Category: Uncategorized

It can happen in the USA

That doesn’t mean it will happen, of course.  Due to the different structure wealth is stored in various countries, and the fact that the banks require balance-sheet assets rather than cash to cover their debts, I expect US pension funds and stock markets will be tapped before bank deposits are stolen.

However, MF Global has already demonstrated that legally speaking, in the USA, money on deposit is not your own, but rather, belongs to the custodial corporation to use as it sees fit, including as collateral for loans to the custodian.  “The settled position of the law is that when you deposit, the bank
becomes the owner of the money deposited and you become a creditor to
the bank.”  It’s not your money, you’re just loaning the money to the bank, which may or may not pay you back, just like anyone else to whom you loan money.  It’s also worth noting that the FDIC cannot and will not provide protection against this sort of government seizure.  From one of Karl’s readers:

“One of my prep school classmates is one of the head lawyers of the FDIC. I called him tonight and he was completely briefed and aware of the Cyprus situation. When I mentioned the ticker to him, he laughed because he said the FDIC, FSLIC and SIPC have no jurisdiction nor provide any protection against taxes or fees, which Gen kind of implied. A bank run, of course is a different story, but the government can tax you to death and the FDIC, FSLIC and SIPC will just stand by and watch. They also will not cover you for a seizure that is related to a crime, like fraud, terrorism or narcotics violations.”

In other words, you’ve been warned.  If you’re still leaving more in the financial system than the bare minimum you need in order to keep your personal finances flowing, you should be aware that you are taking a distinctly non-zero risk.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Cyprus is a test case.  If the bank heist passes the Cypriot parliament and does not spark bank runs throughout Europe as a result, we will almost certainly see more heists take place.  Italy is most likely next, although Spain and Ireland would also be reasonable candidates, because the EU is aware it will have to act there before Beppe Grillo and his grillini win a majority in the next election and are in a position to prevent them from doing so.  Keep in mind the poll mentioned below was conducted before the recent events in Cyprus.

“A new poll shows surging support for Grillo. The election only added to his
momentum, and he’s now at 30 percent. Almost as worrisome for Europe:
Berlusconi’s PDL has also gained since the election.”

Nor is there any mistaking how Grillo’s MoVimento 5 Stelle is looking at the Cyprus situation: “Signori brutte notizie da Cipro. Il Fondo Monetario con la complicità dell’UE prenderà coattamente il 10% da ogni conto corrente bancario. Dovrebbe essere una notizia da prima pagina su ogni quotidiano e invece non mi sembra di averla vista, potrei sbagliarmi comunque. Siamo davvero sicuri che questa è l’Europa che vogliamo? Gente che vive a migliaia di chilometri di distanza e che prende decisioni così importanti senza interpellare i cittadini.”

“Gentlemen, terrible news out of Cyprus.  The IMF, with the complicity of the EU, will forcibly take 10 percent from every bank account.  This should be front page news on every newspaper and instead, although I could be mistaken, I haven’t seen it anywhere.  Are we really certain that this is the Europe we want?  People living thousands of kilometers away making decisions this important without consulting the citizens?”

The neocons at the American Spectator and other places are screaming that Grillo is a fascist.  They’re not entirely wrong, but what they conveniently leave out of the equation is that the EU is fascist as well.  The only difference is that the EU is a form of international fascism that runs interference for the global banks, (as seen in Cyprus), whereas MoVimento 5 Stelle is an Italian nationalist movement, and as such, is vastly preferable to the EU and its globalist masters.

“A major, MAJOR game changer”

The CEO of Saxo Bank comments on the Cypriot bank raids:

This is full-blown socialism. It is difficult to describe the weekend bailout package to Cyprus in any other way. The confiscation of 6.75 percent of small depositors’ money and 9.9 percent of big depositors’ funds is without precedence that I can think of in a supposedly civilised and democratic society. But maybe the European Union (EU) is no longer a civilised democracy?

I heard rumours about this when I visited Limassol last week, but dismissed them as completely outlandish. And yet, here we are. The consequences are unpredictable, but we are clearly looking at a significant paradigm shift.

This is a breach of fundamental property rights, dictated to a small country by foreign powers and it must make every bank depositor in Europe shiver. Although the representatives at the bailout press conference tried to present this as a one-off, they were not willing to rule out similar measures elsewhere – not that it would have mattered much as the trust is gone anyway. It is now difficult to expect any kind of limitation to what measures the Troika and EU might take when the crisis really starts to bite.

