Category Archives: Mail

Mail 738 Wednesday, August 22, 2012

They Have "Wasteful" Government in Australia, Too –

Dr. Pournelle,

The Australian government has made a $45,000 grant for investigating turning dog poo into a renewable energy source. The article is

from the Watt’s Up With That? web site.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/19/climate-craziness-of-the-week-poo-power-from-your-dog/

The silly season knows no boundaries.

Jay Smith

Seems like a trivial amount of money. What does it cost to deal with dog poop now? S C Edison at one time wanted to experiment with the waste output of Oceanside to see if you could get enough energy from it to offset some of the cost of sewage processing, but the state regulators wouldn’t let them use ratepayer money for that experiment.

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

Dr. Pournelle,

Fair enough. I wasn’t aware of the other forays into extracting energy from waste. I’m dubious there is any real benefit to be found from these processes. I suppose spending $45,000 to find out one way or another isn’t a horrible use of taxpayer money.

Thanks for the response.

Jay Smith

A retraction on the loss of metaphors

Dr. Pournelle,

I wrote you sometime back bemoaning the loss, somewhat tounge-in-cheek, of some of our cultural metaphors to political correctness. You’d used the term "tar baby," and I’d run into a host of younger co-workers that particular week who didn’t understand the term, had never heard of Brer Rabbit, and who didn’t even know that Disney had ever considered producing anything as blatently racist (in modern terms) as "Song of the South."

I’ve got to take that all back. Somewhat belatedly, I’m reading Neil Gaiman’s _Anansi Boys_, where he correctly re-tells the tar baby story in something close to the original African fairy tale style. Of course, in the story it is Anansi’s children who set up the Tar Man, not Brer Rabbit’s tar baby. In the story, it is Anansi himself who gets stuck due to perniciousness and greed.

Of course, most of my co-workers have never heard of Anansi, either, and only no a little mythology, either because of exposure in an elective freshman college course (Gods forbid we teach mythology in high school any more) or via secondary exposure in more shallow fiction.

Gaiman is keeping a lot of the old mythology alive and in context. I guess that we’re really not losing the metaphors so much as having them corrected.

-d

We read the story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby in about Fourth Grade in Capleville school in Tennessee, but I guess they don’t do that now.

Subject: Denise Barton of California Files $1.7 Billion Claim Alleging ‘Smart’ Meters Making Her Sick

Yep….the crazy years are upon us. I really think the lawyer who took this lawsuit on should do jail time.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/08/denise-barton-of-california-files-1-7-billion-claim-alleging-smart-meters-making-her-sick/

Tracy

I guess it’s the silly season for lawyers too…

"Allies"

Dear Mr. Pournelle:

Your correspondent "G" raises some interesting points in his note on "Allies," regarding protection of the people. His main argument, that "big government and big business are natural allies", especially deserves consideration.

I’ve long found that to be one of the few persuasive arguments in the rhetoric of the old Anarchist movement; that political and economic powers will naturally enter into collusion, so there’s no point trying to reform either — tear them down. But anarchism is untenable. So where do we go? I’m unwilling to submit to the notion that we’re inevitably to be dominated by Behemoths; and the American experiment of checks and balances seems to me to be the most plausible alternative yet devised.

I agree there will be a strong *tendency* for government to collude with economic power. But it isn’t inevitable; your correspondent cites, appropriately, Theodore Roosevelt. I would like a counterbalance other than government: I don’t see one. In that highly imperfect situation, it seems to me that one reasonable strategy is to support those candidates and political parties which seem *least* in collusion with corporations. Currently, that appears to be liberals. That wasn’t always so. Theodore Roosevelt is clearly a counterexample; Dwight D. Eisenhower is a more recent one.

I return to the question of *power imbalance.* There’s no point talking about preserving freedom unless we can find some way to restrain economic power. I’d like to find some option better than a Hobbesian Leviathan; but I have little patience with any political position which doesn’t see a problem in the growing power of corporations.

As a lesser point, your correspondent argues "Even today little tinhorn states around the world routinely nationalize or blackmail multinational corporations without fear." Routinely? That may be excessive. Nevertheless, it would be odd for him to suggest that the only practical alternative to corporate dominance is Marxist dictatorship… I really, really don’t want to go down that road. We could easily have drifted that direction in the 1930’s, and that should be warning enough.

So here’s where I sit. Marxism, Anarchism, and corporate oligarchy are all intolerable. I’m firmly enough convinced of the doctrine of original sin that I really don’t expect any political approach to these problems to be either flawless or stable. Yes, government intervention is clumsy and will sometimes bite us. Given that we’re working with fallen humans, I would expect no less. There may be alternatives, but I’d expect them to be equally flawed. I’d be interested if your correspondent could list some.

