More intel from the Goblins that will make the Catians and Wolf Empire
VERY happy!
An they didn’t even have to “spy” to get it, it was just dropped in
their laps due to a friendly Naugha hunt.
Not only could this intel be used to nullify The Horned Ones, exposing
them for the “grass eater” frauds that they are.
It could also be used to possibly turn the Goblins away from being the
enforcement bullies of the Horned Ones, to being the Catians’ friends.
Rather like taking the Dogisuians (sp?) away from the Horned Ones pirate
arm.
All I can think of is Garth Brooks music in the background, “Well I Got
Friends In Low Places”.
President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neanderthal B Woodman Domestic Violent Extremist SuperStraight
“Mrs Hikaru, she’s a nice lady…”
That puts a different face on her. All I could think of her at first
was a mean pinch-faced lonely woman.
Now she’s still lonely, but not SO lonely. She takes care of Tehshi,
guiding, mentoring, teaching.
And Tenshi is willing to reciprocate that attention and care.
(and dare I say it? mother-daughter love?)
heh,, “mean pinched-faced lonely woman.” my neighbor (90+),. was actually
close to becoming a old “karen”.. six months ago , she had a in house
emergency, that could not wait for repairman. i repaired it (with her
direction “micromanaged.”) since then i have been doing little odd jobs,
and she has become the “LOL grandma” (little old lady) of the complex.!!
(( fresh milk an cookies for all..))
So many mercenaries.
So many weaknesses in the system.
And it looks like whatever unity the Core Worlds have
might not be that united when push comes to shove.
If the horned ones are reluctant to fight, why should the mercenaries
fight in a real shooting war where they could actually die compared
to the safe job it was before.
Interesting, very interesting.
Petercat,
My apologies, I don’t always check in every day, or check my previous posted comments.
As for knowing comments are missing, I’ll usually check response’s every few days or so.
That’s usually when I notice something was absent.
As for your last query, about WordPress, yes, among other things, I run a hosting Business,
and WordPress and PHP is a key part of that.
Also, as it’s a bespoke service to clients, I often have to get my hands dirty with WordPress,
and it’s derivatives.
My current preference for business use is Classsicpress, a WordPress 4 derivative. Ideal to
get away from current issues in WP 5 and it’s embedded Block Editor and other problems
However, I still use and provide limited support for WP 5 for those clients that require it.
My real strength in that field, however, is PHP programing. PHP being the core language that
Wordpress is based on. That allows me to do custom modifcations for clients and correct or
workaround WordPress/PHP issues.
I also host other PHP web based based applications, and web based based applications
in other languages.
As for fixing your missing comments problem, that’s easy enough to diagnose.
The common solution, if you’ve still got some “Bad” posts, is to extract the comments into text
files, then run your “Keywords” over those files, and see how many hits your get.
Once you work out what offends, that’s not really offensive, then you can fine tune the filters.
The other alternative to spam posters clogging up the works, is to flag any post that
“hit the rotors” where a comment was posted by someone in the “membership list”.
All of this is usually done via SQL and some background script processing.
The ease of doing it depends whether your hosting on Windows based Platforms, or Unix/Linux
based platforms.
Usually, the latter is easier to setup and automate. Also easier to setup for posting daily reports
to an email address, or whatever.
Lastly, the reason you need to tidy up comment formatting, is usually because I use a Full Page,
third party text editor in my Web Browser. Once done, I then cut and paste the final comment,
once (mostly) proofed.
Also, scripts that check for bad formatting and then re-format comments in SQL database’s are
common, so that might also be food for thought, as it would cut down your screen time.
There’s a discussion between me Petercat about Monarchy ./.
Democracy on TGW-941 which I’d liked to continue here.
Ok.
The core points of his argument as I understand them are that a life long ruler (especially
one with an extended life time) will increase stability and minimize bureaucracy.
That the Empire in his story started of with good people, followed by good successors.
Then he compared this to a Democracy, a Republic and a Constitutional Republic, stating
that the last is slightly better then the other two as long the leaders uphold the
constitution.
———
First, bureaucracy does not automatically cause instability. The Chinese Empire has been a
bureaucratic monster, but it still lasted (with several intermediate periods of discontinuity)
for over two millennia.
(I don’t claim I would’ve like to live there – I don’t have enough data to make that call)
Frankly, before modern communications there had been no way to keep a stable society
but to channel the central power through a massive, formalized, bureaucratic apparatus.
Bureaucracy doesn’t have to imply inefficiency either – both Rome and Egypt had highly
efficient and yet highly complex, organized societies.
That said, I do agree that too much bloat is a bad thing – but this is true for any
kind of society, democracy, theocracy, monarchy, whatever.
Historically monarchies tended to be more “bloated” then democracies, the world you built
here is different of course.
But how are they planning to keep it that way?
Which leads back to my original question. Granted, Theresa is a good choice for a ruler,
she’s seems to be able to “reign” herself in.
But there’s no real form of fail-safe mechanism. Her power is only limited by her own
restraint. (And, to a degree, by the willingness of her subjects to follow her – but as
long as the military is fiercely loyal to her …)
People do change. And ruling for – say 15 or 18 – decades will change her. She’ll be
watching people she cares for die, she will inevitably make mistakes, and have to deal
with the results.
She will have people disagreeing with her, and I’m pretty sure that she knows she will
not always get it right.
As I understand it is her who has to make the call, to decide that her rule has lasted
long enough. And that she’d be the one to appoint a successor.
Since this successor is not allowed to be blood-related to her, they will have a normal
life-span – and probably no dragon spirit to help guide them.
And they will eventually have to appoint their own successor …
How many iterations to you think this will continue to work before the chain breaks?
Before an Emperor breaks under their burden or gets power-crazy? Or a bad apple
manages to fool everybody long enough to be appointed?
About your view on different types of Democracy:
When I’m using the term, I’m usually talking about the modern style ones, i.e.
“Constitutional Republic” – just to clear this bit up.
