| Friday,
June 3, 2005
Subject:
Letter from England
This is a bank holiday weekend, and I'll be in the
Lake District. In the meantime, there are some stories of interest. The
phthalate story is of particular interest.
The shoe drops--typical levels of exposure to
phthalate in the environment shown to disrupt sexual development in boys: <http://
www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1493570,00.html> . I've been
waiting for this bomb--phthalate is used to make plastics soft. <http://umbbd.ahc.umn.edu/pth/pth_map.html>
<http://news.google.com/
news?q=phthalate&hl=en&lr=&client=safari&rls=en- us&sa=N&as_qdr=m3&tab=wn>
Nature has a number of articles on bird flu. It
reminds me of when AIDS was first understood. I'm an asthmatic, so I'll be
sure to get my shots.
<http://www.nature.com/news/infocus/birdflu.html>
<http://
www.nature.com/news/2005/050523/full/435385a.html>
<http://
www.nature.com/news/2005/050523/full/435407a.html>
<http://
www.nature.com/news/2005/050523/full/435404a.html>
<http://
www.nature.com/news/2005/050523/full/435399a.html>
<http://
www.nature.com/news/2005/050523/full/nrd0605.html>
France is voting on the EU constitution, and it's
unlikely to pass: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,7369,1493590,00.html>
<http://
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4585221.stm> . Not necessarily a bad
outcome.
Over the top: <http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?
id=579102005>
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4581871.stm>
<http://
www.nytimes.com/2005/05/27/international/europe/27knife.html?hp>
. I don't suppose these doctors cook for themselves.
-- Harry Erwin, PhD "Those who would give up essential
Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor
Safety." (Benjamin Franklin, 1755)
We will have comments on the
French and Dutch rejection of EU later.
On Star Wars Episode III
Revenge of the Sith
First from the New York Times
Darth Vader's Family Values
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/21/opinion/21tierney.html
By [2]JOHN TIERNEY
Wherever you are, Adam Smith, call your agent.
Darth Vader is stealing your best stuff.
The new installment of "Star Wars" has set off
the usual dreary red-blue squabble, with liberals using the film to attack
Republicans, and some conservatives calling for a boycott. But - and I know
this is hard to believe for a movie with characters named General Grievous
and Count Dooku - there's actually a serious bipartisan lesson about the
dark side of politics.
If you can sit through the endless light-saber
duels and robotic dialogue, you finally see what turned Anakin Skywalker
into Darth Vader. He set out to become a Jedi knight who will use the Force
for good, but he's traumatized, first by the murder of his mother, then by a
vision that his wife will die in childbirth.
His fears are manipulated by Chancellor
Palpatine, the leader of the Senate (who's being compared to Senator Bill
Frist in [3]Moveon.org commercials). When this oily politician extols the
power of the dark side of the Force, Anakin at first protests that those who
use it think "only of themselves," whereas the Jedi are "selfless" and "only
care about others."
He says he could never betray the Jedi because
they're his family, but then the chancellor puts the family question in
perspective: "Learn to know the dark side of the Force, Anakin, and you will
be able to save your wife from certain death." Anakin promptly recognizes
the limits of altruism, just as Adam Smith did in the 18th century.
Smith knew that some people professed love for
all humanity, but he realized that a man's love for "the members of his own
family" is "more precise and determinate, than it can be with the greater
part of other people." Hence his famous warning not to rely on the kindness
of strangers outside your family: if you want bread, it's better to count on
the baker's self-interest rather than his generosity.
This has never been a popular bit of advice
because selfishness is not admired in human societies any more than among
Jedi knights. We know it exists, but it feels wrong. We are born with an
instinct for altruism because we evolved in clans of hunter-gatherers who
would not have survived if they hadn't helped one another through hard
times.
The result is an enduring political paradox: we
no longer live in clans small enough for altruism to be practical, but we
still respond to politicians who promise to make us all part of one big
selfless community. We want everyone to be bound together with a shared set
of values, a yearning that Daniel Klein, an economist, dubs the People's
Romance in the summer issue of The Independent Review. <snip>
======
RE: Jedi As Texas Rangers
Jerry,
While on the subject of Star Wars: Jerry, in the past
you’ve compared the Jedi to the Praetorian Guard. I think of them as a bit
more comparable to the Texas Ranger model (the way the Rangers were in the
old days).
1) The Rangers were / are an elite group, and they
knew how to use deadly force. (It was a former Texas Ranger who took out
Bonnie and Clyde.)