Allan E. Johnson

I have always held the theory that Marx had a great deal of truth in his theory of concentration of power, and that the anti-trust movement in the United States saved this nation from many of the horrid consequences of such concentrations. David McCord Wright, one of my favorite economists, always held that view. I would be very much in favor of reintroducing the trust busters. I was opposed to the persecution of Microsoft because it was ill conceived, but not on principle. I do not like corporate ‘growth’ by buying up the competition, and I certainly believe that any bank that is too big to fail is too big to exist.

I have the same view of government.

But then I have always been for transparency and subsidiarity as general principles. I’ve said all this many times, of course.

Pretty Good: http://de.webfail.at/image/i-am-your-father-win-bild.html

Indeed

Men to Mars

Jerry,

I remember reading a 1996 book called "The Case For Mars" by a NASA engineer called Zubrin. According to my fallible memory Zubrin’s scheme was to use off the shelf Proton rockets to fly a nuclear powered, Victorian technology, chemical plant which would combine the Martian atmosphere with a cargo of hydrogen to make methane, water, and oxygen. Another rocket would carry living quarters and only when this had been accomplished would a crew be sent. It certainly seemed plausible to me as the scheme relied on known technology. Certainly there would be a lot of R&D to make this possible, but essentially it would need no need no new discovery, only improved plumbing. One big plus would be that everything except the crew’s ship could be duplicated at a reasonable cost. On arrival the astronauts would have fuel for exploring and for the return trip, and water and oxygen for life support. At the time it struck me as being no more dangerous than flying a Starfighter.

John Edwards

I have known Zubrin for a long time, and while his scheme looks very plausible, I for one do not know how to get people to Mars alive if there is anything like a solar flare. And I don’t really think we know enough about keeping them alive once there.

I do think we could build a viable Lunar Colony with today’s technology, and we could learn from it about staying alive in the space environment. Moon next. Then Mars.

Space weather is worse than most of us think it is.

Rothschild Bets Against Euro

This is an interesting move by the most powerful family in Europe; perhaps, the most powerful family in the world:

<.>

If the actions of Lord Jacob Rothschild are anything to go by, the long predicted collapse of the Euro may not be far away, with the banking titan placing a $200 million dollar bet against the troubled single currency.

“Lord Rothschild, an elder member of the dynastic Rothschild banking family, has taken the position against the euro through RIT Capital Partners, the 1.9 billion pound investment trust of which he is executive chairman,” reports CNBC.

RIT has upped its short against the Euro from 3 per cent in January to 7 per cent in July.

</>

http://www.infowars.com/lord-rothschild-betting-on-euro-collapse/

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Well, perhaps he knows something…

Why all your correspondents urging the use of hollowpoint ammunition are dead wrong.

Yes, in most cases, hollowpoint rounds do a better job of stopping the target via expansion and the resultant wounding. Yes, hollowpoint rounds are generally safer in terms of through-and-through penetration and resultant collateral damage.

But that’s nothing compared to what a prosecutor a la Trayvon or a civil attorney representing the family of the deceased will do to you in a courtroom.

If you use anything other than full-metal jacket ammo; if you customize your weapon in any way for safer, more accurate handling (Pachmyr grips, integral laser sights, etc.); you will stand accused of being a dangerous, homicidal fanatic just looking for any excuse at all to make your own day by shooting someone, a mad-dog danger to the community who, far from acting in self-defense, went out on the date in question looking for someone to kill in what was at the very least second-degree murder, if not outright pre-planned first-degree homicide.

The facts of the case will be irrelevant. The point that you were acting in self-defense in fear of your life and with no avenue of retreat will be irrelevant. You will be made out to be a kindred spirit to Charles Whitman and Anton Brevik, acting out of various officially-proscribed thoughtcrimes such as racism, sexism, homophobia, religious bias, Republicanism, Christianity, and so forth. They will their best to convict and imprison you, as well as to sue and bankrupt you (the first greatly contributing to the probability of success of the second).

So, it’s far better to be selfish and to forego more secure grips, more accurate sights, and safer ammunition in order to immunize oneself as much as possible against post-self-defense legal assault by distinguished officers of the court, members of the bar, and the larger racial grievance community.

This isn’t speculation; I’ve seen this sort of thing play itself out multiple times. As a result, sensible law enforcement agencies forbid their armed operatives – with exceptions for SWAT-type paramilitaries, who apparently can employ field artillery and air-strikes with impunity – from customizing their weapons in any way, from using anything other than full-metal jacket ammunition, and even from utilizing accessories such as cutaway holsters or under-arm clip carriers.

Roland Dobbins

Philadelphia woman faces $600-a-day fine for feeding needy neighborhood kids

Evidently her crime was not getting permission from the government to help

other people out.after all, that IS the purview of the

government, not the citizens, when you live in a Socialist State.

Subject: Philadelphia woman faces $600-a-day fine for feeding needy

neighborhood kids

Published August 14, 2012

A Pennsylvania woman who offers free lunch every day to low-income children

in her neighborhood faces a $600-a-day fine next summer

if she continues because she did not clear the food giveaway with township

officials.

