Monthly Archives: July 2011

Mail 681 Sunday July 3, 2011 – 1

Balancing the Budget
Canadian Defense Spending

Twitter Post on DSK

A twitter post 10 minutes AFTER an arrest isn’t remarkable in the modern world. It was incorrect anyway as he was arrested at the airport and not at the hotel. How many people on the Air France flight 23 would have seen police remove him from the plane?

"Jonathan Pinet, a youth activist in President Sarkozy’s UMP party, wrote "a mate in the US just told me that DSK’s been arrested in a hotel in NYC an hour ago". A second, three minutes later, read: "I got it from a friend of his who works at the hotel".

A blogger on Le Post, a news website, pointed out that the tweet was posted at 4.59pm New York Time, just 10 minutes after Mr Strauss-Kahn was seized on an Air France plane. Mr Pinet had said he had been arrested an hour previously in his hotel, raising questions on how he had obtained the information so fast."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/dominique-strauss-kahn/8517387/Dominique-Strauss-Kahn-conspiracy-theories-mount.html

LTM

I would presume that the NY DI’s office is a fairly leaky affair. And given that DSK was the leading opposition candidate to the President of France, and given some of the antics of the 12^th Bureau – who knows? An interesting mystery.

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Hello Jerry,

"I would still doubt the accuracy of an average annual Earth temperature to a tenth of a degree even for the present year, and I know no evidence at all that we have 1/10 degree accuracy for the year 1800 or even 1890; but at least it will be interesting to see the data."

And wisely so.

A thought experiment: If you, for whatever purpose, needed to know the ‘annual temperature’ of the county you live in, to an ACCURACY of

0.1 degree (C or F), can you think of a data acquisition system that would provide an answer in which you were confident?

I guess another way of thinking about the problem is: Can you DEFINE the ‘surface temperature of the Earth’ in such a way that it can with confidence be measured with a precision of 0.1 degree, and have we now or have we ever had a data acquisition system in place that is capable of making that measurement?

My opinion is that the answer to both questions is ‘No’.

Bob Ludwick

I have often asked that question of people who are supposed to know. The answers I get boil down to variants of "I don’t know but I have confidence in those who are doing it," and "Oh, you wouldn’t understand, it’s too complicated." That latter usually comes from someone I have already found inarticulate on the subject (of course many science people are) and who usually doesn’t impress me with his easy familiarity with differential equations (I no longer am either: that’s something that takes a lot of use and practice). I have poked through many references to explanations as to how data points and their weights in the global averages are selected, but I have yet to find one very satisfactory. It may be that I just can’t understand because it’s too complicated – which raises the interesting question of how do we know those who are spending our money understand it if they can’t explain? They usually get unhappy when questioned closely, too.

But with the release of the primary data we may find some answers. I sure don’t know how they know to 1/10^th degree the average temperature of the Earth in 1776 or 1888 or for that matter in 1940. I know how to guess it within a degree or so, and I can find enough data on frozen rivers and growing seasons to get a feel for whether it was colder or hotter (seems reasonable to suppose that it was colder in 1776 than in 1888, and colder in 1888 than in 1940) but as to finding a reliable way to know how much colder, even to a degree, I don’t have the foggiest.

Balancing the budget

Hello Jerry,

You were right on about the silliness of the whole idea that the budget can be ‘balanced’, given the size of government. I particularly liked your suggestion that an income line item, ‘lots of money from the Easter Bunny’ is just as realistic as a large number of budget income line items that were put forward with a straight face.

Government always justifies the retention of a favored program (and its associated bureaucracy) by saying ‘It only costs a few dollars/ cents’ per citizen, it does a lot of good (always debatable), and everyone can surely afford such a pittance for so much good.’. Well, there are a LOT of government programs. And a lot of government employees and civilian contractors working on them. As a matter of fact, it is now to the point where the population is divided roughly in half: those who work for civilian purposes and those who are supported either directly by government or who work for a ‘civilian’

contractor which never pays a dime to one of its employees that didn’t come from a government contract. Of course in my case it is even worse, as in addition to drawing a salary from a wholly owned subsidiary of the government for 15 years I am also drawing a retirement from the government, plus social security and medicare. I am not unique.

