Shop changes

This last winter I struggled through the end of my router table build and then started in on building up some of my manual hand planing skills while deciding what to do next.  In the way of in-shop builds I decided that a miter saw table/cabinet was on the agenda so as to get it off the ersatz secondary workbench and onto a mobile platform.  To me that also meant that the cabinet it was on would also have to contain the thing, so that I could put a secondary surface on it and use it for other things, like supporting long work pieces that I hand plane.

But that really couldn't get started in earnest until I had a place to roll it to, and the shop was in desperate need of freeing up some workspace.  A dead upright freezer was taking up valuable space and since it was no longer in service that meant it could go.  Yet in that tree of decision making came the concept that a roll around miter cabinet really wouldn't be all that useful sitting in the same place and what I really needed was some shelving there.  As I was working on getting stamina back by planing down 5/4 and 6/4 stock lumber, mostly Sassafras but also some Mahogany and 8/4 Acacia to make the frame for the roll around cabinet, I really couldn't devote much time to simple storage shelving.

Before that, however, I also talked to an electrician for doing some of the around the house stuff (front and rear porch lights, mostly) and talked about the can lights in the basement.  He said those were probably made for attic use and as they have insulation around them, have a heat sensitive switch that makes them cut out.  Thus the blinking light effect which is killer on lights of any sort, and even CFLs did this in a few of the cans, so they were not a solution.  I could get up there, take down each light and remove that cut-off or have him do that, which would mean a major tear-down of the ersatz secondary workbench... or I could re-examine the issue.

If the problem is heat generation from 60 watt incandescent bulbs (or equivalent in CFL which run at a lower power consumption) then the problem was too much energy wasted in making the actual light.  Too much heat per watt consumed, in other words a ratio.  I took a look at some of the standard charts for light output (you know, the visible and not IR stuff) and saw that LEDs used up about 10 watts of which 1 was wasted in heat and the rest went to equivalent light output.  LEDs have come down drastically in price over the last 5 years and are now cost competitive with CFLs.  So now the idea began to percolate that instead of new fixtures or re-wiring the old ones, what I really needed were just better bulbs (or point source LEDs with diffusers).  I purchased one to try in the one can that blinked on everything, almost immediately and put that in the can receptacle.  After 10 hours, the light was not blinking and that is longer than I usually spend in the shop.  Five more of those and my problem was solved.

Plus I get a Color Rendition Index above 75% for these daylight LEDs.  An old CFL with titanium dioxide coating on the outside is still used in its workshop clamp on receptacle as it helps to get rid of some of the stuff that lingers in the shop from the chemistry there.  It is minor but over time it does do some good and I can notice changes in the shop air over time with it.

The router table is on the left and becomes, as I knew it would, a flat surface catch-all while not in active use.  Still things are looking up and I'm hoping to get it into active use later this year as the roll around miter saw cabinet gets up and running.  Since it is a cabinet and not really a chest, I'm making a frame for it and then will slat in sassafras on the outside.  The frame base will be acacia at the base, walnut for uprights and long cross-pieces, and mahogany for short cross pieces.  Major dimensions are determined, but interior arrangement is TBD.

With better lights I can see what I'm doing, a big, big plus.  And I will say this about daylight equivalent lights: they actually do have a positive effect on my mental attitude the moment they get turned on.

Over the workbench is a Dazor two tube fluorescent task light I got off of someone at Ebay.  They still make those things, too!  And with the buzzing magnetic ballast, to boot.  I do want to hit them up for an electronic one if they have a retrofit kit: the buzzing isn't that bad at first, but as it warms up you hear it more.  With that said they packed a lot into the base including counter-weights and such, and if they don't have a retro-fit kit then finding something to fit in that space may be impossible.  The reason for the task light is that when I'm at the drill press or doing other work nearby the workbench, even with better overhead lighting I could use something a bit more directional, and that does the job perfectly.

So, where was I?

Oh, shelving!  Yes had to move the freezer out (hand truck necessary for that) and then once it was out of the way I got the measurements, realized I wanted some space behind the shelves for stuff like saw horses and out-feed supports, and ordered it from Global Industrial.  Archive boltless shelving but good for workshop use.

The one thing that boltless shelving lacks are components to upgrade them with.  I learned, to my disbelief, that the makers of the stuff utilize slightly differing spans (the cross pieces) so that one manufacturer's boltless shelving doesn't necessarily fit another's system.  You get a bit of lock-in that way and stuck with an original supplier.  Unless you aren't doing a systemic approach and going piecemeal, like me.  With that all said I would really have liked panels in prior projects or at least stuff that easily adapts to boltless shelving in general but is manufacturer agnostic.  In this case the panels I wanted to put up on the end was pegboard to start getting all my smaller stuff organized.  I ended up buying some Alligator Board (meant to be put up on studs or drywall in front of studs at 16" intervals) in 36" wide by 16" high, and then drilled mounting holes for the half-inch difference between the distance for boltless uprights and the board (with a bit of overhang on the rear side).

Here is as you turn to your left as you walk in.  Note the shelf over the sink that I just put in, to get rid of some of the stuff sitting on there that is getting crowded out by the old Sharp microwave.  The microwave still works, heats up water just fine and that makes it available to reheat my coffee, tea or mix up some oxalic acid for bleaching wood. 

In the foreground is an outdoor halogen task light serving as the vacuum hose rest.  It is really hand for that... but I don't have any place else to put it at the moment... so necessity and all that.  The bench grinder with Oneway Wolverine system is obscured just behind it.   A bit better organization should get those stowed away and out of the way in the future.

This is the heart of the affair and the light canister above it is the problematic one with anything but an LED.  Pegboard on the end with the shop hand tools that fit.

The contractor table was sits on the bottom part of the shelving, and the rest of that level is used up for a few things that don't really fit anywhere else at the moment.  At the top of all of this is a Jet fine particulate air system which should really be suspended from the ceiling, but as I had nothing scheduled for that high up and fine particulates are a concern, that is the best I could do.  I does not suck nor blow from the vent from the utility room and does set up a general circulation pattern in the room when its on.  Also it is made for 16" rafter spacing and the basement has 24" spacing... but the floorboards of the main floor are at 16"! Not perfect but it works.

All the cased tools (electric hand planer, circular saw, drill/driver, etc.) plus some anonymous jigs, fixtures and miscellaneous tools now sit on the upper shelves.  The long searches to find them and get them out from behind other stuff is now over.

Let me just say that getting all the Japanese hand saws out and available is a huge plus on its own.  Getting the heavier hammers away from the workbench but nearby it frees up valuable space they were taking up.  Of the two jigsaws I have, the one on the outside is the cheap knockabout one, used for rough work, and the other remains in its case on the shelving.  The belt sander is a freebie with a Triton router, and I'll have to make more use of it and possibly see if I can rig up some sort of jig for it as well.  The random orbital sander is just a cheap workhorse that does the job, nothing fancy.

The blue shelf on the upper left is cleaning and lubrication supplies and the stuff I tend to use the most when maintaining power tools.  By the waterfall rack is the camellia oil with a microfiber rag, and it is used for the light coating on most of the hand tools.

 

The lower half is hammer, mallet, wrench and other saw land, plus the Swedish axe picked up as milsurp.  I finally broke down and got a hammer set suitable for more than driving nails as I've already had to do some bashing of sheet metal and wanted something a bit more appropriate to that on an as-needed basis.  The wrench and socket sets are Harbor Freight and the racks and holders are after-market.

Along the side are my measuring stuff like yardstick and center finding rule, plus architect's square.  The central portion of the racks are where the screwdrivers, pliers, power drill and baskets for other stuff are.  Craftsman for the screwdriver set as they are both reliable and cheap.  Plus they all fit on that 24" magnetic strip which I bolted on to the pegboard.  Getting my drill bit sets (jobber and brad point) means I don't have to go on the Quest for the Missing Drill Bit Set any more.  Two DeWalt sets and one cheap store deal with driver bits that I don't mind if they die for a good cause.

Getting all this done took awhile because it is just me doing the work.  I hate eating up time with this stuff, but if it saves me time later, then it is well worth it.  The amount of ingenuity that has been put into making the various parts of this are a testament to the engineers involved and the workforce that made them.  My hat is off to you folks!

Look, its clutter!

More organized, though, and the top shelf for the ESW is now just down to some of the better cleaning supplies and lubricants, plus gun cleaning case on the side.  The miter saw is nearly alone on its level, now.  Under that some storage space has been opened up with re-arranging things and more of that needs to go on.  By the side, leaning up against stuff on the left, are the Sassafras boards I've been planing smooth.  When I'm doing that work the place smells like a rootbeer factory and is rather pleasant. 

