| Wednesday, March
1, 2006
Ash
Wednesday
The port issue won't go away, but there is little
new to be said. I do question the foreign ownership of vital facilities
such as airports, the railroads and highways, ports, etc. On the other
hand we allowed Harry Bridges to run the longshoreman unions during the
Cold War. There were threats to use union power to further political
ends, such as shutting down ports during the Korean War, but as I recall
not too much came of that. (I was busy elsewhere in that time and don't
recall much about the domestic scene in the early 50's.)
But if we are going to forbid foreign ownership of vital facilities, this
is probably not the time to implement it. That is: if we are to continue our
Middle East involvements, and it appears we will, then we need allies over
there. If we are to continue to rely on our Cultural Weapons of Mass
Destruction to transform Arab societies, we have to allow them some rewards
for being transformed. This is hardly the time to begin insulting the few
places over there that allow us to operate bases in their territory.
Imperialism has its price. This is one of them.
And:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=a.N5uf887omA
The backlash in Washington over a Dubai
company's plans to run cargo terminals at six U.S. ports isn't resonating
much on the waterfront.
Overseas-based companies operate as many as 80
percent of American terminals, a shift that began when Jimmy Carter was in
the White House.
The clamor over DP World's acquisition of
London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. has been driven by
politics, because companies such as Singapore's Neptune Orient Lines Ltd.
and Denmark's A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S already dominate U.S. container
terminals, said Don Frost, a private shipping consultant who has worked in
the industry for 45 years.
==================
You might find this amusing. Be sure to close it after viewing, or it
will play each time you open Firefox or other browser that restores windows.
Thanks to John Monahan.
http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/16957/
Commercial_About_Guns.html?autoplay=true
==========
And Roland thinks this is worth keeping an eye on:
http://www.ohgizmo.com/2006/02/28/irex-iliad-e-reader/
I still believe the TabletPC will eventually replace all these, but
we'll see. The book business is changing and the publishers don't seem
to be noticing. I now own a bunch of ISBN numbers, and now to see which
of my works are no longer in print and might be published in ebook
format.
===========
Subject: Really Neat Idea...
I just ran across this site and did not remember if
you had mentioned it before or not. I think it is a wonderful idea, though I
am not sure it is entirely legal or not.
They store older versions of software here for
download. Sometimes, you really do need the a copy of the software 3
versions ago!
-Paul
http://www.oldversion.com/
=============
Repeated from yesterday:
I would appreciate it if someone who knows
what's going on with regard to this new Broadcast Treaty would tell us. I
can guess and speculate, and I have read this
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060222-6237.html which I invite
all of you to do. This may be serious, but it's also a bit murky, at least
to me. Enlightenment appreciated.
==========
Subject: Army Public Affairs: Army testing unmanned
Stryker convoys
http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/read.php?story_id_key=8606
Dear Jerry:
This is rather fascinating.
Francis
Indeed. Thank you.
======
And for those interested, an article by Derbyshire, and a comment. I
found both interesting. Recommended.
http://www.olimu.com/WebJournalism/Texts/
Commentary/HesperophobiaContinued.htm
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/060226_derbyshire.htm
Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it
commits suicide.
==============
William Dillon I have your subscription payment but I don't have your
email address! Thanks.
Bob Guzik I have your subscription payment but I don't have your email
address! Thanks.
===============
An important essay worth your reading:
The Return of Patriarchy
By Phillip Longman
March/April 2006
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3376
Across the globe, people are choosing to have
fewer children or none at all. Governments are desperate to halt the trend,
but their influence seems to stop at the bedroom door. Are some societies
destined to become extinct? Hardly. It's more likely that conservatives will
inherit the Earth. Like it or not, a growing proportion of the next
generation will be born into families who believe that father knows best.
"If we could survive without a wife, citizens
of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance." So proclaimed the Roman
general, statesman, and censor Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, in
131 B.C. Still, he went on to plead, falling birthrates required that Roman
men fulfill their duty to reproduce, no matter how irritating Roman women
might have become. "Since nature has so decreed that we cannot manage
comfortably with them, nor live in any way without them, we must plan for
our lasting preservation rather than for our temporary pleasure."
With the number of human beings having
increased more than six-fold in the past 200 years, the modern mind simply
assumes that men and women, no matter how estranged, will always breed
enough children to grow the population-at least until plague or starvation
sets in. It is an assumption that not only conforms to our long experience
of a world growing ever more crowded, but which also enjoys the endorsement
of such influential thinkers as Thomas Malthus and his many modern acolytes.
Yet, for more than a generation now, well-fed,
healthy, peaceful populations around the world have been producing too few
children to avoid population decline. That is true even though dramatic
improvements in infant and child mortality mean that far fewer children are
needed today (only about 2.1 per woman in modern societies) to avoid
population loss. Birthrates are falling far below replacement levels in one
country after the next-from China, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, to
Canada, the Caribbean, all of Europe, Russia, and even parts of the Middle
East.<snip>
When the people who produce the goods that make civilization possible
stop having kids, then we will all depend on the children of those who don't
produce much. How long a First World civilization can be sustained under
these circumstances is worth discussion. Robots take up much of the slack...
Science Fiction has dealt with this for a long time. See "The Little
Black Bag" by Kornbluth as one of the best.
Of course the Roman general understood the situation thoroughly. Betty
Friedan has seen that the problem is current as well as historical.
(And see mail)
============
Octavia Butler, RIP I never knew her well. We shared a couple of
book signings, and had coffee at conventions. Steve Barnes was a closer
friend, and his web site is the right place for more information and to
express sympathy.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-butler28feb28,1,1152401.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california
Octavia Butler, 58; Author Opened the Galaxies of Science Fiction to
Blacks
Is just not quite correct. We had black science fiction writers before
Butler, and she would never have made that claim. But she was a good writer
and a good if not close friend.
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