Angela Prattis donates her time to distribute the meals — supplied by the

Archdiocese of Philadelphia — and adheres to strict

paperwork, like filling out weekly reports and being visited bi-weekly from

a state worker, MyFoxPhilly.com reports. Philadelphia

News, Weather and Sports from WTXF FOX 29 <http://www.myfoxphilly.com/>

"Angela saw it as a way to contribute to the community in a positive way,"

Anne Ayella, a member of the archdiocese, said. "There

was nothing in it for her."

Prattis laughed and said, "I don’t make a dime."

Prattis lived in the township for three years. She reportedly distributes

the meals to the 60 or so children at a gazebo on her

property during the summer months, when children are home from school.

The Delaware County Times reports that another resident alerted the council

about the distribution a few weeks ago. The council

investigated and ruled that the practice is not permitted without a

variance, the paper reported.

"You have houses here, the roofs are falling in, and they could be focused

on a lot of more serious issues than me feeding

children," she said.

Chester Township, which has a per capita income of $19,000 a year, says

Prattis lives in a residential zone, hence handing out food

to children is not allowed. The township says she needs to go before a

zoning board to ask for a variance, which would cost her up

to $1,000 in administrative fees.

"I don’t think it’s my responsibility to go to her to say, ‘why don’t you

come to talk to me to see if there’s something that we can

do to help your program,’" William Pisarek, the Chester Township business

manager, said.

Prattis told The Delaware County Times that she is not going to stop feeding

the children in the area.

Well at least it’s local. Wait until Obama tries to ‘solve this problem’ with a national policy.

Jerry Pournelle

Yep…that is a good point….and after I sent the email, I realized that when the township business manager said:

"I don’t think it’s my responsibility to go to her to say, ‘why don’t you come to talk to me to see if there’s something that we can do to help your program,’" William Pisarek, the Chester Township business manager, said."

…that he didn’t think it was his responsibility to help out someone doing a good thing, even with a phone call to suggest she come to his office and pay homage to him before continuing her work. He did however, have time to ensure that she felt the sting of a bureaucrat’s ire for not properly kowtowing to him without prompting through the threat of fines.

Tracy

I am far less concerned about thickheaded town clerks than I am about building a federal bureaucracy to “fix the problem”.

Mail 738 Monday, August 20, 2012

Regarding the D’Souza piece

Jerry:

Here’s where he lost me:

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

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

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

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

Hoping this finds you well,

— Hal

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

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

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

Tom Brosz

Thank you.

Not just bunny inspectors ….

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

http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/17404

Monty

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

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

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

Roland Dobbins

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Dependence

Jerry,

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

Wish I’d come up with it,

Andrew J. Jackson

Allies

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

It is my contention that this is insane.

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

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

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

G

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

Armed Pizza Delivery

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

<.>

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

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

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

</>

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

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

We have sown the wind. Now we reap.

Lucifer’s Hammer review…

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

Charles Brumbelow

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

Dutch to Mars?

Jerry,

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

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

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

Chris Poor

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

Mail 737 Thursday, August 16, 2012

Only in real life:

Subj: "Am I my brother’s keeper?"

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/16/how-became-george-obama-brother/

The article is by Dinesh D’Souza, and it is startling. Assuming that D’Souza is not simply an outright liar, the story is damning. It is a story of a personal relationship between D’Souza and George Obama, youngest brother of the President of the United States. Excerpts:

Barack Obama Jr. first met [his brother] George in 1987, when George was five years old.  He met George again in 2006 when he visited Kenya as a U.S. Senator from Illinois; George was then in his early twenties.  Had Obama helped George along the way, perhaps this young man would not have ended up dirt-poor and living such a degraded life.

So what’s the real story here?  Where’s George Obama’s “fair share”?  George’s tragic situation exposes President Obama as a hypocrite.  Here is a man who demands that others pay higher taxes to help the poor—even poor people who are not related to them—while Obama himself refuses to help a close relative like George. 

I will confess to being shocked by this story. I knew that President Obama had siblings in Africa, and that they did not live large. I did not know the whole story.

Organlegging

Now who would have thought?

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/08/16/organ-trafficking-on-rise-in-united-states/?test=latestnews

Oh yeah, you and Niven.

We certainly live in interesting times.

Braxton Cook

And of course in China you can order spare parts to be collected from executed felons.

Subj: New free online courses from edX (MIT and Harvard)

Forwarded from edX, which is a joint effort of MIT and Harvard in online education.

We are pleased to announce that we have recently added six new free courses to the edX curriculum:

* Introduction to Computer Science I

* Introduction to Computer Science and Programming

* Introduction to Solid State Chemistry

* Circuits and Electronics

* Artificial Intelligence

* Software as a Service

* Quantitative Methods in Clinical and Public Health Research

To read full descriptions of these exciting new courses, and to register for any of these courses, please visit the new edX website at https://www.edx.org/

You can also find answers for many questions in our FAQ section, https://www.edx.org/faq

Thank you for your interest and support we look forward to building the future of online learning with your help!

