UN Seeks Global Taxes; Obama Administration Says Bend Over.

It seems as though the United States needs more problems.

There has been a demand for a global tax to fund the heroic battle against the horrors of global warming climate change species endangerment.

The demand comes from the Secretary-General's High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, which was organized following last year's UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Among the panelists recommending global taxes are George Soros, the financier of socialist change, and Larry Summers, President Obama9;s [sic] economic advisor.

The suggested amount of the global tax would only be 100 billion dollars when implemented (the amount "pledged at last year's Copenhagen Summit to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change"), small change perhaps to some, but it would increase substantially thereafter mainly through carbon and transactions taxes. Obviously, according to this splendid article in Salon, we must put Al Gore science back into the political process, lest we be barbaric. Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain has asked that we all help to create green jobs in Spain and elsewhere "as a way out of the current economic crisis;" apparently the theory is that since the market won't create enough of them, they are the way to economic prosperity.

As Madrid economics professor Dr. Gabriel Calzada exposed, the “green” industry in Spain saw their only hope in the U.S. (Uncle Sucker?) coming to the rescue, keeping the bubble filled with transferred billions. Calzada was decried as “unpatriotic” by Spain’s renewables industry and communist-affiliated trade union — not for being wrong, but for letting the cat out of the bag.

Implementation of this "science friendly" idea would create all sorts of opportunities for the slippery slope effect to click in for more of the same as well as for other purposes. At the G20 summit in Korea, a global "Robin Hood" tax was proposed so that "rich" nations could help "poor" nations, doubtless "scientifically." The World Health Organization recently urged a similar objective. Not to be outdone in efforts to spend other folk's money,

French, German and British leaders have each endorsed one or more ideas for international taxation, including a global financial transaction tax or "Tobin Tax" as it is more commonly known. The G-8 and the International Monetary Fund, not wanting to be left out of the global tax game, are writing proposals of their own. With Summers, we can now add to that list a high ranking Obama administration official.

International taxation is "no longer merely an option," says French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. He argues it's only a matter of time before the UN implements a tax system.

Unless the U.S. Constitution has recently been tossed or substantially rewritten, there is no way for the U.N. or other international bodies to impose that sort of thing on the United States directly. This does not mean that we are immune. Unfortunately, there are some ways for it to be done indirectly. Some would require the complicity of the President and the Congress and only a few would not. As noted here, there is presently very little chance of any significant global tax scheme being accepted by the United States due to constitutional restrictions, the economic situation and political realities.

While it may be a flight of fancy now, global taxation has been strongly and consistently advocated by the UN, the WHO, several European countries and others. President Obama has supported the concept and in 2008 sponsored the Global Poverty Act (S 2433) to require U.S. compliance with the Millennium Development Goals. Vice President Biden, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tried to get it passed but failed. More recently, in December of 2009, soon-to-be-no-longer Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi endorsed the idea of a global tax on stock trades to provide funding for additional stimulus packages.

It seemed almost a matter of pride for some in the Are you Serious Congress to ignore the Constitution when dealing with legislation, under the assumption that the federal government can do whatever it pleases. We saw that, for example, when ObamaCare was before the Congress; yet it passed. The mandatory health insurance provisions are now being litigated and I would be quite surprised were they not eventually to fall -- but not before creating substantial business uncertainty and consequent economic difficulties.

Over time, resistance to a global tax scheme may diminish to the point that just a small and economically benign tax gets by. Precedent having been established, it would become increasingly difficult to prevent the process from reproducing itself for increasingly harmful taxes. Legislative expansions of the Commerce Clause, not terribly significant in themselves at first, have over the past seventy-five years distended it rather grossly.

Articles I, Section 7 of the Constitution provides,

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Article I, Section 8 provides,

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.

Article I, Section 9 provides,"No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State." Its purpose has been said to be

To prohibit discrimination against any states or regions, Congress cannot tax goods exported from a state to foreign countries or those that move between states. (emphasis added)

Further, under the same Article and Section,

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

The Sixteenth amendment authorized an income tax:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

And that's about it.

Hence, no United States taxes can be imposed on goods exported to any foreign country, no non-uniform taxes can be imposed on any state other than via income taxes and all legislation to raise such revenues must originate in the House of Representatives, soon to be under the control of a reasonably conservative or at least Republican majority. New excise taxes on fuel, electricity, etc? Not with the new Congress, unless some individual states impose them on their own residents which seems equally unlikely. It seems likely that future appropriations for funding by the United States of the U.N. may already be in trouble, and to increase them would be very difficult. Ditto funds appropriated to federal agencies and departments, and ways exist narrowly to restrict such appropriations. True, under Article II, Section 2, the President has the power,

by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur. . . .

