Category Archives: Mail

Mail 713 Friday, February 17, 2012

3D Printing

Report from the Legions

Snopes

Kaiser

Space Access

and much more

Printed jaw lets woman swallow again

Jerry

We knew 3D printing was coming. And now it’s officially here. An 83-year-old woman was given a replacement mandible from a 3D printer. She becomes the first patient ever to be fitted with a printed lower jaw:

http://www.reghardware.com/2012/02/06/3d_printed_jaw_replacement_helps_grandmother_eat_again/print.html

I wonder how soon we’ll see 3D printers making scaffolding for cells, so new hearts and such can simply be built. Avoid the ‘Gift From Earth’ phenomenon.

Ed

The advance of 3D printing to become what Minsky postulated as a “Thingmaker” back in 1975 is astonishing. And it continues. Moreover, the printed plastic model can be used to make a mold which can be used for casting the object in metal or other such media. The potential is enormous.

‘What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.’

<http://armedforcesjournal.com/2012/02/8904030>

Roland Dobbins

Yeah.

Snopes

— I am curious about your "Snopes has agendas I do not share" comment. Can you elaborate? I respect you, and I respect Snopes, or at least I did.

M

Nothing special. They take a pretty standard media liberal view when there is any political controversy, and they will sometimes certify as "fact" things that are political assertions, and seem to have a far higher standard of "fact’ when the assertion is conservative while assuming the truth of Keynsian economics and such.

They’re ok on a lot of stuff, and serve a useful purpose, but they do have an agenda one should be aware of. I’m not slamming them. There are far worse “fact checking” outfits that are simply arms of one political view.

"The danger is that there’ll be winners …"

Dr. Pournelle —

I came across this today and thought it made a good point about "dumbing down" public schools.

Dumbing down of state education has made Britain more unequal than 25 years ago http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/9082053/Dumbing-down-of-state-education-has-made-Britain-more-unequal-than-25-years-ago.html

"Thanks to the wholesale dumbing down of state education, Britain is now more unequal than it was 25 years ago. The progressive custodians of public education have succeeded in entrenching poverty and preserving privilege – all in the name of equality. As an illustration of the law of unintended consequences, it could not be bettered. "

Pieter

The same is true in the United States. We are developing full caste systems. Those who can try to send their children to private schools to shield them from the horror. And the beat goes on.

Kaiser

Dr. Pournelle-

I pretty much grew up with Kaiser, beginning ca 1954, and in my young adulthood I had a similar vision of turning all healthcare in the country over to them. Later, geographical considerations meant that we couldn’t participate with Kaiser, but my opinion remained unchanged.

When Kaiser opened a hospital locally and again became an option, through my wife’s work, we went back to it. However, through the circumstances of their taking in a very large increase in new membership locally and a rather insensitive administrator, we found our experience quite different than expected and we left as soon as possible. More recently we have returned and are well satisfied now that local growing pains have apparently passed. So, yes, scaling up rapidly would present a considerable challenge.

Paul

We have received a number of views of Kaiser, mostly positive.

Kaiser’s not the panacea

Dr. Pournelle:

I agree that Kaiser-Permanente can offer fine health care . . . if they want you.

I was a Kaiser client for almost 40 years: under my father’s employer we were one of the first families covered when K-P first expanded into Cleveland. I chose K-P when I entered the workforce, then under my wife’s coverage when another employer of mine did not offer its plan.

Later, when she changed employers and was not offered its plan, we were so satisfied with it’s preventive-care that we tried to get individual coverage which we would pay ourselves. After decades of "customer" loyalty, we were told that because we were now trying to join as individuals wth the pre-existing conditions — that Kaiser had diagnosed — they would not offer us coverage.

We are now covered by United Healthcare as the insurer from my wife’s employer and receive healthcare through the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. We find both the care and insurance to be more flexible and somewhat better than K-P.

This isn’t sour grapes, since my father, until his death, had K-P coverage and received excellent and comprehensive treatment. It’s just well to remember that K-P is a business, like other health insurers, and will only cover young healthy people unless you are part of group coverage.

Pete Nofel

"It ain’t fair? Hey pal, ‘fair’ is where you buy funnel cakes."

I am told that the Kaiser organization is different in different places, and I can only say that my experience with the Southern California Kaiser including San Diego and Lancaster has been positive. What most impresses me is that the personnel have been almost universally cheerful, polite, and helpful, and generally competent; and I am pretty familiar with clinical procedures. As to their selectivity, we tried for years to get on with Kaiser before an enrollment opportunity opened up in the 1980’s. At the time we had the four boys as well as Roberta and me. We were accepted and have been there ever since. Given my medical history I am sure I would not be acceptable to any insurance program now, so I am very careful to keep up my copayments and the minimal dues we owe on Medicare Advantage.

Without Kaiser we would probably be dead; I doubt I could afford the treatments I have needed. I also note that they do a pretty good job of using technology to reduce costs and increase productivity, and their preventive medicine courses have proven to be useful – I took the diabetes course with a rather cynical attitude, but I was won over. I learned a good bit and, as Dr. Johnson observed, where I may not have needed education I certainly needed reminding. All my experience has been with Southern California, but after thirty years of my wife and myself, and over a decade of having the boys under the Kaiser system, I have no real complaints, and my few suggestions having to do with small computers and records management have either been adopted or done better.

As to finding a group, that has always been a real problem for free lance writers. Various writer organizations have tried to form medical coverage groups; Science Fiction Writers of America tried over the years starting with before I was President in the 70’s; we never got a large enough group to be of much interest to anyone. The United States system is geared to employer-provided medical insurance. We went from employer to individual memberships by way of COBRA, which was costly, but we thought worth it.

Supreme Court

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/supreme-court-justice-robbed-by-machete-weilding-intruder-in-carribean/

Wonder if he is a conservative now?

A Conservative is a Liberal who has been mugged.

A Liberal is a Conservative who has been harassed by the police.

“Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed at knife point in his vacation home on the Caribbean island of Nevis Feb. 9,  according to a court spokeswoman, although he’s not the first Supreme Court  justice become a victim of crime. In 2004, Justice David Souter was mugged while jogging, and in 1966, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had her purse snatched.

“Breyer was with his wife,  Joanna Breyer, and guests when an intruder armed with a machete broke into their  home. The intruder  took $1,000 but no one was hurt.” [snip]

B

Reality does have a way of changing one’s opinions. Into each reign some life must fall…

McMartin Case

Jerry,

I lived in Manhattan Beach during the McMartin case hysteria. It got so bad that I made a decision that if I was alone and children approached me, I would beat a hasty retreat.

In retrospect, even two adults approached by a group of children could still have been caught up in the hysteria of the day.

I hope to never have to live in an atmosphere like that again.

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

The great child molestation terror extended far beyond Southern California. There was reputed to be a circle of witches and ritual molestations in the State of Washington and a number of people were harassed and jailed over what turned out to be allegations of crimes of which there was no proof other than the allegation. The same happened in New England.

For a long time the voodoo sciences held that children just couldn’t make up stories of being sexually molested, and they often wouldn’t tell you if they had been. This led to “professionals” going over and over stories and gestures and suggestions and imputations until the kids figured out what the adult “professional” wanted the child to say; whereupon lives were ruined. In the McMartin case it got to the point where the police seriously investigated reports of dead horses buried on the school grounds, and it was seriously believed that teachers in the schools transported the children to Forest Lawn Cemetary – in Glendale – from Manhattan Beach, there to witness burials and funerals to show them what would happen to them if they told. Since the children seemed to be terrified, this was taken to be, if not true, then significant. Years later the children, now grown, said that all this was suggested to them by the social workers, and the kids wanted to get out of the interrogation rooms. Videos of some of the sessions showed interrogation techniques that would have been illegal if used on adults. The only way out of the endless harassment was to tell the social workers something awful about someone; when the children realized that, some of them made up stories, often really awful stories.

The witch hunts went on for years, and resulted in union rules for teachers that made it nearly impossible to fire a teacher based on child accusations, and almost impossible even when there was physical evidence. And, as I have said here before, one case came apart when the defense lawyer was able to get one of the accusing children to “remember” being abused by the judge presiding in the case, when the judge had never seen the child before the case came to trial. Over time the with hunts abated, but a number of lives were destroyed in the process –

And after the era of wild accusations, it became more difficult to save children from genuine child molestors, who became quite clever in their techniques. It remains a challenge to our judicial system. The rise of DNA evidence has simplified some of this, of course.

