A very mixed bag. Climate, military policy, and some cool stuff

Mail 783 Wednesday, July 24, 2013

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The pipe dream of easy war

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

While the New York Times is no longer noted as a source of great repute (at least by me), every once in awhile they come out with something good. This column, by Major General Mcmaster (commander at Fort Benning), is a case in point.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/opinion/sunday/the-pipe-dream-of-easy-war.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&

He explains that wars are always harder than we think they will be. The three specific points he makes are:

1) War is political. As the 19th-century Prussian philosopher of war Carl von Clausewitz said, “war should never be thought of as something autonomous, but always as an instrument of policy.”

2) War is human. People fight today for the same fundamental reasons the Greek historian Thucydides identified nearly 2,500 years ago: fear, honor and interest. But in the years preceding our last two wars, thinking about defense undervalued the human as well as the political aspects of war. Although combat operations unseated the Taliban and the Saddam Hussein regime, a poor understanding of the recent histories of the Afghan and Iraqi peoples undermined efforts to consolidate early battlefield gains into lasting security.

3) War is uncertain, precisely because it is political and human.

Probably the best essay I’ve seen out of the NYT this year.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Winning the war is not always the difficult part. Sometimes the tough pert comes after you have won it. How do you get out? We learned some of that in the Philippines. We have never figured out what to do with Puerto Rico. The Constitution was not designed for empire.

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Scientists find GIANT Pandoravirus that could have come from an alien planet |

Jerry

Holey moley – a one-micrometer virus that “only six per cent of its genes resembled genes seen before in other organisms on Earth:”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2370100/Scientists-GIANT-Pandoravirus-come-alien-planet.html

“Dr Claverie told NPR: ‘We believe that those new Pandoraviruses have emerged from a new ancestral cellular type that no longer exists.’ He went on to explain that it is possible that they have come from another planet, such as Mars.”

Fred Hoyle would have loved this.

Ed

Sir Fred and Bob Bussard were both convinced that not all life on Earth evolved here.

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Lernstift smartpen

Dr. Pornelle –

Where are they going to next put a computer? I shudder to think.

The Lernstift smartpen checks your spelling as you write http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/19/tech/innovation/spellcheck-lernstift-pen/index.html?eref=edition

"Daniel Kaesmacher, co-founder of Lernstift told CNN: ‘Basically there are two functions. The calligraphy mode which helps you correct individual letters, and the orthography mode which vibrates when a word is misspelled.’ "

"The pen employs a menagerie of sensors, including a gyroscope (for measuring orientation), accelerometer (for calculating propulsion) and magnetometer (a device that measures the strength and direction of magnetic fields) — all to calculate the pen’s 3-D movements."

I’m impressed that someone could invent something like this. I’m not impressed with the purpose of the invention. Only the most dedicated of students readily learn correct spelling from spell check whereas most students adopt an attitude that they no longer need to learn how to spell since the computer will fix things.

Maybe I’m just too old-fashioned – or just remember struggling to learn how to spell. I do like the fact that it’s a fountain pen. (Yes, I’m old-fashioned.)

Pieter

When I first looked at the site I thought I wanted one, but I decided I did not. On the other hand I have seen the Microsoft Surface Pro running OneNote and I loved it. At $1400 it’s not going to sell, and I don’t think I can afford one, but it sure was fun to use. It accepts a stylus and it recognizes my handwriting. I don’t know if it will recognize yours – there is a reason why Microsoft software recognizes my handwriting.

I think I can do without the pen, but I still think fondly about the Surface Pro.

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The great cooling

Jerry,

More Angels have Fallen

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/07/sunspots_and_the_great_cooling_ahead.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Jim

Climate is what your model tells you to expect. Weather is what you get. Our models are not very good; they can’t take initial conditions for any year in the 20th Century and project the next 20 years, much less fifty. Patiently I explain again, we know that it has been colder during the Ice Ages, warmer in Roman times, much warmer in Viking times, and a lot colder from about 1400 to 1800, Then it warmed for a while. And now we just don’t know what it’s doing.

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Antibiotic Protects Men from Attractive Women:

http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2013/04/antibiotic-protects-men-from-attractive-women.html

And it’s not what you think.

Ed

I can’t think of an appropriate comment. Perhaps a reader can…

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"In terms of politics, I’d say he’s just as anti-American as the next guy in Cambridge."

<http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/jahars-world-20130717?print=true>

—-

Roland Dobbins

The pride and hope of America

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My Experience as a Military Brat and my Father

Jerry,

In reply to paradoctor@aol.com you wrote:

"That is not the business of the military. It is the result of their political masters. Military professionals don’t seek war. "

<https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=14650>

I whole heartedly concur from my experience with my father.

I have never been in the military, but I am a military brat and have had many conversations with my father on this matter. He was a commander at the last five years of his 30-year career. IK have heard from people who knew him but were not close friends that he was an officer with an enlisted heart–high praise indeed.

He echoed your post. He never, never glamorized war. He would not talk about his experience in WWII nor Korea except in the most general terms. He did not see the worst of the actions. In WWII he flew the Hump in C-48s and in Korea he was an RB-45 pilot. He lost a great many friends.

He was most concerned with the men (back then) not war, nor grand goals, nor glory.

He actually advised me not to join the military, primarily because it lost its focus in what is important (after Vietnam). I tried to join the nuclear navy, but fortunately for me and for the navy they did not take me.

To some degree he was contemptuous of SAC’s motto, "Peace is our Profession." He liked the reframe, "War is our Profession" with the strict caveat that it needs to be so horrendous that it will not occur. The seventy Years war was won by those of my father’s ilk.

When I saw "Seven Days in May" in the sixties I asked him about his opinion of the movie. He was a colonel at the time. He said he would have to do the same thing that Colonel Jiggs Casey ( played by as Kirk Douglas) did. At loss of career Jiggs went to the President to inform him of General James Mattoon Scott’s (played by Burt Lancaster) plot . He looked at me and said, "I have to follow the constitution. There is no other course I can take."

He most certainly believed in what President Eisenhower said:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. "

Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040 , <http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html>

He was not at all pleased by the extensive powers created in the USA Patriot Act.

I suspect but do not know if he would be against Iraq II (2003) He died in 2002.

My own experience of the military as a dependent has been quite good. I have met some scoundrels, but the vast majority of the career military are true and gentle knights.

I recommend that any who may disparage people in the military might want to go to some functions where you have a chance to discuss war and the military life from an experiential way with senior enlisted and senior officers. It is a most enlightening experience. You can keep the situation from going left field by avoiding today’s current hot topics on specific military theaters. Find out from the military what their life has been like, is like now, and what their beliefs are.

I have heard very strong opinions expressed very strongly, but very little in "war-mongering."

My experience may not be the norm, but this has been my experience with a man and his associates who loved the military, being in the military, the men in the military, and their country.

Just as a little side note. It was most enlightening to hear Thich Nhat Hahn say in 2011 that given the proper context that war is not violence. And I do mean proper context [His experience in the 60s with the Vietnam War is most enlightening]. He answered a lot of my questions on "Right Livelihood." [I only learned this Buddhist term a few years ago] I have been interested in this since I was a young sprout as I was always questioning the whole idea of military life, and its proper function in society.

I am not a student of the military. I am a layman who has some experience with people in the military as a dependent.

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

On Forever Wars

Dear Jerry Pournelle:

My comment that the American military ‘is not in the business of winning’ has gotten responses from you and others. I grant your critique of the civilian leadership, but I add that the line between them and the high command is somewhat blurred, due to the famous ‘revolving door’ between military and industry. The problem is systemic; it goes beyond individual agendas. You see, forever-wars have agendas of their own.

The point about mushy plans and sliding objectives is well-taken; for this is precisely how forever-wars sustain themselves. Note for instance the famous "Friedman Unit" of six-months-until-success. It’s a snafu from the human point of view, but from an organizational point of view, snafus are necessary. Were the mission to be completely fully, then the organization will be disbanded; therefore the only long-surviving organization are the ones whose mission is somehow never fully completed. It is a Darwinian effect; do not seek intelligent design in it.

Also note: the inability to attain victory, inherent in all forever-war militaries, leaves them vulnerable to other militaries that retain that ability.

paradoctor@aol.com

The American military is infused with the message that there is no substitute for victory. Their civilian masters have different views. The American way of war is to build an army, then another, then a third, while building fleets. If the war is still on at that point we smash.

It is possible to still so this by a suitable strategy of technology.

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Now it becomes clear.

Silly me, I’d assumed that George Zimmerman had been indicted by an actual grand jury:

<http://nationalreview.com/node/353633/print>

This article explains that wasn’t the case, and much else, besides.

———

Roland Dobbins

The local police and DA did not think there was a case. A special prosecutor was employed.

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For the Record

Jerry,

Sitting the record straight, Rush didn’t come up with this "Martin thought Zimmerman was a homosexual" nonsense on his own. This is based on commentary from Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel to commentator Piers Morgan during a CNN interview – information that Jeantel apparently didn’t reveal on the stand during the trial.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/353564/rush-jeantel-shows-martin-may-have-been-gay-basher-will-allen

J

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More Fun than Bunny Inspection!

Jerry,

Life once again is more amazing than fiction! Via instapundit

Hoo Haw!

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

FBI Surveils Bikini Baristas, Sergeant Busted in Sex Sting! Don’t Cops (and Feds) Have Better Things to Do?!Ted Balaker, July 17, 2013, Reason, <http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/07/17/dont-cops-have-better-things-to-do-7-13>

"Good law enforcement agencies know to take their time when staking out bikini barista establishments suspected of operating prostitution rings. It’s important to pose as customers to witness lewd acts first hand and it’s absolutely crucial to spend many months pouring over surveillance footage. In fact, you might want to call upon federal agents to provide some extra surveillance footage…."

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Military recruiting and Education

Jerry, I thought you might be interested in the following article from the Strategypage at:

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20130711.aspx

The article is Myths Of The Modern Military (not sure the web address will take you right there.)

Interesting take on education, in urban areas and rural areas and the role money and civic responsibility have on preparing military recruits.

You might also take a look at the site for other information that gives a different slant on military affairs.

Jolund Luther

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Edyukayshun

When I was in grad school, lo these many years ago, the teaching assistants’ offices were on the second floor. (The professors on the third.) Across the hall from us were the education professors.

One day, we got in a discussion with one of the professors about what was then called "the New Math." It was our unanimous opinion that teaching abstract set theory to the youngsters was a bit premature. There was no knowledge base from which to abstract. "And besides," we said, "most teachers don’t understand set theory, either." I have never forgotten his answer. "That’s not important. The teacher doesn’t need to know the subject matter; the teacher only needs to know how to teach."

Years later, I heard that again — only regarding professional business managers. You didn’t need to know the business; you only needed to know how to manage. That was not a good decade for business.

+ + +

A brother has a degree in history followed by a law degree. One day he decided he wanted to make a difference, and took a job teaching "social studies" in a high school. This is one of the better school districts in the Commonwealth. Of course, he had to get an education degree. Basically, he told me, he sleepwalked through the courses. Once he learned the political agenda of the teacher, all the answers were no-brainers. He aced all his classes without much studying. That would not have gotten him his history degree, nor his law degree.

+ + +

Aside: On of your correspondents referred to the 1980s as a period when median income flattened. This is not the case. Median income in constant dollars flattened out in the 1970s, during the Great Inflation, but increased during the 80s. The slope of the increase was virtually identical to that of the 1950s/early 60s. This was true of all races. The increase stopped in the early 1990s and actually declined for a few years thereafter. I have not brought the chart up to date since the mid 1990s. This is just FYI.

(I don’t know what the trend would look like in nominal dollars, as this would be like plotting lengths with a rubber yardstick.)

Mike

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"We want fairness. There is no fairness if you do not let us cheat."

Behold, the Pacific Century:

<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10132391/Riot-after-Chinese-teachers-try-to-stop-pupils-cheating.html>

———–

Roland Dobbins

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Subj: The Business Model of Modern Science

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/25/peer-evil-the-rotten-business-model-of-modern-science/

>>[The peer reviewers] can ruin your career and drive research, often funded by the public, to a dead end, and they are not accountable to anyone. In such a system, for most scientists the best, or should I say the only, way to advance their careers is by kissing up to those in higher positions: in person, in manuscripts, and in the whole research strategy. This has been going on for decades. As a result of this “natural selection”, the scientific community has been consumed by cronyism. Parts of it are rotten to the core.<<

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

There is an important essay in this. And of course the Iron Law is in effect at NSF and other grant agencies as elsewhere.

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Eye Opening Lecture on Chinese Intelligence Collection and Operations

I know that nobody has anytime to do anything anymore, but if you can find the time:

http://apus-stream.com/chinese-intelligence/?goback=%2Egmp_2488181%2Egde_2488181_member_248099899%2Egmp_2488181%2Egde_2488181_member_250212814

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

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Andrew Bostom stepped out of his usual milieu and passed along a most interesting Global Warming note from "Science". There is a lake in Arctic Russia that has enough material around it for using multi-proxy techniques to determine both temperatures and CO2 levels as far back as at least 3.8 million years ago. It seems at that time CO2 levels were similar to what we have today. Arctic temperatures were about 8 degrees higher.