That shelving system in back may appear very cluttered, and that is because it is.  Yet it is organized clutter of the bulky stuff that needs to be somewhere and I can find it easily.  Foam sheets and stuff like foam rolls go up top.  Rarely used but no other good place to put them.  When I need them they need to be at hand.  When I don't they need to be out of the way.  Long piece jig storage is under that along with raw stock stuff like t-track and miter track.  Below that is excess and back-up storage, stuff used rarely or kept on hand just in case, plus broken down equipment that won't be used in the near future.  Then comes bulk storage for wood and finishes where the sun can't get to them.  Drill press roll around cabinet in front of all that stuff, plus smaller air circulator with HEPA filter: it gets air up out of the dead space and into circulation.

From the drill press, reverse angle looking back at the workbench.  The lower shelves behind it are for wood storage, up and off the ground, a pain to get to so that means I have to have a good reason to drag it out.  Some scrap storage at the end of the shelving behind the fastener drawers, then some more wood and bulky clamps, plus Grippers.  Upper shelf starts with some air handling stuff for future use, then migrates through jigs then sharpening supplies, then back to air handling stuff.  Top shelf holds my surface vise and then all the board scrap storage.

At the very end, on the far wall and tucked out of the way, is my clamp storage on normal pegboard.  That includes all the clamp using straightedges, as well.  My aluminum bar clamps aren't easy to see and that is for the good since I only use those when I have a large piece to assemble.  I used them a lot on the router table, that's for sure.  Some lighter stuff is on one of the two shelves on it, like the ersatz panavise and magnifying fine work holder.  Seen on the shelving to the left are some hand planes in their sacks which are out to remind me to give them a good sharpening before I start in on the major part of the cabinet, then my various takedown guides from the NRA and Browning, and above that miscellaneous plastic stripping and papers to put down for messy work.

Work does go on, albeit slowly.  I have an Incra I-box jig to start using with the table saw, and that looks to be fun.  Some general moving of other stuff in the house means an old set of metal shelving is out with the freezer and I need to get a round table out from a room where it is just taking up space.  Once those are out and removed, then comes looking for a deck contractor who also does some fencing and possibly something like a storage shed. 

The deck is the prime concern for this year, but the fencing for the yard is falling apart and held on with a few nails and strong ties.  I would like all of that done in something like Ipe or Port Orford Cedar (aka Lawson's Cypress), but only if it fits in with the awful looking pressure treated wood that is the norm for the development.  Basically anything that can be put up and ignored for a few decades is what I'm after, along with finding the contractor that can deal with the slope the place is built on which has a sudden rise nearby, which means frost heave shifts all the fencing and warps the stuff until you can't open the gate.  Then it falls apart.  Perhaps some concrete supports for the uprights, buried under the surface will do the trick.  That slope is not the friend of our yard of the postage stamp sizing.

So there is where the shop is at right now.  Spring takes its toll, doing all this takes time and effort.  I don't mind the organizing part that much, but would prefer to be on the learning and building part... but one step at a time.

Still doing some writing and has a story that has to play through, and that will be posted soon as well as finishing up Earthfall.  Starting in on the next M-5 alt story history, and it's a tough one as it's a character study more than a story.

Neither portal nor destination be

This is a set of musings on the nature of blogging brought on via a post at Stacy McCain's site Where Were You in 2002? (h/t: Insty).

Seeing Overlawyered moving over to Cato spurred on the question about 'making the big time' and 'are you a portal or destination?' in Stacy McCain's post.

In 2002 I was healthy, working, and helping to get the last of the Afghan materials out the door in the Agency I worked in before moving over to my R&D slot which I had requested a temporary re-assignment after 9/11/01.  This did not mean I was not interested in blogging, far from it, I was an avid reader of a number of early blogs and attended conferences featuring both Old and New Media (like the old Seybold Seminars or Print '97).  Part of my work was to scour the early web for material and avenues of presenting and using data that were new or novel, that would help move information to the warfighter.  That meant learning all I could about everything from blogging to 3D interfaces to the coming transition to the post-32 bit world and IPv6.  The methodology is straight out of James Burke's Connections series: let the pinball effect give you information and insights from multiple realms and see if the ideas cross into the realm you inhabit so as to allow it to adapt and change.

It is from that perspective that I took in the idea that the Internet is not about portals and destinations, hubs and spokes, nor even about connected clouds of users and information.  I can't tell you who put it like this, there are numerous possible authors, but I picked up on the idea that the Internet, blogs, media sites... the entire thing from static repositories of information like the reference work sites I link to all the way to Big Old Media sites... are something called a hyperlinked conversation.  Hyperlinks are generic in type, they are an unbiased connectivity form for the electronic New Media.  Hyperlinks are also that most powerful of things that mankind invented in the Old Media: an indexing tool.

That comes from James Burke and the power of an index of a book, that list of ideas and pages where they appear, is that they allow you to cross-index.  You can take an idea word, go to a page, find another idea word, go to its index, and find things that it links to via the index.  Hyperlinks do this exact, same function, but a far faster than you can with a static, read-only memory system with a hand/finger interface with leafs to flip through known as a book.  What a hyperlink allows, however, is the ability to show source of an idea via that link, and you can find other ideas that are linked to in the article/video/etc. and follow those links to see how ideas connect.  Everything, even the person who is a minimal utility node in a Metcalfe's Law network offers utility because you can use a search engine (of your choice) to then find out all the other people who link to an article/video/etc. and follow those links back to their sources.  Even the most dead-end of sites, those that studiously don't link to other bloggers, is still connected to them via the link to the source material and your ability to check other incoming links and go back to those sites to find out what ideas are there.  The hyperlink is thus an indexing tool for ideas.

From this there is no such thing as a 'portal' nor 'destination', no 'hub' nor 'spoke', nor even 'communities' of blogs and sites.  What there are is conversations that link to ideas forming their own interconnected set of sites, pathways, and journeys. Following James Burke this means that no site that requires human thought to construct sentences that purvey ideas, that have a logic connecting them, is alone unless it links to no one, and accepts no links and is an isolated node.

That is what I thought in 2002.

People can move around, become highlights or disappear, as I am largely doing, and yet the conversation continues within and amongst humanity.  It is a huge, extended conversation that now includes mini-thoughts via Twitter, picture thoughts and video thoughts (not necessarily stories but just thoughts and ideas) and it is all connected by the generic thing we call the hyperlink.  It is one of the most powerful tools deployed by mankind, and yet its actual invention starts with indexing.  It is the simple but powerful things that move minds, spirits and humanity.  That also has a precursor description in the Noosphere and the Internet can just be seen as a crude, physical form of Noosphere, not the thing, itself.  The next simple tool will not supplant the hyperlink nor index, but will move that conception one more step and then everything changes. 

And yet where it comes from will be obvious. 

What it will enable is beyond imagining. 

Just like the hyperlink and Internet before the invention of the hyperlink.

I can remember where I was in 2002... and with difficulty back to 1992 when there was only the first hint of html via sgml.  Yes, I can do that.  Can you remember the world without the Internet?

10 Minutes Into The Future

I thank my lady for the title of this article! It was and is apt.

For many the concept of cyberpunk dystopianism was first introduced in Max Headroom, seen in the Max Headroom series on ABC from MAR 1987 to MAY 1988.  With fourteen shows produced, 13 were aired in the US and the 14th was aired as part of the Australian run of the series. It is a blended-season program much like The Prisoner by Patrick McGoohan which ran 17 episodes. Both programs had a first and second season squashed into a limited production run.  Max Headroom had an abbreviated first season and second season while The Prisoner was scheduled for a second season but had that cut and McGoohan wanted to wrap up the entire thought schema in one season a bit longer than normal.

Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future was a tv-movie in the UK, and the tagline '20 Minutes into the Future' was seen at the start of each episode of the series. Many of the elements seen in Max Headroom draw their lineage through cinematic productions of dystopian futures.  The most notable of them is Blade Runner (1982) directed by Ridley Scott, and the entire look of the city of Network 23 and Max Headroom could fit seamlessly into that dystopian future without missing a beat.  The same low level social dynamics of a post-futuristic world gone to ruin is part and parcel of both, down to fires in oil drums and the real lack of cars at street level.  So, too, are the social interactions between levels of society similar from the highest corporate level (Dr. Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner and Ped Xing in Max Headroom) through the techno-geniuses that support them (J. F. Sebastian in Blade Runner and Bryce Lynch in Max Headroom) all the way down to the lowest level operatives of Matt Deckard and Edison Carter, who are the draw and appeal for their differences in being perhaps not human and more than just human both at the same time although in starkly different ways.  One can picture Matt Deckard confronting Roy Batty and then having Edison Carter land in on the confrontation with the help of Blank Reg and Big Time Television.

