Scuba Diving

I felt the cold water go down the back of my shorty wet suit. I should pay someone else to do this. Do my work outs, sleep with my wife…Why do I always get sick on vacation? If you can’t equalize your ears at the surface, then you can’t equalize your ears. Holding my nose through my mask, I equalized my ears. As I descended, I felt pressure on my ears. Don’t force your ears. Ascended to where my ears where clear, equalized again. Up and down until I reached 40 feet. At the ledge I crossed my legs and by inflating and deflating my buoyancy compensator was able to reach the state where I raised and lowered slightly with my breathing. Crossing my legs kept me from compensating with my feet. Over the edge I dropped to 80 feet facing the wall.

I took my mask off and rinsed my eyes in the ocean. Put my mask back on, cleared it, checked my depth. 120 feet, not good. Went back up to 80 feet. Elmers’s watersports had set me up with lenses in my mask. I was on an Elmer trip to Bonaire. Bonaire has lots of different little fish. Elmer had instructed me on the ears and buoyancy. Kicked off gently against the current along the wall. Following the dive plan, when I was half knocked, out of air, I went back up to the ledge. Holding my gauge so it wouldn’t drag through the coral, I hung upside down above the coral and let the current drag me back to the boat. My face was about a foot from the coral.

The best stuff is often under the boat, or maybe the nitrous oxide buzz kicks in. There were tiny worms sticking out of coral. When I put my finger on them, they disappeared into their tiny holes. They came back when I lifted the finger. 

I felt the nitrous oxide bubbling out of me pushing everything in front of it. I took my mask off, put it back on, cleared it, and repeated. My tear ducts whistled. After a while I started my ascent to the boat. I kept having to remove and clear my face mask. Before I got on the boat, I made it a point to rinse my face in the ocean. I didn’t want to have long ropey streamers of pressurized snot hanging out of my nose.

I was surprised everyone else was back on the boat. I had lasted the longest. Not that it’s a competition.

Bonaire is surrounded by the ocean but even the air around the island seems dry. It felt wonderful. My head felt physically light on my neck. Years later I heard the reefs are dying. I’m sorry, it was the collected thirty years of Chicago mucus.

14th Amendment

 Back when Chicago had winters, I once dragged myself through the slush into a travel agency and said:

-Get me out of here.

I hate to travel. There is some remarkable geology. In Lacrosse Wisconsin there are bluffs. There is a fun mix of prosaic and profane seeing people living on and around the bluffs.

There are also the plaques. In Pennsylvania there is mention of Jumonville. George Washington at the age of twenty murdered Jumonville causing the French and Indian War which lead to the Seven Years’ War, which lead to our revolution. The revolution was not popular, ask the Tories, who respected the king, paid their debts, and opposed slavery. 

The Evanston Illinois light house, built in 1873 after the North was freed of the South’s hatred of boondoggle. Why of all the stretches of sand along Lake Michigan was the light house built here? The light house was an emotional reaction to the sinking of the Lady Elgin in 1860. In Milwaukee there is a wonderful plaque explaining that the Irish on the Lady Elgin had it coming. The Germans wanted to secede from the Union in opposition to slavery. The Irish wanted to stay in.

The site of Pickett’s Charge in Gettysburg.

I hate the St. Louis Arch. They try to warn you: claustrophobia, acrophobia, and ochlophobia. They tell you don’t go up there. Due to construction we had to buy tickets in the museum. There was a plaque there explaining that there weren’t many Blacks in St Louis before the Civil War. The Irish were taking the work. It was cheaper to hire an Irishman for a day than keep a slave for life. Dred Scott was pissed that his owners were sending him out to find jobs.

When the Supreme Court uses arguments like natural law or constructionism, they are saying they don’t have anything else. This wasn’t the case with slavery. All stupid Taney had to say was that slavery was in the Constitution. It would have been nice if Taney had ruled that if you didn’t have work, you were no longer a slave. Taney would have been discovering a right under the 9^th amendment. The 9^th is kind of a fun meta-amendment. When the Supreme Court argues that a right isn’t covered under the Constitution, they are ignoring the 9^th. We fought a war to remove slavery from the Constitution.

The slave breeding border states would have hated such a decision. They made money selling slaves south.

Keeping the Union was not popular. It was not the peoples will. Lincoln got in on a three way, another example of the Voters Paradox. After the putative end of the war, Republicans dragged the army up to vote and dumped the territories into the count. Fortunately, the Southern raids infuriated the border states. The Democratic platform was to concede the war to the South. The South didn’t vote, we had won by force of arms and freeing the slaves. When the Southern property walked off, their financial value collapsed. The Northern banks were furious with Lincoln, they thought they were going to collect on their loans. McClellan got 45% of the vote in the North.

