Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

Jeff a lot of that executive-order stuff is complete nonsense though. ...... Saying that passing the law (portions of Dodd-Frank) in the US would put them at a competitive disadvantage is complete nonsense.

........there could come a time when tax reform is posed as a way to become more globally competitive, and it will be important for individuals to have the ability to understand why this is complete nonsense.

On a technical level, I agree with the "nonsense" of it all.

However, there is regulatory authority of the financial industry inherent in Dodd-Frank that Trump's EO in this area directs review with the purpose of that review to rewrite portions of it ostensibly more favorable to the financial industry (obviously, subject to congressional review and approval).

There are reasonable arguments on both sides of the regulatory environment issues the financial industry faces. They're complicated. I have to trust that when Dodd-Frank was crafted, experts in the field had input and both sides were heard. I'm skeptical of the Trump administrations motives in seeking changes.

I've linked to the White House press release on this if anyone is interested. It lacks a lot of detail but the point is that Sec. Treasury, Mnuchin has wide authority to conduct a review and propose changes ...... as a wall street guy he's like the fox in the hen house in that regard.

It's been said that most if not all of Trump's legacy is going to be decided in the courts with legal challenges mounted to any EO's he might sign in an attempt to work around an obstinate Congress.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/03/presidential-memorandum-fiduciary-duty-rule

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/02/03/presidential-executive-order-core-principles-regulating-united-states

[hack]

I think that if your premise is that you're gonna cut regs and create growth, that you would probably want to start with regs that would actually do such a thing. Right out the gate though he picked a bunch of losers. That one was buried in Dodd-Frank but isn't really about the financial sector. If you want an example of the same -- cutting regs that won't boost growth -- the fiduciary-duty one is a good one. That's gonna hurt growth by funneling more money to people who do not have enough productive uses in which to invest it. So, unless things change, that money will sit in tax havens rather than cycling through the economy. I don't think all this is very complicated. There may be complex arguments on both sides, but that doesn't mean both are valid or crafted with the best interests of the country in mind. Wall Street would like us to believe it is. I think Wall Street remains the #1 problem in the country.

[whodean]

well we're all racist in some form or another

It's all about how the brain functions.

The human brain looks for and categorizes patterns. It finds patterns similar to itself aesthetically pleasing.

This doesn't mean that humans are inherently racist, but rather that when we are constantly reminded to NOTICE race then we are required to constantly think past our natural instinct.

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/joseph-heath-how-to-beat-racism/wcm/39fae8f2-a8eb-4d98-95ec-97197bc7290d

There is a very astute insight here into the psychology of race. What matters is not so much the differences between individuals but which differences we choose to invest significance in. This is the good news on race. It suggests that the best way to overcome race may simply be to distract people from it. If there is nothing else to attract people’s attention, the set of physical characteristics that distinguish race will be regarded as significant, but this can be overcome by reducing the salience of these characteristics. There is probably nothing we can do to stop people from classifying others into groups and developing animosity toward those whom they regard as belonging to an out-group. Yet even if we are unable to change this basic feature of human psychology, we can develop an effective work-around, by manipulating the environment so that people classify each other in ways that are less socially pernicious. For example, instead of allowing people to fixate on inherited features of individuals — such as skin colour — we could encourage them to focus on arbitrary or symbolic features — like hair style. The advantage of hair style is that it can easily be changed, and so does not translate into permanent disadvantage for any class of individuals.

From this perspective, the real problem in America is not so much racism as it is race consciousness. (Indeed, to any non-American, the most oppressive feature of intercultural relations in America is not that people are racist, but just that they talk and think incessantly about race, even worse than the way the English talk and think incessantly about class.) And yet this feature of American culture seems to be one that everyone, white and black, conservative and liberal, is involved in a giant conspiracy to sustain and reinforce. This is because most Americans who are progressive on the subject believe that racism must be overcome directly, and that this can only be done by increasing sensitivity and awareness of racial difference. A lot of progressive black politics has done the same, by rejecting the older ideal of a “colour-blind” society and insisting upon the recognition and affirmation of a positive black identity. This winds up being an inadvertent recipe for the reproduction of racism. Even though the intention is to create a positive group identity, its dominant effect is to make race salient as a basis of group identity, which means that it will also, inevitably, become a locus of negative valuation for some.

Unfortunately in the United States race is constantly being used for political purpose, constantly kept fresh in our minds. If we were ever allowed be more truly color-blind then racism in this country would fade.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Who ..... an interesting way to look at race.

Thanks for posting.

[hack]

If we were ever allowed be more truly color-blind then racism in this country would fade.


Crash gave it his best shot. We failed him. But, in the end, this is the land of the free. Not the land of the forced to be racist.

[hack]

That's a decent piece! It's from the closest thing Canada has to a right-wing wag, which cares mostly about Israel and taxes. I thought the article intelligently described the research, and only gently, if you know the context of the paper, suggests that all the state spending on post-tribal messaging in Canada is a waste of taxpayer resources. I'm a big supporter of that spending, but the case quietly made here was a good case.

All of which is to say that there's something to be said about making one's arguments in a somewhat gentle way. Canada's benefited from the restraint with which these debates are undertaken. (I suppose it has also benefited from my leaving the place, since I'm not as good at making arguments in that somewhat gentle way...)

