| Thursday,
March 17, 2005
St. Patrick's Day
Subject: News of the Day
More National Health Service horror stories: <http://society.guardian.co.uk/nhsperformance/story/0,8150,1439501,00.html>
Anthrax story (we also have a residence in Fairfax
County): <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42040-2005Mar16.html>
-- Harry Erwin, PhD "Those who would give up essential
Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor
Safety." (Benjamin Franklin, 1755)
=============
Subj: Physics Songs
http://www.haverford.edu/physics-astro/songs/ Physics Songs ..
PhysicsSongs.org
Note especially, for those of the software persuasion:
http://www.haverford.edu/physics-astro/songs/infiniteloop.htm
Stuck in an Infinite Loop, by J. D. Dougherty
Rod Montgomery==monty@sprintmail.com
If it's not on fire, it's a software
problem.
=========
Subject: reading
Jerry, My children were taught to read in
kindergarten. The principal of the school left in part because the school
district came up with a policy that forbade teaching reading in
kindergarten. One of our friend’s children started school one year behind my
daughter. She was not taught reading until first grade. Both girls were
(are) quite smart. But the difference in their reading ability was very
noticeable until I started teaching her phonics.
I was taught to read using phonics. My wife was taught
using the “whole word” idea. Guess who can read a book in one fourth the
time?
Why do we try new ideas before we know that they will
produce better results across a broad spectrum of people?
Larry Miller
It all started with a Columbia University
(Education Department) study that showed that good readers do not read by
sounding out words, but recognize the entire word. Now any introspective
psychologist could have told them that back in the 1880's and beyond.
William James could have told them that. But they seized upon this as a
revelation, and declared that learning phonics inhibited good reading.
And, of course, they could find some good
readers who had never encountered phonics and really did read English as if
it were ideographic. Huzzah! they cried. Then they found phonics trained
readers who could read and pronounce long words they did not understand.
Oho! they cried.
But of course you and I and almost
no one we know reads by sounding out words with which we are familiar. Why
should we? Over time we have come to recognize all the "mortar" (most common
words) and many of the "bricks" by sight, and we read whole words, and
sometimes whole phrases, in one leap. But when we encounter
polymorphicdimetallicphosphate or diethyldiemethaltrinotrotoluene or
dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane we do not read those as a single word. On
the other hand I doubt that anyone reading this has any trouble reading
those words. I would be astonished if anyone knew what they actually mean,
particularly two of them.
One of the very phonetic Dr. Seuss
children's books ends with "My brother can read big words, too, like
Constantinople and Timbuctoo." And of course the Seuss Hop On Pop is one of
the best introductory reading books around, and a great deal more fun than
the once most popular textbook in the country, "See Spot run," said Jane.
"Run, Spot, run."
Use of "whole word" instruction mandates
expensive new textbooks with controlled vocabulary; there were a number of
"follow-on studies" funded by textbook publishers demonstrating how
important "whole word" reading is, and of course there were the usual
contributions to education unions and associations, sponsorship of free
workshops in which teachers could win new credits for credentials by
learning how to teach reading without phonics, and so forth. The result was
the utter destruction of the California school system where there was an
active campaign to eradicate phonics instruction at every school and level.
Although many private and religious schools resisted this campaign, it was
utterly successful in California public schools with devastating results.
Controlled vocabulary books are usually
dull. How could they not be? There are exceptions, but not many. Real books
often used language as it is really used, meaning that one encounters words
one has heard but never seen in print. Children trained in phonics have a
reading vocabulary that includes their entire speaking vocabulary.
The truth of the matter is that phonics
equips children to read anything. We got Ruskin's King of the Golden River
quite early in rural Tennessee because it was public domain and thus cheap.
We got Earnest or the Great Stone Face by Hawthorne in about 5th Grade as I
recall. In 7th Grade we read Evangeline a Story of Acadia and Scott's Lady
of the Lake. This was in a two grades per room consolidated in Capleville.
There was no need for controlled vocabulary. When I encountered Michael
Graeme we probably didn't pronounce it as Scott did, but we could read it,
as we could read Roderick Dhu. "Seek other cause 'gainst Roderick Dhu!" We
had no need of, nor could we afford, expensive new textbooks. We made do
with public domain, and although having to read Silas Marner probably soured
me on female 19th Century novelists for a long time, it didn't harm me, nor
did Dickens and A Tale of Two Cities.
