Category Archives: Mail

Mail 754 Sunday, December 16, 2012

Training Mass Murderers

Lanza, just like Cho, Loughner, Holmes and the rest, is a creation of the commercial media.

Regardless of their other psycho-pathologies, they were all malignant narcissists, absolutely craving mass attention.

One of them commits a mass murder, seeking attention.

What does the commercial media do? They REWARD him with publicity which would have made the Beatles in their heyday, green with envy.

Crazy isn’t stupid. They take malignant narcissists who would literally KILL for publicity, then when they kill, they give them… PUBLICITY.

I don’t know how big of a stumbling imbecile somebody has to be in order to believe that if you respond to negative behavior with positive reinforcement, you DIMINISH the incidence of that behavior. Why do you think they tell you not to feed bears?

Some conspiracy theorists would say that all of this is to ENCOURAGE these kinds of crimes in order to further an agenda. I say it’s much more likely that the commercial media just doesn’t CARE. This is about MONEY, and despite all of the hypocritical duplicity about "gun industry profits", the commercial media spend more on paperclips in a year than the firearms industry grosses. "If it bleeds, it leads!" And if it needs to bleed MORE in order to prop up the bottom line, that’s just fine with the people raking in the ad and ratings revenues. Like I.G. Farben, their goal isn’t dead bodies… but they’ll cheerfully stampede across those bodies to get to that goal… and it’s plastered with dollar signs.

Chris Morton

Canada’s School Shootings Policy

Recommend we all study Canada’s policy to protect against school shootings. First of all, no mention would be made of the perp. No pictures, no interviews with family, nothing! There is a law against it. Secondly the schools are prepared. Each class can be locked from the inside. The teacher who secures the classroom then blocks up the door’s window if there is one, with a colored sheet that indicated "Secured" or slides it under the door. So law enforcement responding can look down the hall and see the SAFE rooms versus those not so declared. Perhaps your Canadian readers can tell us more.

David Barbee

I recall many years ago, perhaps in 10^th grade, finding in the section on the assassination of a US President a line to the effect: “His name is known, but historians have determined not to publish it. There is no need to add to his notoriety.” I think they were referring to the assassination of McKinley but I am not certain.

Obviously such sentiments were abandoned long ago.

Japan is No Exception

Sadly attacks on schools happen occasionally in Japan as well. I remember one that hit the news a while back and dug up the link of the event on wikipedia.

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

Arondell Hoch

Dear Dr Pournelle,

In Japan, the typical scenario is that of a teenager flunking school exams and stressed out from cram school who snaps, murders his parents with a baseball bat and the commits suicide.

I doubt gun control (or lack thereof) is the issue: Canada has more firearms per capita than we do, but a much lower incidence of violent murder. Culture matters.

There are some studies that show news articles focusing on a mass murderer encourage copycat killers. Perhaps the press should agree to inflict damnatio memoriae to scum like Langa.

—

Fazal Majid

Slinky

Does the top of the falling slinky fall at or faster than any other object dropped in 1g? I suspect:

a. the center of gravity of the entire spring is falling at 1g, b. the tension on the spring is additive to the force of gravity at the top end so it falls faster, and c. the tension on the spring is subtractive from the force of gravity on the bottom end, so it doesn’t move until the c.g reaches it.

Chris Spratt

Falling slinky

That reminds me of a problem we were given in Freshman physics lo these many years ago. What is the tallest brick smokestack that can fall over in one piece? Simplifying assumptions: the smokestack is a right circular cylinder; the shear strength of the mortar between the bricks is zero.

The answer is that at some point on the smokestack, the vertical acceleration will exceed 9 m/sec^2, and the joint will fail at that point. Once you see that, you can calculate where that point is. I’ve long since forgotten the number, though.

Joseph P. Martino

POTUS is making his move to disarm the citizenry concurrently with his purge of the military. The eagerness with which Obama is exploiting the Newton Connecticut massacre to ban "assault weapons" is sickening given FBI Homicide data that shows that only a tiny fraction of young homicide victims are killed with firearms.

Year of incident by Weapon used for United States

Return to selection page <http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezashr/asp/off_display.asp#> Download the tab delimited file Download data <http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezashr/asp/off_display.asp#> Printer friendly version Printer-friendly <http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezashr/asp/off_display.asp#>

Display Options:

<http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezashr/images/tri_red.gif> Count Row % <http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezashr/asp/off_display.asp#> Column % <http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezashr/asp/off_display.asp#>

Selecting:

Age of oldest victim

0 to 5, 6 to 11

Count Firearm Knife Blunt object Personal Other/unknown Total

1980 101 43 45 307 181 678

1981 90 48 84 305 200 728

1982 107 36 68 362 166 739

1983 103 41 51 328 166 690

1984 80 44 51 319 145 640

1985 105 54 53 302 183 697

1986 92 32 55 365 183 727

1987 93 50 51 322 202 719

1988 133 40 63 346 220 803

1989 143 43 37 324 213 761

1990 123 40 45 362 179 749

1991 133 44 44 395 242 859

1992 141 30 64 374 187 797

1993 153 26 55 414 222 871

1994 156 33 39 445 198 870

1995 142 23 47 397 207 817

1996 111 25 50 456 235 878

1997 101 21 47 387 199 755

1998 96 33 55 385 203 772

1999 74 21 70 315 200 681

2000 67 28 67 348 179 689

2001 80 25 40 382 232 759

2002 117 31 35 340 188 711

2003 88 22 48 369 211 738

2004 69 29 57 331 188 674

2005 82 29 54 343 203 711

2006 79 26 53 327 222 708

2007 90 29 53 365 227 764

2008 89 21 60 349 252 770

2009 82 22 60 315 189 668

2010 72 25 61 311 209 678

Total 3,192 1,019 1,663 10,991 6,234 23,099

Suggested citation: Puzzanchera, C., Chamberlin, G., and Kang, W. (2012). "Easy Access to the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports:1980-2010." Online. Available: <http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezashr/> http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezashr/

Data source: Federal Bureau of Investigation. Supplementary Homicide Reports 1980-2010 [machine-readable data files].

James Crawford

And by far the greatest killer of children in the US is the automobile.

Subj: Nassim ("Black Swan") Taleb: Learning to Love Volatility

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324735104578120953311383448.html

I especially liked "Rule 4: Trial and error beats academic knowledge."

Perhaps nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American anti-intellectualism was wiser than we knew! Certainly wiser than we were taught by mid-twentieth-century … intellectuals.

"Rule 5: Decision makers must have skin in the game" is a close second.

I had not previously known the Roman rule, that engineers had to sleep under the bridges they built.

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

I have been reading this book and planned to recommend it. And do not forget Thomas Sowell on intellectuals, many of whom see themselves as The Enlightened and the Rest of Us as The Benighted.

Frack me! UK shale gas bonanza ‘bigger than North Sea oil’

Jerry

“Reports suggest that the UK sits on one of the richest deposits of shale gas in the world. An unpublished but independent estimate of UK gas potential by the British Geological Survey suggests it may be more significant to the UK economy than North Sea oil. Cuadrilla initially estimated the UK has enough gas to make it self-sufficient for 15 years at current consumption rates – but this may be underestimated by a factor of four:”

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/14/gaia_violated_by_frackers/print.html

“The combination of fracking and horizontal drilling techniques can be used to unlocked new reserves of exploitable gas. (The combination is also deployed to unlock renewable geothermal energy.) The consequences for the energy market have been dramatic. US gas prices have fallen by two thirds, the country is now self-sufficient on gas – and the United States enjoyed the largest fall in CO2 emissions of any major country as its power generators switched from coal to gas.”

Hmm. Fracking drops CO2 emissions.

Hmm. We’re not going to run out of fossil fuels anytime soon.

Ed

And of course there are plentiful energy resources in the United States if we were allowed to develop them. And with energy you can do anything. See A Step Farther Out…

Climate Report Draft Contradicts Itself

Jerry,

At risk of being the 37th person to send you this:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/13/ipcc-ar5-draft-leaked-contains-game-changing-admission-of-enhanced-solar-forcing/

Apparently the most recent draft of the round 5 IPCC report contains in its chapter 7 an admission that, statistically, solar forcing (as measured by galactic cosmic ray-induced isotope levels in the geological record – solar activity affects GCR arrivals) seems to be a major component of historical global temperature changes, even if the exact mechanism is not yet known. It’s not the actual solar energy levels arriving; those only account for a fraction of the climate changes that strongly correlate with overall solar activity. The section goes on to name solar activity-linked variation in GCR arrival affecting cloud cover levels as a possible mechanism.

The draft’s chapter 8, meanwhile, written by a different group, gives the politically correct version: Their climate model that includes only direct solar energy-level variations ("total solar irradiance") fails to explain the majority of temperature changes since 1980, therefore the unexplained difference must be anthropogenic CO2. (Yeah, right.)