Space Access ’12 Conference – April 12-14 – Phoenix Arizona

SA ’12 will be the next round of Space Access Society’s long-running annual get-together for people seriously interested in the technology, business, and politics of radically cheaper space transportation.

Conference location is the Grace Inn, 10831 South 51st Street, Phoenix, AZ. (For room reservations, call 800 843-6010 or 480 893-3000, and mention "space access" to get our discount $69/night breakfast-included

rate.)

Conference registration is $120 in advance, $140 at the door, student

rate $40 either way. We’re not set up to accept credit cards in

advance – for advance registration you need to paper-mail us a check or money order. Include your name, the affiliation (if any) you want listed on your badge, and your email address. Make the check out to "Space Access ’12", and mail it to Space Access ’12, PO Box 16034, Phoenix AZ 85011.

Confirmed Presentations as of 2/18/12

Altius Space Machines/Jon Goff

Armadillo Aerospace

Matt Cannella, student, "HySoR Hybrid Sounding Rocket"

Commercial Spaceflight Federation

FAA AST

Frontier Astronautics/Timothy Bendel

Jeff Foust

Garvey Space

JP Aerospace/John Powell

Lasermotive/Jordin Kare

Liftport

Clark Lindsey

mv2space/Max Vozoff

NASA Ames/Bruce Pittman, "Barriers And Opportunities For Reusable Launch Vehicles"

NASA OCT/Dr. Lagudava Kubendran

NextGen Space/Charles Miller

Panel: Newspace Lessons Learned – Gary Hudson, Henry Spencer, Henry Vanderbilt Team Phoenicia/Will Baird Space Frontier Foundation/Ryan McLinko Space Studies Institute/Gary Hudson, President Speedup/Robert Steinke Henry Spencer, "Beyond Chemical Rockets: Overview and Near-Term Options"

and "Lessons From Smallsats for Small Launchers"

Stratofox Aerospace Tracking & Recovery Team/Ian Kluft United Launch Alliance/Frank Zegler Unreasonable Rocket/Paul Breed Ventions/Adam London XCOR Aerospace/Mark Street

Stay tuned to http://www.space-access.org for more as we fill out the

SA’12 program.

I always enjoy the Space Access conferences. I haven’t been to one in a while, and it doesn’t look like I’ll get to this one, but if you’re interested in the subject it’s one of the better conferences to go to. Learn what is going on in private space…

Epic Film

I am not sure if you’ve seen Excalibur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOqlV4Le9Tk

It was made in 1981; it is an epic film with Shakespearean actors — you would probably recognize many of them, and I am sure you will note Patrick Stewart. This film is more than a film; like many films it contains symbolism from the mystery schools and underlying patterns for the initiate. I highly recommend it.

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I saw Excalibur when it was first run, and I have seen it several times since. It does a very good job with the Arthurian legend, which is one of my favorite stories.

Women in combat —

I read many years ago the account of a Marine unit in Desert Storm that marched a long way with heavy packs in a short time and then fought – and defeated – an entrenched unit of Revolutionary Guards. The exact figures – distance, time and load – have flown from my memory and may have been exaggerated anyway. The point is that any male Marine would have been expected to be able to do that.

The Corps can take any young man who is not physically disqualified – meaning most any average young man – and turn him into a Marine who can do that kind of thing. There are, no doubt, some women who can be so trained, but no one suggests that the average woman can, no matter how healthy and fit.

Richard White

Austin, Texas

—

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

–Plato

I find it curious that it is a matter of equality and equity that women be considered by fiat fit for any military position that a man can hold. We don’t often think of men as having a right to conceive and bear children. My daughter was a very good intelligence officer, but she will be the first to tell you she wasn’t up to many of the field exercises of line combat units. Why should she be? But she could run a Hawk company well enough.

Unemployment

In reference to the question of what claim an unemployed person has on the income of other people, it might be relevant to note the difference between base unemployment benefits and extended unemployment benefits. For at least the base period the term used is unemployment insurance (UI). Here in for 2011 Ohio, as in most states, the employer pays a tax {premium) equal to between 0.7% to 9.6% based on the unemployment experience of their employees of the first $9,000 in wages for each employee. Also there is a Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUCA) tax of 6.2% (6.0% after 7/1/2011) on the first $7000. of each employees wages. The FUCA payments can be reduced from 6.2%(6.0%) by a credit of up to 5.4% if the employee has timely pay his state unemployment taxes and the State has not borrowed money from the Federal government unemployment trust fund. Currently employers 21 states have the credit available reduced from between 0.3% to 0.9% since they owe the federal unemployment fund.

In good times the Federal and state unemployment taxes tend to bring on a surplus, and there is usually political pressure from businesses to reduce the unemployment tax rate rather then build up a surplus for poor economic times. In bad economic times the funds run a deficit and often require the states to borrow form the federal trust fund.

The states generally set the maximum weeks of coverage usually between 24 and 26 weeks based on employment history and the benefit amounts. Normally being terminated for cause, quitting or being involved in a labor dispute would make a person ineligible for benefits. In Ohio, the benefits are set at 50% of earning up to $400 per week with no dependents and $529 per week with 3 dependents. So even given the fact that unemployed person does not have to pay Social Security and Medicare on these payments, he is going to see reduction of about 40% in his income. Probably the person is going to have to dip into his savings or reduce his life style by cutting expenses. That would not encourage lingering in the system.

The programs are involuntary in the same way that Social Security and Medicare taxes are involuntary. While the employer pays the tax, like the employer part of the Social Security and Medicare taxes, economists generally treat these costs as being borne by the employee, since the employer reduces what he is willing to pay in wages to the employee.

In this insurance sense, the unemployed has a claim in the same way someone would if he paid his fire and hazard insurance premiums, and then his house was destroyed. Of course, there is room to disagree on whether unemployment insurance should be an involuntary program. However, the base program is managed mainly by the states and backed up by the federal government. This is opposed as to Social Security and Medicare that are Federal programs.

Unemployment benefits and taxes tend to help automatically stabilize the economic. In good times as wages raise, they take additionally money out of the system help keeping inflation in control and keeping the economy from overheating. In poor times as wages drop the taxes drop, and as unemployment increases benefits feed money into the economy helping to stimulate the system. All without Congress or any state legislatures having to take action.

Now the federal extended benefits that can last up to 52 or even 99 weeks are a difference matter. Those cannot be considered insurance, and it would be a stretch to claim any entitlement to receive them. The base design of the system does not coverage the cost of those extra benefits. The extended benefits should be considered more of a economic stimulus measure trying to improve the economy. One way the costs could be covered by increased FUCA and state taxes on employers after the economic downturn ends. Similar to the way insurance premiums on homes might increase after a region has suffered a natural disaster. This would maintain more of an insurance aspect. Or they could be covered by general federal tax receipts similar to the way a natural disaster might be handled. This would make it more of an emergency response to a economic disaster. Political arguments of course can be made over the necessity of a stimulus and the correct form. Keynes once argued that paying to bury jars of money and letting people dig them up or get paid to dig them up would be a good a stimulus system as any other.

If you grant that economic stimulus is necessary, the extended unemployment benefits do take advantage of an existing system to distribute the money so a new bureaucracy does not have to be created. It also passes the money to people that are likely to need to spend the money on goods and services creating additional demand rather than to someone who would save the money or pay down existing debts. On the negative side, it may keep people unemployed longer than they normally would be as they might continue to hold out for higher paying jobs instead of taking a lower paying job that might be available. The 40% cut in income while on benefits may help to minimize this.

Kenneth Klute

Unemployment insurance is entirely different from “extended” unemployment benefits. Winston Churchill was a strong advocate of “insurance, insurance, insurance” as have been many conservative theorists and politicians. That kind of insurance is a form of compulsory savings of course, and is often rejected by many libertarians as an interference with freedom of action, but the notion of unemployment insurance is sound enough.

The big problem is that as productivity goes up, the need for unskilled labor falls. Since this is not Lake Wobegon, half our children are below average. Jobs for the below average become more scarce. One traditional job for the dull normal members of the population is personal domestic service – making life easier for the employed and productive (as well as for the idle rich). We have built a number of social restrictions on domestic service as a career. Given the way the economy and technology are going, we may well have to rethink that.

