Category Archives: Mail

View 762 Saturday, February 16, 2013

I have had a busy but pleasant day at Boskone, with reasonably well attended events, very long lines at the book signing event, and generally pleasant conversations including meeting a number of people I used to know quite well including some old BYTE hands. I found a Boskone suite that served me a great salad for lunch, which I much appreciated. Tomorrow I will spend part of the afternoon and possibly dinner with Marvin and Gloria Minsky. Somewhere along the line I will have to do airline checkin and print my boarding passes, and I am not quite sure how to do that, but it shouldn’t be that hard to do. The hotel seems to have a printer, and while I haven’t yet asked how it is used, I am pretty sure that if I print a pdf on a thumb drive they will be able to take care of it.

The meteor/meteorite event in the Urals will cause a slight rewrite in the opening of Lucifer’s Anvil, but it’s very much in keeping with what we have already done so no problems there.

Yea, verily.

"Hows that space program coming along?"

Just a note that this illustration is getting wide notice without credit going to the artist, Aaron Williams

http://www.offworlddesigns.com/p-814-asteroids-t-shirt.aspx

There are even other people who have been selling T-shirts with his design on it.

Aaron Williams is the author of a number of great comic strips, and I’m a big fan.

http://www.nodwick.com/

Tom Brosz

It’s late, and I need to get to bed. It has been a good day, made better by all the pleasant people. We seem to be sharing the hotel with some kind of dancing event involving wholesome looking young girls a little younger than my oldest granddaughter. They are all polite and quiet, perhaps more quiet and polite than a similar group in California would be. Very pleasant. It has all been a good trip.

Today brings the end of the winter pledge drive. It’s still not too late. If you read this place and don’t subscribe, you ought to consider subscribing. And if you can’t remember when you renewed last, this is a very good time to do that. And having said that, I have to add thanks to all those who have become new subscribers, and those who have renewed. I have tried to keep up with recording them but I wasn’t able to. Thanks for a great response, and I can stop bugging you until KUSC has its next pledge drive.

Mail 762 Thursday, February 14, 2013

Pledge week ends this Saturday. This place is open to all but it needs to be paid for. It is paid for by people like you. We have pledge drives when KUSC the LA good music station has their pledge drive. If you have been reading this place and like it, tell your friends, and it is time to subscribe.  If you subscribe and haven’t renewed in a while, this is the time to renew. I won’t be able to bug you about this (at least not much) for a while after this week so act now. http://www.jerrypournelle.com/paying.html

Walking map of Boston from google maps, and knapping

Dr. Pournelle,

I typed your starting destination, CVS, and USS Constitution into Google Maps and got your probable route, with the beta walking directions selection set. If it is accurate, you would have doubled your travel distance. While regrettable, skipping it may have been the better part of valor on your part. I could probably do this on my iPhone, but I find the controls difficult to use with uncorrected vision — and usually therefore impossible while actually walking.

I have not a similar relationship with a flint knapper to that you have described, but in my very limited study of knapping, it seems as if one might often try new hammer stones from the local environment. Perhaps the likelihood of accidentally finding pyrite, ferrous ore, or the odd chunk of meteorite is increased? Iron bearing stone is really common in the Eastern U.S. and Canada, and around the Great Lakes. Early English settlers set up smelting from ore, and I know of one Adirondak swordsmith that gets his raw materials from local stone.

Somewhat connected to some of your other recent threads, I hereby pledge my personal political support to any neo-Neanderthal that in future you care to nominate for federal office, provided he or she is smart enough to bang two rocks together. In the meantime, I suppose I’ll have to settle for the level of talent offered by the candidates of the two major parties. The current crop of Cro-Magnon somehow often fail to meet the standard.

-d

South Boston

Jerry:

The Westin Waterfront is in the Waterfront area of South Boston. "Southie" has a checkered history. It has traditionally been an area where successive waves of immigrants settled, most notably Irish. For most of the nearly 40 years that I have been in the Boston area, the waterfront was pretty run down (with the exception of a couple of excellent restaurants including Anthony’s Pier 4 and the "No Name" seafood restaurant).

When elevated highways were all the rage in the 1950’s, the major north-south interstate (I-93) cut the community (and several others) in half. That was remedied by the "Big Dig" project of the 1980’s and 1990’s which depressed the interstate into a tunnel and created the Rose Kennedy Greenway at ground level where the highway substructure had been. Boston politics being what they are, development of the area has been slow and full of contention. At one point the area was considered as a new home for the Boston Red Sox, until the Sox decided to renovate 100-year-old Fenway Park instead. A casino was also considered at one point.

In the last few years redevelopment of the area has stated in earnest, with the new convention center and a few new hotels. I think that retail districts (including pharmacies) are bound to follow.

The ship you saw was indeed the Constitution, across the mouth of the Charles River in Charlestown.

The remnants of the Blue Laws in Massachusetts dictate no wine, beer, or liquor for sale in pharmacies or food stores, only in liquor stores and "package stores" (convenience stores).

New Hampshire has state-run liquor stores (and private liquor stores as well), but not Massachusetts.

If you have any free time, you could walk some of the Freedom Trail, or visit the new Institute of Contemporary Art (a short walk from your hotel) or Fort Independence, a Civil War fort that can be walked around (and climbed through) about 2 miles from you. There are also "Duck Boat" tours using restored WWII era DUKW’s. I think that one terminal for the Duck Tours is at the New England Aquarium, which is also very near you in South Boston.

A few links:

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

http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/

http://www.bostonducktours.com/

I hope the rest of your stay in "The Hub of the Universe" goes well, although I hear we might get more snow this weekend.

Best regards,

Doug Ely

I have done the Freedom Walk and actually driven the course of Paul Revere’s ride, years ago in a car full of MIT and Harvard students. Very pleasant journey. I will have no real free time this weekend but thank you for the information and good wishes.

Ammunition for Education

Regarding the mountains of small arms and ammunition recently acquired by the Departments of Education, Agriculture and heaven only knows who else, I had a thought. It is a disturbing thought.

It is generally known that those serving in the regular armed forces cannot be relied upon to bear arms against American citizens. Someone will surely remind me of Kent State, but that was the Ohio National Guard and I believe we have learned the lessons of that sad event. It is very possible that there are some in uniform who will simply obey orders – however reluctantly – even if the orders are unlawful. However, I believe that they will be restrained by those who cannot be persuaded to do so, and many of those will be officers. Anyone attempting to use the Army or Marine Corps against Americans will be in for a rude surprise.