From the above story: "The report still barely hints at the mountain of evidence for enhanced solar forcing, or the magnitude of the evidenced effect. Dozens of studies (section two http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/22/omitted-variable-fraud-vast-evidence-for-solar-climate-driver-rates-one-oblique-sentence-in-ar5/

here) have found between a .4 and .7 degree of correlation between solar activity and various climate indices, suggesting that solar activity “explains” in the statistical sense something like half of all past temperature change, very little of which could be explained by the very slight variation in TSI. At least the Chapter 7 team is now being explicit about what this evidence means: that some mechanism of enhanced solar forcing must be at work."

Three guesses how this contradiction gets resolved in the final version report. Meanwhile, though, the cat is out of the bag.

sign me

Porkypine

Egypt arming for attack on Israel?

Jerry,

The formation of a revolutionary guard personal loyal to Morsi would undermine the power of the Mamaluks.

http://mobile.wnd.com/2012/12/egypt-arming-for-attack-on-israel/

James Crawford=

Or start a civil war. The SS had to have the night of the long knives to get rid of the SA. The Wehrmacht did not intervene.

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

I found myself thinking about the night of the long knives when the Adm commanding the CBG in the Med and the General commanding Africom were relieved for attempting to intervene in Benghazi then Petreus chose to resign in disgrace for having an affair that hadn’t been so secret rather than continue to lie about it.

Hitler had his Brownshirts. Mussolini had his Blackshirts. Obama has his Brown Bra Brigade.

James Crawford

Roman Roads

"What the Romans didn’t do for us"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/mar/16/roman-road-made-by-britons

I don’t like that headline. What the Romans did do was to adopt a local custom, or practice, and make it a normal way of doing things. My historical analysis may be unsound here, but did not the Romans attempt to invade the British Isles a hundred years prior to what the article refers to? Granted it was a failed invasion, I submit that they saw the technology used locally and also after reflection saw that it was a sound and useful technology. Maybe it took them a hundred years to figure out that what one nation can do another can as well (witness nuclear profusion). I think you have often said that once a thing is ‘proved’ to be possible, it is only a matter of engineering to make it feasible. I paraphrase.

The Republic of Rome was adept at conquering other nations and incorporating the subjugated nations’ technology and philosophy. Perhaps it took an Empire to conquer the Brits?

I dunno, I don’t often quote or reference the Guardian, although I do miss one of your contributors who did so…

I just wanted to ‘smack’ that one down, for old time sake.

I raise a toast to Dr. Erwin.

(misspelt of course)

-pate

Brian P. wrote some interesting comments on distributionism and, of course, most of his comments are correct. [https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=11073] One thing you both missed is that socialism, communism, and all the other isms used to define the practice were created to exacerbate problems. These paradigms are designed to do exactly what they do, create a growing underclass and solidify the ruling class. Read Tragedy and Hope by Quigley or any of the other writings on how these political systems actually work to learn more. I do not believe for one second that consequences we observe from these systems are unintended; that’s part of the propaganda. Oops, we made a mistake, let us introduce more lackluster polices to fix it. Ooops we messed up again; we just can’t get anything right. Let’s kill off more dissidents, steal more wealth, and try this new policy, which will make matters even worse. These policies always follow this pattern and it is no more a mistake than when a conman rips you off and pretends he didn’t know it would happen and that circumstances are beyond his control. Through clever propaganda and manipulation of emotions, these systems gain popularity and power. The only remedy to these systems is critical thinking, analysis, and observation as Brian P. did with his letter. It was good of him to write it and good of you to publish it.

Through shrewd application of Hegelian dialectics, it is easy to confuse and mislead even intelligent people with these systems and the reasons intelligent people are misled are two fold. First, the intelligent person realizes he’s smarter than others and so he thinks the answers will come to him with less effort and he becomes lazy and does not want to concentrate fully on the problem, but still offers a half-baked statement about it and others run with that. Second, the intelligent person becomes confident that they are accurate, but confidence does not equate to accuracy and when we use intellectual systems. e.g. analytics, mathematics, it really does not matter how smart you are. A smart person can create new mathematical theorems and scientific theories; you don’t have to be smart to apply what someone else already invented. If you have the discipline and psychological fortitude, you can apply almost any paradigm. Obviously, more discipline and fortitude is need to apply Tensor equations than is required by the Pythagorean Theorem.

Because most people are even lazier than the intelligent members of society, they take the half-baked theories — presented with confidence — by lazy intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals and we get trouble as popularity for lackluster policies rises — consider the latest election. I believe that blaming stupidity or incompetence for our problems is the lazy man’s way out. "There was no plan to do this, he’s just stupid". And then, everyone can feel good about themselves because these people who are conning them are really so much dumber than the speakers are even as the speakers lose their freedoms, their fortunes, and their dignity. I hope to see more letters like those from Brian P.

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Legacy of Daniel Boone

AW&ST 12/10/12: "One of the engineers on NASA ‘s Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle is an accomplished Ph.D. astrophysicist named Catherine Boone. Now working at Ball Aerospace , she helped Lockheed Martin develop a machine-vision system that Orion may one day use to dock with other spacecraft en route to Mars (AW&ST Jan. 9, p. 44). She is also a descendant of 18th century American pioneer Daniel Boone. There is something extremely fitting about one of old Daniel’s offspring helping pave the way into the Solar System. Apparently, it’s a very strong gene."

Steve

—

* * *

"Mad Science" means never asking, "What’s the worst that could happen?"

–Schlock mercenary

Phobos is hollow and artificial.

Jerry,

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/05/you-couldnt-make-this-up-european-space-agency-rumors-mars-moon-phobos-is-an-artificial-satellite.html

Don’t know how this will fit into the GUCT (Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory) I’m working on, but I thought I’d pass it along since as it may interest you…

That is the least goofy url that I could find about it, the UFO sites are a bit farther out with it… Here’s my favorite conspiracy minded one:

http://www.enterprisemission.com/Phobos.html

Lots of nice pictures and a timeline going back to the Viking missions.

BTW, although I don’t put much stock in this sort of thing, but it sure would be cool if it really is artificial and hollow. I think a manned mission there would be the best investigative start to settle the question once and for all… I would actually settle for another manned mission to the moon to settle whether it is actually hollow and artificial. Did you see this: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20121207/NEWS02/712079882 ?

-p

Doesn’t Richard Hoagland (Enterprise Mission) have some words on the hollow moon of Mars? My problem is that I know many of the people involved in processing the data from Mars, and I just don’t think they’re in on a conspiracy, and I know they’re smart enough that if there were one they’d know. Of course my judgment may be failing, but I thought this back when I was still smart…

APOD: 2012 December 10 – Time Lapse: A Total Solar Eclipse,

Jerry

APOD: 2012 December 10 – Time Lapse: A Total Solar Eclipse:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121210.html

Very cool.

Ed

I think this beats your bunny inspectors:

How Ernest Hemingway’s cats became a federal case The descendants of Ernest Hemingway’s cats – dozens of them – freely roam the writer’s former home, now a museum. In a controversial court case, a judge says the felines must be regulated under federal law.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/1209/How-Ernest-Hemingway-s-cats-became-a-federal-case-video

-R

“The exhibition of the Hemingway cats is integral to the Museum’s commercial purpose, and thus, their exhibition affects interstate commerce. For these reasons, Congress has the power to regulate the Museum and the exhibition of the Hemingway cats.”

<http://todaytravel.today.com/_news/2012/12/11/15842617-cat-fight-pits-government-against-hemingway-museum>

By this ‘reasoning’, there is nothing in the land which the Congress cannot regulate. Utter madness.

Roland Dobbins

Mail 753 Saturday, December 15, 2012

‘Criminals Are Made, Not Born.’

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

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

Roland Dobbins

I confess that I had not heard of the 1927 Bath School Disaster until this called my attention to it. It is an instructive story.

Falling slinky displays slow-motion causality .

Jerry

“Researchers from the University of Sydney have explained why a spring dropped from a height – in this case the toy “slinky” – appear to ignore the force of gravity for a time. The very odd thing is that “if a slinky is hanging vertically under gravity from its top (at rest) and then released, the bottom of the slinky does not start to move downwards until the collapsing top section collides with the bottom.”

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/14/falling_slinky_defies_gravity/

They include a fascinating video of physics in action. Puts you in mind of Wile E. Coyote.

Ed

It was a bit odd watching the video (which is inside the Register website) but halfway through oddity gives way to astonishment. Well into the video a very long slinky is released with just a bit of lateral motion given to the top of the spring. What happens next is more than counter intuitive, it is nearly astounding. The top of the spring falls faster than the ‘signal’ wave, so that the top of the spring is now falling fast enough to pass the bottom before the bottom begins to fall.

Now think about all this through the eyes of relativity, with the notion of the top and the bottom of the spring as either observer or observed object. Keep in mind the premise of relativity regarding the medium through which signals pass, and the non-existence (to relativists) of the aether in which light waves wave. Under Petr Beckmann’s non-relativity theory, there is an aether, which is the local gravitational field. Of course the ‘signal’ to the bottom of the spring that it is no longer supported and thus can start falling travels in a wave through the medium of the spring itself. You can experiment with that sort of thing with a very long rope suspended at each end: shake one end and a wave travels down the rope. You can see it. I used to do that a lot in the hopes of getting a feel for wave mechanics. It makes visualization a great deal easier.