For all of that there are other precursors to cyberpunk television beyond just Blade Runner, although it hands off so many visual cues that the relationship is hard to miss. What makes it distinct from the 1980 made for TV movie Brave New World, is that the Aldous Huxley dystopianism is one of anti-septic neatness which is reflected by the anti-septic nature of thinking.  That world is a world which, however, bears resemblance to both Blade Runner and Max Headroom in that books are absent not because they are repressed or destroyed, like in Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 which was made into a BBC film in 1966, but because they are unwanted by a population now beyond learning.  Like in Fahrenheit 451, however, television now plays that central role which makes for the dystopian Max Headroom vision, and it is far more powerful than the multi-wall arrangements in Bradbury's work and closer to the Big Brother two-way dystopia of Orwell's 1984.  Much of the television movie adaptation in 1954 or the regular movie adaptation of 1984 in 1956 carries through as cinematic reminders in later works, often with the stark external scenery updated to cast a pall in colors that are dark and muted in modern works, of which Max Headroom takes part.  Coming from that lineage of Big Brother, two-way television, corporations blending into the State, and the removal of knowledge media from the world, Max Headroom gives us a glimpse of the cyberpunk pathway.  This is a pathway that has an endpoint in other films like Mad Max (1979) and Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) complete with mohawk haircuts and lots of leather jackets and leggings.

It is amazing to think that in the span of 1979 to 1982 the entire cyberpunk dystopian future was encapsulated visually and thematically with the decaying and corrupt State with corporatism (and one can't help but see Rollberball (1975) as a precursor to this). From a 1984 collapse through the time of Max Headroom and Blade Runner is a part of this arc.  After that then goes through a further decay because they depend on resources that are failing, until the world falls into complete ruin in Mad Max and Mad Max 2.  The relatively anti-septic dystopian vision of an Aldous Huxley requires a system that is, itself, so highly dependent upon automation and resources that it cannot last. The enforced ignorance and numbing of the senses are preludes to the ideas later reviewed by other dystopian works,the outcome of which gets a transition phase seen in A Clockwork Orange (1971) where Anthony Burgess juxtaposes wartime lack of morality with everyday life and puts them together.  Stanley Kubrick in many ways sets the tone for the later dystopian works in that film to show a highly decadent society with highly authoritarian State on the verge of internal collapse as the State comes to embrace barbarism fully.  In Max Headroom those who see such barbarism are in the minority, but have Edison Carter to intrepidly risk life and limb to get the story of how the corporate world and utilization of State power by Network 23 is going wrong.

If there is anything that Max Headroom does represent it is that cry against the dying of the light, the collapse of the civilized State into its corporatist system which is, itself, not sustainable without a civilized population at its core.  That State has already removed the off-switch from televisions and utilize two-way technology to track ratings and, thusly, power.  Blood games (ala Rollerball) are not embraced while shrugging off the deaths of citizens due to commercials is seen by the new generation of elites as the price to pay for ratings.  From that and the body banks, lifted nearly directly from Larry Niven's Known Space works, comes a lowered valuation of life even when the birth of a baby is still seen as a special event even though the backdrop of the life that child will have is a grim one.  This is dystopian fiction with a bite to it and the slow degradation of man to becoming viewer in the hands of the media is one that begins to overwhelm, indeed not just co-opt but buy out, the State.  The adoring media of the Left today becomes the controlling media of politics and society tomorrow.  Big Brother is Network 23, indeed Orwell only lacked putting the BBC behind Big Brother to complete that circle in 1984.

For all of the darkness of a world sliding into Mad Max realms, there are glimmers of a future that doesn't need to be this bad.  First and foremost is that the Tyrell Corporation, Big Brother nor the Fordian State of Brave New World all lacked an older cohort that remembers not just ethics but displays them.  In this Network 23 has a person that is unlike all the others in a position of power in those dystopian futures: someone who has qualms about what he has helped to create and sees it as toxic.  That person is not Edison Carter, per se, nor Theora Jones his controller to get him to stories, nor Murray their producer, all of which are front-line functionaries to the programming for live shows which can be replaced or interjected at a moment's notice.  That person who is so different is Ben Cheviot who demonstrates ethical underpinnings in pulling lethal commercials and allows for the complicity of Network 23 working to get blood sports into the line-up even against the pull of ratings. For all the fun (or not so fun) parts shown for everyone else in the system, Ben Cheviot has a keen awareness of just what can and cannot be done to start showing the problems of the system that he has helped to promote.  Edison Carter would be a top, and soon dead, journalist as seen in the first program if not for Ben Cheviot willing to back him against the rest of Network 23's interests of the moment. While Ben Cheviot got to the Board of Directors of Network 23 he must have demonstrated competence and ability to deal with competitors to a large degree as it is a cut-throat position just to be on that board.  By having a better 'feel' for viewership and how ratings work, he is able to become the Chairman of the Board and allows Edison Carter to start showing the underbelly of Network 23, the State and corporations... because it is good for ratings.  Ethics sells.  Ethics are power when chained to moral certainty.

Edison Carter, Theora Jones, Murray, Blank Reg and others also show this form of moral certainty and ethics that go with them.  In many ways Blank Reg (a Blank is someone who has gotten themselves erased from all records to be truly free) lives that life of moral and ethics, live or die, continually and is an energetic force to be reckoned with.  Although pirate station Big Time Television may not get the ratings, it does work a wedge into television of an older sort that he still remembers.  In this way Blank Reg is the counter-part to Ben Cheviot, although the two could never be mistaken, their firm standing upon what they see as right and wrong is not only similar but their requirements have put them in crucial positions on either side of the Network/public divide in which the State is part of the Network.  Blank Reg isn't just hitting at the television level but at the level of a Blank, which is to say trying to get people to actually ingest more than television as part of their thought processes.  Like Brave New World books aren't burned, just not circulated or used, they are seen as relics of a past long gone and no longer needed.  Yet it is Blank Reg who tries to get people interested in reading (are they even literate anymore?) and touts books as 'a non-volatile storage media... you should have one'.  In our modern age of e-readers what will become of books?  Not text on screen but printed books?  That non-volatile storage media is immune to EMP and CME effects, they will survive them while your e-reader, your PC, your laptop, the servers that serve up text, and the rest of the modern infrastructure goes away.  Hardcopy back-up can be burned but cannot be erased, cannot be changed once printed, and if carefully tended can last many life times.  Your PC is obsolete the day you buy it.  Ditto your cellphone and all other digital media.

The people of that digital media are represented by Bryce Lynch, late teen techno-nerd, and his work for Network 23.  Bryce is somewhat detached from the goings-on around him and in his own self-created world of technology.  He is more than willing to create commercials that kill (although only as a side-effect of those who no longer exercise ANY), more than able to take a brain-dump of Edison Carter for the old Chairman of the Board to protect him, and then willing to help Edison Carter at various points throughout the program.  In many ways a family style dynamic between Edison, Theora, Bryce and Ben form, although it is very underplayed it does have effects on Bryce to both humanize him and show that he does care about people close to him.  He takes part in the creation of digital personalities from direct brain dumps, starting with his pet parrot (who shows up in the first episode and then is replaced by a screen of the digital parrot thereafter in its cage) and ending with Edison Carter which yields the namesake of the show: Max Headroom.

Max Headroom is only tangentially the star of his own program, with Edison Carter (the source for Max's altered ego) being the real one.  Max is a completely digital being (although there were no digital effects when the series was produced to make him, so it was done through SFX with make-up and only a digital background done for later episodes) who is born in the lab of Bryce Lynch.  Max's home is the Network 23 internal network which has external feeds to two-way televisions.  Thus Max starts out with the ability to grow in capability and, when he is threatened with erasure, he can leave Network 23 for the rest of the external system.  Max, as Edison's altered ego with far fewer inhibitions, is in turns smarmy, insightful, comical and devious and a total creature of the Network ratings system.  Yet he is also its critic beyond mere critique, as he asks what are the effects of this visual pap that is pushed out to the world at large? 