That said, the weapons and ammunition in reference here did not go to the regulars; they went to other departments that, as mentioned, have never before felt the need to be armed at all, let alone to this astonishing extent. I am not given to alarmism or conspiracy theories, but are there dots here that could be connected?

Perhaps, as many, if not all, the sources from which these departments purchased their ammunition came into existence immediately before the orders were placed (OK, I haven’t fact-checked this), it was simply a convenient way to funnel public dollars to pay off political debts and the goods will simply remain in warehouses.

Richard White

Austin, Texas

Don’t you hate it when you hope something is just a common crook scam and not a conspiracy? Fortunately that’s the usual explanation. No data on this one.

Vietnam stuff –

I am a Vietnam veteran. My own experience of the war is unremarkable; I was a radar technician on an aircraft carrier. As such, I did not experience much in the way of stress of any kind. However, I have known those who did and who received less than civil treatment when they returned, though perhaps not a dramatic as Mr. Hamit’s or that of his Marine colonel.

For those who seek enlightenment in this regard, the book Zero Dark Thirty, by Samuel Brantley, is the place to start. This book is the personal account of a Marine aviator in Vietnam and thus has no relationship to the recent book/movie of the same name.

Examples of the "Crazy Years"

Jerry,

Inadvertently funny lines from the SotU, selected by IBD:

<http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021313-644354-accidental-humor-in-state-of-union.htm>

"It is not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government."

"As long as countries like China keep going all in on clean energy, so must we."

"Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs."

"We can’t cut our way to prosperity."

Mayor Bloomberg strike’s again!

<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/nyregion/next-bloomberg-target-plastic-foam-cups.html>

"It is the most humble of vessels for New York City foodstuffs, ubiquitous at Chinese takeout joints and halal street carts. In pre-Starbucks days, coffee came packaged in its puffy embrace.

But the plastic-foam container may soon be going the way of trans fats, 32-ounce Pepsis, and cigarettes in Central Park.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose regulatory lance has slain fatty foods, supersize sodas, and smoking in parks, is now targeting plastic foam, the much-derided polymer that environmentalists have long tried to restrict."

While living in Robert Heinlein’s "Crazy Years" I have decided that I shall:

1) laugh rather than cry; and

2) continue to eagerly wait to be taxed for not eating my peas!

See:

President Obama, Press Conference at White House, July 11, 2011, <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/11/press-conference-president> and

National Federation of Independent Business et al. v. Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al. Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh No. 11-393. Argued March 26, 27, 28, 2012- decided June 28, 2012 <http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf>

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

These things shall pass away. Free people will remain.

fire by banging rocks together

Jerry,

You mentioned wondering when starting fires by banging flint and steel together became common, but it does not require pure flint or pure steel. Some rocks have a high enough metallic content in them that they spark quite nicely when banged together, requiring zero metallurgical knowledge or tech to utilize. My high school science teacher had two rocks, shaped into near-perfect spheres but not polished. The round shape was to minimize the contact patch between them when banged together, and firmly whacking them together caused a very satisfying shower of sparks. These were natural stones, shaped into spheres with modern stone carving techniques to make the spark generation easier and more consistent. Supposedly they were popular with survivalists, but I haven’t seen similar sets in a long time.

During training as a USAF survival instructor, I was required to demonstrate proficiency starting fires using varying levels of assistance. The “graduate level” was starting a fire using nothing but rain soaked deadwood and a standard USAF issue survival knife, without using the knife as a spark generator. The trick is to split open the deadwood to the dry inner wood and shred it a bit, then use the age-old friction techniques to heat some wood powder to the point of combustion in the middle of the dry section of the split log. I wasn’t that good but I did manage to start a fire with dry materials, without any petrochemicals or metallic spark generators. Finding the right kind of rocks to bang together probably isn’t something that happens quickly but a tribe might need to find only one source for such rocks to be set up for generations.

Nowadays, a bag of cotton balls smeared with some Vaseline, a boy scout standard swiss army knife, and boy scout fire starter flint ought to be located in every emergency kit you ever make. With a little care in preparation, that was all I ever needed to quickly start a fire even in fairly heavy rain or snow.

Sean

: more fire

Jerry,

Here is one guy’s story about learning how to make fire consistently by banging 2 rocks together.

http://www.wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/fire/twostones/abbww/index.html

Sean

I thought I knew something about this sort of thing. Now I know more. Thanks. I used to tell survivalists to collect fire starting materials they knew how to use, but be sure to have matches and working lighters at hand. And as Mark Csescu observes in Hammer, you can start a fire in a blizzard with a railroad flare…

Dorner Papal Conspiracy (I confess)

Jerry,

I honestly made up the stuff about the Swiss guard & GMO wheat. I am sometimes tempted to write my own conspiracy theories, and loosely connect them to existing ones. The morning the papal story broke, I was wondering what sort of things the conspirasphere would come up with and at that particular moment lacking an intartube connection, I decided to make up my own theory. I don’t think there are any existing consp. theories connecting Dorner to the Illuminati plan to take over the papacy. I believe if one were to make the case, even a tenuous (sp) case, for it that the community would rapidly fill in the gaps and flesh it out with ‘relevant’ data points.

There are theories/predictions surrounding the papacy. St. Malachy dates back to the Dark Ages, I believe, and lists all the popes somewhat cryptically from his time to now, the next pope to be the last on St. Malachy’s list. Nostradomus said something in regard to the papacy about "the black rising to the red" or something like that in one of his quatrains, some believe that means we will have a black pope. They interpret this to mean that a black man will become a cardinal (the red) and from there go on to become the Pope. And apparently there is a conspiracy theory dating from the 1800s about the Illuminati’s plan to take over the Papacy for their own nefarious ends.

My initial idea for my conspiracy was to name it "Illuminati’s Revenge," a play on Montezuma’s revenge, hence the GMO wheat in the eucharist which induces Irritable Bowel Syndrome (or gluten allergy/ celiac disease as I understand bowel issues are associated with those maladies), and if that wasn’t sensational enough, the addition of the corruption of the legendary Swiss guard was to be the ‘gotcha’ for it.

