Why Hate the Koch Brothers?

If you hate GOP policies, you hate the Koch brothers. Right?

After listening to the Freakonomics interview with David Koch, I’ve now got mixed feelings.

Charles Koch, the mega-billionaire CEO of Koch Industries and half of the infamous political machine, sees himself as a classical liberal. So why do most Democrats hate him so much? In a rare series of interviews, he explains his political awakening, his management philosophy and why he supports legislation that goes against his self-interest.

The list of charitable causes supported by Charles Koch, and his brother David, is long and diverse, and would surely find approval with even their most devout political enemies. David is particularly well-known in New York for funding the arts and medical research. Among the Koch Industries beneficiaries are the United Negro College Fund; Project JumpStart, which provides construction training; and the movement for criminal-justice reform.

He’s very smart. Very well read.

Why Hate the Koch Brothers? (Part 1)

Why Hate the Koch Brothers? (Part 2)

They want tax reform and want to roll back regulations. They don’t like idiot Jeff Sessions’ idiotic “war on marijuana”.

They are disappointed with GOP efforts to repeal Obamacare. They don’t like Trump.

They are for free trade. Against border-adjustment fees that Trump keeps trumpeting.

All that said, if you hate GOP policies, know that the Koch brothers do as much as anyone to ensure dinosaurs like Pence stay in office.

The network of conservative donors announced Saturday it plans to spend between $300 million and $400 million on politics and policy during the 2018 cycle. …

Koch network ramps up political spending while trying to push Trump team

On the other hand, some Koch donors are so pissed they want the “Koch network ‘piggy banks’ closed until Republicans pass health and tax reform.

The “Experience Economy”

Let’s say Amazon, Walmart and a few other competitors provide 90% of retail shopping in future.

What’s left for entrepreneurs?

Mike Elgin talked about the “Experience Economy” on TWIG (This Week in Google)

The term Experience Economy was first used in a 1998 article by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore describing the experience economy as the next economy following the agrarian economy, the industrial economy, and the most recent service economy. The concept had been previously researched by many authors. …

An early example is the book of Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, which Pine and Gilmore quote in their work.

In 1971, Toffler criticized how “economists have great difficulty imagining alternatives to communism and capitalism”, and how they could only envision the economy in the terms of scarcity of resources. He talked about the upcoming “experiential industry”, in which people in the “future”, would be willing to allocate high percentages of their salaries to live amazing experiences.

Mike feels selfies are driving the Experience Economy today. Instagram and social media.

The Hama massacre – Syria 1982

The Hama massacre (Arabic: مجزرة حماة‎‎) occurred in 2 February 1982, when the Hafez Syrian Arab Army and the Defense Companies, under the orders of the country’s president Hafez al-Assad, besieged the town of Hama for 27 days in order to quell an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood …

The massacre, carried out by the Syrian Army under commanding General Rifaat al-Assad, effectively ended the campaign begun in 1976 by Sunni Muslim groups …

… the lower estimates claiming that at least 2,000 Syrian citizens were killed, ^[5]while others put the number at 20,000 (Robert Fisk),^[1] or 40,000 (Syrian Human Rights Committee).^[2]^{[6] …}

The attack has been described as one of “the single deadliest acts by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East”. …

I visited Hama in 1994. All these buildings had been bulldozed to the ground. The town rebuilt.

It was very quiet.

It was Hafez al-Assad, president of Syria, and his brother Rifaat al-Assad responsible for killing those thousands of Syrians.

In 1994 his the dictator’s eldest son and successor Bassel had just died in a car accident. Hafez turned to his his younger son Bashar.

It’s Bashar al-Assad who’s killing Syrians in 2017.

Once seen by the international community as a potential reformer, al-Assad has few friends left. Russia continues to protect al-Assad in the the UN Security Council.

In June 2014, Assad was included in a list of war crimes indictments of government officials and rebels handed to the International Criminal Court. …

Nobody knows exactly how much money Assad and family have extracted from Syria. One estimate says Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has amassed up to $1.5bn (£950m) for his family and his close associates. Hidden out of the nation, of course.

Sooner or later al-Assad will be gone. What comes next may be even worse — the tiny impoverish, war torn country the spoils of many different warlords.

Old Man’s War (2005) by John Scalzi

Old Man’s War is a military science fiction and debut novel by John Scalzi …

It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2006. …

… the first novel in Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series. …

I was reminded of of Ender’s Game.

Scalzi freely admits he was influenced by Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.

The writing is juvenile to appeal to teenage boys.

Still, I enjoyed this book. Particularly the plot twist that soldiers must be age-75 to enlist.

Soldier John Perry tells the tale. His consciousness is transferred to a super-powered 20-year-old body.

There are plenty of interesting technologies in this imagined future.

BrainPal is a neural implant that allows members of the Colonial Defense Forces (CDF) to send and receive data, including speech, battle plans and much more. CDF soldiers use their BrainPals to translate alien languages, watch classic cartoons, and read old books.

It was initially optioned for film in 2011, and for the last few years Syfy has been trying to develop it as a TV series. Don’t hold your breath.

I don’t think I’ll continue to the sequel — The Ghost Brigades.