordered it, nobody asked for it. Nobody had any control over what was actually happening. All they had was just a monitor in front of them that had the numbers on it and just a red button that said, "Stop."

And that's the thing, is that we're writing things, we're writing these things that we can no longer read. And we've rendered something illegible. And we've lost the sense of what's actually happening in this world that we've made. And we're starting to make our way. There's a company in Boston called Nanex, and they use math and magic and I don't know what, and they reach in to all the market data and they find, actually sometimes, some of these algorithms. And when they find them they pull them out and they pin them to the wall like butterflies. And they do what we've always done when confronted with huge amounts of data that we don't understand -- which is that they give them a name and a story. So this is one that they found, they called the Knife, the Carnival, the Boston Shuffler, Twilight.

And the gag is that, of course, these aren't just running through the market. You can find these kinds of things wherever you look, once you learn how to look for them. You can find it here: this book about flies that you may have been looking at on Amazon. You may have noticed it when its price stared at 1.7 million dollars. It's out of print -- still ... (Laughter) If you had bought it at 1.7, it would have been a bargain. A few hours later, it had gone up to 23.6 million dollars, plus shipping and handling. And the question is: Nobody was buying or selling anything; what was happening? And you see this behavior on Amazon as surely as you see it on Wall Street. And when you see this kind of behavior, what you see is the evidence of algorithms in conflict, algorithms locked in loops with each other, without any human oversight, without any adult supervision to say, "Actually, 1.7 million is plenty."

(Laughter)

And as with Amazon, so it is with Netflix. And so Netflix has gone through several different algorithms over the years. They started with Cinematch, and they've tried a bunch of others. There's Dinosaur Planet, there's Gravity. They're using Pragmatic Chaos now. Pragmatic Chaos is, like all of Netflix algorithms, trying to do the same thing. It's trying to get a grasp on you, on the firmware inside the human skull, so that it can recommend what movie you might want to watch next -- which is a very, very difficult problem. But the difficulty of the problem and the fact that we don't really quite have it down, it doesn't take away from the effects Pragmatic Chaos has. Pragmatic Chaos, like all Netflix algorithms, determines, in the end, 60 percent of what movies end up being rented. So one piece of code with one idea about you is responsible for 60 percent of those movies.

But what if you could rate those movies before they get made? Wouldn't that be handy? Well, a few data scientists from the U.K. are in Hollywood, and they have story algorithms -- a company called Epagogix. And you can run your script through there, and they can tell you, quantifiably, that that's a 30 million dollar movie or a 200 million dollar movie. And the thing is is that this isn't Google. This isn't information. These aren't financial stats; this is culture. And what you see here, or what you don't really see normally, is that these are the physics of culture. And if these algorithms, like the algorithms on Wall Street, just crashed one day and went awry, how would we know, what would it look like?

And they're in your house. They're in your house. These are two algorithms competing for your living room. These are two different cleaning robots that have very different ideas about what clean means. And you can see it if you slow it down and attach lights to them. And they're sort of like secret architects in your bedroom. And the idea that architecture itself is somehow subject to algorithmic optimization is not far-fetched. It's super-real and it's happening around you.

You feel it most when you're in a sealed metal box, a new-style elevator, they're called destination control elevators. These are the ones where you have to press what floor you're going to go to before you get in the elevator. And it uses what's called a bin packing algorithm. So none of this mishegas of letting everybody go into whatever car they want. Everybody who wants to go to the 10th floor goes into car two, and everybody who wants to go to the third floor goes into car five. And the problem with that is that people freak out. People panic. And you see why. You see why. It's because the elevator is missing some important instrumentation, like the buttons. (Laughter) Like the things that people use. All it has is just the number that moves up or down and that red button that says, "Stop." And this is what we're designing for. We're designing for this machine dialect. And how far can you take that? How far can you take it? You can take it really, really far.

So let me take it back to Wall Street. Because the algorithms of Wall Street are dependent on one quality above all else, which is speed. And they operate on milliseconds and microseconds. And just to give you a sense of what microseconds are, it takes you 500,000 microseconds just to click a mouse. But if you're a Wall Street algorithm and you're five microseconds behind, you're a loser. So if you were an algorithm, you'd look for an architect like the one that I met in Frankfurt who was hollowing out a skyscraper -- throwing out all the furniture, all the infrastructure for human use, and just running steel on the floors to get ready for the stacks of servers to go in -- all so an algorithm could get close to the Internet.