[Wild Hoss]

Did anybody watch the Afghanistan speech last night? I had Meet the Teacher Night to attend, so sadly, I could not.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Did anybody watch the Afghanistan speech last night? I had Meet the Teacher Night to attend, so sadly, I could not.

At a distance ....... it was on in another room and I was engaged doing something else so I didn't listen carefully or see facial expressions and gestures.

That having been said, the timing was right to announce war plans for a president in the face of the lowest confidence rating at this place and time for any president in US history.

Tin-Pot Dictator stuff.

[Jeff Buchanan]

There is speculation floating about that the mishaps involving the 4 collisions of US Naval vessels in the South China Sea and Straights of Malacca over the last year may have been a result of a cyber attack.

There is a huge amount of vessel congestion in that straight. I've seen it from aboard an aircraft carrier transiting into the Indian Ocean. I can also attest to the high state of awareness of the ship's navigation staff when operating in this straight. So, the several collisions seem odd to me given what I know to be high crew readiness on ships that are very high tech.

The commercial shipping operating in this area is also high tech, so much so that there may be only 4 or 5 crewman aboard. Nonetheless, there are regulations and systems in place that requires ships, both military and commercial, to constantly transmit their positions for collision avoidance purposes. The USS McCain may have been operating in radio silence but the commercial vessel likely had their collision avoidance transmitter on so, someone on the bridge of either ship as the collision was approaching should have been aware of the impending danger and taken action ...... unless something prevented that action.

If this was a cyber attack, we'll not get any details at all as the Navy works to harden it's ship-board computers. That's the problem for the bad guys (Chinese, Russians, NK???) if they are doing this, they reveal both their own capabilities and the vulnerabilities of USN systems.

There's a growing US Navy presence in the South China Sea and the Pacific intended to counter Chinese expansionism in this region and to protect shipping lanes. I would not be surprised one bit if the Chinese or their agents, NK, are behind this in some way.

[hack]

Interesting. McClatchy is the only reputable source on this, but it's a pretty damn reputable source on defence. Interesting to see who else has picked it up and who hasn't, but that does sound like something to worry about. I bet that overhead view of it you had was pretty damn neat to look at.

I don't know if it would be the Chinese though -- I think it's something like a third of all oil passes through the Malacca Straight. China would be as much exposed to a spike in the price crude as anyone. Seaborne exporters don't need their freight costs rising either. If this really is someone fucking with the system, my guess is that it's someone with less to lose. NK fits there, but it's hard to imagine they really have the capacity. The McClatchy story does mention an incident of "GPS spoofing" in the Black Sea, in June, however, which makes the Russia suggestion a pretty easy one to make.

[Wild Hoss]

Jeff,

I read yesterday that the Navy uses some type of semi-autonomous navigation system, and I wondered if hacking might be a possible cause as well.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Jeff,

I read yesterday that the Navy uses some type of semi-autonomous navigation system, and I wondered if hacking might be a possible cause as well.

To my knowledge (which is over 20y old), the navigation staff aboard naval ships keeps three sets of navigation plots. There's a manual, old-timer chart using plotters a sextant and a compass. Hand held compasses are used to manually triangulate positions of other ships and manually plot their courses. Other ships positions and vectors are manually plotted from electronic systems that provide such data. In some parts of the world, and the involved area may be one of them, LORAN is still in existence. This system emits radio waves from fixed land based positions allowing navigation staff at sea to triangulate a position. Then there is GPS.

Like cars where the throttle setting is no longer analog but rather digitally derived, ships' steering is the same. On the bridge, there will be a senior officer conning the ship (responsible for taking the ship from point A to point B). The Helmsman responds to his orders for steering and speed. The helm is digital. To interrupt steering, all that needs to be hacked is that data stream from the helm to the rudder controls (analog).

When these ships are designed a huge effort is spent in de-conflicting electronic signals emitted from the ship's communications, weapons and navigation systems. Without that effort interference can render any of these systems unreliable. Its extremely difficult to achieve this ...... pretty easy to interfere as long as you have line of sight between the signal intended to interfere and the system for which the interference is intended.

You know that little fishing boat 100 yards off the port bow and accounted for on the bridge and reported to the officer conning the ship? Easy, potentially low-tech stuff to electronically get into and disrupt the data stream of interest.

[Wild Hoss]

That's great Jeff, but Col. Peters has weighed in on FOX and said its because Navy personnel are overloaded with racial and gender sensitivity training, and thus do not know how to operate ships. So there you have it.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Heh.

[entropy]

It's all about how the brain functions.

The human brain looks for and categorizes patterns. It finds patterns similar to itself aesthetically pleasing.

This doesn't mean that humans are inherently racist, but rather that when we are constantly reminded to NOTICE race then we are required to constantly think past our natural instinct.

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/joseph-heath-how-to-beat-racism/wcm/39fae8f2-a8eb-4d98-95ec-97197bc7290d

Unfortunately in the United States race is constantly being used for political purpose, constantly kept fresh in our minds. If we were ever allowed be more truly color-blind then racism in this country would fade.

this was great.. thank you for posting. actually thought provoking, unlike most glib responses..

Plus, the article uses star trek to illustrate an example. Obviously, the article is great.