Were the President to present to the Senate which convenes in January a treaty authorizing the collection of such revenues it probably would not receive the consent of the requisite numbers of senators; even if it did, it is very questionable whether it would be compliant with Article I and the Sixteenth Amendment quoted above. Senate Resolution 461, introduced by recently re-elected Senator David Vitter, R. La., on March 10, 2010, would put the Senate on record against any global tax scheme. It was referred to committee and has not yet progressed; maybe that sort of resolution should be looked into by the new Senate come January.

However, there are still ways the global tax envisioned by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's United Nations and others might be implemented. The U.N. Advisory Group offers some options

for governments to get the required $100 billion. "Governments may prefer to increase budget contributions," its authors helpfully suggest, until such time as new domestic or international taxes can be imposed and collected. It goes on to recommend a "carbon export optimization tax," and levies on international aviation and shipping including taxes on jet fuel and passenger tickets for international flights.

Other possibilities include royalties from fossil fuel extraction, and taxes on the use of electricity. Finally, there is the need, according to the UN, for a "global financial transaction tax," that would require "international coordination" and "international implementation." This is UN-speak for a global tax collecting agency.

Beyond these nifty ideas, which could easily discriminate against some states, foreign governments could increase their own taxes imposed on imported goods, many of which still come from the United States; this would have to be done very carefully if trade wars were to be avoided. The added funds so collected could be diverted to the U.N. They could also impose additional taxes on U.S. entities doing business in foreign countries, although if high enough that could cause some United States companies to rethink outsourcing and other ways of operating outside the United States; that might well be a good thing for the U.S. economy.

The United States has done more than her "fair share" of aiding less fortunate countries, and far from thereby winning the minds and hearts of their populations has increasingly been disparaged. She has maintained forces abroad, making it easier for some countries to have massive social programs based on the funding they would otherwise have had to spend on self defense. In some ways, she has done them ill by promoting an entitlements culture which, once started is almost impossible to stop. See Greece, France (and increasingly California and other states where that culture has gone berserk).

Rather than chase the fading ghosts of global warming and other phantoms, the new Congress should say "whoa" and reconsider the funding on which the country already splurges; to do otherwise would be pernicious. It would be no less so to let even a minimal global tax sneak under the radar. I facetiously suggested here that the United Nations be relocated to Luputa, Haiti or Somalia but that probably wouldn't work, despite the benefits thereby provided to the poor. In any event, the new Congress should give careful and detailed consideration to whether even the present (high) level of United Nations and foreign aid funding provided by the United States should continue. To do otherwise would be, the extent such a thing is possible, even more inconsistent with United States interests than is the present Obama Administration itself.

Liberalism May be Dead but Librulism is Not

Classical liberalism needs resuscitation.

Following the recent elections, Roger L. Simon recently opined that Liberalism is Dead. He referred, of course, to modern liberalism rather than to classical liberalism. He is more confident than I am about the demise; the death of modern liberalism may be approaching and I hope it will come. However senile and ineffective it may appear or we may wish it to be, it and its proponents remain forces about which to be concerned. Unfortunately, modern liberalism a.k.a. Librulism may even now be more alive than classical liberalism.

Words have transitory meanings. The word "gentleman" once meant a man privy to the person of the king. It eventually came to mean a person of sufficient inherited wealth to live well without "hard earned" money; mere tradespeople were not "gentlemen," no matter how sophisticated and polite they might have been. The word "gentlemen" now adorns the entrance to the restroom (another interesting word, that; I have never seen one with furniture really appropriate for a rest) used by males. Over time, "liberal" has morphed in similar fashion.

Thomas Jefferson considered himself a liberal but would, most likely, find little in common with those who appropriate the term today. Lock Mr. Jefferson (of Virginia) in a room with any one of the many so called liberals of today, and they would possibly come to blows, the event being at least forestalled because Mr. Jefferson was a “gentleman” in the eighteenth century sense of the word. Query, how many people who nowadays call themselves liberals believe that their views on life, the universe and everything reflect those of Mr. Jefferson. After all, he was a “liberal,” and so are they.

. . . .