And you think of the Internet as this kind of distributed system. And of course, it is, but it's distributed from places. In New York, this is where it's distributed from: the Carrier Hotel located on Hudson Street. And this is really where the wires come right up into the city. And the reality is that the farther away you are from that, you're a few microseconds behind every time. These guys down on Wall Street, Marco Polo and Cherokee Nation, they're eight microseconds behind all these these guys going into the empty buildings being hollowed out up around the Carrier Hotel. And that's going to keep happening. We're going to keep hollowing them out, because you, inch for inch and pound for pound and dollar for dollar, none of you could squeeze revenue out of that space like the Boston Shuffler could.

But if you zoom out, if you zoom out, you would see an 825 mile trench between New York City and Chicago that's been built over the last few years by a company called Spread Networks. This is a fiber optic cable that was laid between those two cities to just be able to traffic one signal 37 times faster than you can click a mouse -- just for these algorithms, just for the Carnival and the Knife. And when you think about this, that we're running through the United States with dynamite and rock saws so that an algorithm can close the deal three microseconds faster, all for a communications framework that no human will ever know, that's a kind of manifest destiny and will always look for a new frontier.

Unfortunately, we have our work cut out for us. This is just theoretical. This is some mathematicians at MIT. And the truth is I don't really understand a lot of what they're talking about. It involves light cones and quantum entanglement, and I don't really understand any of that. But I can read this map. And what this map says is that, if you're trying to make money on the markets where the red dots are, that's where people are, where the cities are, you're going to have to put the servers where the blue dots are to do that most effectively. And the thing that you might have noticed about those blue dots is that a lot of them are in the middle of the ocean. So that's what we'll do, we'll build bubbles or something, or platforms. we'll actually part the water to pull money out of the air, because it's a bright future if you're an algorithm.

(Laughter)

And it's not the money that's so interesting actually. It's what the money motivates. That we're actually terraforming the Earth itself with this kind of algorithmic efficiency. And in that light, you go back and you look at Michael Najjar's photographs, and you realize that they're not metaphor, they're prophecy. They're prophecy for the kind of seismic, terrestrial effects of the math that we're making. And the landscape was always made by this sort of weird, uneasy collaboration between nature and man. But now there's this third co-evolutionary force: algorithms -- the Boston Shuffler, the Carnival. And we will have to understand those as nature. And in a way, they are.

Thank you.

(Applause)

The Giants are like a box of chocolate, but don't worry, be happy

OK, so Timmy says not to worry, no need to panic. But Cody Ross seems to be sensing what is in Giants fans hearts and minds -- a season slipping away. In a sense, Timmy is right. When the Giants RHP go to the bump -- I don't worry, I be happy. When the LHP's are on the hill -- life's like a box of chocolates, you don't know what you're going to get.

San Francisco Giants - Team Report - MLB - Yahoo! Sports:

"By The Numbers:

1.67—Tim Lincecum's ERA in his last 10 starts, since mid-June, the second lowest in the majors in that span. He'll start for the Giants Saturday.

Quote To Note:
'Same old song and dance. We've got to do something, and we've got to do it fast. It's getting out of control.'
—Cody Ross, on the Giants' ongoing struggles."

----

BTW: I see that Carlos Zambrano had a meltdown last night for the Cubs. He basically quit on his team, according to Quade. Well, he did it openly and publicly. Most of the other Cubs players, if they are being honest with themselves, had mailed in this season -- and large parts of the last couple of seasons -- a long time ago. So, Carlos became the poster boy for the issue, but it goes back to manager / coach dilemma, it's easier to fire a manager or a hitting / pitching coach, than it is to fire 23-24 players, especially when many of them have horrible contracts.

Yes, looking squarely at GM Jim Hendry on this one. Because, seriously folks -- A Carlos Zambrano meltdown -- who did NOT see that one coming?

So Carlos should likely be the first one out of town, but Hendry and perhaps Quade should follow. This team fooled management into thinking they would play for Quade late last year. That may have been an illusion. It's always a dicey proposition to put your eggs in a basket of players who have demonstrated an ability to shut down their effort for whatever reason. If they did it once, they will do it again, for whatever silly reasons they may come up with. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. I'm not sure where the Cubs go with this fool me greater than two times philosophy, but the players don't seem to take management very seriously at this point, and in reality have not going back to late in the Piniella regime.

Find players whose character is strong enough that they don't do that or a manager strong enough to not tolerate it. Maybe Ryne Sandberg is still available and wouldn't mind playing sloppy second choice to come in to clean up this mess.