Rather than lining the rebels against a wall and shooting them as a sovereign nation ought, goofy Johnson followed Ceasar’s advice and pardoned them. Even so, the 14^th amendment said the rebels could no longer run for office. There was no folderol about process, popular will or which office. A sovereign state should not allow traitors to hold office, regardless of the peoples will. If you want to change the Constitution, we have process for that. Please don’t argue that an amendment is unconstitutional.

I despise the 2^nd amendment. It is ambiguous and confusing. The Supreme court shouldn’t rule against it. We should amend the Constitution to explicitly return that power to the states.

The first amendment was too mealy mouthed about government supporting religion. It seems obvious that tax money should not go to religions. Stop faith-based grants. Faith-based worked fine when it is Greek Orthodox taking care of Ukrainians. It shamelessly falls to pieces when it is Catholics serving Venezuelans. The Cruz and DeSantos Catholics are happy with undocumented immigrants. Undocumented don’t get Social Security, Minimum Wage, Unemployment, or Workmen’s Compensation. MAGA is opposed to refugees, people with status who don’t do as they are told, and who may someday vote.

Catholic “charities” is also taking tax money to oppose the rights of equality and privacy.  

MAGA isn’t fascist. Fascists had ideals. Maga is a pseudo nihilist, sometimes antiimperialist, pro-Russian belief in slavery and forced pregnancy. Maga wants crippled orphan children working 12-hour shifts in packing plants.

Popular will overriding the law is a fascist argument.

The only way individual Democrats can fight for Reconstruction is to crossover to the Republican primaries and vote for Haley. At least Haley hasn't shipped immigrants.

Chicago Chokes

 

Christine asked:

-Why is Canada burning?

Without hesitation I responded:

-Lumber companies planted the wrong trees and it got warm.

Seems glib, but in this case my cynicism was correct. If you go out on Google Earth, it is clear that the arboreal, original Canadian forest did not burn. Lumber companies proffer all sorts of rationalizations. Whatever they say, it didn’t work.

If they take refuge in regulation, consider the Exxon Valdez. Exxon Mobil went into court and said that Alaska did not require double wall tankers. Everyone laughed because the reason for that was because Exxon had lobbied against it. Covering North America in soot is a lot worse than dumping oil on beaches.

Lumber companies have no refuge. This is their game. They ran it. Lumber companies don’t own all the land, but they did the cutting. They didn’t know it was getting warmer? The cutover areas flamed. Arboreal sometimes burns, not like this.

Please prevent these boobies from planting trees. They barely harvest the forest. They clear the forest so they can plant the trees they want. Nothing burns as well as a tree farm.

-Look how fast they grow.

If they grow fast, they burn fast. If nothing were done, a varied understory would have to develop, that holds more moisture. From that understory there will come a greater diversity of forest.

-That is not profitable.

That doesn’t matter. The only use remaining for these companies is to pay out settlements. Whatever they did, it failed. Lumber companies have always mismanaged forest, so it has been, so shall it be. Whenever there is cutover there are severe fires. A conservatorship should be established. Hopefully, someone can be found who knows what they are doing to manage the forest.

Stop rescuing the forest. The lumber company solution is to build more roads so they can better manage the fires. Please don’t. Forests manage fires fine. It is the replanted cutover and fire control areas that are dumping the smoke.

Why are Canadians nice? Canadians are the ones who had to leave the USA. Those nice Canadians should nicely tell the lumber companies to get the nice out.

If Canada fails, Chicago has no shortage of lawyers. Some of those lumber companies are US. This is a class action suit. What can’t a Chicago lawyer do? I can see the lumber companies trying their smug and stupid in front of a choking jury. The lumber companies will say that this was caused by a lack of lumber demand that kept them from harvesting enough before it burned.

-Fly my pretties, fly.

Sewer Valves

Many people in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, are installing sewer valves for their homes. Some years back we had an impressive deluge and this is a reaction. Your stack or stand pipe may drain directly out to the street sewer. Putting a check valve or flapper in the way means that when the system hits load those houses refuse service and the overall pressure on the system will increase precisely at the time it is stressed. If you don’t have a flap then super tough on you, the effluent has to go somewhere. A product that creates its market. Once everyone has flaps there should be popped flaps or broken pipes.

Flaps are necessary on flood plains. As flood plain construction is common it is difficult for other municipalities, such as Oak Park, to deny their use. Chicago used to require a basement floor drain. You were expected to share your suffering with your neighbors.

Most people have their stack drain into their own sewer that then drains into the street sewer. This is a nice feature that gives the system some bounce and durability. Typically, however, the new flap is inserted between the two sewers. This creates the same shock on the system as above. I think the next deluge will disappoint those homeowners. As I remember it, I heard the sewer cover on the home sewer bounce. There was, for a moment, about a foot of water in the yard. It was the yards’ water coming into the home sewer that went up the stack and flooded the basement. Blocking the street sewer alone will not protect your basement. Maybe a sewer lid gasket on your sewer along with the flapper would work. But then it wouldn’t take the normal drain from your yard, increasing the chance of seepage.

