Category Archives: Mail

Mail 729 Wednesday, June 20, 2012

We’re off for a couple of days so things will be erratic.

Query to those who are familiar with Livewriter: My ThinkPad has livewriter on it, and it works, and I know the passwords, and it will go out and get ‘recent’ posts – but of course recent to the ThinkPad is the last time we used it to post something. It has no belief that I have done anything since. FrontPage kept a local copy of everything so this was never a problem, but Livewriter doesn’t seem to have any way I can tell it to go get the most recent post if that was posted by another machine. A quick Google on the problem shows others have it too but I found no solution. How do you use Livewriter if you use more than one computer?

Maybe this machine has a file of the latest blog titles and I can send that to my ThinkPad? Or is there a way to type the daily title in? Or what? Please don’t send mail speculating. If you don’t know, I won’t have time to check out guesses. But I’d sure like to know.

And thanks to Rick Hellewell I know. You must click the nameless button on the upper left; mouse to the open recent posts item, but ignore what pops up when yhou hold the mouse over it; and CLICK on the open recent posts item. That will open a dialog that lets you click on the site name and refresh it. There’s even a counter for how far back you want to so, default at 50 but if you are on dialup it’s better to choose 20. And LO! Here we are. This is obviously a revision of the original. So it can be done and it is even rather logical once you think of it, but the convenient popup when you mouse the item confused me into not clicking on it.  Ah well. My thanks to Rick for his patience.  It took me about 4 tries to figure this out.

Attorney General and attorney client privilege

Dear Jerry,

John Dean’s article on president and government lawyer attorney client privilege.

Michael

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20040604.html

Bush Needs An Outside Attorney To Maintain Attorney-Client Privilege

Readers may wonder, why is Bush going to an outside counsel, when numerous government attorneys are available to him – for instance, in the White House Counsel’s Office <http://pview.findlaw.com/view/1505800_1> ?

The answer is that the President has likely been told it would be risky to talk to his White House lawyers, particularly if he knows more than he claims publicly.

Ironically, it was the fair-haired Republican stalwart Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr who decimated the attorney-client privilege for government lawyers and their clients – which, to paraphrase the authority Wigmore, applies when legal advice of any kind is sought by a client from a professional legal adviser, where the advice is sought in confidence.

The reason the privilege was created was to insure open and candid discussion between a lawyer and his or her client. It traditionally applied in both civil and criminal situations for government lawyers, just as it did for non-government lawyers. It applied to written records of communications, such as attorney’s notes, as well as to the communications themselves.

But Starr tried to thwart that tradition in two different cases, before two federal appeals courts. There, he contended that there should be no such privilege in criminal cases involving government lawyers.

In the first case, In re Grand Jury Subpoenas Duces Tecum <http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=search&case=/data2/circs/8th/964108p.html> , former First Lady Hillary Clinton had spoken with her private counsel in the presence of White House counsel (who had made notes of the conversation). Starr wanted the notes. Hillary Clinton claimed the privilege.

A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit agreed with Starr. The court held that a grand jury was entitled to the information. It also held that government officials — even when serving as attorneys — had a special obligation to provide incriminating information in their possession.

In the second case, In re Lindsey <http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=dc&navby=case&no=983060C> , Deputy White House Counsel Bruce Lindsey refused to testify about his knowledge of President Clinton’s relationship to Monica Lewinsky, based on attorney-client privilege. Starr sought to compel Lindsey’s testimony, and he won again.

This time, Starr persuaded the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to follow the Eighth Circuit. The court ruled that exposure of wrongdoing by government lawyers fostered democracy, as "openness in government has always been thought crucial to ensuring that the people remain in control of their government."

Based on these precedents, President Bush has almost certainly been told that the only way he can discuss his potential testimony with a lawyer is by hiring one outside the government.

Fascinating. I am no longer much of an authority on Executive Privilege, but I once taught Constitutional Law and I did have a couple of seminars on the subject – all long ago. Constitutional crises change things. Usually the change isn’t beneficial to the Republic. Hard cases make bad law.

I got this today:

Subject: Fw: The Mess (You need to read this slowly and REMEMBER WHAT YOU READ)

This tells the whole story, why Bush was so bad at the end of his term. Don’t just skim over this, it’s not long, but read it slowly and let it sink in. If in doubt, check it out!

The day the democrats took over was not January 22, 2009, it was actually January 3, 2007, the day democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress. The Democrat Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time, since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.

For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush’s Fault", think about this:

January 3, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress. At the time:

The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77

The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%

The Unemployment rate was 4.6%

George Bush’s Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB GROWTH

Remember the day…

January 3, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd

took over the Senate Banking Committee.

The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?

BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!

Unemployment… to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!

Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie – starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the U.S. economy.

And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA

And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? OBAMA and the Democrat Congress

So when someone tries to blame Bush – REMEMBER JANUARY 3, 2007…. THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!"

Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January, 2007 is the Democratic Party.

Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as well as 2010 &2011. In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.

For 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budgets.

And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete 2009.

If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.

If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself. In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is he inherited a deficit that he voted for, and then he voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20.

There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!

I haven’t had a chance to chase down every detail. I do point out that after Gingrich the Republican House spent a LOT of money. Obama spent more once he got in, but the House after Gingrich went on some mad sprees. And we now owe more than a year’s GDP. That cannot be good.

When you are deep in a hole, rather than argue as to how you got there and whose fault it is, the first thing would appear to be to stop digging.