Please forward this to your friends and colleagues who you think may be interested in edX.

Sincerely,

The edX Team

A Swedish company, Day4, successfully played on people’s paranoia about/fascination with Apple’s development culture.

This story originated in the LA Times, but here’s a free source for it —

http://www.menafn.com/menafn/56c279c7-c8db-4ee6-baec-4db1be7766b7/Swedish-firms-Apple-hoax-shows-gullibility-of-online-readers?src=MWHEAD

Day4 created a rendering of a screw with a weird, asymmetrical head. The screw was supposedly designed to keep Apple users from opening their products. With Apple’s track record of keeping controlled environments, this wasn’t too hard to believe.

Day4 had a plausible story, and now it just needed a way to get it out.

The company attached the photo of the screw rendering to a fake email that read as though it was from a source within Apple. Day4 then uploaded the picture to Imgur, and shared it as a link on Reddit in a post titled "A friend took a photo a while ago at that fruit company, they are obviously even creating their own screws."

M

I have more information on jacketed hollow point rounds than you probably want to know, but it does no harm to collect it here.

Jacketed Hollow Points

Dear Doctor Pournelle:

Regarding expanding bullets, jacketed hollow points in particular, here in Ohio in a justified self-defense shooting, neither my assailant nor his mutant relatives can collect a penny in damages from me. But let me shoot that same assailant with a full metal jacketed bullet, get a through and through and kill somebody’s toddler on the other side of him, and I might as well use the next round on myself. I almost certainly won’t go to jail, but financially, I can stick a fork in myself. I’m done. Since I got my Ohio Concealed Handgun License, I have carried nothing but jacketed hollowpoints in my semi-automatic handguns, and lead semi-wadcutter hollowpoints in my revolvers. I would never carry anything else.

And regarding shotgun loads, are you sure that you didn’t mean "#4 BUCKSHOT" instead of "#4 birdshot"? The former is quite popular for self-defense. The latter is of dubious effectiveness at best, even at very close ranges… unless you’re trying to protect Tippi Hedrin…

Chris Morton

= = = =

Just a quick line regarding your commentary Wednesday in response to your correspondent, jomath, concerning the Fish & Wildlife purchasing of several thousand rounds of pistol ammunition story. Most pistol ammunition currently carried by Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) contains jacketed hollowpoint/hollow cavity type (JHP) bullets. The reasons they use this ammunition in preference to Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) bullets or all-lead bullets such as the wadcutters you mentioned in your response, is that JHP ammunition can be relied upon more to consistently expand within the target, than FMJ or any of the all-lead or slightly-exposed-lead types of bullets. Further, many types of modern, polygonally-rifled pistols are intolerant of all-lead bullets, like those wadcutters.

Expanded bullets, all else remaining equal, will penetrate less than an unexpanded FMJ bullet, while still penetrating sufficiently to stop an assailant. (12 inches, per FBI doctrine in the 1980s. See, for example, this 1989 short paper from Special Agent Urey Patrick on Handgun Wounding: http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi-hwfe.pdf) A brief survey of terminal ballistics data at websites such as brassfetcher.com or theboxotruth.com will buttress this point. Reducing overpenetration should reduce the frequency of bullets exiting the intended target, which in turn would reduce the frequency of bystanders being hit by exiting bullets, as well as lowering the velocity of those exited bullets. The net effect is that JHP bullets are safer for bystanders than FMJ. .

Moreover, as many of the pages at theboxotruth demonstrate, any defensive loading sufficient to penetrate enough to increase one’s chances of stopping an assailant, will also go through multiple house walls. If it won’t go through multiple walls, as birdshot won’t in most cases, it can’t be relied upon to stop the bad guy. (With the possible exception of certain frangible bullets, such as the various Glaser Safety Slugs. Your readers can google through the swamps of debate surrounding those bullets.) Stopping the bad guy from using lethal force against us is why the grave step of using deadly force is taken in the first place. It doesn’t do much good to mortally wound the assailant, yet not stop him in his assault. See, for example, analysis of the 1986 FBI Florida shootout with bank robbers Matix and Platt, which resulted in the deaths of two FBI agents and five wounded, after both robbers were initially wounded. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout

I agree with your points that NOAA’s LEO tasks seem to be something the U.S. Marshalls could do. That said, once they have the task, I personally think NOAA’s buying 24,000 .40 S&W rounds for 63 officers is a non-issue. That only comes out to 400 rounds, or 8 50-round boxes, for each officer. I do not know Federal LEO firearm training standards, but 400 rounds per officer for training and carrying in their duty weapon, does not seem excessive to me, especially if this is meant to supply the officer for several years. Even if doubled, this would still be less than 1,000 rounds per officer.

Any plans on another book in the Burning City universe?