The Dorner case, perhaps was over-reaching it a bit on my part, to tie that in would require aliens or something equally outlandish. Since the authorities seemed to be having difficulty locating the guy, Sasquatch definitely lept to mind. It now appears that he is dead (there is a whole conspiracy theory on why the LAPD wanted him dead and not alive). My last ‘tounge-in-cheek" observation on the whole affair is this; apparently there was a report that Dorner was seen getting into a horse stable somewhere in the mountains; I propose that he was last seen riding off into the sunset on a unicorn from Obama’s private herd. (Recall that Elvis never died, Hitler lived on in Argentina until the 70s, and other notororious figures have a life from beyond the grave…)

I suppose I have a slightly warped sense of humor, and perhaps too much time on my hands. But there it is, my confession!

Well, I don’t necessarily believe all the stories that amuse me enough that I retell them. If I do I generally make that plain.

A reflection made more than a year ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/world/asia/24pakistan.html?pagewanted=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Read this. It turns out that Osama’s trusted courier had contacts with Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen (a militant group closely associated with ISI), and seems to have used it as part of his support network inside the country. A more significant quote, buried on the second page: "the spy agency routinely handled militant leaders it considered assets — placing them under protective custody in cities, often close to military installations. " Speaking of ISI. OK, so ISI was caching Bin Laden, probably using him when convenient, for example when Musharraf wanted to knock off Benazir Bhutto. It already looked like that, now it seems almost certain.

Remember when that asshole Safire was suggesting a conversation of unknown content between someone at the Iraqi Embassy in the Czech Republic and Mohammed Atta was a casus belli? A conversation that never even happened? Remember when the Warren Commission was shared shitless that the Soviets had ordered JFK murdered? Like, what were they supposed to do if they found that to be the case and it got out? Push the button?

This is the real deal: hiding Bin Laden for years IS a casus belli. Even the Israelis couldn’t get away with _that_.

Pakistan is more of an enemy than Iraq ever was, more than Iran. Of course neither of them ever did much to us . More even than Libya (I’m counting Lockerbie).

Pakistan is more of an enemy than anyone we’re whacking in Afghanistan.

But we’d have to admit that we were PAYING the people sheltering Bin Laden for the past six years: the Fools at the Top would have to admit that were wrong. That won’t happen. We may continue to pretend to get along with Pakistan for years more, so that they will allow our logistics for Afghanistan, a pointless and expensive war. And, of course, to avoid admitting what utter, poisonous damn fools our leaders are.

And I wonder if this goes deeper yet. A real fair chance that Musharraf was in on it. And might they have been involved with Bin Laden earlier?

Involved in 9-11 itself? You have to wonder. With friends like these….

Greg

And what has changed?

Dishwashers harbour ‘killer bugs’

Jerry

Dishwashers have nasty fungi in them:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8589765/Dishwashers-harbour-killer-bugs.html

“The scientists studied 189 dishwashers in 101 different homes around the world. They found 62 per cent of dishwashers contained fungi on the rubber band in the door. More than half of these included the black yeasts Exophiala dermatitidis and E. phaeomuriformis which are known to be dangerous to human health. Writing in the journal Fungal Biology, Dr Polona Zalar of the University of Ljubljana, said that "the potential hazard they represent should not be overlooked." . . . "One thing that is not in the report is that we tested the dishes after they had been cleaned in these dishwashers and they were full of this black yeast, so too the cutlery that you put in your mouth. We just don’t know how serious this could be."

“Black yeasts are particularly dangerous for people with cystic fibrosis, as they are able to attack the lungs. They have also been found to occasionally cause fatal infections in healthy humans. Both Exophiala species displayed remarkable tolerance to heat, high salt concentrations, aggressive detergents and to both acid and alkaline water. This explains why the fungi survived even in high temperatures between 60 º to 80 º C, and despite the use of detergents and salt in the dishwasher.”

So, now what?

Ed

This was some time ago. I have seen little about it since.

A recent correspondent mentioned that we have not heard from Petronius in a long time. I realized that was true. Here is an older unpublished note from him. Email to his last address fails. I hope to hear from him again. He had much to say.

Dear Jerry,

Correspondent "J" pointed to an article about DARPA ponying up half a megabuck for a Paper Study on how to get humans to another star.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/17/pentagon-dreams-stark-trek-style-interstellar-travel/ <http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/17/pentagon-dreams-stark-trek-style-interstellar-travel/>

Aside from my idle thought of buying a paperback copy of Heinlein’s CHILDREN OF THE SKY and submitting that as my proposal, I found it interesting that the funding is intended to "kick start" a Hundred-Year Plan for Star Travel.

Did these DARPA guys read TIME FOR THE STARS (Heinlein again), with its Long Range Foundation doing exactly that? I suppose, now that Bell Labs is just another TelComm R and D center tasked with finding better ways to distribute amateur porn, DARPA is the closest thing we’ve got to a LONG RANGE FOUNDATION.

However, there is a Fundamental Misapprehension in both the Call For Proposals as well as in the Hundred-Year-Plan concept.

It’s evident here (from the article)-

The grant would be "seed money" to help someone start thinking about the idea and then get it off the ground in the private sector, David Neyland, director of DARPA’s tactical technology office, said in a Thursday teleconference.

This is not about going to a nearby planet, like Mars. And it is not about using robotic probes, which does not interest the Defense Department, Neyland said. (Emphasis Affed)

Cart, Meet Horse.

End of quote-

Earth is a planetary civilization. Planetary civilization’s do not do Interstellar Travel. Civilization’s don’t have sustainable aspirations greater than their current resources can sustain.

Case in point- When Europe was an Intracontinental civilization, still concerned with getting the European woods cut down, swamps drained, barbarians tamed and wolves doggifed, until some very basic infrastructure for a Continental Civilization was in place, no one put much effort into traveling to other continents. It was fun to talk about, "Traveler’s Tales" were a popular form of what was, for them, Science Fction. Nothing serious.

Once Europe became a continental civilization, suddenly it was Steam Engine Time for seeing what was on the other side of the Ocean Sea.

So the Hundred Year Plan for Interstellar Go Buggies ought, -ought-, OUGHT include, indeed should primarily be about, all the myriad ways of getting humans to Luna, Mars, the asteroids, comets, space stations and every other conceivable manner of building the Basic Infrastructure of an Interplanetary Civilization.

Because an -INTER-Planetary Civilization will see a Need For Interstellar Travel. No one had to pay Da Gama, Columbus and Frbisher to dream of crossing the sea. This will hold true for their spiritual heirs in an interplantary socety, contemplating interstellar voyages.

