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1968, or so they claim, Otis Redding did 'Sittin' on the dock of the bay'. I missed the anniversary, and just stumbled over the tribute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ca5QoXSe18

Great song, of course. But only after I sat on the docks of dozens of ports did I truly appreciate it. Like seafood, the song goes best with the smell of brine, and the smell of life in all stages of development and decay in your nostrils.

But, TBH, I didn't arrive directly on that tribute page. First, I landed on this page, produced by playingforchange https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es3Vsfzdr14 The title of the video page is 'Sittin' on the dock of the bay | Playing for change | song around the world

Catchy title, ehhh? I almost closed it, but the initial image of an old black dude sitting in the street intriqued me. Go ahead, give it a listen. The images from around the US and the world are a treat, as are the various sounds of the artists.

I won't list any more videos - I just give you the link to https://playingforchange.com/ and you can explore all you like.

I wonder though . . . Playing for Change makes me think of our MDC. Wonder if he ever went out to Westport, and played Otis? https://parks.state.wa.us/284/Westport-Light
Maybe - even city boys sometimes wander out to the lonely places. It's a great place to take your offspring, and let them get their feet wet, while you embellish some sea stories for them. (Unfortunately, when I had my son there, the upper levels of the lighthouse were closed. But we did get to see a lens really close up!)

After listening to several offerings, by several artists, you may want to listen to the "original", that we all listened to when I was starting junior high school. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyPKRcBTsFQ

Rest in peace, Otis. And, rest in peace, Michael David.

Apologies to anti-Youtubers - that's where I landed today. Enjoy!

I'll finish by summarizing what really angers me about this "social contract". First, as I mentioned, it's not really a contract nor is it usually invoked as such, but rather to excuse coercion. Any real contract would have provisions for a) honoring promises made in good faith and rejecting those made in bad faith, b) protecting the future of society, particularly of future generations, and c) apply equally to all, not just marginalized protesters who have good reason to dislike what's going on.

Second, it's commonly invoked to excuse tax collection for venal or short-sighted reasons. Sure, it's nice that older generations voted themselves a hefty pension and health services at the expense of younger generations (a near universal phenomenon in the developed world). But that dishonesty should be rewarded with a severe cutback to the benefits, not disruption of young peoples' lives and the decay of the society. Similarly, we're seeing most countries shifting to debt loads that are at least as large as their GDP (a crude measure of the size of the economy), again a glaring sign that the electorate isn't thinking about the future.

Third, it's telling that most advocates of the social contract can only point to simple things like roads or police as benefits of social contracts while the actual expenditures cover far more. If you can only point to 5-10% of government expenditure as a benefit (usually with a horrid inefficiency in benefit for the cost), then that's a strong sign to me that the government in question should be radically shrunk, perhaps as part of said social contract. Yet somehow the social contract is that we should pay our taxes, not that we should fight hard to reduce the government burden on our lives.

I think it's telling that social contract advocates can easily state what I should give to the contract, but have a hard time coming up with concrete examples of what I get from the contract. It's telling for example, that the link above was to a post rationalizing why there was some sort of "bargain" in place to presumably prevent the sort of parent/child problems mentioned in the story (and prevent pension fund looting as well).

In summary, I refuse to call this a contract, because it's not on so many different levels. Instead it is your social expectations which need not be either reasonable or honored.

Now, let's consider the matter of the "Rule of Law". A particularly poetic bit comes from end of some boilerplate in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.

As an important aside, this document makes a huge appeal to the "social compact" in its preamble. The difference is that they wrote it down which is very different from most such appeals to the social contract as an intangible thing.

The bolded text above illustrates the fundamental dichotomy that the lawmakers of the time were concerned with. In rule of law, the law is written down and communicated via an established process with alterations possible in a consistent way. Just as important, everyone is beholden to the law equally. In rule of man, well, some dude decides what the law will be that day. Maybe they'll do so with great foresight and gravitas, but history is chock full of those who didn't.

Anyway, let's briefly consider the virtues and drawbacks of rule of law. The obvious virtue is that since the law is written down, it's not hard to figure out what's allowed or not. You don't have to worry about breaking laws that someone invented on the spot. It's a saner, more stable, freer society as a result.

The drawbacks? The primary one is that law need not be just or fair. There's plenty of stuff when applied to everyone benefits some groups inordinately.

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread. -- Anatole France

Technically, rule of law, but someone gets screwed.