Sincerely,

Jake Fetters

Thank you. I suspect that settles the matter, except that I do not believe in needless multiplication of armed federal officers. Game officers may be a sufficiently specialized force to be an exception, but I keep remembering that if BATF had been required to cooperate with the county sheriff there would have been no Waco massacre.

As to The Burning City series – Niven and I tend to think of it as The Golden Road stories – we have one in mind but it is not our next work. It takes Sandry and Burning Tower into Jaguar’s land to the south, where, incidentally, they may find European wood elves trapped in a rain forest…

re: Fish and wildlife bullets

Hello. I know you’re very busy, so I’ll try to keep this brief.

Pistol ammunition using hollowpoint bullets of some type or other have become the norm for law enforcement issue at all levels in the US, this transition having taken place mainly between 1980 and 1990, approximately.

The reasons for this are various, and include, but are not limited to:

the fact that they are designed to flatten out in a manner not unlike a rivet upon impact with soft tissue makes them tear a larger hole, which is more lethal and destructive, which in turn increases the likelihood of rapidly incapacitating the shoot-ee, all else being equal

the fact that they are designed to deform on impact also makes them somewhat less likely to ricochet should they strike a hard surface, such as a pavement or brick wall, reducing danger to innocent bystanders

the increased surface area resulting from the projectile’s deformation reduces total penetration in soft tissue, in turn making the bullet more likely to stay within the recipient’s body rather than perforate it completely, again reducing danger to innocent bystanders

There was a time when semiauto handguns did not as a rule function well with hollowpoint ammunition, which tended to cause feedway stoppages due to the shape of the bullet, at least without some labor-intensive hand-fitting work by an armorer–adjusting the feed ramp angle, polishing feed ramp and breech face, adjusting extractor tension, perhaps adjusting the feed lips of the magazine to hold the top round higher, and much more, some of it fairly arcane, but nowadays the popular polymer-framed police pistols were designed from the ground up with the assumption that they would be used with hollowpoints and are not finicky about ammunition at all, right out of the box. And of course this is a non-issue with revolvers, but police departments mostly haven’t used revolvers for about 25 years now.

Anonymous in Michigan

MSNBC ran a front-page caption "For Orphaned Elephants, Humans Are the Herd" for the coverage at this link —

http://dailynightly.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/16/13316959-elephant-population-dwindles-as-demand-for-ivory-grows-how-to-foster-a-baby-elephant?lite

I thought the co-author of Footfall should be notified!

–Mike

Thanks!

Hollywood Crumbles

It’s more than just the rapacious tax system killing Hollywood. In my previous life I was involved in operating television stations. We made a decision in about 1993 that we would not expand our operations in California as much because of the regulatory environment as the taxes.

We had a tenured faculty member at Berkeley object to rebuilding a transmission facility on grounds that it was near stone walls built in the hills "by the Indians, in prehistoric times, under the guidance of beings from outer space." And the way California environmental law works, I had to commission an archeologist (approved by the state) to produce a report rebutting the assertion. As I recall, that was about $10K. And don’t get me started on an employee demanding that we re-work her workstation to relieve her wrist pain. The problem: she was seeing two different Chiropractors whose instructions for the changes were opposite and contradictory. Or ……..but you get the idea.

Silicon Valley remains strong, but no longer stands alone in electronics. Lots of the smaller specialists that support Silicon Valley have bailed out to Nevada, Texas, or Arizona. California would be bankrupt if it had to account the way that private companies do; and our one-party legislature spends like they had a multi-billion dollar surplus, when they are way over their heads in debt. The chickens will come home to roost, surely. Its only a question of "how soon."

Bill Beeman

California cannot continue this, but it does serve as a horrible example for the rest of the country…

Subject: Group launches campaign accusing Obama of taking credit for bin Laden raid

I wondered how long it would be before the Intel and Spec Ops community had enough:

A group of former military and intelligence operatives launched an aggressive campaign against President Obama Wednesday, accusing the president of claiming undue credit for the Usama bin Laden raid and suggesting his administration is behind politically motivated security leaks

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/15/military-group-reportedly-accusing-obama-taking-credit-for-bin-laden-raid/?intcmp=trending#ixzz23fUUla7D <http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/15/military-group-reportedly-accusing-obama-taking-credit-for-bin-laden-raid/?intcmp=trending#ixzz23fUUla7D>

Tracy

I suppose it had to happen.

Government

Mr. Pournelle;

Thank you for your thoughtful reply to my note. I’ve been thinking about your comment "My preference is for government at local levels to be responsible for the safety net. … "

I’ve spent most of my life in rural agricultural settings; and what comes to mind for me is power imbalance. One way I’ve heard it put is: if a hundred farmers each brought a bushel of grain into a room, and a hundred buyers bid for it, they’d soon reach a fair price. When a hundred farmers each bring their bushel, and there’s one buyer in the room, it’s a different story.

