Big Bluestem a.k.a. Turkeyfoot on Otto Maul Trail
Polis’ Pandering
Publicly accessible digital ledgers using linked cryptographic identification technology, a.k.a. Blockchain, might economically be applied when the technology fits either an existing or a new application. To use the redundant and overused expression, a “use case” must exist.
Such an application would likely require:
- Participants who don’t have a shared private mechanism for trading data.
- Third party involvement in data trading relationships, or supply chains, between participants that is uneconomical.
- A need for public visibility of the substantive data content.
- Linearity: a requirement that each new addition to the chain be calculated with metadata from the previous contribution to the chain.
These are just a few factors that come to mind that might argue in favor of a blockchain application, assuming tools to implement the tech are economically available. Obviously, not every application, and perhaps not most applications for data trading, will fit blockchain technology.
But now comes Jared Polis with his platform declaration of support for blockchain – see: https://polisforcolorado.com/blockchain/
This is analogous to a declaration of support for double entry bookkeeping. Or maybe, “I like computers.”
Technology does not require a political disposition. In fact, the introduction of politics will likely harm, through needless state level encumbrances, a developing accounting technology.
I hope voters take the time to see through Polis’ panderings on this issue. He’s a big government guy who appears challenged about thinking outside of the big government box.
There seems to be an anti-capitalist bias, or distrust, of value-added intermediaries in long-established markets held by proponents in the blockchain movement. And there seems to be a corollary assumption they make that blockchain technology will pave the way for a utopian market scheme of purely economic transactions with minimal or zero profit potential through market verticals, and markets that run through entirely automated mechanisms.
If this sort of thinking were the product of scientific analysis, then fair enough, so be it. But to begin with the assumption, and then proceed to backfill reality to fit the assumption, that’s just wrong.
Utopians. They never learn.
Antelope
Southeast of Kiowa near Commanche Creek
The best response is no response
The best response to Leftist violence is to starve it of attention. Theater only works with an audience present. Don’t attend, only publish the conflicts on social media alongside critical analysis. Don’t give the barbarians meme space. Leave the angry Left alone to demonstrate and yell at itself.
What possible reason exists to confront it in the streets anyway? Few arguments, however reasonably delivered, could be sufficiently compelling to change a zealots mind during a mob event. Confrontation sustains the mob, and that’s exactly what the mob is there to generate.
Philosophical arguments aren’t settled in the streets. They require cool heads to even be heard.
The Left knows this. That’s why they keep their people in a constant state of agitation. Don’t help them.
observing
On the Otto Maul Trail today
Antelope in the Bijou
Antelope in the Bijou over the bluff from Commanche Creek
Can someone loan me 10 bucks?
Sorry, we only have 8.
Hang on, here’s 2 more.
HAMED ABDEL-SAMAD
April 5, 2018 MEMRI Clip No. 6651 Transcript
Speaking at a conference held by the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights, Egyptian-German scholar Hamed Abdel-Samad called to stop trying to please the Islamists and said that “whoever wants to embrace the heritage, along with its representatives and theoreticians, and to incorporate them in the enlightenment game is perpetrating a crime.” Abdel-Samad enumerated the principles of enlightenment and said that solutions should not be sought within jurisprudence as these are “nothing but plastic surgery for a lifeless corpse.” It is like an elastic band, he said: “We pull away with our thinking, but then we are pulled back by our fear, of taboos, our fear of prohibitions, and our fear of being punished by the law or by society. There can be no enlightenment where there is fear.”
[…]
Hamed Abdel-Samad: “When we revisit the notion of Jihad, which has gotten us to where we are today, we must call our forefathers to account, for coming to North Africa and enslaving human beings. We must also call the texts that led to that to account. Who has the courage to do that? I face criticism from brothers… It is natural for me to face criticism and threats of Islamists, but when intellectuals say to me: ‘Society has not yet matured enough to interact with your bold ideas,’ I always respond: ‘Well, give me a date. Tell me when. If it’s Thursday, May 13, 2035, I’ll be there. Just give me a date.’ It shouldn’t be left open-ended. Why has society ‘not yet matured’? Could it be because no one has dared to confront society with these ideas? Could the reason be because people who dared to take a step forward took two steps back, because they wanted an easy and comfortable enlightenment, without confrontations? This is a great deception. There can be no enlightenment without a mighty clash with the heritage. Whoever wants to embrace the heritage, along with its representatives and theoreticians, and to incorporate them in the enlightenment game is perpetrating a crime. Whoever thinks that some Islamists support enlightenment is wrong. There are no hedgehogs without quills.