The core feature of a well designed modern republic is separation of powers (not sure
if that’s the correct English term for this):
The power is divided between three somewhat independent entities:
Legislative: those who make the laws. Usually a parliament of elected people.
Jurisdiction: those who decide about infringements, i.e. court system.
Executive: those who enforce and implement laws and regulations. Government, police, …
The important part is to keep them independent enough
so they can keep each other in check.
If a law gets passed that violates the constitution, there should be a way to ask a
“supreme court” to overrule it.
If the government does not follow the laws they should be prosecuted.
If a member of parliament breaks the laws there should be a way to prosecute them, too.
And so on.
How well these mechanisms work, and whether or not we like the government or the laws
is a different question.
The other core part of a modern republic is of course, fair,
equal and transparent elections.
In theory, as well as historically, these systems work as well and usually far better
than any form of monarchy in controlling and limiting the power of those who rule.
—- TL;DR ——–
I think any kind of system needs a fail-safe mechanism. Modern style “constitutional
republics” do have those, but those need upkeep and constant awareness as well as
the will to keep them in place to work.
Traditional monarchies had few or even zero of these mechanisms.
“Bureaucracy does not automatically cause instability.” Bureaucratic stability, maybe. But
how stable were the lives of the people? Look at the bureaucratic nightmare that is the
world today, are our lives stable? Not at all. The people are the reason for the Empire,
not the politicians.
Second paragraph: You don’t see the failsafe? It’s right in front of your eyes, in fact, it’s
at the core of the entire system. Teresa is the failsafe. You are too locked in to traditional governance, and are
missing the main reason for the existence of a freedom-maximizing Wolf Empire style
of governance: The government doesn’t DO much! And neither does the
Empress. A nudge here, a slight adjustment there, enough to keep the few gears of
governance turning. Sure, private ownership of utilities and such will be inconvenient
or even hard on some citizens, but the alternative will be worse, for more.
Crime? Very low, because there are so few laws to break, and the citizenry is armed
and free to act in self-defense without fear of the government. Fair tax: There is no
IRS, no ATF, no other three-letter agencies with their massive budgets and paperwork
loads on the citizens that cost them so much to comply with.
Today, you can’t even build your own home without the government telling you how
high your kitchen counters must be, and a very expensive mountain of permits, fees,
and permissions that do nothing to improve the value or quality of your home.
Which is why a 25% sales tax is enough, the government doesn’t do much.
Most things are left to the people, themselves, exercising their own freedom, duty,
and responsibility. Concepts which are heavily emphasized in education.
Sure, a Wolf-style government is not for everyone, but it’s great for people who
understand the core concepts. Look at Tenshi, she gets it. Mrs. Hikari saw a need,
pointed her at it, and the girl was off and running. Could she do that in today’s
world? Not at all. But in the Wolf World, she is free to be as successful as her
own efforts can make her.
I like that. And so do most Imperial citizens. Those that don’t like it are free to
rise and fall on their own merits, regardless.
Life in many bureaucracies was indeed extremely stable.
Your farther was a carpenter? Ok. Shut up and become a carpenter.
Your family has served ours for generations? Guess what your fate’s gonna be.
Bureaucracies tend to stabilize things to a point where nobody can move in any direction.
But I think we can agree that this is not the kind of “stability”
either of us would like to have in their lives.
I got a bit derailed here. My point was that “stability” can mean many things and that
bureaucrats love it, because no change means no challengers.
And it’s not limited to political systems either by the way. I’m working in the IT
department of a medium sized (several 10 k employees) enterprise.
You wouldn’t believe how bureaucratic their administration can get.
I guess building a large in-efficient overhead of obstructive bureaucrats is a function
of the size of an institution more than of it’s function or it’s official type of management.
Yeah, I get it that Teresa is kind of her own failsafe.
I just doubt that it will work much beyond her (still limited) life time.
Eventually there will be no Teresa (probably long after you finished telling the story)
but an ordinary person.
What if they get bored or plain ol’ power hungry? What is the failsafe against that?
What if something does happen to Teresa while she’s still young and in charge?
Or what if she gets frustrated by only being allowed to nudge and adjust.
She’s a single, breathing human being after all.
Let’s put it this way: you have placed all your eggs in one single basket. A sturdy,
trusty one, sure – but still it’s only one basket.
Try to imagine a 150 year old Teresa.
Most of the people she grew up with, the people she loved dead for decades.
Nobody around her who as anything near her level of experience.
(Ok. Probably Kathy will be around too)
Nobody who has her level of understanding.
Is it really inconceivable that she might get a tad bit overconfident in her own judgement?
That she will be able to keep herself from telling all those …. children how to
run things properly?
I think we can agree that the idiocy of sentient beings can be enough to test the patience
of an angel, and she’s still (mostly) human after all.
About real life governments – in my view you’re given them to less credit what they do provide
for you, but that’s a rather complex topic, one where we will have very different views on
what is desirable and what’s not.
And I’m not an real expert in this field anyway – even less so in regard of your own country.
Just that compared to what we have today is much better than what we had to deal with
centuries ago (personal view as one who probably would’ve been a commoner or peasant then –
or even more probably who would’ve been burned on the stake for heresy at the age of 20).
Hmmm… What I meant is not that Teresa is her own failsafe, she’s the Empire’s failsafe.
One of her duties as Empress is to keep the bureaucracies within their boundaries and
to resolve disputes between them. This includes the Council of Kings (modern senate)
and the House of Representatives. She does have absolute veto power over both.
bureaucrat.. the Empire is one, in the loose since,. but it is not one in the large since..
no change in the ‘government’ is a Good thing.! now, every time the PTB change, every thing changes to suit them..
you are confusing “public vs private” , public (government) bureaucrats are NOT suppose to be about money. just rules.
whereas the opposite is for the private (company)..
also.. only one “stable government” has been around for thousands of years.. the others failed because they introduced
change.. even the US one is in its death throws….
Therese’s still plenty of bureaucratic overhead in private companies.