2) they mostly worked individually or in pairs,
3) In the old days if a Ranger was following you, he
didn’t worry about state or country borders; just like it’s mighty hard to
shake a Jedi off your trail
4) Neither the Jedis or Rangers are “stay at homes”
like an elite guard unit. They’re mostly out and about.
5) One Ranger or one Jedi could accomplish a great
deal. My mother told me back in the 50s when she was working in Galveston,
illegal gambling on the island was really getting out of hand. They sent in
a single Ranger, and he shut the whole operation down.
Mike Cheek
Tallahassee
You only sent one Ranger? "There's only one riot."
=====
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/mail364.html
This is also seen in that the Trade Federation,
a corporate body, has representation on the council, equal to that of any of
the planets – equal with the people.
----------------------------
It is not out of line to think of the Trade Federation
as a group of space faring people, without a 'planet' of their own who were
given a seat in the Senate with the justification that they were a group of
people who should not be denied representation just because they live in
ships, not planets.
Brice Yokem
Of course Fascism -- Franco's Spain, Mussolini's
Italy -- had parliamentary representation for institutions such as the
Church, the Army, the Labor Unions, Civil Service, etc; and Roosevelt
adopted this with the NRA Blue Eagle, which drew a number of its
institutional reforms from Mussolini and Count Ciano, to the point that Huey
Long denounced Roosevelt as a Fascist...
==============
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/mail364.html
Padme's shock at the existence of slavery is a good
starting point to discuss what is wrong with the Republic. It and its Jedi
agents have been ignoring their duties to a vast swath of the population.
This is also seen in that the Trade Federation, a corporate body, has
representation on the council, equal to that of any of the planets – equal
with the people. The Republic has grown corrupt. It has begun to only pay
attention to the needs and wants of the rich and powerful, to those in the
core worlds, to corporate interests and other special interests. Those in
the "Outer Rim" have been ignored, to the point that criminal syndicates
like the Hutts can completely control entire systems, and things like
slavery can be institutionalized, and not even in secret. The Jedi – those
that have taken it upon themselves to preserve freedom and justice – also
completely ignore this. Even when Anakin arrives and becomes a Jedi – and
his background as a slave is something that is well-known to the Jedi
council – they do not do anything to fix the situation. When Anakin goes
back to Tatooine in Episode II, slavery still exists there.
----------------------------
Slavery is outlawed in the StarWars Republic. I got
the impression that Tatooine was not part of the Republic, although Naboo
was. It appears to be true that Naboo is part of the rim, and it's needs
were largly ignored.
Tatooine is certainly part of the Empire by the
time of Episode IV (the original Star Wars movie) and there is no reason to
believe it was incorporated late, but perhaps so. I rather like the point
that the Jedi, informed of slavery on Tatooine, do nothing about it. They
also are perfectly capable of taking an army when offered to them: Yoda
brings the clones to the rescue...
=======
Subj: StarWars Ep3 - Republic & Empire
One problem with TJ Williams' analysis is that the
Secessionists are not the saintly oppressed/neglected of Naboo and Tatooine
but the evil oppressors of the Trade Federation and their industrialist
allies, led by Dooku/Tyrannus, the Sith Apprentice. I can think of no
slightest hint that the oppressed/neglected have any interest at all in
secession.
And it is the Secessionists who have the *most*
"professional" army -- how can you get more "professional" than specialized
combat robots?
Just having the Clone Army is not enough to secure the
Empire. There would still be the danger of decapitation by the Jedi.
Palpatine/Sidious also needs a very active, widespread secessionist threat.
He needs the Jedi -- especially the Masters -- spread out in little
penny-packets all over the Galaxy, surrounded by and trusting the clones
they think they are commanding. It is that dispersion that makes the Jedi
vulnerable to defeat in detail when Palpatine issues Order 66 to the clones.
As to the Jedi unawareness, note the exchange in Ep3
between Windu and Yoda: Windu suggests they inform the Senate that their
vision of the future is clouded; Yoda objects that this would undermine
Senatorial confidence in Jedi leadership. They know they are being blocked,
they just don't know what to do about it.
In Ep2, Dooku tells Kenobi that a Sith Lord is in
control of the Senate, which happens to be the simple truth. Windu asks Yoda
whether this could be true; Yoda says, basically, of course not: Dooku is
now a disciple of the Dark Side, so he must be lying. Very clever ju-jitsu
by the Sith. It was *precisely* the Jedi awareness of the *general* nature
of their enemy that helped the Jedi overlook the *specific* individual* Sith-next-door.