As it is, the DARPA plan is as if Caesar Augustus one day called in Agrippa and ordered him to get his shipwrights together and "Build me a Clipper Ship!"

Petronius

I often stack up mail that ought to be published then neglect it. Tonight it’s late after pleasant dinner with Vernor Vinge and other friends, and on a whim I have randomly entered a mail archive. Astonishing how much good stuff I find in mail I wasn’t able to use immediately. I’ll keep mining it.

Homework

Dr. Pournelle,

The NYT article

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/education/16homework.html is a fine example of what drives me crazy about the media. It takes an important subject and turns it into an intellectual food fight.

It starts out with a simple question, which presumably is supposed to illustrate the intractable nature of the homework issue, “How many times do you have to add seven plus two?” In the real world, the answer is simple and obvious : Until you don’t have to think about it.

The statement quoted by Joel Salomon, “There is simply no proof that most homework as we know it improves school performance.” appears carefully crafted, and is not necessarily as radical as it seems. It does not claim outright that homework does not help children learn. One might reasonably assume that the homework process could be improved. But sober research into making time spent on homework more effective would be boring. It is much more sensational to argue about abolishing homework entirely, and a much easier story to write if you just quote proponents from both sides and throw in a few anecdotes. Then you don’t have to waste time with the really dull research into boring studies with quantifiable results. Things get so complicated with populations and methodologies and statistical significance. Food fight!

This is one of several articles I have read recently about school being too demanding on kids. I suppose it may be true, but if so, shouldn’t today’s kids be better educated than previous generations? Is anyone really making that case?

Steve Chu

Subject: Admitting to the Obvious about Burning Food

A couple of government studies finally admit to the obvious. Burning food causes food prices to rise.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/37848/?ref=rss

—

Dwayne Phillips

And we have known it for years but still we mandate ethanol from corn to be auto fuel. Burn, baby, burn.

The Iron Law Supplement

Jerry,

I am not yet sure how this fits in with the Iron Law, but it fits together in a large pattern that I am sorting through. Procedures vs.

Expertise Law seem to be part of this.

The Procedures vs. Expertise Law — which I plan to update to another man’s last name followed by mine once I perfect it — basically states that in a bureaucracy we have two types of people: experts (Es) and proceedurists (Ps). This statement does not conflict with the Iron Law and may correlate with it. Just a personal would be more individualist or collectivist and high-context or low-context — on two different dichotomies related to measuring cultural tendencies — one could be a type 1 or type 2 Iron Law person and also an E or a P.

Experts have the knowledge, but expertise demands responsibility. So, the expert knows the deal but he must micromanage and that takes time and puts the expert at risk. If the expert makes a bad decision, the expert can recieve negative sanction. Ps do not have expert knowledge; they follow procedures. You can see this in McDonalds — if you can get them to let you into the kitchen — and I recommend trying it. I read about it and couldn’t believe it and I had to see it for myself. It’s all lights and buzzers and, basically, procedure.

The forms must be filled our properly, but why? Because most bureaucrats are not experts, and they are little more than fast food workers making the lights and buzzers stop. If they get five black squares and the standard is five black squares, they push the green button. Else, they push the red button.

I have a suspicion the type that serves the organization is the P.

Why? The P is useless because anyone can do the Ps job. We need the P, but we do not need the individual who serves as a P. Really, when we get decent scanning technology we won’t need people to see that forms are filled out correctly and the Iron Law may need revision because we won’t have those people in the bureaucracy anymore and I think that will be great. Automation may save us from bureaucratic bloat, frustration, etc. But, what are we going to do with these people?

Now, I want to end this email on a positive, and related note. I originally emailed you to send this, but I went off on a tangent in my head and realized that it applied to the Iron Law and might interest you or the readership. So here was the original point, to put a smile on some faces:

NO SALESPERSON

MAY LEAVE THE FLOOR

OR GO TO THE DOOR

WITHOUT THE AUTHORIZATION

OF A SUPERIOR.

THE MGT.

"He came back several times in the next few weeks, and the sign remained. It was as he suspected: in a rigid hierarchy, nobody questions orders that seem to come from above, and those at the very top are so isolated from the actual work situation that they never see what is going on below. It was the chains of communication, not the means of production, that determined a social process.. Nothing signed "THE MGT." would ever be challenged; the Midget could always pass himself off as the Management." –Robert Anton Wilson, The Illumiantus! Trilogy

[Readers could use Jerry’s little Amazon icon and click that to order so that Jerry can get some extra walking around money.]

——–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I set this aside for another day over a year ago. Things flow here so. There is a classic SF story about how a chap in an over organized society finds that the orders come from ‘suggestions’ from the only sane man left in the city. A janitor…

And you could subscribe right now. It won’t take long.  http://www.jerrypournelle.com/paying.html

Mail 762 Wednesday, February 13, 2013

overvaluing abstract thought

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

I certainly see your point about intellectuals overvaluing abstract thought; I’ve learned over the course of my life how many things there are that being intelligent and analytical doesn’t help me do. But there are other cases of overvaluing one specific human ability.

When the large publishing firm I used to work for let me go, about a decade ago (in the course of changing from in-house copy editing to outsourcing the function to India), they very generously sent me to training on job searching. One of the things we discussed there was "career anchors," or the different sorts of things that people primarily want from their work. One of the recognized career anchors was Managerial Competence, or the drive to make decisions for an organization, supervise other people, and in general be a high-level administrator. Another was Technical Competence, or the drive to do actual challenging work, about which they noted that Technical Competence people view managing other people as an inconvenient chore that has to be dealt with to get real work done. That resonated with me, as I had systematically avoided becoming a manager in favor of becoming a more highly skilled copy editor. But I noticed that the reward structure of my corporation, and I believe of a lot of corporations, was organized around the reward for successful work being promotion to management. Now, this theory of different work motivations seems not to be an arcane secret—it’s the sort of thing that’s taught in workshops!—so I expect a lot of corporate managers have actually encountered it; and yet this hasn’t changed the corporate culture of becoming a manager being what all the cool kids are doing, perhaps because corporations are, obviously, run by managers who themselves have Managerial Competence as their career anchors.

(You can find a sketch of this at http://changingminds.org/explanations/values/career_anchors.htm , if you’re curious.)

