Does Trump embody the 10 essential traits of an alpha male?

From The Blaze.com (July 11):

Kriz Cruz and Doc Thompson layout 10 essential traits of alpha males and wonder: are these Trump? Justin Trudeau certainly didn’t come to mind for Doc or Kris…

Here are the ten essential traits of an alpha male discussed by Doc and Kris:

1. They lead.
2. They’re confident.
3. They can handle themselves during a conflict.
4. They’re masculine.
5. They have a certain amount of style and charisma.
6. They’re strong.
7. They’re risk takers.
8. They’re independent.
9. They’re competent.
10. They’re dominant.

See Doc and Kris break it down above and read the full list here.

Source: Does Trump embody the 10 essential traits of an alpha male?

I would say yes. And so do I. All kidding aside, I think so does President Ronald Reagan have these traits.

How Congress Can Reduce Obamacare Premiums

From Doug Badger & Edmund Haislmaier on The Daily Signal.com (July 5):

In 2019, Obamacare premiums are poised to become even more expensive. New York, Washington state, and Maryland are requesting to raise their rates for the individual market by an average of 24 percent, 19 percent, and 30 percent respectively. Nationwide, the Congressional Budget Office predicts premiums will increase an average of 15 percent for the Obamacare benchmark plan.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Earlier this year, we co-authored a study examining how Obamacare regulations raised premiums.  We reviewed dozens of prospective and retrospective actuarial analyses of Obamacare’s premium effects on both the state and national levels.

We found that premium increases for Obamacare policies were attributable to a maze of new federal insurance mandates, combined with a flawed subsidy design. That unhappy concoction produced disproportionately older and less healthy insurance pools, requiring insurers to price policies beyond the reach of many families and small businesses.

…………………….

Last month, a group of conservative policy experts, including us, and grassroots organizations unveiled a proposal that would exempt states from many of the federal requirements that our study found had led to higher premiums.  The Health Care Choices proposal would replace Obamacare premium subsidy entitlements and Medicaid expansion with a new program of grants to states.  The proposal would reduce premiums and enhance health care choices by allowing states to:

1. Eliminate the single risk pool requirement.
2. Use a portion of their federal allotments to establish risk-mitigation programs.
3. Escape the federal “essential health benefits” mandate.
4. Allow insurers to sell more affordable policies.
5. Allow insurers to charge young adults fair premiums.

[read more]

Character, Not Control, Is the Antidote to Evil

From FEE.org:

Humans are dangerous creatures capable of great evil. This inescapable truth bombards us every time we turn on the news. The weight of this knowledge bears down on every human soul, and with every tragedy, we are starkly reminded of it. We cry out for someone to save us from our inherent capacity for evil. Or perhaps we say to ourselves, “I could never do that.”

But you’re wrong, you could do that.

Humans can kill. We can harm, we can steal, we can commit grave atrocities. Why? Because we are free.

Being free means that your choices are your own. There is no government agency capable of monitoring our every action, our every violent thought, our every evil instinct. No government organization can prevent every act of violence because every act of violence is an expression of human power. There is no bureaucracy that is more powerful than the actions of individual humans who are free to choose to be evil.

With every tragedy—every school shooting, every act of terrorism, every high profile murder—we as a species ask why this is happening. How could any human choose to do harm? Yet perhaps the question isn’t why it happened. Perhaps the question is why more of us don’t commit atrocities.

We Cannot Be Good if We Cannot Do Wrong

Psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson says that we can have no insight whatsoever into our capacity for good until we understand our capacity for evil. I think he’s right. Until we acknowledge that humans can be evil, we cannot choose to be good. If we did not possess the ability to do great harm, there would be nothing commendable about not doing so. If we could not sin, there would be no virtue in not sinning because it would not be a choice. We can only choose not to do things that are within our power to do. Otherwise, it’s a default, not a choice.