By Ep3, Windu and Yoda are becoming distrustful of
Palpatine simply as Chancellor, because of his constant expansion and
extension of his "temporary emergency" powers. It is that distrust that
leads them to order Anakin to spy on the Chancellor, which sets Anakin up
for Palpatine's "they don't trust either of us, they must be plotting
against the Republic!" line of attack on Anakin's loyalty to the Jedi
Council.
As for the Clone Planet: all the Jedi know is that a
Jedi Master who had disappeared ten years ago had ordered the Clone Army, in
the name of the Jedi Council. That disappeared Master could certainly have
done the archive-hacking that hid the planet, so there's no reason from that
viewpoint to look the gift army in the mouth. The audience has the
additional clue -- though I missed it on first viewing -- that Jango Fett
tells Kenobi that it was "a guy named Tyrannus" who had hired Fett as the
clone-progenitor, and that Sidious later greets Dooku as "Lord Tyrannus".
But the Jedi don't know how tightly coupled Fett's role in the assassination
attempt on Padme is to his role as clone-progenitor; for all they know, he's
just picking up a little extra cash, a clone-son and free room and board as
a sideline to his main bounty-hunter business, in which Dooku is just
another client.
Democracy vs Liberty: The way I remember it, Padme's
line is "This is how Democracy dies..." rather than "This is how Liberty
dies...". My reading of the situation is that Democracy is doing just fine,
the same way it was when the French elected Napoleon, and that both Lucas
and TJ Williams share the endemic confusion amongst 20th/21st-Century
Americans about the difference and its importance. I confess to having been
sensitized to that difference by Russell Kirk's explication, in _The
Conservative Mind_, of John Adams' horror of unconstrained Democracy and its
tendency to slide (or leap) into Tyranny.
Lucas vs Bush, and vs Republicans more generally:
Lucas' anti-Bush pronouncements have been widely reported. I also remember
an interview in which Lucas said that the name of the Trade Federation
Viceroy, "Newt Gunray", is a dig at Newt Gingrich and Ronald Reagan. So I
don't see any room for doubt about Lucas' personal politics.
But to whatever extent Lucas might have tried to twist
his story to serve some personal current political cause, I don't think his
story is just another political hack-job. The Faustian story of Anakin/Vader
is clearly the central story that runs through all six films; and it's
Goethe's variant (Faust is saved in the end) rather than Marlowe's (Faust is
damned). Lucas tells that story pretty well, with some delicious twists,
such as "I'm doing it to protect you, Padme"/"Don't you turn against me
too"/"I'm afraid you killed her". The political mess is really just part of
the frame, like the mystical/magical-Force/midiclorians mumbo-jumbo and the
magical lightsabers-and-spaceships technology.
Perhaps TJ Williams is righter than I thought, when I
started this little essay: maybe the best political use of the Star Wars
story is to compare the patterns of political activity in that story to the
patterns in real-world history, both ancient and contemporary, and reflect
on the matches and mismatches. Have ruling elites in the real world been
powerful and benevolent, but blind? You bet! Have there been breakdowns in
subsidiarity (see for example Jane Jacobs _Dark Age Ahead_)? Yup! And about
them, one can do ... what?
Rod Montgomery==monty@sprintmail.com
=================
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
some of your readers have likened the Jedi to law
enforcement officers. Bearing arms they get into the office of the
legitimate chief executive and try to arrest him on a phony warrant. And the
whole thing in war time. In my book that is treason and they deserve death.
This is not law enforcement. It is a small group taking over government in
the name of their version of the common good.
Regards Oliver
And see below, the sins
of the Jedi
==================
On Orson Scott Card, Ender, and
Hitler
Mr. Pournelle,
I’ve been a fan/lurker since childhood, and quietly
follow much that goes on in SF. I was recently led down a path of posts and
links to a controversial article at Kuroshin:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/5/28/22428/7034
Even though much of Card’s work has left me relatively
un-inspired, I fail to make many of the connections between Ender and Hitler
that the Kuroshin author puts forth. Even more unlikely, I hope, is the
author’s claim of being set up for a physical confrontation in Adam’s suite
(he implies you were there) at a convention.
The years have purged much of my naivety, though I
still cling to -some- ideals…Now some of these remnants are in danger of
falling as well. Does this guy thrive in a drama of conspiracies, all the
while creating his own problems by provoking others? On the flip, has SF,
particularly the SFWA, become as politicized and intolerant of criticism /
dissension he claims?