If you can do this once, you can do it again. if you can confiscate 10 percent of a bank customer’s money, you can confiscate 25, 50 or even 100 percent. I now believe we will see worse as the panic increases, with politicians desperately trying to keep the EUR alive.

Depositors in other prospective bailout countries must be running scared – is it safe to keep money in an Italian, Spanish or Greek bank any more? I dont know, must be the answer. Is it prudent to take the risk? You decide. I fear this will lead to massive capital outflows from weak Eurozone countries, just about the last thing they need right now. Even from the EU as a whole, I suspect, as the banking union is in place in most countries already.

Another open question is what will happen to the huge number of brokerages based in Cyprus? There is about 100 or more FX and other brokers currently operating under the relatively light Cypriot regulation. How will this impact the trustworthiness of these many small institutions? What IS the exact impact on the client deposits they might be holding in Cyprus? Will anyone dare to do business with them going forward?

This is a major, MAJOR game changer and the fallout will be with us for a long time to come. I believe it could be the beginning of the end for the Eurozone as this is an unbelievable blow to the already challenged trust that might be left among investors. Talk about a possible own goal.

Market reaction? it must be very good for gold – and for safe-haven countries like Switzerland, Singapore and economically more healthy non-Euro countries in, for example, Scandinavia. I would think the EUR and associated markets will be undermined by increasing lack of confidence when the full implications become clear for investors.

This is full-blown socialism and I still cannot believe this really happened.

I think it is safe to say that it is very bad news when the actions of the international bankers appalls even their lesser brethren, and when the initial test-action exceeds the worst expectations of about only people to correctly anticipate it coming.

And note that they expect similar actions to take place in the USA as well.  Meanwhile, none of the smugly verbose defenders of the people on the Left appear to have even noticed anything has happened… most likely because this sort of thing is completely beyond their capacity to even comprehend, let alone analyze or anticipate.

You will recall that I have been warning readers to stay out of the stock market and the banking system to the greatest extent possible for some time now.  This is only one of the many reasons why.  Those who were confident in the security of their 401ks should probably reconsider their opinions in light of these mandatory depository “contributions” to the cause of debt restructuring.  As Karl Denninger puts it: “$100 bills in your hand have just been declared to be worth
somewhere between 7-10% more than those “deposited” and “stored” in a
bank.”

I have to admit, once more I’m shown to be somewhat of an optimist.  I expected them to begin with pension and 401k seizures, I never imagined they would go right for the deposits.  But then, as a gangster of an earlier era said, the banks are where the money is.  And in case you were wondering what was going to bring the heavily overbought stock market’s 10-day winning streak to a customarily nasty end, you would appear to have gotten your answer.

UPDATE: Germany and the IMF were originally demanding 40 PERCENT of all bank deposits.

UPDATE II: The Monday bank holiday in Cyprus has already been extended to Tuesday, and will likely be extended to Wednesday as well.  Pay attention, this is how it will happen elsewhere.  If you wait until the announcements hit, you will not be able to do anything until it is too late.

UPDATE III: Now the Cypriot Parliament is belatedly wondering if robbing the entire savings class is a health-conscious decision and dragging its heels. “Cyprus’ parliament on Sunday postponed a debate
and vote on a controversial levy on all bank deposits that the
cash-strapped country’s creditors had demanded in exchange for (EURO)10
billion ($13 billion) in rescue money.  The vote, which had been
expected later Sunday, has been pushed back to Monday afternoon,
parliamentary official Antonis Koutalianos said.  The
announcement set off an immediate scramble among top European officials,
with reports that the European Central Bank was pressuring Cypriot
authorities to hold the vote without delay.”

I expect the confiscations will go through, such things almost always do, but notice how it is always the executive branch that is the first to surrender.  And what a surprise, that the anti-democratic fascists of the EU failed to take into account that they’d have to get the support of the parliament in order to complete their little bank heist.  Also, look for the “Russian money laundering” angle to be talked up on the financial news in an attempt to justify the theft and reduce fears outside of Cyprus, which is, of course, the only place that any thing of the sort could possibly happen just this one time due to impossible-to-foresee emergency circumstances.

UPDATE IV: In what surely is completely unrelated news, the Russian Navy had an announcement today as well: “Russia will dispatch a permanent group of five to six combat ships to
the Mediterranean Sea, Russian Navy chief Admiral Viktor Chirkov said.
Frigates and cruisers will make up the core of the fleet.”

