A question about D’Souza, bunny inspectors, and a short mail bag

Mail 738 Monday, August 20, 2012

Regarding the D’Souza piece

Jerry:

Here’s where he lost me:

"A couple of years ago, George teamed up with a British journalist Damien Lewis and the two of them published George’s story in a book called "Homeland." Yet according to Lewis, shortly before the book’s publication in America, the publisher Simon & Schuster decided to shred the **entire** print run, more than 20,000 copies." (emphasis added)

OK, that implies there should be no US-published copies available, which should be fairly easy to check. I went to barnesandnoble.com. I went to amazon.com.

Hardcover copies by Simon & Schuster are available in both venues, and there are both Nook and Kindle editions — which would presumably have come out after the hardcover.

Perhaps the rest of the article has some grains of truth in it. But if D’Souza can’t be bothered with the easy-to-check stuff, it prompts me to be even more skeptical on the hard-to-check, no secondary source, "I alone escaped to tell thee" stuff.

Hoping this finds you well,

— Hal

I have no idea. Perhaps someone more familiar with this can comment? I have not met Mr. D’Souza but I know many people who have, and I have worked with some of them. But you ask a question that deserves an answer.

Maybe Apple doesn’t have special screws to keep you out of their hardware, but I know from repair experience on a MacBook Pro (the ones where the battery is completely internal) that their battery is held in by screws that need a special tool. At the time I was doing this repair, this tool was only sold online to authorized dealers. Fortunately, some non-optimal tools can be adapted to remove the battery.

The place to go when you want to get inside Apple hardware is iFixit.com.

Tom Brosz

Thank you.

Not just bunny inspectors ….

Despite having no horses, the water and sewerage department for the city of Detroit employs a horseshoer

http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/17404

Monty

In the army we called them farriers and there was a theoretical slot for them in cavalry regiments in Headquarters Troop. I expect they have revised that in the past decades.

Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.

<http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-lunch-lady-20120817,0,5201567.story>

Roland Dobbins

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Dependence

Jerry,

I run a little website and one of my guest writers has come up with a really interesting take on society’s current entitlement mindset. He’s taken Maslows Heirarchy of Needs and is examining entitlements and government actions under a hierarchy of dependence (using Maslow’s needs hierarchy)…I think it’s a cool concept and haven’t seen it covered anyplace else. Be interested in your thoughts if you had time to take a look at it… http://prepography.com/category/guestblogger/roger-reality/

Wish I’d come up with it,

Andrew J. Jackson

Allies

Dr Pournelle, here is a thought about protection of the people. I’ve had a few liberals tell me that they see the need for a powerful Federal Government in order to protect the people from Big Business.

It is my contention that this is insane.

First, as a matter of history, the government, weak when Teddy was in charge as compared to today, had little trouble beating up on business when it was relatively very powerful. Even today little tinhorn states around the world routinely nationalize or blackmail multinational corporations without fear.

Second, and more importantly, big government and big business are natural allies. Government has power, but wants money. Business has money, but wants power. Government sees business as a source of revenue to buy votes and ensure friends and allies are taken care of, and even themeselves once they leave government service. Business sees government as a source of protection from competition. Neither has any great need for specific people, just sufficient to pay taxes, vote and purchase goods and services.

So, why would anyone think big government will provide any protection from big business? Aside from political rhetoric and the drek we get for entertainment, I see no such reason. Far more often we see powerful businessmen like Corzine getting preferential treatment by the government, or government officials like Stephanopoulos getting hired on by one business or another after leaving the government.

G

Conservatives do not believe in weak government; it should be strong, but its size and jurisdiction should be limited. And certainly there is more than enough power over Wall Street except that the system is so large now that it can’t act quickly or effectively.

Armed Pizza Delivery

I guess, now, we have to admit that things have gone pear shaped:

<.>

Has it come to this? Yes it has, according to Joan McKenna, whose son Tim McKenna, 19, was shot while delivering pizza in Detroit.

In the wake of the shooting, a Jets Pizza franchise in Dearborn ruled it will no longer deliver to Detroit after dark. Before the shooting, they sent two drivers to every nighttime Detroit delivery, one of whom was armed, Joan McKenna said.

“They usually send somebody with a guy … who carries a gun,” she said. “Usually they have two go into Detroit after dark, if they have a delivery … One guy has a legal, he can carry a gun.  That night, Timmy was the only one left, they had this one run to do, he said ‘yeah, I’ll do it.’ He’s a kid, he doesn’t think anything’s going to happen to him.”

</>

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/08/17/pizza-franchise-creates-not-after-dark-delivery-rule-in-detroit-after-driver-shot/

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

We have sown the wind. Now we reap.

Lucifer’s Hammer review…

http://thesurvivalmom.com/2012/08/16/3-survival-novels-you-should-read-a-video-review/

Charles Brumbelow

I will say now that we left out a good bit on purpose. In particular we used mustard rather than another war gas for reasons of social responsibility. An interesting review.

Dutch to Mars?

Jerry,

I didn’t know if you’d heard about this. The article is from June, 2012, and this is the first I’ve heard anything about it. A Dutch "researcher" has announced plans to have a permanent settlement on Mars by 2023.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405162,00.asp

Have you heard of this fellow, and is he believable? The article is written in a way that kind of hints that they think he is a crackpot.

Chris Poor

This is the first I have heard of it, but I am not as well connected as I used to be.