It is possible to learn to read English
without formal instruction in phonics, and about a quarter of the children
in schools will learn: all they really need to know is that reading is
possible. They'll figure it out for themselves. Formal instruction in
phonics harms them only if it is rigidly applied with a program forbidding
kids to try to read on their own. Any properly conducted study comparing
results of systematic instruction in phonics as opposed to word recognition
always shows the superiority of phonics in results, unless the study is so
short that there isn't any real benefit to phonics instruction because they
don't learn much.
Like anything else, phonics instruction
can be done badly, and often is. But there isn't any good way to teach
"whole word" reading to more than about 25 to 40% of your class. The rest
will not learn to read that way.
For more from an expert see
my wife's web site.
==========
Subject: Hard drive storage rack
Dear Jerry,
Can you suggest a storage rack (brand name?) I can put
in my gateway desktop computer that would hold a third hard drive. I have
the power cord for a third drive but no rack under the current one that
holds only two drives. There is plenty of storage room in the front of the
case.
David Brown
I now use Antec cases which have plenty of
slots for additional drives, as do PC Power and Cooling cases. But I don't
know anything about third party add-ons.
=============
===
THE PASSING OF A GREAT AND NOBLE LADY
From: Sue Stewart <hoodoosoo@comcast.net>
I regret to inform you that our "Lady" is gone. On March 17, 2005 at
2:23a.m., Andre (Norton) departed on her final journey. She left peacefully
in her sleep with myself, Ollie and Mark at her bedside.
She will be missed terribly and mourned deeply. Her passing leaves a void
that can never be filled, as we shall never see the likes of her again.
Knowing her has made me a better person.
Andre requested that, in lieu of flowers, please send donations to Saint
Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis Tennessee or Veteranarian Services, c/o
The Noah Fund, P.O. Box 10128, Murfreesboro Tn. 37129, in her memory.
Because of her love of animals, Andre herself contributed to the Noah Fund
which is for people who can not afford medical treatment for their pets.
After coming to live with us, and, as our feelings for one another grew,
I began calling her "Meemaw". This past week, she said to me, "I have won
many awards in my life, I am a Grand Master, some call me the First Lady of
Fantasy, and others call me The Grand Damme of Fantasy, but the title I am
most proud of is "Meemaw". Eventually, everyone followed suit and "Meemaw"
it was. Finally, she had gained the family she had longed for most of her
life.
I would like to take this opportunity to recognize Kathy Vinson L.P.N.
and Jan Hoffmann who were instrumental in the day to day care of Meemaw. She
developed a special closeness and friendship with them and, their feelings
were mutual.
Thanks to all of you for your phone calls, cards, flowers and gifts.
Knowing everyone cared so much meant a great deal to her. Her modesty made
it difficult for her to fully comprehend the magnitude of the feelings her
fans and followers had for her. However, near the end she finally realized
how much she was loved and admired by so many.
Sincerely,
Sue Stewart
~~~~~~
I HAVE BEEN VERY FORTUNATE IN THAT I HAVE KNOWN MS. ANDRE FOR OVER 20
YEARS. I WAS INTRODUCED TO HER BY THE LATE ROBERT ADAMS IN A VISIT TO HER
HOME IN WINTER PARK, FLORIDA. I FOUND HER TO BE A GREAT AND GRACIOUS LADY
AND FELT PRIVILEGED TO BE IN HER PRESENCE.
WHEN SHE MOVED UP TO MURFREESBORO, TENNESSEE, AROUND 8 TO 10 YEARS AGO, I
WAS PLEASANTLY SURPRISED THAT SHE HADN’T CHANGED A BIT. STILL AS BEAUTIFUL
AND GRACIOUS AS AT FIRST TIME I MET HER. OVER THE YEARS, I HAVE BEEN VERY
FORTUNATE IN GETTING TO KNOW MS. ANDRE BETTER AND HAVE COME TO REALIZE THAT
SHE WAS EVEN A GREATER LADY THAN I HAD THOUGHT BEFORE.
ON A NUMBER OF OCCASIONS, I HAD TOLD MS. ANDRE ON A NUMBER OF OCCASIONS
WHAT A GREAT IMPACT SHE HAD ON MY GENERATION AND MY CHILDREN’S GENERATION.
SHE GUIDED US INTO ENGINEERING AND SCIENTIFIC CAREER FIELDS BECAUSE SHE
INSTILLED THE WONDER OF SCIENCE INTO EACH OF US AT AN EARLY AGE. MS. ANDRE
WOULD JUST SIT THERE AND BLUSH AND SAY I WAS OVER EMPHASIZING HER IMPACT ON
THE GENERATIONS. SHE WAS A MODEST AND LOVELY PERSON WHO HONESTLY DIDN’T
BELIEVE IN HER OWN GREATNESS. IF ANYTHING, I DIDN’T DO HER THE JUSTICE SHE
DESERVED.