I elect to use the word “liberal” to connote an open but not empty mind, a tendency to encourage the expression of opposing views, to listen attentively to them, and to desire to become familiar with them regardless of whether they are agreeable. It suggests a rational rather than a dogmatic approach to reality. A “liberal” in this sense can also be conservative; a conservative can, by the same token, be a "liberal;" there is no contradiction in terms.

Librul is the antithesis of liberal yet we persistently confuse the two. John Morton Blum, a very popular teacher of American history, was a liberal and a Democrat (he campaigned for George McGovern in 1972) but not a Librul. He is among those who made the difference live. His class was one of the largest and therefore had to be held in the law school auditorium. He spoke and wrote with enthusiasm about FDR and also about The Republican Roosevelt, Theodore. Mr. Blum was very happy to reminiscence extemporaneously the day after Eleanor Roosevelt died in November of 1962 about his conversations with her at Hyde Park concerning FDR; he had spent much time there going over President Roosevelt's papers and talking with her as he wrote a book (The Morgenthau Diaries) about the FDR years; we were captivated. Mr. Blum was no less pleased to introduce Senator Barry Goldwater, considered a leader of the conservative Republicans, to the class during the lead up to the presidential nominating campaign preceding the 1964 presidential elections; the senator got lots of applause and no boos as he and Mr. Blum entered the auditorium.

Mr. Blum made no attempt to indoctrinate, he merely told us about history factually, knowledgeably and as impartially but interestingly as anyone could have. I understand that the Librul disease has now infected many institutions of higher learning and find that extremely unfortunate; thus is the disease spread. I do not think that was generally the case nearly half a century ago.

Libruls do and say strange things which liberals generally do not. Libruls are fond of the word "racist" and conflate it with opposition to Librul positions. In Librulspeak, it is "racist" not to consider race in hiring and promoting employees and for other purposes; some but not all consideration of race is called "affirmative action" and "affirmative" presumably connotes something good. Republicans, unlike Democrats, are racist. So are those fool conservative T.E.A. groups which supported LTC Allen West who, due to a clear victory in a heavily White district, will in January become the first Black Republican congressman from Florida since Reconstruction; they just gotta be racist. So must Republican Hispanics Marco Rubio and David Rivera in Florida as well as Susana Martinez in New Mexico and Brian Sandoval in Nevada; ditto their supporters. There is no depth of depravity to which those Uncle Tom racists and their enablers will not descend.

Through some odd mutation, "race" has come to encompass both sex and ethnicity, although neither has any necessary connection to race. "Hispanic" has come to suggest a race, even though it legitimately refers to ethnic ancestry or surname. Mr. Gonzalez is Hispanic, even though he may be a Caucasian. I seem to recall reading many years ago that a Mr. Jones had secured a judicial name change to Mr. Gonzalez so that he could qualify for governmental Hispanic preferences. The federal Office of Personnel Management is holding its Third Annual Federal Hispanic Career Advancement Summit on November 29 and 30 of this year. I suppose that Sally Ortega, née Jones, would be among those whose careers are to be advanced.

Much of Europe is in the midst of a Librul crisis; Greece, France, anyone? To a lesser but still growing and festering extent so is the United States; yet President Obama apparently wants to emulate them; we must become more Librul and thwart the Party of No.

I suggest that the crisis has been propelled in no small way by the politically correct misuse of language. Political correctness is a symbiotic encrustation on Librulism; I don't know which is a cause and which is an effect, but neither could probably exist without the other. Global Warming Climate Change Species Endangerment? It's getting worse by the minute and it's all our fault. Praise Gaia, it is a crisis an opportunity not to be wasted; deniers are wicked. Charity? What's that; we have entitlements. Poverty? Even some folks living in the United States who own a couple of cars, a house, a couple of television sets and spend lots of their time getting fat at McDonald's live in poverty; they learn that they need and therefore demand our help because they are entitled to it; it ain't charity which would make them lose any vestiges of self respect. Besides, slaves the poor can be made continuously dependent on the system -- for many generations; that is good, rich is bad. Government spending? That's cool; it's just ObamaMoney government money. Inflation? That's just what happens to tires and balloons. Illegal Aliens Undocumented immigrants? What's illegal about not having some idiotic scrap of paper? Racism? That's something white folks do; just ask the Reverend Messrs Jackson and Sharpton, and don't forget the Honorable Mr. Rangel. Sexism? That's something people who don't disparage politically active females principally because they are attractive do. Helen Thomas, the recent runner up in a Ms. Congeniality contest (meh), would probably be a great president. Hate crimes? Don't yap about what the term means. Voter disenfranchisement? The Department of Justice is doing a bang up job. The Constitution? Don't worry about it; it's just a silly old document reciting irrelevant and out of date notions held long ago by some dead white males. Dead is good.