There is a link in the Register text to the actual paper Modeling a Falling Slinky which has partial differential equations. Following them would take more concentration than I care to give this, but I am reminded of a problem we had in a mathematics class involving modeling the result of forces applied to one end of a very long and very rigid rod. That got sufficiently complex that it took a great deal of work to understand; I suspect that’s the case with the falling slinky, so I don’t think I’ll contemplate the relativistic equations this observation may require for a complete mathematical description. I suspect they would be of a complexity far beyond my abilities no matter how hard I concentrate. Relativistic descriptions of simple phenomena like aberration of the components of a spectroscopic binary get beyond the mathematics ability of nearly everyone. Fortunately they can be modeled by assuming a medium, propagation of gravity speed, and forgetting the relativity. Come to think of it, that’s just what was done here.

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

In your latest missive, you wrote:

"The actual debate here is ‘distributism’. Just how large a discrepancy between rich and poor can a republic survive? The problem with socialism and social engineering is that the money goes to finance a huge bureaucracy which grows more and more powerful, and the power of government is more oppressive than ever was that of the rich upper class. The distributist notion is to divide excess wealth among all equally. That at least doesn’t build huge government bureaucracies, and gives the recipients some choice over what they do with their windfall gains. Small is beautiful, employee owned businesses are best – etc. And of course there are many variations on the theme. It’s best explained by one of its proponents. I’ve found this <http://www.scribd.com/doc/69349217/Age-old-%E2%80%98Distributism%E2%80%99-Gains-New-Traction-The-Washington-Post> . I am sure that is much more (including of course some of the work of Chesterton and Belloc)."

I can think of two things to contribute to the conversation on this:

1) It occurs to me that distributism will prove to exacerbate the gap between rich and poor, not close it. Why? Because the wealthiest of the wealthy can afford lawyers to protect them, offshore accounts, and friends in government. Saw a lot of the revolving door when I was in defense contracting. The ultimate result is a very few large companies like old-style AT&T or General Electric or GM locking up most of the wealth and productivity while the underclass grows.

In order to close the gap between rich and poor, we need to provide some way for poor people to become rich. Which means to foster economic opportunity, provide minimum barrier to creating new businesses, and allow people who make wealth to keep it. If you want to hammer really big combinations like GE or Microsoft or Borders or Walmart to allow more mom-and-pop stores , fine. But current government policy fosters and rewards the huge players (who oftentimes are the only ones who can afford things like CMMI-5 level processes) while making it harder for the little ones to play.

Of course the current administration is pursing diametrically opposite policies. All I can say to that is thank God for term limits, and we will have chances to reverse course. I believe the US as we once knew it is permanently and irrevocably dead, but that doesn’t mean life has to be miserable. The Roman Empire was not the Roman Republic, but it was still a sight better than a lot of other places out there.

2) I have recently read two books on very disparate cultures — "Blood and Thunder" by Hampton Sides describing the war with the Navajo, and "The Sex Lives of Cannibals", by J. Marten Troost , on life on Tarawa as the husband of an aid worker.

Both of these cultures have this in common: Personal wealth is considered very poor taste. Wealthy people are — or were — expected to give away much of their wealth to the tribe. To be outstanding was to be considered guilty of witchcraft.

While this sounds more "fair", the result of the societal approach is a subsistence level of society marked by poverty. Instead of having everyone equal in wealth we have everyone equal in poverty and squalor, because no one will step out to do anything as the fruits of their labor will be snatched away from them.

It’s not at all different from what Sam Clemens described in "The Innocents Abroad"

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3176/3176-h/3176-h.htm#ch8

"

The Emperor of Morocco is a soulless despot, and the great officers under him are despots on a smaller scale. There is no regular system of taxation, but when the Emperor or the Bashaw want money, they levy on some rich man, and he has to furnish the cash or go to prison. Therefore, few men in Morocco dare to be rich. It is too dangerous a luxury. Vanity occasionally leads a man to display wealth, but sooner or later the Emperor trumps up a charge against him—any sort of one will do—and confiscates his property. Of course, there are many rich men in the empire, but their money is buried, and they dress in rags and counterfeit poverty. Every now and then the Emperor imprisons a man who is suspected of the crime of being rich, and makes things so uncomfortable for him that he is forced to discover where he has hidden his money.

Moors and Jews sometimes place themselves under the protection of the foreign consuls, and then they can flout their riches in the Emperor’s face with impunity."

Morocco wasn’t exactly a beacon for the 19th century Mediterranean either.

The lessons of history are clear and indisputable: Humans being what they are, if society is to prosper ordinary humans must have the ability to become rich. This means both minimizing the barriers to their doing so and a willingness to break up combinations that will hoard capital. It’s a shame we will have to relearn those lessons as a culture, but learning is better than willful ignorance.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Of course the mechanisms of confiscation always generate results you didn’t expect or want. Redistributing the wealth of the 10% or even the 2% wealthiest in the United States will not likely make anyone rich except those who are managing the despoiling. That has always been the great failure of socialism: it always works out in practice to create a New Class (Djilas has much to say on that) while at the same time greatly reducing the wealth to be distributed, so that the poorest become even poorer, the middle class becomes less wealthy, and even the New Class – nomenklatura, party officials, union leaders, etc. – is often less wealthy than they would be if the economy worked properly. As Mrs. Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is that you run out of other people’s money.

As to social conventions, probably the most easily examined example would be Zurich, where you have immensely wealthy people living in fairly modest means by choice. Of course I live near the somewhat different examples of Malibu and parts of Beverly Hills. Living in the filthy rich style comes and goes in and out of fashion in irregular cycles.

The real lesson to be learned is that if you are going to try to reduce the disparity between rich and poor, you should do it in a way that doesn’t create a class who can exist only by continuing the process. Setting up a “disparity of wealth” bureaucracy is never a good idea – it will always find that the disparity is too great, and the bureaucracy needs more highly paid agents.

At the same time, we have learned more than once that “too big to fail” should be too big to exist, and that too great a concentration of capital can be as inefficient as the confiscation of all capital. The concept of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was to stop actions in restraint of trade and break up monopoly power. It didn’t always work as intended – certainly folks who’ve got money can scratch where they itch, and will always look for means to defend what they have, often through fairly desperate and sometimes violent means.

Great discrepancy in wealth always tempts demagogues to incite the people into despoiling the rich and “spread the wealth around”.

The point I am trying to make is that there are institutions that are too big to fail, and thus ought to reorganized into institutions any one of which can be allowed to fail. Instead of Five Huge Banks we would all be better off with fifty or a hundred smaller ones. And those government financial institutions which are beginning to dwarf everything else are themselves creating dangerous powers. The “student loan” phenomena pours more money into the Universities which can always absorb the money and will never go back to lower costs; and meanwhile the entire middle class is subjected to lifetime enthralldom to government agencies and bureaucracies. I find that horrifying.

It would be better if everyone didn’t graduate with a lifetime debt, but it is worse when that debt is owed to government and can never be forgiven no matter what the circumstances. Yet we seem headed there, and no one seems to care.

‘Last year, he took home $822,302, all of it paid by taxpayers.’

<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-12/california-psychiatrists-paid-400-000-shows-bidding-war.html>

Roland Dobbins

Public sector employment is best

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-11/-822-000-worker-shows-california-leads-u-s-pay-giveaway.html

Phil

Not that you’re a big fan of government employees as a general rule, but can you imagine someone instrumental in finding Bin Laden is stuck at a lower grade than people coordinating corporate tax shelter work at another agency?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-zero-dark-thirty-shes-the-hero-in-real-life-cia-agents-career-is-more-complicated/2012/12/10/cedc227e-42dd-11e2-9648-a2c323a991d6_story_1.html

Over the past year, she was denied a promotion that would have raised her civil service rank from GS-13 to GS-14, bringing an additional $16,000 in annual pay.

–Unsigned for obvious reasons…

The new class at work. Socialism always creates these. Lest anyone get the idea that I am an anarchist, I understand that we need and are often well served by a civil service. My observation has been that it always works in its own interest, and sometimes needs to be restrained and reorganized.  If I had my way we would begin by passing the old Hatch Act on political activities of Federal employees. Accepting civil service employment forfeits your political rights including advocacy and donation to political causes.

A Poor Constraint on Power

Jerry,

In View, 12/12/12 you wrote, "Power can be checked only by other power."

The power of the King can be constrained by shame. It certainly does not work well, but here and there a King stops before exercising power.

It seems to me that shame no longer exists in our culture.

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

Heaven and Hell are both rumored to be absolute monarchies. Monarchy is always the best form of government for large states – but only if you can assure that you have a good monarch. Alas, that doesn’t always work. As witness the events before and after the death of Marcus Aurelius (see the movie Gladiator for a fictionalized account). The laws of heredity assure that once in a while you will get a good king, and kings spend the early parts of their lives learning how to do the job of being king. Democracy assures that whomever you get as supreme leader will have spent all of his life learning how to get the job, and not so much on learning how to do it. So it goes.