But it’s very unlikely to find a bureaucrat in anything that’s smaller
than a few dozen people. A small clan living off the land without any
outside contact would almost certainly be free from overhead.
On the other hand it’s not really possible to run anything large scale
without delegating stuff to intermediate levels. Those have a tendency
to … rot or expand like cancer.
The Wolf Empire does its best to keep these intermediaries in line and
to discourage them from getting too cancer-y.
In any group of twelve working together, everybody know everybody else.
It’s easy to come to decisions, it’s easy to organize.
Any group of thousands or even billions you need something like a chain
of command a back bone structure that is getting larger and harder to
control as the group grows in size.
The CEO of a huge enterprise can’t know every little clerk and welder
by name. Nor could an Emperor/King/Governor/President.
heh.. i wanna know those “12”.. cuz that is never EASY..
i was in charge of a military metalshop (15 people including me)..
yes i knew everybody,, but not everybody knew others..
work together.. only if one is in charge.. because a few did not want to work..
look at a jury of 12.. they DON’T know each other, they don’t come to easy decisions,
and unless one is put in charge.. they spend most of the time deciding who leads…
Again, the public bureaucracies are small because there’s not much for them to do.
While Teresa can not know everyone, she knows the people who know the people.
And her Dragonfly companion keeps her stable.
Just remember, any government employee who is convicted of a crime
faces double the penalty of a non-employee. Once for the crime, once for breaking
the public trust. This works well to keep corruption in check. As do Commander
Villines’ Werewolves.
PC has the most workable idea for a government it’s simplified, minimal attention to the private
sector, provides protection to it’s people without the need of excessive taxation, and gives
everyone the chance to contribute no “gimmie” bunch to support. No government is perfect or
static it’s when people are given too much power for too long that a government begins to fail.
It’s stops being “We, the people” and starts being “I say how things go! Now shut up and do what
I say” USA is in it’s death throws simply because there is too many politicians in the government
that have forgotten what their job is and who they work for! I feel that no one should be allowed
to remain in any office for more than 10-12 years there’s too much temptation for abuse.
forgotten.. no, i would say not forgotten,. planed ,, i would say they planed this.!!
look at the actual constitution.. they worked around that,,.
also,, “miss direction Stan.” .. when someone looks to close,, they point their
“gimmie” ‘s supporters, at some other “Crisis” , like gun control..
IE: a while back, one group, gave themselves, full life time health care, while
a shooting was going on…
I agree they seen “what if” and went “eh who cares” and don’t forget the open borders and the obvious
spike in violent crime just to pad the voters on their side! Just like the huge doubling of fuel costs it’s not
because of the Russian’s that’s an excuse the greens want to force electric transportation by letting the
prices skyrocket so we’ll demand it and that’s just dumb there isn’t enough infrastructure to support that
yet they are wrecking the economy just to go “green” asap. Again it’s dumb while we still use oil, coal,
and gas to generate the power to charge them!!! I don’t expect the USA will be a workable country much
longer…
The current prices are just “the Market” at work. There’s less of something,
everybody needs it. Prices go up. Pure capitalism. Free market as it’s taught
at school.
As for us mean greenies: so far the only result has been that people are
searching for even more sources of fossil fuel. The whole situation is
really not helping in getting rid of it at all.
For example we have “green” minister of economic affairs. His reaction was to
strike new deals with alternative providers for LPG and ordered new terminals
to be built.
That’s the opposite of “Muhahahaha. Here’s my chance to kill the market for good”
If we truly had a free market, then the Keystone pipeline would be flowing,
oil companies would be exploring, drilling, pumping and refining, we’d
have safe, clean abundant electricity provided by nuclear plants, and
people would be able to buy what they want, instead of what someone in
government decides that they “need”.
And inflation would be much lower.
No, it’s not “the Market” raising prices and lowering availability, it’s
government interference.
Sorry, but changing most of these parameters requires time.
Like, you do have nuclear powerplants, but you can’t just place new ones.
It takes decades from exploring a new oil field to getting the stuff to
the market. It’s a huge investment …
Some ways of getting gas are more expensive then others (like fracking or
mining oil slick …) They will only work out if prices are high enough.
So if you see a temporary raise in prices you (as a profit oriented
company) have a choice: do I believe this will hold? Then I’m in for a
huge profit.
But if they normalize again, or even drop lower? I would lose money.
About safe nuclear power: There’s a risk involved of a “Nuke plant” going
boom. Already happened at least thrice during the last decades, once in
the US, once near Kiev, once in Japan.
If you can afford losing several square miles of land around it you might
consider it worth it.
And “clean”? We’ve been using nuclear power for 80 years now. To my
knowledge we (humans on Earth) have to yet to come up with a way to safely
depose of the waste.
To quote Nancy Pelosi:
“If we open up the Alaska oil fields, it will be ten years before we see any results!”
She said that almost twenty years ago. What shape are we in now?
Long-term planning is a good thing.
The last figures I saw, oil companies made less than $.20/gallon in pure profit on gasoline.
The (American) governments made over $.70/gallon in taxes. Who’s gouging us, again?
Modern reactors have zero risk of going critical, and can recycle spent fuel from
older designs. So much for disposing of waste. They’re also smaller and less expensive.
We need to start building them now, or in ten years we’ll still be saying “It will
take ten years to get new plants on line!”
I wish Kajm was here, he knows more about the subject than I do.
Trump opened the Alaskian pipeline and suddenly we were energy independent for the
first time in my memory as soon as the far left got back into control they shut it down
and the prices skyrocketed! That’s not opinion that is a public fact it jumped to 45% increase
the moment Biden was announced to be president and hasn’t stopped climbing since and
their excuse is the environmental concerns but if you look at the area those wells are located
NOTHING lives there it’s dead wasteland.