More recently, a friend who still works there told me about one of the firm’s stakeholder meetings at which a local manager expressed the opinion that anyone who wasn’t trying to become a manager, and just wanted to do their work, was an undesirable employee who ought to be eased out in favor of people with more goals. This led to one of the general managers explaining that, to the contrary, those people were an invaluable resource for the corporation, which depended on them to actually maintain its functioning and preserve necessary knowledge. I have to say I think that was a good sign. The idea that management is the only thing that has value, and that a good manager can make gold out of straw, strikes me as a dangerous illusion. And it’s akin, in some ways, to the illusion that abstract reasoning ability is the only thing that has value—not least in that government officials are subject to it (though it may be one that Republicans suffer from more often than Democrats).

(Interestingly, Ayn Rand wrote in her journals that it was an illusion that her heroine, Dagny Taggart, was suffering from. . . .)

William H. Stoddard

In the old dirty blue shirt army in the west after the Civil War, when it was the mission of the army to build roads into the new frontier and protect the early settlers – see James Warner Bellah’s stories of Captain Brittles, and Kirby York, and the days of the one-troop post where a man might be a captain until he retired or died in the saddle – in those days we did not build the Peter Principle into the military. You promoted a man until he was doing the right job and doing it well, and you left him alone to do it. You had to because there wasn’t money to do a lot less. One year the Congress forgot to appropriate money for the army of the west, and the officers and he locals they were protecting scraped by on donations and requisitions and meals paid out of the officers pockets until Congress woke up and took notice,

Lots of military forces have had professional privates: men who would fight, and obey orders, and develop skills, but who wanted no responsibility, not even for choosing their missions. A number of those survived World War II and came to Korea, called up in the desperate need to have an overseas army again after we dismantled it,

A stable work force with companies making steady but not spectacular profits, steady employment – there are fare worse economies than one which provides goods and services, good workmanship at fair prices. Of course they can’t stand competition from bottom feeders.

The United States desperately needs honorable and useful employment at least the top half of the bottom half of the work force. A republic will not survive making a large part of its population voters who make no contribution to the polity other than vote and provide progeny.

‘Is this any way to run a bank — let alone a global financial system?’

<http://baselinescenario.com/2013/02/09/the-importance-of-excel/>

Roland Dobbins

Worth reading but beware optimizing on the wrong variables.

Salting of Carthage

A while back you wondered whether the Romans actually "salted" Carthage after they destroyed the city. My understanding is that this is a myth. First off, salt was a very precious commodity in ancient times and in fact, the Romans actually paid their legionnaires in salt, a practice from which we get our word "salary." So, I doubt very much that they would waste something so precious in salting the ground.

The second thing to remember is that afterwards, the Romans actually established a fairly large resort on the ruins of Carthage, the ruins [of the resort]of which still stand, more or less. Its a popular tourist stop and I have pictures somewhere.

Finally, having recently read Richard Miles book, "Carthage Must be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization" which is a history of Carthage and its conflict with Rome which. Mills describes the Carthage final destruction (razed to the ground, its the survivors sold into slavery), and mentions the Romans cursed the grounds, he makes no direct mention of the ground being sown with salt.

L.J. Brooks

Kingston, Ontario

The Romans ritually sowed salt on the ground of an enemy it wished to humiliate or obliterate. This is well recorded. But it was a ritual. They didn’t use tons,

Photon drive flaw

Jerry,

It might be a flaw in Mote, but it was a slight flaw. Your portrayal of McArthur’s intercept of the Motie lightsail conforms to my calculation of what the Delta Vee of a fusion rocket with a reasonable mass ratio might be. Of course the power density of a fusion rocket that is capable of boosting at 6 gees is nothing short of astonishing.

Those pesky belters with their torch ships cause all types of problems.

Re. the horsemeat burgers issue

As far as I can tell, the issue is not whether one eats horsemeat – or donkey, which is probably extremely similar. That is a cultural issue; Brits eat it much less than other Europeans do. The issue is twofold. First of all, the issue of knowing what you are eating; if one is buying beefburgers it is reasonable to expect that the meat in them is beef and only beef – unless, of course, they have on the packaging in reasonably large type a statement that they may contain small amounts of other meats. The other point is that the horsemeat in question might be contaminated with amounts of a veterinary painkiller, commonly used on horses, large enough to cause harm to humans who eat it.

Further to that, there is also another question. If your suppliers are unscrupulous enough to put bits of a completely different animal into the meat they are selling you, how can you be sure that there aren’t other things in it as well? E. coli, listeria, salmonella, Clostridium botulinum…

Regards,

Ian Campbell

Of course I do not disagree. I have always thought that enforcing a reasonable amount of truth in advertising was all the power the government needed for foods and drugs. I don’t mind if they sell snake biles so long as the jar contains actual biles of actual snakes. I don’t even mind if the government requires to you stamp your snake oil “The US government thinks this stuff is more likely to kill you than do you any good, and you’re crazy to buy it.” I do mind if they jail you for selling it after that warning and it really does contain snake biles.

Enforce a measure of truth about the stuff.

Spengler on the Decline of Islam and the Strategic Import

Jerry,

Spengler has a very interesting article recapping his thoughts in reply to David Ignatius of the WaPo.

David Ignatius, A Demographic Shift in the Muslim World, Washington Post, 2/8/13,

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-a-demographic-shift-in-the-muslim-world/2013/02/08/54ce7bf0-7152-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html>

Spengler’s money quote:

"But it does not seem likely that the foreign policy establishment, once having noticed the demographic elephant in the parlor, will draw the obvious inference: a society that suddenly stops having children suffers from cultural despair. The same cultural despair that curtains off the future for families afflicts policymakers. Cultural pessimism is a great motivation for strategic adventures. A nation that fears that it may have no future may be willing to risk everything on the roll of a dice. Iran has one last big generation of military age men, the ones who were born in the early 1980s before the great weapons. Nothing but the use of force would stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, with dreadful consequences. With Iran on the verge of building a nuclear bomb, we have hit crunch-time. Will the foreign policy establishment connect the dots in time?"

Spengler (David P. Goldman), Fertility, Faith, and the Decline of Islam: Strategic Implications, PJ Media, 2/11/13,

<http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2013/02/11/fertility-faith-and-the-decline-of-islam-strategic-implications/?singlepage=true>

I hope Spengler’s concerns do not come to fruition. If they do not, things look like they might straighten out for us in the sense that the jihadist movement may fizzle out during the gentrification of the Muslim population as it continues to play with "cultural weapons of mass destruction."