It is politically incorrect to refer to an "Afro American" – presumably even one living in Africa who has never been to any part of the American continent – as Colored (the NAACP still uses that quaint adjective), as a Negro or probably even as Black (the Congressional Black Caucus does and only admits Afro Americans, but that's not racist; a Congressional Caucasian Caucus would obvious be). Should I refer to a Caucasian citizen of South Africa as a "Dutch, English (or whatever) African?" Islamic terrorist? That shows an abysmal ignorance of the Religion of Peace. Conservative Christians? Stupid people who don't know any better than to cling to their guns and bibles. Jews in Israel – they should properly be referred to as Hebrew Palestinians. Unions = good; corporations = bad. Community organizers? They become miraculously good Presidents and receive anticipatory Nobel Peace Prizes. Attractive female governors? Don't be silly; elections are not beauty contests and we need experienced people.

Once upon a time, joyful people were referred to as "gay." Somehow, the meaning of "gay" has changed and no longer has much to do with a state of current happiness. A conservative liberal (I do at least try), I am not gay about the way the United States had been heading at least until recently. Negroes, poor people, women, foreigners living in the United States legally, the involuntarily unemployed and underemployed and others have been getting the shaft to a far greater extent under the rule of Libruls than they would with liberals. On November 2^nd the country made some progress away from Librulism toward liberalism. Such progress is good, but it needs to continue and not be wiped away by apathy now that the elections have been held. One thing to do would be to refrain from political correctism. Saying No to it would be a good start to restoring a bit of pride in our country.

The October 14 Federal Court Decision in Florida is a Big Setback for ObamaCare

Alice in Wonderland notwithstanding, Congress must say what it means and mean what it says.

In an order released on October 14 in State of Florida, et al v. Dept. of Health and Human Services, et al , Judge Vinson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola Division, permitted an action by twenty states challenging the mandatory health insurance provisions of ObamaCare to go forward. As noted here,

In his ruling, Vinson criticized Democrats for seeking to have it both ways when it comes to defending the mandate to buy insurance. During the legislative debate, Republicans chastised the proposal as a new tax on the middle class. Obama defended the payment as a penalty and not a tax, but the Justice Department has argued that legally, it’s a tax.

Beyond Judge Vinson's apt characterization of the government's approach as an "'Alice in Wonderland' tack" (see below) the most interesting part of the decision deals with the difference between between a tax and a penalty and why it matters. The Congress knows how to impose a tax when that is what it intends. Judge Vinson observed that since the mandatory insurance provisions were not referred to in the legislation as a "tax" but as a "penalty," as well as for additional reasons (including, for one example, the tanning facility tax, clearly intended as a tax and labeled as such), it is "manifestly clear" that the Congress intended to impose a penalty rather than a tax.

This distinction is crucial, because rather than purport to rely on its rather broad taxing power under the Constitution, the Congress relied exclusively upon its somewhat less broad Constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce among the several states in enacting the mandatory health insurance provisions of ObamaCare.

Perhaps most significantly, the Act does not mention any revenue generating purpose that is to be served by the individual mandate penalty, even though such a purpose is required. . . . Nowhere in the statute is the penalty provision identified or even mentioned as raising revenue and offsetting the Act's costs.

* * * * *

Reviewing courts cannot cannot look beyond a statute and inquire whether meant something different than what it said. . . . .

I have no choice but to find that the penalty is not a tax.

Judge Vinson continued, noting that by declaring the provision a penalty rather than a tax the Congress reaped a political advantage

Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing, after which the defenders of that legislation take an "Alice in Wonderland" tack and argue in court that the Congress really meant something else entirely, thereby circumventing the safeguard that exists to keep their broad powers in check.

Amen.

Judge Vinson then disposed of questions of ripeness and standing in favor of the Plaintiffs but rejected the plaintiffs' contentions that requiring employers, including state governments, to provide health insurance for their employees and requiring states either to provide health insurance exchanges or have the Federal Government "develop and implement" such exchanges for them unduly infringed upon state sovereignty. However, he found that the states had presented plausible arguments as to compulsion under certain funding provisions for Medicaid (which he characterized as a close question).

