Midway

 

God is wise and in not telling us the future of events on earth.  We usually can’t handle it. Saul knew full well, God had picked David as future king and spent the remainder of his life fighting it. Hezekiah got another 15 years of life and then squandered it.  But the Navy boys didn’t squander their opportunity in the decisive, historic victory in the battle of Midway.

            The disaster at Pearl Harbor was missed by military intelligence, and nobody felt worse for it than Capt. Ed Layton who was commander of HYPO, a military intel group in Honolulu.  He offered to resign, but Adm. Chester Nimitz asked him to stay on.  We now know that Layton and Capt. Joseph Rochefort had missed the attack because Washington, DC, high command had not let them see diplomatic messages.  Rochefort was a brilliant, eccentric officer who often wore slippers and a bathrobe over his uniform.  He often spent days sequestered with a code.  He and Layton had met on assignment in the 30s to the Tokyo embassy and knew fluent Japanese.  USA had decoded part of the Nippon’s JN-25b code. HYPO deduced that the next likely attack was Midway, 1300 miles NW of Hawaii.  Gaining its air field, Japan could bomb and then invade Hawaii. They also found evidence for an attack on Alaska.  Washington disagreed.  They had the same messages and thought Solomon islands were likely--to cut off  Australia and New Zealand and invade there. It came down to identifying target “AF”. Who was right? Nimitz trusted his Pacific HYPO guys and withdrew the Enterprise near to Midway.  But such was a neglect of his orders to return to Hawaii.  Yorktown was in Hawaii and he ordered a frantic fix of the crippled carrier.  What we now realize is that the Japanese Army and Navy were arguing.  The Army wanted to invade Alaska.  With only 30,000 non-natives it would be a cakewalk. Nippon’s.Navy was intent on going for the kill of America’s Navy with a trap set at Midway.  High command decided both attacks would happen simultaneously.

            Nimitz told HYPO they’d have to come up with “proof” to convince DC that a strike was due at Midway. Jasper Holmes, an engineer at Hawaii University, had been reactivated and had just joined HYPO.  He had a plan.  Have the Midway base broadcast, without encryption, that they had an emergency with their desalination water plant. Sure enough, Rochefort intercepted a coded Japanese message to include extra water with the invasion fleet.  Plus, there was a surprise—exact date of the attack, June 4, 1942.  Then Rochefort worked on another more heavily encrypted message containing the battle plan, route, etc.  By luck he found the code-breaker and thus Nimitz knew the battle plan.  The Admiral had 3 fleet carriers and six small sea carriers and the airbase.  Japan had 4 fleet carriers and a dozen sea carriers, far more destroyers and battleships. And they mistakenly thought, secrecy.

            With advance notice, Midway sent its planes aloft and was ready with anti-aircraft guns.  As they held off the bombing raid, planes attacked the widely dispersed (for secrecy) Japanese fleet.  But inexperienced US pilots and pitiful American torpedoes that wouldn’t detonate, plus Japan’s skilled fighter pilots won resoundingly.  The Nipponese badly disabled Yorktown.  Then they received word that Midway had been on alert and not much hurt by the raid.  So another round of land bombs was being re-armed on returning planes.

             Then came America’s Dauntless.  Dauntless Douglas Dive-bombers under Lt. Dick Best and Wade McClusky, squadron commanders, targeted the Kaga and Asagi (flagship). Kaga took several hits and because the Japanese were re-arming, bomb stacks, fuel hoses lay all over the lower decks. These erupted in massive fires.  Best then targeted Asagi.  His own DSB Dauntless put a 500-lb. bomb down the elevator of the ship causing a terrific explosion. Japanese carriers had cost-saving wooden decks and thus were at risk for fire.  A third carrier, the Soryu, was also destroyed. Hence returning Japanese pilots, with no place to land, had to ditch in the sea.  The following day, the Dauntlesses destroyed the Hiryu and the Japanese called a retreat. They had lost 6000 men and half their Pacific fleet.  Nipponese naval dominance never recovered after Midway. With Yorktown unsalvageable, the United States now had just 4 Pacific fleet carriers vs. Japan’s 4.  In the next 3 years, Japan would build 3 more.  But USA built 24. And the Japanese Army found themselves stranded without Navy support on two Aleutian islands after Midway.