Best Movie of 2012, so far.

http://paulinhouston.blogspot.com/2012/06/best-movie-of-2012.html

Best Movie of 2012, so far.

"Serious" critics, and many who saw it and enjoyed the hell out it, may consider this as heresy, but so be it. I’ll be vastly (but pleasantly) surprised if it’s nominated for such, but right now I’m saying that "The Avengers" is it.

—

Paul Gordon ( http://paulinhouston.blogspot.com/ )

"When faced with a problem you do not understand,

do any part of it you do understand; then look at it again."

(Robert A. Heinlein – "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress")

I don’t have a better candidate.

MSNBC

well…. dozens any way.

b;)

bob leever

Copyright Inertia

You write: "There is such a thing as intellectual property, and the current legal system isn’t doing too well with it."

I suggest that the issue isn’t the legal system, but rather the users. We did not have to rewrite the laws on trespass when the bulldozer was invented.

The issue, I think, is that despite our claims of American freedom and individuality, we’re used to the paradigm of "if you can do it then it’s legal, and if it’s legal you can do it". There’s nothing physically preventing me from making mp3 copies of the songs on a CD and then selling that CD on ebay; therefore, making copies of the songs then selling the CD must be legal. Somehow. We’re not quite sure, but if we weren’t *allowed* to do it then it wouldn’t *work*, right?

It’s like a fence. We all know what a fence means, and that acting to circumvent the access control implied by a fence is Not Allowed. Not that this means you *can’t* jump over a fence, or even that doing so would be particularly difficult. And maybe you don’t agree that the fence ought to be there at all. But nobody’s going to look at a fence and be completely unaware of the statement that fence is making about what’s on the inside of it.

And intellectual property has always had fences. Words like "copyright" and "trademark" and "all rights reserved" are what fences around intellectual property look like. The thing is, up until maybe fifteen years ago it was *hard* for the typical person to climb over those fences. And what that means is that nobody ever learned how to see the fences, or how to understand the size of them. Then when broadband started to become widespread, we all got metaphorical bulldozers and started driving them everywhere, and we started running over fences without even knowing that they *existed*, much less that we were crossing them.

What does it mean? Well, it means that people need to understand that "I can copy this without too much trouble" doesn’t mean that copying it is no big deal. It also means that, to the extent that the legal system has catching up to do, it’s going to be in the direction of *more* restriction rather than *less*–if people had started using bulldozers to smash down fences, the response would not have been to make fences illegal.

Although it’s also the case that if it’s critical to your activity that people not enter an area, then you’re likely to have more than just a knee-high fence and a "NO TRESPASSING" sign.

—

Mike T. Powers

I will point out that most of my books available on Amazon Kindle can be had in pirate editions by a bit of diligent searching, but my backlist sales are pretty good, and Secret of Black Ship Island has done well despite being pirated immediately on publication; we don’t need everyone to be honest, just enough good people.

A Dialogue

Provider – Medicare

"… about an optometrist requiring a 30 page form to be submitted three times before Medicare/Medicare would accept his change of address. He goes months without getting paid for the work he has done. One presumes – but it is a presumption – that eventually he was sent the money owed him, but for months he could not get the government to note his change of address. Then he tells a story of going to a burger place and using a touch screen to order a sandwich, and says “Amazing” – as a contrast to business as usual with the government. It was a pretty good talk to a reasonable crowd. "

<GRIN> this is exactly my job at the moment… I’m the Medicare Provider Enrollment Manager (in other words, a bureaucrat) for Pinnacle Business Solutions, Inc., a Medicare contracted carrier. The doctor isn’t exaggerating, an enrollment or a change application (form CMS855), for a provider in Medicare is a 30+ page document – not to mention required attachments. AND, it must be newly and fully completed EACH time a change (address, bank, owner, etc) is done. The provider is, as well, required to revalidate (i.e. submit a complete, new, application) every 5 years, even if nothing has changed! However; the document is not difficult, instructions are complete and on the document itself. Additionally, the provider can elect to access the document online via the CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) website and be prompted throughout the process. Before we go off into Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy, I can attest the application and process is as simple as possible to comply with law mandated by Congress (I do remember a time when the application was only a 2 page process). BUT, Congress, in its wisdom and fear and promises to cut fraud, has made the process onerous, capricious and punishing on well-meaning, lawful providers. Furthermore, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), further complicates this situation – it’ll get worse. I’m quite aware of many providers dropping out of Medicare or refusing to accept additional Medicare patients simply due to the onerous regulations/restrictions for participation and reimbursement. There are a seething mass of frustrated doctors out there who only want to be able to treat patients and be reasonably compensated for their labors/knowledge.

s/f

Couv

Cheap energy = prosperity!

Drill here, DRILL NOW!

David Couvillon

As Adam Smith observed, every time two capitalist competitors meet they conspire to find a way to get government to prevent anyone else from becoming a competitor. Regulations and red tape, even if " the document is not difficult, instructions are complete and on the document itself. Additionally, the provider can elect to access the document online via the CMS" is a very good way to raise the requirements for a startup company.

Ah well.

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

Ironically, the stated purpose of Medicare administration is to INCREASE the participation of qualified providers to service the needs of Medicare beneficiaries.

ah well… indeed!

Cheap energy = prosperity!

Drill here, DRILL NOW!