It would be better to place the flap between the home and the home sewer. This would give the street system some bounce and also protect your basement, if not your yard. Unfortunately, if you examine your sewer, you will see that this is a deep connection. At that depth the pressure might overwhelm the flap. If you do not mind advertising that your house floods, you could break through your foundation to put the flap near the stack. Might as well put in the sump pump while you are there.

While you may disdain allowing the sewer unfettered access to your home, consider placing the flap between the stack and basement source. The flap would deny sewer water the exit of your basement without threatening system integrity. Water seeks its level; it can’t go higher in your house than it is outside. It’s just a matter of boundaries. Again, you will have to break the foundation.

The real secret of the Victorians was their plumbing. Failing all else perhaps install a new water closet somewhere upstairs, move the washer and drier up there as well, close off the basement plumbing and then you won’t need a flapper.

Worst President

1. Kennedy nearly blew up the world. Eisenhower had been waving the bomb around but now there was reprisal. Berlin, Bay of Pigs, Missile Crisis, Assassination, it was called brinkmanship.
2. Reagan was just running his mouth, but middle management on both sides was listening. Brave Petrov, Able Archer, Fleetex, KAL 007, Reagan calmed down after he was shot. Both Irishmen believed they had a special relationship with the Soviet Union.
3. Jefferson unleashed Napoleon on Europe. The only real consequence of the Louisiana Purchase was funding Napoleon. Jefferson said he expected Napoleon to attack the British, but the French direction was clear after the Seven Years’ War.   Napoleon was a general not an admiral. Dropping guns in Haiti, backstabbing Washington on the loan, stopping the tobacco deal, don’t say it turned out for the best. We don’t know what would have happened. Jefferson was slime.
4. Wilson’s intervention in World War I led to World War II.
5. Teddy Roosevelt was our most popular president. Roosevelt picked the next two presidents. He campaigned for our World War I intervention in support of the British. Roosevelt’s island by island suppression of the Philippines was an example to Japan. Japan and Germany were United States wannabes.
6. Eisenhower was a great general. His selection from the ranks as head of the European theater was a miracle. Unfortunately Eisenhower was a great general. Countless successful interventions of small forces, guns and money throughout the world murdered the idealists and frustrated sovereignty leading to disaster that Eisenhower was no longer around to manage.  He was embarrassed in Indonesia. Eisenhower put out the fires without clearing the underbrush. The SOCOM fantasy persists to this day.
7. Jackson, westward expansion and the associated atrocities seem inevitable. But Jackson left us with no shred of decency or self-respect.   There was also his financial manipulation in support of the overseas Dutch. Jackson and Van Buren established the Democratic Party which eventually gave us the Civil War.
8. Nixon, Cambodia and Indonesia will suffice.
9. Bush Jr. the MBA chump who fell for Bin-Laden’s provocation. Lead the US out of prosperity and into ruin.
10. Tyler joined the Confederacy.
11. Washington started the Seven Years War. He skimmed the French funds meant for his starving troops. He did keep the British occupied until France could win the Revolution. Without the benefit of gunpowder. If you don’t believe the British could have won, let me refer you to India, China and South Africa. Fortunately the British didn’t send the bad boy who would have dropped guns in the South and burned granaries in the North. Washington’s great mistake as president was sending Jefferson to France. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Jefferson’s job in France was to get the tobacco deal; instead he went to the other side. Jefferson was probably tipped by the Turks. Without the tobacco deal we had Shay’s rebellion. When it was clear that the French weren’t giving the loan in part because of Washington’s even handed policy, Washington was told to grab his hat and not let the door hit him on the way out.
12. Don John is the piñata for the ecological disaster.
13. Buchanan, pro slavery president just before the Civil War.
14. Andrew Johnson obstructed Reconstruction.
15. Lyndon Johnson got the China Lobby to support his social programs in exchange for the Vietnam War.  Johnson is the reason people are terrified of a socialist president. Obama holds him up as the example of change without consensus.
16. John Adams got the loan from the Dutch and sold out to the British, but his fundamental function was to hold off Jefferson. Only managed one term.
17. Hoover tightened up standards and enforced prohibition before he was elected president; disrupting business arrangements which helped bring on the Depression. Hoover and his cronies supported the Germans. In Hoover’s case because he had worked for the British.
18. Fillmore opened up Japan. That worked out well.
19. Cleveland was such a stinker.  The death knell of reconstruction.
20. James Monroe supported Jefferson.