But as you note we will be playing with them too! <https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?m=20130102>

I suppose I expect way too much in hoping to see the jihadist movement fizzle out in my lifetime. But then I have seen the end of the 70 years war and the Moon landing; pretty darn good for a lifetime. But I had hoped to be on the Moon doing research….

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

Eventually the cultural weapons of mass destruction will depopulate Iran, and other youthful Muslim communities, But they have to be employed. And we have to endure while they do their work.

RE: Defense Dept software tracks you thru social media buffy willow

One more reason to avoid social media like a social disease.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/10/software-tracks-social-media-defence

Considering we can’t even write a program to reliably predict DVD tastes from many thousands of input ratings (i.e. Netflix’s recommendations system is bloody awful), I do not have high hope for the accuracy of this. Of course the Gummint, having paid millions for it and its implementation will doubtless use is as 100% rationale for droning your home.

"There is nothing more terrifying than stupidity in action." – Chuck Taylor

Cordially,

John

I generally don’t have social media accounts

I got your job — sort of

Jerry:

I used to follow your columns in Byte back in the day (before way too much day job work and 3 kids 🙂 ). I never dreamed that I would actually end up writing for money. Although it isn’t my day job, it most certainly is my night/weekend job that is helping put my sons through Texas A&M.

I read your article on How to Get My Job since my oldest son has finished the first of several books in the Fantasy genre. I pointed him at your article as well as the Heinlein piece. It was timely since he is actually taking a creative writing class this semester. It will help him calibrate his expectations of the class. You are absolutely correct about needing to know how to write correctly as well as having the talent for the thoughts. My son has his biggest struggle with grammar and spelling. Your advice to write a lot has helped him in that regard.

I was interested in your thoughts to see if any of your advice would have helped me along the way. It would have, but I discovered many of your thoughts independently.

I started down the path of becoming reacquainted with your writing because I adopted your REAL SOON NOW expression many years ago. I used it recently and it reminded me to go to the Web and search for you.

I hope all is well with you these days.

Ray Mack

Apparently I have helped several people get my job. http://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/myjob.html is still good advice to be read, but it does need revision in the light of the new market structure. Still, the basis advice is sound.

On the EBook Antitrust Settlement

Dr. Pournelle,

Back in April, you mentioned the DOJ antitrust lawsuit against Apple et al. regarding ebook prices at <https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=6814>.

I’ve just read <http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/02/a-message-from-john-sargent>

and thought you’d find it… interesting, I suppose—and disturbing, and in about equal parts. Remind me again what the ‘J’ in “DOJ” is supposed to stand for?

—Joel Salomon

Congress does not understand the new commerce, nor will it for a while. Perhaps a common law will develop.

Subject: Gun Free Zone

How simple is this? This is the ANSWER!!! Amazing.

Why didn’t someone think of this before? It will work. I can see absolutely NO reason that it won’t cut down on gun violence.

JJ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SQcnE5lnPxg#!

REMEMBER-It only works if you have the sign.

Measuring the efficacy of the US educational system

Hello Jerry,

Over the past few days you and several of your correspondents have been discussing the need to ‘measure’ the results of various government programs, with much of the commentary being focused on the educational system. The consensus is that it is hopelessly ineffective.

Not true.

Remember, efficacy is to be measured against objectives.

When I was a mere lad in grade school in the late 40’s/early 50’s, one of the ‘facts’ that I had to learn was that a gentleman named John Dewey was ‘The Father of American Education’. So I learned it.

Dewey was the ‘father’ because he and his supporters were the ones who pushed for mandatory universal public education. And succeeded in getting it implemented to the point that the mere suggestion that it has not been the best of ideas and suffers, if at all, only from a lack of funds ends all discussion. Mandatory public education, run by the state, is sacrosanct. As anyone who has ever questioned the budget of a local school board will quickly learn.

What WASN’T widely publicized in my classes was the reason that Dewey and his crew were so enthusiastic in their drive to make schools schools publicly funded and, more importantly, mandatory. I. e: what are the objectives of public education that our results should be measured against?

The primary objectives, based on writing in the early stages, was to indoctrinate the students with socialism and loyalty to the state and to reinforce the principle that the commands of the state were unquestionable. In other words, using the terms of the current idol of the education establishment, Mao, they were to be ‘re-education centers’. If it were necessary to impart a fact or two to keep the money flowing to socialist causes and maintain control of our children during their formative years, so be it, but ‘educating’ the students, as it is traditionally understood, was NEVER the primary objective.

With the true objective in mind, I think the most steely-eyed and hard-nosed evaluators of the education system could ‘measure’ the results achieved, especially among the ‘best and brightest’ who move on from high school through our institutions of higher learning, and declare that the educational system has been wildly successful. Its product is socialist (Democratic–but I repeat myself) to the point where non-socialists on some college campuses must conceal their true feelings under threat of physical violence. Do you think, for example, that a non-socialist has ANY chance of graduating from a prestigious journalism school in the top half of of his class? More importantly, it has effectively reduced the possibility of re-establishing our former Constitutional Republic to zero. See the results of our recent election after the electorate had the chance to observe the Obamunists in action for four years. The more ‘educated’ the electoral subset, the stronger its support for Obama and his policies.

So yeah, the mandatory public education system has been extremely successful in achieving the objective for which it was established. It can only be viewed as unsuccessful when compared against the Potemkin objective of imparting proficiency in what may loosely be described as ‘The 3R’s’.

Bob Ludwick=

And if you have read all this and have never subscribed, this would be a good time to do it. And if you don’t recall when you last renewed your subscription, it’s about time you did it, no? The pledge drive ends at the end of the week. Subscribe now. Renew Now. Talk a friend into subscribing now.

Mail 762 Tuesday, February 12, 2013

The pledge drive is still on. This place is free to all but it is supported by subscribers.

Neanderthals

Hi Jerry,

In the linked article about recreating Neanderthals, Church, the idea’s exponent, is quoted saying, "You would certainly have to create a cohort, so they would have some sense of identity. They could maybe even create a new neo-Neanderthal culture and become a political force."

What a confused thought. Culture is not hardwired into anybody’s DNA. First-generation Neanderthals will only have the same material for creating culture as the homo sapiens who raise them.