David Couvillon

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

Subject: Maryland Library Can’t Use HP Computers – Nuclear Weapons Related

The Takoma Park, Maryland library needed new computers. New ones arrived, but they sat in storage for a while. The computers were made by HP, and HP works on nuclear weapons programs for the U.S. government. Takoma Park has been a "nuclear free" zone since 1983. Sigh.

The Takoma Park City Council voted a waiver on this allowing the use of the computers. Some wondered "about the soul of their city and if the vote signified a fundamental shift in its values."

The computers were probably made in China. Hence, (1) they have latent surveillance capability built into them, (2) come from the capitol of human rights violations, and (3) from the home of heavy metal pollution. None of that matters. What matters is that HP works on nuclear weapons (do they really?).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/takoma-park-grants-waiver-to-nuclear-free-zone-ordinance/2012/06/19/gJQADMB2oV_story.html?hpid=z4

—

Dwayne Phillips

Comment is superfluous.

Wawa editted vs original; no ad to skip

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/47470

We cannot blame Firefox for trying to make our web surfing experience better by blocking those confounded ads. I blame the advertisers themselves for constantly coming up with more annoying ways to put ads in our faces. Like your experience with an ad you have to watch before you see the content you want. Another annoying way they do it is place a small ad at the bottom and you have to search around to find the [X] or [close] to get rid of it, but that’s just how frustrating it’s gotten. By the way TV advertising is doing something like it by having ads pop up during a show but of course you have no way of killing those suckers.

Cheers, Ray

.

Analyzing people who talk about AGW denialism

This would be amusing but its an extension of the mentality that creates bunny inspectors.

Sent to you by BobK via Google Reader:

Analyzing people who talk about AGW denialism <http://judithcurry.com/2012/06/19/analyzing-people-who-talk-about-agw-denialism/>

via Climate Etc. <http://judithcurry.com> by curryja on 6/19/12

by Judith Curry Sociologists and journalists are writing articles about understanding AGW skepticism and denialism. This latest article from Nature makes me think somebody needs to study these people who think that: Study 2 examined whether framing climate change action in … Continue reading → <http://judithcurry.com/2012/06/19/analyzing-people-who-talk-about-agw-denialism/> <http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=judithcurry.com&blog=15408089&post=8865&subd=curryja&ref=&feed=1>

taxpayer’s union

Dr. Pournelle,

You often say that we all can think of local equivalents to bunny inspectors,(https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=1180 , [and for those that don’t want a long walk down memory lane, bunny mention is 8 paragraphs down]) and just now I got to thinking about the Tax Payers’ Union. I have been vaguely aware that this group existed since I don’t know when. I am sure Paul Harvey (America’s first conservative commentator) must have mentioned them from time to time. For whatever reason I decided to take a look today, and I know your readership (is that a word?) will want to as well. http://www.ntu.org/ We don’t need to look for government waste, there is a professional organization doing it already.

Martin Lee Rose

Colorado

"We have no public record of anyone, individual or organization, publishing an IDEAL Temperature of the Earth, nor do we have any criteria which could be used to establish such a temperature. Given MY choice, I would choose warmer over colder. To the extent, if any, that warmer could be expedited by increasing CO2 I would encourage it." Bob Ludwick I have waited a long time to be able to use that quote.

While looking for the most appropriate Bunny Inspectors link I came across http://www.scaleofuniverse.com/

Thanks. I am not familiar with the taxpayer’s union. It would seem to be more useful than the Welfare Recipients League, which I would think would be cheered on if it decided to go on strike…

Your TV

Hi, Jerry, I’m no expert but your TV has all the symptoms of a failing join or cracked trace on the board: the cooler it is the wider the gap, which eventually "fixes" itself as everything warms up and expands to make contact once again. Back in the day it might have been worthwhile to examine everything with a magnifying glass and then do a touch-up if you found the problem, but today you’re probably stuck with just getting a new TV or living with the long warm-up.

I’m writing this on a new "Retina" display MBP, a really capable computer which to my mind completely erases the need for a 17" in the Apple line. WoW looks amazing at full resolution, and frame rates are plenty fast enough to not be objectionable. For other tasks the SSD drive, Ivy Bridge CPU, and nVidia graphics make for a pretty potent desktop replacement at under 5 pounds. Recommended if you need a portable capable of heavy lifting, otherwise probably overkill. But the screen is outstanding, going back to a normal screen now makes everything look fuzzy.

Tim

Thanks. My dying YTV had croaked, and will be replaced. I have a note from one reader that replacing some capacitors worked for his Samsung with a similar problem. Alas I am not going to try that, but I note it for the record, and perhaps I will attach a copy of some of the suggestion mail to the machine when it goes to the Good Will…

Mail 729 Monday, June 18, 2012

distribution?

" And God forbid that we try to set up some kind of government run distribution system; that would really be disastrous. "

Didn’t we have that at one point? I distinctly remember as child going to the Parish (i.e County, I’m from Louisiana) School Board warehouse and my parents getting butter, powdered milk, sugar, cheese, and (rarely) powdered eggs. All with USDA stamps and in bulk amounts. It was a regular monthly distribution.

Also, in Iraq I had some experience with distribution of government/US staples and fuel (not to mention government pay and pension distribution – all in cash). Inventory, eligibility determination and distribution CAN be a ‘goat rope’. Additionally, discussions with many Iraqis and observation of pre-war government warehouses show that it COULD ALSO be rife with fraud and corruption on both sides of the distribution table. But, we managed to get a handle on it. Thus, I believe it could be done in the US with proper supervision.