The bank raids begin

It would be reasonable to assume that the bank runs will be next:

£8.7billion EU bailout imposes tax on ALL bank accounts in Cyprus.  Under the deal, all bank deposits over €100,000 will be hit with a levy of 9.9 per cent. Those with smaller savings will pay 6.75 per cent.

The raid will raise €5.8 billion, which will be added to a €10billion bailout from Brussels. But financial experts said the raid – designed to stop Cyprus crashing out of the euro, potentially destroying the currency – would send shock waves through the eurozone.

If savers in other troubled nations fear their accounts might be next, they could withdraw their money and spark a catastrophic run on the banks.

Tell these people, who are losing between 7 percent and 10 percent of their savings, how vitally important it is for Cyprus to remain in the euro.  Especially when there isn’t even the remotest prospect for this blatant theft to repair the situation or do anything more than buy a little more time.

A slip of the mask

I have to admit that I was impressed with this woman’s review of A Throne of Bones, less because she was willing to recognize its strengths while correctly identifying some of its flaws than by her ability to observe what so many other critics simply do not see:

“I hadn’t yet found Mr. Day’s talents to be equal to his claims of superior intelligence. Do pay attention to my verb tenses, please. I had always found his nonfiction articles to lack nuance, but later discovered that this lack of nuance left him open to attacks on his logic, which then created situations of counterattack wherein Day revealed how very coldly logical he was, and in a way that most people couldn’t follow. This led me to believe that Vox Day is a master manipulator, who directs the dichotomous thinking of others [most people, I’ve found, are black and white thinkers, even if they boast high intelligence. And that personality trait is exploitable]”

I think this description is probably a bit too colorful; after all, what sort of master manipulator never attempts to manipulate anyone into doing anything?  I may have some of the abilities and perhaps even the right psychological makeup(1) to be such a creature, but the only thing for which I habitually use my Machiavellian tendencies is to encourage my critics-to-be to expose themselves to an inevitable counterattack.  If you think about it, it’s really nothing more than setting up a defensive position with kill zones, then guiding the enemy’s approach into those zones with the use of misdirection.

However, she is absolutely correct concerning the exploitable nature of the binary thinker.  Regardless of how smart he may be, all one has to do to fatally trap any such thinker is to encourage him to lunge at the lure. Convince him to think that white is black, he will immediately begin to argue in favor of white in reaction, at which point one has no more to do than remove the illusion and he is yours.

Many, if not most, of the questions I initially ask people are simply intended to sound them out.  It’s much more important to know how someone thinks than what they think.  If you know what someone thinks on a certain matter, it may offer a clue as to what they think on another one.  If you know how someone thinks, you can fairly accurately anticipate what they are going to conclude about practically anything, assuming you’re both privy to the same information.

Anyhow, I was particularly pleased to read Mrs. Domschot’s generally positive conclusions about the book because she clearly views the author in a skeptical light.  But one always has to respect those critics who genuinely attempt judge a work on its own merits, regardless of what they think of the author and no matter what their ultimate conclusions happen to be.  Of course, given that she describes herself as a “a non-compliant, anti-authoritarian misanthrope who writes speculative fiction”, it may be that we have more in common than she would like to believe.

(1)After a round of personality tests in high school, the psychologist administering them commented that my profile was an uncommon one as I was unusually high in two areas generally observed to be contradictory.  Apparently it showed that I was an honest and straightforward Machiavellian.

Because you invaded their country

An Indian man wonders why no British people were willing to intervene when he was being beaten up on a train:

‘Why would nobody help me?’ Father punched in the face 18 times by racist thugs in front of 200 witnesses on a packed tram… and not one person intervened. Prakash Patel, 56, attacked while on a tram in Manchester with his daughter

Can you imagine this happening in the England in which Mr. Patel first settled 30 years ago?  No more than you can probably imagine a German complaining that French civilians didn’t come to his assistance when the French Resistance attacked him.  Meanwhile, Mr. Patel’s daughter is very fortunate that they were Indians being attacked in England and not Swiss being attacked in India.