The genius of the Framers was to divide power, giving the federal government enough – but just enough – to assure the survival of the Union without giving it the power to meddle in such matters as the public schools or religion (the States were assured of the right to create Established Churches supported by public taxes if they so wished) or wages. The general run of government was left to the states with the view that if one overtaxed its citizens they would flee West or to another state. And so forth.

But now federal supremacy has upset that balance and created an elected king who spends his life campaigning.

U of Chicago Law on The Mote

The Mote in God’s Eye made the latest list of books (row 6, item 4) recommended by the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School: http://webcast-law.uchicago.edu/facultyreading/

Dale Beihoffer

As well it should. Thanks…

Mail 753 Tuesday, December 11, 2012

I will try to get a new View up quickly, but here is interesting mail with comments.

Dr. Pournelle

A brief on US copyright law reformation. <http://www.scribd.com/doc/113633834/Republican-Study-Committee-Intellectual-Property-Brief>

The story behind this brief and why it was withdrawn tells volumes about why US copyright law is horrid and why it will not be righted. In short, the big money interests want to keep it a mess and congresscritters follow the money. http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/11/18/republicans-rethinking-copyright-reform/

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

The first paper gives a very good case for a thorough revision of copyright law. It points out that the law as it stands it probably unconstitutional; indeed, you can make a pretty good case that the Berne Convention, of which the US is a party, is itself unconstitutional. It depends on your view of how treaties, signed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, can give Congress powers that it did not have under the original Constitution. Those old enough to remember the debates over the (never adopted) Bricker Amendment may recall that this is not a new debate.

Authors of course have a different idea. Authors believe they have a moral right to control their works, and some – Ursula Le Guin is an exemplar – have very strong views on this. Author associations also have strong views on the subject, and the Berne Convention, which was essentially dictated by Victor Hugo in the late 19^th Century, was pretty well built on that premise.

My own view is that we have gone far too far with the current Copyright Acts. I do not believe that the Constitution ever granted, or that anyone who ratified it ever wanted, intellectual property to be protected for periods of fifty years, and certainly not for the life of the author plus fifty years, which is the minimum set in the Berne Convention which we ratified in 1976 or so; and then we modified that to life plus seventy years – and then added that if the author has no rights to the work because all rights were sold to a corporation, the corporation can have 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation. You may guess the origin of this provision for intellectual property protection. Of course you may also question just how this helps ”to promote the progress of science and useful arts,” which is the constitutional basis for the granting of a monopoly to the author “for a limited time”. This is well discussed in the first draft paper.

I wrote my first works under the old law which gave a copyright for 28 years, with the option of renewal in the 28^th year. My first work was copyrighted in 1968. That would have worked for me, and I doubt that anyone ever produced more or worked harder because the copyright was extended to live plus fifty years, then seventy.

I suspect that no matter how badly the law needs reform, it won’t happen.

Surviving Obamacare

A doctor’s advice on how to cope with Obamacare: Briefly, live healthy, and get used to paying cash for routine medical services (possibly via a Health Savings Account) with high-deductible catastrophic coverage as a backup. (This advice is pretty much where I’ve already arrived at myself, FWIW.)

http://www.aapsonline.org/index.php/site/article/defensive_medicine_how_to_survive_obamacare/

He also advises moving to a Red state that has opted out of creating its own Obamacare "Exchange". "States that opt out effectively defend their citizens from some of the more objectionable aspects of Obamacare."

He ends by predicting that a mass conservative migration to Red states will eventually tip back the electoral balance, and also hasten the day when the left-behind Blue states either collapse or reform. I think he’s an optimist; I expect that when California or Illinois implode they’ll figure out a way to make the rest of us pay. Depends on whether that electoral balance has been tipped yet, I guess. We can hope.

Porkypine

Understand that if you have 49 employees you dare not expand your business. Think on that when looking at employment opportunities. And you might contemplate getting into a government health care program. Smart people can game the system as well as dullards. There are opportunities in these games. We can discuss the ethics another time: but if the government is determined to transfer money from one person to another, it may be better to receive.

Hyperinflation

Jerry, you gave the monetarian explanation of inflation as "Inflation is too much money chasing too few goods."

What’s different now is Asian factories. In a race between the Fed printing money and Asian factories making goods, who do you think will win the race?

I’m watching the velocity of money. While the Fed has injected trillions of dollars, a lot of that money is idly held in corporate accounts or banks’ "excess reserves" stored at the Fed. I don’t seem much inflation until the velocity starts to climb.

Bob Devine

Automation and higher productivity have a way of making certain people useless. They are then paid to stay out of the way. But that is not without cost, since they continue to consume food and energy as well as manufactured goods. Entitlements can force deficits that can be covered only by running the printing presses. Even with greater productivity there is a limit.

Of course free contraception and abortions does tend to cut into future demand.

Probability of Carter-style inflation

Dr. Pournelle,

Carter-style inflation is unlikely, because the demand for savings by soon-to-be retirees is so high. That’s why the Fed’s current money-printing has not already caused inflation; by depressing interest rates, they have depressed the return on guaranteed-return investments like savings accounts, CDs, and high-quality bonds. So, retirement savings have to increase.

There has been market-specific inflation as producers have struggled to meet demand as a result of policy changes. Ethanol mandates, water-rights changes, and immigration policies have caused food inflation; Environmental regulation has caused fuel refinery capacity to be insufficient; Oil’s money-like qualities have caused repeated boom and bust cycles in that commodity along with precious metals.

I’m wiling to be proven wrong, but I don’t see how wages can rise in this environment. The only way broad-based inflation can get started in the next several years is if people lose faith in the dollar as a store of value and begin to use an alternative. At that point you have hyperinflation.

Neil

If you raise the value of entitlements – that is, pay more to people for not working – then do you not immediately raise the wage you must pay to get someone to work at all? And it goes up the scale that way. Some people work because they cannot imagine being idle. Others because it gives them a purpose in life. Some because they like their work. But some work for simple economic reasons.

And as commodities rise in price – and they certainly are rising – does that not put pressure on those who eat to find new sources of income? Or more income?

Subj: Is it 1937?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-18/2013-looks-a-lot-like-1937-in-four-fearsome-ways.html

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Miss Amity Schlaes understands US economics better than the President. And her The Forgotten Man is well worth reading for anyone who wants to see how we got into the Depression and stayed there. And yes, it does look a lot like 1937.

They won. We lost. Learn to live with it. Which is to say, learn some economic survival skills.

Subject: Federal Waste on Rural Broadband Program

This is where the taxpayers’ dollars are going in the great rural broadband program. They are being wasted on $22,000 routers and half a million dollars a year consultants.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/west-va-internet-consultant-paid-512k-in-federal-stimulus-funds/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29

—

Dwayne Phillips

Being a government consultant is great work if you can get it, and you can get it if you just know the right people. And sing the right songs.

Caltrans survey

Jerry,

Just got a call trying to persuade our household to participate in a Caltrans travel survey. Got to the point where after verifying the address they had they said I would receive a diary where all members of the household would record their travel for ONE DAY! It was at this point that I decided that I didn’t want to participate in a boondoggle that would provide no information with any statistical significance.

We’re from the Government and we’re here to help. ARRRRRGHHHH!u,

Bob Holmes

About as useful as bunny inspectors. And of course they all got raises in California’s budget. Then they went out and told us they needed new taxes to save the schools. It’s for the children! I’d be glad to consult with the state on finding useless jobs they can eliminate. Not likely to happen…

Geostationary shadows–

Dear Jerry:

Wouldn’t orbital mechanics be easy if the sun did not move in the sky ?

Having failed to consult Arthur Clarke by Ouija board , the UN actually paid this guy to pitch this proposal at the Doha climate talks!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=384030258329026

Unless you like mummy music, best dive in halfway through it

Russell Seitz

So now we have national, state, and international consultants and employees on projects that a high school junior could tell you were not useful…

On the topic of makers/takers, I would like to commend to you the following: http://cantrip.org/stupidity.html?seeniepage=1&seenIEPage=1, via American Digest (americandigest.org).

The author, Carlo M. Cipolla, seems to be onto something, and fits with makers/takers dichotomy, which you certainly recognize is more complex. His idea is there are four types of folks, and any individual can slide around from one to other, or combine aspects of more than one: Helpless; intelligent; stupid, and bandit.

You may also be familiar with Scott Adams "Dilbert Principle", which is that incompetence is promoted directly to management, as contrasted to Peter Principle, where individuals are competent at one level, and are then eventually promoted to a level of incompetency. He felt this theory of human behavior was incomplete, so followed up with his book, "The Way of the Weasel" which puts forward a more simplistic, yet comprehensive theory: "People are Weasels".

Cheers, Stephen Barron

Of course the subject is far more complex than is usually reflected in political speeches or for that matter in social “science”. Increased productivity, automation, robots (or the equivalent of increased productivity – offshoring work such as service jobs to Bombay) all change the equation. But you can’t just drown the surplus population even if they can no longer do useful work at an economic rate. Now what?