I would think it more dignified to be a scullery maid than simply to be on the dole. Clearly that is not a majority opinion.

poverty and unemployment

Dear Dr Pournelle,

I was astonishingly moved by the clarity and straightforwardness of your discussion of poverty and unemployment. Yes, if you make something easier or more profitable, then all else equal you will have more of it, and conversely. How is it that so many people fail to see that? I’ve always been inclined to give my liberal friends a break and assume that they are thinking with their hearts and not their brains, but what about those in positions of responsibility, who one would think would have reality rubbed in their faces every day?

It saddens me to wonder if they *do* see it, but cynically pretend they don’t because keeping the populace dependent enhances their own importance. This thought smacks of paranoia, and I hate it, but how else to explain their ongoing blindness? Our leaders are not stupid people, but if they were sincere about public service they would surely not act the way they do.

David Wall

One of the characteristics of Gnosticism is that Gnostics – such as American Liberals and American neo-conservatives – insist that they be judged on their intentions, not on the results of their policies.

Regulated Insurance Benefits =/= Entitlements….

Your commentary,

The position he “retreated” to allows him to mandate that insurance companies must now provide free contraception to anyone who asks for it. No copayment, no increase in premium: just free. Of course this is going to be challenged, but the President has just asserted a right to command private companies to give out entitlements. Women can demand The Pill.

Isn’t quite accurate, is it. We’re not talking about, as you say, "anyone who asks for it", we’re talking about premium paying insured customers, being assured of a minimum benefit.

I’m sure you understand that *ALL* insurance companies are regulated, and it’s confusing why this particular regulation would be of any interest, other than to those who would interject themselves in the *private* relationship between a patient and their physician. And I’m kind of tired of the busy-bodies who think that other people’s healthcare is their business. I believe in the past, the common reaction would be to tell them to "Mind their own business", but today we put them on TV…

Regards,

Mike Lieman

Come now. If I say that I am an insurance customer and therefore I am entitled to a whole bunch of benefits that were not in the package I bought, or that you cover some conditions that you specifically exempted when I bought the policy, and that you do not raise the premium nor drop me, how is that not demanding a gift? As to minding one’s own business, I am with you in spades, but tell me, when I am taxed to pay for the benefits has it not become my business?

Of course insurance companies are and should be regulated, but when they are told what premiums to charge for which service and who must be admitted, that is no longer insurance regulation.

Subsidizing Behavior

Has anyone evaluated the cost of the behavior subsidy against smoking? I imagine that the pension overhang that threatens almost every big public and private employer has been impacted by the legions of Americans that have quit or never started smoking cigarettes.

P.S. Love your "fiction".

scott brown

We have not got that cynical yet, have we? Clearly if we gave booze and cigarettes away at the fire stations, we would have fewer people live to old age and thus fewer to support in their last years; but I do not think we have got there yet. When we do get to that point, I doubt we will go to the expense of providing them the means for self destruction. There will be more direct action.

Dr Pournelle,

Regarding “this respiratory thing that is so severe I don’t want to call it a cold, but I don’t have a better name”, Ogden Nash’s Common Cold comes to mind:

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!

Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;

Don Juan was a budding gallant,

And Shakespeare’s plays show signs of talent;

The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,

And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.

Oh what a derision history holds

For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!

Wishing you a speedy recovery,

—Joel Salomon

Thanks

‘I don’t claim that I know precisely whether the sun is responsible for a 40, 50 or 60 percent share of global warming. But it’s nonsense for the IPCC to claim that the sun has nothing to do with it.’

<http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-813814,00.html>

——

Roland Dobbins

Precisely. I do not know why it was warmer in the Viking period, or why it got colder after 1300, or why the current warming from 1800 took place, but it is pretty clear that the IPCC doesn’t know either, which is why some of the IPCC leaders tried to hide the Medieval Warm period. Their models don’t allow it to have happened.

What Did People Do in a Medieval City?

<http://www.svincent.com/MagicJar/Economics/MedievalOccupations.html>

Roland Dobbins

Cool!

Cool Idea

Jerry–

You and I have corresponded on updating the story in some of your classics (like Lucifer’s Hammer)…Cringely has a great idea (link below); allow the original and update to exist side by side in the eFormat! Considering I own a copy of the Hammer (about a 1980 paperback edition, purchased for $1.69 at a used book store), and just bought it (again) in Kindle format…You could now easily give it a tune-up: Russians still work; the venerable International Harvester TravelAll probably gets updated to be an Explorer, Durango, or Suburban; IBM Printouts on desks get turned into *something else*– especially since I believe my 22 year old son (who loved the book, btw) probably has no idea of what a fan-fold green-bar print out looks like, so the mental image is lost on that generation.

Again, my kudo’s for an exceptional book, that I continue to enjoy in multiple formats!

http://www.cringely.com/2012/02/what-the-dickens-accidental-empires-rebooted/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ICringely+%28I%2C+Cringely%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Steve Walbrun

Thanks for the kind words. Alas we have no plans at all to update Hammer; it stands as written. I just reread it and it is still a pretty good story. Think of it as alternate history…

Mail 712 Saturday, February 11, 2012

This is very late, and I am still in recovery from this respiratory thing that is so sever I don’t want to call it a cold, but I don’t have a better name. It leaves one filleted. It’s getting better, but most of this mail with get short shrift: not that it doesn’t deserve better, but I don’t have better to offer until I get this pounding out of my head.

Apple tells authors: All your books iBook files are belong to us

The Jobsian “We own everything” spirit is alive and well at Apple:

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/06/apple_tweak_eula_agreement/

Apple tells authors: All your books iBook files are belong to us

But you can export them as PDFs if you want

By Anna Leach <http://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?story_url=/2012/02/06/apple_tweak_eula_agreement/>

Posted in Music and Media <http://www.theregister.co.uk/music_media/> , 6th February 2012 14:39 GMT <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/06/>

In a legal rewrite pushed out Friday, Apple has made its iBooks publishing agreement sound slightly less evil by clarifying just what you can do with the content you create on its iBook Author <http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/> [1] software.

Yes, all iBooks are locked to the iBook store but you can export those files as PDFs.

Tracy

In other words Apple owns anything formatted in the iStore format while it is in that format, but not the content and doesn’t claim the right to reformat it. This is a very strange policy, and is not likely to stand.

Buh-bye spare tire 

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

The iron law strikes again!

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/01/31/aaa-warns-that-spare-tires-are-going-extinct/

The new fuel efficiency requirements are best met by reducing the weight of the vehicle. Because the new requirements are so strict, manufacterers are ditching the spare tire, whether donut or full-size, in the latest models.

Arrgghhh…

Respectfully,

Brian P.

This is been inevitable since the gas mileage mandates began.

About ADHD in kids: it is unnatural for most kids to sit still for hours at a time. Once upon a time, our teachers let us run off that energy by sending us outside for recess two or three times a day. No one gives kids time to take the air and air their minds anymore. Somehow, years back, kids learned more and learned it better such breaks in their school day. Going home for lunch helped, too. There were still kids whose minds wandered during dull topics. I was one of those, too.

When my children were small, the third one was one of those and was going to drive some poor kindergarten teacher crazy. I looked into home schooling options. Realizing what I could do, we kept all three boys home and I taught them with a packaged curriculum from Calvert School, designed for use in the mission field. My wiggler would work on school at his own pace. Some days that meant he was interested in some aspect of his schoolwork and plow ahead in a subject doing a week’s work, perhaps, at a sitting. Some days were all about schoolwork and some days weren’t at all. He was five years old; I let him go play when he wanted. He built with Legos and Construx, mostly building "weapons" and might spend whole days like that, his only "school" when I would read aloud; he could listen and build. On his good days, he would do his own work and attend while I taught the older boys. On his bad days he was banished to the basement or yard to play alone. On those days, school was what he might do when he was bored with play. He finished the kindergarten curriculum in the first week of May. I had to invent schoolwork for him on days he wanted it. I wish I could say every following year was as successful, but this has always been a struggle. I just couldn’t see drugging a child.

I teach at a community college, now. Kids tell me they have been taught how to think; they are no longer taught a lot of facts because they can just look stuff up. As a result, they don’t know anything. Some do, but some had more old-fashioned teachers. Most don’t and it is such a pity. All their days spent working on good classroom behavior and learning so little. What a waste.