Cheap energy = prosperity!

Drill here, DRILL NOW!

David Couvillon

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work

We can do anything: but the problem is that we tend to set up bureaucracies, and the Iron Law takes it from there. As a mission with a definite date for dismantling it’s easily within the capability of the military: but as an eternal bureaucracy?

There is considerable mail on the climate debate. The evidence against the Man Made Global Warming hypothesis appears to be piling up. That hasn’t stopped a number of science commentators from continuing to champion it, but apparently some real scientists are dropping out.

Don’t confuse me with the facts…

…my mind’s made up.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303901504577460900066999454.html?mod=djemLifeStyle_h

"Part of the preamble to Agenda 21, the action plan that came out of the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, reads: "We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being."

"In the 20 years since, something embarrassing has happened: a sharp decrease in poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy and a marked reduction in these global disparities."

Charles Brumbelow

Taxes crippling CA

http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_california-taxes.html

The upcoming fifth edition of Rich States, Poor States, a publication that I co-author annually with Stephen Moore and Jonathan Williams, will show just how antigrowth California’s business environment is. Our study uses 15 pro-growth attributes to rank the states’ economic competitiveness. In the first four years of the index, California never ranked outside the bottom ten states; this year, it will probably manage that feat—just barely—thanks to the expiration of numerous temporary tax increases (several of which Democrats want voters to reinstate in November).

Taxes are indeed a big part of California’s economic problem. At 10.30 percent, the state’s top marginal personal income-tax rate is the fourth-highest in the country, and its top marginal corporate income-tax rate of 8.84 percent is 25 percent above the national average. Excessive taxation is an equal-opportunity tormentor, afflicting labor and capital, poor and rich, men and women, old and young. In the short run, higher taxes on labor or capital will reduce after-tax earnings. Some people will violate the law and fail to report taxable income; others will use legal options, including tax deductions and credits, to reduce their payments. In the long run, residents—those who can afford to, anyway—will vote with their feet and leave the state, shifting the tax burden to lower-wage workers, as well as to immobile land and property.

Hardly surprising. If something can’t go on forever it will stop.

The Space Review: D.D. Harriman versus Dan Davis

Jerry,

An interesting comparison of two of Heinlein’s character’s and how they have informed the space movement.

<http://www.thespacereview.com/article/951/1>

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

An interesting analogy I had not thought of.

FDA

Emailer Mike T. Powers mentioned FDA regulation causing drug shortages; the Washington Examiner seems to agree:

<.>

President Obama’s Food and Drug Administration has caused "a public health crisis" — a prescription drug shortage over the past two years — by increasing the number of threats issued to raid and close drug manufacturing plants, according to House investigators.

"This shortage appears to be a direct result of over-aggressive and excessive regulatory action," House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said in a statement. "These drugs can save lives and keep people who need them living healthy lives. The FDA is failing to ensure the availability of quality products."

</>

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/house-obamas-fda-causing-drug-shortages/600936

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

The FDA regulations and regulators are killing people, but you don’t see them from failure to approve. You do see those who die from an approved drug that goes wrong.

David Warren intuits the Iron Law:

"But there is an inflationary tendency in all bureaucratic works. By increments the reach of the agency increases, its staffing and budget expands, and the matters it deals with become ever more trivial and absurd. "Hard cases make bad law," and what starts as a reasonable-looking proposal – often to get around red tape – ends in what we have. From Daniel Hill (the first Ontario human rights commissioner) to Barbara Hall (the current one), is a standard tale of progress, from the sublime to the ridiculous."

For the few who don’t know, this refers to Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

The Silencing of Maya –

Jerry –

This story puts an unexpectedly human face on the software patent issue. A little girl who is virtually unable to speak for medical reasons now has a virtual voice. Her name is Maya, and her virtual voice is an iPad app called "Speak for Yourself." This app has been revolutionizing her life, but the app is now in danger because of a patent dispute. The patent holder has persuaded Apple to remove the app from the iTunes store even before the litigation has been settled. The rest you can read for yourself, but this is one of those hard cases that reveals just how much our technology is changing our lives.

http://niederfamily.blogspot.com/2012/03/goliath-v-david-aac-style.html

http://niederfamily.blogspot.be/2012/06/silencing-of-maya.html

And this is more information about what it’s like to enable a child who can’t speak to communicate.

http://niederfamily.blogspot.com/p/our-communicationaac-journey.html

Most software patents don’t have such obvious human consequences. It seems to me that the patent holder is holding onto a fading business model. They sell their hardware solution for about $9,000. Their customers have asked for an app for years but the company has shown no interest in undermining their hardware monopoly. An iPad and a few bucks for an app could, literally, sink them, much like ebooks and print-on-demand can sink traditional publishers. I haven’t read the patent or any of the legal motions, but I would get a chuckle out of seeing Bill Gates or Daddy Warbucks come through and buy out the patent holders.

–Gary P.

The Copyright Law was written before the telegraph was invented, and revised in 1975 before the real beginning of the computer revolution. The Digital Millennium Communications Act was written when few lawyers and fewer Congresscritters understood anything about the Computer Revolution, few used the Web, and even the lobbyists didn’t know what they wanted.

It is time to have a complete new debate on intellectual property laws, and a complete redrafting of copyright and patent. The problem is that those who make the laws know little about the technology, and those who use the technology know little about law.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has one set of views, and they are not those of many authors. Authors themselves are confused as to what they want and need.