Judge Vinson then proceeded with a preliminary analysis of the legitimacy of the mandatory health provision under the Commerce clause, the essential part of the decision. Noting that the Federal Government had never before sought to regulate economic inactivity by requiring people residing in the United States to buy something, he observed:

[T]he Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause have never been applied in such a manner before. The power that the individual mandate seeks to harness is simply without prior precedent. The Congressional Research Service (a non-partisan legal "think tank" that works exclusively for Congress and provides analysis on the constitutionality of pending legislation) advised Congress on July 24, 2009, long before the Act was passed into law, that "it is unclear whether the [Commerce Clause] would provide a solid Constitutional foundation for legislation containing a requirement to have health insurance." The analysis goes on to state that the individual mandate presents "the most challenging question . . . as it is a novel issue whether Congress may use this clause to require an individual to purchase a good or service." [In Supreme Court cases involving accommodating Blacks in motels and growing wheat] [a]ll Congress was doing was saying that if you choose to engage in the activity of operating a motel or growing wheat, you are engaged in interstate commerce and subject to federal authority.

But in this case we are dealing with something very different. The individual mandate applies across the board. People have no choice and there is no way to avoid it. People who fall under the individual mandate either comply with it, or they are penalized. It is not based on any activity that they make the choice to undertake. Rather, it is solely based on citizenship and being alive. . . .

Of course, to say that something is "novel" or "unusual" does not mean that it is "unconstitutional" or "improper." There may be a first time for anything. But, at this stage of the case, the plaintiffs have most definitely stated a plausible claim with respect to this cause of action. (emphasis in original)

Judge Vinson thus permitted the case to go forward for trial on December 16^th and quite possibly motions for summary judgment.

Judge Vinson's remarks in his Conclusion quote these words from the Supreme Court:

Some truths are so basic, like the air around us, they are easily overlooked. Much of the Constitution is concerned with setting forth the form of our government, and the courts have traditionally invalidated measures deviating from that form. The result may appear "formalistic" in a given case to partisans of the measure at issue, because such measures are typically the product of the era's perceived necessity. But the Constitutions protects us from our own best intentions; it divides power among sovereigns and among branches of government precisely so that we may resist the temptation to concentrate power in one location as an expedient solution to the crisis of the day.

Despite the displeasure noted by the White House, the case will thus proceed, and it rather clearly suggests that the outcome may be very different from that recently where U.S. District Judge George Steeh in Thomas Moore Law Center v. Obama on October 7^th rejected claims that the individual mandate exceeds Constitutional authority under the Commerce clause. Judge Vinson's decision appears to be the better reasoned of the two and it seems likely that in Judge Vinson's court the government will have a tough roe to hoe in convincing him that the individual mandate meets Constitutional standards.

I also find very encouraging the judicial reaffirmation that when the Congress expressly states its Constitutional authority in enacting legislation, it should be bound by it and not wander off into other possible (but rather improbable) realms to justify the legislation before the courts. ObamaCare was passed, not as justified by the taxing authority but as authorized under the Commerce clause. If it is is not permitted under the Commerce Clause, as it probably is not, it must fall.

Also published at Opinion Forum.

Swarm Theory and Politics

First published at Opinion Forum.

Can analogies be drawn between insect swarms and human political activity?

Stink bugs have been swarming in Washington, D.C. where, unlike CongressCritters, "they really cause no harm. . . . just a nuisance." Fortunately, the Congress has adjourned.

The swarming addressed here can be more than just a nuisance. Sometimes the results can be seen as good or bad depending on what one wants. Swarming (as distinguished from smarming, a human social and political tactic) is a natural phenomenon permitting essentially brainless creatures -- ants, bees, other insects and some fish -- to thrive through apparently instinctive collective reactions to external stimuli. Maybe swarming also illuminates some species of political behavior.

Ants and bees construct truly ingenious structures in which to live and breed and which they protect when endangered. If a bee hive is destroyed the surviving queen leaves, followed by a swarm, and they get busy building a new hive -- without the help of FEMA, federal grants or other financial stimuli. Ants do much the same with great industry. The nests of some ant colonies extend for many miles underground.

In Europe, one vast colony of Argentine ants is thought to stretch for 6,000km (3,700 miles) along the Mediterranean coast, while another in the US, known as the "Californian large," extends over 900km (560 miles) along the coast of California. A third huge colony exists on the west coast of Japan.