Kate Pitrone

Thank you for the observations. My own experience is that one needs to know enough facts to have a framework: for history, for example, a few dozen dates like 1755 (Lisbon earthquake that made Voltaire doubt the goodness of God), 1776 and 1787, 1528 (Suleiman the Magnificent and the siege of Vienna), 1648 (the year they killed the king in England; end of the Thirty Years War), 1066 and all that, 1215 and Runnymede, to take a few at random. It’s easy to learn what was going on in the world in those years, and that gives a frame in which to insert new events and facts.

Similarly, learning the addition and multiplication tables in the first three grades makes all of arithmetic, algebra, and higher mathematics much easier to learn; it’s a small investment in rote memory that lasts the rest of your life.

In this modem education age when all facts are available to anyone, it’s still required to know SOMETHING so that there’s a frame to hold the new stuff. But then you know that and I am rambling.

Kids do seem now to believe they are entitled to be educated without their having to learn. I don’t know how that will be accomplished, although something of the sort does happen in my novel Starswarm.

Ritalin

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I posted your ritalin comments on my facebook page. I see many of your other posters agree with me — that it is grossly over-prescribed and usually unnecessary. I personally was prescribed ritalin for ADHD in school. I palmed the pill under my tongue and spit it out when no one was looking. They discontinued the drug after a few months, since it seemed to have no benefit. I went on to graduate high school with advanced courses and 9 units of college credit.

However, I posted a link to your story on my facebook page and I got a response from a pair of single moms, one of whom is an RN. They give the other side of the story, which I think must be heard.

Since I do not have permission to use their names, I must withhold those.

Person 1:

"Ritalin was a wonder drug for my son. I could tell by his handwriting if he’d remembered to take it that day or not. So as much as I hate the way it’s over-prescribed, and the way boys tend to be treated as having a pathology just for being boys, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. Ritalin can and does help SOME children. What we need is for doctors, parents, and schools to treat it as the serious drug it is and prescribe it cautiously."

Person 2 / RN:

"Of course they don’t work long term. They don’t claim too. Just as if u stop taking Bo media your BP will go back up. But some kids need it. Not all who get it do but some actually do. I hated it – but wouldn’t have passed high school with out.

Agreed it is grossly over prescribed but having worked with special needs kids and having taken it also i *know* some kids really do need it.

ADHD more often noticed in boys as they are more prone to combined type where girls can get lost in the cracks because more often have inattentive type. Autism is not the same. We are born how we are born. Brain function and neuro transmitters function as they do. Out side family issues can agitate some symptoms partly because it takes a whole treatment plan including behavior modification at home ect and when not treated on a whole then not as effective – but it doesn’t cause it.

This is a hotttttt topic for me too. I have worked with kids for YEARS I am ADD [son] is ADHD there is autism in my family. Ect…..

[Son] being a child who shocked drs at a young age with his abundant wildness I think I have handled better alone (till this yr) than many do together.

[Son] can’t sit still no matter how hard he tries. He soooo wants to please. He is ridiculously intelligent – but he stands at his desk to do work.

ut no matter what we do or say or how we punish – it doesn’t change how the neurons fire. No spence in swatting a kid for something they physically can’t help. But no allowing it to be used as an excuse to do whatever either. Raising a child with any type of special needs is a challenge and takes trial & error "

————-

So there’s the other side of the story. The RN above pretty much agreed that a lot more people were prescribed it than needed it, but every once in awhile you have a special needs child who really needs it.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I doubt we will settle the matter here, but I start with this principle: it is far better than children learn to control themselves than that they be controlled by drugs. That comes to some extent from my education in psychology at a time before chemical psychiatry had achieved many of the results it now boasts; in the days of my undergraduate and early graduate education, before I specialized in mathematics and human factors and branched out into engineering, there were many debates between the “talk therapy” psychologists and the “shock treatment” medico psychiatrists.

That debate has in my judgment never really be resolved. Psychiatric drugs often have much the same effect that locking people up in a madhouse as incurably insane have, and they are much cheaper. I can completely agree that some are incurably insane, and society has to be protected from them. Others are a bloody nuisance and we prefer they be either drugged or locked away so they do not annoy us. These are matters often brought up in novels, stage plays, and movies, and old Law and Order episodes, often very well done with some accuracy.

I don’t have a final solution to any of this.

But I have not changed my view: we drug too many kids, and bright kids who don’t learn to control themselves are lost, and that lost is severe for all of us.

I think we are trying too hard to nationalize these matters. Leave them to the states. Stop trying for a federal policy. Federal policies don’t work. Perhaps state policies don’t work either, but at least there is room for experiment there.

Thanks.

Home Owner Associations (https://jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?page_id=14)

From your reader feedback, I would guess that none of them have actually been involved with a Home Owners’ Association. Although I have thus far avoiding serving on the board, I regularly attend the monthly meetings. And I am usually the only resident there that isn’t on the board! I live in an unincorporated area so that association is very necessary to maintaining my community. I live near Houston and they are necessary to our area because Houston does not have Zoning! Can you imagine a large city in which bureaucrats don’t decide what you can do with your land? Without my HOA, there wouldn’t be anyone to pay for the street lights, operate the swimming pool, and mow the common areas. An occasional letter telling me to mow my lawn is the price I pay to have someone that can tell my neighbors that they cannot hold a garage sale every single weekend!

The benefits of an HOA cost money! Getting every home owner to pay is probably the single biggest headache that board members face. I have witnessed the lengths that board members have gone through to avoid a foreclosure. After a while, there just isn’t another choice. Nothing in the cited example says the association didn’t do the things Mike Powers says should have been done.

But the board may have had no choice. I know of no cases where the board is directly responsible for enforcement; they hire a management company for that. Board members are unpaid and are usually amateurs. Hiring a management company can be perilous! After the compelling sales pitch, they have to read the long and tedious contract. My HOA just went through a process of looking at new management companies; they decided to keep our current one. Of particular interest to me was the diligence of one board member in actually reading the contract. Some of the clauses buried in these contracts were real doozies! As I recall, one contract had all late fees and interest going to the management company as well as they handled collections.

Greg Brewer

I have to agree on much of what you said; I succumbed to first emotions in that report about the Association foreclosing on a man’s home because he had not paid his dues. My suspicion is that the publicity has caused everyone involved to rethink the situation and that it has been resolved; such things usually are.

I tend to agree that voluntary associations are a major part of self government. Thank you.

Unemployment

Have you ever been unemployed? I held views similar to yours until I actually experience unemployment a couple of times. My first time was a year after my divorce. The divorce totally wiped out my meager savings. That unemployment check did not cover my bills and it was very alarming to what my account dwindle as I desperately searched for a new job. I seem to recall a post that pointed out that a certain number of months of unemployment equal the amount of time necessary to get a 2 year degree. The notion does not match the reality of unemployment. Number 1 is the cost. Number 2 is that you do not know how long you will be unemployed; it is hard to make a commitment when you are hoping to have a job next month. Number 3 is that it assumes that you don’t already have a degree. Number 4 is availability; before cell phones, I spent the day near the phone waiting for that important phone call. Number 5 is mental. Your worried, depressed. It is very hard to concentrate on anything other than finding a new job.

There is also a problem when one has obsolete job skills. Let us say that you have worked in an industry for 8 years and then you lost your job when it was outsourced to India. Okay, you start looking for a new job but all the other employers are outsourcing the jobs you are qualified for. What few that are left have a long line of applicants for the 1 job. Obviously, you need to change your career. Best case, you have skill sets and interests that can be adapted to another industry. But you are going on a job interview with no actually industry training or experience; you are probably not high their “hire” list. Then there is the problem of salary; you are unlikely to get offered as much as you were making. The potential employer is going to have to consider that you will only stay until you get a job offer in your old industry at your old salary.

And every month, my mortgage payment and car payment and utilities and taxes and child support keep needing to be paid.

Greg Brewer

What you have not shown here is why your needs must be met by compulsory collections from someone else. It is easy to show that people deserve better than they are getting. Novelists do it all the time, but there is plenty in real life to support the plausibility. The question is, how do others acquire the obligation to do something about it?

And even if you can show that the deserving poor have a right to have the tax collector despoil others of their property to ameliorate the plight of those who, through no fault of their own, are now in desperate need, is it not reasonable to discuss just what limits may be put on what is given to them? Surely there are limits. What are they and who gets to set them?