            Layton, Rochefort, Holmes, and Best all came from small town America—small towns with big churches—and each of them was influenced by Protestant faith.  As Dick Best said, “You never know when your end is coming so live as much as you can.”  He fought Midway with tuberculosis and was discharged later that year.  Layton became a Rear Admiral; Holmes, head of the HU math department. Cryptoanalyst, Joseph Rochefort  died in 1976 and peers took up cause that he be decorated (He had not. Did the Navy have to have someone to blame for Pearl??).  Posthumously, he was awarded the President’s Medal of Freedom. Richard Halsey “Dick” Best, the super pilot, fought through his TB, and outlived them all.  He died in 2001.  “Live as much as you can.”

           

 

 

What intelligence research tells about social problems

I’ve been reading about intelligence, education and social behavior and some interesting things have been proven.  You probably suspected a lot of this.  All these stats are for white people only, no racial component.

Remember those plots that show if you have only a high school education you’ll likely make $30,000 a year, but if you have a bachelor’s you’ll make $50K and advanced degrees = $90K?  It turns out, while this is true, the distribution for each education level is extremely broad. There are Phds on welfare. There are CEOs who have 8^th grade ed.   The correlation between education level and earnings is about .3 (1.0 or 100% correlation is perfect; zero is none whatsoever)  IQ correlates at about .6 so it is a better predictor of earnings. 

The people who study intelligence were highly persecuted in the 60s and 70s for their proofs that intelligence gives a lot of advantage and it is somewhat inherited.  That was the era when people believed that environment caused everything.  (Well, why try to breed smart sheepdogs? You could just make any old mutt a shepherd.) So the researchers went underground by the way they stopped talking about test scores and began talking about standard deviations away from the curve peaks.  Apparently it worked.  Media and many others couldn’t understand what they were talking about.  Then came the 90s demand for education accountability and testing.  Once again, intelligence measures became important.  A guy with 80 IQ doesn’t make a very good elementary particle physicist. 

The popular concept is that college education skyrocketed after WW II.  No, it actually began growing rapidly about 1920. 1920—2% of population had a bachelors; 1940—8%; 1960—16%;2016—35%.  That reflects the fact that in 1950 the traditional 55% of top quartile of SAT scorers went to college but by 1965 it was 80%.  And it was since about 1960 that the prestigious colleges began to compete for the top HS grads.  Why?  College costs quadrupled from 1950 to 1960, and a lot of middle class families could no longer afford it unless they had a smart kid who could get scholarships.

The result is that people of a certain intelligence and education often only associate with others of similar status, especially in urban areas where many technical people are employed.  The tech revolution has insulated many of the best and brightest from the rest of the people.  This explains why so many of our best politicians come, not from mega-metros but cities of 400,000 or smaller where everyone rubs elbows.  The tech skills are accountants, architects, engineers, professsors, dentists and physicians, mathematicians and scientists and the like.  These 8 jobs suck up 25% of the top 10% in IQ. And as the federal regulations have grown by a factor of six in the last 20 years, it takes a smart guy to start a successful business. Average Joe finds it hard.  Thus in 2014 for the first time in 400 years, America’s number of newly closed businesses exceeded the number of start-ups for the first time. 5-year running average) And interestingly the Supreme Court has forbidden employers from giving intelligence tests, yet these correlate better with successful job performance than anything else—reference checks, interviews, education, or age.  As kids are strongly encouraged to follow education as far as they can make it go, education is now strongly tied to intelligence.  The upper technical fields have seen a real salary increase of about 60% since 1963 while others are up only about 10% in constant dollars.  Hence the new success of Trump’s appeal to lower middle class.   And the nerds mate together just as they live close, thereby producing smart kids.  But it’s a loose correlation.  Ben Carson’s mom will surely object.

Let’s talk social difficulties.  Less intelligent women have most of the out-of-wedlock babies.  But of course there’s debate.  Some would say parent’s socioeconomic status (SES) is the cause.  It turns out that intelligence is more fundamental but SES plays a role too.  A graph of Americans below the poverty line is stunning.  Poverty decreased in a straight line from 1940 when 50% were “poor” to 1969 when the curve flat-lined in the 12-15% range it has had ever since.  The Great Society was supposed to reduce this!  Instead it halted the decline of poverty.  When a group goes from 50% to 15%, who is left behind?  Those who lack thrift, energy, determination and brains, it is likely. 

The statistics about unwed mothers are staggering.  Married women of lowest 2% of IQ are 18% likely to live in poverty.  Those in upper 2% are 1% likely.  But single moms of the lowest 2% IQ are 70% likely to live in poverty.  Upper 2% are still 15% likely. It is as if marriage makes you rich.   And the numbers cut across all reasons for single motherhood—widowed, divorced, and never-married.  This almost says, “If you want kids and means, get married and stay married.” Why are women so adversely affected?  I think it is because men are hard-pressed and measured by career while women who have children will often compromise a job if it adversely affects the children. Equal pay for equal work is the Law.