As with bees, ant colonies are marvels of architectural sophistication. Highly unintelligent creatures, apparently lacking even a sense of their own existence or that of their fellows, acting collectively and instinctively in swarms, they can do some things as least as well as can individual humans and can exhibit collectively something resembling individual human intelligence and activity. As a point of at least minor interest, humans are thought to have a biomass of approximately 335 million metric tons and ants of between 900 and 9,000 million metric tons. Bee biomass is thought to be declining, but I couldn't find any numbers.

When an ant leaves its nest to forage for food it takes an apparently random path. When it finds food, it carries it back to the nest leaving a trail of chemical signals called pheromones. Other ants also go out looking for food and when they find it they do the same things. There being no welfare system, when the first ant returns with food others follow its pheromone trail back to the food source and return by the same path, leaving additional pheromones. The pheromones are short lived, so once a food source is exhausted and unsuccessful ants have abandoned it and gone looking for other sources, the old trails evaporate. When new sources of food are found the ants returning to the nest with food leave new pheromone trails to be followed by others until they in turn evaporate. There is a lot more to it than that and there is a mountain of literature on the subject of swarming; a bit of it is available here.

Computer programs based on ant behavior abound and parcel delivery services use them daily to determine the most efficient routes for their trucks. Much of the traffic on the internet is routed using similar ant-based algorithms. Some suggest that the human brain itself involves swarm theory, "even complex cognitive functions, such as abstract reasoning and consciousness." Maybe our brains resemble bee hives, although in some cases that might be an insult to the bees.

In 2002, Michael Chichton (1942 - 2008) wrote Prey about a nanoparticle project gone very wrong. Nanoparticles are microscopically small, dust like things. The idea was to use swarms of nanoparticles, some with visual, some with aural and some with other capabilities, to conduct military surveillance and for other purposes. However, they inexplicably "evolved" very quickly -- a generation was of about three hours duration -- and began to reproduce as well as to swarm in unforeseen ways. The novel leaves unanswered the question of whether the human race survived. Scary and far fetched, but not as far fetched as one might think. The United States military have been looking seriously at swarm behavior since before 2000. Murphy's law, that whatever can go wrong will at the most inopportune time, is similar to the concept of the fog of war, where ambiguity, chance and chaos, with all of their non-linear recursive complexities, continue to play important roles despite (or perhaps because of) advances in command and control equipment and procedures leading to information overload. Small events can have large consequences. Multiple articles are collected here. The military apparently envision using large numbers of inexpensive, highly expendable and essentially autonomous robotic devices to accomplish various missions. These are not the remotely controlled unmanned drone aircraft currently in the news.

[C]urrent UAVs require at least one operator per UAV, despite technological advances that make it possible to deploy hundred (if not thousands) of inexpensive [UAVs]. This requirement not only increases expense, but makes coordination among UAVs more difficult.

Recently swarm technology has been suggested as a possible solution to automatically control and coordinate multiple UAVs. Swarms consist of a large number of distributed, parallel-acting individual entities coupled with primitive communication mechanisms such as chemical markers. The idea behind a swarm is that simple local rules that govern the behavior of individual entities can lead to complex emergent [self-taught] behavior of the system as a whole. For example, it might be possible to conduct a search and destroy operation. Rules include ideas such as “avoid areas already searched” or “avoid UAVs within a certain radius.”

Cheap and stupid robots are in some cases more effective than teams of intelligent soldiers with assigned specialties. Soldiers think and adapt quickly to changing conditions. The loss of even one with a critical task can cause a mission to fail. Although robots don't "think," they too can react very quickly to changing stimuli. They are homogeneous and can be numerous. The loss of some is matter of little consequence to the mission. Are nano devices being considered? So it appears.

People obviously (with few exceptions) are individually far more intelligent than are ants and human swarms are less common than with bees. Still, sometimes they occur. At a hotly contested rugby match, something similar to a swarm sometimes occurs. A sense that team A won unfairly (or simply because it was team A rather than team B) can cause a major riot of thousands of spectators. "Deprived youths" in some nascent Islamic countries swarm to offer burnt automotive sacrifices to their image-phobic god, while others, perhaps more devout, riot self-destructively to allay cartoonish offenses to theirs. A racial incident can cause similar rioting, particularly if stimulated by queen bees and lesser luminaries; great and self-destructive damage to the infrastructures of the communities from which the rioters hail is common. They "lose their minds" and become a swarm. "Damn those jerks! We'll show them. Let's burn our houses! Yeah! Let's!" The phrases "herd mentality" and "mob mentality" are commonly applied. This sort of thing occasionally happens in politics. The politically inspired race to judgment over the activities of the "elite" Duke University lacrosse team vis a vis a stripper may have been a minor example of something similar; the queen bees were very busy.