And we still have not discussed the undeserving poor. They exist. Of course we include those who simply scam the system, but then there are those offered a job they think beneath them: how long should they be supported while the continue to look for something more to their liking? Who has the obligation to give them that support?

Not I am not discussing charity here, although the charities used to have such discussions. Charity is not a legal obligation. Of course if the view is that property is theft and thus no one is really entitled to anything at all, and what we call ownership is really just a concession on the part of the many to allow those who ‘own’ temporary possession of their houses and other property, then we are in a different world. That took place in Russia after Lenin arrived at the Finland station, and later Dr. Zhivago returned to find his house occupied by workers, and had to apply to the soviet in charge of the property for a room; but surely you are not advocating that.

I don’t mean to be mocking: I do mean to say that these matters have been discussed for millennia, and most of the arguments are lost in the miasma that modern education has become.

It is easier to come to some conclusion on what entitlements people deserve than it is to determine who must pay for them – and whence came the obligation to pay.

off the wall question

Dear Mr. Pournelle,

Sorry to intrude on your privacy, but I have to ask a question. What do you think about Hollywood movies being re-made for the nth time as if there is no other material left to produce? Especially in the Science Fiction form, there has to be a half century of material in your work alone, and if you add in Larry Niven’s material (pre-Ringworld Throne – just my preference) there are decades of enthralling material I would love to see on the screen before I start drooling (in the day time that is), which doesn’t seem far off now. Doesn’t anyone approach you with this?

Sincerely,

Mark Knebel

PS No I don’t do screen plays or claim to have any talent of the literary or film type – just a Science fiction junkie

Well, I can hardly disagree that some of my stuff would make better movies than many of those that get made. Mr. Cameron paid me a generous amount for an option on BIRTH OF FIRE which was to have been his next work, but he decided instead to go with AVATAR. I can hardly argue with him about it…

I think Hollywood is not in the entertainment business: it’s in the business of making money by investing in entertainment. That’s not quite the same thing.

Tabloid Climate Science

Dear Jerry;

Nothing corrodes scientific credibility faster than suffering misrepresentation lightly.

You have recently repeated reports in the London tabloid press denying the continuing warming trend of the last century and asserting that solar cycle 25 will plunge us into a new ice age.

Contradicting the evidence of <i> The Daly Mail</i> ‘s Page 3, customarily adorned with ladies whose degree of undress suggests alarming levels of warmth, the UK’s Ministry of Defense has issued the following Meteorology Office bulletin :

"Met Office in the Media: 29 January 2012

Today the Mail on Sunday published a story written by David Rose entitled “Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about”.

This article includes numerous errors in the reporting of published peer reviewed science undertaken by the Met Office Hadley Centre and for Mr.

Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading.

Despite the Met Office having spoken to David Rose ahead of the publication of the story, he has chosen to not fully include the answers we gave him to questions around decadal projections produced by the Met Office or his belief that we have seen no warming since 1997.

For clarity I have included our full response to David Rose below:A spokesman for the Met Office said: “The ten year projection remains groundbreaking science. The complete period for the original projection is not over yet and these projections are regularly updated to take account of the most recent data.

“The projections are probabilistic in nature, and no individual forecast should be taken in isolation. Instead, several decades of data will be needed to assess the robustness of the projections.

“However, what is absolutely clear is that we have continued to see a trend of warming, with the decade of 2000-2009 being clearly the warmest in the instrumental record going back to 1850. Depending on which temperature records you use, 2010 was the warmest year on record for NOAA NCDC and NASA GISS, and the second warmest on record in HadCRUT3.”

Global average temperatures from 1850 to 2011 from the three individual global temperature datasets (Met Office/UEA HadCRUT3, NASA GISS and NOAA NCDC

Furthermore despite criticism of a paper published by the Met Office he chose not to ask us to respond to his misconceptions. The study in question, supported by many others, provides an insight into the sensitivity of our climate to changes in the output of the sun.

It confirmed that although solar output is likely to reduce over the next

90 years this will not substantially delay expected increases in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases.

The study found that the expected decrease in solar activity would only most likely cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08 °C. This compares to an expected warming of about 2.5 °C over the same period due to greenhouse gases (according to the IPCC’s B2 scenario for greenhouse gas emissions that does not involve efforts to mitigate emissions). In addition the study also showed that if solar output reduced below that seen in the Maunder Minimum – a period between 1645 and 1715 when solar activity was at its lowest observed level – the global temperature reduction would be 0.13C."

Russell Seitz

Fellow of the Department of Physics

Harvard University

Russell, you study this stuff a lot more than I do; my conclusion is that no one knows what is happening. The data aren’t good enough. I will go back to what I have always said: the Earth has been warmer in historical times, and is has been colder in historical times, and we know that it has been a lot colder not all that long ago when glaciers covered northern Europe and northern North America. I do not know what halted the advance of the ice and made Europe habitable, but I do know I prefer warm to cold.

I also do not know what to do about CO2 but I am darned sure that if every North American coal plant shut down the effect on CO2 levels would not be all that great – while the economic effect would be tremendous. A rich North America can invest in research to change things, everything from painting roofs white to your bubble schemes to plankton blooms, and surely other stuff I never thought of; and a broke North America is going to go back to burning things to stay warm in winter. We don’t understand the climate, our models are not much good, and to assume that people will simply freeze in the dark is not sensible.

I don’t know if it’s getting warmer or colder. I do know it hasn’t changed all that much from the days of my youth. Ponds still freeze in Memphis, but not very often and certainly not every winter. That’s the way is was when I was a kid with ice skates.

Contraception

Jerry,

Now Obama wants the Insurance Companies to provide Contraception "Services" at "No Charge," what comes next, Mandatory Contraception? This would, of course, save the Insurance Companies considerable costs.

I am really intrigued by Obama’s ideas about free goods and services. Seems to be a good deal like Perpetual Motion in an economic sense.

Bob Holmes

It does make one ask, if he can mandate that entitlement to be paid by private insurance companies, what others can be given free? Sex change operations? Face lifts to make one feel better? Cosmetic surgery in general? It is difficult to conceive of something that would not be included in entitlements. Which means that the insurance companies go out of business. Which means nationalized health care, which is probably the objective in the first place.

My parents brought me up to believe the police were the good guys and only the guilty had something to hide. As you can well imagine, this is no longer a viewpoint I share.

And we have this

http://www.okgazette.com/oklahoma/article-3959-former-da-bob-macy-ex-forensic-chemist-joyce-gilchrist-settle-case.html

B

I was similarly brought up. I lost some of that one night when a teenaged friend and I were out in a large vacant field smoking. Apparently we had been talking louder than we thought since some neighbor perhaps forty or fifty yards away called the police. When the police came we went up to them to see if there was something wrong – and were accused of mischief. Of course we were guilty, we had been off in a vacant lot smoking White Owl cigars, but we didn’t expect to be called punks and gangsters. We were after all thoroughly law abiding young middle class kids, my friend’s father being a Memphis State College teacher, and mine being the manager of a Memphis radio station. We could easily have simply walked away – the fields were in were large and unroaded, and we hadn’t been seen — when we saw the police car arrive, but instead we went up to ask what was going on.

I doubt that the officer involved knows just how much he contributed to my education and attitude toward the police as a result of that encounter. I haven’t thought about that in a long time. Of course in those days (about 1947) Memphis was a very peaceful place, at least in the part where I lived.

SUBJECT: A Swarm of Nano Quadrotors

Hi Jerry.

Some fun and interesting technology here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQIMGV5vtd4

Cheers,

Mike Casey

How America made its children crazy,

Jerry

Spengler tells us How America made its children crazy:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NA31Dj01.html

“American children do not read; they surf. They do not write; they text. And when they fail to concentrate, we prescribe drugs that only harm them – drugs can’t be found in pharmacies in China, where perseverance and classical music are the order of the day. If China replaces the US as the pre-eminent world power, America will only have itself to blame for handing kids over to quacks and computers.”

And that’s just his summary.

Ed

We’re going to Hell in a handbasket. But then we were when I was a kid, too. At least I have more teeth than my parents did at my age. And I survived brain cancer.

Costa Concordia Shipwreck and "women and children first"

Unlike the Titanic shipwreck, the Costa Concordia was in easy swimming distance of the shore. From the satellite photographs, the distance from the ship to the nearest beach is between 250 and 500 feet depending on where you swim from the ship. Plus the fact that the ship grounded. It wasn’t going to head for the bottom 3 miles down. While I was not on the ship, in this instance, it seems to me that intestinal fortitude should have been easy to come by. Which makes the captain’s conduct even more contemptible.