[…]
“Enlightenment has five principles, the first of which is freedom. The second principle is human rights, and I mean it in the sense that appeared in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and not the hierarchical rights that we know from Islamic heritage, in which Muslims have certain rights and non-Muslims have different rights, men have certain rights and women have different rights. No, all citizens have equal rights and equal duties. The third is the principle of tolerance – again, not in the Islamic sense, where we allow certain things to the People of the Book, but not to the Bahais, the atheists, or the Buddhists. No. Tolerance should be non-hierarchical and should apply to all. Should the fact that I am a Muslim and belong to a Muslim majority mean that all the minorities should be under my thumb? No. We are equal before the law. Another principle is the principle of pluralism. This principle of pluralism does not exist in Islam. I say this loud and clear. The truth is that all the principles that I have mentioned are either non-existent, or else they are castrated or conditional, in Islam.
[…]
“Everybody is trying to get out of this mess in their own way. There are enlightened solutions, like the ones offered by Said Nacheed, Rachid Aylal, Ahmen Assid, or Mohammed Lamsiah. There are also jurisprudent solutions, which you should forget about altogether. They are nothing but plastic surgery for a lifeless corpse. They are like painting the walls of a building on the verge of collapse. Don’t waste your time on people who are trying to do this, because they are striving to save face, not to reach enlightenment.
[…]
“You can be sure that no matter how hard you try, you will never please the Islamists. And the Islamists will never be pleased with you until you follow their creed… Anyone trying to play tricks and to dodge clarity in order to please others – it will not happen. They will use you for their cause and then throw you a bone.
[…]
“It is imperative to confront our forefathers and their [religious] texts. We must open all the complex problems, once and for all.
[…]
“Our goal is not to save Islam. The believers can save their personal faith, by refraining from mixing it in politics and legislation. The job of the intellectual is not to save Islam, or to find a comfortable way out for the fanatic believer. The fanatic believer should find his own solution, when the rug is being pulled out from under his feet, in legislation, in law, and in politics. But as long as we pamper them, and give them the impression that they are strong and we are weak, they will continue with this.
[…]
“Each and every one of us was born into a certain religion, or into no religion at all, by a mere coincidence of genetics and geography, yet we continue to circle that coincidence, as if we are tied to it by an elastic band – whenever we try to pull away from it, we are pulled back and get slapped by the elastic band. It’s like an elastic band. We pull away with our thinking, but then we are pulled back by our fear, of taboos, our fear of prohibitions, and our fear of being punished by the law or by society. There can be no enlightenment where there is fear.”
Resist the resisters
Indivisibles, resisters, Democrats, Leftists, ANTIFA, BLM, whatever flag they wave on a given day, get the cart before the horse. Adversity is the game they play with any issue, any personality, and any physical or mental manifestation. Objects take many forms, and they can all be used in the struggle.
Present the object in a light most unfavorable to their opponents, and most favorable to themselves. Pound the issues, pound the law, pound the table! Take the adversarial theatrics from the courtroom and apply them in every other room in America under the innocuous labels of “dialog,” “demonstration,” and “protected speech.”
As employed by the Left, the accurate term is “dialectics,” right out of Marxism. It is process untempered by reason.
In the courtroom, a jury of reasonable people decide which adverse position is most reasonable and which is most unreasonable. The loser pays, goes to jail, or desists, and the process ends.
But the dialectics applied by the Left don’t respect the outcome of a vote, and don’t have an ending. A vote against the Left just signals it’s time to amp up the adversity. The beat always goes on. Look around. Non-stop opposition media propaganda makes it pretty hard to miss.
It’s easy to get caught up in the emotion of the Left. The tragic images they present scream injustice and cry out for resolution. But the images rarely withstand much scrutiny. Closer inspection always ends up debunking the image. And there’s always another image waiting in the wings.
It is unnatural to be changeless, to stay the same way, and have the same answer, all the time, for all situations – except when it comes to the Left. Perhaps this is the ultimate irony – the group that consider themselves progressive, never seem to progress.
smokey sunset
Seems like the CNN and MSNBC newsies really enjoy covering Leftist agitprop marches. You’d think it was the Tournament of Roses or a Thanksgiving Macy’s Day Parade.
I think they’re too easily amused. It ought to take more than a handful of zealots from the party out of power to get one so excited.