He includes a link to the "Science" article, which is for pay.

New Hard Data Debunking CO2 Climate Warmism Hysteria http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2013/06/22/new-hard-data-debunking-co2-climate-warmism-hysteria/

{^_^}

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More on cold fusion

Hydrobetatron.org Launches — Open Source LENR Project ECat World ^

http://www.e-catworld.com/2013/06/hydrobetatron-org-launches-open-source-lenr-project/

| June 18, 2013 | admin

Posted on Thursday, June 20, 2013 12:14:01 AM by Kevmo

Hydrobetatron.org Launches — Open Source LENR Project

June 18, 2013 By admin

I received the following press release today from Ugo Abundo and Luciano Saporito regarding the launch of a new web site for open source LENR project. Ugo Abundo was the driving force behind the Pirelli High School (Rome, Italy) Athanor cold fusion device, and this work seems to have grown into this Hydrobetatron project. The following is Google translated (with some editing) from the original Italian.

Online now is the website: hydrobetatron.org Open Source Energy Project

Hydrobetatron.org is a website created by the will of Hugh Abundo and Luciano Saporito, just as support for this project, for willingness to work in ‘Under the new LENR science, commonly known by the name (even if improper) of “cold fusion”, with an Open Source philosophy. You can follow step by step all the work of development of the “hydrobetatron,” which will be held in the future, seeking to create a device, (the reactor), efficient and ingegnerizzabile by anyone with the necessary technical skills; in fact, all of the data, research, and construction plans will be in the public domain.

Purpose of the reactor and the production of economical energy, inexhaustible and clean, which we believe is vital to the well-being (and freedom) of man for the salvation of the planet Earth. We invite you to help the project hydrobetatron.org! With the economical energy, inexhaustible and clean, you will help yourself and also our planet!

These days we are building, with a group of founding member LENR researchers, the Association not for profit “OPEN Power”, it may enroll private supporters of the idea of sharing, researchers and other associations, public and private.

The purposes of the statute and the budget of the Association will be consulted on this website; the ultimate goal is to offer all such desirable success of research reached, a free alternative and free (for the exploitation of new energy) to the traditional route search-patent-industrial exploitation by competitors.

Cordially: Ugo Abundo and Luciano Saporito

Al Perrella

Well I will be glad to look at your first working model.

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Not Guilty, Sexual harassment, Where did the CO2 come from, and other important mail.

Mail 782 Monday, July 15, 2013

— Flash! Bill Allen Seriously Ill

Jerry,

In case Bill Allen has not notified you, he has stage 3 cancer in the stomach.

Prognosis is hopeful.

Damn! You and the "Big Zap" and now Bill’s trials and tribulations.

All of the great influences in my life have had or is having a lot of life happening to them

All the Best, from your student one step removed.

Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

Bill Allen was one of my best students when I taught at Pepperdine. He went on to the Sorbonne where he got his Ph.D, then became Provost of a major university, Chairman on the Civil Rights Commission, and Superintendent of Public Schools.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_B._Allen   We have sort of lost touch in the past few years which is a pity.  I had not heard this before but a lot of my mail gets filtered, alas.  Than you for telling me.

 

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Not Guilty <https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=14529>

I thought you did not do breaking news.

My take: DOJ pressured the Florida prosecutors into bring Zimmerman to trial. After their original investigation, the prosecutors marked any case against Zimmerman as a loser. I kinda followed the case by RSS feed. It was hard not to. I was gobsmacked by the prosecution’s witnesses. I would not believe them if they told me the sun shined in the Sahara.

My opinion is that the prosecutors knew the case was a loser, and they played it that way. I saw video clips of the defense attorney’s cross examinations. I saw at least two occasions when — had I been the prosecuting attorney — I would have objected. The prosecutor sat silent. My conclusion is that they meant to lose and played their hand that way. The late inclusion of the manslaughter count was just a raise on a hand of Jack-high nothing when they KNEW the defense was holding a full house, Aces over Queens.

I think the boys in Florida did not like Eric Holder’s Chicago Way. I think they deliberately set up the result so that Holder cannot pursue Zimmerman successfully.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

I do not usually do breaking news, but I kept silence for the entire trial and I had to say something. The prosecutors did not look to me like people who wanted to lose. They looked like people who thought they could not win, which is not quite the same thing. But I do hope they used up all the options so that the Federal government has no choice but to allow the law to prevail.

 

Manslaughter charge in Zimmerman case

Regarding Mr. Brewer’s comment:

"#3 What really troubles me most about the trial is that the prosecution was allowed to add a new charge after the defense had rested. That in itself appears to me to be something other than a fair trial. It is very scary. You get the court, ready to defend yourself and the government can decide new charges at any time with no opportunity to prepare a defense. Wrong!"

There are some big issues raised by this case, such as the wisdom of Florida’s approach to self-defense, the impact of race on the criminal justice system, the application of justice in high profile cases, and you’ve noted many.

However, Mr. Brewer’s concern here is misplaced I think. Generally, either side can add charges at the end of the case if the new charge is necessarily proved by proof of the greater charge; that is, if the new charge is a "lesser included offense." Thus, for example, proof of intentional conduct necessarily includes proof of reckless conduct, which necessarily includes proof of negligent conduct. This is considered fair, because both sides are on notice that this can occur.

(Aside: the defense, but generally NOT the prosecution, can add lesser NON-included offenses if they think it can help their case. The prosecution is limited to what the defense was on notice to going in.)

In a strong case, the defense often requests such "lessers" as a way to try to mitigate the damage to their client. In a case that is not as strong, or that seems less strong after all the evidence is done, the prosecution might ask for a lesser included offense to give the jury an option between conviction of the original charge and outright acquittal, if the evidence justifies the lesser charge.

This isn’t always or even usually a sign of desperation, at least in a routine case. A prosecutor’s view of a case can change in good faith based on things you couldn’t have known going in: a witness who looked good on paper but wavered on the stand, the sudden unavailability of an important witness, evidence offered by the defense (which is usually not disclosed in advance), and so on. Also, reasonable minds can differ about facts and witness credibility, and this "lesser included" rule takes this into account.

I’ve been prosecuting cases quite a few years now. I’m hesitant to specifically defend or attack the actions of prosecutors elsewhere; you never know how it looked before the fact. I just didn’t think it fair to pile on in this particular area, which is non-controversial.

Thank you,

Christian J. Schulte

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Dr. Pournelle

Randall Garrett and the Arthur Clarke Prediction about love and marriage <https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=14487>

"When you have the facts, argue the facts. When you have the law, argue the law. When you have

neither, shout." –Lawyers’ adage

If you substitute ‘reason’ for ‘the law’ in the adage above, your recent experience defending Randall Garrett’s unseemly propositions at SF cons on an SFWA forum provides evidence for the validity of the adage. (By ‘defending’ I mean you took the position that RG’s behavior did not rise to the level of actionable sexual harassment. I do not mean that you approved RG’s behavior. It is clear in your post that you did not; in the only event in which you exercised some control, you persuaded RG not to engage in such behavior.)

Once the shouting began, reason and facts ceased to matter. The field was carried by passion and stridency.

I don’t know what to tell you. I am confident that anything I might have to say would be a just a reminder, not something new to you. I am tempted to say I expected more wisdom and restraint from you at your age, but I expected more wisdom and restraint from me, too, and have been soundly and repeatedly disappointed in that expectation.

What I learned from your experience is that you and I are fools who bumble through life, offending the bejeezus out of total strangers. One might think that we would have learned some tact along the way. Or else learned to retreat, regroup, and fight a worthwhile battle that we can win. One would be disappointed.

I swear on the eyes of my daughter, I would not bother to involve my self and my diminishing reputation in a dispute over an inconsequential definition of sexual harassment. It does not matter a whit what these twits say. It only matters what a court says. And the court has not spoken on these facts, so forget it. (Were I paid to argue this, I would argue RG’s behavior did not take place in a work environment and does not fall within the purview of the law, and I would move for a dismissal; but I ain’t, so I won’t; that’s logic.)

The little weight that I have I prefer to throw into the scales on the side of developing commercial access to space. I see that AdAstra wants to put a garbage robot in space — a vehicle to collect launch vehicle debris and detritus in LEO and dispose of it <http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/821885354/animating-vasimr-the-future-of-spaceflight> . They have other ideas, too. SpaceX flew Grasshopper — the ghost of DCX — up and down again <http://www.space.com/21881-spacex-grasshopper-rocket-highest-test-flight.html> . There is cause to be cautiously optimistic about humankind’s chances of getting off this rock.

Be of good cheer. Hush ye men of strife and hear the angels sing.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

I think I left it out of this year’s Christmas message.  Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing…  Thanks

 

Dr. Pournelle

The discussion of ‘sexual harassment’ jumped to another site where The Passive Voice <http://www.thepassivevoice.com/> picked it up. In brief, the condemnation of bad behavior won applause on the original site, but the comment writers at The Passive Voice refused to join the chorus and said such comments were vulgar but did not rise to the level of harassment.

I confess that I am confused. The notion that unwanted sexual advances in a public setting constitute sexual harassment is alien to me. I thought that sexual harassment applied only to work environments. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I am not persuaded that I am wrong and that those who want universal coverage for their imagined complaints are right.

Anyway, thought you might feel better to know that others share your opinion.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

Actually you would be astonished at how many people tell me that I am not alone in my views, but are afraid to make their names be known for fear of the consequences.

Re: harassment

For what it’s worth (and I’ve heard the Garrett story before, not from conventions but from biographical material in his books/collections), my understanding is that one variation of sexual harassment involves repeated unwanted advances. (The other and more serious version is a person with authority demanding sexual favors in exchange for favorable treatment.) I agree that while Garrett was boorish and offensive, it would be hard to characterize his behavior as harassment under the stated terms. (If he approached the same woman at multiple conventions with the comment and the same result, the response would of course be different.) As to the 10% figure, I have from other sources heard that in a random sampling of women, about 10% would accept such an offer if other conditions are favorable, so I can’t dispute Garrett’s statistics.

Conversely, there are women who are offended by the posting of photographs of scantily clad women in the work place and call it harassment. There was one case when I was a graduate student where one young researcher responded to such criticism by soliciting autographed photographs of porn stars applauding the laboratory where I worked and detracting a rival laboratory and posting them in his cubical. Under this definition, where sexually suggestive material is posted in the work place in spite of criticism but no person was solicited and no exchange of sex for favors was offered, one might argue that Garrett’s repeated behavior falls under the terms of harassment. But again, this wasn’t happening in a work place, it was happening in a social gathering.

I suspect that the complainers on SFWA are the relatively few people who would take offense at the photograph.

One doesn’t have to endorse such behavior to claim it is not harassment. So in general I agree with you.

Still, sign this one just

J.

Hookup culture

In many respects the "hookup culture" is just a continuation of trends since at least the 1960s, when effective birth control became available and women started gaining economic independence from men. (Arthur Clarke didn’t focus on the latter, but I think it’s an important causative factor.)

A much more recent trend that has accelerated things, specifically in the university setting, is the skewed gender ratio at most college campuses. Women now comprise close to 60% of all college students in the US, with similar numbers in much of Western Europe. Why this gap exists is a subject of debate, but the result is demographically profound: Three women for every two men. It’s not hard to imagine that in a male-poor environment, men will be less likely to commit to relationships, and casual sex ("friends with benefits" etc.) become more likely.

Jack B

The Randall Garret Story.

Dr. Pournelle,

First off, it was nice to meet you at last year’s Libertycon.

On the Randall Garret thing, I note something about the people saying "the very offer was harassment" or the like. That must mean one of two things. Either 1) Any sex outside of a committed relationship is thus the result of harassment (because somebody has to make the offer) or 2) they must mean that it’s harassment for a man to make the offer to a woman, which would be sexist in the extreme.

I consider the first unrealistic. (And I say that as someone who is in a committed, monogamous, relationship with my lovely wife.) I don’t think there’s ever been a society anywhere where the only people having sex were those in committed relationships. It might be a goal to strive for (or not–I can see arguments for quite a few positions on that and am very much a "live and let live" person on such issues) but expecting things to actually turn out that way? Not hardly.

The second is sexist.

Now, it’s possible that one could say making the offer so baldly is "harassment", that one needs to wrap it in circumlocutions and game playing, but that’s a different argument from making the offer at all.

So are they mired in sexism or in fantasy?

Best,

David L. Burkhead

I think they are mired in not thinking things through for themselves.  There’s a lot of that going around.

 

 

SFWA

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/07/09/alas-sfwa/

The opinion piece linked above may be of interest.

