Started First Twitter Account October 23, 2014

Finally I signed up for my first Twitter account. I have been using it to (not exactly) 'impersonate King Solomon setting forth his proverbs':

David Virgil Hobbs (@charlemagneson) | Twitter

Should Ebola Response Include W. Africa Travel Ban?

The opposition to the banning of travel from W. Africa to the U.S.A, hinges on the following idea:

Banning travel from A (W. Africa) to C (USA) is incorrect because persons leaving A (W. Africa) could go to B (a nation other than the USA that is not in W. Africa) and then from B to C, thereby circumventing the travel ban.

Regardless of whether or not a W. African travel ban should be implemented, this argument contains logical mistakes.

1. Even if travelers could circumvent a travel-ban by stopping at B before going to C, the travel-ban could still significantly improve the infection situation in the USA.

2. If B bans travel from A to B, it would not be possible for persons to travel from A to B and then from B to C.

3. Government & the private sector are capable of keeping track regarding which individuals travel from A to B, and then attempt to travel from B to C.

The pros of not implementing a W. African travel ban have to be balanced against the cons. A laundry list of the cons does not suffice.

libertarianism re credentials: a long-held attitude for me

This week I've sent out some emails to important educational organizations such as: American Association School Librarians; School Nutrition Association; National Association of School Boards, National PTA, and the NEA.

I expressed what is still basically my opinion regarding education, eleven years ago in a Usenet Newsgroup Post (thank God Google did its usual super-competent job cataloging Usenet):

no govt credentialism & free access to all degrees--imagine the greatness of such a land - Google Groups

Educators apparently tend to assume that reduction of government interference re who has to learn what where in order to practice an occupation, will harm them. If they thought more deeply, they would see how such reduction in government interference could help them as opposed to harm them.

Reprint of the 11-year old post:

Note: below the post, is a copy of my June 2014 email to World Cup ref Rizzoli, showing the part of the text of the email having to do with govt meddling in credentialism. 

Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail
From: vinc...@rcn.com (David Virgil Hobbs)
Newsgroups: misc.education
Subject: no govt credentialism & free access to all degrees--imagine the greatness of such a land
Date: 11 Aug 2003 20:41:53 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com/
Lines: 104
Message-ID: <6ed1146e.0308111941.697040c@posting.google.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.6.191.42
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Trace: posting.google.com 1060659713 7423 127.0.0.1 (12 Aug 2003 03:41:53 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: groups...@google.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Aug 2003 03:41:53 GMT
Xref: archiver1.google.com misc.education:67033

NO GOVERNMENT MANDATED CREDENTIALISM AND FREE CONVENENIENT ACCESS FOR EVERYONE TO EVERY ACADEMIC DEGREE--IMAGINE THE GREATNESS OF SUCH A SOCIETY

Once upon a time, in the land of Nod, all of Nod's citizens had a
chance to study law and medicine and all the other skills taught in
graduate school using the internet intranets and other methods.
 
Nod's government did not interfere by dictating that persons would  be
allowed to practice a given occupation only if that person attended
one of the government's few expensive pet government approved schools.
 
 Nod's government stayed out of the issues such as what should be
taught and how at the various schools.
 
The native inherent genius energy and capacity for hard work of the
people of the land of Nod, which is still evident through simply
browsing the internet today,  was unleashed in those days.
 
All kinds of excellent efficient reasonably priced schools of every
kind sprang up under the Nod government's policies.
 
 There was no such thing in Nod in those days, as a person who was not lazy, whose talents went unutilized and whose potential was not
fulfilled.
 
As a result the citizens of Nod enjoyed access to high quality cost
efficient goods and services in every conceivable field, and the
access to such increased their productivity even further.
 
The talent unleashed by the Nod government's restraint, resulted in
all kinds of new discoveries and advances in all kinds of fields.
 