A HS education has become the norm. The dropout rate doesn’t correlate very well with SES but does correlate strongly with IQ.  It figures.  If you struggle with classes, you are more likely to drop out. The number of disabled and collecting Social Security has increased 50% during the Obama presidency, causing Bill O’Reilly to exclaim, “Has America gotten more hazardous?  That can’t be!”  No, but here’s what the stats tell us.  Low intelligence workers opportunistically claim far more disability.  There is a slightly better safety behavior among the intelligent workers, but the real story is that discouraged workers, finding it harder to keep and find a job, find it more socially acceptable to claim disability and get a sympathetic doc to approve it. And they won’t go crazy watching daytime TV and living leisurely.  Employment of teens who aren’t in school has gone from 85% in 1954 to 63% in 2009 to 51% today.  And when you study the SES of these workers, it suddenly gets interesting.  Unemployed teens drop in unemployment rate as they go to higher IQ.  But it’s the other way around for SES.  The ones who have wealthy parents are more long-term unemployed.  Living in the proverbial basement, I guess.    

Stuff the news media should tell us

I suspect that a major reason the media doesn’t give oft-times vital information, is because they have such short time frames to write or speak and many lack analytical skills.  Years ago, I cashed in a few frequent flier points to sit 1^st class and I sat down next to Art Linkletter, age 90 at the time.  He told me exactly this. Here’s more stuff…

1.     China was 2% of world's manufacturing in 1991 but is 19% today. 1/5 of US middleclass job loss is due to this. Workers are far less willing to move today (loss of home value) or re-educate (US stresses 4 year degrees which is huge down time to get a bachelors) Therefore, many try to get on disability, now 5% of 25-64 yr. olds. Food stamps has gone from 17M in 2000 to 48M today.

2.     2.6M die each year, most by health conditions. 98K die from medical mistakes, 100K from falls and accidents, 38K drug overdoses, 30K vehicle accidents.  There are only 700 deaths per year from gun accidents, but 13,000 from gun crime.  Cocaine usage fell by half in the last 10 years but heroin has gone up 80%. Marijuana abuse in Colorado has increased by 25% among the elderly since they passed legalization.

3.     It’s the federal gov’t people are fed up with.  47% of voters this fall thought Fed Gov’t is too powerful; 61% think states should be able to opt out of fed mandates and programs if fed doesn’t pay for them. Only 26% want federal funding of elections.

4.     Since 70s, land temperature readings have gone 1.5 degrees higher, but 25degrees higher since 15,000 BC. At 10,800 BC was a -15 degree re-cooling called Younger Dryas that lasted 1300 years, probably due to changed ocean circulation. Then two Sahara warmings @ 4400BC and 2200BC each lasting 150  years. (disputed causes) A  medieval warming 850-1300AD by 5 degrees, then a Little Ice Age (-8 degrees) 1309-1850 AD caused by lower solar output—known from sunspot occurance) Interglacial periods last 12,000-28,000 years. 39% of climatologists recently said they were convinced of manmade warming.

5.     In 1850, 80% of black children slaves lived with BOTH parents and this continued to 1950.  14% out-of-wedlock rate of 1950 has gone to 70% today. 7000 of 13,000 murders are committed by Af-Am who are 13% population. Half of 12^th graders function at 6^th grade. Teen unemployment was LESS than for whites in 1950s but is now 47%.  Black kids need Dads!  Take an unguided one under your wing, guys!

6.     Oklahoma Democrat vs. R’s in 1976 was 78% to 22% (don’t have statistics on Indies). 2016, 40 years later it is 41.5% to 45.5% in favor of R’s.  The use of marketing surveys with smart phone techniques is having a big impact on big elections—people reminding like-minded people to vote—Obama technique pioneered in 2008. Media doesn’t want you to know this. It circumvents them.

7.     Single mom, two kids (SM2K) can get assistance from TANF,WIC, Food stamps, Sect. 8 housing, and Medicaid, plus other state programs. If you make nothing $1500 a month aid is typical even in MS and AR when state is tightfisted. Earned Income Tax Credit declines as you make more than $9600 and you lose TANF.  At about 23K you lose food stamps and housing asst. Bottom line, most, but not all SM2Ks make $1500-$2000 per month no matter how poor they are.

8.     7% of men are molested sexually as kids.  46% of gay males were; 22% of gay women. Prison surveys show 86% of child molesters are gay/bi. 1.6% of population is gay; 0.7% bi—same as it has been for the last century.

