Author Archives: eehines

There’s Always an Excuse not to Bother

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It’s not just the European governments that stand in the way of those nations’ efforts to rearm and to supply arms to Ukraine in the face of Russia’s attempt to conquer Ukraine and the barbarian’s designs on the rest of Europe. True enough, those governments have bureaucratic red tape that stands in the way, along with politicians disinterested in getting that red tape out of the way.

Months after the acquisition of the [ammunition-producing] factory, a majority in the Danish parliament demanded that the government open the process to bidders, rather than settling for the presumed favorite for the job….

Too often, though, it’s those nations’ private businesses that would be important, if not critical, to the rearmament effort, local governments, and the populations themselves.

…some banks won’t lend to defense contractors, making life particularly tough for small companies in the industry’s supply chain.

And

In the German city of Troisdorf, Diehl Defence said it has struggled to get permission to expand a factory in the city center to boost production of detonators and other parts for the Iris T missile-defense system, which has formed a crucial part of Ukraine’s air defenses since the war began.
Troisdorf’s mayor, Alexander Biber, said the community was in constructive talks with Diehl, but asked whether a city center is better suited for homes or businesses than for factories producing explosives.

And

A leading European tank maker, KNDS, was planning to expand a Munich testing range, but had to pause following local complaints, including one from a man who said the work interfered with his meditation, according to a person familiar with the matter. Other residents were concerned that noise from the testing site would affect housing prices.

These are anecdotal, but they illustrate the trends.

This lack of interest in defending themselves, much less help a nation under a barbarian invasion, just further demonstrates the uselessness of NATO and the importance of standing up a replacement mutual defense arrangement involving the Three Seas Initiative, the UK, and the US.

Self-Sustaining

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Elon Musk wants to get a self-sustaining colony going on Mars in his lifetime—his current goal is to get that started in the next four years with crewed flights, albeit not yet with colonists along. I agree with him in the goal of a self-sustaining colony and with his rationale—that getting off planet in a sustainable way using only the resources available on the second (and further) planets is critical to the survivability of homo sapiens.

I have questions, though.

What will be the long-term effect of living lifetimes in Mars’ gravity field, which is roughly 38% that of Earth’s? What effect would that great difference have on human (and food animal) gestation?

At the very bottom of human metabolism, of Earth-adapted metabolism in general, are a suite of minerals that plants, animals, essential bacteria need. Many of these are used in trace amounts only, but they seem to be critical. Will all of these minerals be present on Mars? What will be the effect, even if the minerals are present in some amount, on the bacteria on which all the other life depends, and on the plants on which all the animals depend?

And one more question: say a self-sustaining colony has been a going concern for some number of generations. With those generations’ adaptation (focusing here solely on the human population) to Mars’ gravity and to that planets’ mineral suite—especially in the latest generations there—will those folks ever be able to come back to Earth and live and operate in our much higher gravity field? Will those folks even still be homo sapiens, or will they be something different—homo mars? It seems likely the two populations still would be capable of interbreeding, much like homo sapiens with homo neanderthalensis and with denisova hominin.

Getting sustainably off planet will facilitate our ability to survive natural disasters and our own machinations, and thereby extend the life of homo sapiens as a species. But evolution won’t be stopped by getting off planet. That will only generate new pressures that guide evolution, new pathways for evolution to follow. And that includes the evolution of homo sapiens, even here on Earth.

A Hard Question

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It has a simple answer; unfortunately, it also has a gaslighting answer.

A San Francisco shoplifter was fatally shot in the end game of a fight with a store security guard who was trying to recover the merchandise being shoplifted. The headline and the first clause of the subheadline ask the question and gaslightingly answer it:

A Shoplifter Gets Shot Stealing Candy at Walgreens. Who’s to Blame?
More than a year after the killing, the official answer is no one….

The article went into many pixels worth of description of the event, but the question posed in the headline never was seriously answered. The perfectly straightforward, utterly simple answer to the headline question is: the shoplifter is to blame. The shoplifter even had two opportunities through which to avoid the outcome. His first, and most important, opportunity was to not have shoplifted in the first place.

His second opportunity was to surrender the stolen goods when confronted by the security guard instead of fighting with him.

But even in this city’s pretense of tightening shoplifting laws, the emphasis remains on holding the criminal blameless.

No One Is Answering the Question

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Or even asking it. During the ongoing Israeli effort to push Hezbollah into stopping its attacks on Israeli citizens, that nation continues to be pressured by folks in the West, most especially our own…administration…to agree a cease fire, as though this would cure everything, or at least stop things for some period of time.

This pressure, though wholly ignores (I don’t agree that these oh-so-smart folks are missing it) the environment and the broader context in which the fight is occurring—a fight, mind you, whose current round the terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon began ‘way last October and continue to prosecute against Israel. That environment, that context, is the terrorists’ Prime Directive to destroy Israel and exterminate the Jews in that nation.

Thus, the question, which is so obvious, it (I repeat) cannot be being missed; it’s being carefully, cynically ignored: how does any nation—here, Israel—have a cease fire, or any sort of negotiation at all, with an enemy whose avowed goal is the destruction of that nation? Especially when that enemy says it has no concerns for its own damage or how many of its own civilians die in the process?

Government “Influence” over US Industry

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The headline says it all:

Harris Puts Government Intervention at Heart of Economic Policy

And this:

Her plans are largely an extension of Biden’s yearslong effort to use government tools and finances to boost key sectors of the economy. The approach, known in economic parlance as “industrial policy,” is also increasingly supported by some Republicans, who have relaxed their free-market convictions….

Harris’ policy proposals are reminiscent of 1930s Italy and modern-day People’s Republic of China. Too many Republicans are going along with this sort of degradation of our economy.