And while it’s fine to speculate about bringing back Neanderthals, the reality of creating breeding stock and controlling them in any way to further the experiment is problematic. Does anyone doubt Neanderthals are people? The experiment would have to be throttled in the name of humanity.

–Mike Glyer

That’s an exceedingly old fashioned conservative view, isn’t it? Surely if it is created in the laboratory it belongs to its creator. Of course there are alternate views of who is the Creator. C.S. Lewis foresaw this kind of thing in “The Abolition of Man,” a book that few read now, alas.

As to how much culture is hardwired, surely that would be the point of the experiment?

And we have one reader’s question:

Every now and then someone comes up with a piece about using DNA and clone technology to re-create the Neanderthal species of humanity.

——————–

Why would we want to when we have Congress?

Teachers unions are worse that you thought

Jerry,

This article:

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/02/pps_employees_snub_medicaid_fu.html

details how the teachers union in Portland Oregon is refusing to complete paperwork that would provide 1.5 Million in Federal Medicare reimbursements unless the teachers get extra pay for filling out the paperwork.

Mike Plaster

And yet would not most teachers be horrified? Pournelle’s Iron Law at work, to the detriment of the profession.

Your dog really does understand you… They’re more likely to

steal food if they think you can’t see, research reveals | Mail Online

Jerry:

I am amazed that anyone would suggest that dogs don’t consider the

risk of being caught. This is why only the bravest or most foolish will allow their dog to roam the kitchen unattended.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2276973/Your-dog-really-does-understand–Theyre-likely-steal-food-think-research-reveals.html#axzz2KhXJNXbe

James Crawford=

You left out most indulgent

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

Guilty as charged.

I allow the Lap Labs to sit in my lap.

James Crawford

“Tether a beast at midnight, and by dawn it will know the length of its tether,” said Cotton Mather.  It’s true enough of dogs. Now that Sable has cancer and we know she will not be with us too much longer, we let her get away with more; and she certainly has noticed that her tether is longer. Our solution is to be extra careful about leaving things out. But just as dogs believe that things that hit the floor are legally theirs, they will consider themselves entitled to anything they get away with a few times and begin acting indignant if  berated for doing what they had always before known better.  Not much different from adolescent children. One can learn a lot from keeping dogs…

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

In your recent correspondence, you stated:

"It is an interesting study on just how much disruption one man can cause. I once had a student who did a term paper on that subject, and it frightened me: I persuaded him not to publish it and arranged for him to go to graduate school at the Center for Strategic Studies. He now works sometimes with my son in the Pentagon."

I do not wish to pry into this research, but I do want to ask two questions:

1) If one man can screw up the lives of so many people, is it also possible for one man to make the lives of other people better? In modern society, do humans have the same potential for good as they do for evil?

2) Without getting to the cases that would get back to the original research, do you have any suggestions for how #1 would be achieved?

I sometimes wonder how much we miss out on, for ourselves and for our fellow man, simply because we don’t know what’s possible.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

But for most of mankind’s cultural history, literature was about how one man made the lives of other people – sometimes those just around him, sometimes many more, once, perhaps, all of mankind. In modern times many have that capability. Next month I will be publishing the California 1914 Sixth Grade Reader, with a few additional stories, one being Doc Mellhorn and the Pearly Gates by Stephen Vincent Benet (who died in March, 1942); much of that book consists of poems and stories about one man who made a difference. Or one woman for that matter. The story of Florence Nightingale comes to mind.

Of course most of our schools no longer have such stories in their Sixth Grade Readers.

One need not be spectacular about making the world a little bit better. Some have many more resources than others, but anyone can do it. If you have a mind to, look up an Anglican hymn “I sing a song of the saints of God.”

21 Century contribution

Ian Macmillan wrote on 2.9.13:

"The problem is that roughly fifty percent of the population has an IQ < 100, and few of these people can make significant contributions to the creative opportunities of the 21st century."

I doubt those with IQs of <100 will invent a new calculus, but having worked with several tradesmen — a plumber, electrician, and carpenter — none of whom were intellectual giants, I can say they all make much more significant contributions to 21 Century society than Urban Studies majors. They were all pleasant, personable, and professional and I found them interesting and engaging.

Had my life taken a different path, I may have become a machinist instead of the editor of a magazine about machining. Those people, and the master tradesmen, are the people who keep the US running.

It has become a folly to suggest we should all be college bound.

I went to a technical high school back in the mid-’60s and about two percent of us were in college prep. The other boys were taking foundry, cabinet making, automotive, electrical, and other "hands-on" careers and could look forward to pretty good jobs upon graduation. The same for the girls who took secretarial, food service, bookkeeping, and "business."

The grads got jobs, got married, had kids, and contributed to society instead of burdening themselves with six-figure student loans to get graduate degrees in Art History and them moving back into their parents’ basements.

Pete Nofel

When I first went to work for Boeing we determined that we would be in our thirties before the average engineer would have cumulatively earned as much as a hard working mechanic, riveter, or other aircraft assembly worker joining up as an apprentice just out of high school would make if we factored in costs of education and the years spent earning nothing and not accumulating pension years as well as earning hourly pay. Now of course the average Boeing worker was probably IQ 95-105 while the college grad engineers would have been at a higher level of intelligence, but you get the idea. Intelligence – the ability to manipulate abstract symbols – is only important for some skills, and one has to be really smart to overcome bad and arrogant attitudes.

Half the population is below average, which hardly means they are useless; it does mean that it makes no sense to try to make them school teachers or civil engineers or lawyers. The arrogance of the intellectuals who assume that all those who aren’t intellectuals are benighted is often astounding.