I distrust any concentration of power; consequently, concern about the power of the federal government makes a great deal of sense for me. But while a government big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take away all you have, so are three men with guns and a truck. It seems to me that our economy is rapidly degenerating into oligarchic crony capitalism, and they’ve got a really big truck. Government is a pretty feeble counterbalance, but it’s the only one I see around; and local governments haven’t a prayer.

Given that within my lifetime I haven’t seen any administration of either party actually decrease the size of the federal government, I am inclined to suspect that our real choice is: what sort of big central government do we want? "Liberalism" seems to offer an incompetent "Brave New World" of decadence and cradle-to-grave care. "Conservatism," as currently presented, seems to offer something between "1984" and Pohl and Kornbluth’s "Gladiator At Law": a garrison state, whose only funded business is war, and an economy controlled by and run for the benefit of a self-perpetuating oligarchy. I find both appalling, but find a little more room for humanity in the liberal nightmare. Especially if it’s incompetent.

Then there’s the real possibility that this century will be China with footnotes. In which case we’ll need a strong central government indeed.

Thank you again for a venue in which people with greatly differing views can try to think together.

Allan E. Johnson

Herman Kahn famously said that the most significant fact of the 20th Century was that the United States and England spoke the same language, and the most significant of the 21st Century would be that the US and Russia were Caucasian nations. He was probably wrong. And China with footnotes…

Click here: If we want to improve education in the UK, why not do what we know actually works? – Telegraph Blogs <http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/timworstall/100019454/if-we-want-to-improve-education-in-the-uk-why-not-do-what-we-know-actually-works/>

Nothing you haven’t long spotted but Worstall puts it well. I find his columns normally worth it.

"Or as PJ O’Rourke once pointed out (and my own early experience confirmed) anyone who has ever dated an Education major knows what the problem in teaching is: it’s not an occupation attracting the clever.

What’s really remarkable about this empirical evidence is that the three things that seem to be important are the three things that would and do produce fits of the vapours in our educational experts and the teaching unions. But maybe it’s just a result of that third problem: they’re really not all that bright."

Neil Craig

"a lone wolf howling in despair in the intellectual wilderness of Scots politics"

You may be interested in my political blog http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/

There are some good and intelligent teachers. I have been married to one for over fifty years, and my son is married to another. But Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy applies to education in spades with big casino. But the purpose of public education appears to be to pay educational workers with no regard to their competence or accomplishments.

Mail 737 Monday, August 13, 2012

Ryan selection

From a Democratic and liberal perspective:

Well, Ryan certainly makes this election a clear choice.

From where I sit, Mr. Romney has apparently chosen to run for President of the Republican Party rather than President of all the people. By which I mean, I tend to doubt that any political party (included my own) has all that firm a grip on reality, so I favor sloppy compromises rather than insistence on principles pursued so consistently that it involves ignoring other people’s principles. Better to seek approaches in which as many of us as possible can, at least to some degree, see our own values.

I had thought that was part of the conservative approach, along with a reluctance to overturn slow historical developments for a swift, untested change of course. But apparently, these days, not.

Allan E. Johnson

I would greatly prefer a time when elections were not crisis situations. It is not good for any one faction to govern for long. Unfortunately we have come to the point where neither party is satisfied with the trends and want to change them. Freedom and entitlements are not compatible. Entitlements make for dependence.

My preference is for government at local levels to be responsible for the safety net. I am not responsible for Iowa’s unemployed farm hands, nor should Iowa be responsible for failed aspirants to a position as a movie star. Subsidiarity and transparency and the knowledge that local resources is all you will have will suffice while limiting dependence. Or so I would prefer.

In 2008 the American people chose Hope and Change. They got change but it may not have been what they hoped for. The selection of Ryan for VP makes the meaning of this election clear. That is to be preferred. What I would really prefer is that the election be so decisive that everyone understands we are abandoning the road to serfdom and returning to liberty and responsibility. That is probably too much to hope for, but I remain stubborn.

‘If one reads the Federalist papers, one understands that the Founders feared capture by self-interested "faction" above all else, and most fearful of all was capture by a faction that made up a majority.’

<http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/08/political_legitimacy_and_the_special_interest_state.html>

Roland Dobbins

Limiting the power of government is the only remedy: a government that can do great good can do great harm in the wrong hands. But that invites a far longer essay than I have time for tonight.

I disagree with your choice of words — or word in this case. 

You wrote:

"But I have some reason to believe that both Romney and Ryan are closer to my views of American foreign policy – we are friends of liberty everywhere but guardians only of our own, and if you would have peace be prepared for war – than to the neoconservative imperialisms. And whatever their foreign policy views they are likely to be superior to what we are doing now. There isn’t a good simple description of our current foreign policy, which seems to be based on finger wagging, stating that something is unacceptable while clearly accepting it, telling everyone what they ought to be doing without paying much attention to what they are doing, and in generally promoting democracy by wishing for it without quite realizing what it would mean if implemented. Perhaps I am overly harsh, but I don’t think so."

