THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR View 364 May 30 - June 4, 2005 |
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This week: | Monday
May 30 2005 MEMORIAL DAY Updates later. See last weekend.
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This week: | Tuesday, May
31, 2005
This day was devoured by locusts. Partly I did some gardening Monday, and was exhausted. And partly had to pay bills and do errands. And a dentist appointment. And sloth.
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This week: |
Wednesday,
June 1, 2005 I should be back on duty finally. Just a lot of small things that had to be done. Apologies. I should have some comments on Deep Throat, but I'm a bit waiting to see what others think. Me, I think Felt wanted to be Director of the FBI after Hoover died, and didn't like the notion that someone from outside was brought in. Whether that makes him a hero isn't quite as clear to me as it seems to be to others. As to surfacing, well at least his grandchildren's education will be paid for by book co-written with whomever. But what he didn't do was go to a Grand Jury. Perhaps he couldn't. The Nixon regime was the Stupid Party in an internal faction war with Dumb and Dumber, and thank God they withdrew that appointment to the EOP that I was in line for. I was disappointed at the time (1969) but I was rather happier about it later... If Nixon had had the sense to take the tapes out to the White House lawn, put them in a barrel, and pour gasoline on them, and set fire to them, he would have remained in office -- and we might have been spared Jimmy Carter who almost managed to snatch defeat in the Cold War from the stalemate negotiated by Kissinger. Kissinger negotiated containment; which was fatal to Communism. But Carter withdrew from that and don't get me started. Jimmy Carter was personally a good man but a very bad President. Nixon was personally not a good man at all, but he wasn't a bad President. So it goes.
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This week: |
Thursday,
Subject: Robert Heinlein's Colorado Home Photos Dr. Pournelle, Someone has digitized the June 1952 Popular Mechanics article on Rpbert Heinlein's home built in Colorado, complete with pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Heinlein. http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/pm652-art-hi.html Don Don McArthur I vaguely remembered the Popular Mechanics article but had entirely forgotten it. Having stayed at 1776 Mesa Ave, Broadmoor, Colorado Springs, it is much I recall although the article does not show that Robert kept clean pajamas and new underwear and socks for any visitors who were unexpected required to stay there overnight...
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This week: |
Friday,
June 3, 2005 It is column time and I am encumbered with much writing. Mail is piling up in a backlog and I will try to deal with a lot of it this morning after my walk. There's a lot about the "true meaning" of Star Wars Episodes I - III, which may read more into it than is there, but which triggers interesting thoughts on Empire and Republic. I'll get that up. There is also discussion on Global Warming with a NASA scientist. I had hoped to have some analysis by people more familiar with the subject than me, but it is unfair to keep this longer, so I will get that up shortly. I have also delayed putting up Harry Erwin's Letter From England. I have fixed that. There is now a lot of mail up, some important, with many comments. ============ http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4032638 by our friend Greg Cochran. I expect much debate. This is one of the more important papers to come out of being serious about applying the theory of evolution. (If you cannot reach the web site, the article is appended below until I find a proper link to it.) The evolution of intelligence There are also comments: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/science/03gene.html?
"It would be hard to overstate how
politically incorrect this paper is," said Steven Pinker, a
cognitive scientist at Harvard, noting that it argues for an
inherited difference in intelligence between groups. Still,
he said, "it's certainly a thorough and well-argued paper,
not one that can easily be dismissed outright."
Incidentally: Hilarious meta confirmation. I don't know if it was
intentional... but note in the article who is quoted. Comments in Mail The high intelligence of Ashkenazi Jews may be a
result of their Comments in Mail . See also this comment.
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This week: | Saturday,
June 4, 2005 It has been a thin week for volume, but the Cochran piece was important and so was a lot of the mail, which generated most of my comments. Column week is always a bit thin. See Mail...
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This week: | Sunday,
June 5, 2005 Getting the column done. The Economist piece about Cochran seems to have vanished so I have added a cached copy above. There is another important article on Cochran's theories in The Atlantic: http://www.perutechnologies.com/germtheory.html The Atlantic is one of those magazines I don't generally like but once or twice a year they have something so important that it more than makes up for the nonsense the rest of the year.
This is a day book. It's not all that well edited. I try to keep this up daily, but sometimes I can't. I'll keep trying. See also the monthly COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR column, 8,000 - 12,000 words, depending. (Older columns here.) For more on what this page is about, please go to the VIEW PAGE. If you have never read the explanatory material on that page, please do so. If you got here through a link that didn't take you to the front page of this site, click here for a better explanation of what we're trying to do here. This site is run on the "public radio" model; see below. If you have no idea what you are doing here, see the What is this place?, which tries to make order of chaos.
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