Another ICE execution

American law enforcement agents from ICE shot and killed another person in Minneapolis. Alex Pretti was a law abiding citizen, carrying a gun and permitted by law. ICE commander Gregory Bovino, who is deemed by many to look somewhat Nazi, said that carrying a gun into the protest constitutes sufficient reason to be deemed a threat (even with the gun removed) and killed. What about the second amendment? The law that allows us to carry guns? To protect ourselves and others in dangerous situations?

Alex Pretti was a lawful gun owner, licensed to carry his gun. He was attending a protest which had the potential to turn dangerous. In such situations, the use of his gun may be called for, legally, such as in self defense. That’s what guns are for, after all. If we are not allowed to carry them in a dangerous situation, where are they supposed to be used?

Now, this was a riot, where people were generally not obeying ICE orders. In situations where control is limited, shooting becomes more likely. The same is true in war. We shoot at soldiers of the opposing army that we can’t control and who don’t obey our orders. Once under control, as prisoners of war, they have human rights and cannot be killed.

The situation with Alex Pretti was that he was not under arrest, no attempt at arrest was made and there was no obvious motion to resist arrest. Thus, his killing amounts to the summary execution of a prisoner. This is very bad for the image of ICE.

Why is this happening now? I argue the events in Minneapolis are not without a link to the release of the Epstein files. The whole administration is under stress, divided and benefits from anything to take the media away from Epstein. The invasion of Venezuela serves the same purpose.

Trump’s lecture at Davos was a disaster that suggests significant cognitive decline. This is fairly normal, given Trump’s age, but most people this age don’t have to serve as presidents under a terribly hostile political climate and facing the stress of ongoing lawsuits and Epstein files. It is not difficult to conjecture that Trump’s medical problems will soon lead to the end of his presidency and life.

The release of Epstein files may also be somewhat linked to Trump’s biological decline. Those files should have been released long ago, but a younger, more intellectually able Trump was able to prevent their release. As Trump loses faculties, he lets things go. He let the Epstein files go. He gave a bad talk at Davos (he still dared to speak freely, without any obvious script. That’s a nice touch of honesty, that Trump has often been guilty of. )

The Epstein Emails are now available with the full google search interface and lots of picture. Yet, there is nothing is the press about them. It also means more unexpected political events like random shootings and more wars are more likely to happen in the near future — i.e. between now and the end of the Trump presidency.

Some thoughts on Greenland

Greenland has a very small population and vast resources. It is owned by Denmark but it is not part of the EU or Schengen. Thus, the European Union does not own it.

Despite its potentially vast resources, Greenland remains terribly undeveloped and keeping it costs the Danish Crown half a billion dollars a year. That’a about $100 for every citizen of Denmark and $10 000 for every citizen of Greenland. The money is used to maintain the state of the art social services, health care and other government spending.

The US maintains the only significant military presence on the island. It was established in the Second World War, in order to prevent Greenland falling into the hands of Nazi Germany.

In order for Trump to take Greenland for the US, and take our eyes off the Epstein files, he should somehow fulfill the will of the people of Greenland to join the United States. At the moment, they are very much opposed.

Trump could act as follows:

1) set up a website, where every citizen of Greenland can opt to join the United States by signing something like a Quit Claim Deed, in exchange for money paid in cryptocurrency immediately.

As Congress would be too slow to fund such things, Trump could call upon friends like Elon Musk or even use his own money. Later, they could resell their stake in Greenland to the United States, at considerable profit. Or keep it for retirement.

If all the people of Greenland were to sign for, say, $10 0000 each, this would cost about half a billion dollars, or the amount every Greenlander receives every year from the Danish government as subsidy. But, Trump only needs half.

In recent history, we have several precedents where the will of the people was preyed upon to justify changing national borders. These are

— Brexit. The EU can be seen as a country, and, perhaps, to some extent, colonial master of Britain. Much less than the British population and just over half of the people who decided to vote have chosen Brexit, and Brexit we have.

— Scotland had a referendum about splitting from Britain. It failed, as no majority was achieved.

— Catalonia wanted to split from Spain, based on a referendum, but the Spanish government did not allow it. The organizers were judged for treason.

— Crimea split away from Ukraine and joined Mother Russia based on a referendum organized in similar fashion to other referendums in the region. When the KGB counts, the results are usually right.

In order to make people in Greenland sign up, the price may be adjusted randomly, publicized in the media through promotions and special reductions or increases.