I’ve been a reader of SF for nigh on 50 years; for much of that time I looked on the SFWA as Mount Olympus. Alas, no longer. The gross disrespect for the elders (not just Resnick & Malzberg either!) of SF by these puppies is beyond disgusting.

Anyway, thanks for all you do.

Jeff Elkins

p.s. I’m rereading "Too Many Magicians," Very entertaining, and probably unpublishable in today’s toxic environment.

Jeff Elkins

 

The link leads to an essay by Sarah Hoyt, an old and valued friend.  I don’t share her view that SFWA has become useless, and it could use some of her clear thinking. There is far too much groupthink happening; but in fct it is mostly from a small number of people. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEqyIo1bOYk

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CARBON DIOXIDE SOURCE

Jerry

I received what follows from my namesake – he shares my first and last names.

Anyway, it’s . . . amusing.

Ed

Ian Rutherford Plimer is an Australian geologist, professor emeritus of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne, professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide, and the director of multiple mineral exploration and mining companies. He has published 130 scientific papers, six books and edited the Encyclopedia of Geology.

Born

12 February 1946 (age 67)

Residence

Australia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia>

Nationality

Australian

Fields

Earth Science <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Science> , Geology <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology> , Mining Engineering <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_Engineering>

Institutions

University of New England <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_New_England_%28Australia%29> ,University of Newcastle <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Newcastle_%28Australia%29> ,University of Melbourne <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Melbourne> ,University of Adelaide <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Adelaide>

Alma mater <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_mater>

University of New South Wales <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_New_South_Wales> ,Macquarie University <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macquarie_University>

Thesis <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis>

The pipe deposits of tungsten-molybdenum-bismuth in eastern Australia <http://www.worldcat.org/title/pipe-deposits-of-tungsten-molybdenum-bismuth-in-eastern-australia/oclc/221677073> (1976)

Notable awards

Eureka Prize <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Prize> (1995, 2002),Centenary Medal <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centenary_Medal> (2003), Clarke Medal <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke_Medal> (2004)

Where Does the Carbon Dioxide Really Come From?

Professor Ian Plimer could not have said it better!

If you’ve read his book you will agree, this is a good summary.

PLIMER: "Okay, here’s the bombshell. The volcanic eruption in Iceland . Since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet – all of you.

Of course, you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress – it’s that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans and all animal life. I know….it’s very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kids "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, vacationing at home instead of abroad, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your 50 cent light bulbs with $10.00 light bulbs…..well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just four days.

The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere in just four days – yes, FOUR DAYS – by that volcano in Iceland has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. And there are around 200 active volcanoes on the planet spewing out this crud at any one time – EVERY DAY.

I don’t really want to rain on your parade too much, but I should mention that when the volcano Mt Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in all its years on earth.

Yes, folks, Mt Pinatubo was active for over One year – think about it.

Of course, I shouldn’t spoil this ‘touchy-feely tree-hugging’ moment and mention the effect of solar and cosmic activity and the well-recognized 800-year global heating and cooling cycle, which keeps happening despite our completely insignificant efforts to affect climate change.

And I do wish I had a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud, but the fact of the matter is that the bush fire season across the western USA and Australia this year alone will negate your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two to three years. And it happens every year.

Just remember that your government just tried to impose a whopping carbon tax on you, on the basis of the bogus ‘human-caused’ climate-change scenario.

Hey, isn’t it interesting how they don’t mention ‘Global Warming’

Anymore, but just ‘Climate Change’ – you know why?

It’s because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past century and these global warming bull artists got caught with their pants down.

And, just keep in mind that you might yet have an Emissions Trading Scheme – that whopping new tax – imposed on you that will achieve absolutely nothing except make you poorer.

It won’t stop any volcanoes from erupting, that’s for sure.

But, hey, relax……give the world a hug and have a nice day!"

I was thrown out of an academic conference on climate modeling for insisting that they add in CO2 injections from volcanism, and also other volcanic effects lest their model be silly.  But they weren’t ready to do that.  This was long ago when I still did OR work.

 

Jerry

Climate SHOCKER: Rising CO2 is turning the world’s deserts GREEN:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/11/co2_greens_the_deserts/

The Register put in the caps.

Ed

Nature on climate models

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/11/quote-of-the-week-nature-on-the-failure-of-climate-models/

Jim

Our models are improving or at least could be; computers are more powerful and can handle many more cells and many more data inputs.  But they are still far from predictive and lack convincing explanations of some events and connections.  Brute force models are all we have though; theory generally makes them worse. And science that does not stay close to the data generally goes far wrong.

 

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If this is indeed true….we need to create some serious heartache for those who approved it.

http://www.infowars.com/russian-forces-to-provide-security-at-us-events/

Tracy

I have seen nothing else about this, so I have no way of knowing if it be true, but it doesn‘t really astonish me.

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US Army war college on youtube

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Provided for your viewing pleasure. I believe your correspondants will have it interesting indeed.

http://www.youtube.com/user/USArmyWarCollege?feature=watch

Respectfully,

Brian P.

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Subj: Fwd: How Bad Is It In Egypt & Syria,…..??

How bad is it in Egypt and Syria….?? Not meant to be a lead in to a joke.

There is absolutely nothing that can be done to turn around the devastating situation in both countries. Egypt requires 20 BILLION U.S. dollars just to survive and feed its people…. Syria has completely devastated its scarce water resources by depleting its underground water table and cannot feed its people….

Max

The Economic Blunders Behind the Arab Revolutions

by David P. Goldman

The Wall Street Journal

July 12, 2013

http://www.meforum.org/3554/arab-revolutions-economics

Sometimes economies can’t be fixed after decades of statist misdirection, and the people simply get up and go. Since the debt crisis of the 1980s, 10 million poor Mexicans­victims of a post-revolutionary policy that kept rural Mexicans trapped on government-owned collective farms­have migrated to the United States. Today, Egyptians and Syrians face economic problems much worse than Mexico’s, but there is nowhere for them to go. Half a century of socialist mismanagement has left the two Arab states unable to meet the basic needs of their people, with economies so damaged that they may be past the point of recovery in our lifetimes.

This is the crucial background to understanding the state failure in Egypt and civil war in Syria. It may not be within America’s power to reverse their free falls; the best scenario for the U.S. is to manage the chaos as best it can.

Of Egypt’s 90 million people, 70% live on the land. Yet the country produces barely half of Egyptians’ total caloric consumption. The poorer half of the population survives on subsidized food imports that stretch a budget deficit close to a sixth of the country’s GDP, about double the ratio in Greece. With the global rise in food prices, Egypt’s trade deficit careened out of control to $25 billion in 2010, up from $10 billion in 2006, well before the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.

In Syria, the government’s incompetent water management­exacerbated by drought beginning in 2006­ruined millions of farmers before the May 2011 rebellion. The collapse of Syrian agriculture didn’t create the country’s ethnic and religious fault lines, but it did leave millions landless, many of them available and ready to fight.

Egyptians are ill-prepared for the modern world economy. Forty-five percent are illiterate. Nearly all married Egyptian women suffer genital mutilation. One-third of marriages are between cousins, a hallmark of tribal society. Only half of the 51 million Egyptians between the ages of 15 and 64 are counted in the government’s measure of the labor force. If Egypt counted its people the way the U.S. does, its unemployment rate would be well over 40% instead of the official 13% rate. Nearly one-third of college-age Egyptians register for university but only half graduate, and few who do are qualified for employment in the 21st century.

That is the tragic outcome of 60 years of economic policies designed for political control rather than productivity. We have seen similar breakdowns, for example in Latin America during the 1980s, but with a critical difference. The Latin debtor countries all exported food. Egypt is a banana republic without the bananas.

The world market pulled the rug out from under Egypt’s mismanaged economy when world food prices soared beginning in 2007 in response to Asian demand for feed grain. Meantime, the price of cotton­on which Mr. Mubarak had bet the store­declined. Now Egypt’s food situation is critical: The country reportedly has two months’ supply of imported wheat on hand when it should have more than six months’ worth. For months, Egypt’s poor have had little to eat except bread, in a country where 40% of adults already are physically stunted by poor diet, according to the World Food Organization. When the military forced President Mohammed Morsi out of office last week, bread was starting to get scarce.

Since 1988, Bashar Assad’s regime misdirected Syria’s scarce water resources toward wheat and cotton irrigation in pursuit of socialist self-sufficiency. It didn’t pan out­and when drought hit seven years ago, the country began to run out of water. Illegal wells have depleted the underground water table. Three million Syrian farmers (out of a total 20 million population) were pauperized, and hundreds of thousands left their farms for tent camps on the outskirts of Syrian cities.

Assad’s belated attempt to reverse course triggered the current political crisis, the economist Paul Rivlin wrote in a March 2011 report for Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center: "By 2007, 12.3 percent of the population lived in extreme poverty and the poverty rate had reached 33 percent. Since then, poverty rates have risen still further. In early 2008, fuel subsidies were abolished and, as a result, the price of diesel fuel tripled overnight. Consequently, during the year the price of basic foodstuffs rose sharply and was further exacerbated by the drought. In 2009, the global financial crisis reduced the volume of remittances coming into Syria."

The regime cut tariffs on food imports in February 2011 in a last-minute bid to mitigate the crisis, but the move misfired as the local market hoarded food in response to the government’s perceived desperation, sending prices soaring just before Syria’s Sunnis rebelled.

Economic crisis set the stage for political collapse in Egypt and Syria, even if it wasn’t the actual spur. The two Arab states are, of course, not the only nations ruined by socialist mismanagement. But unlike Russia and Eastern Europe, they have no pool of skilled labor or natural resources to fall back on. In this context, Western concerns about the niceties of democratic procedure seem misguided.

The best outcome for Egypt in the short run is subsidies from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to tide it over. Egypt’s annual financing gap is almost $20 billion, and it is flat broke. The price of such aid is continuing to sideline the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Gulf monarchies consider a threat to their legitimacy. The Gulf states have pledged $12 billion in response to Morsi’s overthrow, averting a near-term economic disaster. That’s probably the best among a set of bad alternatives.

Syria may not be salvageable as a political entity, and the West should consider a Yugoslavia-style partition plan to stop ethnic and religious slaughter. Even the best remedies, though, may come too late to keep the region from deteriorating into a prolonged period of chaos.

Mr. Goldman, president of Macrostrategy LLC, is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and the London Center for Policy Research.

= =

Spengler > Dismiss the Egyptian People and Elect a New One,

 

Jerry

Although Spengler says “Dismiss the Egyptian People and Elect a New One” his piece is more interesting than that:

http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2013/07/04/dismiss-the-egyptian-people-and-elect-a-new-one/

It starts, “Perhaps, the Communist writer Bertolt Brecht offered after East German workers rose against their Moscow-backed masters in 1953, the government should dismiss the people and elect a new one. Don’t laugh. That is what Mexico did after the debt crisis of the early 1980s: it dismissed the fifth of its population that moved to the United States. China has dismissed its rural population and recreated a new urban population, shifting by 2020 the equivalent of twice the American population from countryside to city. Egypt’s problem is that it has no practical way of acting on Brecht’s advice. The Egyptian people are dying; the question is whether they will die slower or faster. I prefer slower, so I am pleased by this turn of events. Starvation is the unstated subject of yesterday’s military coup. For the past several months the bottom half of Egypt’s population has had little to eat except government-subsidized bread, and now the bread supply is threatened by a shortage of imported wheat.” And on from there.

Kind of cold, eh? His takes on how Mexico handled its debt crisis and the magnitude of intra-China migration are . . . interesting, and worth thinking about.

Later, he adds this: “Nearly half of Egyptians are illiterate. 70% of them live on the land yet the country imports half its food. Its only cash-earning industry, namely tourism, is in ruins. Sixty years of military dictatorship has left it with college graduates unfit for the world market and a few t-shirt factories turning Asian polyester into cut-rate exports. It cannot feed itself and it cannot earn enough to feed itself, as I have explained in a series of recent articles. Someone has to subsidize them or a lot of them will starve. Unlike Mexico, Egypt can’t ship its rural poor to industrial nations in the north.”

I love this bon mot from further along: “The Saudi monarchy hates the [Muslim] Brotherhood the way Captain Hook hated the crocodile.” And this: “No should mourn the Brotherhood, a totalitarian organization with a Nazi past and an extreme anti-Semitic ideology. The notion that this band of Jew-hating jihadi thugs might become the vehicle for a transition to a functioning Muslim democracy was perhaps the stupidest notion to circulate in Washington in living memory.” Then he winds it up in exemplary fashion.

Well worth reading the entire piece.

Ed

Stratfor ratifies Spengler on Egypt:

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/egypt-persistent-issues-undermine-stability

— and adds its own concerns.

Ed

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Equality

Jerry

FW: Subj: Sometimes even I am at a loss for words..