For all of the sometimes juvenile humor of Max, he is also a person that grows beyond that rather shallow exterior of head and shoulders, giving insightful questions into the nature of authority, television, the State and the human condition.  While he may no longer remember much of what it feels like to have a body, Max Headroom grows into this larger system that gives him more than a physical presence and one that is at once as omniscient as Big Brother and as limited as the humor of a teenager.  Scary in one regard, yes, but he does not have a controlling nature and is as irrepressible, and yet open, as Edison Carter.  For an altered ego he is still learning about the Id and Super Ego, those parts necessary to create a solid moral view with ethics and compassion.  That he has that capability and shows it is beyond any doubt, because Edison Carter has them.  That these are skewed by his environment is also without a doubt as Max Headroom is at once more and far less than human, and for all the faux humbleness of a game show host he often displays real doubts about himself and who he is.

So if, when the show was aired, it was 20 minutes into the future where is it now?

My lady answered 10 minutes and she is absolutely right on that in many ways.

What would it take to subvert the modern Internet into a purveyor of Network 23 (and other networks in the power grab)?  The answer is very little: a government power grab in support of television over other forms of communication, probably done by 'emergency measure' as is hinted at in 1984.  Two-way television is, essentially, here in many regards but to be truly controlled as is seen in 1984 or Max Headroom would require a wholesale change of television sets... without off buttons.  And as the Internet now is part of the cellphone network, it would also control your two-way digital phone as they already do for emergency tracking.  Adjust the software and the 'off button' goes away.  As a 'government emergency' requires control of information, any information deemed 'subversive' or 'anti-government' will be removed as 'dangerous speech'.  Like the blog post you are reading.

To be clear the Internet is a threat to centralized power as it is a distributed, shared set of networks (a network of networks) that works via a set of common address standards.  Any government that can get a hold of the address look-up tables can, quite literally, partition the networks from each other.  By blocking off entire blocks of networks and then screening them, speech and thought that isn't sanctioned is restricted.  What happens after that is a promulgation of 'sanctioned' software that only allows for connections to sanctioned blocks of the network.  Like Network 23 and its cohorts in Max Headroom.  With that said there is a set of hacker skills that has permeated society as, from the very first episode, we see that Theora (Edison's controller for live feeds) has skills to get past common and everyday computer security not only inside Network 23 but outside of it as well.  In contrast Murray, members of the Board of Network 23 and various others do not have such skills to any great extent, but members of the Blank community do as it is a survival necessity.  Edison Carter has rudimentary security skills, mostly to deal with physical security, and his friends also have a range of skills from simple deception of security systems to skills close to those of Bryce Lynch.   

Getting around security blocks to get information is one of the skills necessary in the newsroom, necessary to criminals, necessary to the Blanks and only the elites can do without even the basics of them.  In a post-Internet segmented world the ability to get around the segmentation and through security routines: the very security that the Networks and others seem to think they need make common trespass against such systems widespread not out of malice but to just get work done and no one thinks anything is wrong about it.  Even when they go after the most secure records, it is done with an acknowledgement that there are penalties, but nothing morally wrong about it.  Pervasive security doesn't make anything more secure and, contrarily, makes going against security measures common place.  For all the security that Network 23 and others seek, they just add complexity to getting around such measures and get no real security against the mildly determined.

At the top of this realm is Max, although he is unskilled at security circumvention he is born directly into this cyberworld.  He can and does run afoul of security measures, yes, but he also demonstrates an ability to move from network to network, area to area, building to building without much regard for who owns what or what security measures they have in place.  If the centralized network headquarters are bastions of security, the outlying network is a hodge-podge of everything from insecure televisions to relatively secure private systems.  And make no mistake about it, in the world of Max Headroom all security is relative and no one has planned on a sentient cyber entity moving through systems, which raises a whole question of just what is security to such a being?

The physical problems of any of the relatively advanced, that is to say further along in the timeline of decay, worlds that are represented by the generic continuum that coalesced in the late 1970's and early 1980's is one that comes quickly to our civilization once basic maintenance and upkeep can no longer continue.  Cities like Gary, IN and Detroit, MI starkly show how entire sections of cities can go to ruin in less than a decade through depopulation alone.  The hints in Blade Runner and Max Headroom of A Clockwork Orange style elitist inculcation of barbarism leading to decay and retribution would leave our current physical infrastructure in such ruins as seen in those worlds.  Even with such relatively minor organizations (or lack thereof) like the current OWS movement (backed by Unions, socialists, communists and anarchists) the decay inside those encampments has shown rapes, murders and the spread of communicable diseases that are at a first point on a decay continuum.  If the goal of those backers is to get city blocks set ablaze with radical and relatively pointless intent and violence, then the dystopian continuum at A Clockwork Orange will be set and in place.  It is but a short transition through a 1984 regime that then seeks to restore some order and, lacking that, collapses back to corporatism of a Blade Runner or Max Headroom style outcome. 

This outcome is not hard to get to, at all, and while those who seek power may think they can get it permanently, what they actually get is transient power as no centralized system can run a complex world.  The problem in bringing on the moral and ethical decay necessary to get to that point is that it cannot and will not stop at the lowest levels, no matter how many are killed in the attempt, because the decay has already started by those who brought it on.  When you welcome in barbarism as a means to an end you don't find yourself civilized once you have done so as you have let go of the very support of civilization necessary to be civilized.  In the world of Max Headroom there is a desperate attempt to retain and spread the necessary morality and ethical backing is being done by a very few at Network 23.  We never learn much of how the world got to the point of the Max Headroom world, which points to just how unpleasant the transition was.

The trick is not to get to that point in the first place and to retain civilized habits and remind our fellow citizens of those necessary habits and costs to oneself as the price to have a technological civilization.  Civilization isn't free, and your freedom is without price.

The three factions of the Republican Party today

I'm using my prior break-out of the factions within the Republican Party from back in 2008 to look at where things stand today with the candidates in the field.  I will be doing some re-posting of material from that and not going into the over-view of them within the current atmosphere of the pre-election cycle.

As they have broken out these three groups stand out, and they do have sub-groups within them but gain factional affiliation by their positions as sub-groups.

I)  First is the SecCons or Security Conservatives.  The strong position of the US to wage war in her defense was a vital concern during the Cold War and this faction was in ascendance then.  By putting military concerns first they were able to back a strong and final build-up against the USSR that covered decades and put the Soviet system which was always on the ropes down and out for the count.  These were the backers that won the equivalent of a World War without bringing on true nuclear conflict.  Their problems are in the realms of Fiscal, Social and Domestic policy outside of the military realm and with the draw-down from Iraq, the ongoing relatively low-level conflict against the Talibe in AFPAK and helping out a few other Nations in COIN (Philippines, Colombia, Kenya, Yemen) they are losing a strong position within the Republican Party.  While some of the candidates will support a continued level of military affairs, this faction has no backer who is first and foremost for the military.  Without the Soviets and with China now having its economy implode in bad debt, the lower threat of terrorism going nuclear is not one that pushes people to actively support the old style military structure.  The military, for its part, understands this and is adapting to the modern world, but it is a world with a lower need for capital intensive defense systems and without a large economic need the SecCons are being marginalized.

Part of the marginalization is the comfort to social moderates and liberals, plus a willingness to spend heaven and earth for the latest equipment.  Our times are no longer ones that allow for such extravagance and socially the pendulum that started swinging in the 1890's with Progressivism has, apparently, reached as far as it can go on the other end of the cycle.

II)  Second are the FiCons or Fiscal Conservatives.  This part of the Republican Party has been part and parcel of the 'Rockefeller Republican' brand for decades.  It is this section of the party that is now breaking up due to the Tea Party movement that hadn't even been thought of in 2008.  Today there are two branches within the FiCons and they are currently the ones on the internal battle-lines for the party, itself.  Thus I will go into a bit of detail here.

1) Rockefeller Republicans - These are the 'Establishment Republicans', the guys with the money and many of the reigns via the control of the party leadership and their influence has withstood the Reagan Revolution with its SoCon underpinnings.  These are generally seen as the Big Business supporters for earmarks, subsidies, tax breaks and so on via budgetary work in DC.  It is this segment that overwhelming benefits from the K Street lobbyists who use their outside money and revolving door connections to get inside influence on the federal budget.  This is mirrored in the Democratic Party, to be sure, but in the Republican Party when anyone spoke of 'fiscal conservative' between 1950 and 1980, it was this cohort that was being referenced.  Do note that they are FOR tax breaks but not FOR cutting the size of government, therefore any short-term gain in political advantage from tax breaks is off-set by further erosion of personal liberty of the individual due to larger and more officious government.  While it was this faction that called out the problem of SSA and M&Ms, they are also the ones most notable for being unable or unwilling to get these programs reduced or on a road to being abolished as fiscally unsound.  At least two of the current candidates come from this faction (Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich) or are affiliated with it via their business and political outlooks, and while they are (apparently) at odds with each other on the campaign trail, they are both unwilling to do any wholesale revision of the US government.  Abolishing programs still leaves the apparatus to regenerate them in place, thus removing 'welfare' has allowed for other programs to flourish where there was once that single program and done at higher cost and less accountability.  No one who believes that individual liberty is the basis for society, the Nation, government and the State would ever espouse 'mandates' for anything upon individuals in the name of fiscal conservatism.