The money that the citizens of Nod earned and saved and invested, went far in the world in those days, because since the people of Nod were so skilled, and such achievers, their currency was always in demand because people wanted to have it so as to be able to buy things from the people of Nod and employ and pay the people of Nod, and visit the land of Nod as tourists; and to compound this for even the better, the world had confidence in the future of Nod's society which added further to the value of the Noddar the currency of Nod.
 
In those days no nation desired to aggress against Nod because Nod was a respected model state that the nations of the world strove to
imitate.
 
But then Satanael rose to power over the land of Nod and the land was darkened, because Satanael demanded that the citizens of Nod, attend expensive schools with a highly limited number of training spots
available,  as a prerequisite to them being allowed to practice
various occupations.
 
Satanael decreed, that no citizen of Nod, would be allowed to cook
food, unless he earned a graduate degree in cooking, which cost
$100,000 and took four years to obtain; and said degree had to be
obtained from schools run by Satanael's cronies, which were in their
words "unfortunately" only able to train 112,000 citizens of Nod each
year in the art of cooking.
 
Similarly, those who worked in the building trades, and the tailors,
and the taxi drivers, and the doctors, and the teachers, and the
dancers, and the lawyers, in fact persons of every occupation, were
required to attend costly time consuming schools in order to be able
to do things; and the damage was compounded by the fact that there
were so few training spots available in these schools run by
Satanael's cronies.
 
Nod as a result, degenerated physiologically as its people became sick in body, psychologically as they became sick in mind, and spiritually as they became sick in soul.
 
Nod with its new restrictions hurtled downhill economically and
militarily, and increasingly Nod became despised in the world.
 
While Nod so to speak burned, its conservative libertarian leaders
railed at redistributive taxation--but inexplicably they ignored the
clear affront to their principles that Satanael's new meddling in what
people had to "learn" where constituted.
 
As prices of goods and services skyrocketed while their quality
plummeted due to Satanael's new credentialist restrictions, the
citizens of Nod grew unable to afford basic things in life without
government assistance and clamored for such assistance; but the
conservative libertarians scornfully labeled as "liberals" those who
would tax the people of Nod and use the revenue to help them to pay
for goods and services that were once affordable but that Satanael's
decrees had made astronomically priced and out of reach.
 
Meanwhile Nod's liberal interventionists, having become closely
intertwined with the privileged few on Satanael's campuses and also
off campus who profited from Satanael's restrictions, also
jaw-droppinlgy  dropped the ball and ignored the obvious damage caused by Satanael's pedantic restrictions.
 
Noddians of all stripes fingered this problem or that problem as
culprit, but a black hole seemed to have developed in that portion of
their brains that should have been easily able to apprehend the
obvious truth, that Satanael's occupational licensing restrictions
were demolishing the nation.
 
Sound familiar? It should. Because the golden age of Nod is the USA
that the USA government refuses to allow to exist; and the degeneracy of Nod is the USA as it exists today.

---

Reply-To: <DavidVHobbs_AB-Econ@post.harvard.edu>
From: <DavidVHobbs_AB-Econ@post.harvard.edu>
To: "World Cup Ref Nicola Rizzoli" <direttore.generale@figc.it>
Cc: <refereeing@fifa.org>,
 <ouvidoria@internacional.com.br>,
 <fabianak@gp.prefpoa.com.br>,
 <pedro.maciel@gp.prefpoa.com.br>,
 <vitorpaz@gp.prefpoa.com.br>,
 <kusiak@gp.prefpoa.com.br>,
 <thiago.ribeiro@gp.prefpoa.com.br>,
 <suporte@mariaimaculada.com.br>,
 <cip-cs@fase.rs.gov.br>,
 <ninatt@gmail.com>,
 <atendimento@trensurb.gov.br>,
 <infraerocargoportoalegre@infraero.gov.br>,
 <aaii@pucrs.br>,
 <prorh@rh.ufrgs.br>,
 <jmello@gabinete.ufrgs.br>,
 <fsantos@procuradoria.ufrgs.br>,
 <sead@ufrgs.br>,
 <relinter@gabinete.ufrgs.br>,
 <faleconosco@barrashoppingsul.com.br>,
 <contato@bardobeto.com.br>
Subject: World Cup Ref Nicola Rizzoli: what Id do if I were Brazil prez, original telekinetic poetic prayers, theological & soccer insights 
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 04:31:26 -0400...