Another problem is once you can write down rules, you can write down lots and lots and lots of rules. The developed world is an evolving example of how this can lead to a giant morass. Nor is there any foreseeable end to rule writing particularly given how such rules can interact with each other in unpleasant negative synergy, leading to rules to fix rules to fix rules.

That brings us to the conversation about rule of law that I linked above. I was accused of equating "legal with moral" even though the complaint was about rule of law. The subsequent discussion devolved to claiming that rule of law is amoral because the laws that comprise it are amoral. Somehow the immorality of arbitrary tyranny via rule of man was ignored.

This I find is a sadly common occurrence. People who laud the intangible social contract often heap scorn onto its written instantiation as rule of law. But rules that are concrete are vastly superior to vague and unspecified rules that aren't - particularly when the harm from and penalties for violating the [intangible] rules can be capricious or even nonexistent, often depending on the mood of the person that day. Such grotesque and unfair inconsistency should be avoided.

When the vacuum cleaner bag becomes full, attach it to a leaf blower, with a filter so that only the fine dust can be evenly distributed throughout the living space. The larger vacuumed up bits and crumbs will remain in the vacuum bag. If the vacuum bag is mostly empty, it can simply be re-attached to the vacuum cleaner. If the vacuum bag is too full after blowing out all of the fine dust, then its remaining contents can be:
* added to fireplace
* used as pillow stuffing
* added to garden soil
* leaf-blower disbursed into back yard
* mixed with used chewing gum as new form of play doh
* ingredient in cigarettes
* food additive, using a suitably complex ingredient name

Original source for this seems to be NPR member station WABE but I found it via antiwar.com.

I'll excerpt a bit but do read the whole thing.

President Donald Trump called former President Jimmy Carter for the first time this weekend.

Just that initial sentence was enough to brighten my day. I'm not a big fan of living Presidents, but Carter is the exception. If anyone can give Trump some good advice it will be Carter - and the fact Trump made the call indicates he just might listen to that advice.

So what kind of advice was given? Let me skip ahead a little.

(Carter) said Trump said he is particularly concerned about how China is “getting ahead of us.”

Carter agreed that’s true.

“And do you know why? I normalized diplomatic relations with China in 1979. Since 1979 do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody? None. And we have stayed at war,” he said.

The U.S., Carter said, has been at war for all but 16 years of its 242-year history. (China and Vietnam actually fought a brief border war in early 1979, weeks after normalization of U.S.-China relations.)

The last two sentence probably got reversed in an editorial mistake, because that reads quite awkwardly as is, but that's how my source has it.

He called the United States “the most warlike nation in the history of the world,” because of a tendency to try to force others to “adopt our American principles.”

And this is where, unfortunately, many of us obey our training, cover our eyes, stuff our fingers in our ears, and start saying something like 'hates America.'

No. This has nothing to do with hating anyone or anything. It has to do with the ability to set aside tribal sentiment and look at things objectively. What are the facts? As laid out above, China has been at peace since right about 1980, and focused single-mindedly on improving their economy, on building their originally pathetic industrial base until they are now the word leader. Over the same period, we've been at war virtually every year, and our military spending, already much larger than that of any other nation (or several put together) just keeps expanding.

We have to be able to acknowledge what that means, or we live in a dream, disconnected from reality, unable to understand the context of events we're therefore unable to respond appropriately.

Carter suggested that instead of war, China has been investing in its own infrastructure, mentioning that China has 18,000 miles of high-speed railroad.

“How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?”

It's definitely worth the click. Carter knows of what he speaks.

Chants like "Lock Her Up" look childish.

Political candidates need to learn and evolve.

Act more like adults.

Instead of each candidate promising, if elected, to lock up their opponent, they need to start labeling their opponents as terrorists and their campaign organizations as terrorist organizations. Then promise to use the full force of government against these terrorists.

Over in lizardloop's journal I made mention of a snafu at my work place, regarding arc flash protection. https://soylentnews.org/~lizardloop/journal/4161

Allow me to emphasize first, that I am NOT an electrician. I don't have the in depth training, nor do I have decades of experience in the field. However, I do a lot of electrical work inside the plant. For those who wonder how that can be - in theory, I work under the supervision of a qualified electrician. However, I've never met this mysterious electrician. Long story short, there are loopholes in the law, which my (and most other companies) take advantage of.