This is just wrong on so many levels, where would a person even begin? It appears that "equal opportunity" is now gone; what is desired, and will be manufactured, is "equal outcome".

http://tinyurl.com/o28hjbv

Kurt Vonnegut Jr wasn’t at a loss for words…he was just optimistic by 78 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

Those not familiar with Harrison Bergeron should be, and those who haven’t read it in a while can treat themselves. It shows that Vonnegut was more than just an inhabitant of Louise’s.

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IVF baby born using revolutionary genetic-screening process, buffy willow

Jerry

They finally beginning to catch up with Robert Heinlein.

In Beyond This Horizon, he posited pre-conception genetic screening, with parents selecting potential germ cells (and hence, embryos) based not only on freedom from disease, but possession of desirable qualities. Well, now we have this – an IVF baby born using a genetic-screening process:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jul/07/ivf-baby-born-genetic-screening

Robert publish BTH in 1940. I’d say he was way ahead of his time.

Ed

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Gray’s Elegy

I took my kids to England when they were teens. We were driving to Heathrow the day before we were to return home and I saw a sign for "Stoke Poges." I turned off the highway and there was Gray’s churchyard and the church. It was all as in the poem. One daughter refused to get out of the car (She recently voted for Obama) but the others followed me into the church and the church yard. The village is close to Heathrow and I wonder how many realize it. It should be an easy side trip of an hour or two if only people realized it.

Mike K

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Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Regarding your recent comment, https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=14512 ‘a disturbing trend’, may I suggest this apposite article:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/07/the_fall_of_the_humanities.html

I believe that the author of this article has pointed out the origins of the progressive degradation of the humanities in U.S. universities, and the scenario of what is now being played out in secondary education.

Cheers,

Bernard Brandt

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Thais – Newman Levy

Dr Pournelle,

Thanks for linking to Thais.

Levy also did a brilliant verse parody of ‘Carmen’,beginning with:

In Spain where the courtly Castilian hidalgo strums lightly each night his romantic guitar…

It practically begs to be sung to "Out in the West Texas town of El Paso".

I ran across several of Levy’s poems in a verse anthology as a teenager. I’ve never heard any of them sung, though I’m told college kids Sanford them in the ’50’s.

I looked him up some years back – he was an assistant DA IN New York City.

Joseph

I never heard the El Paso song, so I wouldn’t know. There is a definite tune that the Thais ballad is sung to, in keeping with the meter of the poem

 

Way down in Alexandria, in wicked Alexandria.
Where nights were full of revelry and and life was but a game.
There lived, so the report is, an adventuress and courtesan,
The pride of Alexandria, and Thais was her name.

Nearby in peace and piety, avoiding all society,
There lived a group of holy men who’d build a refuge there,
And in the desert’s solitude avoiding earthly folly to
devote their lives to holy work, to fasting and to prayer.

Now of this group of holy men is one whom I shall solely mention’
Known as Athanael he was famous near and far,
At fasting bouts or prayer with him no other could compare with him.
At ground and lofty praying he could do the course in par.

One night while sleeping heavily from fighting with the devil (he
Had gone to be quite early while the sun was shining still,
He had a vision Freudian and thought he was annoyed he
analyzed it in the well known style of Doctors Jung and Brill.

He dreamed of Alexandria, of wicked Alexandria,
A group of men was cheering in a manner rather rude,
And Athanael glancing there saw Thais who was dancing there.
He saw her do the shimmy in what artists call “The Nude”.

He said this dream fantastical disturbs my life monastical,
Some long repressed desire I fear has reached my monkish cell.
I blushed up to the hat o’ me to view that gal’s anatomy,
I’ll go down to Alexandria and save her soul from Hell.

So pausing not to wonder where he’d put his winter underwear,
He quickly packed his evening clothes, a toothbrush and a vest.
To guard against exposure he threw in some woolen hosiery,
And bidding all the boys Goodbye, he set off on his quest.

Though previously warned and fortified the monk was deeply mortified
To find on his arrival wild debauchery in sway.
While some lay in a stupor sent by booze of more that two percent,
The others were behaving in a most immoral way.

To the lady he said “Pardon me, this here job is hard on me,
But I got to put you wise to what I come down here to say.
What’s all this sousing getting’ you? Cut out this pie eyed retinue.
Let’s hit the trail together kid and save your soul from Hell.

Though taken in astonishment by this bold and frank admonishment’
She coyly answered “Say, you said a mouthful Bo!
This burg’s a frost I’m tellin’ you, the kind of hooch they’re sellin’ you
Ain’t like the stuff we used to get, let’s hit the trail and go!”

Sop away from Alexandria, from wicked Alexandria.
They trudged across the burning sands beneath the blazing sun,
And Thais who was sweltering, found refuge in the sheltering
Walls of a convent and the habit of a nun.

But now the monk is terrified to find his fears are verified,
His holy vows of chastity have cracked beneath the strain.
Like one who has a jag on he cries out in grief and agony,
”I’d sell my soul to see her do the shimmy once again!”

Alas his pleadings clamorous, though passionate and amorous,
Have come too late. The courtesan has danced her final dance.
The monk says “That’s  joke on me, for that there gal to croak on me,
I should have got a piece of that what time I had the chance".”

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ScienceCasts: The Zero Gravity Coffee Cup

Jerry

The Zero Gravity Coffee Cup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZYsOG60dKQ

It’s a great video. Watching the liquids in microgravity is fun!

Ed

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SUBJ: Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything Is a Crime

http://www.columbialawreview.org/ham-sandwich-nation_reynolds/

Opening paragraph:

"Prosecutorial discretion poses an increasing threat to justice. The threat has in fact grown more severe to the point of becoming a due process issue. Two recent events have brought more attention to this problem. One involves the decision not to charge NBC anchor David Gregory with violating gun laws. In Washington D.C., brandishing a thirty-round magazine is illegal and can result in a yearlong sentence.

Nonetheless, the prosecutor refused to charge Gregory despite stating that the on-air violation was clear.1 The other event involves the government’s rather enthusiastic efforts to prosecute Reddit founder Aaron Swartz for downloading academic journal articles from a closed database. Authorities prosecuted Swartz so vigorously that he committed suicide in the face of a potential fifty-year sentence."

A problem as old as Cato. Of course Shakespeare grasped its essence centuries ago and had the gift of brevity besides. To wit:

"The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers."

– Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2, 71–78

At our annual Shakespeare Festival here in Oregon, that line now reliably draws a round of applause.

But I digress . . .

Cordially,

John

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ULTRASONIC BOLLOCK BLASTERS help Hawkmoth battle The Bat

 

Jerry

I hope you are enjoying your midsummer’s holiday. I found the flowing, and I knew it was of the greatest scientific interest. So I’ll let The Register give it to you straight.

ULTRASONIC BOLLOCK BLASTERS help Hawkmoth battle The Bat:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/05/ultrasonic_cock_blasters_help_hawkmoth_battle_the_bat/

Some things are just too important to ignore.

Ed

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Subject: DC-X 20th, New Mexico August 16-18?

 

Jerry,

Bill Gaubatz roped me into helping with organizing bits of the DC-X 20th Anniversary celebration/conference – Friday August 16th out at the NM Spaceport for politician speeches and a DC-X Team award ceremony, then Saturday and Sunday August 17-18 in Alamogordo for the conference on how DC-X has been, and should be, followed up.

It’s not my panel to run (though I’m on it) but I’ve noticed you’re listed for the "Behind the Hardware Story" panel on Saturday morning, but I’ve seen nothing indicating you’ll actually be there. So far it’s me, Rick Tumlinson, and Tim Kyger, with you and Jim Muncy listed as invited but not confirmed. I can speak to the CACNSP aspects if needed, but I was pretty junior and you can tell that story far better. (Plus, you may help keep me from strangling Rick Tumlinson for reasons I won’t go into for now.)

Any chance you’ll be able to get out to New Mexico next month? I can help with local transportation if needed, meet you at the El Paso Airport and drive you around to the various venues, then get you back to your plane after, if that helps.

Sunday of the conference will be "Reviving X-Planes For Space Access"

workshop sessions; Bill Gaubatz is serious about having something real come out of this. Here’s what he wrote me RE "newspace" participants in this conference (but it occurs to me you might have a thought or two to contribute also):

> Their participation is a major thrust of the conference to develop recommendations for several SSRT, X-Plane type programs to address key technical and operational issues facing the reusable spaceplane developments. In one sense, the Saturday sessions are a "warm-up" for the Sunday planning sessions. It will start to surface these issues and get the community comfortable about discussing them.

>

> These teams will [then] be invited by Dennis to participate in the AIAA RLV Program Committee planning sessions to come up with recommendations for X-Plane programs that can be taken forward for implementation by DARP/AF/NASA/NRL(if they wish to get involved).

I was planning on skipping the Friday ceremonial stuff out at the Spaceport, but they’ve pressed me to be there; I might suspect some flavor of attaboy in the works. It looks like a bit of a PITA – show up early in Truth Or Consequences for buses out to the spaceport, then at their mercy all day – but I’ll probably show out of politeness. If you want to go to that, I’d suggest flying in to El Paso the evening of the 15th, if not, then the evening of the 16th.

As for your latest View on arguing with politically-correct grievance-farmer fuggheads, well, you have my sympathy, but as someone said, it’s like wrestling with a pig: you both get covered with mud, the difference being the pig enjoys it…

best

Henry

I would love to come but travel is a problem for me as you will recall from the last time I came to a DC/X affair, and I doubt I have anything original to say. I’m sure you’ll give me a good account of it. Thanks

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Dr. Pournelle,

It’s official, we’re now a card carrying banana republic.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/11/justice/zimmerman-trial/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Defense wrecks the prosecution’s case? Just change the charges after the defense rests so they can’t defend against the legal standards of the new charges. Works great in tinpot dictatorships, now it works in Florida.

Rule of law? Psh. We used to have that around here, gave it up. Now there’s no hiding that its all about power, and this judge wants more of it. Trayvon could have been Obama’s kid, so the judge going to do ANYTHING to ensure a conviction because she wants what Obama can give her. She’s a judge who wants to please her masters and move on up the power ladder, no question about it. There’s no question that even if she knows full well that any conviction would be thrown out on appeal due to her allowing these changes after the defense rests, she will still do anything to get that conviction.

Even the retired police chief who was fired for resisting the political interference into the case can’t keep quiet about this. The influence from outside the legal system is enormous in this case, and with the president himself declaring the outcome months before the trial ever began, we have an ever more clear picture of the gang of thugs running the country through intimidation and bullying tactics. We know exactly what President Obama meant, when he complained that the pesky constitution was his greatest barrier to making changes in the US. We’re seeing the results with the IRS assault on the first amendment and now this judge turning her court into a circus to please her masters. It makes the President’s attempted intimidation of the Arizona governor a few years ago make so much more sense. It’s how he does EVERYTHING.

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Mailbag mostly on education, with good stories and other comments

Mail 779 Wednesday, June 26, 2013

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what to do about education

Jerry,

This guy has some thoughts, mostly on how rich kids seem to keep getting farther ahead, and why.

No Rich Child Left Behind

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/no-rich-child-left-behind/?_r=0

I think that although he identifies a key difference in why some kids are better at school than others, he misses the mark, in that he proposes that government money be spent to improve quality of home educational interaction in lower income households, plus more preschools. He misses the really simple solution:

If you covet what rich people have, you should emulate their behaviors. If you want money, do with money what rich people do with money. If you want smart kids like the rich folk, you should raise your kids like the rich folk raise their kids.

I’m not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m comfortable and my kids are usually considered "top whatever" at whatever school they land in (military, so we move a lot). Part of that is genetics (quiz: A medical doctor and a fighter pilot get married. Their kids are a) quick b) smart c) both a and b), but I think most of it is that we interact with the kids constantly, pulling teaching experiences out of thin air all day, every day. Every night, we spend a minimum of an hour reading books with them. Not "to them", but "with them", meaning when they are very young, we ask them what the colors are or if they recognize any letters. Then we point out letters have sounds and make words. They pretty much teach themselves, and all we have to do is ask simple little questions about whatever page we are on. What does the princess have on her head? What color is the crown? Simple stuff.

And yes, we did that while we were both working, by shuffling shifts and giving up our adult leisure activities like watching TV or whatever else might keep us from paying attention to the welfare of our kids. It’s a lifestyle and our new hobby.

The results? Not to brag but to point out what happens when raising your kids is really the priority in the household – Our boy hauled me back inside at a daycare facility to show me that he could read the class roster and the names of all his classmates on a photo board… when he was only 20 months old. Our daughter doesn’t like reading as much but at age 3 she can get through most kindergarten books if she tries, and she was talking in full grammatically correct sentences so early that many people used to think she was just growth stunted and 2 years older than she is. Our boy is now 5, and his idea of fun at bedtime is to pull out a complicated cat in the hat book and try to get through the tongue twisters as fast as he can. He builds those 3-in-1 Lego sets by himself, converting the helicopter into the plane and then into a boat, without help. He’s starting 1st grade in a few months in spite of a Nevada law that tried to force him to repeat kindergarten. Both our 5 and 3 yr old kids learned the basics of ice skating before their 3rd birthdays, when we simply put skates on their feet and let go of their hands. It’s an endless source of fun, how kids learn stuff with just a little guidance.