Trump would not be breaking any laws in acting in this manner. He is not subject to the laws of Greenland, and he, alongside his descendants, have already been banned from the territory for 100 generations. I can only not see the foolishness of the Greenlandic government, as they’ve just banned their own people from their country in the distant future.

If we assume the population stays constant and no inbreeding, Donald should have 2 kids (he’s got more) and each of those kids should have 2 and so on… Thus, after 100 generations, Donald should have 2^100 descendants. That is, about 10^30 people banned. The world today has under 10 billion people (10^10). It is thus nearly certain that, in 100 generations, nearly all Greenlanders will be descendants of Donald Trump and therefore banned from Greenland. This is also true for all tourists. The 100 generation ban therefore destinies Greenland to be empty long before the 100 generations (about 3000 years) pass.

This is the perfect time for such a move, as the Epstein files are about to be released. In the absence of war, Trump can be terribly vulnerable. In order to stay in power, he needs extraordinary scandals, and extraordinary scandals we have.

Trump invaded Venezuela in order to uphold the will of the Venezuelan people, based on a referendum he did not agree with (Maduro counted, Maduro won). Why not do the same with Greenland, but with a better legal basis, like the written consent of the people, given individually, in electronic form and sealed with a crypto bank transfer.

In the end, sure, some people in Greenland will not take the money. Trump can then proceed to divide the island. He can be generous, and take only the percentage he bought, despite, pretenders like Crimea and Brexit where the whole country went. Denmark can keep the people and the duty to continue to subsidize them.

In doing so, Trump will only acquire the uninhabited part of Greenland, with Denmark left with the entire population, the cities, and a bit of coast. Trump will get his place on the map, the territorial sea, the ice cap and future oil, minerals and whatever.

Later, either Trump or China can do something similar with Siberia as well as the South China Sea.

This approach would be difficult in more populated places like Taiwan, as more people would have to be bought. But, it might even work in Australia.

The government of Greenland could punish the people who sign up to Trump’s offer. That would create local unrest and put distance between the government and the people, which will benefit Trump.

Broader historical considerations:

The security of Greenland is guaranteed through NATO. NATO however does not prohibit a peaceful transfer of ownership.

The US established a military presence in Greenland during World War II, in order to prevent it from getting into German hands. The US finished the Second World War as the absolute winner. It first let the European powers destroy each other during WWII, and then let Russsia continue the destruction and stopping growth through opression of what was left after the war. This left the US as the colonial master of the whole world. It thus no longer mattered who formally owned what, as the US was essentially free to do as it wanted, and it did so from Panama to Japan. It also punished those who opposed, like Vietnam, Iraq, Venezuela…

Denmark later joined the European Union, and essentially gave Greenland to Germany. This isn’t formally true (Greenland isn’t in the EU), but it can very easily go that way. This is exactly what the US was trying to prevent in the Second World War, and what it’s trying to prevent today.

The same can be said about Russia. As Ukraine was trying to align itself with the West, where, at least locally, Germany dominates, Russia decided to intervene with a special military operation and a denazification campaign. While the world did condemn it, they have not done enough to make Russia lose. In fact, Putin’s grip in Russia is stronger than without the war.

As the world accepts Russian aggression, first in Crimea and now all of Ukraine, this gives Trump and the US the signal that now is the right moment to take Greenland alongside Venezuela and Iran.

Furthermore, as NATO breaks down and the US loses its position as Colonial Master of the World, it is sensible to use its present position to take what it can, while it can. That is, Greenland, and, why, not, Antarctica and a big chunk if the Ocean (Joe Biden did quietly expand the territorial waters 2 years ago, adding about one million square miles of ocean, mostly in the Arctic and more than 200 miles from the shore)

Economic development: While Denmark owns Greenland, it failed to make it profitable and the economic development was minimal.

We can draw a parallel between American owned Alaska and the East of Siberia. If one takes the easternmost part of Russia, about the size of Alaska, they’re going to find maybe 5 people and a bunch of polar bears in the whole territory. Alaska would have been the same, if it had stayed in Russian hands. Luckily, the US bought it, and now it is, at least, economically, far above territories on the other side of the Bering Strait.

In the long term, there’s a good chance that Greenland will be more economically developed in American hands.