I WILL FONDLY REMEMBER MS. ANDRE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE AND THANK GOD
THAT I HAD THE GOOD FORTUNE IN MEETING ONE OF THE GREATEST OF MY PERSONAL
HEROES.
SLEEP IN PEACE MS. ANDRE WITH THE THOUGHT THAT YOU WILL BE REMEMBERED AND
LOVED BY ALL OF YOUR SPIRITUAL CHILDREN YOU LEAVE BEHIND. NOW AND IN THE
FUTURE.
Tim Bolgeo
============
Subject: Jury Rules in Favor of Temple University;
Marcavage Appeals
Dr, Pournelle.
Following up.
Ron Mullane
http://www.afa.net/clp/ReleaseDetail.asp?id=91
American Family Association P.O. Drawer 2440 Tupelo,
MS 38803 1-662-680-3886
For Immediate Release: 3/16/2005
Tupelo, MS - The judge incorrectly instructed the jury
on Pennsylvania law and left the jury with little choice but to find as it
did for Temple University and its officials, and we were prohibited from
introducing our most compelling evidence.” – Steve Crampton, Chief
Counsel for AFA Center for Law & Policy
Unable to reach a verdict after the first day of
deliberations, the jury finally reached a verdict today in a lawsuit filed
by Michael Marcavage against Temple University for attempting to commit him
to a mental hospital in 1999. Stephen Crampton, chief counsel for AFA Center
for Law & Policy representing Marcavage, says he will appeal based upon a
number of rulings by the judge that excluded critical evidence favorable to
Marcavage’s case and because of the court’s failure to properly instruct
the jury on the law.
Marcavage opposed the university’s production of the
controversial Corpus Christi, a play that portrays Jesus Christ as a
homosexual. After Marcavage planned to counter the school’s production
with his own message about who Jesus Christ really is, university officials
attempted to commit Marcavage to Temple University’s mental hospital. He
sued the school for violating his constitutional rights.
“The judge incorrectly instructed the jury on
Pennsylvania law and left the jury with little choice but to find as it did
for Temple University and its officials, and we were prohibited from
introducing our most compelling evidence,” Crampton said. “The judge
seemed to exclude evidence that was favorable to Marcavage and include any
evidence that was favorable to Temple University and its officials. So the
jury heard a completely distorted view of what actually happened.”
Before the trial started, medical evidence from the
doctors at Temple University’s psychiatric hospital who examined Marcavage
was ruled inadmissible by the judge even though it established that
Marcavage should not have been brought to the hospital.
"The jury was not allowed to hear evidence
corroborating Marcavage’s claims against the university officials,”
Crampton said. “The doctors said he was perfectly normal when he arrived
at the hospital indicating no legitimate reason to bring him there in the
first place.”
“We’re confident that the Third Circuit Court of
Appeals will reverse this decision,” Crampton added.
============
Subj: Living room war?
The main problem I have with the Bacevich piece is
that its analysis seems to me to apply equally to the Cold War of 1946-1990.
I have read, though I cannot find the citation, that
Harry Truman considered a preventive war to conquer the USSR before they got
nukes; and that he decided against it, not because he was afraid we couldn't
win it, but because he was afraid of what we'd turn ourselves into in the
process of winning it. Truman chose the Cold War instead. Did he choose
wrong?
Have some parts of the Global War on Terror been
botched? You bet! And there are more botches to come! But go back and look
at WW2, Bacevich's paradigm for properly-waged war. Pearl Harbor was far
from the last botch of that one.
Nor are grandiose initial overstatements of war
objectives an innovation of the 21st Century, or of the neocons/neoJacobins:
remember Truman's stated objectives in Korea, right after Inchon? Had to
back off some from those. Didn't mean he was wrong to fight at all.
Machiavelli, in _Discourses on Livy_, observed that it
is impossible for any man to be either perfectly good or perfectly bad,
either perfectly competent or perfectly incompetent. Every human undertaking
will be to some extent botched.
As far as controlling the borders is concerned, I
don't doubt we could do lots better. But neither do I doubt that it'll take
us some considerable time to figure out how to do better at acceptable cost.
Deploying the combat troops to seal the borders might be more expensive than
one might hope. Wasn't too long ago we were complaining -- and rightly so --
about Marines on border-control duty shooting down an innocent kid who
wandered into their interdiction zone.