While the programs are justified by citing their miniscule individual cost, it would be just as valid, given our current 50/50 government/ civilian split, to view the situation as one in which each individual civilian is responsible, completely, for supplying the salary and benefits for a specific government employee. Since for equivalent jobs the government employee typically makes more than his civilian sponsor, what are the chances of ‘balancing the budget’ by confiscating ever more of the civilian’s resources?

The ONLY way to EVER balance the budget is the make the government smaller. DRASTICALLY smaller. Remember: Government size, power, control over its citizens, and command of resources increase monotonically with time. All governments. Smaller, at least enough smaller to matter, ain’t happenin’. Default and/or Weimar style inflation are. So are SWAT Teams for every department of government (IRS and Park Service come to mind), to ensure that objection to government stupidity doesn’t get out of hand (from the government’s perspective).

Bob Ludwick

The Canadian example comes to mind. Remember when Canadian coinage was a nuisance and the Canadian dollar was a joke? They aren’t laughing so much now. Of course Canada has one enormous advantage over the US, as does most of Europe: no need for a defense budget. The Americans will, at need, still be overpaid, oversexed, and over there.

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Canadian Defense Spending

Dr. Pournelle:

On Sunday 3 July 2011 you said in your daybook: "Of course Canada has one enormous advantage over the US, as does most of Europe: no need for a defense budget."

With respect, I beg to differ. Canada does indeed have a defence budget, and we always have. Granted, sometimes we spend more and sometimes we spend less, dependent entirely upon which party happens to be in power at the time. But Canada has always had a standing army of brave men and women ready to serve wherever the need arises.

We may not be as active in policing the world as the American armed forces, but our soldiers, sailors, and airmen have served with distinction in peacekeeping missions all across this globe for more years than I’ve been alive, and continue to do so to this day. Currently our soldiers are actively participating in missions in Afghanistan and Libya, as well as participating in anti-piracy missions in the Horn of Africa. Indeed, Robert Gates himself has praised Canada’s contributions to NATO missions for years.

Would we rather fight with you than against you? Hell yes. That’s just good sense, I think. We’d rather be your ally than your friend. But don’t underestimate Canada. We’re not above taking up arms if it comes down to it. I invite you to remember your own comments about how when you were serving in Korea you and your fellows were mighty happy that the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry was on your side.

Or, perhaps I’m simply feeling a tad more patriotic than usual. We did just, after all, celebrate Canada Day.

I wish you the best of health, Doctor.

Very best regards,

Michael J A Tyzuk, CDOSB

Thank you. I meant no denigration of Canada, more a comment on the endless commitments the US has undertaken since the end of the Cold War. I see no need for a continuation of NATO, as an example. I believe the US would be better of with bilateral defense pacts, beginning of course with Canada. The need for mutual defense with Canada is fairly obvious, with positive results for both sides. In contrast, although I have many friends in Estonia and the old Estonian government in exile that operated during the Cold War awarded me an Estonian medal for my work in the Captive Nations program prior to the Treaty of Leningrad, I do not see why the United States wants or needs a mutual defense treaty with Estonia; I could make the same inquiries regarding most other European nations.

It is still the case that Canada has a much smaller defense establishment than would be needed by most wealthy nations with enormous coastlines (we will stipulate that for over a century there has been no need to defend Canada’s southern border). That helped in Canada’s economic miracle. Of course no one in Washington seems aware that Canada had an economic miracle.

Canada spends about the same percentage of GDP on defense as Brazil and Norway. I’m not saying that’s unreasonable. It’s in fact fairly normal (as opposed to Mexico which spends about a third of that). The US spends about three times that percentage. That’s a heavy burden.