There is a safe way and it’s been in use for the last 40 years it’s media and movies that hypes the dangers
of it to start with 90% of the waste is protective clothing (suits, gloves, masks and filters) the rest fits nicely into
containers that’s roughly half the size of a shipping container and before you go there they have hit them
with a train going full speed and they didn’t break open these are buried and monitored hundreds of feet below
the ground many on site to avoid the panic of them moving them to a safer location. I looked it up it’s public
knowledge.
If they reopened and drilled new wells in Alaska not only would it help us but we could export
and helped the issue world wide I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t sitting on them just so
we’d be the only oil producing country left never mind that the rest of the world might want to
take that resource by force….
Maybe your governments have the same problems.Or maybe the same people
are pulling the strings worldwide, I dunno. Perhaps President Trump
didn’t have strings to pull.
He had more strings to pull than Biden. Like supposedly he had much more money. And wasn’t he always best buddies with people like rocket man and the new Zsar?
If somebody is indeed pulling our strings – why do you guys fail to notice the influence of big moneyed companies on governments and all around the globe?
(But that’s part of something I’d like to discuss another time and in more detail)
Ok … before the whole “Sonderoperation” started fuel prices over here were around 1,50€/L – pretty much around the same level as in 2012 by the way.
They’ve risen quickly to about 2,10 €/L and remained stable until this week.
Now it’s like 1,99€/L
(That’s somewhat the daily minimum price at my local station; exact numbers are difficult, because the they’re changed about 2-3 times a day.)
Over the same time frame (2012 to 2022) the prices for bread have risen from like 2,6€ per 1kg of my favorite to 4,1€ … somehow that seems less of an issue than fuel costs.
(I’m buying fresh sour dough bread at a local bakery, you’ve been over here, so I guess you know why)
By the way: I know some people who produce their own electricity just
by using space on their roofs they have no other use for anyway.
One of them powers his car with it. What’s wrong with this?
Solar is fine if you have the properly oriented roof space to make it viable. To operate best solar panels require southern exposure. My house is oriented north-south and so my roof has almost no southern exposure. Even had a solar guy admit it. Solar panels would not benefit me much if at all. They definitely would not pay for themselves.
I’ve read in multiple articles that when you factor in CO2 emissions in mining, refining, fabrication plus the terribly toxic chemicals used in manufacturing them, “green” energy sources are anything but. Plus you cannot simply put all your electrical energy production into thensingle basket labled “green” or “renewable” unless you want to have your civilization put up with frequent brown/blackouts. The sun – even here in Texas which has the most sunny days of any state in the union (hence so many WWII airfields) – doesn’t shine every day and nor does the wind blow. Additionally wind turbines can freeze solid. That was part of the problem in that massive cold snap in February of ’21. The wind turbines are almost all out in west Texas (cause that is where the land is flatter and the wind blows more consistently) and that was the area which got coldest. Damned things froze solid. My understanding is that even Texas’ power grid, which is better designed than the rest of the country’s and can be isolated from it, came within a blond you-know-what hair of crashing. A power grid crash would necessitate something called a “cold start”. The power companies all have procedures on the books for doing a cold start. Unfortunately nobody knows if said procedures would actually work! You see nobody has ever had to try to cold start a power grid. One piece I read indicated that if the Texas grid had crashed some folks would have been without power for up to 6 months. My house is well insulated – I bought the upgrade insulation package – but if the AC goes out it gets warm. Add in no power would mean not even fans to move the air around and things would have gotten dire. There were a bunch of seniors who DIED from the cold during the rotating blackouts. I guarantee there would have been hundreds if not thousands of deaths in the summer if the Texas grid had crashed.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. And there’s no such thing as a side effect free energy source.
About power grid failures causing troubles: that’s what ultimately did in Fukujima. The plant was damaged and had to be shut down. So far so bad. But that was not the real problem.
Even a shutdown nuke plant needs cooling or it will eventually melt down.
And yes they are so quick to trot out good old “Miss Direction” to wiggle her hips and distract us from the real issues…
gun control? I’m a trained martial artist I can do more damage to someone with a bo (staff) and a metal trash can lid
than any glock. And don’t start me on health care I’m on medicare lol.
The problem with governments in the real world today is that pretty much everybody is mistaken as to the purpose of government. As Jefferson put it in the Declaration of Independence, the purpose of government is to secure the rights of the citizens. Unfortunately too many people think that governments exist to give us stuff and protect us from ourselves. A wise man (probably not Jefferson) once wrote, “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.” In the founders’s vision government was not about gibsmedats. I’m not sure where Article I, section 8 empowers congress to create such things as the EPA or FDA nor am I at all sure they actually protect enybody beyond the bureaucrats operating it. I plan to wade in on bureaucracy in the next strip. Suffice to say that I consider them to be an abomination.
I see the Empire as being PC’s thought experiment of what absolute minimalist government would be like. A wise man (again almost certainly not Jefferson) one wrote, “That government is best which governs least.” I’m not sure L Neil Smith’s vision of a libertarian paradise as presented in his “Probability Broach” serieswould actually work but I do believe that Catman’s vision is possible if implemented properly. I do not believe it would work in the real world simply because the ratio of producers to consumers is too heavily slanted towards consumers who are perfectly happy to live on the dole, produce nothing and sell their votes to the ones promising the shiniest gibsmedats. Part of the premise of TGW is that Matt Costman, King Bishop and Jon Walker saw a collapse coming and.started “stackingnthe deck” in North Jericho to prepare for it. Essentially they were increasing the percentage of producers to make their vision of minimalsit government workable.
Tenshi is a very observant young lady.
Greenie put a spin in the works in working with the hornies.
More intel from the Goblins that will make the Catians and Wolf Empire
VERY happy!
An they didn’t even have to “spy” to get it, it was just dropped in
their laps due to a friendly Naugha hunt.
Not only could this intel be used to nullify The Horned Ones, exposing
them for the “grass eater” frauds that they are.
It could also be used to possibly turn the Goblins away from being the
enforcement bullies of the Horned Ones, to being the Catians’ friends.
Rather like taking the Dogisuians (sp?) away from the Horned Ones pirate
arm.