9.     Save up.  30% of seniors >55 have no savings and 26% have less than $50K (9 months in nursing home).  ¼ living on retirement SS have only that. (SS retirement avg benefit is $1600/month)

10.  Racism is rare. In 1950 20% thought interracial marriage was okay.  Today it’s 90%.  Of the 10% who don’t, 2/3 cited no personal dislike but hardship on children or the couple.  That fits with 12 studies of Caucasian Americans over the last 20 years thought to be reputable—true racists are <3 3="" nbsp="" o:p="" of="" population.="" total.="">

Well, enough!  Don’t get me going on Obamacare, Islam, Taxation or Energy.  I can’t shut up.

Stuff Prez candidates should bring up

I simply do not understand why some things aren’t in the public discussion of politics.  If some Republican candidate would bring up these subjects, I guarantee it would cause a media stir and it would make him/her look like a genius. 

            Retirement.  70% of seniors say that retirement in USA is in a state of crisis.  Whenever you have 70% of anything in politics, that’s a huge issue and a sure winner for someone who gets on the right side of it.  Median savings upon retirement is $50,000.  Median SS income is $16,000.  Taking $3,000 a year out of savings gives a median income of $19,000 a year.  That’s food stamps territory.  Add health problems and see how far $19K goes.  To make matters worse, SS is collecting less than it pays out (since 2012) and left unchecked SS and MC will use up All discretionary budget funds by 2030.  “All” means no money for military, Post Office, national parks, Coast Guard rescue and a thousand other functions of government. 

            So a smart candidate needs to spell out a program.  Christie has tried this but he doesn’t spell it out in human terms that capture the dire consequences to the country.

            Military Recruitment and Education.  21 million young people are eligible for the military but we cannot recruit about 200,000 a year for the following reasons.  7 million are too obese.  6 million cannot pass the necessary tests, especially math. Many others have children or tattoos and crime records or other social/dependency problems. Our recruiters hand out lots of incentive bonuses, free college, career training, etc. yet we still fall beneath recruitment quotas every year. While physical/ health problems and social problems are a difficult problem interwoven in our society, failing a math test is just a matter of training for 99% or recruits.  What the hell is wrong with our education?! Of the 45 OECD countries (developed world) we are 28^th in math, 28^th in science, 17^th in reading.  If our local public schools can’t get it done, perhaps we need special military pre-schools that can teach stuff like how to add three 2-digit numbers in your head (necessary to assess windage corrections in rifle shooting).  Surely our kids are smarter than the ones from Appalachia and inner cities who fought bravely in Vietnam, aren’t they? I’d also relax the tattoo prohibitions in consultation with our military leaders.  Our country’s military is being forced out of existence by diabolical leadership.

            War on Women.  What women want is a society where they can freely develop a fulfilling life with their talents and destiny.  Pro-life is not war on women.  Cradle-to-grave security as a disguised form of dependency serfdom is a war on women.  You don’t become a true princess by sitting around sucking up benefits.

Climate Change.  About half the people believe that increased CO2 has caused a global warming, predicted to be 2 degrees in the next 100 years.  Chemical composition of the atmosphere, however, is just one of several effects postulated by scientists.  What someone needs to say in a debate is this.  Okay so you believe in 2 degrees due to CO2.  What about solar radiation?  It varies considerably more and we have historical records of it.  The Little Ice Age from 1309-1850 dropped temperatures 9 degrees.  The Medieval Warming was several degrees warmer.  And what about oceanic circulation.  When that changed during the Younger-Dryas 12,000 years ago, temperatures dropped 17 degrees.  And the nutation of earth’s rotation which changes axis tilt causes 30 degrees temperature drops and brings on ice ages.  Why is no one saying anything about this?  I’ll tell you why.  Because CO2 production is the only effect that allows politicians to call for socialism.  It is the only effect that government can make people feel guilty about so that government can tell you how to live and what to do.  This is how socialism works.  And does government ever truly fix anything?  I suggest we rely on private sector solutions to our CO2 production and tell government to get out of the road of the people!

            Islam. President Erdogan of Turkey, a key ally of ours, is also a conservative Muslim.  He says there is no such thing as moderate and radical Islam.  “Islam is Islam” he has said.  And there are aspects of Islam that order the followers to take over the entire world by peace or by force.  Then offer a few quotes of the Quran. Explain that these are non-abrogated passages. (Doctrine holds that there are false verses in their scripture that are overridden by later revelations.) “Terrorize the infidels and beleaguer them.  Cut off their heads and cut off their fingers.” Sura 9:3.  “Kill the infidels wherever you find them.” Sura 147:43.  Point out that the faith will not rest until Sharia Law supplants all other law.  So then the question becomes, will refugees from Syria live in quiet toleration of faiths in America?  We should only accept immigrants from Islamic states through meticulous screening and probably far less than the 200,000 that Obama is letting in from Syria.