Best President

1. Franklin Roosevelt, you may question his character and policies, but Roosevelt led us through the Great Depression and the Second World War. His appointment of George C. Marshal was great. As was Henry Wallace and Eleanor Roosevelt.
2. Lincoln won the election of 1864. McClellan would have been victory for the South.
3. Ford, modern presidents have the advantage of greater disaster and recovery. I have a soft spot for goodhearted insider conservatives. We could have had John Connally.
4. James Madison wrote the Constitution. Conciliated with Britain. We could have lost the war of 1812. Held on to Maine. Wasn’t named Jimmy.
5. Carter, insufferable sanctimony worsened by being right. Carter creeps up in the rankings. I see why Rosalyn beats him.
6. Truman, someone finally fired McArthur. Held off Dewey.
7. Bush Sr. Adam Smith bemoans the constant cycle of wastrels and saviors in politics. Republicans hold this as their fundamental tenet, the Santa Claus Presidency and opposition to socialism. Bush Sr. was the statesman who lied and saved the Republic. Clinton was smart enough to keep his policies. I would rate Bush Sr. higher except hijacking Carter’s Iran operation in support of Reagan. Also participating in the shooting of two other presidents.
8. Obama should also rate higher. His legacy will forever be marred by his successor.  The Department of Justice did not prevent Republicans from fixing the election.
9. John Quincy Adams failed to hold off Jackson, always right, never enough.

There are a number of dynasty, bookend, adversary and conjoined presidents. Did we always elect the wrong one? The various scandals look quaint. Rights usually mean right to have slaves or suppress unions. Empire is judged by atrocity. I have a new respect for meh presidents, who didn’t embarrass us, get caught, or mess up.

Historical Inevitability and United States History

Usually historical inevitability means the king is great, the empire will last forever and I want to keep my job. The counter story, Noah, Gilgamesh or Ur, is that when you live on a delta surrounded by mountains things may change, someone building a boat in the middle of a plain may not be ridiculous and you should be nice to the hill kids. The first to directly disagree with inevitability as permanence was Adam Smith. Smith liked explanations. Smith said empires inevitably fall because they are inefficient.  He attempted to convince England to abandon empire, particularly the American colonies. Wealth of Nations, Smith’s book, is not taught despite its central place in political and economic philosophy.

I think the fall of civilizations is more basic. I was in Cahokia, Illinois at the Native American trash heaps. The museum said that this town only lasted about two or three hundred years and they didn’t know why. Two or three hundred years is a decent run. How long can people stand to live with each other? Generation conflict in hierarchical social structures is destructive. Especially surrounded by trash heaps:

-Let’s put Roger on top of the trash heap.

-Why will he stay up there?

-We’ll tell him he’s in charge.

Karl Marx’s ponderous Capital is taught more frequently than Smith. Read Smith first. Don’t bother with Hegel: things don’t turn out as you expect big deal. Marx speaks to Smith and he expects you to have read the basic work.  Marx’s attack on Riccardo is confused with attacking Smith. Riccardo claims to be a Smith partisan. Riccardo is a turgid waste of time. The subtext of Riccardo is that Smith was right except for a few details, but we know what we are doing and our empire will survive. Marx conscientiously knocks down Riccardo’s arguments, implying that of course this empire will fall as all the others.  

Smith has a clever argument that feudalism was brought down by consumerism. Nobility preferred things over people, leading to Noble’s impoverishment. Marx hates this idea. He goes on about the Crofters who were self-sufficient with their own land and crafts. Manufacturers passed laws forcing Crofters off their land and into factories. Unfortunately Marx adds a comment about now being able to join unions which was used as an excuse for collectivization. Marx was describing an atrocity. Recent events in Soviet Russia and old Communist China confirm Smith’s observation. People want things.

Don’t be smug. The Freakonomics series of books provides examples using Smith’s systemic principles to analyze current events. The authors throw shade on global warming.  I think I understand. James Hansen argued that greenhouse gases would create a logarithmic global warming curve. This was a fairly optimistic prediction. Hansen didn’t appreciate the amount of organic material trapped in permafrost. All curves look similar at the origin. Hansen hates soot. His recommendations are predicated on snow cover. Now that the cover is gone, the recommendations should be reexamined. The Freakonomics chuckleheads said:

-I know curves. That’s Malthus. Heh heh.  

Malthus observed that populations increase exponentially whereas agricultural output had increased linearly. Recognizing the problem, science stepped up and agricultural output has exceeded population growth.

Medicine has also improved. Because antibiotics are fed to livestock, each new antibiotic becomes ineffective. Any scientist who comes up with another antibiotic should be taken out back and thoroughly slapped. They are digging wells in the Sahara. The advances of science lead us to global warming. Malthus was never disproven. The curves will still intersect. Freakonomics is saying that we don’t have to pay attention to scientists because science will save us.

The check on human population is prosperity. When people are prosperous they don’t have as many kids. If trends hold we will plateau around 10 billion. Foul ups mean increase in population. The other issue is footprint. I sneer, quite rightly, at my neighbor driving his F150 to the lake with his jet ski while I drive my government subsidized hybrid to Madison with my road bike for my meet up. But we both have footprint. Freakonomics is being ninnies because the only political philosophy that promises prosperity without consumption is communism.

Socialism is consumerism on steroids. There is nothing wrong with a socialist having a Ferrari.   We should all have Ferraris. Then we can race.

