Trump in Puerto Rico: A narcissist’s tour de force (Opinion)

“I watched the other day,” said the TV-addicted President, “and she was saying such nice things about all of the people who have worked so hard. Jenniffer, do you think you can say a little bit of what you said about us today?” He quickly added, “It’s not about me,” but of course it was.

Was it?

I am not so sure. It seems like it was a lot about an extrovert Trump and an introvert Puerto Rico.

Within those context’es; Trump’s dealing with a internal mass shooting and Puerto Rico is dealing with an external natural event.

The mass shooting seems to have a lot to do with the posture of Trump’s presidency, i.e  the direction it was going. Puerto Rico’s storm seems to be all about their position on earth. Or maybe I got that backwards.

Trump just doesn’t know he is losing his position at the center of the storm.

Let’s hope that Puerto Rico’s posture is a winning one, as, from their position, they posture against the next storm.

Source: Trump in Puerto Rico: A narcissist’s tour de force (Opinion) – CNN

Car Troubles

Apparently the car industry is stuck  somewhere in the 1990’s or earlier, when it comes to knowing and understanding the events happening inside your car and to your car’s electrical system, at any particular time or place.

So, if your new 2016 Honda Pilot is sitting in your driveway for the night and someone knocks on your door to tell you that all the windows in your car are down (first rain storm of the season), the back hatch is up and the sunroof is open; today’s technology won’t help to tell you why.

According to the service manager I talked with at Griffith Motors here in The Dalles, Oregon, there is no service code, for the computer to blink out, that will tells us why this event happened.

I mean, maybe she didn’t use the term “blink out”, but that was the image I got, of the system they still use. The system I am thinking of is a system where the technician plugs in a meter with a light and the car’s computer blinks out a code. The technician then counts the number of blinks and looks the count up in a book as to its meaning.

The “best” she said she could do for me was to give me her card and tell me that: “if this happens again (it had happened 3 times before and I had called once), don’t touch anything and give me a call.” I told her, “if it happens at 4:00 AM in the morning I will wait until 6:00 AM to call her.” She said, “Wait until 8:00 AM.”

So basically, in the car industry’s environment, it’s the dark ages when it comes to an owner or a car technician knowing what the car is doing, but when the car senses that the driver is letting the car drift off the road it shakes the steering wheel, tries to correct the action and displays a warning message.

Strategically, Honda Motors uses something similar to semaphore  and Morse code technology in its understanding of the workings of vehicle, but advertises and delivers a high tech system on the driver side of the equation. It’s a strategy that is built on Google (as in Googling), insurance companies, lawyers and a network system that works and is secured enough to make everyone money.

It seems to be a strategy of low expectation, except when it comes to the observation of the car’s sensors, the orientation of its code writers, and the environment of the internet. It’s a strategy that puts decision and action first, observation and orientation last.

Somehow I don’t think this “Blackswan” is going to end well. So far it’s day 3 and nothing eventful has happened. But then, how is one to know?

Hacking Structure, Culture and Ethics

Just some thoughts I had on how strategy could be used to counter hacking. These are from an edited form of a comment I made in Oliver Stone’s post on Medium https://medium.com/@TheOliverStone/the-russians-are-coming-eef3697e548b#.mde6jb8q0. I just stuck them up here so I could think about them some more.

“A hack should be considered getting inside a society’s structure, culture and ethics and letting that society see betrayal and trust where in truth there is none. There is no strategy in a hack other than that which is structural. A hack operates on the basis of observation and I would say that transparency is the key in defending and undoing a hack.”

“But transparency has to be accomplished strategically. As I said, hacking is not strategic, so those on the defence needs to act in a strategic manner. They need to release transparency through trusted sources only and, as betrayal and trust is targeted in a hack, this is not easy to accomplish, and needs much thinking in the process.”

Trump drops Twitter bomb on Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet

“Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!” Trump tweeted Thursday.

There is no comparable F-18 Super Hornet to price-out. The F-35 has shown an ability to shoot down non-planer aircraft (non-airplane aircraft), which, I think, makes it a generation or two ahead of the F-18 Super Hornet. The F-35 is built to be a 5th generation fighter and the F-18 was built to be a 3rd generation fighter.

What gives the F-35 its designation as a 5th generation fighter (if developed–a big if), the F-35 doesn’t rely on a plane of air to maneuver on.

The F-35 maneuvers in  directions other than parallel to the plane it is on and without having to change the direction of that plane in flight. Most other aircraft and all airplanes are dependent on one plane of air and maneuvers by bending that plane.