Michael D. Houst

How sexist of you.

To stand and be still to the Birkenhead Drill is a damn tough bullet to chew…

Mail 711 Tuesday January 31, 2012

visiting Zeke

Jerry,

This morning I went to the Smithsonian to visit Zeke II. He was dozing comfortably when I arrived, in a cabinet on the fifth floor which a curator was on hand to open for me. (As you know, the Information Age exhibit is currently mothballed, to be replaced with something on "American Enterprise.") What a sturdy looking machine–they sure don’t make them like that anymore. Two shelves above him is the keyboard and some other components for the IBM Deep Blue computer, so I suspect he doesn’t lack for intelligent conversation where he is now. There’s also a Mac Classic: you’d know better than I whether Zeke would ever make a pass.

I looked through the documentation that was also included in the materials, much of it for the CP/M operating system. There were ten 8" diskettes. One was labelled "Safety: Storms." Would this have been Janissaries III: Storms of Victory?

I passed along your regards to Zeke. I can’t truthfully say that he blipped or blinked, but I think he liked getting some attention just the same. Couple of photos attached.

Best, Matt

—

Matthew Kirschenbaum

Associate Professor of English

Associate Director, Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) University of Maryland

Thank you. And yes, that was probably Storms of Victory. Those 8” floppies were the “mass storage” in those days…

TSA thuggery… looking for shovels in a suitcase because someone tweeted hat he was going to dig up Marilyn Monore. Come on.

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/30/10272373-tourists-banned-from-us-over-twitter-jokes

I am no longer surprised by anything they do. The TSA needs defunding.

"Being forced to join and be subject to a home owners association is not a capitalist act, it is an undermining of property rights."

Except you aren’t "forced" to join. You join voluntarily, by moving into a community managed by a homeowner’s association. Private citizens voluntarily entering into associations is a Constitutional right.

If someone were to join a private club, break one of its rules, and then sue the club for enforcing those rules, would you say that law and morals were both on his side?

Yeah, this particular situation is awful, and what *should* have happened was that the HOA should have gone to him and worked out what the situation was. But a failure of an individual HOA’s management is not an example of how the notion of an HOA is a terrible concept that all right-thinking God-fearing Americans should abhor.

Maybe the moral of the story here is that if you’re gonna skip payments on a contracted obligation you should read the law *first*.

—

Mike T. Powers

Homeowner Associations

Dear Jerry,

I am puzzled by your contention that "Being forced to join and be subject to a home owners association is not a capitalist act, it is an undermining of property rights." As far as I know, homeowner associations are created only through the mechanism of real covenants, a form of contract that has been part of the common law for hundreds of years. If you do not like the covenants that "run with the land", you are not forced to buy it. If you have evidence of homeowner associations being forced on property owners after purchase, I would very much like to see it.

Home buyers may face more limited choices if all new developments in an area include homeowner associations, but let me suggest that it is a losing strategy for conservatives to claim that a person facing limited choices is thereby being "forced". It is a tragedy for an 81 year-old veteran to lose his home over a $340 debt, but, so far as I can tell, it is not a failure of capitalism. The failure here seems to be one of charitable organizations not providing the help that some senior citizens need in navigating legal requirements. Where is all the money raised in churches by social conservatives going? Perhaps, e.g., Santorum can take a moment to use his campaign rhetoric to redirect the considerable fervor of evangelicals in a more productive, less symbolic, direction?

Gordon Sollars

Point taken. I have never been the victim of a compulsory homeowners association whose membership is part of a restrictive covenant. In my limited experience restrictive covenants on real estates were things like not allowing the property to be sold to blacks. Of course the courts eventually held that enforcing such covenants is not in the public interest and covenants not in the public interest will not be enforced, and not long after the courts discovered this federal civil rights laws made the whole notion moot. But everyone I know who is part of a mandatory homeowners association hates them with passion. They seem to be great illustrations of the Iron Law in action: fussy old busybodies with far too much time on their hands end up as the officers. Perhaps I have friends in unusual situations.

There are matters of greater concern, I suppose. Fortunately I am not involved in any of this. I do pay my dues the local resident association but that’s purely voluntary. They can’t sell my house at auction if I decide to drop out.

ADHD Meds

A couple of comments about ADHD. The ability to multitask and to quickly shift focus when something grabs your attention is a survival trait for the person who is plowing the field and suddenly sees a tiger.

This ability is not helpful to the 3rd grade teacher who is trying to teach 25 students to read something that they think is boring.

When I was talking to my son’s doctor she noted two things.

1. ADHD is hereditary

2. Most adults self medicate with caffeine and sugar.

At which point I started laughing, and took another sip of my 4th starbucks of the morning.

Ritalin and coffee seem to work. They also are less needed once you get past about age 17.

College was wonderful because I could finally study only the subject that was interesting.

The ADHD ability is an asset for many professions which require quick task switching. Sales, and Customer service come to mind.

At a recent Amway Black Diamond sales meeting (highly successful full time Amway sales reps) a friend noted that almost all of them had kids taking Ritalin.

My brain can apparently switch gears quicker than normal. I view this as a good thing, not a handicap. The same is true of my children.

We suffer through the public school system and gravitate toward jobs where our ability is an asset. I have been doing technical service for various chemicals and plastics for 25 years. I love it when the phone rings. I love it when my lab tech interrupts me with a question. I hate it when I have to sit at the lab bench and run the same experiment 10 times in a row. My lab tech on the other hand loves routine and will gladly run the same experiment over and over with slightly different conditions.

We make a good team.

—

——————–

Jim Coffey

It may be that drugs like Ritalin do some good for some kids, but the studies seem a bit forced to me; and I know that we all got along without the stuff when I was growing up. Us nerds had our own problems, but being drugged was not one of them.

Ritalin

‘To date, no study has found any long-term benefit of attention-deficit medication on academic performance, peer relationships or behavior problems, the very things we would most want to improve.’

——————–

My guess is when teachers get a kid who acts up they want to do whatever it takes to make him settle down. If that means zoning the student out with drugs that is acceptable if it makes the teachers job easier. Maybe they do not have any mental disorder at all, but as you say, just youthful exuberance and lack of self discipline.

I don’t want to go into a long diatribe on this. I think you know what I mean when I say it is a mistake to substitute ‘metrics’ for good judgment. The result is the teachers end up scurrying to meet requirements and follow an array of rules with no time for anything else.

B

I can only repeat that we seem to have got along fine without them for centuries, and I am not convinced that 10 and more percent of the kids now need drugs.

I guess they’ve never heard of RF jamming, much less latency.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16367042>

——

Roland Dobbins

‘The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini-ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.’

<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming–Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html>

——

Roland Dobbins

More deniers self-identify

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/30/wsj_global_warming_letter/

Bert Rutan and a number of other formerly-respected persons consign themselves to the ash-heap of history as they insist on refusing to accept the obvious scientific truth.

—

Mike T. Powers

Fallen Angels was a lot of fun but we looked at serious subjects.The data are trumping the models.  But then it has been that way for decades: the modelers were convinced of warming and the data collectors were not so sure. I can’t remember when it wasn’t that way.

Over a hundred thousand year trend the Earth is cooling. Over the last two hundred years it has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age. It has warmed somewhat since the beginning of the last Interglacial Period, but we are still in an Ice Age. The modelers say that CO2 has rescued us from the return of the ice. The data are not so clear on that.

I don’t normally send viral video links, but this is Niftier Than Nemo! <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7aPzZsuBjo>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7aPzZsuBjo

I don’t usually print the links either, but this is too good to miss.

Fighting the law and winning 

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I suspect you will find the following story interesting. Mr. Mocek was acquitted of all charges brought against him when the evidence in his video camera contradicted the sworn statements of serving officers. They had previously attempted to confiscate the camera and delete the footage, but evidently didn’t reckon on recovery technologies.

http://mocek.org/blog/2011/02/07/i-fought-the-law-and-the-law-lost-but/

My parents brought me up to believe the police were the good guys and only the guilty had something to hide. As you can well imagine, this is no longer a viewpoint I share.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Charles Murray on the New American Divide – Jerry

A piece by Charles Murray in the Wall Street Journal, on The New American Divide:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577170733817181646.html#printMode

“America is coming apart. For most of our nation’s history, whatever the inequality in wealth between the richest and poorest citizens, we maintained a cultural equality known nowhere else in the world—for whites, anyway. "The more opulent citizens take great care not to stand aloof from the people," wrote Alexis de Tocqueville, the great chronicler of American democracy, in the 1830s. "On the contrary, they constantly keep on easy terms with the lower classes: They listen to them, they speak to them every day."