Before there is a revision of law there needs to be a discussion to understanding among those who create intellectual property. That is happening, but the pace is very slow.

A good start…

http://www.allgov.com/Top_Stories/ViewNews/Indiana_First_State_to_Allow_Citizens_to_Shoot_Law_Enforcement_Officers_120611

This law was passed to override an Indiana Supreme Court ruling which basically said residents had no reasonable expectation of being secure from police break-ins and warrants were no longer necessary. In other words, court said the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States no longer applied in Indiana because it inconvenienced law enforcement.

Forty-nine states and assorted districts and territories to go.

Next to get "asset forfeiture" laws subject to the Constitution.

I’ve read that governments should fear their citizens but subjects fear their governments.

Charles Brumbelow=

Actually, under the Common Law, a man’s home is his castle, and he is presumed to have the right to defend it. That slowly vanished in a slurry of misunderstanding and of court transfer of power to government. Now you are told to leave your defense to the professionals, who seem to have no duty to defend you, nor much in the way of restraint in doing it. As witness the Long Beach incident in which police, in hiding and whose presence was unknown, shot dead a mildly drunken man sitting on a friend’s porch and brandishing a disconnected hose nozzle that resembled a gun. The officers pleaded that they felt in danger of their lives. None have been suspended or charged in the incident with is acknowledged to be ‘unfortunate.’ Salve, Sclave.

from ‘In Praise Of Narrow Minds’

"Now there is nobody as narrow-minded and as dogmatic as a mathematician. This is a man who just will not open his mind to hearing about new methods to square the circle or to show that two plus two is sometimes not four. He will rebuff, sometimes angrily, arguments which claim triangles have four sides. What a judgmental bigot! It is as if this man is in thrall to a religion, who actually has hold of Truth and believes it come what may. A truly closed mind.

"We should all have minds as narrow. To possess and hold Truth—and not to be talked out of it because of faulty, frivolous insults, or because many have decided to be against you.

"Just think: If you have ever been called narrow-minded then you know that your interlocutor does not want to broaden your scope, to open your mind, to make it fuller, more “accepting.” What your adversary wants is for you to change your mind, to believe differently but just as narrowly as he does, to reject what you previously believed."

http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=5739

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

“The last 3.5 years have been photo ops, speeches and fund raisers; I shudder to think of an Obama not worried about reelection.

Alan Rosenberg”

——————-

From where I sit this is definitely not a shoo-in. Obama has a crap economy

he promised to fix, and now an Attorney General on the hot seat with

Congress. Mitt Romney is just the guy to make hay with this situation.

B

We cane hope. The President can’t really campaign on his record.

Adams Quote

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

You were very close on the Adams quote, so that could be why you didn’t find it. I found many quoting it:

John Quincy Adams: "We are the friends of liberty everywhere, but we are the guardians only of our own"

one source from the Congressional Record:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-1995-06-06/pdf/CREC-1995-06-06-pt1-PgH5614-5.pdf#page=1

Thought you’d like to know.

Peter Lawrence

Longtime reader and subscriber.

Thanks. That may be where I first found it. It seems a good summary of a Republic’s foreign policy. Friends of liberty everywhere, but the guardians only of or own. Of course tha may well mean making alliances. But we have also been warned about entangling alliances and the territorial disputes of others.

Solving our ‘entitlement’ problem

Hello Jerry,

Totally by coincidence, I got this from one of my HS classmates (’59) yesterday. It is (supposesdly; I can’t verify it and it likely didn’t actually happen) from a 21 year old girl in Waco that makes some suggestions that would if not solve our ‘entitlement’ problem, at least ameliorate it a bit:

"

"Rat ohn!"

"IF YOU CAN’T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER,

YOU’VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM"

WRITTEN BY A 21 YEAR OLD FEMALE Wow, this girl has a great plan! Love the last thing she would do the best.

This was written by a 21 yr old female who gets it. It’s her future she’s worried about and this is how she feels about the social welfare big government state that she’s being forced to live in!

These solutions are just common sense in her opinion.

This was in the Waco Tribune Herald, Waco , TX , Nov 18, 2010

PUT ME IN CHARGE . . .

Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.

Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I’d do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal legations. Then, we’ll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, or smoke, then get a job.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your home" will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a "government" job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the "common good.."

Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules. Before you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their "self esteem," consider that it wasn’t that long ago that taking someone else’s money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.

If we are expected to pay for other people’s mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.

AND While you are on Gov’t subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes, that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Gov’t welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job."

Works for me.

Bob Ludwick

As you note, probably made up, but bracing…

Gang paraphernalia

Joshua Jordan KSC quotes a news item:

"A Minnesota high school student who wears rosary beads to school in support of his cancer-stricken grandmother was ordered to pocket them by school district officials, who said the beads could be a symbol of gang membership."

Do you remember what that gang did to the Roman Empire? Best beware of them….!

–Mike

Mail 727 Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Subj: Video: Richard Feynman explains the PDSA cycle, aka the Scientific Method

http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2012/05/17/richard-feynman-explains-the-pdsa-cycle/

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Feynman was a highly esteemed lecturer. Alas, he didn’t record that many of them. I used to have lunch with him, McCarthy, and Minsky at periodic intervals when they were in LA. Most impressive lunches I have ever had.

Time for Footfall 2.0?

<http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/05/31/battleship_earth?page=full>

Roland Dobbins

That might be fun, but we have something else to finish first…

Evil Corn Syrup Power

"High Fructose Corn Syrup is a highly processed product that appears to lack the ability of cane and beet sugar to "turn off" the body’s hunger signals."