If people are free to determine the courses of our own lives, free to make our own choices, that inherently means that we are free to choose to do terrible things. The dark side of being free to be good people is that we are also free to be bad people. That scares a lot of people, both personally and societally. The darkness within our species is only a fraction as terrifying as the darkness within ourselves. Nothing is more terrifying than when we feel the darkness rising within our own hearts and we face the choice: do I give into evil, or do I rise to good?

It’s frightening, but it’s necessary for us as individuals of strong character to face our capacity for evil. Otherwise, we could not choose goodness. And if we can’t choose goodness, we float powerlessly in a vacuum of moral impotence, unable to hone the swords of our character on the whetstone of difficult choices. We have to be able to choose goodness to be good. Because you could do that, but you don’t. You have chosen not to.

………………..

Oppression and Character

There are only two ways we can prevent violence: oppression and character. We can empower the government to oppress us beyond the means of choosing violence, or we as individuals can choose to be nonviolent. Many cry out for the former, but should we choose that path, we are robbing ourselves and others of the ability to be good people. If we cannot choose evil, we cannot choose good. If good is a default derived from powerlessness, there’s nothing truly good about it.

So that leaves the other option: character. Character is something that starts in the heart of an individual. It is the state of facing one’s infinite options for action and choosing only those actions which do not deprive others of their lives, property, or dignity. Character is, above all, choosing to be vessels of benevolence rather than servants of evil. [read more]

Why Capitalism Is Morally Superior to Socialism

From Walter E. Williams on The Daily Signal.com (May 30):

Several recent polls, plus the popularity of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., demonstrate that young people prefer socialism to free market capitalism.

That, I believe, is a result of their ignorance and indoctrination during their school years, from kindergarten through college. For the most part, neither they nor many of their teachers and professors know what free market capitalism is.

Free market capitalism, wherein there is peaceful voluntary exchange, is morally superior to any other economic system. Why? Let’s start with my initial premise.

All of us own ourselves. I am my private property, and you are yours. Murder, rape, theft, and the initiation of violence are immoral because they violate self-ownership. Similarly, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another person, for any reason, is immoral because it violates self-ownership.

Tragically, two-thirds to three-quarters of the federal budget can be described as Congress taking the rightful earnings of one American to give to another American—using one American to serve another. Such acts include farm subsidies, business bailouts, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, and many other programs.

Free market capitalism is disfavored by many Americans—and threatened—not because of its failure but, ironically, because of its success. Free market capitalism in America has been so successful in eliminating the traditional problems of mankind—such as disease, pestilence, hunger, and gross poverty—that all other human problems appear both unbearable and inexcusable.

………………

A much larger and totally ignored question has to do with the brutality of socialism. In the 20th century, the one-party socialist states of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Germany under the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, and the People’s Republic of China were responsible for the murder of 118 million citizens, mostly their own.

The tallies were: USSR, 62 million; Nazi Germany, 21 million; and People’s Republic of China, 35 million. No such record of brutality can be found in countries that tend toward free market capitalism. [read more]

Can Scientific Discovery Be Automated?

Commentary from Ahmed Alkhateeb on Next Gov.com (Apr. 25, 2017):

Science is in the midst of a data crisis. Last year, there were more than 1.2 million new papers published in the biomedical sciences alone, bringing the total number of peer-reviewed biomedical papers to over 26 million. However, the average scientist reads only about 250 papers a year. Meanwhile, the quality of the scientific literature has been in decline. Some recent studies found that the majority of biomedical papers were irreproducible.

The twin challenges of too much quantity and too little quality are rooted in the finite neurological capacity of the human mind. Scientists are deriving hypotheses from a smaller and smaller fraction of our collective knowledge and consequently, more and more, asking the wrong questions, or asking ones that have already been answered. Also, human creativity seems to depend increasingly on the stochasticity of previous experiences—particular life events that allow a researcher to notice something others do not. Although chance has always been a factor in scientific discovery, it is currently playing a much larger role than it should.