Our 3 week old boy doesn’t do anything but scream bloody murder, but we still talk to him, because maybe Stanford or MIT wants someone with those kinds of lungs in about 17 years.

If you want your kids to be like the rich/smart kids, then emulate what the rich/smart families do. Talk to the kids, and treat ever interaction like an educational opportunity. Read WITH them, not TO them. And for crying out loud, turn off the TV. We almost never watch TV. When it is on, it is usually sesame street or world world or other kids educational show so at least it isn’t quite as mind numbing as most other popular tv shows.

Sean

Charles Murray in his Coming Apart points out that rich white people tend to be married, go to church, invest in educating their children, believe in the work ethic, and in general embody all the old American virtues that built this nation. But, he points out, they no longer preach what they practice. And the result is that the gap between rich and poor, between well off and poverty, grows greater. Those who don’t practice the old virtues descend further diwn in comparison to those who do; but no one notices that, or if they notice it they don’t say anything. It’s as if we are keeping The Protestant ethic as a secret.

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Jerry,

Watts Up With Angels – link tweeted by "Sith Lord Monckton"

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/22/prescient-fallen-angels-a1991-satire-of-climate-alarmism/

J

Jerry,

Saw this on one of my favorite CAGW skeptic blogs.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/22/prescient-fallen-angels-a1991-satire-of-climate-alarmism/

73s,

Alan

It’s still a good read, too. If you haven’t read it, you’ll like it. I just wish it were not prophetic…

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Subj: Most people are "too busy" to care

New Guardian article about surveillance state:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/20/fisa-court-nsa-without-warrant

The Guardian releases two more US Top Secret FISA court documents which (according to their article) belie General Alexander’s and FBI Director Mueller’s testimony in Congress this week.

Links therein. Warning: your readers with security clearances should NOT open these links on work computers per current government direction.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhibit-b-nsa-procedures-document

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhibit-a-procedures-nsa-document

And in computer tech: the 1000 GB DVD

Fwd: Amazing

http://tinyurl.com/opllhd7

Or Are They?

Jerry

Someone has come up with a way to make Universal Surveillance™ leave a bad taste in NSA’s mouth.

South Florida man facing bank robbery charges wants NSA phone records to defend himself:

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/31068/south-florida-man-facing-bank-robbery-charges-wants-nsa-phone-records-to-defend-himself/index.html/index.html

If I understand the law correctly, the government MUST disgorge any information it holds that may absolve someone of a crime; or the case is dropped (correct me if I’m wrong here). What a way to give NSA a huge headache.

OTOH, maybe Constitutional provisions no longer trump Universal Surveillance™. If so, the Constitution has passed from the earth.

Ed

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Education: 4 stories

Dr Pournelle

Re: Education and algorithms, and a Teacher in America https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=14295

Story 1.

When I attended university back at the close of the Pleistocene epoch [1], I took a class in Differential Equations from Dr U. On a typical day, Dr U came to class; said, "Let’s get started"; and filled the front blackboard (30 ft x 6 ft) with equations. He turned to the eighteen or twenty (I don’t remember exactly) of us benighted students and asked, "Questions?" He spent a moment scanning our stunned and befuddled faces as we scribbled furiously to copy what he had drawn on the board. "Right," he said and launched into a different explication of the particular technique we were ‘studying’ that day on a different board. He rinsed-and-repeated until most of the stunned and befuddled looks faded into the glimmerings of comprehension. He always filled two boards. Sometimes three. A couple of times he filled all four (the classroom had blackboards on every wall).

When time came to take the final, Dr U advised us to come at least 15 minutes before the start. We did not need Blue Books. He provided the paper. All we had to bring were pencils and erasers.

The final exam was scheduled for 3 hours. Not academic hours. Clock hours. 180 minutes.

I got to the classroom half an hour early. I did not recognize the proctor. The college assigned him to proctor the exam. He came from another college ― liberal arts, I think.

I pulled a number from a box, penciled my name and the number I drew on a sheet on the clipboard the proctor handed me, took twelve sheets of plain typing paper from the two reams on the proctor’s desk, and sat down to write my assigned test number on each page and number the pages in the top right corner. My classmates straggled in and did as I had done.

Two minutes before the top of the hour the proctor circulated among us and laid a single sheet, face down on each desk. As he walked, he intoned, "This is your final test. Do not turn the sheet over until you are told to do so. You may not leave the room until you complete the test. When there are fifteen, ten, and five minutes remaining, I will write a notice on the blackboard at the front of the room. Write your answers on only one side of each sheet. If you need more paper, come get it. Remember to write your test number on each page and to number each page."

Finished with his task, he returned to his desk and watched the seconds tick by on the big clock at the front of the room. When Mickey’s big hand and tail stood straight up, the proctor said, "Turn your test paper over. You may begin."

I turned the test paper over. My DiffyQ final consisted of two problems. I started on the first.

I managed to squeeze my answers to the two problems into the the twelve sheets I had taken. When I finished, I sighed, collected my papers, and went to the proctor’s desk. He pointed to a stapler and whispered, "Top left corner. Then fold it and write your test number on the back." When I completed his instructions, he pointed to the box I had drawn my test number from. "Put it in there."

I turned to leave and was surprised to find the time warning "5 MINUTES" printed across the front-wall blackboard. I looked up at the clock. There were three minutes remaining in the three hours.

I was the first one to finish.

FWIW I earned an A+ from Dr U [2]. The only one in the class. [3]

Why did I tell you this story?

Patience. All will be explained in due time.

I topped the class in DiffyQ. I stood at the 95th percentile in math. [4] I expect that the low student in my DiffyQ class stood at the 90th percentile. The prerequisite for the course was successful completion of Multivariate Calculus, a course whose mere mention would cause liberal arts majors to shudder and quake.

Among college students, we were the mathematics elite. Among mathematics students, we were pushing the top tier. Not just me. All of us.

Not one of our math professors ever asked me if I knew how to ‘reason numerically.’ Not one of our math professors ever asked me if I ‘felt good’ about myself for having worked through to the solution. Not one of our math professors ever asked me "Can you add? Subtract? Multiply? Divide? Can you do those operations effectively and quickly?"

No.

They assumed that I had those skills. They assumed that I had a solid base of arithmetic fundamentals and that I performed arithmetic operations quickly and accurately. On that arithmetic base, they taught me mathematical reasoning from analytic geometry to differential calculus to integral calculus to multivariate calculus to differential equations to probability to abstract algebra to complex analysis and to mathematics that did not have a name, it was so new. I learned trigonometric substitutions, the Mean Value Theorem [5], Abelian groups, normal and skewed distributions, Dedekind cuts, and more. I discovered that I had a talent for geometry and that my talent was not enough to build a career on. I learned to think in six dimensions and work out the orthogonals in my head. For those who are interested, this is useful when you are trying to decrypt and analyze foreign telemetry. FWIW I wrote a computer program to find, identify, and catalog such telemetry using only three dimensions. Had to overload some operators in C to make the code easy to read, but, hey, what’s an overloaded operator among six dimensions?

I built my arithmetic skills in the first, second, and third grades, memorizing addition and multiplication tables and practicing those skills over and over and over again. [6] And now you post this nonsense about ‘numerical reasoning’ and drive my blood pressure to new heights.

Where I come from there’s a saying: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The old way of teaching arithmetic skills by memorization of tables and drill, drill, drill was not broken. Numerical reasoning does not fix it.

From what I read, occupational psychologists developed the term ‘numerical reasoning’ as a component of psychometrics. Am I wrong in assuming that the weenies in the various university sogenannte Schools of Education took this term and massaged it into what they called a ‘teaching concept’? No more were they to be burdened by ― shudder ― numbers. Now they could concentrate their energies on teaching ‘numerical reasoning’ and helping the piteous little kiddies feel good about folding paper in a mockery of geometric proof. No matter that little Johnny cannot add 212, 1516, and 48 and get a consistent answer. At least the little ignoramus has great self-esteem.

I topped my DiffyQ class. Regarding mathematics, I have reason to have self-esteem. And confidence in my ability. Little Johnny has no reason to have self-esteem and no reason to have confidence in his abilities. I have the skills. Little Johnny ― with his education in ‘numerical reasoning’ ― does not have the skills. When the testing comes, I shall pass and he shall fail.

The universe is not cruel, but neither is it merciful. Your self-esteem does not matter. Only results matter.

Tell you what: If numerical reasoning is the way to go, do it with Roman numerals. If all roads lead to Rome and there is no one best way to learn math skills, do all your math exercises ― if you do math exercises ― with the marks the Romans used. What difference will it make? After all, one way is as good as another. Go ahead. Reason numerically about multiplying XLIX by XXXVIII. Let me know how that works out for you.

The last formal mathematics course I took was Complex Analysis [7]. The last course you education majors took was high school algebra, and you hated that. Regarding mathematics and its instruction "My own counsel I’ll keep". [8]

If I seem contemptuous of education majors and their fitness for anything other than compost, I am.

Story 2.

I worked my way through college. The university I attended generously provided jobs to many students. One job I held was that of Computer Operator on the IBM 360/70 in the university computer center.

After my first semester working in the computer center, I worked the wake-up shift, 0600 – 0900. Many of the universities administrative computational jobs came to me to run because things were quiet at that time, and, thus, the demands on the CPU were less.

The university faculty senate had expressed some concerns about the school’s reputation, or rather the lack of it. They wanted to know why this was. So they compiled years of grades, punched them onto 80-column cards, and toted those cards down to the computer center where they spilled those data onto a tape. That took the better part of a day and all that evening which meant they did not have time to run the statistics on those data and print them out. Problem was that the computer center had promised Dr R, the president of the faculty senate, the report the following morning.

Charlie, my boss, left it to me on the morning shift to run the stats and print out the results. As soon as I woke the Beast, I ran the job. It printed out half a box of fanfold paper. I tore off the last page, picked up the printout, and took it to the counter to look through it.

Of course, I knew what this was and what it meant. I scanned to the math department. As, Bs, Cs, Ds, Fs, a few incompletes ― all the grades in the table. The distribution was normal but the mean was shifted slightly toward the lower end; that is, the department gave fewer As than expected and more Fs than expected.

I scanned to the physics department. Much the same story as with the math department but shifted even more toward the lower end.

I scanned to the department of education, and I said to myself, said I, "Oh, the shit’s gonna hit the fan." ED gave 80% As, 20% Bs, and nothing below a B.

This report exploded like a bomb in the faculty senate. Dr R, the president of the senate, made a motion his own self to severe the Department of Education from the rest of the university and another that admission to the School of Education would not give admission to the rest of the university. The recriminations were many and bitter. I heard that the President of the University called in the campus cops to restore order and prevent the threatened assaults.

I ran this report when I was a sophomore. When I graduated, the war was still on.

So if you are an education major and you think I have no respect for you . . . you’re right. I don’t. Moreover, I won’t.

Story 3.

In the same ‘Aspire-to-Mediocrity’ mindset as ‘numerical reasoning’ is the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO). Perhaps they do some good. I don’t know. What I do know is that they do not play football; that is, soccer. The game they play is to football what gin rummy is to national-tournament-level contract bridge. The implements they play with resemble each other but the games are light-years apart.

My sister enrolled my niece in AYSO. My nephew-by-my-other-sister played winger on his high school team and showed considerable skill at the position. My niece showed no skill and no inclination to acquire any, but my sister said, "At least it’ll get her out in the fresh air and sunshine." [9]

Because my sister came late to the party, my niece got placed on a team with the name of ‘Bluebirds’. [10] The coach knew as much about football as a pig knows about opera and showed less desire to learn about the sport than the pig about opera. She had no idea how to kick a football and ― it pains me to write this ― taught her charges to toe the ball. Heading was beyond her. Practice sessions stopped when the children got winded. I swear they would have worked out more hiking to and from a picnic. But the coach knew the AYSO rules ― everybody plays ― and worked out rotations to guarantee that every player got as much time on the field as every other player. It did not matter. The only discernible difference in their skills was that some were faster than others. Not a skill they developed by coaching.

The results were predictable and predicted. The Bluebirds lost. Every game. Some by embarrassing margins. My niece finished the season thoroughly disheartened. She told her mother, "I don’t want to play anymore."

My sister dragged her to the AYSO closing ceremony.

Lo and behold, the Bluebirds were the first team called. Every Bluebird got a little loving cup inscribed ‘Participant’. My niece was ecstatic. She signed up for another season. [11]

It’s true that the first place team got a big first-place trophy. But that should have been the only trophy. If you don’t grok that, I’m not even going to try to persuade you to my position. You are too stupid to live.