It seems to me that "harsh" was not the right word.  You might have placed "sober" or "sensible" in there and the paragraph would have been more correct and true.  Of course, I would agree with you that I do not think you are being overly sober or sensible — were you to make that change. 

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Oddly, you are not the only reader who has said that.

And Now It’s The Weather Service

Dear Jerry –

Since you have commented on the Department of Education SWAT teams, you will be interested to read https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=bfd95987a1ad9a6dfb22bca4a19150cb&tab=core&tabmode=list&=

It seems the NOAA is in the market for 46,000 rounds of handgun ammo.

A macho bunch, those weathermen.

Regards,

Jim Martin

Great heavens. Imagine TSA officers with SWAT gear outside your door at 4 AM. Only it’s the Weather Bureau and you’re accused of breathing out too much CO2?

‘If you are insured by Progressive, and they owe you money, they will defend your killer in court in order to not pay you your policy.’

Some adult language:

<http://mattfisher.tumblr.com/post/29338478278/my-sister-paid-progressive-insurance-to-defend-her>

Roland Dobbins

A remarkable story. I have not seen this one before.

The coldest fusion of all.

<http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-martin-fleischmann-20120813,0,1303946.story>

Roland Dobbins

It was a remarkable story at the time. The Navy has quietly continued to fund fundamental research into cold fusion. I have seen no credible results.

Subj: OSCON 2012: Kaitlin Thaney calls for open science

http://opensource.com/life/12/8/oscon-2012-kaitlin-thaney-calls-open-science

>>Some of the most expensive research that has been done is managed by post-it notes and poorly annotated excel spreadsheets… Where is my ability to reproduce experiments?<<

http://www.oscon.com/oscon2012/public/schedule/speaker/128467

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv5tsyPb5Og

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

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

I can hardly quarrel with that.

Subj: _Thrust Into Space_ PDF on the Web

www.askmar.com/Spaceflight/Thrust%20Into%20Space.pdf

The hosting site doesn’t look like a pirate site; it looks like a wannabe e-publisher whose day job is marketing consulting:

http://www.askmarpublishing.com/books/thrust.html

Strange that the book-description page has no link to the book, but does have links to slide decks associated with the book.

http://www.askmarpublishing.com/authors/hunter.html

http://www.askmarpublishing.com/index.html

http://www.askmar.com/

It does seem a tad peculiar, though, for an epublisher to give only a street address on its contact page. The consulting site’s contact page also gives a phone number, and if you look closely at the bottom of the consulting site’s page, you’ll see a "ContactMe" link to a page that offers a fill-in-to-email form.

Anyone know any of the author’s heirs, to check whether the PDF is authorized? There seems to be only one or two reasonably-priced used copies of the book-on-dead-trees, plus a bunch of copies offered for $200. each.

Personally, I’d gladly pay a reasonable amount for the PDF, if I knew where to send the money.

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Max Hunter’s Thrust Into Space is still an excellent introduction into rocket propulsion science. Max and I discussed getting Thrust Into Space back in print, but he wanted to rewrite some parts, and nothing ever came of it. I have no idea who has scanned and published this, which appears to be the same as the copy Max gave me when we worked together on SDI and the DC/X. Perhaps the National Space Society has better information. Max and I corresponded irregularly until his death.

Mamelukes eviscerated, or at least emasculated

Jerry:

Check this out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/world/middleeast/egyptian-leader-ousts-military-chiefs.html?_r=1

Just as the heirs of Kemal Ataturk who safeguarded Turkey’s fragile, secular, democracy for almost a century have been purged, the Egyptian military is being subjugated by a militant Islamic government.

I need to start mass producing and marketing fallout shelters.

Jim Crawford

Democracy in Egypt will not be friendly to Israel.

Wireless connectivity

Hi Jerry,

Take a look at the mi-fi from either Verizon or AT&T. They connect to the cellular network, and then create your own wireless hotspot. I used the Verizon one (before I got my iPad 3 that does the same thing), and would get 10mbit connections when in LTE.

And, there is no carrier software to install. Phones, iPads, computers just connect to the wifi network (up to 5 devices).

With the new shared data plans, it’s actually pretty affordable.

Cheers,

Doug

It is more than I need, but for those who do need it it can be a good deal. If I were on the road more I would seriously consider it. As it is, the USB 3G works well, is simple to carry, and I buy what I need.

Mr. Heinlein’s letter to you and Larry Niven

…about The Mote In God’s Eye appears in this sample of the Virginia Edition of his collected works:

http://www.virginiaedition.com/ve/TheVirginiaEdition-sample.pdf

Happy birthday, sir, and may you see many happy returns of the day!

Thank you.

Subj: Microsoft’s Lost Decade

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer

>>By the dawn of the millennium, the hallways at Microsoft were no

>>longer home to barefoot programmers in Hawaiian shirts working through

>>nights and weekends toward a common goal of excellence; instead, life

>>behind the thick corporate walls had become staid and brutish.