So, what is arc flash? In the most simple terms, when an electrical circuit is shorted out, you can expect electrical energy to be converted into thermal energy, and it usually happens explosively. There are formulas to determine how much energy you might expect to be converted. The results are given as calories per square cm. For the most part, 110V probably won't do more than cause a sunburn-like burn within about a foot, 220V likewise, and most of our 480 is equivalent to a bad sunburn within 18 inches. That is, most of our electrical work involves circuitry whose energy can be protected against by wearing rubber gloves, leather gloves, and long sleeve fire resistant shirt, and a faceshield and safety glasses. We all wear jeans, and electrical hazard rated boots. So, we have always been protected from arc flash, at the levels at which we most commonly work, or at least I have been.

In recent years, the industry has been working out new procedures, regulations, and standards for arc flash safety. Those who care to, can read the standards online:
https://www.ishn.com/articles/107825-nfpa-70e-2018-standard-for-electrical-safety-requirements
  https://arcflashamerica.com/nfpa-70e-2018-arc-flash-regulations

You will probably notice immediately the "2018" portion of the site addresses, as well as on the page in your browser. These standards went into effect just last year.

The company demands that we comply with the standards - BUT - we have a supposed safety officer who doesn't seem to understand diddly squat.

I need to stipulate that they hired an outside contractor to come into the plant, examine, and calculate the calorie rating of every single box, cabinet, receptacle in the plant. Few are rated higher than 8 calories. The protective clothing I have already described meets safety requirements for these low energy situations. Initially, the only thing we learned was that SOME of our boxes were higher energy than we thought, so we had to wear the coverall costume that the company supplies when we work on them.

Then, another edict - everyone MUST be dressed in 100% cotton. Blends of cotton were no longer permitted. No problem for me, because the Navy trained me for fire fighting, and I do not buy synthetic or synthetic blend clothing. The elastic in my underwear is the only synthetic in my clothing. Some of the other guys had to make changes, especially those who made use of the uniform service. Those uniforms are mostly nylon and rayon.

Next edict? Well, now we MUST wear arc flash rated clothing, while working on ANYTHING, or put the heavy-ass, hot costume on. Makes sense, don't it?

Go online, and start looking for AF rated clothing. Carhartts are my preference. I can buy a shirt and pants for about $70 bucks, and have been doing so for years. But, they aren't AF rated. Go to Carhartt site, and look for FR and AR rated clothing, you'll find shirts for $110, and jeans with an "AF rated button and closure" for $70. If you look, you will find two styles for a little less, but both are being phased out, with common sizes already out of stock. So - $180 for a shirt and pants.

https://www.carhartt.com/products/carhartt-men-big-tall-pants/Flame-Resistant-Relaxed-Fit-Utility-Jean-FRB004
https://www.carhartt.com/products/carhartt-flame-resistant-men-shirts/Flame-Resistant-Work-DryLightweight-Twill-Shirt-FRS003

(I've just clicked my own links again, and prices have dropped in the past couple of weeks - so I'll still complain about pricing, but it's not quite so bad. Maybe prices will continue to drop as production ramps up?)

Funny thing is, those AR rated items are 88% cotton and 12% nylon. "high tenacity" nylon? * It's nylon - it will melt before the cotton decides to burn.

What lizardloop was complaining about specifically in his journal entry, was idiot management people ticking off boxes, to cover their asses. And, this is what I'm seeing here. A new standard has been created, less for safety purposes, than to make sure everyone in the industry can cover their asses. The standard is lower than my own personal standard - but my standard won't meet the new industry standard unless it is certified. My standard is certified by no one, other than myself.

At my own corporate level - the safety people don't understand a DAMNED THING, other than they have to comply with a standard that they never heard of until this year. They are scrambling, to find clothing to meet the standard. And, they are coming up high dollar. Those who might be interested can do their own searches, and find work clothes that meet the standard, and cost two, three, even five times as much as these Carhartts.

(Paranthetically, my wife has found for me a few that are slightly less expensive than Carhartts, but I long ago rejected them for quality reasons. One top selling point for my Carhartts are seven belt loops, as opposed to five on most work jeans. I positively HATE to see men with their asses hanging out of their jeans, so I want those extra belt loops that actually keep my pants up over my ass, no matter what position I am working in. Dickies are out.)

So, I'm pretty pissed, both at the industry, and at my own employers. I wear out clothing pretty regularly, and between them, they have roughly doubled the cost of that clothing. And, this clothing will make me no safer than I have always been.

Bean counters and box tickers make life miserable for all of us.