All I can think of is Garth Brooks music in the background, “Well I Got
Friends In Low Places”.
“It’s easy when you don’t see anyone’s face.
Just sit in orbit, drop a couple of rods….”
Someone’s been reading some history of the Vietnam war,
and the pilots that flew in it.
“Mrs Hikaru, she’s a nice lady…”
That puts a different face on her. All I could think of her at first
was a mean pinch-faced lonely woman.
Now she’s still lonely, but not SO lonely. She takes care of Tehshi,
guiding, mentoring, teaching.
And Tenshi is willing to reciprocate that attention and care.
(and dare I say it? mother-daughter love?)
heh,, “mean pinched-faced lonely woman.” my neighbor (90+),. was actually
close to becoming a old “karen”.. six months ago , she had a in house
emergency, that could not wait for repairman. i repaired it (with her
direction “micromanaged.”) since then i have been doing little odd jobs,
and she has become the “LOL grandma” (little old lady) of the complex.!!
(( fresh milk an cookies for all..))
So many mercenaries.
So many weaknesses in the system.
And it looks like whatever unity the Core Worlds have
might not be that united when push comes to shove.
If the horned ones are reluctant to fight, why should the mercenaries
fight in a real shooting war where they could actually die compared
to the safe job it was before.
Interesting, very interesting.
Petercat,
My apologies, I don’t always check in every day, or check my previous posted comments.
As for knowing comments are missing, I’ll usually check response’s every few days or so.
That’s usually when I notice something was absent.
As for your last query, about WordPress, yes, among other things, I run a hosting Business,
and WordPress and PHP is a key part of that.
Also, as it’s a bespoke service to clients, I often have to get my hands dirty with WordPress,
and it’s derivatives.
My current preference for business use is Classsicpress, a WordPress 4 derivative. Ideal to
get away from current issues in WP 5 and it’s embedded Block Editor and other problems
However, I still use and provide limited support for WP 5 for those clients that require it.
My real strength in that field, however, is PHP programing. PHP being the core language that
Wordpress is based on. That allows me to do custom modifcations for clients and correct or
workaround WordPress/PHP issues.
I also host other PHP web based based applications, and web based based applications
in other languages.
As for fixing your missing comments problem, that’s easy enough to diagnose.
The common solution, if you’ve still got some “Bad” posts, is to extract the comments into text
files, then run your “Keywords” over those files, and see how many hits your get.
Once you work out what offends, that’s not really offensive, then you can fine tune the filters.
The other alternative to spam posters clogging up the works, is to flag any post that
“hit the rotors” where a comment was posted by someone in the “membership list”.
All of this is usually done via SQL and some background script processing.
The ease of doing it depends whether your hosting on Windows based Platforms, or Unix/Linux
based platforms.
Usually, the latter is easier to setup and automate. Also easier to setup for posting daily reports
to an email address, or whatever.
Lastly, the reason you need to tidy up comment formatting, is usually because I use a Full Page,
third party text editor in my Web Browser. Once done, I then cut and paste the final comment,
once (mostly) proofed.
Also, scripts that check for bad formatting and then re-format comments in SQL database’s are
common, so that might also be food for thought, as it would cut down your screen time.
There’s a discussion between me Petercat about Monarchy ./.
Democracy on TGW-941 which I’d liked to continue here.
Ok.
The core points of his argument as I understand them are that a life long ruler (especially
one with an extended life time) will increase stability and minimize bureaucracy.
That the Empire in his story started of with good people, followed by good successors.
Then he compared this to a Democracy, a Republic and a Constitutional Republic, stating
that the last is slightly better then the other two as long the leaders uphold the
constitution.
———
First, bureaucracy does not automatically cause instability. The Chinese Empire has been a
bureaucratic monster, but it still lasted (with several intermediate periods of discontinuity)
for over two millennia.
(I don’t claim I would’ve like to live there – I don’t have enough data to make that call)
Frankly, before modern communications there had been no way to keep a stable society
but to channel the central power through a massive, formalized, bureaucratic apparatus.
Bureaucracy doesn’t have to imply inefficiency either – both Rome and Egypt had highly
efficient and yet highly complex, organized societies.
That said, I do agree that too much bloat is a bad thing – but this is true for any
kind of society, democracy, theocracy, monarchy, whatever.
Historically monarchies tended to be more “bloated” then democracies, the world you built
here is different of course.
But how are they planning to keep it that way?
Which leads back to my original question. Granted, Theresa is a good choice for a ruler,
she’s seems to be able to “reign” herself in.
But there’s no real form of fail-safe mechanism. Her power is only limited by her own
restraint. (And, to a degree, by the willingness of her subjects to follow her – but as
long as the military is fiercely loyal to her …)
People do change. And ruling for – say 15 or 18 – decades will change her. She’ll be
watching people she cares for die, she will inevitably make mistakes, and have to deal
with the results.
She will have people disagreeing with her, and I’m pretty sure that she knows she will
not always get it right.
As I understand it is her who has to make the call, to decide that her rule has lasted
long enough. And that she’d be the one to appoint a successor.
Since this successor is not allowed to be blood-related to her, they will have a normal
life-span – and probably no dragon spirit to help guide them.
And they will eventually have to appoint their own successor …
How many iterations to you think this will continue to work before the chain breaks?
Before an Emperor breaks under their burden or gets power-crazy? Or a bad apple
manages to fool everybody long enough to be appointed?
About your view on different types of Democracy:
When I’m using the term, I’m usually talking about the modern style ones, i.e.
“Constitutional Republic” – just to clear this bit up.
The core feature of a well designed modern republic is separation of powers (not sure
if that’s the correct English term for this):
The power is divided between three somewhat independent entities:
Legislative: those who make the laws. Usually a parliament of elected people.
Jurisdiction: those who decide about infringements, i.e. court system.
Executive: those who enforce and implement laws and regulations. Government, police, …
The important part is to keep them independent enough
so they can keep each other in check.
If a law gets passed that violates the constitution, there should be a way to ask a
“supreme court” to overrule it.