How fortunate that humans are equipped with a highly specialized and extremely versatile organ called the "brain" that enables them to make their own decisions about hunger signals.

—

Mike T. Powers

Indeed, but then the notion of freedom seems to be a sometimes thing…

Re: drug shortages

Emailer Joshua Jordan writes: "We have enough money to bomb other countries and grope our citizens, but we don’t have drugs in our hospitals."

What’s happened here is that the FDA decided that it wanted to ensure that drugs were made with what it considered proper quality control, inventory tracking, procedural adherence to avoid lot variation, and so on. The companies that made the drugs insisted that doing this was totally impossible, unworkable, put-them-out-of-business expensive; so the FDA gave them waivers with the intention that the companies work toward compliance at their own speed while under the waivers. And then it came time for the waivers to be reviewed, and the FDA said "so you’ve been working towards compliance then?" and the companies said "well you never actually SAID that we HAD TO, so…" and now the waivers are gone, and the companies can’t sell their drugs anymore because they don’t meet the not-new-but-now-being-enforced standards.

I’m not really sure who to blame here. On the one hand, the companies kind of have a point that they were approved under the old standards and that didn’t seem to bother anyone until just recently. On the other hand, it’s not actually a bad thing to request best-practice processes be used to create drugs.

But on the gripping hand, it’s not like the new standards actually needed to be implemented–we weren’t experiencing wave after wave of people dead and maimed by ten percent variations in the potency of injectable medications–so maybe it’s the FDA’s fault after all, trying to fix what isn’t broken because otherwise they’d have no excuse for insisting that manufacturers of *new* drugs toe the line.

—

Mike T. Powers

I have yet to find the part of the Constitution that makes any of this the business of the federal government, but then I am a very old school constitutionalist. The federal government can do as it wills with the District of Columbia and can try to persuade the states to copy its policies by showing how well they work. Such as with the DC schools which Congress is certainly responsible for…

My kind of girl – How an immigrant improved morale

Maj. Gen. James M. Gavin, who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division, had a fling with the actress Marlene Dietrich in 1944-1945. This was a departure for Dietrich, as she usually favored frontline enlisted men as lovers. In fact, she once remarked that she had never slept with Eisenhower because he had never been at the Front.

http://www.strategypage.com/cic/docs/cic392b.asp

Proof that there is no intelligent life at NBC.

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/jerry-o-connell-to-play-herman-munster.html

They’ve cast Jerry O’Connell (“Sliders”) to play Herman Munster in a series remake of “The Munsters”.

They’re doing the new show as a one-hour drama (!) series.

This has the potential to have bomb megatonnage in the “Turn-On” range. (Cancelled after one (1) episode aired.)

–John

what the shuttle booster saw

video footage from the boosters

8.5 minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2aCOyOvOw5c

– Paul

More kindle koments

Jerry, really liked your daughters Outies, she sounds like an accomplished, intelligent, articulate lady- is she single?

I’m really liking my droidpad-after ‘Outies’ had to get ‘Mote’ and ‘Gripping Hand’; These, ‘West of honor’ as well as a few Scalazi and Vinge shorts and the ‘Galaxy Project’ by Mr. Heinlein should get me through my upcoming Seattle trip,although I have 2 Vinge print books just in case. Of course after reading ‘Secret of Blackship Island’ I’m wanting to read the Avalon books and some Heinlein sounds good as well- but I ramble.

Oh, I was pleased to see the correction Larry made to my hardcover copy of ‘Mote’ you guys autographed had made it to the kindle version !

Hope all is well,

Alan

Thanks. Of course it’s hard to autograph eBooks…

.

Hey Jerry,

Just got to see Prophets of Science Fiction episode 7 featuring Robert A. Heinlein. Given a forty minute length there is not much, which can be comprehensively conveyed about a man’s life and work, especially with the breadth and depth of Robert A. Heinlein’s contributions. Thank you for being part of the show, I imagine there was probably extensive questions you answered for the interview, which are far more interesting and informative than what was included in the show.

Take Care and all my Best

Steve Coates

£30bn bill to purify water system after toxic impact of contraceptive pill

Hi Jerry,

While I’m not surprised that pharmaceuticals and other chemicals in human urine have been evaluated to be a risk for fish populations, It seem like it would be more cost effective to ban or restrict use of any pharmaceuticals that were shown to have such effects that treating waste water to remove or neutralize it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/02/water-system-toxic-contraceptive-pill

Bob Kawaratani

It is a non-trivial problem, and I am unsure as to what should be done. There are some environmental matters that need to be considered. This is one of them.

Sturgeon

Dr. Pournelle:

After seeing the link to the television set made with transparent LEDs–when off, it’s basically a window, I realized that, given the amount of storage possible these days, Sturgeon’s "slow glass" is now possible. Just put a high-res camera (well, a bunch of them so that random bird do-do won’t spoil the effect) at a scenic location, record 24/7 for however many days you want, then send the recording to someone with one of those transparent-screen televisions. Or make the television big enough to fill, say, a picture window. Honking big files, depending upon duration of the recording, but we can now do this. Record for 10 years and the effect will be glass 10 light years thick. (Stories were "Light of Other Days" and, if I recall correctly, "Slow Sculpture".)

I don’t see any way to make money from this deal, but I don’t doubt someone will.

jomath

It is slow glass, isn’t it! Interesting observation.