Justice Thomas on Leftist forum shopping
Cite as: 582 U. S. ____ (2017) 1
Opinion of THOMAS, J.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
[June 26, 2017]
Page 3
“Moreover, I fear that the Court’s remedy will prove unworkable. Today’s compromise will burden executive officials with the task of deciding—on peril of contempt— whether individuals from the six affected nations who wish to enter the United States have a sufficient connection to a person or entity in this country. See ante, at 11– 12. The compromise also will invite a flood of litigation until this case is finally resolved on the merits, as parties and courts struggle to determine what exactly constitutes a “bona fide relationship,” who precisely has a “credible claim” to that relationship, and whether the claimed relationship was formed “simply to avoid §2(c)” of Executive Order No. 13780, ante, at 11, 12. And litigation of the factual and legal issues that are likely to arise will presumably be directed to the two District Courts whose initial orders in these cases this Court has now— unanimously—found sufficiently questionable to be stayed as to the vast majority of the people potentially affected.”
a.k.a. Leftist forum shopping
Seems that where federal courts get used repeatedly for clearly political purposes under an intent to frustrate the exercise of constitutional powers by other branches of government, Congress could act well within its constitutional authority to bar those subject matters from federal jurisdiction.
Pity the Left
Anyone familiar with history knows the hard Left have terrorist hearts. Before his death in 2014, R.J. Rummel calculated the Democide – Deaths caused by Leftist governments – at over 174 million in the 20th century. Conservatives who know history know the truth of Rummel’s analysis. Despite their seeming pathological inability to admit it, the Left own this history.
Force, muscle, intimidation, propaganda, suppression, branding, torture, and death, the Left employed these tools vigorously in service of their politics all over the world. More subtle were the degraded human health and welfare conditions, and lost economic opportunities, caused by socialist policies throughout the West in the same time frame.
Today, the hard Left still employ these tactics, but at their own peril since it’s only a handful of zealots who didn’t learn their history who remain engaged in the revolution. Their number seems large due to the amplifier the opposition media gives them – 24/7 coverage with loops of tight camera shots that make 5 people look like 500, repeated sound bites, hosted by doe-eyed panting journalists – to create the impression of a mass movement.
This is manipulation on a grand scale by a tiny minority. Unfortunately, anyone who turns on a television cannot avoid Leftist propaganda.
But that’s really no excuse for an otherwise sane majority of Americans to give in to Leftist provocations. Pity the Left, but don’t enable them by responding to the ghastly images and fears they propagate.
That’s just swinging at ghosts.
recent shots from the Otto Maul trail & environs
Coyote
Fall Flicker
Great Horned Owl on Comanche Creek
El Paso Windmills from Kiowa
Western Kingbird fledges
2 of the 4 that came out of the nest next to our house
The health industry
“It’s all about the money, boys!” Big Dan Teague
Health insurance, hospitals, big pharma, retail pharma, healthcare professionals, healthcare equipment and device manufacturing, are in it for the money. And rightly so. Money is the exchange medium that enables people to trade peacefully for what they want. Without money, people kill each other. See Venezuela.
Federal, state and local governments—political organizations—write laws to manage health care and health insurance. The laws they’ve written control prices, the services available, where those services will be provided, how much the patient pays, and most importantly, how much the government funds.
Political organizations follow the money. The biggest, most ossified and intransigent spender is government. Whoever turns that money spigot on gets rich.
That’s why congress isn’t repealing Obamacare. The reason has little to do with patient or voter revolts in 2018 that could favor Democrats, though Democrats certainly portray it as such—a case of making hay while the sun shines.
The reason comes from all of the vested money interests in the great mess of a health market enabled and protected by government. When it comes time to prune it back—i.e. now—no one will step forward to shut off their tap on the government money reservoir.
Politicians want to keep receiving money for their votes on profitable laws, begging the question of who profits.
Government health insurance/practitioner/substance/health transaction controllers and regulators all want to keep their statutory jobs.
Health finance at all levels of funds flow, a massive industry, want to keep their jobs.
And so it goes with the millions of consequential transactions all lubricated by virtually unlimited government money.
The patient entitlement is the tip of the iceberg. The far more pernicious entitlements in the fabric of the health industry—the ones that removal would lead to unemployment of the comfortably well paid—form the scaffold propping the whole thing up.
The mantra offered as a solution—“Single Payor”—would be like throwing gasoline onto a raging fire with the expectation it will perform like water.
The real solution is to reintroduce the highly protected and funded rare birds in all facets of the health industry to competition and market forces.
Because it’s all about the money, boys.