* A couple searches reveals that "high tenacity" has nothing to do with the melting point of the nylon yarn, but the strength of that yarn. Nylon becomes "sticky" at temperatures as low as 200 degrees F, while cotton will not combust until it reaches 500 F. So, a cotton/nylon blend, subjected to an arc flash, is going to have some nylon trying to melt, then sticking to the cotton fibers surrounding it. That will leave behind a patch of fabrid that is stiff, and will crackle when flexed. One can only hope that none of the nylon threads will stick to the flesh beneath it. Note that this is a "flash" situation. A sustained heat source WILL melt the nylon, and that nylon WILL stick to the flesh beneath it.

She showed her age, but that didn't stop me lusting after her. I walked around and around her, admiring her front end, admiring her rear end, and everything in between.

Old dude walks up, and asks, "You like what you see?" I ask, "What year is she?" "'77." That surprised me - she actually looked to be older than my '68 was.

So, 1977 Malibu Classic station wagon, 350 with a 750 carb, and a 350 Turbo 4 speed behind it. Something I've never seen before, were the fin windows in the BACK of the car. I've looked for images on the internet to link to here, and haven't found any back seat fin windows yet. OH! https://www.imcdb.org/i575959.jpg I'm pretty sure those are fin windows, at the rear of the back seat windows. Nice. What's missing in that image, is the chrome air scoop, that directs air from the roof of the car, down over the back window. It helped to keep dust from collecting on it. '68 Caprice image shows the air scoop nicely - http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/z/8OQAAOSwdvpWDdQx/$_1.JPG?set_id=880000500F

All the while the old dude was telling me the specs on his '77, I was comparing it to my '68. I had a 327, with the (in)famous "3 speed slip slide" transmission, and a highway rearend. Nice pic here - http://smclassiccars.com/chevrolet/242061-1968-impala-station-wagon-6-passenger-chevy-chevrolet-patina-hot-rod.html

Most people look at these wagons, and think they are just ugly family cars. I looked at them, and saw beautiful working cars, adventure cars, and yes, even sport cars. Wagons usually had the same, or very similar, power trains as the sedan models they were built with. And, wagons usually only weighed a little more than the sedans. You could find some that were underpowered, but for the most part, they were more than adequately powered. In the case of the '68 Impala with the 327, it could run with the motorhead's hotrods. Couldn't beat them in the quarter, but given a longer run, it would pull alongside them. Somewhere around 1 mile, the Impala would smoke them all, because they all topped out starting around 70 mph, up to maybe 95 mph.

I said "adventure" cars? Two, three, four guys could easily toss camping, fishing, hunting gear in the back, and head out to the far horizons. Or, one guy could throw most of his possessions in there, and leave to never return.

Sedans are always cool, but wagons are even cooler. Does anyone here know how many GIRLS you can pack into a station wagon? A boatload, literally!

How many of you have fond memories of those old station wagons? Yesterday's equivalent of the SUV.

Interesting article on Air Force Times: https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-military/2019/04/05/heres-how-f-35-technology-would-be-compromised-if-turkey-also-had-the-s-400-anti-aircraft-system/

US officials have been upset about Turkey's plans to buy the Russian S-400 air defense system. As a consequence, the US might refuse to sell F-35s to Turkey.

Before reading the above article, I was trying to make sense of this situation. Is the US mad just because Russia is getting the business? Does it undermine their portrayal of Russia as NATO's boogieman? Wouldn't having the adversary's system under the control of your own ally be a great opportunity to reverse engineer it and gain some intel? Or is reverse engineering simply not profitable enough?

The AFT article doesn't address the money aspect. It also never mentions the idea of the US gaining info on the S-400, despite expressing great concern about info on the F-35 being leaked to Russia.

The U.S. Air Force was able to bomb Libya with impunity after knocking out its relic of an Integrated Air Defense System, but what if the country had actually maintained a competent IADS network?

If Turkey acquired the S-400 alongside the F-35, the technology that makes that aircraft lethal could potentially be compromised.

Working around Turkey to carry out missions in the Middle East isn’t impossible, just difficult. In order to continue projecting power, the U.S. may be forced to rely more on Jordan or Arab states like Qatar.

There's no pretense here about NATO being a defensive apparatus. It's about having bases from which the US can fly out and bomb people, any place it wants to. If Turkey bolstering its defense comes with the potential side effect that other countries' defense may also be improved, and the US may not be able to bomb with impunity, that is apparantly unacceptable to the US.