Story 4.

My daughter had toddled about for some months and showed signs of developing facility with perambulation when my wife suggested to me that we think about toilet training the little tyke. My memories of toilet training consisted of crying (me) and screaming (my mother) and nothing about toilets or training. But by hook or by crook or by the grace of God, I had reached a point where I was no longer crapping in my pants. My wife’s experience paralleled mine.

This was before the days of the interwebs. My wife wanted information on ‘how to’ toilet train a toddler. Given our histories, neither of us wanted to consult our mothers. My wife searched and ― wonder of wonders ― found a thin volume that purported to make ‘Potty Training in One Day’ possible. [12] This thin volume drove our purchase of a child’s toilet to facilitate the training.

Unfortunately, we were not too diligent in the application of the method detailed in the book. We did not succeed in toilet training our daughter in a day. It took three. But no crying and no screaming.

I end with this story to let you know that I am amenable to change, but if and only if the change results in measurable improvement over previous methods.

There seems to be a pernicious notion among the denizens of our universities that conflates new with better and change with progress.

This is false. Not just wrong-headed but horribly, frighteningly false.

The reason that repetitive instruction and drill, drill, drill were used to teach arithmetic skills to children is that a thousand years of use proved that they worked. To abandon that accumulated experience and wisdom for the evanescent fad of ‘numerical reasoning’ is not just stupid, not just incompetence; it is criminal malfeasance. And, yes, by that I mean those who practice it are criminals. I recommend that they be incarcerated for an indeterminate term, to be released as soon as they can ‘numerically reason’ from the paucity of mathematical knowledge that they possess to the solutions of the differential equations on my final exam using only their own innate intelligence without resort to any texts or teachers or other guidance in the mathematical arts. I submit that this is a fitting test of the rightness of numerical reasoning.

You said in a previous post that we have lost the war over public education in this country. That this fraud is trumpeted about as the new wave of teaching mathematics saddens and angers me.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

[1] Given the theoretical age of the Earth ― 4,500,000,000 years ― the 12,000 years since the Pleistocene epoch is covered by measurement error. 😉

[2] In my entire undergraduate career, this is one of two grades that I am proud of. The other is the C I won in Nuclear Physics. There’s a story to that one, too.

[3] Like my Daddy said, "It ain’t no brag if you can back it up."

[4] Turns out that standardized tests do not distinguish well at the margins. On the GRE, I scored 800 in both the standard math portion and the optional breakout. That is, I maxed the tests. Those perfect scores placed me in the 95th percentile according to the boys in New Jersey.

[5] Why is the Mean Value Theorem always taught using Cartesian coordinates? It is much more intuitive if taught using polar coordinates.

[6] Repetition is the key to all learning.

[7] The subject of the course was complex numbers (x+yi) and devising theorems and proofs about their properties.

[8] Yoda.

[9] One can make a strong argument that sending a child out into the "fresh air and sunshine" of a Texas summer when temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit is tantamount to child abuse. One has.

[10] If this gets published, all you parents out there, know this: If your child’s team is named the Bluebirds, you’re gonna lose. A lot. Get used to it.

[11] The next season, her team went oh-and-ten again, and that put paid to her soccer career.

[12] Toilet Training in Less Than a Day <http://www.amazon.com/Toilet-Training-Less-Than-Day/dp/0671693808> is available at Amazon.

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Subject: LA Schools Buy $30M of iPads

$30Million on iPads??? I thought they were short of money. Granted, there are worse ways to spend all that money, but I never want to hear anyone say that we don’t have enough money for public schools again.

http://www.macrumors.com/2013/06/19/apple-scores-30-million-ipad-contract-from-l-a-unified-school-district/?utm_source=feedly

Dwayne Phillips

I await the result with abated breath…

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The Cursive Dilemma

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I am a twice elected member of our district’s school board, and have read with great interest your essays and the materials presented by you and contributors on the state of education in the USA.

One aspect of the decline in basic education that caught me by surprise was the unanticipated result of the elimination of cursive writing courses in elementary school. Many, if not most of the children enrolled in public school, graduate to high school unable to sign their name.

There are young adults, in growing numbers, that "print" their signature on paychecks and, presumably, legal documents.

I’m wondering what a mortgage closing looks like when the buyer and seller each print their name on both of the lines?

Will the phrase "sign here" become obsolete?

Bennett Dawson

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Dear Dr. Pournelle:

American education poses a dilemma for those who run the political system, namely; shall the people learn or not? If the people do not learn, then they become unproductive and the economy collapses; but if the people do learn, then they become productive but uncontrollable. Indeed, the more they learn, the more they want to take over!

Recent history gives vivid illustration of this dilemma. In the 60’s, we saw the post-Sputnik initiative. What was the result? By the end of the decade, Americans were walking on the moon, and rioting in the campuses! In 1980, an anti-intellectual was elected President, and a different attitude towards education took hold. The result? Much more political stability, but 40 years of stagnant median income.

Explosion or collapse? The ideal solution, from the 1% point of view, is a kind of golden mediocrity, where education teaches the masses just enough to work, and not enough to make trouble. The trouble is that the lines sometimes cross, and you need to know more to work than you need to make trouble; then mediocrity gives everyone trouble but no work.

60s or 80s? In the 60s, America went to the Moon. In the 80s, America went to Hell. All in all I prefer the Moon.

Snowden and Assange have taught us that there is a similar dilemma concerning secrecy. If internal communications of secretive agencies are not censored, then the agency risks exposure by leak; but if internal communications are censored, then the agency becomes stupid. As in the education dilemma, the operators and owners of the system face a choice between controlled collapse into stupidity and uncontrolled ascent into rebellion; and as in the education dilemma, golden mediocrity fails when the lines cross, and it becomes easier for a disgruntled agent to rebel than to report.

In both cases information flow is a problem. From the 1% point of view, information is a kind of explosive lubricant; if it doesn’t flow, then the system seizes up, but if it does flow, then the system explodes. Golden mediocrity fails when revolt is simpler than labor.

There is a deeper problem, and it is political. Why the rebellion of the informed public? Because knowledge gives power, and ends excuses.

Sincerely,

Nathaniel Hellerstein

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Mike Johns wrote:

>I don’t think that I have ever encountered someone who did know how to solve story problems but who couldn’t perform the algorithms >without a calculator. Are there any?

Oddly, growing up in the 1970’s, I almost was such a child. I certainly learned my addition and multiplication facts, but I was bad at making use of them, mostly because I was clumsy at writing down sums, so that all too often my place-values got jumbled, and I rarely realized it in time (yes, I should have double-checked, of course).

But I understood mathematical concepts better than most of my classmates. I was obliged to take remedial Algebra II in summer school one year, and we were expected to work in small groups. That’s the only time small-group work has worked well for me. I was paired with a friendly boy who had not even a glimmer of understanding of word problems, and together the two of us shone. I would analyze the word-problem and tell him what we needed to do to solve it, and he

would unerringly work out the problems I set for us. The teacher

started giving us more advanced word-problems, and he told my mother on parents’ day that I could potentially do original work in mathematics. (I never have and presumably never will; I studied Latin

instead.)

Meredith Dixon

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RAND study on Algebra 1 blended instruction

Dear Jerry,

Article today in Education Week on RAND study of hybrid instruction (blend of online plus in-class) of Algebra 1 “Study: Hybrid Algebra Program ‘Nearly Doubled’ Math Learning”

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2013/06/government_study_finds_gains_f.html <http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2013/06/government_study_finds_gains_f.html>

I have not read the RAND study yet. Valerie teaches Algebra 1 and Algebra 2, so I will forward her comments and mine later this month.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR984.html

Jim Ransom

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‘According to Andropov, the Islamic world was a petri dish in which the KGB community could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought.’

<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2348191/EXCLUSIVE-KGB-operation-seeded-Muslim-countries-anti-American-anti-Jewish-propaganda-1970s-laying-groundwork-Islamist-terrorism-U-S-Israeli-targets.html>

———

Roland Dobbins

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Women as Teachers

JP: "Yet when we had a splendid education system, the envy of the world, it was mostly women teachers and principals."

This was true when I entered elementary school in the early 50’s. As I progressed I came to realize that many of these women, and a number of men, were superior individuals. Years later as once again I became familiar with schoolteachers I wondered where all these superior people were, the mean seemed to be mediocre at best.

Then I realized in the 50’s working women had three choices: become a secretary, a nurse or a teacher. A good percentage of the best became teachers. Today the career field is wide open and the best seldom look to teaching as a career path.

We can struggle against it, but I don’t see a way past the present incentives. The best answer is don’t subject anyone you care about to it.

Kent Anderson

Actually, teaching the young is a rewarding experience, and is to be preferred to most cubicle jobs even if those pay more; but we have worked to make the experience as miserable for the teachers as it is disgusting to the pupils. Properly run schools don’t have teachers who hate their jobs.

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‘When it’s hot, they point to Global Warming. When it’s cold, they also point to Global Warming.’

<http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-end-of-world.html>

————

Roland Dobbins

Yep. And now Obama wants to go to war with the US economy in order to save the world from Co2 pollution – at least as contributed by the United States.

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Subj: Fw: THIS Is Who We Are Helping In Syria?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqJfFrkzf8I&feature=em-share_video_user

I don’t honestly care what anyone thinks of Glenn Beck or on which side their political leanings lie. Don’t watch this video at your own peril. It’s gruesome, graphic, horrifying, chilling and might spoil your breakfast if you don’t have a strong stomach, but this IS Islam, and we enter Syria at our own peril. Watch what this nice Syrian Rebel does to the Syrian military man he has killed…

ChiTownDi1 <http://www.youtube.com/user/ChiTownDi1?feature=em-share_video_user> has shared a video with you on YouTube

Glenn Beck: Shocking Video- THIS Is Who We Are Helping In Syria?! SHARE WITH EVERYONE!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqJfFrkzf8I&feature=em-share_video_user> by TheDailyBeck <http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDailyBeck?feature=em-share_video_user>

From the June 17, 2013 edition of "Glenn Beck" on TheBlaze TV: WARNING- This video contains DISTURBING images. The Obama administration, along with PROGRESSIVE Republicans AND Democrats are OK providing assistance to the Syrian ‘rebels’…the same ‘rebels’ who have pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda and who cut the heart and liver out of their enemies and eat it.WE MUST NOT GET INVOLVED IN THIS WAR!

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Rods from God –

Jerry, I enjoyed the tungsten rod humor in the Questional Content web comic and thought I’d see if there was anything recent online about them. Found this Popular Science article from 2004 that refers to an Air Force paper from 2003 and a Rand report from 2002. Also mentions a certain science fiction author in connection with them. Can’t recall and my copies of your books are packed away since the last move, but didn’t you originate the nickname "Rods from God?" Or at least mention that nickname and who coined it?

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-06/rods-god

–Gary P.

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Jerry,

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/06/how_democracies_perish_deathbed_edition.html#.UcC12GqfvyE.twitter

<snip>

Consider the example of John Dewey: a brazen propagandist for Stalinist Russia who, when the truth leaked out, turned Trotskyite without missing a totalitarian beat — and lost not one iota of public credibility in the process. He is "the father of modern education" throughout the civilized world, a world he spent a lifetime hating and attempting to undermine through an education theory built on the principle that all children must be forcibly divested of individual thought, personal initiative, and private motivation. Had the Soviet Union he admired been fully exposed without the delay effect, his own motives and credibility might have been damaged. Instead, he has been lionized as the great educator, while the educational establishment formed according to his theories has (intentionally) reduced the civilization of Shakespeare and Locke, Jefferson, and Melville, to an ahistorical, amoral, semi-literate den of dependency and submissiveness.

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Jerry,

I think Martha Stewart would vehemently disagree with the Salinas vs TX ruling. You have no right against self incrimination until AFTER you have been arrested? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Maybe instead of simply not cooperating with unofficial questioning, we need to just start shooting and get it over with since the 5th amendment just got thrown out entirely.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/at-the-supreme-court-divisions-and-signs-of-trouble-to-come/276931/

They can "detain" you, not read you your rights, and then not only what you say, but what you don’t say, will be used against you in court. Our rule of law is rapidly coming to an end.

S

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Marius; The education Crisis; Syria; Open Society; and many other subjects of importance.

Mail 779 Tuesday, June 25, 2013

I attempt to cut back on the stock of mail.  More later this week. It’s all interesting.

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Marius

Jerry,

You mentioned the absence of Marius recently. I suspect it is a matter of perspective and the scale of the society. My personal opinion is that FDR was early and middle period Marius and Nixon when he abolished the draft turned into late period Marius. Before we had citizen soldiers like you and me. After we had legions.

Joe Epstein, the eminent essayist, pointed out a long time ago what a great educational institution the draft was. You met so many unusual Americans and picked up a lot of perspective. Certainly, the current crop of troopers is first class. I can only think of eight guys from my active duty days I would trust to watch my back in a firefight more than local gal Jessie Lynch all gussied up with titanium rods and plates as she is. And she was support.