On the other hand and in a different context, some beneficial things can result from conduct resembling but not amounting to true swarm behavior.

[T]op-down management is viewed as a forced, and thus, ineffective approach. We say that the bottom-up thrust is based on the world's creatures' success with 'emergence', 'swarm theory' or 'chaos theory' a bottom-up approach used by ants, bees,birds and even trees[??]. Its basis is that small simple local decisions, if allowed to develop and follow their own path under an overall strategic guidance of process, will lead to an elegant solution - not just a better solution but a superior solution that no single individual could likely have conceived.

I don't know about the trees, but does this at least remotely suggest T.E.A. party organizations to anyone else? According to this Wall Street Journal article, individual groups called "tea parties" remain highly diverse but are coalescing in pragmatic fashion to the extent necessary to achieve their basic goals. It seems to be a bottom up, and far from top down, phenomenon.

Statism and the accompanying central (top down) planning, direction and control of human conduct are fatally flawed but might work well in an ant colony or bee hive, provided the insects were not thereby deprived of their autonomous nature. If Venezuelan el Presidente Chávez could wiggle his buttocks like a queen bee and invoke consistent and reliably productive responses by the masses, Venezuela might be a viable machine for creating stuff. He can't and it isn't because that's not the way in which humans have evolved. There are other problems:

we know that complex systems are exquisitely sensitive to initial operating conditions and that interventions can have disproportionately large or small implications depending upon timing, etc. . . .

Central planning does not, and cannot, take into account apparently insignificant changes which can have very important effects.

North Korea seems to offer the best current example of remarkably unsuccessful quasi-swarm-based human endeavor. Fortunately, elsewhere in politics there tends to be substantial diversity of opinion transcending the charisma of queen bees. Although the power of a queen bee once firmly entrenched is difficult to undermine it is possible. Senator Obama managed to displace Senator Clinton as queen bee in 2008. Now many of his swarms of worker bees are wondering what happened and may be looking for a replacement. Many who didn't like but voted for him in 2008 are also doing so. Does Governor Palin seek to be Queen Bee (at least for a day)? I don't think so and hope not.

Humans are neither ants nor bees and we don't have the same instinctive reactions. Leaders are necessary and as long as their pheromone trails lead to what we desire we follow them. Also like ants, when they don't we stop. Unlike ants and the folks in North Korea, we get to decide what we want and whether the paths directed by our leaders are likely to be fruitful. Sometimes we screw up in deciding what we want and how to achieve it, and we ultimately pay the price as we -- and the queen bees -- must. When members of the political class see the "unwashed masses" as bees ready to swarm, they sometimes are not too far off and sometimes they are. Even bees and ants respond to new external stimuli and their behavior can't always be predicted accurately; the results can be chaotic and chaos theory is very much implicated in swarm theory; maybe with an explanation by Uncle Jay it would all make more sense.

Does swarm theory have any significant relationship, at least by analogy, to political behavior or would a suggestion that it may be faddish? I don't know, but the concept is worth keeping in mind as we decided how to cast our votes next month and reflect upon the outcome.

Drunkblogging Modest Proposals

We demand much more Booze Change because we need it.

The word is so screwed up that even our highly intelligent and resourceful President Obama can't deal with its myriad complexities. Things need to be simplified and a drunk, a lunatic or a leftist is needed. I possibly qualify on the first two counts. Farcically Facially radical but really simple change we can believe in offers the only possible solutions and I have them.

In an earlier article, I suggested that some of the country's many problems could be ameliorated by simply moving the Seat of Government (and all of its bursting appendixes) to Haiti. This will not only save lots of taxpayer government money, it will also improve both Washington and Haiti. However, we must not ignore other major problems. Heck, the slaves in the United States still need to be freed. What are we waiting for? This article offers a few additional modest proposals for true change.

The United Nations must abandon decadent New York City and relocate to some less expensive place more in keeping with its lofty humanitarian principles. As a side benefit, the UN Headquarters will become a really cool mega-mosque-community center where people of every race, ethnicity, religion, nationality and ideology can come together in peace and harmony -- as they now do so effectively at the UN. Even though not as close to Ground Zero as some desire, it will be a compromise welcomed by all.