2) Tea Party FiCons - The largest faction of the Tea Party is in this sub-group within the FiCons.  Unlike the older cohort, this cohort sees small business and smaller government as the course to go for fiscal conservatism.  The argument that government is doing things it was never designed nor meant to do and not doing those things well or efficiently for the citizenry and, in fact, is infringing on individual fiscal concerns is one that is a 'Fusion' concept, of which I will talk more about later.  Unlike the RR-FiCons, the TP-FiCons are building a fundamental ECONOMIC case for the power of personal liberty to guide the economy that is not a RR-FiCon one.  Where the RR-FiCons are inherently Hamiltonian or Progressive in their outlook, the TP-FiCons are inherently Jacksonian and Traditionalist in their positions.  The inherent nature of an economy being made up of individual transactions at the lowest level seeking the most efficient means to enable such transactions and then allowing for a larger emergent phenomena  to take root based on those transactions is one that is immediately identifiable to TP-FiCons: it is not just Hayek but the nature of human liberty and its source that argues for this and argues against the intermediation of government in any meaningful positive (that is to say in the realm of positive liberty) way and only that it needs to exercise its negative powers granted by the people to safeguard the economy from aberrant actors who will not play by the set of rules for economic exchanges.  Government cannot make such low level decisions without huge negative impact on the overall economy and, no matter what other 'good' is generated, the lost value of human liberty to fully flourish is something that impoverishes rich and poor alike and makes it harder for the poor to advance.  This sub-group is aiming to remove the Establishment RR-FiCon death grip on the party via campaign donations: members directly donate to individuals running for office, not to the party.  This has only been going on, in a real sense, for less than 2 years and due to the economic times we are in and the failure of government to adapt to them (indeed it continues being the problem to the Nation, economically) the more the TP-FiCons will shift the RR-FiCons out of control of the party funds and the party system.

III) Social Conservatives -  In the prior work I broke this category up into the Christian Conservatives and the Traditionalist Conservatives, each with their own outlook on society and the role of government and the church in people's lives.  While not at logger-heads, they have not always marched to the same tune and it was only for a few short years under Ronald Reagan that both sub-groups had time together in-step and in-formation.  Today these two sub-groups are now getting a new blend via a third group made up of parts of each of them and the TP-FiCons: the Fusionists.

1) Christian Conservatives - Here the prior break-out of religious observation and moral law guidance that was the bastion of the Christian Conservatives is now finding that it can make an economic case, as well, which is uncharted waters for many Christian Conservatives.  Moral Law guidance is, itself, only secondarily economic and primarily about the duty of man to god and society to make both moral so as to get good government.  Thus, until the last 2-3 years, the idea that government could be used to promote a moral 'good' was an idea taken up by some candidates (Mike Huckabee in 2008, Newt Gingrich in this go around).  Yet this is fundamentally against moral teachings as government is the last, least and worst place to receive any moral teachings.  Anything that gets between you and God should be disdained, and yet the Progressive Era had slowly shifted Christian Conservative SoCons into this idea that government is the last refuge for the poor and needy to go... not to the actual people who make up the Nation as caring for the poor and needy is a directive to individuals, not to States nor Nations.  The idea that government can tell you when you can work, how long you can work, if you are worthy of 'retirement' benefits, and on and on have been a slow and steady erosion of the moral fiber of the Nation by assaulting the moral fiber of individuals inside and, increasingly, outside the realm of religiously observant Americans.  The moral line in the sand against abortion was the first sign that this erosion had gone too far, but that Christian Conservatives could only do this small portion of the work of protecting society and could not grasp the larger threat to the entire society on a moral basis that government was pushing.  The awakening of Christian Conservatives to the much, much deeper teaching of our rights being vested in us took over three decades to finally filter into this sub-group of SoCons, and the re-identification of not just Life but Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness being prime movers granted by God is now spreading amongst the Christian Conservative SoCons who used to just stick to their faction knitting but now find a way to express a much deeper moral and religious belief for society via economics.  Being conservative it is a slow to move group, but once in motion little will stop it, and if the line in the sand is but a starting line for repeal of the Progressive Era, then it will be the individual who couple God, Faith, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness as a continuous whole that will be the major part of the Fusionist sub-group.

2) Traditional Conservatives - These are the followers of Federalism, a society that treats its fellow citizens with respect, the builders of hearth and home (not just those who purchase one) and while religious to a large extent, it is the religion of conviction at home by the fireside with one's children and the role of man to build a good society for not just himself but for his fellow man, as well, as a great good and duty of man.  While this is the quietest faction of the SoCons they have been a part of the party since Lincoln, and have always understood respecting government but questioning its extent and growth.  For Traditionalists there is always an economic point to be made and it is centered on the family check book and how one spends money for oneself.  These are the individuals who uphold thrift, of neither a borrow nor lender be, paying back one's debts not just promptly but ending them as soon as possible, and for supporting the notion that a man cannot be free if he is in debt to any other man or institution via his finances.  This sub-group may be the first to fully Fuse with the TP FiCons as there are direct parallels (indeed very deep parallels) between household accounting and government accounting, and that if you owe someone then you are in their power due to your debt.  The case that man who is in debt is living on borrowed time and that his works are prone to failure and collapse (no matter if they last) is one that is understood deeply within the Traditionalist Community.   It is this community that is closest to the old Democratic Jacsksonian community (that left the Democrats in the late 1960's) and the amount of cross-over between the old trail blazers (Jacksonians) and the old first settlers (Traditionalists) have always made them able to get along on a social level.

IV) Fusionist Conservatives - Fiscal Conservatism has deep roots in not only societal good but the teachings from the Judeo-Christian heritage about duty to God and one's fellow man.  Unlike libertarians the Fusionists recognize that not all of man's liberties and rights are positive, as Nature gives us both equally (although not in equal amounts), so that the necessity of society to generate organs to watch over and stop the exercise of negative liberties and rights within society requires government.  Man is not wholly good nor evil, but has positive and negative rights and liberties which we can bias via moral teachings to curb the negative rights and liberties and enshrine the positive ones worthy of protection.  Government is to recognize that these positive liberties and rights are to be protected, not infringed upon, and the case for this comes not from legal proceedings but from moral teachings, upholding society, and holding government accountable for the negative powers we grant it to safeguard society and the individual.  This is a deeply libertarian approach, yes, but it is not made by modern libertarian channels but through ones of religious observance, religious teachings and understanding man's duty to God and his fellow man.  Fusionist Conservatism is, at once, deeply conservative and extremely expansive in this day and age as it is the naturally recognized antidote to tyrannical or despotic government.  When Barack Obama chided the people of Pennsylvania as grasping on to their guns, god and bible, he was mocking the very basis of what is the enemy of Progressivism and Socialism in all its forms.  These three, together, give the basis for personal liberty (guns), the originator of our liberty (God) and the written moral teachings of God (the Holy Bible) all in one swoop.  Throw in Gold and you have the result of protected personal liberty able to prosper with obedience to God and upholding moral teachings.  Gold is a result of these things, not a cause of them, and it is garnered through liberty ONLY.  Unwittingly Barack Obama named the Fusionist Awakening in these concepts and knows not the history of a debauched, debased and decadent society that adheres as leeches to government is dissolved by a devout people willing to undergo martyrdom for eternal salvation.  One laughs at these things at their peril, and in speaking of them the seeds that were already planted over decades were given final fertilizer and water to grow again.

At the rate of change for the Republican Party and Conservatism as a whole, the next decade is one that will be fraught with danger and great promise.