If the government does not follow the laws they should be prosecuted.
If a member of parliament breaks the laws there should be a way to prosecute them, too.
And so on.
How well these mechanisms work, and whether or not we like the government or the laws
is a different question.
The other core part of a modern republic is of course, fair,
equal and transparent elections.
In theory, as well as historically, these systems work as well and usually far better
than any form of monarchy in controlling and limiting the power of those who rule.
—- TL;DR ——–
I think any kind of system needs a fail-safe mechanism. Modern style “constitutional
republics” do have those, but those need upkeep and constant awareness as well as
the will to keep them in place to work.
Traditional monarchies had few or even zero of these mechanisms.
“Bureaucracy does not automatically cause instability.” Bureaucratic stability, maybe. But
how stable were the lives of the people? Look at the bureaucratic nightmare that is the
world today, are our lives stable? Not at all. The people are the reason for the Empire,
not the politicians.
Second paragraph: You don’t see the failsafe? It’s right in front of your eyes, in fact, it’s
at the core of the entire system.
Teresa is the failsafe. You are too locked in to traditional governance, and are
missing the main reason for the existence of a freedom-maximizing Wolf Empire style
of governance: The government doesn’t DO much! And neither does the
Empress. A nudge here, a slight adjustment there, enough to keep the few gears of
governance turning. Sure, private ownership of utilities and such will be inconvenient
or even hard on some citizens, but the alternative will be worse, for more.
Crime? Very low, because there are so few laws to break, and the citizenry is armed
and free to act in self-defense without fear of the government. Fair tax: There is no
IRS, no ATF, no other three-letter agencies with their massive budgets and paperwork
loads on the citizens that cost them so much to comply with.
Today, you can’t even build your own home without the government telling you how
high your kitchen counters must be, and a very expensive mountain of permits, fees,
and permissions that do nothing to improve the value or quality of your home.
Which is why a 25% sales tax is enough, the government doesn’t do much.
Most things are left to the people, themselves, exercising their own freedom, duty,
and responsibility. Concepts which are heavily emphasized in education.
Sure, a Wolf-style government is not for everyone, but it’s great for people who
understand the core concepts. Look at Tenshi, she gets it. Mrs. Hikari saw a need,
pointed her at it, and the girl was off and running. Could she do that in today’s
world? Not at all. But in the Wolf World, she is free to be as successful as her
own efforts can make her.
I like that. And so do most Imperial citizens. Those that don’t like it are free to
rise and fall on their own merits, regardless.
Life in many bureaucracies was indeed extremely stable.
Your farther was a carpenter? Ok. Shut up and become a carpenter.
Your family has served ours for generations? Guess what your fate’s gonna be.
Bureaucracies tend to stabilize things to a point where nobody can move in any direction.
But I think we can agree that this is not the kind of “stability”
either of us would like to have in their lives.
I got a bit derailed here. My point was that “stability” can mean many things and that
bureaucrats love it, because no change means no challengers.
And it’s not limited to political systems either by the way. I’m working in the IT
department of a medium sized (several 10 k employees) enterprise.
You wouldn’t believe how bureaucratic their administration can get.
I guess building a large in-efficient overhead of obstructive bureaucrats is a function
of the size of an institution more than of it’s function or it’s official type of management.
Yeah, I get it that Teresa is kind of her own failsafe.
I just doubt that it will work much beyond her (still limited) life time.
Eventually there will be no Teresa (probably long after you finished telling the story)
but an ordinary person.
What if they get bored or plain ol’ power hungry? What is the failsafe against that?
What if something does happen to Teresa while she’s still young and in charge?
Or what if she gets frustrated by only being allowed to nudge and adjust.
She’s a single, breathing human being after all.
Let’s put it this way: you have placed all your eggs in one single basket. A sturdy,
trusty one, sure – but still it’s only one basket.
Try to imagine a 150 year old Teresa.
Most of the people she grew up with, the people she loved dead for decades.
Nobody around her who as anything near her level of experience.
(Ok. Probably Kathy will be around too)
Nobody who has her level of understanding.
Is it really inconceivable that she might get a tad bit overconfident in her own judgement?
That she will be able to keep herself from telling all those …. children how to
run things properly?
I think we can agree that the idiocy of sentient beings can be enough to test the patience
of an angel, and she’s still (mostly) human after all.
About real life governments – in my view you’re given them to less credit what they do provide
for you, but that’s a rather complex topic, one where we will have very different views on
what is desirable and what’s not.
And I’m not an real expert in this field anyway – even less so in regard of your own country.
Just that compared to what we have today is much better than what we had to deal with
centuries ago (personal view as one who probably would’ve been a commoner or peasant then –
or even more probably who would’ve been burned on the stake for heresy at the age of 20).
Hmmm… What I meant is not that Teresa is her own failsafe, she’s the Empire’s failsafe.
One of her duties as Empress is to keep the bureaucracies within their boundaries and
to resolve disputes between them. This includes the Council of Kings (modern senate)
and the House of Representatives. She does have absolute veto power over both.
bureaucrat.. the Empire is one, in the loose since,. but it is not one in the large since..
no change in the ‘government’ is a Good thing.! now, every time the PTB change, every thing changes to suit them..
you are confusing “public vs private” , public (government) bureaucrats are NOT suppose to be about money. just rules.
whereas the opposite is for the private (company)..
also.. only one “stable government” has been around for thousands of years.. the others failed because they introduced
change.. even the US one is in its death throws….
Therese’s still plenty of bureaucratic overhead in private companies.
But it’s very unlikely to find a bureaucrat in anything that’s smaller
than a few dozen people. A small clan living off the land without any
outside contact would almost certainly be free from overhead.
On the other hand it’s not really possible to run anything large scale
without delegating stuff to intermediate levels. Those have a tendency
to … rot or expand like cancer.