One promising strategy to overcome the current crisis is to integrate machines and artificial intelligence in the scientific process. Machines have greater memory and higher computational capacity than the human brain. Automation of the scientific process could greatly increase the rate of discovery. It could even begin another scientific revolution. That huge possibility hinges on an equally huge question: Can scientific discovery really be automated?

I believe it can, using an approach that we have known about for centuries. The answer to this question can be found in the work of Sir Francis Bacon, the 17th-century English philosopher and a key progenitor of modern science.

………………………

Bacon’s insights also revealed an important hidden truth: the discovery process is inherently algorithmic. It is the outcome of a finite number of steps that are repeated until a meaningful result is uncovered. Bacon explicitly used the word “machine” in describing his method. His scientific algorithm has three essential components: First, observations have to be collected and integrated into the total corpus of knowledge. Second, the new observations are used to generate new hypotheses. Third, the hypotheses are tested through carefully designed experiments.  [read more]

In 1981, programmers Patrick Langler and Gary Bradshaw wrote an AI program called Bacon that made scientific discoveries using experimental data. So, yes it maybe possible to automate scientific discovery.

What Happens When an MBA Student Raised in Communist China Reads Hayek

Commentary from Barry Brownstein on FEE.org (April 19):

Imagine being born during the bloody Cultural Revolution in China and growing up in a country with little economic or personal freedom. Few Chinese citizens had the knowledge that human rights are not granted by government, and those few who knew could not say. Few knew that government is not the source of economic progress; and again, those who knew could not fully share their understanding.

Now imagine you’re thirty-something years old, traveling to the United States to begin your MBA studies. In the spring of 1999, I taught an MBA economics class to a cohort of 30 such Chinese students.

The class was split between students from Beijing and Shanghai. Students from Shanghai—having more experience with the beneficial impact of liberalizing markets—were much more willing to embrace the ideas of classical liberalism.

Beijing students were more likely to believe in a larger role for government. This split between the Beijing and Shanghai students was most evident in a class discussion after the class read Hayek’s The Use of Knowledge in Society; the reading led to a discussion of central planning.

A student from Beijing was emphatic, “This theory is not applicable to China—China is a relatively poor country, and in a poor country the government needs to plan.”

An exasperated Shanghai student responded, “You miss the point, central planning is precisely why China is comparatively poor.”*

Hayek’s ideas were so provocative that soon the entire class had joined in; the two factions began shouting at each other in Mandarin. Someone, concerned about the din, called campus security. The students lowered their voices, but Hayek’s ideas had left their mark. I feel certain those students carry an indelible memory of that class. [read more]

*Bingo! The Shanghai student is right. Not only is he right about China but same could be said about N. Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and the old Soviet Union. Now Mexico is included in this group since they now have a socialistic president. Keep in mind Marx called communism scientific socialism. In China’s constitution they say they are a socialistic country.

Massive Diamond Cache Detected Beneath Earth's Surface

From News Max.com (July 20):

There's a load of bling buried in the Earth.

More than a quadrillion tons of diamonds to be exact -- or one thousand times more than one trillion -- US researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported this week.

But don't expect a diamond rush. These naturally occurring precious minerals are located far deeper than any drilling expedition has ever reached, about 90 to 150 miles (145 to 240 kilometers) below the surface of our planet.

"We can't get at them, but still, there is much more diamond there than we have ever thought before," said Ulrich Faul, a research scientist in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. [read more]

Nice. But if geologists or diamond hunters ever venture down to find the diamonds they might want to be aware of prehistoric animals. Oh, wait. That’s from the movie Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008). Based on Jules Verne’s 1864 novel of the same name. Sorry, about that. I’ve never read the novel but seen the movie. Based on the summary of the novel, the movie had diamonds in it but the novel didn’t.

The Pentagon is working on a secret project to let soldiers control weapons with their minds

From Fox News.com (July 18):

The Pentagon's research unit is working on a project that one day would let people control machines with their minds.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is beginning the process of selecting teams of people for a project that would allow for the development of a neural interface in conjunction with its Next-Generation Non-Surgical Neurotechnology (N3) program. The hope is that it would let troops send and receive information using only their brain waves.