            Liberty.  So many people say that we have a constitution based on Christianity or no religious origins. But if you ask where they got that info they are clueless.  But we founded this country on the principle of Liberty.  All the founders knew what Liberty was.  It was a term coined by John Locke, the father of modern psychology and a government philosopher who has two direct quotes in our Constitution and thoroughly influenced our founders.  Liberty means being able to follow the inner voice in your head, that is, follow your dreams, follow the Holy Spirit, follow your faith.  If you have a mission in life, be it from God or your own deduction, being allowed to follow it is the absolutely fundamental bedrock of our ideals and our Constitution.  No Liberty?  Then you are just a lousy serf of an overreaching government.   

            Try a few of these at the next debate and see if it doesn’t set off the Mainstream Media to gobbling like turkeys. And see if it doesn’t enthuse a few R voters.

Uncle Sucker

I guess the Obama campaign is promoting a video that shows a composite character “Julia” who starts getting government programs from age 3 to retirement.  It’s backfired.  It merely serves to remind most of us how crazy cradle-to-grave security is. 

Here’s to hoping that Julia is not like the woman that Obama put in his autobiography.   Now he says she wasn’t real, just a “composite girlfriend”.  Mom and I  looked at one another quizzically.  She finally responded, “What does that tell you about a guy who writes an autobiography and puts fabrications in it?” Well, I don’t know.  Maybe that is why the real girlfriend finally surfaced and said he was cold and aloof and guarded.  When she told him she loved him he said, “Thank you.” And then followed with something about how he could understand why she did.  That’s either cold as ice or dumb statement.  Dumb like when the weatherman Sunday night was following that tornado cell nearing Ponca City.  You know how they do it--showing radar maps, talking to some insane spotter trying to get closer to the twister, giving grave warnings about seeking shelter.  Then the tornado began to dissipate and he pronounced, “Now I wouldn’t get too relieved just yet since there is still persistent circulation.  Stay in your shelter for a while longer.”  I guess that statement was for the guy who really likes a comfortable tornado shelter complete with television service so he is watching the TV weatherman.  You know, big Lazy Boy, Slurpie in one hand and Big Mac in the other—so if you get blown away, they’ll say how you really enjoyed life.

Where was I?  Ah, Julia.  Julia gets all the state has to offer from little on.  It didn’t remind me of anything admirable.   It reminded me of the kids in our local group home and how growing up a system kid affected them.  Orphan kids had all they needed to eat and could constantly watch TV (the babysitter).  The state would take them on day trips to Frontier City and the Warren Center Ice rink.  They even had Slurpies and big Macs. 

They just didn’t have Mom and Dad.  And there was nothing on the face of this planet they wanted worse.  One kid grieved that he had blown a placement with a family that sounded downright like hillbillies.  Didn’t matter.  He wanted what the state didn’t have: Love, Encouragement, Someone to follow around, Somebody to eagerly get involved in his future. The absolute favorite TV channel at the group home was Disney.  17 year olds watched Disney.  Why?  It is the station that shows family life.  We took Amy as a foster kid.   I watched Amy spend her entire life savings of $42, earned at her job at Sonic, on Mothers Day.  It took me 3 hours following her around Walmart as she debated with herself over every gift. I remember Marcus, whose West African ancestry didn’t exactly match my German/Dutch. He latched onto us, calling us Mom and Dad while riding his bike down the hill every day he could. For what?  So he could run around with me fixing screen doors the renters had kicked out.  I remember cleaning a trashed-out house with Hayna.  He found a soiled magazine picture of a dog.  Stared at it a long time and asked if he could keep it.  Because it reminded him of a dog he had when he was 3, before his dad died and his mom got on drugs.  Warning: These are not composite characters!

The government cannot hold your hand when you walk down the aisle on wedding day.  The state won’t teach you how to measure up and be a man.  It’s not that the state is bad, they are just a safety net.  They are Uncle Sucker when they get suckered by welfare cheats and Uncle Sucker when they suck the taxes out of free people.  And they are Uncle Sucker when they encumber themselves with so many rules they don’t even know the rules themselves. 

If Julia was real, I’d ask her, “You want a real Mom and Dad?  Friends, Family and a Future?  Or do you  want Uncle Sucker?”  I know what Julia would say.