The Danish government did correctly state that, under its friendship with the US, Denmark does not intend to prevent American military and economic activity in Greenland. It is however true that, whatever economic development happens, it will be plagued by Denmark’s famously high taxes and not the most flexible bureaucracy. American ownership would mean more bureaucratic flexibility and tax revenue going to Washington.

And, it bloody looks good on the map!

Denmark never really took advantage of that. One never thinks of Denmark being mostly Greenland when one looks at the map. The US is in the right place in history to call itself great by stretching itself from Greenland to The Gulf of America.

And Trump won’t forget to make some funny faces, say some outrageous things, so people don’t look at those damned Epstein files!

Also, have his agents shoot some more innocent people to give the press something to do. The more outrageous the crime, the more innocent the people, the more the press will talk about it. And, why, not, when things get too outragous become the hero again and conclude the ICE circus with an amnesty for all immigrants currently in the US? Promise to make them citizens, so they vote in the midterms. And, for the future, since Trump calls himself the Tariff King, why not allow anyone to come to the US and work while taxing fresh immigrants considerably more. Say, if an American pays 25% tax, let the immigrants pay 50% or even 75%. Would sure make America great again! Some of the best years of my life were spent in America. I would love to see it going in a direction of growth again, but for now that is wishful thinking.

The debate started by the shooting of Renee Good

Renee Good was shot by an ICE agent. The woman, a married mother of three including a 6 year old child, was clearly not posing any physical danger to the agents, but she was also doing her best to hinder and annoy them as best as she could. Crucially, she refused to stop her car when asked to do so. She also refused to allow the agents to board the vehicle. She was doing her best to protest and not to obey. At first she refused to leave when the officers told her to do so, but then drove away when they became aggresive. The orders appeared contradictory. One of the officers told her to stay and one to remain, while they forced her window open and were trying to board her car.

So what is the law? Does a private citizen have the obligation to obey orders coming from armed ICE agents? Do members of the general public have a sufficient understanding of ICE to be aware that they must obey orders? Or, are they free to act as they wish?

If, indeed, Renee Good broke the law by protesting and interfering with the work of the ICE agents, why is the US not taking any legal action against against the millions of people who, in response to Renee Good’s shooting are doing the same now? Why does the government not dare issue fines or whatever penalty they deem reasonable to these millions of people? Such penalties are vastly less than the death penalty delivered to Renee Good, and that is not justice.

Google’s AI, now the standard source of information, considered above the intellectual capacity of most people, says the following:

“U.S. citizens are generally not obliged to obey ICE orders because ICE's primary authority is over non-citizens, and citizens have full constitutional rights. “

Thus, as a American citizen, Renee Good did not break any law when she disobeyed the oder of the ICE officers and instead told him to take a walk. That officer had no authority over US citizens. He may take pictures, bring the matter to court, and the judge will probably not issue a fine or prison time for the actions of Mrs Good.

Knowing this, and, perhaps frustrated by his lack of power, the officer did what many frustrated med do — violence. To my mind, his actions are running on the same mind algorithms as a parent slapping an annoying child, or a man punching an annoying woman who taunts him the whole day about her rights and his inability to hit her. Of course, since most people who do this are not armed, most such events do not result permanent in harm. Some do, and, in those cases, the men are often prosecuted.

Women do this too, but, less often and due to their biology, women hitting men end up in court less frequently. Now, an agent or policeman is not allowed to act on feelings or personal impulses. Furthermore, an ICE agent, with no authority over US citizens cannot ask a citizen to do what he wants. He may summon the local police, who have such powers, but must not act violently and take matters in his own hands, with a gun.

Make no mistake. Renee Good was there to protest and hinder. She as doing her very best to prevent the ICE agents from doing their jobs. She used whistles to warn potential targets that the officers were trying to arrest with valid powers since they could arrest immigrants. But, when in the police, you can’t just shoot annoying people.

An argument was made that the officer’s past trauma from a different interaction with another person led him to fire his gun. An officer, however, should not fire his gun in a way that is influenced by his feelings, personal situations or past trauma.

The Trump administration took an unusual stance to protect their ICE agent. This, I don’t understand. Normally, the president should have used his right to stay silent on such matters, before an investigation is completed. Maybe state that the officer is innocent until proven guilty or something neutral and non-inflammatory. These are politically correct lies, which are widely used. Trump however, chose to tell the truth. That is, tell us what he believes. Or what he wants the investigation to conclude. That a woman who does not obey the orders of agents who may not be authorized to give such orders deserves to be shot dead on an American street.