"DARPA seeks proposals to design, build, demonstrate, and validate a nonsurgical neural interface system to broaden the applicability of neural interfaces to the able-bodied warfighter," a synopsis of the proposal reads. "The final technology aims to enable neural recording and stimulation with sub-millimeter spatial resolution."

A paper on the proposal, with funding details, eligibility requirements and the application review process was written on March 23, 2018.

News of the proposal was first reported by Nextgov.

Though the technology will not be present on battlefields tomorrow, the Pentagon hopes that one day soldiers could control technology such as drones, cyber defense systems via brain waves. [read more]

Nice. The technology will help in preventing battle field deaths.

Why Envy Is the Bitter Enemy of Success

From FEE.org:

Envy is evil.

Not just for its corrosive effects on society, but for what it can do to undermine your own success. Envy makes you bitter and joyless. Worse, it blinds you to your own potential and the opportunity around you.

If the success of those around you makes you less happy, you’re in a death spiral. Conversely, one of the great secrets to personal growth and achievement is the realization that the success of your friends is your success. Not metaphorically, and not just ’cause it gives you feels. In a very literal sense.

You can think of it as a formula:

YC = YS*FS

Your ceiling (YC) equals your success (YS) times your friends' success (FS). Let me give a simple example to illustrate. If you succeed at coming up with a brilliant idea for a business (YS goes up with the idea) and you have friends who have succeeded financially (FS is high), they can invest in your idea or connect you to those who can, which multiplies the total yield from your effort.

Given the above formula, there are several ways to raise your ceiling. One is to increase your success directly (grow YS). Another is to increase the number of people you consider friends (grow F). Another is to increase the amount of success your friends have (grow S).  [read more]

Six Personality Traits That All Successful Entrepreneurs Share

By Euwyn Poon on Forbes.com (May 10):

Here’s what I’ve noticed while collaborating with entrepreneurs at Y Combinator and working on several startups:

1. Curiosity

Technology develops at different rates and in different ways around the world. Curiosity about those differences is an important attribute for any entrepreneur.

………………..

2. A Sense of Impatience

Entrepreneurs need impatience in order to recognize inefficiencies and capitalize on them.

People often think of impatience as an unsavory personality trait. But it can actually be very beneficial for an entrepreneur who’s trying to create a product that solves an inefficient situation.

…………………..

3. Sociability

It’s important for any entrepreneur to have a good network of like-minded people to engage with and use for support. It helps tremendously to have people around you who are constantly looking for and solving problems.

…………………….

4. Attention To Basic Human Needs

The basic necessities of a happy life should always be on an entrepreneurs mind. Food, shelter, companionship, entertainment, simplicity—these are all things that people either need or have a strong desire to obtain.

And entrepreneurs have to learn to be perceptive about the problems and inefficiencies around them that relate to human needs.  [read more]

The other two traits are reasoning and flexibility. The lame-stream press used to have curiosity. Not anymore. That’s what happens when you are agenda-driven not truth-driven.

MATT WALSH: How To Kill A Church In Just A Few Easy Steps

From The Daily Wire.com (May 4):

The Episcopal Church announced this week that it would be removing the words "man," "woman," and "procreation" from its marriage liturgy. Of course, the Episcopalians have long since removed Christ from their liturgy, so this latest move is no surprise.

I refer to them as the Episcopal Church only loosely. They are a church in the same way that the Church of Satan is a church. They are an anti-church. Rather than a body of Christian believers, they are a body of self-worshiping heretics. And a very small body at that.

…………………

If a person wants worldliness, they can go literally anywhere to get it. If they want lectures on diversity and inclusion, they can stop by the Human Resources office at work, or maybe have a chat with a public school guidance counselor. If they want encouragement to continue in their sin, Satan is happy to use a whole variety of methods to communicate that encouragement. And most of those methods will be far more entertaining and enjoyable than anything the crusty old Episcopal Church can provide.