Mail 681 Saturday July 2, 2011

CRUTEM3

July 2, 2011 6:53 PM

UK academic wins right to climate change data

(AP) LONDON — Britain’s information watchdog says a closely guarded dataset held by the university at the center of the “Climategate” scandal must be disclosed.

Britain’s Information Commissioner says that the University of East Anglia must hand over a selection from its database of world temperatures records, called CRUTEM3, which draws on readings dating back more than 160 years.

The dataset is one of several which maps global temperature changes over the years and climate change skeptics have long demanded access to it.

In an incident known as Climategate, a series of e-mails stolen last year from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in Britain showed climate scientists stonewalling skeptics and discussing ways to keep opponents’ research out of peer-reviewed journals.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/02/ap/tech/main20076431.shtml

HM

As the data come out we may yet learn more about this. I would still doubt the accuracy of an average annual Earth temperature to a tenth of a degree even for the present year, and I know no evidence at all that we have 1/10 degree accuracy for the year 1800 or even 1890; but at least it will be interesting to see the data.

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Global Temperature sources, Arctic

Jerry:

Reading the latest information, here in Chaos Manor, about how to ‘see’ where the numbers come from, for the Average Global Temperature, I remembered how much the DC-3 bush pilots, flying out of Resolute Bay, NWT, trusted the Aviation Weather Forecasts, in the Arctic.

They did NOT. Because there were very, very few Weather Reporting Stations in the High Arctic.

Before flying out to our Seismic Camp (which was on giant sleigh runners), they would Radio, and speak with our Crew Manager, to get a Real Time Weather Report. Since he had a Thermometer on his Office Trailer, and an Anemometer and a Recording Wind Vane, on a pole above his Office Trailer, he was easily able to tell the truth. If our conditions were good, and were not deteriorating, the DC-3 supply-flight would come out west, from Resolute Bay, to our location on the Arctic ocean ice.

We were working an area between Mackenzie King Island; Lougheed island; the north tip of the Sabine Penninsula of Melville Island, and down the west side of the Sabine Penninsula. Our Airstrip was simple to build – just about 3/4 of a mile-long, 200 feet wide snowplowed clean by 2 D6 Cats. The edges of the cleared ice were marked, every 100 steps, by a black plastic garbage bag wrapped around a 3-surveyors’ lath tripod. Three extra black plastic-on-a-lath-tripod arrangements were placed across each end, and, to mark an extended centre-line, past both ends of the ice strip, we put up about an half-mile of Flags, made triple-height, (just combine lath in a 4; 3; 2; 1: sequence, nailed flat to each other) with a black plastic garbage bag pulled down, with the open end towards the ground, and tie the top end to the lath, then bunch a bit of the bottom edge that is touching the doubled lath, and tie that off, as well. the wind not only blows the garbage bag out like a flag, some of the wind gets into the open bottom, and slightly inflates the whole thing. I inspected the setups, from out Bell Jetranger helicopter, after each new DC-6 snowplowed ice stip was marked, and the extended centreline flags were easy to see, plus the edge & end markers also showed up well. snow never stuck to any of them, because the rippling caused by the winds made the snow fall off!

The Seismic Crews, working in the High Arctic, worked from October thru mid-December, then returned in late January (after the worst of the storms had gone). We still had a weeks worth of emergency food in each vehicle, due to the danger of a Blizzard making it impossible to see well enough to drive. And I have driven into the base of a 90-foot-tall cliff, when I strayed off of a previously-driven trail, on Banks island. My Rolligon’s headlights suddenly stopped glowing thru the flying snowflakes, and the 6-cylinder ford diesel tractor engine stalled. I started the engine, and backed up, gazing in wonder at a perfect imprint of the grille-guard, in the snow-covered cliff-face – until a big chunk of the snow-cornice arrive from on high!