We are well into the start of the Civil Wars by my analog model. The biggest surprise so far is that I never expected David Petreus to turn into Pompey the Great.

Val Augstkalns

We have not yet had soldiers in the streets, and mass slaughter of enemies of the regimes. I may or may not live to see that, and it will be done more subtly than standing on the Capitol steps and have troops cut down anyone the commander does not hold his hand out to.

I have always said that wealthy republics that do not have a fair conscription system that gets the upper and upper middle classes as well as the commoners is in grave danger. Machiavelli put it simply: paid soldiers obey their officers. A paid army can ruin you by losing your battles – or, tiring of always fighting, can choose to rob the paymaster. The US is not in such danger of that sort of thing. It is in danger of widening the class gaps. In Basic Training I learned more of a range of my fellow Americans than I had ever suspected up to then.

We have Legions now, with an officer corps carefully selected; but we are losing control of that too.

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Stop penalizing boys for not being able to sit still at school

Dear Jerry,

The rest of the education world is catching up with you, finally.

Middle school teacher Jessica Lahey has an article in The Atlantic: Stop penalizing boys for not being able to sit still at school.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/06/stop-penalizing-boys-for-not-being-able-to-sit-still-at-school/276976/

Jim Ransom

I have struggled with the authorities on this for decades. I was required to LEARN to sit still, not given drugs to make it happen. I believe the learning was worth while. Drugs do not teach you much. Of course there are cases where I suppose drugs help, but I think they are more rare than the authorities suppose.

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Failing Education Systems Not Just A US Problem

Jerry,

I thought you might like to read an article from the BBC concerning the state of their national education system (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22873257). The article is titled, "Schools fail to challenge the brightest, warns Ofsted," and is about the findings of a broad survey of British non-selective secondary schools. Apparently, they are also victimizing the fastest in the name of not penalizing the slowest. I wonder if we in the United States could learn a little about our own problem by studying the British mess, its origins, and their response to it? It might be easier to look at the issue objectively.

Kevin L Keegan

Education Dilemma

Dr. Pournelle,

Back in the 50s and 60s my family lived in a NY hamlet served by a small, centralized school district. My HS graduating class size was 205 – large enough to ensure decent facilities but small enough to enforce a measure of accountability. The fact that the administrators and teachers were neighbors as well didn’t hurt.

Classes were tracked by (perceived) ability: Seminar and High Regents (there wasn’t much difference except for the foreign language studied) were designed for the gifted – those expected to go to four year colleges and universities. Regents was for solid students who could pass the (at the time challenging) NYS Regents exams to get a state certified diploma; the expectation was that some would continue on to four year schools while others went to community colleges and two year technical schools. General was for those students of a more vocational bent who received a local school diploma.

The membranes were permeable, though, and students moved back and forth between tracks based on periodic assessments of their performance. Thus, while the tracks generally categorized students correctly, there was none of the "track = destiny" bias found in most European systems. To my mind, then and now, this helped ensure appropriate education by ability and interest, while having the flexibility to deal with the inevitable human error in tracking.

Did this have a bit of a class-based society feel? Possibly, though it wasn’t very pronounced (being a farming community, one denigrated the FFA at one’s peril). Also, there was plenty of mixing via the track fluidity above and extra curricular activities like sports, band, etc. While I was in the Seminar track, I respect the work and accomplishments of all my classmates; I’m a klutz, so the skills of those in other tracks is essential to my well-being. At our 40th reunion a few years back one did not see four alumni clusters forming around the tracks in the 60s.

So what’s education in NY like today? First, there’s a definite one-size-fits-all mentality, fostered by NCLB, that harms everyone. Those who would previously get local diplomas are now struggling with material that they do not understand, care about, or need. On the other hand, the top students are deprived of the opportunity to shine – the current Regents exams are but a faint shadow of what they were before, because essentially EVERYONE is expected to pass them. AP classes help, but not as much as one would hope.

Now the Common Core threatens this already sad state of affairs. The mathematics approach – little more than group guessing and groping – might possibly work if everyone were like Richard Feynman or Stephen Hawking. Unfortunately most of us (myself included) are not in that category. The English curriculum abandons any focus on literature – I guess if you can read and understand the Windows help files, that’s sufficient.

I’m just glad all my children completed HS before the ed. school establishment was able to do even more damage. As a new grandfather, however, I worry about the quality of the education my grandson will receive. My daughter has her bachelor’s in mathematics combined with an artistic bent, and my son-in-law is a mechanical engineer – perhaps I should encourage them to consider home schooling.

Mike Lutz

Re: Preface to the Education Dilemma

Dr. Pournelle,

NOTE: Please don’t publish my name. Use the "Terrier1" pseudonym I notified you about when I sent the "I PAID" e-mail to become a subscriber.

It seems to me that it would help if schools in a district were treated like the individual campuses of the UC and CSU systems: that is, they are all part of a system, but permitted lots of autonomy. One-size-fits-all won’t get us anywhere.

And it’s time for the everyone-must-go-to-a-4-year-university assumption to go. Some might not go at all. Some might go later in life. Again, it’s one-size-fits-all.

But there are some things which should be mandatory for teaching. Chief among them would be our history, with as much detail appropriate to the grades as possible, but no PC stuff. Bringing back the "melting pot" would be a wonderful idea; President Theodore Roosevelt had some sharp words on this matter. And while it is good for people to know other languages, let’s make it clear that English is the language of our country. Basic arithmetic as well, but higher math could be left to community colleges and freshman-level classes at universities.

Let’s have some life skills as well. Personal finance would be at the top of the list. I used to be a bank teller and I saw customers getting into financial trouble all the time through their own ignorance. We don’t have to turn everyone into a Wall Street financial wizard, but at least let’s explain how credit cards, checking accounts, savings accounts, and investments work, along with inculcating the idea that it is much better to save than to borrow for an item you want or need. Learning how to cook would be a good thing too; cooking is fun and it’s better than gobbling fast food all the time. Giving them a skill — cooking — seems to be better than Mayor Bloomberg’s preachy rants about soda.

Absent some sort of enforcement mechanism, whether it comes from the district, the state, or the federal government, I don’t see how we can guarantee that these things will be taught. But at the same time, I am wary of one-size-fits-all and too much top-down enforcement.

I don’t have a wife or kids yet, but when I do, I want them to have the option of going to good public schools, not mediocre ones.

Regards,

Terrier1

Follow up to Education Dilemma

Your comments about Ed schools are spot on. The friends I have who taught at the K-12 level, especially the ones who came from industry, saw the Ed school curriculum as a joke. On the way to the NYS mandated Masters degree, most of them took as few education courses and and as many advanced professional courses as possible.

I suspect that most of your readers already know that an Ed.D. in a university setting gets no respect outside of the Ed school. I wonder how many folks in the citizenry at large are aware of this?

Mike Lutz

education

A bright spot for smart kids trapped in a bad school system is online education. Most of the courses are aimed at college level but there are exceptions such as Khanacademy that offer high school courses.

The big sites like EdX, Coursera, Udacity get a lot of publicity but look at http://www.mooc-list.com/ for a list of many other sites that offer courses. I was particularly impressed by http://www.saylor.org/ They offer a wide variety of college courses and also have a beta site of high school courses.

Bob Alvarez

It is indeed and we will have a good deal to say on that. The first step is to insure that all the kids can read before they leave second grade. Most should know how to read before they leave first. By read I mean read nonsense words like polyjubalredit as well as scientific terms; if they can say it they should be able to read it. Once that is done they can begin to profit form on line education.

Education – my obsevation

I went to elementary school in the late 60’s to early 70’s and I attended at least a dozen different elementary schools. Until 5th grade, I didn’t have any real trouble switching schools. Although most of the schools I attended were in Houston, I also attended school in California, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas. There was one other state but I was too unclear on geography to know which state.

The main problem I had with the different schools was grades; there weren’t enough of them. They were never transfered. I had to attend summer school after 2nd grade even though I had mastered the course work because I had too few grades. I was rather bored. The only other problem I had was with understanding the instructions. I finished 3rd grade in Louisiana and was making straight 70’s on the tests. I would always get the last 3 questions marked wrong. It was a word problem and I would get the right number but the instructions said to answer in a complete sentence. I did not know what that meant! It was until the very end of the year that someone looked at the pattern, explained what I was supposed to do and gave me a second chance. Some people say I should have asked. However, I was perpetually the new kid and admitting I didn’t know something everyone else knew was not something I could do.

For 5th grade, I went to 3 schools: Little Rock, Corpus Christi, and Houston. I do not remember having trouble in any classes other than science. The schools were not covering the same lessons and it was difficult to pick it up in the middle. After 5th, I went to different schools but the changes were during the summer.

The main point is that the course work was uniform enough that switching was not a problem. I’m not sure how that plays into your education debate but thought it would be of interest.

Sincerely,

Greg Brewer

P.S.

I am often asked why I changed schools so often. I was not told the real reason at the time but my grandmother told me that my step-father robbed a bank. Bank robbery is not economical. Once the F.B.I. starts asking your family about your location, you start moving. And you move every time you see a car that might be F.B.I. By the time you split the take with your partners, you only have a couple of years worth of salary. You cannot use your real social security number to get a job. You cannot get a decent apartment because you cannot stand up to any kind of background check.

Teachers

I graduated from the largest producers of teachers in the state of Illinois. It’s a big state, and it’s a big school.

Every one of the education majors I knew was a moderate-IQ female. Too low, actually, to be in anything but a community college.

No, I take that back. I knew one male. He is still a close friend. He was so disgusted with what he encountered in the schools in which he worked he left the field, and completed a Ph.D. in Economics.

Recently he ran across a high-IQ woman who is a former teacher. They were swapping war stories in front of me. They had exactly the same experiences: too many incompetent women – and too much interference from the State and its bureaucrats.

Bob Wallace

Yet when we had a splendid education system, the envy of the world, it was mostly women teachers and principals.

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"Rote" Learning

Jerry,

You touched on a subject that is very important to me.

My own experience is that having "rote" learning assisted me greatly in my undergraduate and graduate education. I most fortunate in that I had two years of single variable calculus in high school. I became so proficient in it I could do the integrals so fast on the quizzes and tests that I could do a check on my answers by differentiating my answer to assure I got the original integral back.

Before calculus, I needed trigonometry. I rote learned the fundamental identities. I could plow through the most difficult identities the book or teacher could make up because of algebra.

I rote learned how to factor by endless doing problems. Most of my problems were due to miscarrying to carrying signs through properly.

And all those little rote learning problems with exponents, signs, fractions, sums, and such

What all that uninspiring, boring, mechanical, repetitive, unimaginative work from the times tables

[An interesting side note: When you wrote you should learn the times table to 20, I, in retrospect concur. I thought of 17 x 19. I didn’t know it off the top of my head–that made me mad at myself, I should know these things darn it!, so I used some factoring math tricks learned in "rote" learning and got the right result.]

To single variable calculus did for me was that I KNEW ABSOLUTELY when I didn’t understand the physics. It was never a math problem until differential equations, linear algebra and multivariable calculus–then I needed to take care I learned the principles and exercising by "rote."

In chemistry in my first year I was taking an session on organic chemistry that was taught by both an organic chemist and a physical chemist. The organic prof was saying you need to learn the pKa tables by heart. The pchem prof disparaged that. However, there are other things a pchemist needs to know!

And by the by, for those that disparage of rote learning, I suppose such musicians as James Galway, Yo Yo Ma, Maurice Andre, and Vladimir Horowitz didn’t need to do scales!

I will ask my friends in the Bellevue school system if there will be hearing about the new math curriculum and I will attempt to share my experience with learning by rote.

Seeing what others thought about math and physics, I looked around and found Dr. John Baez’s website and his discussion on how to learn math and physics.

Dr. John Baez’s website <http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/>

Dr. Baez’s take on how to learn Math and Physics <http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.html>

I am very surprised that many of the books he recommends are the ones I used 35 years ago!

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

Reform Math

I was probably an early victim of the reform math movement. Wasn’t until nearly 7th grade that they realized that I had no concept of how to do division; simply because nobody had ever trained me on the process or bothered to check that I really had a tool (standard algorithm) for it, rather than getting lucky guessing at the answers. Certainly made learning algebra harder because of my later starting point. At least I’d caught up by the time I needed to take calculus in college.

While there may be some method to guessing and building your own algorithms, kids are NOT going to have the background to make general rules that apply to all problems. The purpose of schools *should* be to teach kids how to learn, in addition to teaching those general rules that have been already figured out through experience and hard work. If the purpose of schools were to make everyone reinvent the wheel on their own, we wouldn’t need any schools.

Michael Houst

Reform Math

Great article and commentary.

My question is "Do you want to live below a dam or travel in an airplane designed by an Engineer who was educated using a ‘whole math’ approach?"