The bien-pensant can cluck like chickens about how terrible it is that humanity does not suffer invasion of its territories and subjugation of its peoples with all the gentle good humor of lambs being led to the slaughter if they like; they will do so to no avail.  Recall that most still regard Winston Churchill, Davy Crockett, and the men of the USS Arizona heroes for their resistance of failed conquests far less credible than those attempted by Mr. Patel and his third world cohorts. The “racist thugs” of today will be the heroes of tomorrow, just as the multicuturalists thought so well of by the progressives and well-behaved conservatives of today will eventually be considered insane monsters of history in the vein of the Nazis and Communists.

Multiculturalism is worse than murder.  It is even worse than mass murder, being more akin to genocide. It is attempted sociocide.  As for the self-hating fifth columnists who piously mouth PC sacraments like “racists have no place in our society”, I suggest they go and try settling in India or Jamaica or Nigeria so they can discover how the people they are so eagerly welcoming to settle in their country truly feel about racial differences.

It doesn’t matter in the slightest how one feels personally about these matters.  It doesn’t matter how pure-in-heart and anti-racist you believe yourself to be. It doesn’t matter that people of various sub-species and races have lived in relative harmony for ten, twenty, or even one hundred years. Cultural friction, like gravity, always wins in the end. History shows, history makes it abundantly clear, that eventually the cultural differences will trigger sufficient violence to restore the violated borders once more.  It is as completely futile to blame “racism” for the inevitable violence as it is to wage war on “terror”.  Doing so is a fundamental category error.

Immigration is when a small number of foreigners are permitted to settle within a country by the native people.  Invasion is when tens of thousands or more foreigners settle in a country against the wishes of the native people, regardless of whether they happen to be armed or not. Both Europe and the USA have suffered quiet and undeclared large-scale invasions; only now are the natives beginning to wake up and become restless.

And the reason they will become considerably more violent is explained by Mr. Patel himself: “He said he would consider leaving Britain in the wake of the attack were it not for the fact that his family is so well established here.”  In other words, the invaders will not leave until they are forced to do so, as we have seen in India, in Zimbabwe, as we are presently seeing in South Africa, and as we will eventually see in England and the USA.

Now, there is certainly a case to be made that there is no need to harbor any sympathy for the British, considering how they themselves invaded more than half the countries around the world.  But it is blatantly dishonest to pretend the British people are not being invaded against their will, as dishonest as it would be to deny the invasions of the British imperial era.

The honest monohumanist, assuming one can be found, will be inclined to ask “why are you racist?”  To which one can only respond: “on what basis do you assume that this time, for the first time in over six thousand years of recorded history, it will be different?”

From Huxley to Orwell

The world isn’t binary. Sometimes it isn’t an either/or proposition, but rather, a first A, then B situation.

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through:

•    Sensual gratification,
•    Cheap mass-produced goods,
•    Boundless credit,
•    Political theater and
•    Amusement.

While we were entertained,

•    The regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled,
•    The laws that once protected us were rewritten and
•    We were impoverished.

Now that:

•    Credit is drying up,
•    Good jobs for the working class are gone forever and
•    Mass-produced goods are unaffordable,

  …. we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984.”

We can take some comfort in the knowledge that all of this was foreseen and explained nearly two thousand years ago.  Of course, that doesn’t mean it is going to be a good time for everyone.

Everybody screws up

I was a bit embarrassed about my little digging-related miscalculation in A Throne of Bones.  I felt a little better about it after encountering a mistake in Isaac Asimov’s Forward the Foundation, in which a
highly improbable nightly murder rate was asserted on Trantor.  And
given the level of attention to detail for which David Foster Wallace,
supposedly one of the greatest novelists of the last 30 years, is
rightly lauded, I feel downright positive about my own blunder after catching the following error in this passage from Infinite Jest.  Apparently, the longer the book, the more likely it is that the possibility of a basic error approaches certainty.