As for Iraq, my own view of the situation is that
we're not doing "nation-building" so much as we are "elite-pruning".
Nation-building would try to *create* and *impose* a
new ruling elite that operates on principles completely alien to the society
upon which the nation-building is performed.
Elite-pruning merely tries to beat down the hostile
factions of the native ruling elite, to give the non-hostile factions a
chance to take control and develop the "firm seat" they need to hold it. It
can only work when such non-hostile factions exist and are large enough to
take and hold control. That, as I see it, is the difference between
Afghanistan and Iraq and, say, Somalia: in A&I, there's something to work
with (or anyway we hope so, and have some evidence that there is) -- Kurds,
people with access to outside news (perhaps from relatives abroad),
returning exiles, Shia who follow al-Sistani rather than Muqtada al-Sadr,
whatever. In S, there's apparently not, or at least not enough.
The way I read the situation, the troops (and police)
who can *win* in Iraq -- as distinct from buying time with blood and
treasure -- *have to be Iraqi*. It's taking time to get them, and especially
to get them competent Iraqi leaders -- more time, perhaps, than Wolfowitz or
Rumsfeld or Bush may have expected, let alone have hoped. But Tommy Franks,
in his pre-war plans, expected it to take five years to stabilize Iraq after
the end of major combat operations: see his book. Isn't declaring quagmired
failure after two a bit premature?
Some things simply take time. And time is expensive,
in blood and in treasure. This is hardly new: remember Napoleon's "Ask me
for anything but time."
Would putting more American troops into Iraq really
have reduced the amount of blood spent? Or just have shifted the balance
between Iraqi blood and American blood, reducing the Iraqi and increasing
the American? Or even *increased*both* amounts? Would it have sped up the
process of getting Iraqi forces on line? Or slowed it down? How about the
process of getting a reasonably free (not perfect), non-hostile Iraqi
government in control?
There is a debate We The People of the United States
need to have, and that indeed we're having, about what America's role in the
world should be. We probably can't have another national referendum on the
matter until the next Presidential election, and maybe not then, but the
debate should certainly continue.
Be kind of nice if that debate could get beyond
throwing around accusations of "Isolationist!" and "Imperialist!" and
"Unilateralist!" and "Multilateralist!" Maybe that's too much to hope for.
But it seems to me that the Bush administration's
*not* planning to expand the Army to a size big enough to support grandiose
schemes of world conquest and occupation is better evidence that they
*don't* subscribe to such schemes than evidence that they *do* subscribe and
are deluded, or being deceitful, about what means would be necessary to
implement them.
Rod Montgomery==monty@sprintmail.com
Well said, and perhaps true.
In the case of the Cold War, there was
much more at stake than there is in the Middle East. Communism is a
chiliastic religion that has no choice but to expand or die; containment was
its death. Islam has been contained a long time and springs back often. On
the other hand, Islam is a formula for economic disaster about everywhere it
is tried, and Islamic nations in general don't threaten the West; USSR was
poised to go to the Rhine in hours and to the Pyrenees in months absent some
non-European threat to stop the Red Army.
The American people were not told that the
price of Iraq was to be five years, 1500 dead, the entire Reserve and
National Guard system turned upside down and at least partly wrecked, and
$300 billion much less what it will really cost. Had they been told, I doubt
Congress would have authorized the invasion. Deterrence is a lot cheaper,
and deterrence coupled with development of hemispheric resources is still
cheaper. No one paid much attention to Tommy Franks and did we not
fire a general who dared say the Iraqi war would last a lot longer than the
conquest of the Iraqi Army?
No one was astonished at the collapse of
the Iraqi Army. Many were astonished at the aftermath. I wasn't, but I have
yet to find anyone in on the invasion decision who was: they all really did
believe it would be over in a couple of years at most.
Nothing you say is untrue: but I do not
think the American people understood that nation building in Iraq, assuming
we can do it -- and we probably can -- would take a decade, and become the
national burden that it is. Whether the legacy we leave behind is worth it I
do not know; I do know that Sharon can destroy all the good will we are
building up over there, and I have seen no evidence that he wouldn't do so
in a minute if he thought his office were at stake. I am never in favor of
handing over critical paths for the nation to foreign politicians.
It is not isolationism to say "We are the
friends of liberty everywhere but the guardians only of our own." It was the
policy of the United States for most of our history. The exceptions -- the
Philippine experiment, intervention in The Great War -- do not seem to be
untrammeled successes.