The Wolf Empire does its best to keep these intermediaries in line and
to discourage them from getting too cancer-y.
by definition a bureaucracy is over 12, as in a large group..
hence the public vs private.. the private bureaucracy is all
about the overhead, the laws are about what puts the
most money in the pocket.!
In any group of twelve working together, everybody know everybody else.
It’s easy to come to decisions, it’s easy to organize.
Any group of thousands or even billions you need something like a chain
of command a back bone structure that is getting larger and harder to
control as the group grows in size.
The CEO of a huge enterprise can’t know every little clerk and welder
by name. Nor could an Emperor/King/Governor/President.
heh.. i wanna know those “12”.. cuz that is never EASY..
i was in charge of a military metalshop (15 people including me)..
yes i knew everybody,, but not everybody knew others..
work together.. only if one is in charge.. because a few did not want to work..
look at a jury of 12.. they DON’T know each other, they don’t come to easy decisions,
and unless one is put in charge.. they spend most of the time deciding who leads…
… but you didn’t need anyone between you and your men, right?
No middle layers, no misunderstandings, no overhead.
Again, the public bureaucracies are small because there’s not much for them to do.
While Teresa can not know everyone, she knows the people who know the people.
And her Dragonfly companion keeps her stable.
Just remember, any government employee who is convicted of a crime
faces double the penalty of a non-employee. Once for the crime, once for breaking
the public trust. This works well to keep corruption in check. As do Commander
Villines’ Werewolves.
PC has the most workable idea for a government it’s simplified, minimal attention to the private
sector, provides protection to it’s people without the need of excessive taxation, and gives
everyone the chance to contribute no “gimmie” bunch to support. No government is perfect or
static it’s when people are given too much power for too long that a government begins to fail.
It’s stops being “We, the people” and starts being “I say how things go! Now shut up and do what
I say” USA is in it’s death throws simply because there is too many politicians in the government
that have forgotten what their job is and who they work for! I feel that no one should be allowed
to remain in any office for more than 10-12 years there’s too much temptation for abuse.
forgotten.. no, i would say not forgotten,. planed ,, i would say they planed this.!!
look at the actual constitution.. they worked around that,,.
also,, “miss direction Stan.” .. when someone looks to close,, they point their
“gimmie” ‘s supporters, at some other “Crisis” , like gun control..
IE: a while back, one group, gave themselves, full life time health care, while
a shooting was going on…
I agree they seen “what if” and went “eh who cares” and don’t forget the open borders and the obvious
spike in violent crime just to pad the voters on their side! Just like the huge doubling of fuel costs it’s not
because of the Russian’s that’s an excuse the greens want to force electric transportation by letting the
prices skyrocket so we’ll demand it and that’s just dumb there isn’t enough infrastructure to support that
yet they are wrecking the economy just to go “green” asap. Again it’s dumb while we still use oil, coal,
and gas to generate the power to charge them!!! I don’t expect the USA will be a workable country much
longer…
The current prices are just “the Market” at work. There’s less of something,
everybody needs it. Prices go up. Pure capitalism. Free market as it’s taught
at school.
As for us mean greenies: so far the only result has been that people are
searching for even more sources of fossil fuel. The whole situation is
really not helping in getting rid of it at all.
For example we have “green” minister of economic affairs. His reaction was to
strike new deals with alternative providers for LPG and ordered new terminals
to be built.
That’s the opposite of “Muhahahaha. Here’s my chance to kill the market for good”
If we truly had a free market, then the Keystone pipeline would be flowing,
oil companies would be exploring, drilling, pumping and refining, we’d
have safe, clean abundant electricity provided by nuclear plants, and
people would be able to buy what they want, instead of what someone in
government decides that they “need”.
And inflation would be much lower.
No, it’s not “the Market” raising prices and lowering availability, it’s
government interference.
Sorry, but changing most of these parameters requires time.
Like, you do have nuclear powerplants, but you can’t just place new ones.
It takes decades from exploring a new oil field to getting the stuff to
the market. It’s a huge investment …
Some ways of getting gas are more expensive then others (like fracking or
mining oil slick …) They will only work out if prices are high enough.
So if you see a temporary raise in prices you (as a profit oriented
company) have a choice: do I believe this will hold? Then I’m in for a
huge profit.
But if they normalize again, or even drop lower? I would lose money.
About safe nuclear power: There’s a risk involved of a “Nuke plant” going
boom. Already happened at least thrice during the last decades, once in
the US, once near Kiev, once in Japan.
If you can afford losing several square miles of land around it you might
consider it worth it.
And “clean”? We’ve been using nuclear power for 80 years now. To my
knowledge we (humans on Earth) have to yet to come up with a way to safely
depose of the waste.
To quote Nancy Pelosi:
“If we open up the Alaska oil fields, it will be ten years before we see any results!”
She said that almost twenty years ago. What shape are we in now?
Long-term planning is a good thing.
The last figures I saw, oil companies made less than $.20/gallon in pure profit on gasoline.
The (American) governments made over $.70/gallon in taxes. Who’s gouging us, again?
Modern reactors have zero risk of going critical, and can recycle spent fuel from
older designs. So much for disposing of waste. They’re also smaller and less expensive.
We need to start building them now, or in ten years we’ll still be saying “It will
take ten years to get new plants on line!”
I wish Kajm was here, he knows more about the subject than I do.
Trump opened the Alaskian pipeline and suddenly we were energy independent for the
first time in my memory as soon as the far left got back into control they shut it down
and the prices skyrocketed! That’s not opinion that is a public fact it jumped to 45% increase
the moment Biden was announced to be president and hasn’t stopped climbing since and
their excuse is the environmental concerns but if you look at the area those wells are located
NOTHING lives there it’s dead wasteland.
There is a safe way and it’s been in use for the last 40 years it’s media and movies that hypes the dangers
of it to start with 90% of the waste is protective clothing (suits, gloves, masks and filters) the rest fits nicely into
containers that’s roughly half the size of a shipping container and before you go there they have hit them
with a train going full speed and they didn’t break open these are buried and monitored hundreds of feet below
the ground many on site to avoid the panic of them moving them to a safer location. I looked it up it’s public
knowledge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aUODXeAM-k
just to give you an idea without the horror story…
By the way: which Government? It’s a global phenomenon.