1610h.
E.T.A. Weight Room. Freestyle circuits. The clank and click of various
resistance-systems. Lyle on the towel dispenser conferring with an
extremely moist Graham Rader. Schacht doing sit-ups, the board almost
vertical, his face purple and forehead pulsing. Troeltsch by the squat
rack blowing his nose into a towel. Coyle doing military presses with a
bare bar. Carol Spodek curling, intent on the mirror. Rader nodding as
Lyle bends and leans in. Hal up on the spotter-shelf in back of the
incline-bench in the shadow of the monster copper beech through the west
window doing single-leg toe-raises, for the ankle. Ingersoll at the
shoulder-pull, steadily upping the weight against Lyle’s advice. Keith
(‘The Viking’) Freer 68 and the steroidic fifteen-year-old Eliot
Kornspan spotting each other on massive barbell-curls next to the water
cooler’s bench, taking turns bellowing encouragement. Hal keeps pausing
to lean down and spit into an old NASA glass on the floor by the little
shelf. E.T.A. Trainer Barry Loach walking around with a clipboard he
doesn’t write anything down on, but watching people intently and nodding
a lot. Axford with one shoe off in the corner, doing something to his
bare foot. Michael Pemulis seated cross-legged on the cooler’s bench
just off Kornspan’s left hip, doing facial isometrics, trying to
eavesdrop on Lyle and Rader, wincing whenever Kornspan and Freer roar at
each other.
‘Three more! Get it up there!’
‘Hoooowaaaaa.’
‘Get that shit up there man!’
‘Gwwwhoooooowaaaaa!’
‘It raped your sister! It killed your fucking mother man!’
‘Huhl huhl huhl huhl gwwwww.’
‘Do it!’
Pemulis
makes his face very long for a while and then very short and broad,
then all sort of hollow and distended like one of Bacon’s popes.
‘Well
suppose’ — Pemulis can just make out Lyle — ‘Suppose I were to give you
a key ring with ten keys. With, no, with a hundred keys, and I were to
tell you that one of these keys will unlock it, this door we’re
imagining opening in onto all you want to be, as a player. How many of
the keys would you be willing to try?’
Troeltsch calls over to
Pemulis, ‘Do the deLint-jerking-off face again!’ Pemulis for a second
lets his mouth gape slackly and his eyes roll way up and flutters his
lids, moving his fist.
‘Well I’d try every darn one,’ Rader tells Lyle.
‘Huhl. Huhl. Gwwwwwwww.’
‘Motherfucker! Fucker!’
Pemulis’s wince looks like a type of facial isometric.
‘Do Bridget having a tantrum! Do Schacht in a stall!’
Pemulis makes a shush-finger.
Lyle
never whispers, but it’s just about the same. ‘Then you are willing to
make mistakes, you see. You are saying you will accept 99% error. The
paralyzed perfectionist you say you are would stand there before that
door. Jingling the keys. Afraid to try the first key.’
Pemulis pulls
his lower lip down as far as it will go and contracts his cheek muscles.
Cords stand out on Freer’s neck as he screams at Kornspan. There’s a
little hanging mist of spittle and sweat. Kornspan looks like he’s about
to have a stroke. There are 90 kg. on the bar, which itself is 20 kg.
‘One more you fuck. Fucking take it.’
‘Fuck me. Fuck meyou fuck. Gwwwwww.’
‘Take the pain.’
Freer has one finger under the bar, barely helping. Kornspan’s red face is leaping around on his skull.
Carol Spodek’s smaller bar goes silently up and down.
Troeltsch
comes over and sits down and saws at the back of his neck with the
towel, looking up at Kornspan. ‘I don’t think all the curls I’ve ever
done all together add up to 110,’ he said.
Kornspan’s making sounds that don’t sound like they’re coming from his throat.
‘Yes!
Yiiissss!’ roars Freer. The bar crashes to the rubber floor, making
Pemulis wince. Every vein on Kornspan stands out and pulses. His stomach
looks pregnant. He puts his hands on his thighs and leans forward, a
string of something hanging from his mouth.
‘Way to fucking take it
baby,’ Freer says, going over to the box on the dispenser to get rosin
for his hands, watching himself walk toward the mirror.
Pemulis
starts very slowly to lean over toward Kornspan, looking around
confidentially. He gets so his face is right up near the side of
Kornspan’s mesomorphic head and whispers. ‘Hey. Eliot. Hey.’
Kornspan, bent over, chest heaving, rolls his head a little his way. Pemulis whispers: ‘Pussy.’

It’s an amusing scene, but first
of all, no 15-year old boys, with or without steroids, have ever done a
single 110 kg curl, let alone more than four.  That’s nearly 250
pounds. Even at my most bulked up, when I was benching 325 pounds, I never curled more than four reps at 150.  These days, I usually top out with 4×52 kg, which is only a bit more than 115 pounds.

Based on the fact
that Wallace mentions 90 kg being on the bar, it’s pretty clear that he actually meant
90 pounds, which is one 45-pound plate per side.  Still impressive, as with
the bar, (another 45 pounds), it is 135 pounds.  Which is readily doable, although still not reasonably conceivable for 15-year old tennis players who are described as having one arm more developed than the other.