"Takers"

Dear Mr. Pournelle:

I do think there’s a significant gap in your recent definition of "takers" as "people who have no choice but to rely on the government for subsistence." While conceding that this represents a significant category, I don’t see why you exclude from the "taker" category such groups as "people who use wealth and political influence in order to gain government favors or engineer redistribution of wealth toward themselves." As the old song goes, "some rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen." I continue to suspect that wealthy "takers" are likely to do the Republic a great deal more lasting harm than people who "have no choice." Or, to rephrase it, at what point might economic and political oligarchy become kleptocracy?

Thank you again for your thoughtful discussions.

Allan E. Johnson

Apologies: I meant that those who have no choice are in fact a significant part of the universe of “takers.” There are also those who believe they are rendering value for what they get – bunny inspectors come to mind as an extreme case, but there are others who “do a good job”. Unfortunately a job not worth doing is not worth doing well.

And crony capitalists are a severe threat. Adam Smith pointed out that never did two capitalists confer but that they try to think of ways to get the government to limit newcomer access to their profession. Gate keepers, credentialism, these are always demanded by capitalists. Keep the competition down by raising the price of entry into the profession. And so it goes.

And yes, you can see how kleptocrary grows. Democracy is messy. The Constitution was intended for a nation of relatively ‘good’ people. It cannot make a moral or ethical republic out of those who want neither.

Jerry

What’s going on here?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyk1HXvCNks

It’s a husky-baby duet, but the dog doesn’t look too happy with the kid.

Ed

Whoever has the camera also has some treats and is teasing the Husky. That’s a typical statement of entitlement as opposed to straight begging — you’ve got something you promised me. I thought at first they’d promised the dog a walk and then got into this, but clearly it’s staged.

Huskies talk a lot. If people are talking they think they can join the conversation. But when they are that persistent it’s an entitlement argument. Sable will come in and demand that we fill her water bowl if it’s empty and that’s a different performance from ‘it’s time to walk’ or ‘do you not know that you have been ignoring the dog?"

The kid is fascinated of course, and clearly trusts the dog with almost anything — and has also learned not to pull tails or grab fur. Interesting but it was staged. Dog isn’t unhappy, just a bit confused because he thinks he’s entitled to something and this human keeps fiddling with that strange device.

While I do not at present advocate secession, and while I take the quotations offered by Bud Pritchard to heart, there is another valid viewpoint on the issue.

First, George Washington and Thomas Paine were secessionist. Indeed, the first, very familiar passage from Thomas Paine was specifically directed at those who were, at that very moment, engaged in a secessionist struggle. Notably absent from the list offered is the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence: “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them . . .”

This was directed at a chief executive who was distant – not only physically but conceptually, intellectually and, dare I say, spiritually – and at a legislature that manifestly cared not a whit for the interests of the colonists but viewed them mainly as a handy source of revenue. How different is our situation today?

The sentiments expressed by Washington were directed at a different people, at a different time and under different circumstances. Who today would not enthusiastically subscribe to them under similar conditions? But if California goes toes up (not ‘if’ really, but ‘when’) and begs the Congress for relief, it would require the people of other states that are managed by grownups to bail them out. We are witnessing exactly that situation in Europe right now.

If the people of, say, Texas, decide that it is in their best interests to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, by what natural principle does any of the ‘other’ people – be it one or many – have the legitimate authority to deny them? Bending another to one’s will by force is tyranny.

Just askin’.

Richard ‘Rebel Rick’ White

Austin, Texas

It is not likely but also not impossible that the United States will come apart. And the “right” of it will be decided by force of arms. Artillery is the last resort of kings said Victor Hugo. We no longer have kings. At least not under that title. But artillery is still the last argument.

Our Irrational Approach To Space Safety

Jerry–

I’ve just finished up a book on that topic, currently titled: "Safe Is Not An Option: How Our Futile Obsession With Getting Everyone Back Alive Is Killing Human Spaceflight." I’ve got a Kickstarter project going to get it published: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1960236542/safe-is-not-an-option-our-futile-obsession-in-spac

Clark Lindsey has a pre-publication review of it at New Space Watch: http://www.newspacewatch.com/articles/a-few-more-kicks-needed-for-quotsafe-is-not-an-optionquot.html

I hope your readers may find the topic of interest, and take the opportunity to both see that the project happens (if I can raise enough money, I’ll do a symposium on the subject in conjunction with the Space Transportation Conference in DC in February) and to get a signed first edition. If you’d like to read a draft yourself, drop me an email, and I’ll send you a Word version.

Hope you’re doing well,

Rand Simberg

The pilots and astronauts were always willing to take chances that the civilian administrators would not allow.

Sometimes, even North Korea says something even more ludicrous than anything it has ever said before.  Today is one of those days:

<.>

Pyongyang, November 29 (KCNA) — Archaeologists of the History Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences have recently reconfirmed a lair of the unicorn rode by King Tongmyong, founder of the Koguryo Kingdom (B.C. 277-A.D. 668).

…

The discovery of the unicorn lair, associated with legend about King Tongmyong, proves that Pyongyang was a capital city of Ancient Korea as well as Koguryo Kingdom."

</>

http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2012/201211/news29/20121129-20ee.html

Everyone knows that unicorns don’t like to live near major population centers!  According to the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Monstrous Manual:  "Unicorns dwell only in temperate woodlands, away from human habitation".  As far as this unicorn having anything to do with a legendary king:  "These fierce but good creatures shun contact with all but sylvan creatures (dryads, pixies, sprites, and the like); however, they will show themselves to defend their woodland home. 

So you see, this must be an incorrect statement as that capital city would not have been a temperate woodland, unicorns do not like humans, and this legendary king was not a sylvan creature.  =)  I don’t suppose the whole thing about unicorns not existing outside role playing games, fantasy novels, children’s cartoons, and the cartoonish regime of North Korea would have anything to bear on these points. 

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Defense spending

Dr. Pournelle,

My first, although not my only, concern in defense spending is overseas military bases. They’re a burden on all of these United States, even those states that benefit from federal spending on defense. Most of the comments I’ve been reading involve closing overseas bases and bringing back the military personnel and equipment to United States soil. This would save money, at least in the short term, but how do we then project force, if it turns out we must? Much though I would prefer to let other parts of the world defend themselves without our involvement, I remember Mr. Heinlein’s comments in Starship Troopers that wars are not won by defense.

If some idiot or ideology wants to attack us, I would hope to fight the battle on their soil, not ours. There’s a verse, seldom printed, from "My Country, ‘Tis of thee" that’s pertinent: "No more shall tyrants here, with haughty tread appear, and soldier bands. No more shall tyrants tread above the patriot dead; no more our blood be shed by alien hands." I really want to keep it that way.

President Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex remains relevant. I suggest, though, that we also have to fear the entitlement-industry complex. At some point, the productive will no longer support, or even have the means to support, the parasites. Kipling once wrote, "Who stands, if freedom fall?" If, between military and entitlement spending, we fall, the world may never recover. China and other countries may continue, but will freedom? As Lincoln put it, we are the last, best, hope. If we fall, then, for the whole world, does Night come?

It’s a quandary that as far as I know has never been faced in the history of the world, where one nation is of such paramount importance. Between wars and entitlements and global whatever it is that the climate’s doing, do we have a solvable problem? And even if it’s solvable, can we solve it?

jomath

The proper question in determining a military budget is, just what is it you are trying to accomplish? If your purpose is to be a world superpower and go forth slaying dragons all over the world you need a superpower military. Given enough money you can always do that. The Anglo Saxon people have always been more war like than we like to admit. American seem to have learned that well from the mother country.

Who stands if freedom fall is not quite the same as asking who stands if we do not have the most powerful army the world has ever known. One reason the conservatives have lost the recent election is that the American people have tired of perpetual war. It has not been the American way.

If we wish to build an overseas expendable professional army of Legionnaires that is one kind of expense. If we wish the world’s most powerful Navy that is another. If we wish a non-expeditionary army, one looks to the National Guard. But you need to know what it is you want to accomplish before choosing your tools.

Another temperature data point

Here’s a report about a giant sequoia that makes you wonder what was happening in 1580.

http://news.yahoo.com/upon-further-review-giant-sequoia-tops-neighbor-185737665.html

In addition to painstaking measurements of every branch and twig, the team took 15 half-centimeter-wide core samples of The President to determine its growth rate, which they learned was stunted in the abnormally cold year of 1580 when temperatures in the Sierra hovered near freezing even in the summer and the trees remained dormant.

Interesting. The Viking Warm period ended early in the 14^th Century with a year of rain and more rain followed by snow, after which things got colder and colder.

Russell Seitz keeps reminding me that volcanic ash can go airborne and increase the reflectivity of the Earth thus reducing the amout of sunlight that gets through: But it can also deposit itself as dark objects on ice and snow, increasing the amount of sunlight absorbed and melting the ice and glaciers. Sorting out which happened after centuries have passed is very difficult.

Mail 751 Friday, November 30, 2012

Current secession petitions

Citizens joining the current spat of secession petitions need only to be reminded of:

"These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value."

Thomas Paine – The American Crisis – 1776

"The unity of Government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts."

George Washington – Farewell Address – 1796

In The Federalist Papers, Federalist 6, Hamilton described in detail the dangers of disunion – would lead to war, much as occurred constantly in continental Europe.