World Cup Referee Referee Nicola Rizzoli: 

...If I were President of Brazil I would present the following as a draft of my intitial ideas, assemble experts, and pick the brains of the experts with questions:
 
Initial Draft, Solutions to Brazil Problems
 ...
 5. Get the government out of being involved in matters such as: who has to learn what where in order to practice some occupation. Leave the matter of grading/licensing the excellent schools and professionals such would produce up to the residents of the nation and the private sector. such decisions up to the freedom of the citizens.
...
 The above plan is based upon some of my current beliefs: ...the worst economic sin is to fail to make use of the talents of the people...

Song about Boston my original attempt at lyrics

LAST UPDATED: 4:20 AM 10/4/2014

This is where I will post various new versions of the song, together with my notes re the version.

---

6:04 AM 10/3/2014

Boston Song Version 1

Boston makes ancient Greece
Look like the minor Leagues
There's something that's alive
In its starry sky
There's no gravity
It sets your soul free
You're light as the man on the moon
Far from the suburban gloom

V1 Notes: I had some poetic feelings about Boston, that I attempted to translate into lyrics for song. I applied what I learned re writing lyrics last time I studied the subject. I tried to keep the number of syllables per line down to around 6-8. I tried to use vocabulary of the type used by children younger than twelve. I tried to keep the grammatical construction similar to that used by grade-schoolers. But I'm not satisfied. There's no repeating chorus. There are not enough lines. The melody that these lyrics naturally give rise to at first, is merely a childish nursery school type melody. I suspect that if these lyrics were to be delivered well in song, the delivery would have to be unorthodox in terms of rhythm, melody and the number and types of singers utilized.

---

4:20 AM 10/4/2014

Boston Song Version 2

Boston makes ancient Greece
Look like the minor Leagues
There's something that's alive
In its starry sky
There's no gravity
It sets your soul free
You're light as the man on the moon
Far from the suburban gloom

Downtown you can space out
Hearing seeing nothing
Remembering nothing
Except that sky spirit
Being the life without
And the life that's within

V2 Notes: I won't repeat the comments in V1 Notes. These lyrics might work better if hi-tech studio type audio distortion was effected during the singing of one or more lines. Possible such effects: echo, bass-level, playback-speed-slowdown, chorus, etc. Lines such as those found in this V2, sometimes work well when they are spoken as opposed to sung; they can be spoken with melodic and/or percussion background, or they can be spoken in between melodic and/or percussion segments. There is no need to remain stuck in the first childish melody that comes to mind on the first attempt to sing this song. The lyrics could be sung to the melody of any song using 6-8 syllables per line. Singing the song to a pre-existing melody for a song using 6-8 syllables per line, could be a way to shake onself out of the rut wherein one gets mentally stuck with the first childish melody that comes to mind on the first ad-hoc attempt to sing the lines to a melody.

---

12:27 AM 10/5/2014

Boston Song Version 3

Boston makes ancient Greece
Look like the minor Leagues
There's something that's alive
In its starry sky
There's no gravity
It sets your soul free
You're light as the man on the moon
Far from the suburban gloom

Downtown you can space out
Hearing seeing nothing
Remembering nothing
Except that sky spirit
Being the life without
And the life that's within

Boston sits in the ocean
Like the moon in the heavens
The fresh clean ocean breeze
Is magic air to breathe

V3 Notes: Nothing I can think of.