Rabbit Rules of Order

Larry Correia engages in a long dance with liberals and in the process illustrates why it is a mistake to pay attention to their inevitable and invariably one-sided appeals to etiquette:

Here, let me break this down for you.  Not just this thread, but any thread where you argue with liberals.

Liberal 1: Attack, ATTACK! Attack, attack, attack! ATTACK!
Liberal 2: ATTACK! ATTACK!
Conservative: Defend.
Liberal 1: So rude!
Liberal 2: Yes, very rude. 

Larry Correia I
do believe she started it, thought Brad was full of it, and then asked
for examples. Provided. She didn’t think there was any bias, and now
several of us are demonstrating that is incorrect.
Or are you just going to do another hit and run, like whatserface? If
you don’t know much about the target, ridicule and attack. Claim your
moral superiority and call it a day?

As for my rudeness, oh well. I guess that is what happens after years
of being called a racist, sexist, wymyn hating, child killer, corporate
shill of the military industrial complex. So put your big girl panties
on and deal with it. :)

Cenate Pruitt (p.s. anyone who nonironically uses the phrase “political correctness” needs to be sent to a reeducation camp.)

I’m going out on a limb and guessing he doesn’t realize the
last US president to put people in camps was liberal icon, FDR, but hey,
whatever.

Remember, their entire game is not to prove that they are right. This is why they will blithely ignore the fact that you’ve conclusively proven their statements to be wrong and claim the irrelevance of the very point upon which they’d previously based their entire argument. It is to force you to back down and apologize, which, according to the Rabbit Rules of Order, means that you lost.

This is why, if you want to shut them up, all you have to do is a) force them to admit that they are wrong, or b) insist that they apologize for something.  They will usually vanish rather than do either, because, by the Rabbit Rules, either of those things is tantamount to losing.  Actually being wrong doesn’t matter because their is no objective reality; their concept of reality is entirely social and subjective.

And Larry, if you happen to see this, shoot me an email, please….

Mailvox: the relevance of Kuhn’s Revolutions

Scoobius is dubious about Thomas Kuhn:

On a couple of different threads lately, knowing reference has been made to Thomas Kuhn and his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. Like a lot of people I read it as a snotty college kid. But unlike a lot of people, I recall thinking at the time that there was something fishy about what he was saying, something perhaps even unpersuasive. To be honest it’s so long ago since I read the book, I couldn’t even tell you now with accuracy what his arguments were. I just recall thinking at the time, Hmm, I’d certainly like to at least hear the rebuttal and the counter-arguments, but universities being what they are, his book was assigned on the topic and no others; and it wasn’t my key area of interest, so I just let the matter drop.

Anyway, being as I’m the resident “no ideas but in things” gadfly and I’m just as interested in the human sociology of ideas and where they actually personally come from, as I am in the ideas themselves, I was thinking about the title of Kuhn’s book.

It seems to me that its enduring popularity may actually have little to do with the content of his specific ideas, and more to do with the fact that the title of his book contains the words “structure” and “revolutions.”

If there are two words that the intellectual class loves to use, two words that simply push their happy-buttons and send them into transports of catnip-induced bliss, they are “structure” and “revolution”. It may be that the thing remains on the permanent syllabus simply because those two words send intellectuals into ecstasy.

I very much disagree.  The main reason Kuhn remains popular is that his reasoning provides substance and cover for those who, for various reasons, doubt the legitimacy of the dictatorial scientific consensus.  While one will not be taken seriously by claiming that the Bible contradicts global warming, the latest dating of homo sapiens sapiens, or the raspberry bush of life, one can cite Kuhn and it tends to take the wind out of the sails of even the most authoritative scientist.

Kuhn is essentially historical jujitsu contra scientific overreach.  Whether he is strictly correct or not is almost irrelevant, because reminding scientists of their many false historical consensuses is the most effective antidote against their ridiculous tendency to claim that this time, at last, their assertions should be unquestioningly and unhesitatingly accepted.

As I’ve noted in the past, those who claim science is Man’s most accurate guide to the factual truth are absolutely wrong and it is trivially easy to demonstrate how and why they are wrong.  We have a word for science that is actually reliable, and that word is “engineering”.  With the partial exception of physics, most science that has not yet reached what we might consider its mature state is dynamic and remains incapable of providing predictive models that are much more reliable than those provided by other, non-scientific means.