John

John Harlow

How Should Arithmetic be Taught?

Jerry,

When I was a child there were plenty of children who regarded arithmetic story problems as a special kind of torture. The problem still persists in children I encounter today. They learn the algorithms but seem to regard knowing how to apply them to find answers to questions that anyone might care about as an unfathomable mystery. If that is the problem that reformers are trying to address, then I am sympathetic to their aims. If we were doing everything right, this wouldn’t be happening.

I don’t think that I have ever encountered someone who did know how to solve story problems but who couldn’t perform the algorithms without a calculator. Are there any? I suspect that the reformers’ ideas will result in children who can neither perform the algorithms nor think quantitatively.

I was puzzled by some of the algorithms as a kid. I didn’t understand why the shift and add algorithm for multiplication yielded correct answers. My requests to the teacher for help yielded an unhelpful insistence that I practice more. Fortunately, I caught on in algebra when we learned about commutativity and associativity. I gather that this was the sort of problem that the New Math was supposed to solve, but it assumed that students should progress from the general to the concrete rather than the other way around. I’m young enough that the New Math is mostly a Tom Lehrer song.

Mike Johns

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Was the Afghan War as unnecessary as the second Iraq War?

Last night I watched ABC TV in Australia (Lateline -http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3785506.htm) when the counter-insurgency expert often called on because he is said to be an Australian former Colonel who advises the great and good of the military and State Department in the US, was being interviewed. His name is David Kilcullen.

Despite having got on to the problems of the Iraq war pretty early I have only been drifting towards a realisation of just how much of a blunder the Afghan adventure was, even from the outset. Kilcullen said something I had never heard before which made it clear that we have had over 10 years of unnecessary killing and waste.

He said that Mullah Omar was unwilling to have Osama bin Laden extradited/rendered/ handed over to the US but that he was willing to send him to a country governed by Sharia law like Saudi Arabia. (His reason for not being willing to have him sent to the US was that bin Laden had lied to him and denied involvement in 9/11, a lie which, when exposed made Mullah Omar thoroughly pissed off with bin Laden but that was too late)

I have now found the relevant part of the transcript:

TONY JONES: As you said earlier, one of the key US demands originally was that the Taliban before negotiating agree to denounce al-Qaeda. They haven’t done that. They’ve come part of the way by saying they wouldn’t countenance anyone using Afghan territory to make an attack on another country, which alludes to that. But where does this leave the spiritual leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, who of course is the person who gave protection, fed and housed Osama bin Laden at exactly the time that he was doing that, launching or planning an attack on the United States, the 9/11 attacks?

DAVID KILCULLEN: Well the relationship between mullah Omar and the Taliban is complex and it’s not as supportive as some people think. The Taliban didn’t actually invite al-Qaeda into Afghanistan; they were already there when the Taliban seized Kabul in September of 1996. And in fact, Mullah Omar was unaware of the planning for 9/11 and immediately after 9/11 angrily asked Osama bin Laden, "Hey, did you guys do this?," and Osama bin Laden assured him at the time that it wasn’t them. And on that basis, Mullah Omar, while refusing to give Osama bin Laden up to the United States, offered to give him to a country that practised sharia law, in this case place probably Saudi Arabia. That offer was rejected by the Americans. So the point is Mullah Omar hasn’t been an unequivocal supporter of Osama bin Laden. He’s actually been very upset with al-Qaeda at different times. And I’ve talked to people very close to the Taliban leadership over the last five years or so who’ve said, "Look, we’re angry at al-Qaeda. They brought the Americans down on us like a tonne of bricks, they lied to us about 9/11 and they dragged us into something that wasn’t our fight."

James

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World War?

I’ve been saying for years we’re looking at a world war.  I said the flash-points are Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Caucasus, and North Korea.  Others are finally starting to take note:

<.>

A leading Israeli expert on the Middle East suggested last week that with all the foreign involvement in the ongoing Syrian civil war, that conflict could be the harbinger of a much wider conflagration.

Prof. Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, told those attending a symposium at Tel Aviv University that in the eyes of the Arab world, the final outcome of the Arab Spring hinges on the results of the struggle in Syria.

According to Prof. Rabinovich, the Syrian conflict is a Middle Eastern version of the Spanish Civil War, which was itself a dress rehearsal for World War II.

</>

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/23919/Default.aspx?hp=article_title

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

The Syrian war is a religious as well as a civil war, more analogous to the Thirty Years War than other events in Western history. The Peace of Westphalia was a peace of exhaustion and was the best that could happen after Adolphus fell at Lutzen. I do not see any “side” that they US could back and expect a good result.

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Middle Class in The Middle East

Jerry,

Supporting an al Qaeda-Hezbollah war of mutual destruction in Syria has short-term appeal – what’s not to like about our sworn enemies shooting each other? But such a policy overlooks Syria’s significant middle-class minority. At minimum we also need to be helping them to survive the carnage, and preferably to come out on top afterwards.

Not purely out of humanitarianism, though that has its place. A Syria ruled by its middle class is by far the best long-term outcome for the country, for the region, and for us.

This Syria would not likely be a democracy, mind – we tend to ascribe cultural virtues to "democracy" that actually stem from a stable sensible middle-class voting majority. Absent such a majority democracy is a recipe for dictatorial populism – one man one vote, once.

Which brings to mind the situation in Turkey, where democracy has taken over from the Ataturkist pro-modernist autocracy just as the middle class was nearing a majority. The current riots seem to be the Turkish middle class’s way of saying "hell no" to islamic populist rule.

Erdogan’s police don’t seem up to the job of suppressing the riots – middle class or no, these are Turks.

Now Erdogan’s talking about calling out the army. He’s spent a decade trying to purge the Turkish army of its Ataturkists. It will be interesting to see how well he’s succeeded.

But the Sunni coalition built the Syrian middle class which included Christians, Druze, and even Jews. Of course it was a despoty, but where do we find much else in that region?

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Our enemies are shooting at each other.

Jerry-

Has it been considered that the Sunni Shiite conflict has been suppressed since colonial times? And that our enemies are basically shooting at each other?

Could Obama be trying to balance the sides and keep the young men fighting each other and wasting energy and hate on each other. Last face off was Iran/Iraq war 1980-1988. I was in high school (and hence oblivious), but I don’t recall that being a time when we were concerned about terrorism. Facing down Russia, yes.

The strategy has been used, and filed in the back of my head is the notion that it is unpredictable and risky. But could it be the strategy? Could it be Putin’s strategy to encourage their Muslim minorities to send off the young hotheads to . . . I confess the temptation to insert something about David and Goliath and blood in the sands and i really must stop.

But, freely quoted "I will have more freedom of action after I am re-elected." And on Fox News Sunday Britt Hume noted that Whitehouse strategy for presidential exposure seems to have changed in the last few weeks. NSA basically sent out the press secretary to the Sunday shows. Hmm. . .

David Schierholz

That kind of balance of power game is best played by monarchies, and requires dedication and skill that I have seen no reason to believe we possess.

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Fresh from the news that the US is sending small arms and trainers to syria is the news that Iran is now intervening there directly.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-to-send-4000-troops-to-aid-president-assad-forces-in-syria-8660358.html

I don’t think we can overthrow such a force with military aid alone. So we’ll either need to do a kosovo and lend the rebels an air force as well as money and training or go full in with ground troops ourselves.

Which may be why the Russians sent SAMs to Syria in the event of just such a contingency.

And why are we there at all again?

To me, it’s like poker. The Iraqis have raised the stakes. We should call or fold. I vote fold. No point in sitting in a high stakes game if you’re not willing to stick it through to the end, and our "leading from behind" elsewhere leaves me no reassurance that we’ll do anything other than half-measures too little and too late.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I am waiting for the President to explain our national interests; but first I expect him to explain what was accomplished in Libya, and what happened at Benghazi.

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Transparency and Open Government

I really wish President Obama would go back and read the memorandum he wrote.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment

Transparency and Open Government

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.

Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperateamong themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.

I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

But this was to be the most transparent and open administration in history. I recall that in the 2008 campaign and the 2009 inaugural.

 

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Subject: Unpaid Internship Now Illegal

The courts have declared this avenue that many have taken into real jobs to be illegal. What will happen now? Companies will probably NOT pay people to do these same jobs. Fewer people working, fewer people learning how to do a job, and all that. People actually fought to get these unpaid jobs. Now a judge says that was wrong.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/06/13/unpaid_internships_violated_minimum_wage_laws_court_rules.html

Dwayne Phillips

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TFX redux: ‘After almost 12 years of development, at a cost of more than $84 billion thus far, the F-35 project hasn’t produced an aircraft in a form that can be manufactured.

<http://spectator.org/archives/2013/06/13/how-not-to-buy-a-fighter/print>

Except that even the TFX/nee F-111 only took six years from drawing board to deployment.

——–

Roland Dobbins <roland.dobbins@mac.com>

I need to revise The Strategy of Technology to incorporate modern examples; the principles have not changed. Alas I look at the list of things I must accomplish and I am frightened.

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Oath of fealty

Dr Pournelle

Reviewed Oath of Fealty <http://thelogoftheantares.blogspot.com/2013/06/ebook-review-oath-of-fealty.html> . Gave it 4 stars.

I was amused by the size of the dump MILLIE printed out: 23,567,892 bytes. FWIW in 1980 I was analyzing dumps that were measured in boxes of fanfold output. A clean run would generate 5/6 of a box. More than that meant a problem, and I had to read through the dump to find the problem. I would have been ecstatic with a dump of only 23,567,892 bytes.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

Thanks. The book is having a new spurt of sales. It holds up pretty well…

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2014 Starts Now

Jerry,

Mickey Kaus makes the point that we shouldn’t let the scandals distract us from the Senate’s current legalize-’em-now, maybe-secure-the-borders-eventually Immigration push.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/11/wake-up/

2014 starts now, and I just sent the one of my Senators that there’s some hope for the following:

Dear Senator [Redacted],

First, let me thank you for your vote on Manchin-Toomey. As I wrote to Senator [Redacted 2] at the time, it would have significantly reduced current protections (for interstate travelers, and against Federal retention of gun-ownership data.) The actual bill content contradicted the claimed effect, and I opposed that strongly enough to be writing a politician for the first time in years. I regret that I’ll have to consider Senator [Redacted 2]’s form-letter dismissal of my concerns when [it]’s up [next time]. I really appreciate your opposition to that.

Now I’m writing my second letter in a long time, to ask you to reconsider, and oppose any "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" that does not actually effectively secure the borders before any legalization can take effect. I understand the demographics from the last election, but the answer is not to join the other side in pandering to low-information voters – that’s competing with them at their game. In order to give us any hope for the future of this republic in these exceedingly perilous times, Republicans need to take the longer harder road of competing to raise voters’ information levels. That is the only game we have a real chance of winning at.

sincerely

Porkypine [Self-Redacted!]

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Dem Civil War, Legitimacy

Jerry,

Apparently I’m not the only one idly speculating that we may be seeing fallout from a Billary-Barack covert knife fight. Rich Fernandez leads off his piece "The Destroyer of Words" thusly:

"The latest scandal story about the State Department coverup of a U.S.

ambassador who was allegedly soliciting prostitutes in a public park brought two things to mind. The first, unbidden and unsupported, was that factions in the bureaucracy were at war with each other and the target of the one faction was Obama and the target of the other was She Who Must Not Be Named."

He then gets serious and makes some very good points about how legitimacy is what has allowed us to cope with ever-increasing technological power, and how the main problem isn’t the NSA "Everything"

database, it’s the growing loss of legitimacy by its masters.

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/06/11/the-destroyer-of-words/?singlepage=true

Porkypine

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The police are your friends !

An interesting CBS news investigation in which a sheriff first sexually assaulted a female under the cover of a "drug search", then arrested her when she protested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ytUl2Ie4E8Y

Recommend not watching it if you’re not prepared for your blood to boil. But remember: Officer friendly on the street is there to help!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

: Off-duty cops collect DNA samples at Alabama roadblocks | The Daily Caller

This should be disturbing to people.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/10/off-duty-cops-collect-dna-samples-at-alabama-roadblocks/

James Crawford=

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Subj: Grand Senator Bronson’s Cure

 http://www.nationalreview.com/article/350920/americas-vast-margin-error-victor-davis-hanson

This piece reminded me of a passage from Pournelle and Stirling’s _The Prince_, page 979: When Niles was a child he had loved Turkish Delight; on a visit, Adrian Bronson had grown tired of his whining and bought him a whole box while they were at a county fair on the estate. Niles could remember the exact moment when pleasure turned to disgust, just before the nausea struck; he had never been able to eat the stuff again. No lessons like those you teach yourself, his grand uncle had said to his mother.<< Alas, we seem to be teaching ourselves the Lesson on the Consequences of Excessively Large Government.

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

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Part of Everyone’s Curriculum

Jerry

http://vimeo.com/66753575

Ouch!

Ed

I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

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