The Problem with Alaska State Government Revenue Decline

Diversification is important. Those who fail to diversify are doomed to decline when the commodity upon which they rely falls in value. As it is in the wild kingdom, so it is in government and business revenues. In the anthropocene era of mass extinction, diminishing wild resources follow the concentration of non-ecologically economic unsound government policy and decline. Going back to the same food sources for financial nourishment until they are exhausted, and looking with Neanderthal spiritual brothers for a point of light in the dark of night, oil is in the stone lamp flaming the moss wick to guide government to the promised land of more wells pumping in syncopation.

A Blitz Chess Game I liked

This is one of my better 3 minute games. It was fun to play.

Russia Has a Newer, Higher-rated Main Battle Tank

There is a video that provides a commparison between the U.S. Abrams and the Russian Armata main battle tanks. The Armata has great looking tank-value. One would need independently guided drones with anti-tank cluster bombs or maybe some stealthy, sticky flying heat mines that glom onto a tank a burn through its metal to do much with it. I like the angled turret; tough to get a solid hit with a rocket on that. Maybe President Trump should buy 500 instead of developing a next gen Abrams; the Clinton MBT or something. The comparative shopper value rating (throwing out the last two meaningless scores) was Armata 76 vs Abrams 61.

So the rating is 76 for the Armata and 61 for the Abram.The Armata is a newer tank and a little better and a lot cheaper. Those pesky drones landing like giant invisible mosquitoes might make a tanker's life difficult in the years ahead. Russia might sell quite a few, even in the U.S.A., though Detroit won't allow Tesla's to be sold on other dealership lots in Michigan. Might be cheaper than developing a next-gen Clinton M.B.T.

The Armata costs 3 million apiece plus while the Abrams runs 8 or 9 million each. It goes 54 m.p.h. while the Abrams is a 36 M.P.H. slow poke. Youthful tank drivers like speed I would think. The U.S. Government already has 9200 Abrams. That may be enough already. Could Sect. of State Tillerson interest Russia in buying a 1000 used Abrams?

Should Military Sign-Uo Age Be Raised to 60 for Tech Jobs?

Enlistment in the U.S. military is capped at 34. That was designed for an era when the computer didn’t exist and far fewer technical and electronic devices existed; not to mention software and system’s analysis.

If the military wants to assure that is has software developers without decades of experience it should keep the present enlistment age. If it wants computer people that have been working in the field for a half century it might want to raise the enlistment age for tech work in select MOS’s to age 60.

Those over 34 would need to show several years of pre-existing training and education in a field the military deems useful.

There would probably be fewer adjustments required of the military for older people than those needed for trans-gender soldiers and homosexuals. Older people merely need reasonable accommodation, and should probably learn to shoot .357 magnum semi-automatic pistols instead of Army combat rifles.

Older intellectuals that would enlist to serve to keep the national defense tight probably should have height and weight criteria and some basic soldier skills training, however it should be soldier skills express in a basic training regime designed for older enlistees.

It might be useful to have separate services rankings for elder tech enlistees equivalent in military nomenclature for E, WO, and O; they could be T or Technical soldiers somewhere parallel to WOs.

Zuckerberg May Be Inventing Mind-Control Chess

It stands to reason that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg would invent mind-controlled chess. He is working on mind-computer interface so taking the next step to mind-controlled electronic chess is only logical.

Blitz chess is fast. Hitting the Fischer clock to start and stop time is nno country for old men. Gary Kasparov will play in the Grand Prix event at St. Louis in blitz and rapid and would do better with an electronic board so he doesn't knock over pieces playing against younger, quicker hand-eye guys.

If Kasparov merely had to think to move a piece or start and stop the clock he would probably be faster than the much younger opponents. Outwardly he may be all thumbs while inwardly he has the mind of a Zuckerberg.

Older players hope that Kasparov whips the young fellows with the knowledge. He thus could use a Fischer clock changed so that the controlling device for the player has a button on a wire for each player on their own side of the board. Reaching to one side can be disadvantagious for a left-handed player or vice versa, and impossible for one with a pre-existing shoullder injury or arthritic fingers.

It is embarrassing to see a player knock over chess pieces where he might have won otherwise. That can be remedied with brain-chessboard interfacebooking with the winning move just a thought away.

G-20 Protesters are Anti-Globalist like Pres. Trump?

G-20 protesters gathering in Hamburg to make an anti-globalism statement may have an ally inside in President Donald Trump. A real America-first policy must be anti-globalist implicitly to be true.

http://www.dw.com/en/g20-underway-in-hamburg-amid-violent-protests-live-updates/a-39589687

There are many pro and con points for globalism. Communications today have made globalism a fact. The effort is to keep political sovereignty locally in order that democracy can continue to exist instead of networked planetary plutonomy.

Ecologically speaking there are innumerable inefficiencies that waste energy and resources in shipping everything about globally. Its damaging to the ecological sustainability of the world, yet leaders really don't think about that much. While they talk up global warming measures they promote trade policies that contribute to the anthropocene mass extinction. They could place a global warming tax on fossil fuel vehicles and a moratorium on electric vehicle taxes, yet money matters more than change.

British P.M. Theresa may talks about stopping terrorist financing, yet that is basically the entire Muslim world, China and about everyone besides the United States and Europe (except for dissenting communists). Everyone in the globalism era has an interest in  bumping off the U.S. and Europe economically and politically. Terrorism supports economic empowerment for non-western powers. Fundamentally the concern about terrorist financing that any G-20 leaders will have would actualize as victimization of their own citizens in ways that would accelerate the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the most rich.

Because the G-20 powers are concerned largely about making the most rich richer they will enact more policies that appeal to planetary populists for economic purposes, allow Europe to become Muslim and continue to attack the U.S.A. and President Trump for having a different idea. He shall find it difficult to resist their desire to annex Ukraine and Russia unto Europe with an eye on the vast mineral wealth of Siberia.

Human nature and original sin haven’t evolved away. People still want personal consumer comforts and real estate, cars in the yard and good health care. Mostly they have become unconcerned about politics except to appeal for more for-themselves. They tend not to care about public debt. Those attitudes are developed and exploited by the G-20 leaders who seek just to concentrate wealth. Reproduced billions of times, those approaches are not good for the prospects of human life on Earth; "I am selling my kid's bicycles; they have moved up to SUVs".

G-20; Place Tax on Global Warming Gas Cars- Not Electric Vehicles

The G-20 ought to try to actually get something useful done and agree to place a global warming tax on fossil fuel burning internal combustion engine vehicles. They should also agree that trafficking cars that produce global warming gas should incur a modest penalty. 

The G-20 should agree to not allow fuel taxes on e-cars in order to encourage sales increase of non-greenhouse gassing vehicles.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40526169

Look at any ordinary European or American city; they are flooded with cars and SUVs and people that idle the engines to warm up or cool down. Those people are clueless and their cars are sent abroad to the second and third world eventually. Humanity is a species with hundreds of millions of vehicles adding global warming gasses as if they were dinosaurs that don't get it.

A modest incentive to produce more e-cars that would one day be sent to Africa and Latin America instead of dirty smog generating clunkers is a very modest yet useful step to take.