>>Fiefdoms had taken root, and a mastery of internal politics emerged as

>>key to career success.<<

Did not W. Edwards Deming predict that a corporate culture based on internal competition, ranking of individuals and short-term thinking would lead to destruction?

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

I think Microsoft lost its soul when Bill Gates left. It may regain it.

On helping the Iraqis, or anyone else, to democracy

I don’t believe it’s possible. We’re not willing to occupy Iraq long enough to ensure that at least a generation grows up with us in control, making over Iraq in our image, much like England has managed in a number of places, most notably, India. Which we did after a fashion in Germany, Japan and S Korea. All the welfare mommas spitting out welfare babies with made up names that comprise the Democrat party base won’t put up with it. It’ll cut into their EBT payout.

John S Allison

I have said this for decades. But the examples of our success in Japan and Germany dance enticingly before our eyes. What man has done man may aspire to. But we will not pay the full price. See Kipling.

Subj: Capitalism in Space

http://www.openmarket.org/2012/08/10/capitalism-in-space/

which links to a longer piece by the same writer at National Review Online.

I remember seeing a video of an interview of Elon Musk, of SpaceX, in which he observed that all the Russian rocket programs are run by Cold-War-vintage engineers, who will be either retiring or dying over the next few years, with no competent younger engineers stepping in.

Consequently, Musk expects Russian space-launch capability, especially in reliability, to take a steep nose-dive soon.

In another interview, Musk expressed profound disinterest in having anything to do with the Chinese, since the Chinese would immediately steal any technology they learned anything about.

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Political Ramblings from Wisconsin

Hi Jerry,

My job affords me the opportunity to talk with people in a technical support capacity across the country (indeed around the world) and sometimes locations will come up in the conversation. When Wisconsin is mentioned, almost always I’m asked "How do you feel about Scott Walker?" and "Can you send him over to fill-in-the-state, we need that kind of leadership."

I usually reply that I’m a strong supporter, and I’m sorry, but no, you can’t borrow Governor Walker, because we still have more work to do in Wisconsin.

Much to my suprise, while on a family vacation out east, last week, – touring the 911 Memorial, Statue of Liberty & Times Square – the above conversation took place several times on the streets of New York City!

While unscientific in the extreme, these examples perhaps can give hope that there is a stronger conservative sentiment waiting to be tapped than one might believe.

On the VP process – WI Representative Paul Ryan has lately been mentioned as a "strong" possible candidate (for what that’s worth). If so, I hope that Mr. Romney will select someone else. While Rep. Ryan is the conservative’s darling – assuming that Mr. Romney wins the election, Rep Ryan will be in a position to accomplish considerably more in the House than he ever could as V.P.

Belated Birthday Wishes!

Tony Sherfinski

Joshua Robinson receives PhD from OSU

Dear Friends,

Joshua, working primarily under direction from Professor Michael Hartman, designed and built an award-winning neutron spectrometer that is now a part of the Oregon State University nuclear reactor facility. He has received his PhD for this work.

After a long struggle (where Joshua was targeted without regard for his excellent student and research performance) and with help from OSU Professor Jack Higginbotham and also the dean of the OSU graduate school, Joshua Robinson has received his PhD degree in nuclear engineering from Oregon State University. He would have graduated sooner and at significantly less expense if these unprincipled actions had not been taken against him, but we are very pleased that he was able to finish and we are very thankful for all of you who helped him.

The other two Robinson students who were targeted by Art Robinson’s opponents at OSU, are Matthew Robinson and Bethany Robinson. It is hoped that they, too, will complete their degree work. Concerned OSU alumni and OSU staff members are making efforts to help them.

Professor Jack Higginbotham, a distinguished nuclear engineer (and 25-year faculty member at OSU) who recently served as President of the OSU Faculty Senate, has suffered both personally and professionally from unprincipled attacks made against him in retribution for his efforts on behalf of the Robinson students and for his efforts on behalf of other students who were being treated improperly. His position has, however, improved because of the public pressure from supporters.

While tragic for the students, for their professor, and for OSU, these events should benefit OSU in the long run. All large institutions, even those with the noble goals of OSU, must learn to deal correctly with the occasional misdeeds of individuals within their organizations.

The Robinson family of six young people and their father now includes Dr. Art Robinson, Dr. Zachary Robinson, Dr. Noah Robinson, Dr. Arynne Robinson, Dr. Joshua Robinson, Miss Bethany Robinson, and Mr. Matthew Robinson, with Matthew and Bethany still to complete their formal educations. All seven have unusually outstanding academic records.

The Robinson family is deeply grateful for the help of the thousands of Oregonians who stepped forward to help Joshua, Bethany, Matthew, and Professor Higginbotham. Your help has made it possible for these four outstanding Oregonians to continue with their life’s work.

Sincerely,

Art Robinson

This was sent by Dr. Robinson to his friends and supporters.