In other words, the F-35’s maneuvering is not dependent on a linear plane. The F-35 flight can be considered, in that context, to be nonlinear. It is a 5th generation fighter jet. If Trump’s administration is figuring to prepare to fight a tactical (1st generation) nuclear war as stated, then probably the F-18 Super Hornet is the machine to go for. If his administration is planning to participate in the 4th generation war we have, then they should really think about getting serious about developing the F-35.

Part of this ability of nonlinear flight of the F-35 is in its structural design. The F-35 has an interior center of mass that gives it symmetry similar to that of a flying saucer. Coupled with an engine that is virtually able to move in all directions enables the aircraft and all targeting systems to revolve around the center of mass. In that sense, the F-35 should be able to target an aircraft behind, or any other direction, as easily as it is able to locked on and destroy the aircraft in front. This seems to me, if developed, to be some kind of an advantage and what, at least in part, gives the F-35 its status as a 5th generation fighter.

The other ability of the 5th generation F-35 fighter (and there may be more) that makes it a non-nonlinear fighter depends on it hooking into the virtual world of the world wide web and connecting that world to its real world in realtime, in all directions, in all environments, and all at once.

And while the F-35 has not proven itself in simulated dog fights with fighters of lesser generation, other fighters, as far as I know, haven’t proven themselves able to fight a battle waged in 5th generation  war. I think the F-35 has, at least in a small way. It was used to successfully shoot down missiles in flight.

That is the war the F-35 is created for and the war we are fighting right now today. So to me it comes down to being able to fight the war we have, or fighting the war the Trump administration apparently wants.

President-elect Donald Trump elevated his criticism of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter today, saying he’s asked Boeing to explore pricing for an alternative to the costly fighter jet.

Now “alternative” is another narrative. In warfare or in the context of a political solution, i.e. one State/ Two State solution?

 

Source: Trump drops Twitter bomb on Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet – POLITICO

The first rule of Boyd: Observation.

“This is unprecedented,” said Brad Crone, a longtime Democratic consultant and North Carolina history buff. “This is new waters that we’re sailing into.”

Author’s note: I apologize for using the image of the German leader. It turns out, according to my DNA my structure is 36% Western Europe, 26% Celtic speaker, and 19% Scandinavian and I wanted you to pay attention.

Well said Brad Crone. Just like the waters Jesus walked on, new waters means it is time to bring out the Evangelicals.

Just because you are the Architect, Builder, or Carpenter, as I am trying to be, doesn’t mean you don’t need the people who will get the word out–to tell the world what your project is all about. It’s called transparency.

Like all knowledge and subsets of knowledge, transparency is inheriantly destructive. The wise Architect, Builder, or Carpenter gives the nod, to go ahead and spread the word, after all the decision making is done and it’s now time for action.

The time for action is when the Carpenter, Builder, and Architect have a position and are postured to go forward with the project. This time may be upon me.

In house building or remodeling, those “Evangelicals” are the inspectors working with the code guys. In my city they used to be in the planning department. My favorite Evangelical was named Jim Schwinof.

He turned out to be one of the good-guys who ran their departments well, at the smelter that I worked as a millwright. His time, at the position he held, could be called tumultuous times for him, but he postured through it.

Jim had to navigate the path between the working gray areas between the Union and Management.I was a part of the send-off committee, representing the Union, seeing him down the path and into that tumultuous filled void. I can tell you the send-off wasn’t pretty.

Well maybe it was beautiful, in a touchy feely way sort of way. At least it was a send-off where everyone had a red and toasty feeling afterwards.

This is the first rule of Boyd–Observation.

Source: Democrat’s lead widens in North Carolina governor’s race

NeoCon Deux

I think I can safely say that, so far, the “winners” of the 2016 elections in the U.S.A. were the NeoCons. Trump supporters have elected someone not in their image and those against Trump are fighting fascists, who will have no power in a Trump administration. Trump is a businessman not a fascist, who knew his customers, but has no idea how the real political world works.

So it is the NeoCons (masters of political power) who are in the position, through the likes of Mike Pence, to bring democracy to the U.S.A., much like they did for Iraq under the guise of Dick Cheney.

Both the Congress and the White House has been “Trumped” by the new V.P. elect Mike Pence. Once Trump starts electing Supreme Court Justices the influence the NeoCons have on America’s power will be almost total. I think it is also safe to say that Trump is not going to nominate any Supreme Court Justice that the NeoCons won’t like.

So lookout world, you are either with us or against us (GWB policy), and there will be many against us, as the fascist take control of our culture, in much of the same way the NeoCons will take control of our structure.