Somalia comes immediately to mind as a new home for the UN but there are many deserving alternatives. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) are among them. The advantages would be numerous. Since Luputa exists only in fiction, it could well be even better.

For the rest of the article, go to Pajamas Media, where it was published on October 5th.

Venezuela’s Election Lunacy: Results and Consequences

The opposition MUD alliance (seriously) won 52 percent of the votes, but got 37 percent of the seats. Hmm.

Christopher Hitchens observed a few weeks ago that el Presidente Chávez, whom he had visited in 2008 along with Chávez' close friend Sean Penn and whose antics he still follows, is barking mad. As Hitchens put it, [START BLOCKQUOTE]

Chávez . . . is very close to the climactic moment when he will announce that he is a poached egg and that he requires a very large piece of buttered toast so that he can lie down and take a soothing nap. [END BLOCKQUOTE]

Unfortunately, a nap is not what Chávez has in mind. [START BLOCKQUOTE]

In a televised broadcast from the Miraflores presidential palace, Chavez spoke out against opposition leaders: "They will never enter here again, the immoral ones, the mobsters, the stateless ones, the traitors. I am going to say this until the last day of my life."[END BLOCKQUOTE]

In Venezuela, where Chávez is by no means alone in his dementia and lunacy does not augur defeat, insanity is more useful as an excuse for whatever happens than as valid predictor of the future. Even trying to figure out what happened can induce insanity.

Read (much) more at Pajamas Media

Muslim Relations in Pánama

Pánama has many Muslims, roughly 0.3 percent of the population or 9,600. Panama has roughly one percent of the population of the United States, so that's the equivalent of 960,000 in the United States. Here, Muslims have largely been assimilated into Panamanian society. There are some reasons for this.

1. The Arabic influence on the Spanish language has been substantial.

Modern day Spanish language (also called castellano in Spanish) first appeared in the small Christian Kingdom of Castile in Northern Spain during this period of Islamic domination over most of the Iberian Peninsula. As a result, the language was influenced by Andalusi Arabic practically from its inception. Arabic imprint on the language increased as the Kingdom of Castile expanded into Muslim lands where the Castilian language had never been spoken and as arabized Christians (Mozarabs) from Al Andalus emigrated northwards during times of sectarian violence, and particularly as a result of the Almoravid conquest in the 12th century. Although the degree to which Arabic percolated the peninsula is the subject of academic debate, it is generally agreed that Arabic was used among the local elites and local Arabic-influenced Romance dialects, known collectively as Mozarabic were more prevalent as the vernacular language. Only the kingdom of Granada, under the Nasrid dynasty was totally arabized after many centuries of Muslim rule.

2. One of the world's largest free zones is in Colon, Pánama, although rather separate and distinct from the rest of the city. Most of the merchants are Jewish or Muslim; in many cases, they are business partners. The Jews tend to live in Pánama City, about an hour's drive from Colon. The Muslims tend to live in Colon.

3. There are about ten mosques in Pánama, including at least one in David, the third largest city in the country, on the road between Boquete (now a largely upscale Gringo expat community) and David. Several years ago, there were unsubstantiated rumors that Osama ben Ladden had been sighted, but they rank right up there with Elvis sightings.

4. My wife and I rely substantially on a computer store in David, owned I think, by a (shudder) Muslim. He is both a gentleman and a damn good salesman, though not in the least pushy. When we go to his store, he offers refreshments, usually a cup of herbal tea. When we buy something of any significance, he always gives us a small gift – a cheap headset or a couple of blank DVD discs. The welcome we get encourages us to return.

Why are the relationships so good here? I don't know, but suspect that it has something to do with integration into the local culture. As far as I know, there was little news about the recent Ground Zero – threatened and actual Koran burning episodes in the United States or the resultant protests – possibly because they were of little interest. People here have other things about which to become upset, and beyond that most tend to their own affairs.

Pánama has too little world significance to become a focal point of Islamists, and that is a good thing for those of us who live here, Jews, Muslims, Christians and those of us who have no religion. Not once has anyone bothered us about my lack of religion. There is substantial tolerance for the views of others, and that's a damn good thing.

Am I a tad puzzled? Am I perhaps missing something? You betcha. But that at least seems to be the way it is here.