Government will need to climb down from its Himalayan Mountain Range of debt.  It can be tossed off, with great social turmoil, or it can climb down by jettisoning the infringement of positive liberties and rights in the way of retirement, medical aid and the million and one other things done in the name of 'good' from environment to energy to agriculture to 'the humanities' to education, either via slow phase-out or wholesale cut-off.  Government so large, so officious and, at the same time, so incompetent creates a Law of Rules in which any person is probably in violation of some rule or regulation at any given moment in the day.  The Rule of Law is simple and easy to understand laws that are clearly defined and enforced without favor nor fervor, while the Law of Rules is all about favoritism and payoffs.  To do this requires and understanding of our fellow citizens that we, as man, have been living over the margin and near the edge of the abyss waiting for one ill moment to topple us into despotism or worse.  To get back from that edge the argument that our personal liberties, rights and freedom are our own salvation in this life and the next, and that passing them off to others (which is so very easy) means that we, as individuals, become cold and cruel to our fellow man because we refuse to recognize his circumstances and help him out of them.  Government cannot do that, indeed it MUST NOT do that as that is not its place as a part of society.  It is just an organ of society, and one that processes the identified problems and waste material and gets rid of them... which is not the brain, in case this has been missed.  No better argument for chasing appetites to constipation of debt can be rendered than is shown by our current government which has been eating so much in the way of the positive it can no longer accomplish its duties to us, as citizens, via its negative powers and responsibilities.

This is a hard argument to make as the Deadly Sin of Sloth is one that guides this age as no other.  Yet the problems of our fellow man are not for someone else to attend to, but for us, as individuals, to ameliorate.  One cannot sit back and let others take care of things, because becoming glued to one's sofa soon means that you can no longer remember how to move from it and become the very sort of problem you were unwilling to deal with in the first place.  The heart of charity is not taxation, which is the negative liberty of theft who's power we lend for government in a limited area of commerce, but in the heart of man who is willing to give time, effort, though, a helping hand and last and least is cash to his fellow man to create a better society.  To get a more cohesive society (albeit with stark and fun differences for that is the essence of liberty on the positive side) we cannot entrust government as a caretaker or the builder of a safety net as it is not only prone to corruption but inefficient and will seek to grant favor to the few via funds that are not available, so as to expand power over the many.  Government granted positive outlook is tyrannical at its core because it can couple the whip with the reward and break man to it.  To stop that require accountability on the fiscal side, first, so as to get rid of the unnecessary appendages of government that threaten liberty in the first place.  When there is no safety net, no tax breaks, no subsidies, we are then left to our own devices to find a good way to live without the costly help of tyranny.

The current field of candidates reflects those trying to grasp on to the old, and dying, those trying to muddle through and a few trying to chart a path to a better future with smaller government and enhanced liberty for man.

Four years will not alter the fundamentals changing America.  We may crash off the mountains into debt, but that is not oblivion as we then get to the end state in a few days, and with next to no government, to boot.

The trends cannot be changed.

What can be altered is the outlook of individual to embrace what is coming and help soften it and explain it, so that we can get to a better place as a society and a nation.

If you dare to, that is.

Are you a Trustafarian?

I am ran across the term Trustafarian while perusing an article by Zombie at PJM.  She was using it to describe the class of people at The Ongoing Occupation of America post on 29 SEP 2011.  I had never run across the term and decided it needed just a bit of personal definition which required a few days to mull it over.  By the time I finally started to get the term I then came up with a definition after Herman Cain criticized those at the OWS (Occupy Wall Street/ Out With Sanity/ Ongoing With Stupidity/ Outing Witless Students... take your pick) at Hot Air.  I will correct a few spelling errors and such just to make it clear who he was talking about and what a Trustafarian is by what they do.

= = =

You might be a Trustafarian if you are part of the OWS crowd and…

- Have any electronic device starting with an “i-”

- Have a pair of sneakers costing over $100

- Have a shirt, pair of pants or jacket with a logo emblazoned on it

- Have an ‘art’ shirt that cost more than $50

- Have a netbook/notebook/laptop/tablet computer

- Have more rings festooning your body than a packed bar has glasses on the bar

- Have a bandana/headband/keffiyah with a designer tag on it

- Have a pair of shoes that has individual toes as a feature

- Have any piece of clothing other than a belt made out of leather

- Have more pieces of artwork tattoo’d to your body than a SOHO art gallery has

- Have a pre-printed sign because you can’t figure out how to use a magic marker

- Have an item with the mass murderer Che on it

- Spout off about how a system you can’t even understand needing to go because your parents have paid your way through school

- Have a law degree

- Have any degree in any set of studies involving a hyphen or ethnic or gender in its title

- Have more gold jewelry on your body than a pawn shop has in its inventory

- Can say Media Matters with a straight face and think it means something

Yes these are leading indicators of being a Trustafarian.

Any Trustafarian needs to run, not walk, saunter, or just, you know, go more or less in the direction of, the nearest mental health clinic and report yourself with permanent detachment from reality syndrome… they will spend a decade ‘treating’ you and making you poor so you will then have something to complain about.

And if you think you paid too much for your college education then ASK FOR YOUR MONEY BACK as it has done you NO GOOD AT ALL TO GO THERE.

= = =

You see?  A handy visual guide to the Trustafarians!  If you see someone with MORE than one of these attributes who is at the OWS gatherings (or 'supporting them') you have a Trustafarian: those living off of their parent's trust funds.

Easy to do, no?

Then I realized that they also fit under another term, which is a bit broader, in this headliner at Hot Air about how these OWS folks just might be, you know, POPULISTS!  Be still my beating stomach... I commented thusly...

= = =

Just a buncha Trustafarians.

Old hipsters and young dipsters.

The doucheoise.

= = =

Doucheoise was proposed as a new name for hipsters (I'm not going to bother looking up who proposed it) but as the class of people who are douche's, it also overlaps highly with the Trustafarians.  In fact all Trustafarians are part of the Doucheoise, but not all Doucheoise are Trustafarians and come by their status via other means.  The Trustafarians, in other words, are a sub-species.

Ahh... science!

I did a bit more after that on the Studentia branch of the Trustafarinensi.

= = =

And for the dipsticks complaining about their college loans and blaming the BANKS, just who is it that is ASKING for the money?

Oh, yeah, the COLLEGES.

How about BLAMING THEM for asking so much? And asking for your money back as you didn’t learn a damn thing there other than how to whine, moan and complain about how ‘hard you have it’. The banks are pushing you asshats to take out a loan the SCHOOLS ARE.

= = =

Yup!  It isn't the banks, folks, but the bubble of higher education that Insty has been talking about for a couple of years.  It is a much, much larger bubble than SSA, home loans, and medical cost inflation from 1970 to present.  It is the biggest bubble right next to all of them taken together next to our federal debt.  All these little bubbles gotta pop to get things set straight and the big one has to go down by removing the inflator we call 'government'.

Now since I'm the helpful sort with the guidebooks and such, though in no way the Shell Answer Man because I don't take questions, I decided to sum up not only what the problem is for the various sub-species of the Doucheoise, but what you need to do about it.  I really don't have time for real posts these days, what with finishing up my SKS stock and getting the thing re-assembled, plus having another 2-4 projects on my agenda, so these will have to do.

This is from another Hot Air thread at a Quotes of the Day posting. A spelling error and one typo corrected, mangled syntax and logic left as-is.

= = =

Remember in a deal in which the schools ask for more money and the banks lend it to students, who is to blame for the high cost of education?

A) The schools for CHARGING IT?

B) The students wanting the money to PAY FOR IT?

C) The banks for LENDING IT?

These OWS people blame C, put no responsibility on B and can’t think that those actually doing A who are the originators of the cost are to blame.

Now put in homes and who is to blame?

A) Those asking for more money than a home is worth?

B) Those wanting to pay those high amounts?

C) The banks for lending the money?

Again if you are an OWS’r you blame C, put no responsibility on B, and never, ever blame those asking for unrealistically high prices A.

In each case the root cause of the ‘problem’?

Government regulation that sets the playing field for giving loans. In the first part are federally backed loans that MUST be paid back to the federal government and that you can’t get around paying back.

In the second it is the government determining the risk, setting regulations as to who MUST be able to get loans for FAIRNESS which allows such things as NINJA loans to meet pre-set quotas by the regulators.

Now when you put the government as the D option in both, who is to blame?

A) Those asking for extraordinarily high amounts that they know YOU CAN GET via regulation?

B) Those seeking such high amounts and not questioning the ACTUAL VALUE of what they are getting and not blinking at the COST being asked?

C) Those providing the money as intermediaries for the government regulatory system because, to do business, they have NO OTHER OPTION in those realms?

D) The government for rigging the system to allow A to put B into debt via C the regulated intermediary?

The banks are not the villains, here, although they do share some blame in setting up D, it is the regulatory system, itself, that is swayed by such input. When A and C collude with D, it is B that is shafted.