In the same way a dictator who runs an oil rich country deserves to be taken from his bed and dragged in front of an American judge, so that the US can run his country and take back the American Oil that Venezuela appears to have stolen. Most notably, similar dictators, not plagued by oil wealth, are not affected. Because American interests come first. Justice is only served when it benefits the right kind of people, the system that supports them or something dark and fuzzy we do not understand.

So many things are happening, that no one thinks of Epstein anymore. The war in Ukraine also risks getting forgotten… Gaza has also not been mentioned for some time.

Two Gods ascend to heaven

Once upon a time, I received my diploma from the hands of the Gods. That particular God, David Baltimore just joined the others in the Heavens on Sept 6. He was the president of Caltech at the time of my graduation. The picture shows him handing my diploma.

Baltimore’s 1975 Nobel was for his research on the viral nature of cancer. He was only 37 when he received the award. The PAP-smears almost every woman has in the Western World are a consequence of his research as well as of earlier work of the Romanian Aurel Babeş and Greek-born American Georgios Papanikolaou.

David Baltimore was the only Nobel Prize winner I worked for who had already received the award before I met him. Of the 5 Nobel Prize winners I worked with two lost their lives in the past few weeks. The other was Rai Weiss. He died on August 25 this year. Rai was 92. He had shared the 2018 Nobel Prize for LIGO with two of my PhD advisors: Kip S. Thorne and Barry Barish. Rai was born in Berlin and moved to America to escape the Nazis. I also started Physics in Berlin and was emboldened to move to America by the German government giving me a deportation order due to visa issues. Sure, it was far less threatening than Rai’s. He almost made it to the 10 year anniversary of gravitational wave detection.

My two PhD advisors are still fighting for gravitational wave astronomy today, each in their own way. They both give seminars and rally the press to get the momentum to allow current gravitational wave detectors to continue and be upgraded. Barry C. Barish was my formal PhD advisor. If I count my thesis as a joint publication, I was one of his very, very few students.

Kip was my God as a child, and among us, PhD students at Caltech, at times, we used to call him God. A dozen or so years later, the Nobel Committed agreed. Kip was my main reason for going to Caltech. A meeting with Kip at a LISA meeting at AEI, where I was a German diploma student was the decisive factor in my admission to Caltech. He took the time to speak for hours to a student who had read his books and was brave enough to suggest corrections, and even discuss some of his own theories. Today my paper with Kip (and only me and Kip!) is part of my contribution to gravitational waves astronomy.

Later, I wrote a second paper on the mirrors aiming LIGO's main laser, which was the first cornerstone in Andrew Lundgren’s career in gravitational waves — his first LIGO paper. I was finishing graduate school at the time, and the paper was under my supervision. It built on the mirror research I had done earlier with Kip. Andy went on to be the first senior scientist to see the first event with LIGO, which is the most important in the history of the machine and which was honored with the 2018 Nobel.

Another contribution is a set of gravitational waves lectures. They are still the World’s most famous course on gravitational waves online (https://astro-gr.org/online-course-gravitational-waves/). This set of movies I initiated, and built together with Kip and Yanbei Chen was a turning point in Kip’s career. We used to talk about what he would do in his old age when his mind will no longer be so sharp. After these movies, he decided against waiting, and moved to work at Holywood. With me and with his many other students, he did reality. We played with black holes, gravitational wave detectors — the exciting bits of the reality that bend space and slow down time, in their full mathematical beauty.

After me, came Chris Nolan who did fiction in Interstellar and history in Oppenheimer. Kip served as executive producer for Interstellar and advisor on Oppenheimer, both heavy Hollywood hits to the tune of half a billion each. Oppenheimer was Nolan’s most nominated film, with 7 Oscars won. Interstellar didn’t do bad either.

The time I did the movies with Kip was my only break in my employment with David Politzer, another nobel prize winner. I quit working for a Nobel Prize winner only to take a job with another, where I could make an original contribution to the work underlying the prize. H. David Politzer shared the 2004 Nobel Prize with David Gross and Frank Wilczek for their discovery of asymptotic freedom in quantum chromodynamics.

Of all my employers, he has the longest tenure. I was his assistant (TA) for Physis 1 for half a decade. In my whole life, I never worked for anyone else for a longer time. The work that led to his Nobel Prize was completed before my birth. I will never forget the countless office hours we spent together, often just me and David, as the students had better things to do, and perhaps more important people to learn from.