I know both of these questions are inflammatory at
best, but there exist crystals of truth in the matrix of each- I’m compelled
to ask someone involved whose opinions I respect. For reasons I don’t fully
understand, this article and its accusations have drawn my attention to a
degree that surprises me.
The drains on your time are many- Forgive me for
dropping out of the blue; if you don’t feel like responding I more than
understand.
Thanks for Your Time,
Charlie Coton
Strange Technologist
University of Texas Health Science, UCT 2672C
Ender's Game was a better novelette than novel, but
it certainly wasn't about Hitler.
I was not present at the "confrontation" in Adams'
suite, but I would be astonished if it happened as described. Robert Adams
was a very old-fashioned man and his ideas of hospitality would have
forbidden him to invite a guest then assault him without extreme
provocation. I counted Bob Adams as a good friend, and while I would not
defend everything he did, the incident as described does not ring true to
me. (See Joel Rosenberg's account: he was
there.)
Scott Card has long been a friend although not
close, and my only criticism of him was his retention of certain SFWA
offices while winning awards; but that is a matter of appearances as much as
anything else. I am no fan of "Speaker for the Dead" as I consider it an
"idiot block" plot -- the readers will soon discover the "secret" although
none of the characters do, and they should; but if they find out the secret
there is no story. But that is my preference. Scott can write beautifully,
and apparently he can dazzle people with footwork.
As it happens he and I will both be on the "Future
of Weapons of Mass Destruction" discussion forum later this month. I haven't
seen Scott for years.
I never heard of Kuroshin before and after reading
that discussion on his web site I am not tempted to return.
=================
Dr. Pournelle,
The dangers of outsourcing software are realized in
Israel.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/06/01/israel.computer.breakin.ap/index.html
Sean Long
==================
FBI warns of cell phones aloft
http://news.com.com/FBI+warns+of+cell+phones+aloft/2100-1039_3-5726850.html?tag=nefd.top
Now this is just plain stupid.
So the terrorist calls home on his cell phone to say
"Hi Osama, I'm on the plane right now, do you think I should hijack it and
crash into the pentagon?"
-------- Pĺl Steinar Berg
=========
And now a very serious
matter, brought to my attention by several readers whose original mail I
have erased as they do not want to be "credited" with sending it to me, and
one who signed:
Jerry,
Here is another example of how well protected we are.
I sure feel safer knowing the Dr. Butler is locked away.
Brian
* If you are a researcher, and lose track of
some infectious agent, think twice before reporting it.
* Never, never, never speak to a federal agent
without legal counsel.
From ProMED-mail, the email list of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
http://www.promedmail.org/pls/promed/f?p=2400:
1001:5120297554616370640::NO::F2400_P1001_BACK_PAGE
,F2400_P1001_PUB_MAIL_ID:1000,29134
or
http://tinyurl.com/bvwth
Thomas Butler, Physician- Scientist, prisoner
---------------------- The paragraphs below are the abstract and edited
summary of an article in Clinical Infectious Diseases 2005; 40:1644-8,
entitled "Destroying the Life and Career.of a Valued Physician-Scientist Who
Tried to Protect Us From Plague: Was It Really Necessary?"
Thomas Campbell Butler, at 63 years of age, is
completing the 1st year of a 2-year sentence in federal prison, following an
investigation and trial that was initiated after he voluntarily reported
that he believed vials containing _Yersinia pestis_ were missing from his
laboratory at Texas Tech University. We take this opportunity to remind the
infectious diseases community of the plight of our esteemed colleague, whose
career and family have, as a result of his efforts to protect us from
infection by this organism, paid a price from which they will never recover.
<snip>
In January 2003, Dr. Butler could not locate 30
vials of plague specimens and reported this to the safety officer at Texas
Tech University; the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was notified by
Texas Tech University, which resulted in 60 FBI agents rapidly descending
upon Texas Tech University and the briefing of government officials,
apparently up to the level of President George W. Bush. According to
reliable sources, Butler was questioned by FBI agents without legal counsel
which he waived, because he felt he had nothing to hide, he had worked with
the military and federal agencies for years on this and other projects, and
he genuinely wanted to help the FBI allay public fears. Testimony at the
trial indicates that, after many hours of interrogation without sleep, and
with the assurance that such interrogation would prevent any legal action,
he signed a statement to the effect that the vials may have been autoclaved.
He was then put in handcuffs and jailed, having been accused of lying to the
FBI (a charge for which he was later acquitted).