But if a person wants to pursue something higher; if he wants to be rescued from the dreariness of modern culture; if he wants to find his real and transcendent identity; if he wants to be challenged; if he wants meaning, then he has even less reason to turn to Episcopalianism or any similar variety of Christianity. It is not substantial enough. It is not different enough. It is not saying enough. It is not asking enough of him.

That is the great secret that "progressive" and "inclusive" Christian leaders are too high on the fumes of humanism to notice or understand. Religions grow when they expect more of their adherents, not less. Religions thrive when they provide a lifestyle that is radically different from the dull, hollow lifestyle provided by the world. People turn to religion for identity. And if all they find is more of the same, more of what caused them to go looking in the first place, they will not be converted. If a church wants to grow (and, more importantly, if it wants to save souls), it must have the boldness to completely and entirely reject the teachings of the world and preach instead the teachings of Christ. [read more]

Along the same lines, the Episcopal Church considers making God gender neutral. I am pretty sure when Jesus talked about his Father he wasn’t talking about Joseph. He was referring to God. A male as fathers usually are.

Not sure who the Church is praying to but it might not be God.

How Imperial Socialism Shattered the Roman Empire and Led to Feudalism

From FEE.org:

In years of peace, Diocletian, with his aides, faced the problems of economic decay. To overcome depression and prevent revolution, he substituted a managed economy for the law of supply and demand. He established a sound currency by guaranteeing to the gold coinage a fixed weight and purity which it retained in the Eastern Empire till 1453. He distributed food to the poor at half the market price or free, and undertook extensive public works to appease the unemployed. To ensure the supply of necessaries for the cities and the armies, he brought many branches of industry under complete state control, beginning with the import of grain; he persuaded the shipowners, merchants, and crews engaged in this trade to accept such control in return for governmental guarantee of security in employment and returns.

The state had long since owned most quarries, salt deposits, and mines; now it forbade the export of salt, iron, gold, wine, grain, or oil from Italy, and strictly regulated the importation of these articles. It went on to control establishments producing for the army, the bureaucracy, or the court. In munition factories, textile mills, and bakeries the government required a minimum product, bought this at its own price, and made the associations of manufacturers responsible for carrying out orders and specifications. If this procedure proved inadequate, it completely nationalized these factories and manned them with labor bound to the job.

Gradually, under Aurelian and Diocletian, the majority of industrial establishments and guilds in Italy were brought under the control of the corporate state. Butchers, bakers, masons, builders, glass-blowers, ironworkers, engravers, were ruled by detailed governmental regulations. The “various corporations,” says Rostovtzeff, “were more like minor supervisors of their own concerns on behalf of the state than their owners; they were themselves in bondage to the officials of the various departments, and to the commanders of the various military units.” The associations of tradesmen and artisans received various privileges from the government and often exerted pressure upon its policies; in return, they served as organs of national administration, helped to regiment labor, and collected taxes for the state from their membership.

……………………

Such a system could not work without price control. In 301, Diocletian and his colleagues issued an Edictum de pretiis, dictating maximum legal prices or wages for all important articles or services in the Empire.

…………………

The Edict was, until our time, the most famous example of an attempt to replace economic laws by governmental decrees. Its failure was rapid and complete. Tradesmen concealed their commodities, scarcities became more acute than before, Diocletian himself was accused of conniving at a rise in prices, riots occurred, and the Edict had to be relaxed to restore production and distribution. It was finally revoked by Constantine. [read more]

Another article on socialism: “Socialism is Not Built on Compassion. It's Built on Dehumanizing Others”

Here’s an excerpt from the article above:

Like the Japanese, North Koreans have no Jews, but the North Koreans have made a “devil” out Americans—and much of their own population.

North Korean defector Hyeonseo Lee grew up thinking her country “was the greatest nation on earth.” In her book, The Girl With Seven Names, Lee explains how she was taught that “South Korean children were dressed in rags” and “scavenged for food on garbage heaps and suffered the sadistic cruelty of American soldiers, who used them for target practice, ran them over in jeeps, or made them polish boots.” Lee’s teacher showed “cartoon drawings of children begging barefoot in winter.”