I can only speak for American governments.
Exactly. But if your government was the problem why are the prices skyrocketing over here?
If they reopened and drilled new wells in Alaska not only would it help us but we could export
and helped the issue world wide I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t sitting on them just so
we’d be the only oil producing country left never mind that the rest of the world might want to
take that resource by force….
Maybe your governments have the same problems.Or maybe the same people
are pulling the strings worldwide, I dunno. Perhaps President Trump
didn’t have strings to pull.
He had more strings to pull than Biden. Like supposedly he had much more money. And wasn’t he always best buddies with people like rocket man and the new Zsar?
If somebody is indeed pulling our strings – why do you guys fail to notice the influence of big moneyed companies on governments and all around the globe?
(But that’s part of something I’d like to discuss another time and in more detail)
By the way. My gov. did cut the fuel taxes by 35 cent per liter just the other day … prices went down by like 10 cent.
The prices might have gone up $.25 without the cuts. The price of fuel is rising fast.
Ok … before the whole “Sonderoperation” started fuel prices over here were around 1,50€/L – pretty much around the same level as in 2012 by the way.
They’ve risen quickly to about 2,10 €/L and remained stable until this week.
Now it’s like 1,99€/L
(That’s somewhat the daily minimum price at my local station; exact numbers are difficult, because the they’re changed about 2-3 times a day.)
Over the same time frame (2012 to 2022) the prices for bread have risen from like 2,6€ per 1kg of my favorite to 4,1€ … somehow that seems less of an issue than fuel costs.
(I’m buying fresh sour dough bread at a local bakery, you’ve been over here, so I guess you know why)
By the way: I know some people who produce their own electricity just
by using space on their roofs they have no other use for anyway.
One of them powers his car with it. What’s wrong with this?
Absolutely nothing wrong with that. It should be their choice.
The government should not be involved at all.
Solar is fine if you have the properly oriented roof space to make it viable. To operate best solar panels require southern exposure. My house is oriented north-south and so my roof has almost no southern exposure. Even had a solar guy admit it. Solar panels would not benefit me much if at all. They definitely would not pay for themselves.
I’ve read in multiple articles that when you factor in CO2 emissions in mining, refining, fabrication plus the terribly toxic chemicals used in manufacturing them, “green” energy sources are anything but. Plus you cannot simply put all your electrical energy production into thensingle basket labled “green” or “renewable” unless you want to have your civilization put up with frequent brown/blackouts. The sun – even here in Texas which has the most sunny days of any state in the union (hence so many WWII airfields) – doesn’t shine every day and nor does the wind blow. Additionally wind turbines can freeze solid. That was part of the problem in that massive cold snap in February of ’21. The wind turbines are almost all out in west Texas (cause that is where the land is flatter and the wind blows more consistently) and that was the area which got coldest. Damned things froze solid. My understanding is that even Texas’ power grid, which is better designed than the rest of the country’s and can be isolated from it, came within a blond you-know-what hair of crashing. A power grid crash would necessitate something called a “cold start”. The power companies all have procedures on the books for doing a cold start. Unfortunately nobody knows if said procedures would actually work! You see nobody has ever had to try to cold start a power grid. One piece I read indicated that if the Texas grid had crashed some folks would have been without power for up to 6 months. My house is well insulated – I bought the upgrade insulation package – but if the AC goes out it gets warm. Add in no power would mean not even fans to move the air around and things would have gotten dire. There were a bunch of seniors who DIED from the cold during the rotating blackouts. I guarantee there would have been hundreds if not thousands of deaths in the summer if the Texas grid had crashed.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. And there’s no such thing as a side effect free energy source.
About power grid failures causing troubles: that’s what ultimately did in Fukujima. The plant was damaged and had to be shut down. So far so bad. But that was not the real problem.
Even a shutdown nuke plant needs cooling or it will eventually melt down.
And yes they are so quick to trot out good old “Miss Direction” to wiggle her hips and distract us from the real issues…
gun control? I’m a trained martial artist I can do more damage to someone with a bo (staff) and a metal trash can lid
than any glock. And don’t start me on health care I’m on medicare lol.
Got you beat. I’m on medicare plus I get my meds and primary care through the Dept of Veterans Affairs. Think medicare squared.
there own -> their own (of course)
fixed..
The problem with governments in the real world today is that pretty much everybody is mistaken as to the purpose of government. As Jefferson put it in the Declaration of Independence, the purpose of government is to secure the rights of the citizens. Unfortunately too many people think that governments exist to give us stuff and protect us from ourselves. A wise man (probably not Jefferson) once wrote, “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.” In the founders’s vision government was not about gibsmedats. I’m not sure where Article I, section 8 empowers congress to create such things as the EPA or FDA nor am I at all sure they actually protect enybody beyond the bureaucrats operating it. I plan to wade in on bureaucracy in the next strip. Suffice to say that I consider them to be an abomination.
I see the Empire as being PC’s thought experiment of what absolute minimalist government would be like. A wise man (again almost certainly not Jefferson) one wrote, “That government is best which governs least.” I’m not sure L Neil Smith’s vision of a libertarian paradise as presented in his “Probability Broach” serieswould actually work but I do believe that Catman’s vision is possible if implemented properly. I do not believe it would work in the real world simply because the ratio of producers to consumers is too heavily slanted towards consumers who are perfectly happy to live on the dole, produce nothing and sell their votes to the ones promising the shiniest gibsmedats. Part of the premise of TGW is that Matt Costman, King Bishop and Jon Walker saw a collapse coming and.started “stackingnthe deck” in North Jericho to prepare for it. Essentially they were increasing the percentage of producers to make their vision of minimalsit government workable.
Two and a half years late, but I just noticed Belle sitting behind
Tenshi. I’ve probably seen this particular strip at least half a dozen
times.