<snip>
Never. Never. Never talk to a police or federal
agent without legal counsel. This is horrible advice to have to give you:
when I was a lad we were taught that the police are our friends, and one has
a civic duty to cooperate with them. It is now clear, from this case, and
Martha Stewart, and others, and anarcho-tyranny*
prevails within some branches of "law enforcement" and that getting
convictions is more important than anything like justice.
This is particularly true if you work at anything
remotely related to "national security". Look at the mess at Los Alamos,
where they hadn't "lost" some of the stuff they thought was missing, and
they fastened onto one man who was one day so dangerous he had to be kept
incommunicado, but then suddenly was released. He was eventually bullied
into pleading guilty to something so minor that it resulted in no
punishment, but that guilty plea got the Special Agents (they're special all
right) off the hook. Stewart meanwhile was convicted of denying something
that wasn't a crime to begin with.
Talking to federal agents can be hazardous to your
health and freedom. So far have we come. The problem is that the war on
crime hires so many people. Their take is far greater than the take of the
criminals themselves. Crime pays rather poorly, in case you haven't read
about Freakonomics yet.
But we were born free. Welcome to anarcho-tyranny.
*[Anarcho-tyranny: in which
major crimes and criminals go unpunished because the authorities are unable
or often afraid to act, while the police continue to enforce laws when and
where it is safe to do so: Murder rages in one part of the city while minor
traffic offenders and scofflaws in middle class sections are sent to jail.
Cherry picking by police.]
===========
Subject: Now, why am I not surprised?
'Disposition' Emerges as Issue at Brooklyn
College
BY JACOB GERSHMAN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
May 31, 2005 URL:
http://www.nysun.com/article/14604
Brooklyn College's School of Education has
begun to base evaluations of aspiring teachers in part on their commitment
to social justice, raising fears that the college is screening students for
their political views.
The School of Education at the CUNY campus
initiated last fall a new method of judging teacher candidates based on
their "dispositions," a vogue in teacher training across the country that
focuses on evaluating teachers' values, apart from their classroom
performance.
Critics of the assessment policy warned that
aspiring teachers are being judged on how closely their political views are
aligned with their instructor's. Ultimately, they said, teacher candidates
could be ousted from the School of Education if they are found to have the
wrong dispositions.
"All of these buzz words don't seem to mean
anything until you look and see how they're being implemented," a prominent
history professor at Brooklyn College, Robert David Johnson, said.
"Dispositions is an empty vessel that could be filled with any agenda you
want," he said.
Critics such as Mr. Johnson say the dangers of
the assessment policy became immediately apparent in the fall semester when
several students filed complaints against an instructor who they said
discriminated against them because of their political beliefs and "denounced
white people as the oppressors."
Classroom clashes between the assistant
professor, Priya Parmar, and one outspoken student led a sympathetic
colleague of the instructor to conduct an informal investigation of the
dispositions of the student, who the colleague said exhibited "aggressive
and bullying behavior toward his professor." That student and another one
were subsequently accused by the dean of the education school of plagiarism
and were given lower grades as a result.
Brooklyn College, established in 1930, is a
four-year school within the City University of New York. The college enrolls
more than 15,000 students, and the School of Education has about 3,200,
including 1,000 undergraduates.
Your tax dollars at work. At least it has not
entirely converted to a madras, but we can expect those, paid by Saudi
funds, to begin in the US any time; most of the Muslim chaplains in prisons
and the US Armed Forces seem to come from the Wahabi schools.
But we were born free.
===============
Subject: Truths of Democracy buffy willow
Hi Jerry,
David Warren came across some excellent observations
by Nicolás Gómez Dávila, a Catholic writer from Colombia:
-- Democratic parliaments are not places where debate
occurs but where popular absolutism registers its edicts.
-- Love of the people is an aristocratic calling. The
democrat only loves the people at election time.
-- The individual shrinks in proportion as the state
grows.
-- The one who renounces seems weak to the one
incapable of renunciation.
-- Violence is not necessary to destroy a
civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference towards the unique
values which created it.
-- To have opinions is the best way to escape the
obligation of thinking.
-- Nothing multiplies the number of fools so much as
the example of celebrities.
-- The importance of an event is inversely
proportional to the space which the newspapers devote to it.
-- An individual declares himself a member of some
group with the goal of demanding in its name what he is ashamed to claim in
his own name.
-- The anger of imbeciles is less frightening than
their benevolence.