Giants baseball may be torture, but Cubs baseball is just sickening to watch at times.

Telling like it should be: Philadelphia Mayor Nutter takes on youth gang violence from the pulpit

from Paxalles.com
PAXALLES: Telling like it should be: Philadelphia Mayor Nutter takes on youth gang violence from the pulpit:

Awesome. Lots of Great, Straight Talk. It's titled Parents need to be Parents. Amen to that. NO PC. No BS. About a half-hour but well worth the time. The media plays their favorite sound-bite, but the whole speech is loaded with good talking points. Talking about the breakdown of the family unit, the single most destructive thing we've done to our culture over the last generation. It is high time to reverse the trend. Way to go, Mayor Nutter.

"August 10, 2011

Telling like it should be: Philadelphia Mayor Nutter takes on youth gang violence from the pulpit

Philadelphia Mayor Nutter preached from the pulpit at Mount Carmel Baptist Church last weekend addressing young people involved in flash gang violence.  His words should be played at the opening day of school assemblies nationwide:"

------

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home." -- Ronald Reagan

London Calling or Working for the Clampdown

London Calling or Working for the Clampdown?


from King World News:
My Blog:

“There aren’t just one or two flash points, there are hundreds of flash points at which people are going out and smashing down doors, looting, setting fire to buildings and you literally, this morning, have millions of decent, law abiding Londoners who are very, very frightened indeed.  And we have a government who are mostly on holiday, who appear not to have a clue what to do.

I just feel that we’ve got to get a grip pretty quickly and whilst it may sound a radical thing to do, the police aren’t big enough to cope and I think what the British government needs to do is to call in the army pretty damn quickly.  Let’s put soldiers on the street, let’s give people a feeling that they can’t just run riot everywhere and allow the police to actually get on with their job. "

LONDON CALLING?

The Clash & Dave Grohl & Bruce Springsteen - London calling

When asked if people have lost trust in the West in their governments Farage replied, “They haven’t got trust in the governments, they haven’t got trust in the banks, they haven’t got trust in their own currencies and we’re witnessing a massive shift in power from West to East in the world, aided and abetted by appalling governments in the West. Difficult to say exactly which way things will go, but they are going to get worse, a lot worse before they get better.”

OR WORKING FOR THE CLAMPDOWN?

The Clash - Clampdown (Live at Fridays)


--

MISH'S Global Economic Trend Analysis

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/08/stunning-pictures-of-senseless-london.html

Sources report the exact cause for massive riots, now in their third day in London, is unknown. While the trigger may be a deadly shooting by police, I believe the cause is social-breakdown fueled by rising unemployment, loss of dignity, and a desperate realization that hope for a better future and for government to do something responsible about jobs and rising food prices is fruitless.

Boston.Com, The Telegraph, and The Guardian have stunning images of massive riots in the UK.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/08/london_riots.html

Maybe we don't want the truth because we can't handle the truth

When I heard the following words coming out of Geithner's mouth.......

Tim Geithner Fail: 'No risk' of AAA downgrade!



This is what I heard in translation......

A Few Good Man "You Can't Handle the Truth"



If anyone can tell me where I went wrong in my original analysis, or why I continue to have Tim Geithner at or near the top of my "shovel list" (he's currently 3rd), feel free to let me know.

He should resign and be placed in protective custody pending charges for ordering a "Code Red" on the American economy and every one of it's citizens.

It just goes to show why it's important not to put the arsonists in charge of the fire department.

"A Few Good Men" (1992)
Colonel Nathan R. Jessep Addresses the Court on "Code Red"
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/specialengagements/moviespeechafewgoodmencodered.html

Lieutenant Kaffee: Colonel Jessep! Did you order the "code red?!!"

Judge Randolph: You don't have to answer that question!

Jessep: I'll answer the question. You want answers?

Lieutenant Kaffee: I think I'm entitled to them.

Jessep: You want answers?!

Lieutenant Kaffee: I want the truth!

Jessep: You can't handle the truth!

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know -- that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.

You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall -- you need me on that wall.

We use words like "honor," "code," "loyalty." We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.

I would rather that you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand the post. Either way, I don't give a DAMN what you think you're entitled to!

Lieutenant Kaffee: Did you order the "code red?"

Jessep: I did the job I was --

Lieutenant Kaffee: -- Did you order the "code red?!"

Jessep: You're god damn right I did!!!