As to "elite pruning", the implications
are interesting: "Elect people we approve of or we will kill them and as
many of you as it takes to topple them." This is a rational foreign policy,
but not one to advertise, especially since we have also approved of the
persecution of Pinochet, which is to say, we have told every dictator: "Get
Nukes Fast, and Never Let Go Until You Are Dead." This is not the message I
would send; but it seems to be the one sent.
It may well be that intervention in Iraq
was the best of a number of bad choices. I am not convinced of that, but I
don't pretend infallibility. Our intervention in Viet Nam was vitally
necessary to Containment, despite the heavy costs. We had no choice but to
commit gold and resources, blood and treasure, to the containment of world
communism.
It may be that we face the same problem
with World Islam. I know that many serving officers, close friends, are
convinced that if we don't fight the wars over there we will be fighting
them here. If that analysis be correct, then we have no choice. I'm a bit
old to go to the Iraqi desert, but I'd go if needed. But so far I have not
been convinced of that, and when I listen to the chicken hawks -- the
egregious Frum and his vicious little excommunications -- I don't hear
rational arguments. I hear twaddle, selected evidence, decisions made in the
absence of data -- Wolfowitz on weapons of mass destruction is fascinating
-- and decisions made on grounds other than the best interests of the people
of the United States. Or so it seems to me.
And I note that while the War has been
enormously more expensive than we were told it would be, the spending on
entitlements goes up and up, the debt rises, and we are told to spend
ourselves rich while our armies are bleeding in the desert. And I wonder if
increasing the size of the Navy wouldn't be as good a way to see that we
don't fight "them" over here as sending the Army in harm's way.
I grant Mr. Bush his good intentions, and
some basic sense; I have more faith in his dedication to the nation over
personal interest than ever I had in his opponent which is why, to the
disgust of many of my paleoconservative friends, I endorsed Bush in the last
election.
But I am not at all sure that expanding
the paid army while allowing the Reserve and National Guard to deteriorate
is the proper way to solve the Machiavellian dilemma of professionalism vs.
citizen participation.
Subject: The cold war and radical Islam
You said:
"In the case of the Cold War, there was much more at
stake than there is in the Middle East. Communism is a chiliastic religion
that has no choice but to expand or die; containment was its death. Islam
has been contained a long time and springs back often. On the other hand,
Islam is a formula for economic disaster about everywhere it is tried, and
Islamic nations in general don't threaten the West; USSR was poised to go to
the Rhine in hours and to the Pyrenees in months absent some non-European
threat to stop the Red Army."
That may be, but the Communists always understood what
would happen if New York dissappeared under a mushroom cloud. The Soviets
owned or controlled all the nukes we didn't, and retribution was sure to be
swift upon their use.
With radical Islam it's a different matter. If someone
puts 10 megaton nuke on a freighter and blows it up in Hudson bay, how will
we respond? That's what makes this different and much more dangerous than
Communism. Without state actors to hold accountable, deterrence doesn't
work. Shall we have an official policy that all Muslims are to be destroyed
if we're so attacked?
The "nuclear club" gets bigger every day, so we must
attack the connection between radical Islam and states. We have a small
window (perhaps a generation, maybe less) to cut the ties between the Bin
Ladens of the world and the states which can supply them with nuclear
weapons, and we would do well to pay the price now instead of later. I don't
see how we could ever secure our borders to the point that a dedicated
terrorist couldn't sneak a nuke in.
Eric Baumgartner
The question wasn't whether USSR would
attack NYC, but whether the US would bomb Moscow in response to troops
pouring through the Fulda Gap. In my old business of strategic analysis we
used to say that a "tactical nuclear weapon is an atom bomb that goes off in
Germany. Anywhere else it's strategic and starts a full war." I had my say
on deterrence and the Cold War a long time ago, and time proved that Possony
and others were right.
Incidentally, France and Britain had
nuclear weapons and were known to have them. So did China. There may have
been other members of the nuclear club. But leave that: your point is made,
that deterrence worked.
As to the spread of nuclear weapons: I
once said that if you give me a billion a year and the authority to call in
a B-52 strike at need -- and I'll pay for the strike out of my billion -- I
could see that Iraq never got nuclear weapons. The same is true of other
nations. If the fear is that nations will build nukes, we can stop them with
measures a lot short of invasion. And at a far lower price than we pay at
present.