Breadbasket of the Empire

Hi,

I found Ed’s question interesting, so I had a look. Reliable statistics seem hard to come by, but:

"Annual grain production in Roman Africa [ie Tunisia+Algeria] has been estimated at more than a million tons"

http://books.google.fr/books?id=tW9PM9RxDwAC&lpg=PA25&dq=roman%20africa%20wheat%20production%20tons&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q=roman%20africa%20wheat%20production%20tons&f=false

"Caesar’s expanded province of Africa… was already shipping to the capital 50,000 tons of grain a year. One hundred years later, after the expansion of direct rule, the figure was 500,000 tons…"

http://books.google.fr/books?id=MmXFrafifw0C&pg=PA275&dq=roman+africa+wheat+production+tons&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9PsZUaKnB8Ha0QW_j4GYCA&ved=0CEUQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=roman%20africa%20wheat%20production%20tons&f=false

"According to the biography of Septimius Severus, 30 million modii

(200,000 tonnes) were required to feed the population of the city of Rome each year, a substantial proportion of which came from Africa."

http://books.google.fr/books?id=mhNUGgG2eacC&pg=PA536&dq=roman+africa+grain+production+tons&hl=en&sa=X&ei=q_wZUYs20sHSBd6jgYgL&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=roman%20africa%20grain%20production%20tons&f=false

According to FAO data, wheat production for Tunisia+Algeria has in recent years varied from 1.6 million tons (2000) to 2 million tons (1995); for 2012, the USDA gives 4.85 million tons. For Tunisia alone, the figures are respectively 530,000 and 840,000.

(http://www.fao.org/ag/AGP/AGPC/doc/field/Wheat/africa/algeria.htm,

http://www.fao.org/ag/AGP/AGPC/doc/field/Wheat/africa/tunisia.htm).

So current production is of about the same order as Roman production, and probably a bit higher. That may not be a fair comparison, in that the Romans didn’t have modern chemical fertilisers or pesticides; but the yield the FAO gives for Algeria, 500-900 kg/ha, equates to about

7-14 bushels per acre, which fits well with the 11 bushels per acre cited as typical for North Africa since 1900 in ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/142655/2/wheat-1938-03-14-06.pdf .

Agriculturally, it appears that North Africa now is comparable to North Africa then.

The population of modern Tunisia+Algeria, however, is about the same as that of the entire Roman Empire under Augustus, so this production does not translate to any sort of surplus – to the contrary, both countries are large importers of wheat, although the FAO notes that "the prospects for expanding the rainfed wheat area are substantial."

Yours sincerely,

Lameen Souag

Thank you. You have found numbers which are far better data than my impressions.

Herman Kahn used to say that famine would end when the average Indian agricultural worker was as productive as the average Italian peasant in the 12^th Century. He was in essence correct. But of course rain has a lot to do with it as well as productivity of workers. As I understand it, the colonial powers had the “goat theory” – that goats ate their way to dirt, dirt made the ground hotter, hot ground makes for hot air, rising hot air prevents rain – and set out to correct it. And then came the Green Revolution. And I can recall a lot of concern about halting desertification when I went to AAAS annual meetings.

Net thrust measurement of propellantless microwave thrusteruut

Jerry:

I haven’t read the paper but I suspect that this "propellant less thrusters" is nothing more mysterious than a photon drive. While it uses no propellant, it does require an energy source. Unless you are using beamed energy such as a laser cannon to boost a light sail, the energy density of the power source is a crucial factor. Because of the extremely high energy density, the potential Specific Impulse of a photon drive powered by direct matter to energy conversion is Cee. However; the ISP of a fusion powered photon drive as you and Niven used in The Mote In Gods Eye is only 1/100 Cee because the energy density of the fuel is lower. In contrast, a fusion powered rocket would have a potential ISP of 1/10 Cee.

I haven’t calculated the energy density and ISP of a battery powered flashlight, but I suspect that you would get more Delta Vee by throwing it.

James Crawford

I am quite certain that you’d get more propulsion from throwing the flashlight. It’s a neat image. I fear you have found a small flaw in Mote…

Helicopter gunship vs. Corvette.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EsoWpTO2qg>

Roland Dobbins

Bill Gates is enamored of Scandinavian Eurosocialism & totally buys into the ‘climate change’ hoax.

See his answers to questions in an ‘Ask Me Anything’ forum on reddit.com:

<http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/c8dh8an>

Roland Dobbins

I’ve used GRC since about 2000; it’s great.   However, these instructions are slightly vague:

<.>

go to the Shields Up page, and do the test he indicates.

</>

Normally, one would do the "all service ports test" — and readers should do this anyway.  But, the vulnerability you’re concerned about is Universal Plug & Play — something Steve Gibson has been warning us about for a long time and he wrote some freeware to address the issue more than a decade ago.  I’m glad he’s on top of this router issue, but I thought it would be important for you to indicate that they hit the large button with UNPNP test.  This was not clear from the post and I thought you might appreciate the feedback.  Thanx for the warning, my router is good.  =) 

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Horsemeat found in British supermarkets ‘may be donkey’ –

Jerry

More on The Law of Unintended Consequences:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/horsemeat-found-in-british-supermarkets-may-be-donkey-8489030.html

“A law banning horses from Romanian roads may be responsible for the surge in the fraudulent sale of horsemeat on the European beef market . . .” And some of it may be donkey meat.

Well, we knew that horse meat is better for you than beef, but donkey? Nay!

Ed

I confess I ate what we called critter when I was in graduate school. It was one way to afford meat. But I like horses, and I gave it up as soon as I could afford to. I never tried donkey – at least not knowingly. Obviously were I hungry enough it would be different. America has always been rich enough to afford scruples denied to less fortunate peoples.

‘But at some point the competent and conscientious teachers need to take a hand in the governing of their profession.’

The problem is that since most public school teachers are themselves products of this broken system, there are very few competent and conscientious teachers to be found.

Roland Dobbins

There may be more than you think, although not all the best teachers have teaching credentials.

Implementing "1984"…

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/google-for-spies-draws-ire-from-rights-groups-20130211-2e75y.html#ixzz2KY9r4cJJ

"A multinational security firm has secretly developed software capable of tracking people’s movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites."

Charles Brumbelow

“How does it feel to be the most hated man in America?”

<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/business/john-e-karlin-who-led-the-way-to-all-digit-dialing-dies-at-94.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all>

Roland Dobbins

‘What if today’s high rate of lung cancer among smokers is due in part to the suggestion (planted in every smoker’s mind) that smoking will lead inevitably to lung cancer?’

<http://asserttrue.blogspot.ru/2013/02/lung-cancer-and-power-of-suggestion.html>

Roland Dobbins

I have often suspected that there is a strong “mind over matter” component to this , but there is no way to design an experiment to test the hypothesis. No ethical way, anyway. We know that the combination of smoking and exposure to asbestos is deadly and we know the mechanism. In the case of smoking without other irritants (and in the case of some asbestos exposure without smoking) the numbers get a little more ambiguous. Of course there are plenty of other reasons not to habitually breathe in the smoke of burning leaves. I doubt we evolved to do it.l