Just because Capitalism fails doesn’t make Communism inevitable.

Don’t pester scientists for solutions. The low cost immediate ameliorative for global warming is nuclear winter.

The search for inevitability leads to geography. Geography is destiny because it defines why we hate each other. In my grammar school, the teachers divided the playgrounds between boys and girls. Once we knew the sides, we fought. The people of the delta, the people of the mountains, the people of the plains, the people of the coast, the people of the woodlands, the people of the desert, we all hate each other.

Japan and Korea hate each other. Looking at the globe, this is easy to understand. Japan’s isolation exacerbated the problem. Every foreign contact was a typhus outbreak. When the United States busted open Japan and demanded trade, Japan reacted by mimicking our worst features. They chose a state religion and conquered parts of Russia, China and Korea. My greatest fear of North Korea is that they will provoke Japan. You would think they’d know better.

China and Vietnam hate each other. Vietnam is gorgeous, one long nonstop beach, mountains, delta, farms, jungle, forest.  Say Vietnam was adjacent to the United States and despite our best efforts was still an independent nation that spoke Vietnamese. Everything the Chinese do is with the objective of someday being successful enough to take Vietnam. Vietnam knows this.

England, France and Germany hate each other. Newton stole Calculus from Leibniz. Leibniz was dependent on patronage and eviscerated by Candide.

In the United States, North and South hate each other. The North is right.

Recently agriculture has been held responsible for warfare. A male genetic bottleneck was discovered about 8000 years ago around the start of farming. This corresponds to finding ritually slaughtered groups of people. I think sedentary populations activated the human lekking reflex. Women selected the same father for their children. This would have aggravated the spread of venereal disease. The slaughters were response to epidemic. Dementia, particularly venereal dementia, is often characterized by a demeanor that can be both terrifying and infuriating.

War is excused as sharpening technological development. We are discussing inevitability. What matters is more difficult. Competition for sales leads to human development. But competition leads to collusion. War is seen as an antidote to human stasis. But war itself competes for capital investment. Marx spent an entire volume pounding in excruciating detail the difference between capital and money. The reason that stocks do well in inflation is that money and capital are different. War is a reaction to human progress and the, may I say it, inevitable social development described by Marx. It may not be communism, but it is change. Does it matter? Yo Helot.

Military industry has gained prominence as a cause for war. Since military industry competes in the capital markets it has retarded consumer industry. Because of the concentration of military consumers, military capital investment employs less people making it inflationary.  It is argued that military research is more productive. I will concede that government research is more productive.

The major cause of war is atrocity.  Different peoples favor different atrocities. Starvation is favored by the Russians and the British. Part of Adam Smith’s disrepute is that the British used market forces as their all-purpose explanation for atrocities.  If you see a smaller vulnerable group provoked to hopeless conflict, the British are egging them on:  Kurds, Baltics, etc. the Lawrence of Arabia syndrome.  The Japanese renounced war when they realized they could no longer see their enemies eyes as they were killed. USA is known for bombing and military aid.

Military aid is particularly disgusting. Living under a dictatorship is bad but it doesn’t have to be impossible. Eventually even the dumbest colonel notices that if people can go to work in the morning and return to their families in the evening the colonel will get a bigger take and may even be allowed to escape and enjoy their Delaware bank account.  Unless someone gives the colonel a few billion and tells them to kill the terrorists or whatever:

-Sure them too.

We have opened the gates of hell throughout the world.

I’m tempted to say materialist, let us take a systemic view of American colonial trade:

Imports	Exports
slaves	gold
indentured servants	silver
manufactured goods	land
earthworms	sugar
Honey Bees	cotton
Small Pox	tobacco
horses	peppers
Measles	chocolate
malaria	syphilis
apples	beaver
tea	potatoes

There are better lists, see Colombian Exchange. By land I do not mean that soil was dragged to Europe but rather the concept of land. Land rights and sovereignty over land are precious.

The forests we see today are far different than pre-colonial forests because of the European earthworms.

Smith derides the Spanish obsession with gold and silver, just creating holes in the ground. Keynes makes an allusion to burying money so people can dig it back up.

If you were to approach anyone throughout the world at the time of the American Revolution and ask for the news, they probably would not mention us. The issue of the time was whether France or England would rule the world.

The American English colonial population was around two and a half million including slaves, excluding Native Americans.  The population of England was less sure, say eight million. Britain’s anthems avow that they are a monarchy, they are not slaves, they are lucky and they run it. Britain’s opposition to slavery is due to their experience with the Barbary pirates.

George Washington was Virginian. Virginia’s principal export was tobacco. Prosperity was a consequence of how large your tobacco plantation was. This led to fierce inbreeding which led to an intense lekking environment governed by ostentatious display. Washington was a poor relation somewhere in the hierarchy to a good marriage to a plantation owner. Having a small estate, Washington was smart enough to earn money and land as a surveyor. The irony of surveying large tracts of wilderness while owning small holdings must have been obvious. His gentleman’s status entitled him to a paying military commission in the colonial forces. The French and British were engaged in a little bump and shove. The real point was to get Native American tribes to fight each other. Surrounded by the forests of Pennsylvania, Washington went mad and murdered a French officer.   