“Americans love to see themselves this way. But there’s a problem: It’s not true anymore, and it has been progressively less true since the 1960s.” <snip>

“Single parenthood: Another aspect of marriage—the percentage of children born to unmarried women—showed just as great a divergence. Though politicians and media eminences are too frightened to say so, nonmarital births are problematic. On just about any measure of development you can think of, children who are born to unmarried women fare worse than the children of divorce and far worse than children raised in intact families. This unwelcome reality persists even after controlling for the income and education of the parents.

“In 1960, just 2% of all white births were nonmarital. When we first started recording the education level of mothers in 1970, 6% of births to white women with no more than a high-school education—women, that is, with a Fishtown education—were out of wedlock. By 2008, 44% were nonmarital. Among the college-educated women of Belmont, less than 6% of all births were out of wedlock as of 2008, up from 1% in 1970.

“Industriousness: The norms for work and women were revolutionized after 1960, but the norm for men putatively has remained the same: Healthy men are supposed to work. In practice, though, that norm has eroded everywhere. In Fishtown, the change has been drastic. (To avoid conflating this phenomenon with the latest recession, I use data collected in March 2008 as the end point for the trends.)

“The primary indicator of the erosion of industriousness in the working class is the increase of prime-age males with no more than a high school education who say they are not available for work—they are "out of the labor force." That percentage went from a low of 3% in 1968 to 12% in 2008. Twelve percent may not sound like much until you think about the men we’re talking about: in the prime of their working lives, their 30s and 40s, when, according to hallowed American tradition, every American man is working or looking for work. Almost one out of eight now aren’t. Meanwhile, not much has changed among males with college educations. Only 3% were out of the labor force in 2008.

“There’s also been a notable change in the rates of less-than-full-time work. Of the men in Fishtown who had jobs, 10% worked fewer than 40 hours a week in 1960, a figure that grew to 20% by 2008. In Belmont, the number rose from 9% in 1960 to 12% in 2008.”

On and on. More in that vein. It appears to be a condensation of his new book. Quite sobering, especially in juxtaposition with a series of lectures I am listening to on Machiavelli. In The Discourses he describes the kind of institutions an uncorrupted people can be trusted with, and the kinds of institutions that must serve when a people are “corrupted.” It brings to mind Ben Franklin’s answer when asked at the end of the Constitutional Convention what kind of government we had: “A republic, ma’am, if you can keep it.”

Ed

I am a big fan of Charles Murray. I have his new book but I have not yet had a chance to read it – it only came today. I will have much more to say on it I am sure. And I read Machiavelli’s Discourses before I was an undergraduate as it happens; I have always found them far more compelling than The Prince.

And we kept it for two hundred years…

Mail 710 Sunday, January 29, 2012

‘To date, no study has found any long-term benefit of attention-deficit medication on academic performance, peer relationships or behavior problems, the very things we would most want to improve.’

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/opinion/sunday/childrens-add-drugs-dont-work-long-term.html?pagewanted=all

——

Roland Dobbins

This is important. It may be that there are cases in which drugging kids for ADHD makes sense, but it is getting harder and harder to find them: in general the best you can say is that it doesn’t do any harm. In my own case, what I had to learn to was to sit still and pay attention even when bored out of me mind. There wasn’t really an alternative. I had to learn self-discipline. I learned it, and also learned how to use my imagination and fancy without disturbing anyone else. I would not have learned that if I had been drugged.

I was a typical ADHD child when growing up. I had all the symptoms and then some. I do not believe I would have benefitted from being drugged, and I am pretty sure I would in fact have been harmed. I have looked at a lot of ADHD data and I haven’t found much in favor of it; now we have this report.

At the very least, get the Federal Government out of this business and leave it to the states. At best we can just say no to the Ritalin manufacturers. There have to be other ways.

EU Tragedy

The EU is in worse shape than I thought. I’m not sure how the EU cooks their unemployment numbers. Most Americans are not aware of any difference between the U3, the U6, and other methods of calculating unemployment. I expect the real numbers are much higher.

<.>

More than a quarter (28%) of Italians between 16 and 24 are unemployed. Others are struggling to get by on unpaid internships or poorly paid jobs with little security.

[…]

It’s not just Italy, of course. Eurozone unemployment is at a record. According to Eurostat http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home/ , the EU’s statistical office, 16.3 million people are out of work in the 17 countries that joined the euro. The story of a lost generation is becoming the scandal of a continent. In Spain http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/spain , 51.4% of those aged 16-24 are jobless. In Greece http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/greece , the figure is 43%.

</>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/28/europes-lost-generation-young-eu

This is a severe problem. Young men with nothing to do used to find a finger pointing in a direction and speaking words like "Deus volt". Or, these days, such men seem to become pirates, gangsters, terrorists, or lawful protestors. You have young people with nothing to do; you’re going to have a bunch of angry kids.

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Indeed it is all reminiscent of the deepening of the Great Depression. We are nowhere near out of the economic woods.

Mark Steyn on "women and children first"

Jerry:

Columnist Mark Steyn has a riff http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/ship-336602-titanic-concordia.html  on the evacuation of the Costa Condordia.

[quote]

There was no orderly evacuation from the Costa Concordia, just chaos punctuated by individual acts of courage from, for example, an Hungarian violinist in the orchestra and a ship’s entertainer in a Spiderman costume, both of whom helped children to safety, the former paying with his life.

The miserable Captain Schettino, by contrast, is presently under house arrest, charged with manslaughter and abandoning ship. His explanation is that, when the vessel listed suddenly, he fell into a lifeboat and was unable to climb out. Seriously. Could happen to anyone, slippery decks and all that. Next thing you know, he was safe on shore, leaving his passengers all at sea. On the other hand, the audio of him being ordered by Coast Guard officers to return to his ship and refusing to do so is not helpful to this version of events.

….

On the Titanic, the male passengers gave their lives for the women and would never have considered doing otherwise. On the Costa Concordia, in the words of a female passenger, "There were big men, crew members, pushing their way past us to get into the lifeboat." After similar scenes on the MV Estonia a few years ago, Roger Kohen of the International Maritime Organization told Time magazine: "There is no law that says women and children first. That is something from the age of chivalry."

If, by "the age of chivalry," you mean our great-grandparents’ time.

….

The contempt for "women and children first" is not a small loss. For soft cultures in good times, dispensing with social norms is easy. In hard times, you may have need of them.

[end quote]

Another example of how thin the veneer of civilization actually is.

Another quote from the piece….

[quote]

Whenever I write about these subjects, I receive a lot of mail from men along the lines of this correspondent:

"The feminists wanted a gender-neutral society. Now they’ve got it. So what are you complaining about?"

[end quote]

I guess, like one "I Love Lucy" episode I recall, they want gender-neutrality only when it’s in their favor.

…………..Karl

But to stand an’ be still to the Birken’ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,

An’ they done it, the Jollies — ‘Er Majesty’s Jollies — soldier an’ sailor too!

Their work was done when it ‘adn’t begun; they was younger nor me an’ you;

Their choice it was plain between drownin’ in ‘eaps an’ bein’ mopped by the screw,

So they stood an’ was still to the Birken’ead drill, soldier an’ sailor too!

Election

Hi Jerry,

I’ve been following your discussion of the coming election with great interest. I too am worried that the country is headed in the wrong direction. I think a lot of Americans are. The question is, what is the correct direction? You and I believe in small, transparent government that is pushed down as close to the people as possible. If your local town council can solve the "problem" of unlicensed magicians, why do we need a federal bureaucracy to deal with it? I believe most Republicans believe this way. Many Americans think that leads to a large mess of regulations that a traveling magician must deal with. For them, why not centralize licensing so the magician only has to deal with one set of regulations?

The problem is, neither Democrats nor Republicans will decide who is going to be the next President. There are a large number of Independents and most of them are just as dissatisfied with President Obama as many Republicans. The problem is the Republicans are behaving the same way as Democrats. I’ve had many friends who have asked what the difference is between Obama and Romney. When I start to discuss policies, they immediately respond, "No, aren’t both of them doing and saying anything they can to just get elected?" Policies and statements on policies during elections are always meant to be broken once in office. The key is, how did the politician get there? What parts of his/her soul had to be given up in order to get into office?