The answer to what to do is to get D out of the equation so that they do NOT write exacting ‘fair’ regulations and only put out statutes against misrepresenting value and cost from both A and C so that B can make a decision based on actual facts, not promises of ‘fairness’ in a system being rigged against them.

These Trustafarians, the members of the Doucheoise, are HELPING those in the A category to vilify the C category so that they can get MORE REGULATIONS THAT DON’T WORK AND MAKE THINGS WORSE from the D category. They are not playing class warfare but committing economic suicide on a personal basis. If they meant what they said they would join the Tea Parties and work to get the government out of the system so that there is less to no government save for cases of fraud that need be ruled upon. As it is they are supporting the existing fraud-backed structure and want nothing to do with removing it.

Yes Rome wasn’t built in a day.

It was, however, sacked in 3.

You are seeing the sackers, not the builders, wanting their bite and not expecting the collapse to effect them one little, tiny, bit. If they get what they want they have a greatly limited life span because of what they get, that will shorten down decades to years, months, weeks or even days.

If you aren’t prepared for that disaster NOW then you will be joining them.

Your job is to survive, help and educate. And all three MUST be done AT THE SAME TIME. And to those who don’t listen, who scream and rage, you must turn away FROM to help those that WILL listen to reason. That is your duty as a citizen to your fellow citizens. Those that aren’t listening, who are screaming, who are marching… they are the walking dead if they get their way. You can save them but only if you do the right things as a citizen, now. It all depends on YOU being civilized each and every single day of your life no matter HOW BAD things get, all the way to your last breath on this earth. Only your fear will stop you…

= = =

All that stuff I've written about for survivalism, DIYism, plus looking at terrorism, organized crime, money laundering, politics... all that stuff... still comes down to you.

These people blockading their common sense for freebies don't understand how the world works and just want everything to be free.  Just like the USSR!  They can't live there any more since it collapsed under the weight of what happens when no one CAN achieve and everything is FREE and damned scarce, but that doesn't matter to the Trustafarians.

It does matter to the person wanting to be civilized and a citizen.

What you must do in such conditions is clear and I've spelled it out via hundreds of posts.

Your duty to your fellow citizens is to survive and be the one at the other end offering a hand up to a better life of personal liberty and freedom.

The verbiage that goes with being a free man, an individual, is well known and alien to the ears of those in the Trustafarian crowd, but should strike home to any who wish to lead a free life of equal justice, not 'fairness' as what is 'fair' is in the eye of the beholder:

I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or numbered.

My life is my own.

The OWSr's?  They DO want to be pushed (look at how they got there by having helpful 'organizers' push them), stamped (see the guidebook?), indexed (just HOW MANY loans do they have they can't pay up on?), briefed (again the organizers), de-briefed (they are going to lose everything including their briefs), numbered ('we are the 0.00001% who are the 99%'!).  Listen to any of the 'call outs' done by 'organizers' or 'radicals' or Frances Fox Piven or Cornel West and you begin to imagine Monty Python's Life of Brian in which the call out is 'You are all individuals' and the response 'YES WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS' save for that radical saying 'I'm not...'

There you go!

Now back to my normal business around here.

Gotta get that SKS up and running and then put the drum magazine through its paces now.

I will not be pushed.

And neither should you.

So let me get this straight...

The proposition for 'health care reform' is that the cost of health care, and thusly health care insurance is too high.

Why is the cost of health care so high?

Well, we subsidize it in the tax code, for one place to start.  The law of subsidies is that anything that is subsidized is no longer given a proper valuation, is over utilized and under appreciated, thus causing actual costs to rise and scarcity of what is subsidized.

Another place to start is that we have government run health care systems for the elderly and poor, and as government cannot pay the full cost of that health care, physicians and practitioners must cost shift that burden over to their paying customers.  Thusly, health care costs increase.

Why did we subsidize health care?  That started in the 1940's when the fit and able went overseas to fight.  Women and the retired had to have reasons to come into the workforce and Congress allowed for a portion of the cost of health care insurance to be written off as an enticement to those who were not working to come into work.  Until that point in time health care insurance was a 'perk' of the upper management of companies as it was seen as an overhead cost that, for a few individuals, was easily spread over the entire company.  When it was subsidized and expanded to cover more individuals, the overhead cost to run a company increased which was passed on in the cost of goods and services offered.

Women had not been a major part of the workforce due to cultural influences.

Why did retirees need to be offered a 'perk' to come back to work?

That is due to the Social Security system that was set up in the 1930's to retire out the older part of the workforce via government impetus in which all workers paid into the plan to pay out to new and existing 'retirees'.  These individuals who were 'retired' need a rationale to come back to work above and beyond the pay, thus health care costs were subsidized via the tax code.

Why are the elderly poor?

That is due to Social Security not providing enough 'benefits' to allow for a standard of living that would support them well, thus those who retire live from one benefits check to another in substandard living conditions.  These conditions are caused because they stopped working via government impetus at a set age when they are the most productive workers in the workforce and earning a proportionately higher wage.  By forcing these employees out they are not given the capability to earn enough to live on as they aren't allowed to by the system and its penalties for working past retirement age.  To address this Congress created a system in which workers could save money in Individual Retirement Accounts to help supplement their retirement checks via Social Security.  Through these means and modern investing vehicles, like mutual funds, many retirees now grow wealth during their working years to raise their standard of living during their retirement years.

Why doesn't Social Security pay enough to maintain a standard of living for retirees?

Social Security depends on a ratio of active workers to retirees, so that active workers pay into the system and those funds are paid out to current retirees.  At the start of the system that meant that approximately 6 active workers were needed to support 1 retiree at a minimum level of income.  If that amount were raised, the proportion would change.  Thus a doubling of output cost would mean that 3 workers were supporting one retiree.  This ratio changes as the population ages via demographics and via lower birth rates, so that there are not enough new workers in the system to support retirees.

Wouldn't allowing people to work longer, make more and, from that, pay into the system longer change that?

Yes, but then they wouldn't be 'retired' now, would they?  That is the point of the system.

Why was assistance for health care sought via Congress?

That was to pay for retirees who had health plans that stopped covering them when they retired as their past employers could not maintain that burden for both active and retired workers.  Prior to this companies could do this, but only if their active to retired worker ratio would support such an activity, and as the cost of health care rose so did the cost to companies of non-productive workers in retirement.  Over time company provided benefits decreased and Social Security was not providing enough money to allow retirees to purchase health care.  Thus government stepped in to provide a cost-shifting scheme so that everyone else paid more for health care.  As demographics and improving standards of living allowed for longer life expectancy, the number of aged retirees grew quickly and their cost to the health care system increased.  That required more expenditures by government that did not cover the full cost of care and treatment of individuals, thus shifting costs further into the actively paying pool.  Those in that pool were getting subsidized health care via the tax code not only for companies but individuals, which meant that the full cost of health care, medications and procedures were not being paid by those receiving them.

Were any means sought to allow individuals to better pay for their health care?

Yes, health care savings accounts were allowed to be tax free for their earnings but only if they were utilized within a single year.  We do not treat your health as a worthwhile investment to allow for tax free growth of money so as to pay for future health care.  If these accounts were treated like IRAs then individuals could invest money, even at minor rates, while young to ensure growth of capital over time so as to have more funds to address health care needs later in life when procedures and medical problems arise faster due to ageing.

Does this work?

To a limited degree, yes, but the loss of ability to roll-over such accounts year to year means that careful pre-planning is necessary to maximize their usage, unlike retirement accounts (by and large).  Without roll-over security for the funds in these accounts, their ability to help cost-shift are restricted to a single calendar year, not year to year or early to later in life.

So health care savings accounts set up to allow flexibility of payment within a given year to better handle the cost of health insurance is only limited in effectiveness because it doesn't allow for long-term planning?

Yes.

Can individuals get other health insurance types to do this?

Yes, they can, but they must be picked up when relatively healthy, and therefore at a young age, and paid into every year so that catastrophic or long-term care needs are addressed.  The moment you actually get a long-term condition the cost for these plans skyrocket as you will need active payment from the insurance system to care for you, and you have not paid into the system to get such coverage.

If all of this is subsidized, why doesn't it work better?

Because of the subsidies, themselves, cost shifting from efficient, individual payments to less efficient bureaucracies in health insurance companies and via the least efficient means which is the federal government.  Every co-pay is a cost shifting event, so that every utilization of the health care system for non-emergency, non-chronic events incurs costs which are shifted in the way of higher prices paid by those able to afford it.  As physicians see the cost of overhead rising via the staff and infrastructure necessary to deal with health insurance companies and the federal government, they have fewer hours to deal with patients due to paperwork overhead and the cost of employees filling out such paperwork added into the cost of the actual health care.