Nothing comes from nowhere. If Washington had not killed Jumonville we would still be part of the commonwealth. The subsequent French response made it clear that Native Americans, settlers, and soldiers died, not gentlemen. Washington’s force was subdued and Washington signed a confession. This started the Seven Years’ War, a global conflict involving all the colonial powers. As usual, burgeoning population threatened the existing social order. Jumonville perfectly crystallized the threat felt by the nobility and gentility.  In continental America the French were primarily fur traders, with few coastal harbors. So the British won. The French were depending on their strong European continental presence to win sufficient victories to bargain for their lost colonies, didn’t happen. The British navy and continental treachery frustrated the French. The British had expended men and fortune holding their colonies. Now was the time to balance the books. Faced with paying for their war, Britain’s opposition to slavery, and squeezed by the British loans and controlled prices, the colonies chose treason.

Robert Morris financed the rebellion. He knew that even with his great wealth, he would be squeezed next.

Tories, loyal subjects of the king who believed in paying their debts and opposing slavery were tortured in front of their family and neighbors and robbed of their land and possessions.

Washington’s military career was not as prosperous as he had hoped. The British were unhappy about Jumonville and a few excesses. But he had enough success to marry well, which was the point. His eventual commission as head of the Continental army was due more to his social prestige and position than his military background. The miracle was that ex slaves, farmers, and rabble followed the foppish Virginia plantation owner. They must have shared his avarice. He had learned to keep his mouth shut.

America sent our best man, Benjamin Franklin, to the fecal encrusted palace of Versailles. The French obliged with a few mercenaries, adventurers, funds and gunpowder. Washington skimmed the French funds for his plantations and land acquisition. Eisenhower was a genius, Butler won the civil war, but Washington, for all his faults, was the last American general who understood attrition. Washington must avoid a victory that only changes British command structure and strategy. He wants the British generals he has, thank you very much. Another constraint was the gunpowder drought. The English had gunpowder and the colonials didn’t. If France had stayed out of the conflict the colonials and British would have bled each other white and France might have both continents. By another miracle Franklin danced his silly dance, wore his silly hat, and dragged France into the rebellion. 

France sent General Rochambeau and Admiral de Grasse. Trained from early youth to their professions they fought a coordinated land sea battle that defeated the British at Yorktown.

Washington didn’t want to go anywhere south. He rightly feared slave insurrection. The South’s failure in all its conflicts is due, in part, to the necessity of maintaining garrison to forestall such rebellions. The British, as they do, were stirring up the indentured servants and slaves. They enlisted a few, but if they had armed the slaves the British might have won. Washington was dragged to Yorktown with Robert Morris footing the bill. 

With the war won, Washington made his worst mistake. Franklin was exhausted. Washington sent Jefferson to replace him as ambassador to France. Thomas Jefferson was a master of disingenuous sanctimony. When they had to perfume the pig: defend treason, bankruptcy, and slavery, Jefferson was the guy.  Washington just wanted to get Jefferson as far away as possible.

It was time to settle accounts. The French King would get the tobacco concession. Everyone was in hock, but with trade moving it was possible they could pull it off. The Virginia planters including Jefferson, American excises, Robert Morris, Haym Salomon, and the French monarchy would all be put square, or at least able to front. Then Jefferson and his best friend Lafayette, American war hero and French minister of trade, pissed on the deal. Why? Why would Jefferson do that? The Virginia planters were ruined. Jefferson was ruined. There were no tobacco excises. Robert Morris, Hyam Salomon, and the French monarchy were ruined. Why would anyone trade with this new country that couldn’t even do the tobacco deal?  From Jefferson’s point of view within the Virginia hierarchy if everyone is bust then he is equal.

-Not with my Tabachy.

With little excise coming in, Morse and Hamilton decided to tax whiskey. They didn’t want their loans defaulted on. If you were a subsistence farmer in the middle of nowhere the only good worth dragging over the mountains to market was whiskey.  The large distilleries didn’t appreciate the competition, so the tax was to their benefit. The farmers resented a tax on the poorest that cut their one source of tools and supplies. Some of the farmers were Washington’s tenants but they had long since realized that he couldn’t come out and collect the rent. So Washington didn’t mind enforcing the tax.

After putting down Shay’s Whiskey Rebellion the United States had enough income to borrow on. The British were amused:

-Didn’t pay us the last time.

Backstabbing Jefferson, having escaped the French revolution, told the French to hold off until Washington was out of office. The delegation came back from France claiming Talleyrand wanted his beak wet. Two-term Washington started as France’s man. Since he couldn’t get the loan, he should grab his hat and not let the door hit him on the way out. Washington forestalls Jefferson by getting his stooge, John Adams, in as president.