"A man must be far gone in Utopian speculations who can seriously doubt that, if these States should either be wholly disunited, or only united in partial confederacies, the subdivisions into which they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests with each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests as an argument against their existence, would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages."

President Andrew Jackson’s "Proclamation to the People of South Carolina" made the case for the union while contrasting differences between "secession" and "revolution".

"But each State having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other States a single nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation, and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offense against the whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offense. Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent upon a failure."

President James Buchanan also reiterated the difference between "secession" and "revolution".

"In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. If this be so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States. In this manner our thirty-three States may resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostile republics, each one retiring from the Union without responsibility whenever any sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process a Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks which cost our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish."

Despair is a sin.

Bud Pritchard

I am not sure that further comment is needed. Thanks.

Greenland’s Viking settlers gorged on seals University of Copenhagen

University of Copenhagen <http://www.ku.dk/english/> University of Copenhagen’s newssite <http://news.ku.dk/> University of

Copenhagen’s newssite <http://news.ku.dk/>

Russell Seitz

Sven, I will marry you if you take me where we can eat cows again! I weary of seals. Let’s go sack Scotland.

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

Disapproval of Seal?

Gudrun, the last time we sacked Scotland we had to eat haggis.

Just throw another flipper on the barbie and thank Thor it’s too cold to grow neeps.

Russell Seitz

A possible arcology?

Recently re-read Oath of Fealty by you and Niven. Liked it better than the first time I read it, back when it was first published.

In that vein, here’s something that might become the basis of true arcologies. In China, they plan to build the world’s tallest (and tallest occupiable) building in just 90 days, using a new modular technology.

Given China’s billion or so souls, arcologies might become very useful.

http://gizmodo.com/5962070/china-will-build-the-tallest-building-in-the-world-in-just-90-days

Live long and prosper.

Brian Claypool

Oath of Fealty was written early in the computer revolution but it still holds up pretty well. And it’s still selling in the eBook edition. I suspect we have not seen the last of the notion of arcologies.

Keith Henson was at LOSCON and we discussed this. I need to do a larger article on this, but here is some discussion. The proposal is to use chemical rockets to build a Space Solar Power Satellite, then use the energy beamed down from that initial SSPS to power a laser launch system. Since most of the costs of an SSPS are launch costs, and the major launch costs will be the energy only that is being paid for by the initial SSPS, the notion is intriguing. Keith suggests that an India/China partnership might well be likely.

Of course I had some such notions in my early days stories leading to an asteroid mining civilization. Once you have laser launch systems space operations become dependent on power costs. If you build an SSPS the bootstrap operation can begin. I asked a number of questions.

Hard questions are good.

The main idea is bootstrapping by building one with chemical propulsion and using it for laser propulsion to get the parts up for hundreds of them. Unfortunately the first step costs as much as a small war, but I think it is well inside what the Chinese could spend.

Keith

Jerry, 5 years ago this was unthinkable, so I am not surprised you have old correspondence saying it won’t work. But lasers have come a

*long* way. Solid state lasers are over 50% efficient, and may go to 85%. You can buy them in 15 kW blocks and gang them to GW levels if you have the money. http://www.as.northropgrumman.com/products/vesta/

My current proposal is to stick them in GEO along with the first power sat to power them. That way avoids all the problems of clouds and distortion from shooting up through the atmosphere at the expense of hauling the lasers out to GEO. But the reduced engineering development seems to be worth it. Also, it means much of the power sat development can be tested in small stages before going into mass production where mistakes get really expensive.

The other aspect is to use Skylon or something like it for the runway to 26 km and Mach 5.5. They give twice the equivalent exhaust velocity of a SSME and also give you the wing area for the laser target/hydrogen heaters. Jordin has come around to a favorable view of this "hybrid" propulsion mode. It really helps during the acceleration at low speed when most of the laser energy is wasted on inappropriately high exhaust velocity. Incidentally, he thinks the physics is sound, though (like me) he finds the financing daunting.

The Skylon people also think the proposed physics is sound.

If you want to use this concept in an SF story, I would be delighted.

I favor Christmas Island (straight south of Hawaii) as the launch point. Phil Chapman thinks Nauru http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru

would be good. Other options are Brazil, Somalia and the Maldives

More story background,

http://www.themuslimtimes.org/2012/11/countries/china/china-proposes-space-solar-power-collaboration-with-india

Three years ago the Chinese said they didn’t know how to get the parts to GEO. I suspect they have figured out that laser propulsion is the right way to get the cost down and want India’s support when the US freaks out about propulsion lasers in GEO.

Best wishes,

Keith

Presume you saw the Reaction Engines announcements. Not that many years ago I would have bet against them solving the heat exchanger problem, but they did it.

Saw Jordin Kare, Seth Potter, Jerry Pournelle, David Brin and Vernor Vinge last weekend. Giving a talk in SF this weekend on the proposal.

Replied to a Forbes Article,

http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmichaels/2012/11/30/its-the-holiday-season-and-global-warming-hype-is-filling-the-air/

I am a bit annoyed that nobody seems to be asking the engineers how to solve the problem. It’s not like we lack for clean energy; the Earth intercepts only around 1 part in a billion of the Sun’s output.

Take solar power satellites for example. Been understood for over 40 years, the only reason they have not been built is that the cost to lift parts to GEO is too high by a factor of about 100.

So if you want to consider them, then the question to ask the engineers is how to get the cost of lifting millions of tons of parts to GEO to $100/kg instead of $10,000/kg.

It looks like one way is to bootstrapping by building one power satellite with conventional rockets and using it to power propulsion lasers. Because they give much higher exhaust velocity, rockets or rocket planes powered this way get at least 5 times as much cargo into orbit as the best chemical rockets.

At a scale large enough to be useful, 500,000 tons per year, the cost goes to well under $100/kg, the cost of power plants to $1600/kW and the cost of power to 2 cents per kWh or less. Power that inexpensive can be used to make synthetic carbon neutral fuel in any amounts for around a dollar a gallon.

If we went this way it would take less than 20 years to end the use of fossil fuel, not by high taxes or carbon credits, but just by making synthetic fuel cheaper than fossil fuel. The oil companies (Exxon for

example) already know how to do this.

But it’s more likely the Chinese will do it. About three years ago a major meeting in China concluded they didn’t know how to lift the parts to orbit at a price that made any sense. Three weeks ago they announced a deal to build power satellites with India. (Google China India power satellites.) What happened and why? Did they figure out this obvious approach? Are they trying to get support from India when the US freaks out about big lasers in orbit? (They are also weapons.)

It may be that the entire issue of climate change becomes moot before the next one of these meeting.

Keith Henson

I am now digging into modern notions of space construction and laser launch. We have little experience of on-orbit construction because we never developed proper space suits; and clearly construction outside the Van Allen Belts is an entirely different proposition from low earth orbit construction operations. My experience in the space business was that everything turns out to be a lot harder than we think it’s going to be. At least it always was for us…

Assemble it in LEO, then move it out to geosynchronous orbit, slowly.

We still need real spacesuits and usable manned spacecraft to accomplish that task, however.

–

Roland Dobbins

Clearly the only possible way now, since we have no way to stay alive outside the Van Allen Belts during a solar flare (one reason we don’t know how to do a manned mission to Mars). Another possibility is to build them on the Moon where three meters of regolith are sufficient shielding for just about anything; one can retreat from Lunar orbit to Lunar surface fairly rapidly and at a lot less cost once you have a working Lunar colony. Then you “lower” the assembled structure either in whole or in parts (with robot final assembly). But moving a huge structure from either LEO or a Lunar orbit to GEO is an operational nightmare. The structure has to be designed for it, and there have to be multiple propulsion points, and even if you are using ion engines with “free” power collected by the SPS itself you will need reaction mass, and –  The point being that it is not impossible, but it is not simple either. As I said, it was my experience in the space business that everything takes longer, costs more, and is a great deal more complicated than we thought when we came up with the concepts.

I do wish we had used Apollo to learn more about good working space suits and or orbit assembly techniques.

Wow!

http://www.kurzweilai.net/is-this-the-biggest-breakthrough-in-propulsion-since-the-jet-engine

Bob Clark

Makers and takers

You may find this book interesting (if you don’t already have it).

_Systems of Survival_ by Jane Jacobs.

Her basic theme is that humans have found two fundamental ways of "getting a living"

very roughly "taker" and "trader", and that there is a very different set of ethics appropriate to each.

Dan Evens

Her book has already been noted in a previous mail, but it does no harm to remind readers that Jacobs thought and wrote clearly. You may not agree with her conclusions but her arguments can be followed rationally. A rare gift.

Locus poll for best speculative fiction novels & short stories of the 20th and 21st (to date) centuries.

<http://www.locusmag.com/temp/2012AllCenturyPollsBallot.html>

Roland Dobbins

Readers are encouraged to participate…

Yet another piece of evidence on the Pournelle "It takes a dog to raise a village" theory.

The spirit of Lassie is alive and well in a dog named Ashapoo. The trusty canine was always at the side of his owner’s two-year-old grandson, Peyton.