Mail 726 Saturday, June 02, 2012

Stuxnet Cyberweapon

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

An article by David Sanger published in the June 1st online edition of the NY Times, referenced below, contains new information (or at least new assertions) on the origin and use of the Stuxnet cyberweapon, which you discussed in a past Chaos Manner Reviews column.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?_r=3&pagewanted=2&seid=auto&smid=tw-nytimespolitics&pagewanted=all

I’m very curious as to your thoughts on the article and hope you’ll cover this topic in your upcoming column.

Yours truly,

Jim Bonang

And comes now the new Trojan FLAME. And those are the ones we have heard of. Game on! And note that Russians have great programmers…

Subj: How do credentials change as education goes online?

http://allthingsd.com/20120531/how-do-credentials-change-as-education-goes-online-stanford-and-khan-academy-respond-video/

_The Wall Street Journal_’s Walt Mossberg interviews Stanford’s president and Salman (Khan Academy) Khan:

>>Stanford President John Hennessy and Khan Academy founder Salman Khan

>>are coming at online education from very different angles — one is an

>>elite institution being shaken up by experiments, the other is a

>>widely loved upstart that’s increasingly being used in traditional

>>schools.<<

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

And of course Kahn Academy free on-line courses contain some of the best lectures I have ever heard. His introduction to calculus is superb and I recommend it to anyone who must learn calculus or who is a bit unsure of how well he learned it in the first place.

Thank you for telling me about this video.

Robert Heinlein and H. Beam Piper

Dear Jerry

Just a bit of idle curiosity; did Heinlein and Piper ever meet or correspond? Did either of them read the others work? I figured you might be the one most likely to know the answer to this question.

best regards

Stacy Brian Bartley

Stacy Bartley

I know they met, because in 1962 at Chicon III I met H. Beam Piper and we became friends; and Saturday night, late, there was a party in Robert Heinlein’s suite. I was invited because Mr. Heinlein and I had been corresponding about aerospace matters and had become friends. Beam and I went to the party together. I don’t remember if they had known each other before although I rather think they did, but they certainly would have met then, Beam, was a bit under the weather and left early. Ginny Heinlein was stuck in an airport somewhere in the Midwest. The party lasted until dawn and ended with watching the Sun rise over the lake. I have no idea whether they read each other’s works, but they were both fairly close friends and two of my favorite people, but I don’t recall either commenting on the other. Mr. Heinlein was of course very successful at that time, and Beam was having financial difficulties.

This is startling:

<.>

Today, the New York Times has a long, detailed article about the personal role played by President Obama in the massive amount of death and destruction the U.S. has brought to the Muslim world at his direction. The article, by Jo Becker and Scott Shane, is based on interviews with “three dozen of his current and former advisers” and thus uses sources who — with a couple of exceptions — attempt to cast the Commander-in-Chief in the best and most glorious possible light. Nonetheless, the article provides as clear a picture of the character of this individual politician as any stand-alone article in some time. Earlier today, I wrote about one specific revelation from the article that I most wanted to highlight — the way in which Obama, in order to conceal the civilian casualties he causes and justify the raining down of death he orders, has re-defined “militant” to mean “all military-age males in a strike zone” – but there are numerous other revealing passages in this article meriting attention.

</>

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/obama_the_warrior/singleton/

NY Times Article; it very long:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

So, if I happened to be in a strike zone getting an ice cream cone or buying some silk, I would be considered a militant?  =(  If you weren’t sure if we entered the Twilight Zone, I think we passed the sign long ago…

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

The United States constitution was supposed to prevent foreign adventures by the President, but some of the actions in the campaign against the Barbary Pirates greatly stretched the powers of President Jefferson, and even Jefferson and Madison welcomed that. The traditional compromise for much of our history was that the President owned the Navy and Marines, and the Marine Corps was to be kept small. The Congress owned the Army and the Department of War. This worked until Roosevelt and the threat from Germany with the rise of Hitler, and has completely come apart now.

And while no one dreamed of UAV’s in the days of the Framers, they certainly had heard of assassins, cloak and dagger operations, and such matters.

It becomes increasingly difficult to know with whom we are at war, and which side we are on in the wars in which we are engaged. Or who is winning, or for that matter what “winning” means.

Traditionally the King of England could make war on anyone whom it pleased him to war upon; the Constitution was deliberately designed to take that power away from the President.

If Pakistan were to engage in an attack on the UAV control facilities on the grounds of self defense, would that be war or terrorism? Things have become very confused.

Incredible

We have enough money to bomb other countries and grope our citizens, but we don’t have drugs in our hospitals.  What is wrong with this picture?

<.>

Most of the hospital’s medicines – with usage estimated at $100 million a year – are tracked by automated systems that allow for quick reorders when the supply runs low. But these automated systems, designed to help the hospital avoid purchases and storage costs of unused pills and vials, do not work if it is uncertain when the next batch of drugs will come in.

A few hundred medicines make the list of drugs in short supply: anesthetics, drugs for nausea and nutrition, infection treatments and diarrhea pills. A separate list has scarce cancer drugs for leukemia or breast cancer.

"Now we have to go through the pharmacy and count those drugs on a daily basis … to make sure we don’t run out," said Ed Szandzik, director of pharmacy services at the hospital for over a decade.

The growing scarcity of sterile, injectable drugs is one of the biggest issues confronting hospitals across the country, and will be a key issue at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago this weekend.