Mike Pence Says His Role Model Vice President is Dick Cheney

Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence discusses his VP role model and his debate prep on “This Week.”

Let’s stop pretending what he ( Pence) is talking about. Cheney was the “grownup” in the relationship and Bush was the “spoiled kid”.

We can see from where Mike Pence is coming from. He will have to run the country and become the commander-in-chief, because, like Bush, Trump isn’t up to it. He is not completely ignorant, but stupid.

Bush, in a stupor, had to have his Chief of Staff run the war in Iraq, because he, Bush, thought it was about another Crusades.

My guess is that Pence will continue the war against Islam, while ignoring Nixon’s connection to Globalization, while Trump moves America towards authoritarianism. #fail

Source: Mike Pence Says His Role Model Vice President is Dick Cheney

The F-35 Stealth Fighter May Never Be Ready for Combat

Last month the Air Force declared its variant “ready for combat,” and most press reports lauded this as a signal that the program had turned a corner. But a memo issued from the Pentagon’s top testing official, based largely upon the Air Force’s own test data, showed that the declaration was wildly premature.

It might be that the Air Force is fighting a different war than the one the Pentagon is fighting. So the rules of Orientation are different in each battlespace. A fighter jet like the one the Pentagon wants most likely positions and postures itself differently than the one the Air Force wants

I mean the F 35 has shown the ability to shoot down rockets. It is basically what makes it a 5th Generation fighter. This ability comes from the fact that the F 35 is similar to a flying saucer (except when the Pentagon attaches ordinates outside the mass of its symmetrical planes) and the Air Force has a plan to use them as such. How you fight rockets with an Airplane, you can’t, as I am sure the Pentagon knows well. How you fight rockets with an F 35 is anyone’s guess.

Of course to use them properly they must position them as close to the target (the target the F 35 wants to hit) as possible. Incoming rockets move at something like 22,000 mph, so the F 35 would need some time to do some real maneuvering to swat them out of the sky before they reach the target.

Just guessing. I could be wrong.

Source: The F-35 Stealth Fighter May Never Be Ready for Combat

Thomas P.M. Barnett – Blog – What Does Russia/Putin Seek?

In my old vernacular, the “Gap-shrinking” continues, it is just more obviously and geographically divvied up, with Asian great powers (China, India, Japan) nonetheless forced into some competitive thrusts into the Center (particularly Africa) for reasons both immediate (resource access) and long term (tomorrow’s biggest cheap-labor – and consumer – pool).

I think the idea of  “Gap-shrinking” has long been proven dead. The mechanism of a “Gap” only works if the structure is the same for each position on either side of the gap, and, in most cases, it never is.

Ok, the structure of the UK, Japan, Saudi Arabia, US and many other nations in Europe, MENA,  South America, with a strong sense of a center of gravity are nearly the same. Other nations who rely more on a center of mass, such as Russia, Turkey, Iran and others, the structure of their networks are quite different. For these two different network structures, when crossing the “gap” the key doesn’t fit the lock.

So what does Putin seek? He seeks to take advantage of any position in his favor between the two networks, i.e. the distributive network of the East and the decentralized network of the west.

If he doesn’t (take advantage), the center of mass in Russia will change, and, most likely than not, Putin will be crushed in the process.

Mother Russia is hard on fathers as well as daughters.

Source: Thomas P.M. Barnett – Blog – What Does Russia/Putin Seek?

Trump’s new attack against Clinton uses ‘short-circuited’ line against her

“Unstable Hillary Clinton,” Trump said. “You saw where she basically short-circuited? She short-circuited. She used the term. I think that the people of this country don’t want somebody that’s going to short-circuit up there.”

And saying 7/11 when you meant 9/11 isn’t short circuiting? Does Trump really want to get into a war with Hillary, on the assumption that one candidate seems to be unstable? I am afraid Trump is beginning to see much of himself in Hillary, and there is no one around him who could tell him to stop it.

But it could be that he has hired some apprentices, and they might have ties to the other side. If any “rigging” going on it will be inside the Trump structure, so I assume this must keep Trump up nights, thinking this shit up, while at the same time keeping control of his own campaign.

Steelworkers do the best rigging! Maybe he should have them build the wall for him?

On the other hand, considering the party that he has around him, he should stick to writing his own stuff. After all, when one observes the image of wheels turning around inside one’s head like some cartoon, I don’t think that image looks anything like Hillary.

Source: Trump’s new attack against Clinton uses ‘short-circuited’ line against her