---

11:07 PM 10/15/2014

Boston Song Version 4

Boston makes ancient Greece
Look like the minor Leagues
There's something that's alive
In its starry sky
There's no gravity
It sets your soul free
You're light as the man on the moon
Far from the suburban gloom

Downtown you can space out
Hearing seeing nothing
Remembering nothing
Except that sky spirit
Being the life without
And the life that's within

Boston sits in the ocean
Like the moon in the heavens
The fresh clean ocean breeze
Is magic air to breathe

Boston's dancing concubine
Inspires a passion divine

V4 Notes: The lines added (boldface), again for some reason seem like good poetry but hard to put a melody that is not nursery-schoolish to. Yet it was very difficult to come up with a new stanza that expressed the thought intended without sounding silly.

Senator Blather: GOP sh'd be awarded Medal of Hono'

I just got a message from Senator Blather, which I reproduce below. He asserts that an anthropomorphic representation of the Republican Party, should be awarded the Medal of Honor, because, "Af'er all, co'porashuns is people too". 

Off the bat the first thing that comes in to mind as a response to Senator Blather: American businessmen don't seem to understand, that their ability to extract money from foreign economies, is weak compared to the ability of citizens of those foreign economies to extract money from those economies. They don't understand that their ability to extract money from the American economy, is much stronger than their ability to extract money from foreign economies. As a result they are inappropriately oblivious to the problem of money draining away from the US to foreign nations by way of trade deficits. 

Here is the email I received from Senator Blather:

----- Original Message -----

From: Senator Blather

To: David Virgil Hobbs

Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2014 7:58 PM

Subject: GOP sh'd be awarded medal of hono'

David Virgil Hobbs,

Th' Republicans sh'd be awarded th' congresshunal medal of hono'. Ah shall anthropomo'phize th' republican party, as an indivijool named Jedidiah Rich. Hyar is mah citashun fo' Jedidiah Rich:

Citashun: Th' Senato' Blather of th' United States of South Carolina, in th' name of Congress, takes pride in presentin' th' Medal of Hono' (Posthoomously) t'Captain Jedidiah Rich, United States GOP, fo' cornspicuous gallantry an' intrepidity at th' risk of his life above an' beyond th' call of duty, while servin' as a political ackivist wif th' Gran' Old Party in operashuns aginst th' enemah in th' United States of America. Rich single-han'edly demolished th' American economah, tharby destroyin' th' ability of th' lazy as a houn'dog American varmints t'pareesitize th' hard-wawkin' an' thrifty billionaires. Rich courageously sto'med th' democrat strongholds, destroyin' taxes an' tariffs, tharby makin' available inexpensive high quality imports. He then spent so much of his money on th' imports, thet th' American economah became mighty sick, an' th' thievin' lazy as a houn'dog American varmints became too pore an' weak t'harass th' billionaires. Rich's valiant determinashun has put our economah on th' right track, on account o' due t'Rich's inormous level of spendin' on imports, th' USA's Net Internashunal Investment Posishun, has been an' corntinues t' sink like a stone. As a result of Rich's valor, th' American economah is now runnin' on cash on hand by way of sales of assets t'foreigners, which is a great accomplishment, on account o' soon, wif th' passage of a li'l time, th' amount of money fo'eigners take outta America by way of profits off of th' assets they haf bought, will exceed th' amount of money they put into America by buyin' th' assets in th' fust place, an' this hyar will honorably serve t'continue t'pareelyze th' ability of th' lazy as a houn'dog Americans t'pareesitize th' billionaires. Th' selfless dedicashun t'duty exhibited by Rich in his exploits, will prodooce an increase in terms of th' power fo'eigners have to influence American govment decishuns, an increase which will not be balanced out by increases in th' ability of Americans t'influence th' decishuns of honorable foreign govments, on account o' Americans haf not been runnin' trade surpluses enablin' them t'buy foreign assets. This hyar net increase in foreign power will inable respeckable foreigners, who does not harass glorious billionaires wif democracy-type systems, t'further drain money away fum th' United States, which will haf th' effeck of abortin' th' ability of th' redistribushunist Americans t'jealously pareesitize brilliant billionaires.

-- Senator Billy Jo Blather