Washington died struggling to maintain his plantation. Under Washington we had begun to support England’s antislavery efforts. In part to oppose Barbary pirates. In part because it made domestic slaves more valuable and gave American pirates new opportunities.

Adams, having to choose from the French or the British, goes to the Dutch. At that point the Dutch are a two hundred year old republic. The Americans were kiting, or debt consolidation. The Dutch were pirates. Send a boat out, if it comes back they’re rich, what happens in between who knows? Dutch share the most popular religious belief, Calvinism, that the universe has an ethical plan. Gangsters like that you got what was coming to you. One of the many splits in Dutch society was between the adherents of Britain and France. The supporters of France also favored America. This division helped Adams get the loan.

Once Adams had the loan he scuttles back to the British for a trade deal. The French are already furious that after they saved America and lost their monarchy, Washington went neutral on them.  This left the French talking to Jefferson. To ensure passage of their treaty, the British buy Adams’ midterm congressional elections. With Adams obviously in England’s pocket, the French attack American shipping. America then has to raise its own navy and army, so much for neutral.

The Dutch were widely ridiculed for their factious society. Perhaps it was this example or Adams’ sensitivity to criticism that leads to the Alien and Sedition acts. Adams still saw himself as part of the British Empire.

The paranoia of Adams was justified. Daniel Boone was outraged that his Spanish land titles were not honored; Spain and America were not at war. Billy Caldwell, a British- Potawatomi fur trader in the Chicago area wound up running a Potawatomi tribe in Iowa. Whenever someone proclaims their good qualities: honesty, loyalty, courage, thrift, sobriety, virtue, modesty, or patriotism, consider why the subject was broached. Adams had no right to patriotism.

Adams’ repression elected Jefferson.  The United States population was over 5 million with slaves. France had almost 30 million. The French:

-Freedom for us and nobody else,

See The Marseilles, were now ruled by Napoleon. Because of Dutch factions, France had conquered Holland. At this point France was allied with Spain. Since France owned Holland, Napoleon forgave France’s Dutch debt. How can you be unjust to Calvinists? In the Louisiana Purchase Napoleon cancelled eighteen million francs of French debt. Some of this debt may have been owned by the citizens or monarchy of the Kingdom of France. Some may have been owed the citizens or government of earlier French republics. Some debt may have belonged to the citizens or government of the Dutch Republic. None of these lenders would have minded if the USA had stiffed Napoleon. It is difficult to collect debts without the support of a government. Debt default is one of the reasons for revolution and conquest.

As to the land, Louisiana, whose title had passed back and forth between Spain and France, USA was here and France was there. Haiti had just kicked Napoleon’s butt. Napoleon was a general, not an admiral; he wasn’t coming back. There may have been the occasional loyal French subject, whether colonial or Native American, but the issue would be far more immediate than a distant treaty, certainly not worth the expenditure. Everyone remarks how advantageous the Louisiana Purchase was to America and how Napoleon got the best he could, given his situation. Why do the deal at all?

The only accomplishment was funding Napoleon’s assault on Europe. Why would Jefferson do that? He did it because he was Jefferson. It wasn’t just payback to Adams.  The Louisiana Purchase was yet another example of American military aid.

The British, infuriated by the USA turning Napoleon loose and our support of slavery interdict trade leading to the war of 1812. It was generally recognized that the import of slaves subsidized piracy. We no longer had British protection against Barbary pirates and paid the pirates tribute.

The USA anthem says we are free and brave and we will survive and get those slaves and indentured servants.

The overseas Dutch carried on their financial affairs throughout the world, including the United States. If their money was good enough, they’re good enough.

Historical Inevitability: I give you Washington, Franklin, Adams and that sanctimonious shit, Jefferson.

Jonah and Global Warming

At first I was sort of pleased with the increase in declared atheism. I told my son:

-I just don’t want to hear about flying saucers.

I suspected that most atheists had some sort of belief; we just hadn’t added the conspiracy or UFO check boxes yet.  But now I’m getting irked. I had blamed Benjamin Franklin. Once lightning was explained, God didn’t seem as necessary. But there seems to be a general failure to declare, not just religion, but anything else. Is other going to become its own gang? Caucasian is a racist term, predicated on the belief that we all came from some group in the Caucasus that was considered attractive.  Colors seem to be acceptable for black and white, but the brown, yellow and red people don’t approve. Now we need ten check boxes for sex:

-Sex?

-Yes

I can see why people resist classification. I’m worried that we will lose culture.

Christine recently dragged me to church and they had a reading from Jonah. I don’t know of any other story where the prophets get into it and kvetch about their lot:

-God chooses you. You, quite sensibly, try to get out of it. After he slaps you around, you do what you are told.  You tell the people of Nineveh that they must repent or be destroyed. They repent. God changes up and you look a fool.