</>

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/02/us-drugs-shortages-idUSBRE8500K220120602

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Twilight zone.

‘Napalm Girl’ Photo Turns 40

Jerry

The ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo Turns 40:

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/06/01/napalm-girl-photo-turns-40.html?ESRC=eb.nl

And she is still alive, living in Canada with her husband and their children. There is a story behind it all, of course.

Ed

It is a touching story. I never met her but I know people who were involved in her rescue in those days.

The Obesity Epidemic and Band Aid Solutions

Jerry,

With mayor Bloomberg touting New York City’s latest attempt to curb the Obesity Epidemic, limiting sugar containing drinks to a maximum size of 16 ounces, I am reminded of the myriad of unintended consequences caused by legislated attempts to change behaviors or protect favored classes.

While I have not done much of a data search, it appears to me that the obesity epidemic is more likely to have started with the introduction of high fructose corn syrup as a replacement for cane or beet sugar in both soft drinks and foods, This replacement of sugar appears to be a result of the imposition of Sugar Import Quotas by our geniuses in the United States Congress.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is a highly processed product that appears to lack the ability of cane and beet sugar to "turn off" the body’s hunger signals. The processing of High Fructose Corn Syrup is also energy intensive.

The sugar import quotas are a lose – lose situation and should be abolished forthwith. The long term result should be a healthier population, a reduction in the desire to regulate individual behavior, lowered energy consumption and fewer CO2 emmissions.

Bob Holmes

At least this is a state matter. The states can and should experiment, and will. The difficult thing will be to keep the feds out of this.

.

A jobs program if ever there was one:

<.>

The U.S. Transportation Department shut down 26 bus companies as imminent safety hazards, closing dozens of routes out of New York’s Chinatown in the government’s largest safety sweep of the motor-coach industry.

</>

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/chinatown-bus-companies-shut-down-in-federal-safety-sweep.html

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Subject: Regulation Nation: State sues monks for making caskets (video)

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1664440086001/

Tracy

Subject: A good example of over-regulation

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=174&load=7010

Tracy

No comment required…

[T]he facts don’t matter at all

Dr. Pournelle

"When faced with having to support one side or the other in important science debates, most people are influenced far more by their cultural and social worldviews than by solid science, no matter how well that science is presented. The public, especially those well-versed in science and mathematics, will usually agree with the side that comes closest to the values of the “tribe” they most identify with. In many cases, the facts don’t matter at all."

http://pjmedia.com/blog/climate-change-why-do-the-facts-fail-to-convince/?singlepage=true

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

Which is why it is important to preserve places in which rational debate takes place. It’s not easy to do.

Clive Thompson on 3-D Printing’s Legal Morass

Jerry

Can the people who sell things copyright physical their physical products?

http://www.wired.com/design/2012/05/3-d-printing-patent-law/

“Observers predict that in a few years we’ll see printers that integrate scanning capability — so your kid can toss in a Warhammer figurine, hit Copy, and get a new one. The machine will become a photocopier of stuff.”

“[T]he longer-term danger here is that manufacturers will decide the laws aren’t powerful enough. Once kids start merrily copying toys, manufacturers will push to hobble 3-D printing with laws similar to the Stop Online Piracy Act. “You’ll have people going to Washington and saying we need new rights,” Weinberg frets. Imagine laws that keep 3-D printers from outputting anything but objects “authorized” by megacorporations — DRM for the physical world. To stave this off, Weinberg is trying to educate legislators now.”

3-D printing. Like the video phone (think Skype and your laptop or your iPhone), the science fiction future seems to have crept up on us.

Ed

Wow. A flood of thoughts here. We’ll be looking at this again. Thanks.

Jerry, the below linked article is a month old, but it sounds like the boffins in Britain are doing something quite keen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17864782

Best,

Jon

Dr. Pournelle,

To rephrase a letter on your site tonight, Glory and Gold. As you state in "A Step Farther Out" once you get to orbit, you’re half way to anywhere in the system.

I think once we are in orbit, then we are more than halfway to cheap energy. I read your arguments for space based solar plants. I’m a little non-plussed. At one point, you state that DC to DC efficiency is eighty-five percent. Elsewhere, you say 65%. That being said, why are we not already sending our power from space. I’m thinking about posting a kickstarter project to see how many are interested.

Now, to ask a question. Let’s say a non-phsicist, non-engineer were to start looking at design of an O’Neill habitat. Where would he start? Cubic feet per resident? Amount of electricity generated per foot squared of solar panel? Shielding needed? Acres of plants per person?

Is there a checklist out there?

Thanks for not chuckling too hard,

Douglas Knapp

Well, it’s a pretty tough engineering job. O’Neill did some preliminary work, and General Graham’s Journal of the Practical Applications of Space was useful in its time; and of course X Corps and Space X and others are working on how to make money from space. When I wrote Step Farther Our I really though most of that stuff would be happening between 2001 and 2020. I see no reason why it won’t happen, but it hasn’t yet. Given what we spent on space we ought to be in the asteroids now – had a hundred billion dollars been spent as market guarantees and prizes, and another 50 billion in X programs, we would be there. Instead we employed civil servants. Ah well.

Global warming skeptics as knowledgeable about science as climate change believers:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/05/28/global-warming-skeptics-know-more-about-science-new-study-claims/

Ah! The religious wars of the 21st century.

Ed

No surprises. We still don’t know. And we know how to do Bayesian analyses but we don’t do them.