Right now, even as a long-time Republican I can see no difference between the tactics of Romney, Paul, or Santorum and what Obama did to get elected in 2008. Gingrich at least tried to hold off from jumping into that shark tank, but we Republicans pushed him over the edge. It was either jump in or go home.

Unfortunately, I see happening again what I saw here in California and in Nevada during the 2010 elections. The Republicans are going to nominate the only candidate that won’t be able to defeat the encumbant. Romney will lose and he will lose big. Most Republicans will vote for him, but not all. I for one will not. He is not a conservative AND he is not a true Republican. I won’t vote for Obama but Romney is certainly not getting my vote.

It’s about his tactics, his morality, and more than anything else his history while in office previously. Romney is just not presidential material. Congress will eat him alive. He will compromise and compromise just to get things passed and the result will be Democrats in Congress will be running the country.

I would vote for Gingrich or Santorum, but the elites in the GOP have determined those two are not going to get the nod. So be it. If Romney gets it, I, some Republicans, and many Independents will put Obama back into the White House. Better the devil you know than the one who doesn’t appear to be any different.

Braxton Cook

I do not agree. I believe that no matter who wins the Republican nomination, a vote for anyone other than the Republican nominee will be a vote for Obama. I have opposed the Republican Country Club Establishment since being involved in delivering the Washington State nomination votes (a convention, not a primary) to Goldwater in ’64 and being Republican County Chairman in San Bernardino that year. I do not think we have had a more fundamentally important election since I have been able to vote; and defeating Obama is the goal.

“They can take the SAT for you, no problem. Most students don’t really think it’s wrong.”

<http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/thailand/120103/US-college-application-fraud-asia-elite-economy-china>

–

Roland Dobbins

Yea Capitalism! HOA Forecloses On Korean War Veteran To Collect $338.91 Plus Attorney Fees

# # # BEGIN QUOTE

http://privatopia.blogspot.com/2012/01/homeowners-association-pursues-extreme.html

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Homeowners Association Pursues Extreme Option — Foreclosure — Against

Korean War Veteran

A measly $338.91.

That’s how much Sherman McCray owed his homeowner association when the

board of directors foreclosed on his Clermont house.

Of course, the debt wasn’t just $338.91 by the time a Lake County

judge on Jan. 3 ordered the 81-year-old Korean War veteran’s home

sold.

Oh, no. Between 2010 when McCray failed to pay a homeowners assessment

and that final hearing, the all-powerful homeowner association in the

Vistas subdivision had levied late fees, costs and interest, and it

had busied itself running up absurd lawyer bills by sending

threatening letters at every turn.

Total cost now: $4,272.24.

——————

The commentary describes this as yet another sickening tale of

diabolical, petty homeowner associations in South Florida and asks why

the HOA would exercise a punitive option against an elderly disabled

veteran obviously overwhelmed by health troubles and without a

thorough understanding of the rules. McCray clearly needs an advocate

to help him navigate the dangerous legal minefield that’s Privatopia.

I do not see this as a failure of capitalism, but quite the opposite: it is a failure of government to protect the rights of private property. Being forced to join and be subject to a home owners association is not a capitalist act, it is an undermining of property rights.

Subject: Space travel, moon base emerge as wedge in Florida primary race

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/28/space-travel-emerges-as-wedge-in-florida-primary-race/#ixzz1km8Hd69A <http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/28/space-travel-emerges-as-wedge-in-florida-primary-race/#ixzz1km8Hd69A>

Tracy Walters

I suspect that after Florida only one of the Republican candidates will be in favor of anything pro space. None of them will mention it again.

Column on manned space

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16749916

The columnist does not point out that this would be done with Prizes and X projects, not as a big government funded project. Opinions can differ on when it must happen, but it’s certain that Arthur Clarke was right: if mankind is to survive, then for most of its history the word ship will mean space ship.

Greeting again!

I see you have already covered the necessary counterpoint to the anti-Newt agenda. Powerline has as well.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/01/newt-vs-reagan-the-sequel.php

When I see the derision of Newt’s even brief mention of the necessary future of USA in space policy, and then see alleged official correct candidate Romney blurble incoherent nonsense on the same subject seconds later, I actually felt as if I was no longer at home in the good old USA.

Usually the dum-dum’s know who they are themselves, and they stay quiet except in the friendliest environs to stay out of trouble. Last night, I guess they were serving notice they feel safe everywhere, including 100% of the media and briefing "major" Presidential candidates.

= Jay R. Larsen BA, MBA ====

I will point out that I am pro-space, to the extent that I once made a fund raising speech for then Congressman Leon Panetta, a Democrat. He thanked me.

as you predicted

http://space.flatoday.net/2012/01/romney-picks-up-endorsement-from-space.html

The space vets endorsed Romney. Of course, unlike Newt, he does not favor prizes and when he says "gather Industry and NASA together" I assume he means aerospace.

Phil

To the best I can tell, Romney to the extent that he supports space development supports the traditional big projects approach.

Textbooks

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I recently returned to school. I found that the old textbook scams I hated way back when are far worse now. Not just new editions coming out every year, but school-specific editions. I can’t buy a used chemistry textbook for my intro chem class, because the publisher has a version edited specifically for my school. No texts used at other schools will do. No used texts through Amazon.

A few texts are in use long enough and widely distributed enough to have a used market. I ordered texts through www.campusbookrentals.com, and was quite satisfied with their service. A four-month rental cost me about $40, when a new purchase was $300.

I purchased an online text. What an awful experience that was. I paid $50 for a badly written (writers and editors seem to have given up on distinguishing countable and uncountable nouns, or singular vs plural for Latin and Greek words), badly formatted ‘book’ that I can only access for three years. The alternative was $400 for the same book in hardcopy. I gave up on trying to read it after a few chapters, and concentrated on taking good notes! It was searchable, so I got some use out of it while doing homework.

Digital texts won’t do us much good as long as publishers and schools are in cahoots, with shoddy and expensive goods.

I will note though that chemistry texts seem to have improved a lot, compared to texts in 1980. Plenty of examples, plenty of practice problems with the answers, so that a student can check his own work. Far superior.

Tom

Tom Bridgeland

I continue to follow the publishing revolution. The textbook story is nowhere near over.

Never attribute to Alzheimer’s that that may be attributed to malice.

Dr. Pournelle,

You are struggling to avoid attributing Elliot Abrams’ behavior to malice. While this says much to me that is positive about your own personality, perhaps the simplest answer, rather than defective memory, is indeed that he has used his public stature to work his own agenda.

I also wouldn’t put an age limit on memory issues. I am a few years younger than you, and I’ve had memory problems since my mid twenties — especially where I’m emotionally involved with the outcome. The less forgiving of my critics call me a poseur (the least forgiving have worse labels), but I am usually absolutely convinced of my own righteousness — at least until I have time for introspection.

Your respect for Gingrich seems reasoned, and I agree on many points although I’m a little more pessimistic on his party’s chances to capitalize on their relative strengths. If someone else’s statements disagree with your own evaluation (as they have many time in the campaign thus far), I’d recommend not to let your brief association in the past to provide Abrams an out. I know you’re not a Limbaugh, but if it is needful, call a pinhead a pinhead. He’s become the dupe of the opposition and deserves the label.

I would have preferred that the candidates had held to Reagan’s non-criticism policy, as I think would you. However, recognizing that few, if any, are holding to that standard in this campaign, it is well to note that Abrams has not been one of those maintaining that behavior. If the main election is lost to the opposing party, the results will be partly his responsibility.

-d

I will continue to assume that Elliot Abrams was deceived. I will also continue to observe that if Newt ever publicly insulted Reagan, Nancy Reagan remains unaware of it; she continues to regard Newt Gingrich as a friend, and Reagan’s designated successor in carrying the conservative banner Reagan got from Barry Goldwater. She has said so often.

I absolutely agree that it would be better if in general candidates adhered to Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment.

Jerry

Did someone just find a flying saucer ditched in the Baltic?

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/video-divers-large-unexplained-object-bottom-baltic-sea-161749619.html

A mystery of one of the shallower seas.

Ed

I would say very probably not…