………………

“Sitting on a newspaper with a Kim’s face” is a “crime” that can send three generations to North Korean concentration camps.

Beyond Self-Driving Cars: 12 Upcoming Innovations In Transportation And Travel

From Forbes.com (June 21):

For decades, the self-driving car was an unrealized technological dream. Though much research has been conducted and many prototypes have been developed over the years, it wasn't until very recently that truly functional autonomous consumer vehicles moved into the realm of possibility.

Though there's still a long way before the wider general public starts using self-driving cars, that hasn't stopped tech companies from beginning to develop the next innovations in transportation. Here are 12 candidates for the "next big thing" in travel, according to Forbes Technology Council.

1. Flying Drone Cars

Companies have been working on a flying drone car that will look like a mini helicopter. It looks like the first ones may be one- or two-seaters, but it will definitely change the way we travel. - Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster

2. Financial Services For Transportation

While there are some interesting technical innovations in transportation, the biggest changes I think will be around innovations in financial services that change the way we buy, rent and borrow transportation services. Recent innovations such as car sharing from BMW and the like will have a faster, more direct impact. - Sultan Meghji, Virtova

3. Air Travel Improvements

Ground transportation has always been in second place to air travel. The airline business has stagnated since the 1960s and this vertical is ripe for change. Transportation of people in a quick and more humane way over long distances is the goal. Everything from manufacturing to actual flight is due for an overhaul. Technology will need to leapfrog the industry and its bureaucracy to win. - Tom Roberto, Core Technology Solutions  [read more]

Could Marijuana Use Make Injuries More Painful?

From Live Science.com (June 19):

Marijuana use may affect how much pain people feel and the dose of painkillers they need following a traumatic injury, such as an injury from a car accident, a new study suggests.

The study found that, after experiencing a traumatic injury, marijuana users reported higher levels of pain, and needed higher doses of opioid painkillers, compared with patients who didn't use marijuana.

The researchers stressed that the findings are preliminary, and more studies are needed to confirm the results. But if the results are confirmed, the study could have implications for treating pain in marijuana users — a population that may be growing due to increased legalization of the drug, the researchers said. [read more]

Here Are 5 New Signs Social Security Is Going Insolvent

From Daily Signal.com (June 6):

The Social Security Administration released its annual trustees report this week, and the prognosis is not good.

Trust fund depletion—the date when Social Security’s reserves will be exhausted and the program will only be able to spend what it receives in payroll taxes at that time—is approaching at a rapid pace. This year, Social Security will dip into its reserves for the first time since 1982.

Simply put, the trust fund is being drained.

The Social Security trustees report is a key pulse check on the single largest federal government program—the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance program—and its sibling, the Disability Insurance Program.

Americans should be made aware of the true state of Social Security so they can better understand why reforming the program is not only necessary, but absolutely essential.

Here are five takeaways from the most recent financial report:

1. $41 billion cash-flow deficit in 2017.
2. $16.1 trillion in unfunded obligations.
3. Insolvent by 2034.
4. Automatic 21 percent cut in benefits.
5. Delaying reform comes with a high cost.

[read more]

FEE.org articles on social security.

Self-healing material mimics the resilience of soft biological tissue

From Kurzweil AI.net (May 21):

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) researchers have created a self-healing material that spontaneously repairs itself under extreme mechanical damage, similar to many natural organisms. Applications include bio-inspired first-responder robots that instantly heal themselves when damaged and wearable computing devices that recover from being dropped.

The new material is composed of liquid metal droplets suspended in a soft elastomer (a material with elastic properties, such as rubber). When damaged, the droplets rupture to form new connections with neighboring droplets, instantly rerouting electrical signals. Circuits produced with conductive traces of this material remain fully and continuously operational when severed, punctured, or have material removed.