Those overhead costs aren't paid for by the system?

If that means they are not covered by the system, that is only partially true as they are covered by the increased cost of doing business for a physician.  Physician reimbursement to see an individual utilizing health insurance is negotiated between the company and the physician, which does not allow for much variation in pricing between physicians, thus eliminating market forces for better utilization of physician's time and to lower cost per visit.  By attempting to standardize the system with bureaucracy, the ability to differentiate between the quality, cost and timeliness of delivery of care is removed as the burden of the reimbursement system layers on an overhead cost that must be borne by all those in the system.  You pay for that overhead in your direct co-pay and via your premiums used to pay physicians for treatment, and if you get a co-pay system your premiums rise disproportionately when overhead cost is increased.

Doesn't the new health care law add in more accountability?

Yes.  That is an overhead cost via tracking of paperwork and adding bureaucracy.

Doesn't that increase the cost of health care and health insurance premiums?

Drastically, yes.

How can the cost of health care be brought down?

Removing subsidies, overhead costs and reimbursement systems so that physicians can compete on cost, quality of care and timeliness of care.

Wouldn't that be more expensive?

To whom?  For those with 'health insurance' this would see doctors stepping away from a cost reimbursement system and lowering cost per visit which, while still higher than a co-pay cost, would be lower than the nominal charged through cost of physicians to health care companies via premiums.  By reducing staff size, office size and requiring the signing of non-malpractice waivers, physicians could move from our current, highly regulated system in which they bear the burden of costs for your health care to you necessarily managing your health care and assuming the cost of your decisions.

Wouldn't that increase the cost to retirees?

Yes, it would.  Not necessarily in direct physician cost but on medication cost for the maintenance of long term chronic disorders, like diabetes.  Many pharmaceutical companies have special plans and help systems for those unable to bear the full cost of such medications, however, as a form of charity which is lower cost that trying to shift the cost burden via health insurance.  With companies overstock and over-runs of production that would not normally be marketed would be accessible to the poor and elderly at a reduced cost with the company passing on the fractional cost of over-production (which it has anyway) to those currently paying the full cost for medications.  In addition we subsidize charitable contributions in the form of write-offs to companies.

Aren't subsidies dangerous, though?  I mean look at what they've done to the health care system, already?

They can, indeed, be dangerous: you might get more generous companies as a result and start removing the image of greedy companies for ones that will see a social good and value towards helping the poor and elderly.  Politicians need large corporations not only as donors but punching bags for re-election campaigns, and any attempt to let companies soften their image by actually helping people, directly, instead of indirectly means there are no pay-offs to political cronies and the amount of funds going into campaigns by generous companies are reduced.

They should be regulated to stop that!

They ARE regulated to reduce that and to otherwise add political input into the system.  The net result is that those companies being regulated feel the need to get their own input into the political system via lobbying of government officials and bureaucrats.  Companies have a vested interest in making sure that they can operate and secure market positions, and regulations are a prime way to reduce competition by increasing the barrier cost of entry into markets from smaller firms.  Bigger firms can pass on those overhead costs of lobbying easier than smaller firms, and the system is thusly biased towards larger firms.  The cost of that lobbying is passed on to you, through the higher costs of goods and services, including health care.

Why are these companies moving facilities and jobs overseas?

The cost of regulation means that the American worker is less competitive compared to their foreign counter-parts due to the cost of living in the US, the lack of low-end wage flexibility and the cost of overhead to run Social Security, health insurance and all the other regulations that impact US businesses on a daily basis.  Every hour spent filling out paperwork for the government or to receive reimbursement, which is an indirect payment, means that those are non-productive hours that the company still incurs as part of its overhead.  That overhead cost of all regulation is passed on to you through the higher cost of everything and the less efficient delivery of goods and services.  Every transaction has a cost to it, especially when reimbursement and accountability systems are added into the mix.  Each accountability and reimbursement system has its own cost per transaction that includes the cost of purchasing and maintaining the necessary infrastructure to the system and the cost of human oversight of the system.  All of those transactions bear the fractional cost of the annual operation and maintenance of the system or is otherwise passed on via premiums, price hikes and fees.  The cost of the government side is added in to your taxes and through the number of transactions that are layered on to the system to 'regulate' it.

Doesn't that change the ratio of active workers to retirees?

Yes, though indirectly.  Because of the lack of low-end wage flexibility and the cost per worker of federal, state and local regulations, companies find that it is not economically feasible to offer such low wage jobs in the US legally.  Such things as the minimum wage for citizens, and then trying to circumvent that via hiring non-citizens, points to a systemic incapability of the US system to employ its own citizens at low wages.  This then retards time to entry into the workforce and while increasing wages it reduced overall active time in the workforce to have gainful employment to invest for the long term.

So the illegal alien problem stems from the minimum wage and the cost of adding citizens to the workforce for short-term work?

Yes, to a degree.  Historically there has been a small, migrant population on the southern US border that tended to move with crops, but that only became a problem when we burdened the cost of legal employment for citizens.  There are no jobs that Americans 'can't do' but there are jobs for which the cost of hiring American citizens is economically inefficient.  Do note that this goes for the high tech industry as well as the agricultural community.

So government makes it harder to run Social Security via the minimum wage and regulations on business?

Yes.

Is this sustainable?

No.  Social Security is now permanently in the red and will eat up more in the way of taxes from the federal government, which will increase the amount of taxes to run the federal government for all that it does.  Further the cost of Medicare and Medicaid, plus the new health and financial regulations are increasing the cost of paid-for health care and the transactional cost on everything these regulations cover, which is all of the financial community including your credit card and bank account.  Everything you now do will have an increased transactional cost due to federal regulations.

This doesn't sound good, does it?

If this were a private enterprise then any politician who voted for any of these regulations or signed them into law would be part of a RICO investigation to perpetrate multiple Ponzi Schemes on the American public via the abuse of their power.  As it is Congress loves to exempt itself and the government from such investigations.

Is there any way out of this?

Yes, it isn't nice but there is.

What is it?

End new entrants to Social Security, remove the medical subsidies and entitlements via a block-grant to the States and then phase them out over 5 years, the clean-sheet the tax code to get a single tax rate for all Americans, remove all deductions and benefits from the code, and proportionately reduce that under the poverty line so that each and every working American has a stake in the US government.  In addition clean-sheet government starting with just the few functions of the Treasury, Mint, Commerce, Defense, Coast Guard, and any interstate laws not connected to a federal agency (such as kidnapping, wire fraud and such).  All other government agencies and quasi-government entities would be abolished, and the postal system put into a standards carrier system to which any carrier could apply for pick-up and delivery service so long as they abided by a system neutral concept for exchange of packages.  We can pay for those already in Social Security through higher taxes, but Social Security, itself, must go as a concept.  States are better able to gauge the need for their poor for health care, and by removing the cost overhead of the current system, prices across the board for health care will drop.  State and local systems already duplicate many of the large scale systems at more sustainable and accountable levels and removing the duplicate work that is 'One Size Fits All, Fits None Well' from the federal side will allow for leaner and better crafted systems to take over at the State and local levels.

But won't that cause chaos?

You tell me what happens when the system collapses on its own, because that is the path it is on.  We can plan for it, do it, and remove the government retail or wholesale, but the cost of it must go one way or another.  The other choice is bankruptcy for the Nation and then all these things go, anyway.  The choice is yours.  You may feel 'entitled' to a retirement.  Tough.  You have been lied to for decades as one of the victims of multiple Ponzi Schemes and you believed that the first through Scheme indicated a viable systems while, just like any Ponzi Scheme, they are part of a confidence game to gain your trust and fleece you of your hard earned dollars.  The warnings have been out there for decades, if you did not pay attention to them then you did so willingly: You are the Mark.

Aren't the Marks the last ones to figure out a Ponzi Scheme?

Yes.  It is time to stop being a Mark and picking up your duties and obligations as a citizen of the United States.  You may not like that, but the alternative is chaos.  The choice is yours... just know that very little good comes from chaos within a Nation save for blood and loss.  That choice is yours.  We can do it fast, we can do it slow, but this must be done to survive as a Nation.  We can no longer gain international credit to run these Ponzi Schemes: we are no longer trusted on our own finances because we have tried to run them on unsustainable debt.  The bill can be paid if we stop increasing the debt load.  That means less government now and in the future, stable taxes and shutting down the Ponzi Schemes.  It is either that or you are the Mark... and down that path lies blood at your feet as you could do something, now, as a citizen to let government know it must stop this insanity.