If you are saying that unless those areas
become liberal democracies we are doomed, then it is a different matter; but
even then it is not clear that invasions are the key to their
transformation. There may be no such key, but invasion, occupation, and
pacification may not work everywhere. Or anywhere.
We all know why Arab countries hate us,
and what US policies have led to that hatred. There is considerable question
about their hatred of us if we are not over there to be hated. The enemies
of their enemies are their friends. The friends of their enemies are their
enemies. So has it ever been. If the US were not involved in the Middle
East, would they still want to risk retaliation (as they see it) by smuggling in a nuclear
weapon? And once again, properly managed intelligence operations would make
that a lot more difficult than it is now. But if we had stayed home,
developed our energy resources, built up the Navy, and stayed out of the
Middle East entirely do you think we would have been prime targets for
Jihad?
Egypt and Pakistan don't need democracy.
Democracy just now would probably lead to Islamic majorities and as the
Islamic ruled alliances grew so would the demand for jihad. If Turkey had a
free and fair election it would likely lead to an Islamic state. The
Enlightenment has not come to that area of the world. Democracy may be a
fast way to situations far worse than the present one. Iran is closer to a
democracy now than under the Shah. When the Shah thought he was in trouble
he did what he always did and asked the US for help. He encountered Jimmy
Carter, who believed in democracy. Carter enjoyed helping the Shah lose
power. Are we better off for his having done so?
What the Middle East needs now is not
democracy but a tradition of rule of law and sanctity of property. Whether
that can be established is a basic question, and whether we can help that
come is another. It may take Magna Charta and seven hundred years to bring
that off. We don't really know how the West developed that trick. It may
take a Protestant Reformation followed by a Counter Reformation followed by
Enlightenment. I don't know and neither does anyone else.
What I do know is that we have at least as
many enemies now as we did before the invasion. I do know that the liberal
democrats in Iraq are mostly in mass graves because they trusted us to come
to their aid when they were encouraged to rise up, and if I were a liberal
democrat in Iraq I would not trust the United States very much. We had an
opportunity for invasion of Iraq, in aid of people we had promised to help.
We did not take that opportunity.
In any event most of this discussion of
reforming the world is moot: as long as most of our forces are tied up in
Iraq we will not have the military power to impose our will on Iran and
Pakistan. We may have the ability, barely, to keep more enemies from joining
the nuclear club; we certainly can't transform Syria and Iran and Saudi
Arabia, at least not absent full scale war with conscription and rationing
and price controls, the whole panoply of state control -- is it worth that
price?
But were I al Qaeda I would be shopping
for my nuclear weapon from sources other than Iranian or Pakistani
development teams and arsenals. I'd buy them on the underground market.
Now: how do we attack the connection
between radical Jihad Islam and states? The greatest source of power for
Wahabi Islam is our friend Saudi Arabia. Now what?
==============
Subject: Word Reading
This "author unknown" writing illustrates word
reading.
Never worry about your spelling and here is why "I
cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the
olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the
wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was
ipmorantt."
I found this illuminating....
Will Goss
Unless you have never seen the words before and
only know them as sounds. I assure you that in chemical formulae and much of
science the word order and spelling is quite important.
As to reading without a problem, nonsense. It takes
at least twice as long to read that as it would normal English.
According to Sun Tzu the most important thing for a
general to do is send clear orders. Are you convinced that it doesn't matter
about spelling and grammar?
====
Scientists Say Life Expectancy To Drop-Obesity could
help keep Social Security solvent
Hi Jerry,
A cynical but prossibly accurate assesment...
"Obesity could help keep Social Security solvent
because people will die younger. "One of the consequences of our prediction
is that Social Security does not appear to be in nearly as bad a shape as we
think," said study author S. Jay Olshansky."
<http://www.technewsworld.com/story/news/41465.html>
Cheers, Rod Schaffter
-- "Lesson one is that free people almost never go to
war with each other. Lesson two is that they don't let each other starve,
either. Democracy isn't a slogan, and it's not a gushy feeling. It's a
matter of both personal and national security: the more of it the world has,
the safer we all are." --Dean Esmay
==========
Subject: Rubik's Cube Solver
This is pretty neat
http://jpbrown.i8.com/cubesolver.html
Tracy
============
Subject: Possible Lab Black Hole
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4357613.stm
A fireball created in a US particle accelerator has
the characteristics of a black hole, a physicist has said.
It was generated at the Relativistic Heavy Ion
Collider (RHIC) in New York, US, which smashes beams of gold nuclei together
at near light speeds.
Jim Woosley
Gulp! That's a bit frightening, no?
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