And that was a good thing when Peyton’s grandfather turned his back for a minute as he was planning to take the boy on a trip on the family land in Clover, South Carolina, to find a Christmas tree.

When he turned around, the energetic kid was gone. But so was Ashapoo.

By the time Peyton’s parents showed up to join the hunt for their missing son on the 300 acres of woods, they took solace knowing the boy was with his faithful friend.

Said dad Rich Myrick to local station WBTV, "In the back of your mind, you know the dog is going to be with him."

Still, four and a half hours of a missing child takes a lot of faith. It was getting dark and cold. Mom Carmen Myrick noted to WCNC that she took in the hundreds of volunteers, ambulances, the media, and police cars. She says she remembers thinking, "’This is not going to end good.’"

When rescuers made their way to a barn, Ashapoo suddenly appeared, then ran away barking, leading searchers to a sleeping Peyton on the ground. He was fine.

The two-year-old told his family he was scared, he was going to get hurt, and he was cold. Dad Rich said, "I think he got scared and just lay down and took a nap, and Ashapoo stayed right with him." He added, "I guess he felt that was his job to protect him and be with him." And he also said, "I believe the dog was his guardian angel in fur."

The parents said that the dog was their hero. They plan to get him a well earned steak, and they are also looking into a GPS tracker for Peyton.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/dog-stays-missing-boy-side-231002134.html

John from Waterford

Indeed.

A comment from the Strategypage website.

"The Chinese Air Force now has a training unit that will accurately (as possible) portray enemy (especially American and Indian) aircraft and combat tactics."

Remember that when buying a product with "Made in China" on the label.

John from Waterford

Post-US world born in Phnom Penh

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NK27Dj02.html

"President Barack Obama attended the summit to sell a US-based Trans-Pacific Partnership excluding China. He didn’t. The American led-partnership became a party to which no-one came.

Instead, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, will form a club and leave out the United States"

The core to the new international policy of the US is the pivot to Asia, which worked as well as the pivot to job creation. Even Australia is making moves to distance themselves from the US and seek local allies. Opposition to Japanese militarism is weakening as the nations around the PRC increasingly see Japan as the only reasonable source of strength to oppose the Chinese. What does it mean when nations no longer find betting on the US to be a smart move?

Honestly, I can’t blame them. If I were a nation in search of friends, I’d not seek the friendship of the US. It’d last only until the other party managed to get into power, where it would punish me for my temerity in befriending their bitterest foes. This is no way to run a foreign policy, but I don’t think it is within the abilities of those in DC to do otherwise.

Spengler notes some very important information:

t is symptomatic of the national condition of the United States that the worst humiliation ever suffered by it as a nation, and by a US president personally, passed almost without comment last week. I refer to the November 20 announcement at a summit meeting in Phnom Penh that 15 Asian nations, comprising half the world’s population, would form a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership excluding the United States.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NK27Dj02.html

I won’t summarize, but Spengler did: “Asia Shuts Obama Out of New Trade Bloc: What You Really Should Worry About.” And I do worry.

Ed

It is very much something to worry about.

Concerning injustice and categorization

Dear Dr. Pournelle:

In your blog you recently said that "One of the definitions of injustice is treating unequal things equally." That is a nonstandard definition. A more standard definition is treating equal things unequally. You then comment "The ability to discriminate – to see inequalities – is one of the major requirements of correct analysis, rational debate, intelligent behavior." Equally necessary is the ability to categorize; to see equalities. Discrimination is the ability to see hidden differences despite surface identities; for instance gold and fool’s gold are both yellow, but only the latter has sulfur in it.

Categorization is the ability to see hidden identities despite surface differences; for instance a mouse and a whale are both mammals.

I defer comment

petrol from air

Jerry,

Regarding the uncommented link http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-pioneering-scientists-turn-fresh-air-into-petrol-in-massive-boost-in-fight-against-energy-crisis-8217382.html

I have done a little bit of back of the envelop work on a process for extracting CO2 from air to reform hydrocarbon fuels, but hadn’t pursued it.

The problem is that the process is very energy intensive. At least as I envisioned the process, first it is necessary to separate the CO2 and water vapor from the air. If I recall correctly, the CO2 reduction runs at about 1100 Celsius and somewhat elevated pressure. At 33% net energy efficiency of the reduction, the breakeven marginal price of CO2-generated fuel would be around $12/gallon, and the amortized capital costs including non-fossil-fuel energy generation about $20/gallon, by any energy generation technology which is of equivalent cost with hydrocarbon fuel. To become competitive with current energy generation, the equivalent costs of alternate technologies would have to be reduced by at least 80-85%. Even to compete with ethanol as an additive (which would at least save corn for food instead of fuel), alternate energy costs would have to come down by 50-60% (though one could envision efficiencies of using the waste heat of solar technology to provide the heat fot the process).

Bottom line, the process is long-term essential, not for fuel purposes, but for feedstock for the chemicals industry as an alternative to petroleum, but it is unlikely to be economical for any energy generation technology other than nuclear.

Jim

Given cheap enough electricity, the fuel problem becomes simple.

I’m reading "War against the weak" by Edwin Black.

It is a fascinating book.

The first thing I’m taking away from this is a skepticism of politicized science. The early proponents of Eugenics gained funding from large foundations such as Carnegie and Rockefeller to continue their work. Over time, skepticism began to occur and scientists questioned these finding. But their publications were pushed to the back pages of journals or simply ignored.

Page 85: "By the time some scientists saw the folly of their fiction, the politicians, legislators, educators, and social workers who had adopted eugenic intelligence notions as firm science had enacted laws, procedures, systems, and policies to enforce their tenets. Quiet apologies came too late for thousands of Americans who would be chased down by the quotients, scales and derisive labels eugenics had branded upon them."

So it’s a cautionary note to those who say "the science is settled". It used to be "settled science" that 60% of Jewish immigrants were morons (<70 IQ) (page 78) and that there is a "criminal gene" (page 24) just as some now contend there is a "gay gene".

And now, eighty years later, these scientific follies are all swept under the rug while we pursue yet another generation of politicized ignorance cloaked under the name of "science".

It is a sore spot for me, because the system both labeled me highly intelligent and mentally ill. It took several years of arguing by my parents (thanks, guys!) to get that second label struck off.

http://www.amazon.com/War-Against-Weak-Eugenics-Americas/dp/0914153293/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353522541&sr=8-1&keywords=war+against+the+weak <http://www.amazon.com/War-Against-Weak-Eugenics-Americas/dp/0914153293/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353522541&sr=8-1&keywords=war+against+the+weak>

Respectfully,

Brian P.

A “Buffet Tax” Resolution

Jerry,

This is too choice. A gimmick, a new "Buffett Rule!"

<http://www.volokh.com/2012/11/19/a-buffet-tax-resolution/>

A “Buffett Tax” Resolution

David Bernstein

(1) Whereas, the U.S. government is in desperate need of revenue.

(2) Whereas, Warren Buffett is worth tens of billions of dollars, almost all of which is destined for private foundations and thus will completely escape federal tax.

(3) Whereas, Warren Buffett has publicly proclaimed that he is undertaxed.

(4) Resolved, the U.S. government should pass legislation that gifts to foundations in excess of a $20 billion lifetime exemption will hereinafter be taxed at 55%, the normal inheritance tax rate.

But then President Obama has said of his "Buffett Rule" on 4/11/2012:

<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/11/remarks-president-buffett-rule>

"…. There are others who are saying, well, this is just a gimmick. Just taxing millionaires and billionaires, just imposing the Buffett Rule won’t do enough to close the deficit. Well, I agree. That’s not all we have to do to close the deficit. But the notion that it doesn’t solve the entire problem doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it at all…."

We do live in Heinlein’s "Crazy Years." Perhaps the only sane person today is Brian Lamb of C-SPAN.

Despair is a sin. So I have to laugh

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

Jerry

Super-Earths’ magnetic FORCE FIELDS could harbour ALIEN LIFE:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/23/life_protecting_magnetic_field_super_earths/print.html

Christopher Anvil would have loved this.

Ed

War is the Answer / by Daniel Greenfield

For those with the ability to read and understand this is a long, but thought provoking, article.

Daniel Greenfield article: War is the Answer <http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/>

http://fusion.google.com/add?source=atgs&feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/FromNyToIsraelSultanRevealsTheStoriesBehindTheNews <http://fusion.google.com/add?source=atgs&feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/FromNyToIsraelSultanRevealsTheStoriesBehindTheNews>

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ <http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/>

________________________________

War is the Answer <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FromNyToIsraelSultanRevealsTheStoriesBehindTheNews/~3/KazxsVY46eo/war-is-answer.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>

Posted: 21 Nov 2012 08:26 PM PST

For the last hundred years the best and brightest of the civilized world have been engaged in the business of peace. In the days before the Nobel Peace Prize became a joke, it was expected that scientific progress would lead to moral progress. Nations would accept international laws and everyone would get together to replace wars with international conferences.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qSOcGBrtEmE/UK2pcpxCg_I/AAAAAAAAKOU/UopGSV4vf0w/s1600/0808-ACHOPPER-Afghanistan-war_full_600.jpg <http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qSOcGBrtEmE/UK2pcpxCg_I/AAAAAAAAKOU/UopGSV4vf0w/s1600/0808-ACHOPPER-Afghanistan-war_full_600.jpg>

Instead technological progress just gave us better ways to kill each other. There have been few innovations in the moral technology of global harmony since Immanuel Kant’s "Perpetual Peace" laid out a plan to grant world citizenship to all refugees and outlaw all armies, invasions and atrocities with the whole shebang would be overseen by a League of Nations.