“Other research in soft electronics has resulted in materials that are elastic, but are still vulnerable to mechanical damage that causes immediate electrical failure,” said Carmel Majidi, PhD, a CMU associate professor of mechanical engineering, who also directs the Integrated Soft Materials Laboratory. “The unprecedented level of functionality of our self-healing material can enable soft-matter electronics and machines to exhibit the extraordinary resilience of soft biological tissue and organisms.”

The self-healing material also exhibits high ability to conduct electricity, which is not affected when stretched. That makes it ideal for uses in power and data transmission, as a health-monitoring device on an athlete during rigorous training, or an inflatable structure that can withstand environmental extremes on Mars, for example. [source]

Kind of sounds like the liquid shape-shifting terminator villain (T-1000) in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Hmmm.

One computer forecasting system predicted Trump’s victory—the one with the least human input.

From Next Gov.com (Nov. 10, 2016):

Donald Trump’s win surprised many around the world, but none more than the modelers and big league prognosticators who were calling for a likely Clinton victory. That outcome doesn’t mean data-driven forecasting died on Tuesday. In fact, the best performance went to an artificial intelligence able to crunch more data than its human rivals.

The takeaway? Forecasters need new ways to talk about the uncertainty of their models and need to expand beyond “polling data.” The Defense Department and the intelligence community, who have also grown fond of machine-aided prediction, would do well to heed that lesson.

There’s an important and overlooked distinction between a prediction (which suggests certainty) and a forecast, which acknowledges more than one possible outcome and then weighs multiple outcomes in terms of their relative probability. But humans, and particularly media types who report on polling information, like certainty. So forecasts are cast as predictions.

………………….

It’s thus not surprising the big winner in the polling contest last night was not a human at all but an artificial intelligence named MogIA. Developed by Indian entrepreneur Sanjiv Rai, it takes in 20 million data points from a variety of open public websites such as YouTube, Google, Twitter and Facebook to uncover trends in “user engagement.”

Rai said his exclusive arrangement with CNBC prevents him from talking about how the system works or crunches the data points.

“While most algorithms suffer from programmers/developer’s biases, MoglA aims at learning from her environment, developing her own rules at the policy layer and develop expert systems without discarding any data,” Rai told CNBC reporter Arjun Kharpal. [read more]

If that AI program can predict the next presidential election it’s a darn good program.

Happy Birthday, America!

Below is part of a transcript from Fox News show Life, Liberty & Levin March 18. Mark Levin interviews Dr. Larry Arnn about the Declaration of Independence:

LEVIN: Renowned president of Hillsdale College, expert on matters related to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, Churchill and today's show we're going to dive deeply into these issues.

Let's start with the Declaration of Independence. Everybody knows we celebrate July 4th as Independence Day, but let's read part of the Declaration of Independence and maybe can you help explain some of these words to us, because we read it, goes really in our mouths, out our ears but these words have meaning.

First of all, before I read, they were very, very meticulous, weren't they, about what they put in the Declaration?

ARNN: Yes, well they -- mostly on the motion of John Adams, they picked Thomas Jefferson who had proved to be a beautiful writer of pamphlets leading up to the American Revolution, and they wanted somebody who could write in an elevated way and a moving way.

LEVIN: And they had various iterations of the Declaration until they finalized it, isn't that right?

ARNN: That's right, that's right. He sat and wrote it in a room by himself, July 1st and 2nd and then they debated it and then they voted and they altered it in some ways.

LEVIN: Let's start at beginning. "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

Now, here are the words I want to focus on with you, "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." Are those important? What does that mean?

ARNN: Well, the document is unprecedented, and it is unprecedented for two reasons. One is, it's a law. It's a political act of a people, a people formed by this act. And yet it starts out in the way you said, right, so the opening sentence is, "When in the course." that means any time, "One people," that means any people. So, it is eternal and universal.

Now the legal act that they undertake is to separate themselves from the strongest man on earth -- the King of England. And that's an act of war or treason, depending on who wins the war, and they need some standard to do that by.