 This may be the most terrifying bible story:

-I hope you don’t listen to me. I wish that you keep your sinful ways. I want to see that.

Scientists are our modern day prophets. How sorely they are tempted. If they will only depart from the path of truth all worldly riches are open to them. Just think of the grants, the Fox interviews, the approbation and acclaim. Admittedly they will lose the respect of other scientists. Will that respect pay their flood insurance? I can see why sometimes they mumble, fail to state the obvious unequivocally, and leaven their jeremiads. What if we listen? What if we come to our senses and stop poisoning ourselves? There the true prophets will be, high and dry, simmering in bitterness, with no earthly reward.  These are supposed to be materialists.  Their only possible satisfaction is to at least be able to say, if only one last time:

-I told you so.

Be very scared when the scientists turn over. When they realize that we are lost and they may as well grab the money.

You will notice that several towns and peoples are destroyed in the Bible. This reminds me of the Midwestern effect.  In the Midwest it is possible to walk out to the crossroads. There are no mountains, trees or buildings.  It is flat. You stand as a nub in the cosmos, totally alone.

Macondo Blowout Still Leaks; BP Drills New Deep Well In Gulf

Since the Deep Water Horizon rig is no more, it is more accurate to refer to the blowout which is still leaking:

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/09/2011912175412109550.html 

 A year after the well was believed permanently sealed, the oil is back.  At first I thought that I should rush this piece but then I realized that the blowout will be leaking as far into the future as I can envision.  In addition to the environmental issues and loss of life, wasting that immeasurable quantity of nonrenewable resource is appalling.

It is ridiculous to be calling for hearings into the advisability of deep water drilling while the blowout is still leaking.  How can they claim to drill safely while they still can’t stop the current leak? How do they assess the damage while new oil is being dumped on top of it? Forget the hearings, BP is already drilling a new deep water well in the Gulf, safe or not:http://english.aljazeera.net/video/americas/2011/09/201192641015567378.html 

It is difficult for people to have any understanding of the pressure that exists at the depths they are drilling.  You might feel your ears pop on an elevator or an airplane.  If you have scuba dived you have felt the density of three atmosphere’s at 100 feet.  Each 33 feet of water weighs about the amount of air overhead at sea level.

Macondo reached just shy of 40,000 feet down from the waves, more than 4000 feet of water and 35,000 feet of rock.  These are pressures far beyond our comprehension.  We have entered the world of engineering.  Their new well in the Gulf will start at 6000 feet of water.

If you have been following this you have heard a lot of chatter about blowout preventer, cement slurry, drill monitoring systems, etc.  The point is that all these technologies worked at lower pressures.  They are extending their established technologies.  It all may or may not have worked if they had responsible people in charge who would have told upper management:

-Fuck you, we don’t know what we are doing; we have to spend the money and wear belt and suspenders on this one until we do.

Instead they have MBA’s in charge.  An MBA by training and intellect does not say fuck you to upper management.  That is not what people with business degrees are for.  If you are attending business school and they are teaching you to stand up to upper management, you should transfer; they are imperiling your career.

People keep asking: is deep water drilling feasible?  That is not the question. What has been tested and answered is: Is deep water drilling feasible the way oil companies want to run their business?  Macondo answers that question definitively.

Please don’t mention government regulation.  Government regulation of companies that large and rich is impossible.  This has been repeatedly proven; this well is a perfect example.

At this point someone blubbers:

-But we need the oil.

The well did not blow up because they were pumping the oil.  IT BLEW UP BECAUSE THEY WERE CAPPING THE WELL.  Even once it was burst and gushing oil, any attempt speculative or otherwise to capture and pump the oil coming out of the well was for incineration.  They have absolutely no interest in pumping the oil.  When oil companies refer to excess refining capacity, they mean the competition. There is no financial reason for an oil company to have its own excess capacity. It’s therefore unlikely that they have anything approaching the refinery capacity immediately available that that volume of oil would require. 

I hope it does not shock you to learn that oil companies have no interest in lowering the price of oil.  The major oil companies have an effective monopoly. An effective monopoly does not require complete ownership, rather by predatory pricing and other collusions they determine price and supply. The only thing holding them in check is the fear that we, the consumers will change our patterns of consumption.  If you trade in your Toyota Tundra for a Honda Civic they have lost.  If you continue to drive your Tundra on your daily three hour commute while demanding they drill the artic and nuke Iran, they have won.

If the well had been successfully capped, BP would have published some fantasy about how much oil was available at some future date when the well was tapped.  These fantasies and the financial speculation on them are far more profitable than the mere mundane pumping of oil. So called “proven” reserves determine stock price and borrowing reserve. Setting aside the environmental costs it is financially preferable for BP to waste the oil than allow some other more aggressive company to claim these reserves.

A ban on deep water drilling is a fetcher bill; it is a solicitation not a solution. If we are to attempt a legislative solution we may as well go all in; the only responsible legislative initiative is to nationalize America’s oil industry.