That was in 1795 and Kant’s plan was at least more reasonable than anything we have two-hundred years later today because it at least set out to limit membership in this body to free republics. If we had done that with the United Nations, it could conceivably have become something resembling a humane organization. Instead it’s a place where the dictators of the world stop by to give speeches about human rights for a show that’s funnier than anything you could find eight blocks away at the Broadway Comedy Club.

Since the League of Nations folded, the warring peoples of the world have added the atom bomb, the suicide bomber, the jet plane, the remotely guided missile, the rape squad, the IED, the child soldier and the stealth fighter to their arsenals. And the humanitarians have murdered a few billion trees printing out more useless treaties, conventions and condemnations; more dead trees than accounted for by every piece of human literature written until the 19th Century.

There is no moral technology to prevent war. Or rather war is the moral technology, that when properly applied, ensures peace.

The humanitarians had gone down a dead end by trying to create perpetual peace by outlawing war, but the peace-shouters who wear their inverted Mercedes Logo don’t really want peace, some of them reflexively hate war for sentimental reasons, but their leaders and most committed activists don’t hate war, they hate the people who win the wars.

The plan for perpetual peace is really a plan for perpetual war. It necessitates that the civilized nations who heed its call amass overwhelming quantities of firepower as deterrents against war, which they will pledge to never use because if the threat of destroying the world isn’t enough, their bluff will be called and they will fold. And if they don’t fold, then the world will be destroyed because the humanitarians said that peace was better than war.

It also necessitates that the actual wars that they fight be as limited as possible by applying precision technology to kill only actual armed enemy combatants while minimizing collateral damage. And that humanitarian objective also necessitates that the other side reply with a counter-objective of making it as hard as possible to kill them without also killing civilians.

The humanitarian impulse makes the anti-humanitarian impulse inevitable. The more precisely we try to kill terrorists, the more ingeniously the terrorists blend into the civilian population and employ human shields. The more we try not to kill civilians, the more civilians we are forced to kill. That is the equal and opposite reaction of the humanitarian formula.

In Afghanistan, the Rules of Engagement were overhauled to minimize Afghan civilian casualties. This was so successful that not only did the casualty rate for American soldiers dramatically increase because they were not allowed to fire unless they were being fired at, but the number of Afghan civilian casualties killed by American forces also fell dramatically. It was a great triumph. But sadly the number of Afghan civilians killed by the Taliban increased dramatically and more than made up for the shortfall.

When the Taliban have won the war, the number of civilian casualties will be tremendous once Obama pulls the troops out and the cheerful bearded boys march into Kabul and start killing every woman who can read. But it was still a better thing than the unacceptable levels of civilian casualties under Bush. It was a better thing that the Taliban have free reign to kill as many Afghans as they want than that American soldiers should have been able to fight the Taliban without the humanitarian handcuffs.

Because sometimes you have to destroy the village to save the village, and that is true whether it’s American planes bombing a terrorist hideout or humanitarians letting the Taliban take the village and kill every tenth woman in it.

And yet for all this monumental effort, for all the soldiers dead because they weren’t sure if the man planting an IED in the road was a terrorist or just a decent upstanding poppy farmer checking the soil composition, for all the Afghan civilians killed by the moral technology of inaction, your unfriendly neighborhood peace-shouter is about as satisfied as a cannibal at a vegan banquet. Give him, her or it five valuable minutes of your time and it will begin shrieking about drone strikes, kill lists and the murderous rampage of a technology that is as far from Shock and Awe as you could possibly imagine without going completely Gandhi. If anything it hates drone strikes more than it hates Hiroshima. Mass killing justifies its smug contempt for the machinery of war, but anything that smacks of an attempt to moralize warfare challenges its principles and urges it on to greater displays of outrage.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/–vD8lq7fSeU/UK2pAoa1lcI/AAAAAAAAKOM/9coJkdyGZ_0/s1600/121121Gaza_6929264.jpg <http://3.bp.blogspot.com/–vD8lq7fSeU/UK2pAoa1lcI/AAAAAAAAKOM/9coJkdyGZ_0/s1600/121121Gaza_6929264.jpg>

Israel, in the name of peace, turned over the lives of millions of people to the control of a terrorist organization which taught their children to believe that their highest purpose in life was to die while killing Israelis.

The Oslo Accords turned stone-throwers into shooters and suicide bombers. It allowed the kind of people that most of Israel’s Muslim neighbors had locked up and thrown away the key to, inside the country and gave them charge of the economy and the youth. Every peace dove, every peace song, every peace agreement, made the rivers of blood that followed not only inevitable, but mandatory.

For decades, every time that Israel was on the verge of finishing off the terrorists, there came a call for a ceasefire or a peace agreement. The call was heeded and the violence continued because all the peace agreements and ceasefires were just prolonged unfinished wars. They were a game of baseball that never ended because no home run was ever scored. Instead the New York Yankees were being forced to play the Martyrs of Muslimtown for thirty years with the umpire stepping in every time the hometown team was on the verge of winning the game. Each peace agreement did not mean peace, it meant that the Muslimtown Martyrs would have another few years to go on killing and being killed.

Peace meant that the war would never end. Instead of perpetual peace, it made for perpetual war.

In 1992 Israel deported 400 Hamas terrorists. It didn’t kill them, lock them up or bake them into a pie. All it did was kick them out of a country they didn’t recognize and closed the door behind them. That deportation became the leading human rights cause of the day <http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-media-un-and-diplomats-saved-hamas.html> . The UN issued a unanimous resolution condemning the deportation. The Red Cross brought them blankets. Newsweek accused Israel of "Deporting the Hope for Peace."

And so Israel took the 400 Hamas terrorists, the hope for peace, back. Over the next 20 years they shed rivers of blood and rivers of blood were shed because of them. There was never any peace with them and they made peace impossible.

But the humanitarians had gotten their way, as they always got their way, and their way was the blown up bus and the shattered cafeteria, the burning building and the suicide bomber making his way through a crowded mall, the child’s mother lovingly tying on his martyr costume complete with Alfred Nobel’s great invention, the jet plane releasing its cargo of bombs and the television screaming for war. But all these were far better than that 400 Hamas terrorists should sniffle into their Red Cross supplied cups of dark coffee on the hills of Lebanon.

To those who croon to that old Lennon song, peace is always better than war, and good intentions lead to good results. The only way forward is to keep extending your hand to the enemy and doing it over and over again no matter how much effort the doctors have to put into stitching it back together again after the last handshake.

Peace is still better than war. It is better that Israel and Hamas fight escalating mini-wars every 3 years than that Israel finish off Hamas once and for all. That price wasn’t worth paying 20 years ago when all it meant was that 400 terrorists would have been forced to get jobs slinging Halal hash in Lebanese Hashish joints. It certainly isn’t worth it today.

A flock of peace doves wings to Israel with proposals for engaging Hamas. But it’s Israel that is supposed to figure out a way to live with its explosive bride. All the proposals call for some gradual process by which Hamas will be courted, engaged and weaned off terror to become an upstanding member of the international community. And that’s all well and good if you have soy for brains.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iz0rY1WpbZU/UK2ok9RMwsI/AAAAAAAAKOE/8SRHui48d8Y/s1600/israel-war1.jpg <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iz0rY1WpbZU/UK2ok9RMwsI/AAAAAAAAKOE/8SRHui48d8Y/s1600/israel-war1.jpg>

Hamas is not interested in being engaged. Its goal is the destruction of Israel. This isn’t posturing, it’s not sullen resentment over being blockaded by Israel or outrage over the latest round of fighting. This is the essential ideology of Hamas, derived from the core Islamic principles over the proper role of non-Muslims in the Muslim world. It is not interested in a two-state solution, job creation programs or any of the meaningless shiny toys that diplomats wave when they arrive in the region. Its goal is to make Islam supreme over all other systems by destroying a non-Muslim state in what it considers to be Muslim territory.

Perpetual peace was not made for such conflicts. Peace was made for reasonable people who are willing to give and take. It was not made for those who only take.

Peacemaking is not a policy, it is a religion that we are all obligated to believe in. It is an immoral moral principle that ends in war. Peacemaking in the World War II cost more lives than Hitler could have ever taken on his own. Peacemaking in the War on Terror has cost a hundred times more lives than the terrorists could have ever taken on their own.

The business of peace is the industry of death. Behind the peace sign is a field of flowers with a grave for every one. Behind the peace agreement and the ceasefire is another war that will be worse than the last.

Daniel Greenfield is a New York City based writer and blogger and a Shillman Journalism Fellow of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

If you would have peace, be prepared for war. Appius Claudius from the third century BC. Herman Kahn added If you would have peace, you must understand war.