And so, for the first time in human history, in this particular political act, they appeal to laws that are eternal and divine. That is to say, above what any -- no one can ever change them, right?

These are things that are set in nature. And so they go up that high in part because they simply have to, as you see in the very last sentence, it probably talked about that, it becomes -- it starts with this grand, sweeping universal and it ends with a particular pledge unto death of the people in the room, and they feel like they need some justification for this, and so they don't say "we want to," they say, "This is an act done in light of the great laws that always prevail. [read more]

An article about American Exceptionalism: “America Is More Than Political Differences — We Must Preserve American Exceptionalism, Not Throw It Away.”

A video by Glenn Beck:  Glenn on Understanding the Declaration of Independence

When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along.  -- Carl Sandburg

The United States is like a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.  -- Edward Grey (1862-1933), British statesman

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.  -- Samuel Adams

The great pillars of all government and of social life [are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible. -- Patrick Henry

Zero Emission Vehicles Can Increase Air Pollution: Study

From FEE.org (May 17):

A new report by economist Jonathan Lesser of the Manhattan Institute challenges the conventional wisdom that zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) are superior to new internal combustion vehicles (ICVs) on environmental grounds. Lesser also has an op-ed in Politico today based on the study.

Lesser’s analysis is detailed and quantitative, but the basic idea is simple: Zero-emission vehicles are only as clean as the electric power sources they plug into. Given the electricity fuel mix reasonably projected by the Energy Information Administration between now and 2050, both nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions from the power plants supplying zero-emission vehicles will exceed the emissions from new internal combustion vehicles.

The study also finds that the carbon dioxide emission reductions achieved by zero-emission vehicles, even if all are powered by renewable sources, would be too small to detectably affect global temperatures and thus have no measurable economic value. (See "Air Pollution Regulation Isn’t the Answer" for more.) [read more]

Make sense to me. As for the last paragraph, it doesn’t matter to the Left because global warming is a religion to them.

Dick Morris: The Hard-Left Takeover in Mexico

From Breitbart.com (June 26):

Mexico’s presidency is going communist, following in the footsteps of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, and Hugo Chávez. But Mexico is not a thousand miles away like Venezuela or tiny like Cuba and Nicaragua. It’s huge — one-third the size of the U.S. — and shares a long border with us.

In the Mexican elections, scheduled for July 1, voters are apparently going to choose an authoritarian socialist — Andrés Manuel López Obrador (nicknamed AMLO) — as their new president.

AMLO leads the field with 51 percent of the vote, trailed by the PAN candidate Ricardo Anaya at 25 percent and the PRI nominee Jose Antonio Meade at 22 percent.

(I [Dick Morris] have worked for the PAN candidates in the past three elections including successful nominees Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon. In the Calderon campaign, I worked hard to defeat AMLO. But I am not involved in this campaign).

AMLO is as radical as they come. He is a true Fidelista or, in more modern vernacular a Chavista (after Hugo Chávez of Venezuela) or a Sandinista (after Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua). National Review called AMLO a “Chávez wannabe.” He described Fidel Castro as “a giant,” who “knew how to steer his people and achieve authentic, true independence.” He is a dedicated socialist who we can count on being inveterately hostile to the United States in general and Donald Trump in particular.

Already the blame game in the U.S. has started. The Atlantic headlined its story about AMLO’s likely victory “Mexico’s Revenge” saying that “by antagonizing the U.S.’s neighbor to the south, Donald Trump has made the classic bully’s error: He has underestimated his victim.” [read more]

It looks like Mexico is going to get poorer than it already is. Drug cartels won’t be dealt with. This guy’s motto: Love and peace. Sort of like Obama’s “Hope and Change.” Meaningless. I strongly suggest any foreign companies in Mexico leave before this joker gets elected or they will be nationalized. It’s too bad for the Mexican people but I guess they didn’t have much choice in the elections. Definitely not good news for America.