I do wonder how good Climate Forecasts can be, when Weather Forecasts suffer from wildly-variable spacing of Weather Reporting Stations. I have looked up the number, and placements, of Weather Stations which launch at least one Weather Balloon a day, and see the scanty numbers as not being enough for coverage. The Arctic, the Antarctic, the pacific ocean, and Africa, all do not have many Weather Stations, and the ones that are there are not evenly spaced, either!

Regards,

Neil Frandsen

in Lethbridge, Alberta, where the Chinook Winds _blow_. or not… Grin.

Ah but they are doing it the easy way, determining the average temperature of the entire Earth. Much simpler than in your case.

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I got a .50 ’cause they don’t make it in .51

http://www.guncrafterindustries.com/

J

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

Dwight David Eisenhower

I will stay with the Colt Government Model myself.

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Where in the Constitution does it say that anything harmful to minorities is illegal?

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said today he will appeal a court ruling that overturned the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which bans the use of race and gender preferences in college admissions and government hiring and contracting.

Schuette said he will make a formal request for a rehearing with the appeals court, a move that will keep the civil rights initiative — known as Proposal 2 — in place at least temporarily.

“MCRI embodies the fundamental premise of what America is all about:

equal opportunity under the law,” Schuette said in a statement.

“Entrance to our great universities must be based upon merit, and I will continue the fight for equality, fairness and rule of law.”

A federal appeals court today overturned Proposal 2, saying the voter-approved measure harms minorities and is unconstitutional.

From The Detroit News:

http://detnews.com/article/20110701/SCHOOLS/107010416/State-to-fight-ruling-against-ban-on-race-in-college-admissions#ixzz1QtUcbwmD

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Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Bill Buckley was fond of saying that we need a new Constitutional Amendment. It should say “nor shall any state for reasons of race or sex deny to any person the equal protection of the laws, and this time we damned well mean it.” Of course that can never happen.

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Sarkozi — who is not French but Royal Hungarian — had two aids who posted about Strauss-Khan on Twitter vis-a-vis the alleged rape 30 minutes before the arrest happened. How would they know? Well, it’s a set up right? Their excuse was they had spies following him and that is how they knew. It’s in google. It is worth knowing. It happens all the time, but this is a great public event where normal people can take 10 minutes of time and learn something. Maybe you could write a view on it?

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Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

I expect DSK told them. One possible story: he was seduced and accepted the offer. He was then warned by someone in the DA’s office of the coming auto de fe in his honor. He sent his story to aides. Of course that’s just a story, but it’s a lot more likely than the one told by the maid.

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Afghanistan logistics not yet dumb enough

They’re even talking air. Uncle Sam wept.

Gregory Cochran

U.S. turns to other routes to supply Afghan war as relations with Pakistan fray

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-turns-to-other-routes-to-supply-afghan-war-as-relations-with-pakistan-fray/2011/06/30/AGfflYvH_story.html

What are you, an isolationist?

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Libertarian Republican: Bachmann – Palin Mud Wrestling match?

Jerry,

Perhaps this would be the proper method for the Republican Party to nominate a Presidential candidate? May be even make it pay per view to fund the campaign?

http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2011/06/bachmann-palin-mud-wrestling-match.html

Jim

I do not think either would participate. For perhaps different reasons. But I can think of other interesting mud wrestling matches. Think of Pelosi—

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going John Galt

Message Body:

Dear Doctor Pournelle,

I’m in a bad mood today, but it seems to me John Galt was right.

Since we are punitively taxing the rich, and since we are now going after the means of creating wealth, I am serously considering saying to hell with it and just voting democrat. If that’s want people want, if we have to crash everything in order to rebuild it in a more rational manner … then let’s go ahead and get it over with. The best way to crash everything at the moment seems to be to vote democrat.

I know, “despair is a sin,” and all that.

Jim

Sounds like IWW logic.

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