-- "To be useful to society" is the ambition, or
excuse, of a prostitute.
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/index.php?artID=473
Cheers, Rod Schaffter
The Founding Fathers were terrified of democracy
which they considered a horrible system of government. So have most profound
political thinkers been; counting noses is not a good way to get good
counsel, and asking people what they want if someone else will pay for it
usually produces the expected results. So long as the Constitution was
supreme all was well, but Earl Warren discovered we were a Democracy, not a
Republic, and threw out the plain meaning of the Constitution and its
Federal Republic in favor of establishing a pure democracy. Of course
Democracy soon becomes Empire.
But we were born free.
================
Dear Jerry:
Marc Cooper is at the other end of the spectrum from
you politically and way further to the left than I normally sit, but his
recent commentary on Iraq included the following:
"The Bush Administration has plunged us and the
Iraqi people into a well of blood half a trillion dollars deep. The White
House offers no answers, except to stay the course while it prays it can get
to the midterm elections without an apocalyptic meltdown in Iraq. The
administration lacks the moral courage to even publicly ponder a way to
finance this war instead of charging it to some revolving future account.
The Not In Our Name crap won't cut it, either,
when it is precisely in our name that this conflict continues and deepens.
We don't atone for the sins of the Bush Administration by abandoning the
Iraqi people and pretending that the "resistance" that would come to power
is anything but fascist.
So we know what we can't and shouldn't do. We
can't stay the course and maintain a status quo that every moment slips
closer to a bloodbath. But we can't simply walk away from the conflagration
we have started, hoping it will just burn itself out.
I'm sorry to confess that I have no easy third
alternative to stamp on to some bumper stickers. I don't know who does/"
This was in May 20th to 26th issue of the L.A. Weekly.
It struck me not only as a very nice bit of prose, but also a sign that,
regardless of political background, we have all defined the horrible
problem. There is nothing there that you and I and the others who post here
have not said at least a hundred times. As Congressman Kenrick Meeks gently
told Donald Rumsfeld at one of the many hearings on this war, this is far
beyond politics.
And we face another problem. People are losing
interest. Even the news media has tired of the story because it never seems
to change. The disconnect between the American military and the public it
serves continues to grow -- and that's never a good thing.
Bush and his crew has tried to happy talk this war.
They have not made it a priority. The emphasis is on Social Security reform,
a failed policy even before he went on the Grand Tour to promote it. There
is no shared sense of national sacrifice extant, as there has been in
previous big wars. Rag has been modeled on all those little brush fire wars
we've fought around the world over the last six decades; the ones that never
make the papers.
Defining the problem should be the first step to
finding a solution. But Cooper is right; we're a long way from being able to
reduce the debate to bumper stickers.
Sincerely,
Francis Hamit
Indeed. The "War on Terror" has now gone on longer
than US participation in World War II. We brought down Germany and Japan in
less time. Of course we knew how to make things then; and we called for the
sacrifices that war calls for. Now we have a war on the frontier; Frederick
the Great would have understood but would have said "But what is it for?"
"Never start an Interstellar War
it has no social uses.
When people ask you what it's for
you'll only make excuses.
When twenty trillion folks get hurt
you'll go to bed without dessert...
================
Subject: The war we have.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak26.html
---- Roland Dobbins
==================
On Church and state:
Now I doubt any state, even Utah, would establish a
church today; but they certainly ought to have the power to do so. Why not?
It is not as if persecutions were coming back.
I often find myself looking through sites related to
American political developments (with awe wonder and not a little alarm) and
I’m not so sure about that. You’ve probably never been a pervert or even a
Goth or a role-gamer: I suspect members of those constituencies see things
differently. If you have the time enter the word ‘Dominionist’ on Google and
read about the many lovely people who would gladly exchange your Republic
for a Christian Theocracy. And lots of them regard not being able to
defecate from a great height all over the groups they regard as outside the
ranks of the saved as a denial of their basic rights.
Michael Cule,
British Civil Servant and Science Fiction Fan (Perhaps
we’ll see you at WorldCon?)
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK.
==============================
Subject: I read it at Chaos Manor first!
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
From today's NYTimes: Researchers Say Intelligence and Diseases May Be
Linked in Ashkenazic Genes
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/science/03gene.html?ex=1275451200&en=efcc603583e17b54&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
This puts Chaos Manor several years ahead of the
Times.
Sincerely, Larry
-- Lawrence Weinstein
Professor of Physics
Graduate Program Director
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA 23529
You're surprised?
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