Category Archives: Mail

View 704 Monday, December 5, 2011

Today was devoured by locusts, which is to say work on maintenance including of my car. I am preparing a column, starting with the major topic of the Internet Piracy Protection act now in review by Congress, and the great dispute between Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

Anyone with strong ideas on the subject is invited to send me mail about it.

I also want to remind everyone to nominate items for the annual Orchids and Onions Parade, as well as the products that you found most useful/interesting last year.

I’ve been hard at work developing characters and plot items for the new novel Niven and I are doing, and Steve Barnes has just finished his work producing the first draft of the Novella by Niven, Pournelle, and Barnes set in the Legacy of Heorot world. Niven has taken a pass through it, and it’s my turn, after which we need to confer. But it won’t be all that long now before that goes out.

All in all it’s easy to stay busy.

Mail 703 Sunday, December 04, 2011

· Solyndra

· Leaving the work force

· Talking to government agents

· Military Tribunals

· Mactribesmen : a voice from the past

·

Solyndra scam

Hello Jerry,

Apparently ‘Solyndra scam’ is moving toward recognition as a generic

term, much like the much loved ‘Ponzi scheme’. Or should be:

http://notrickszone.com/2011/07/04/weed-covered-solar-park-20-acres-11-million-only-one-and-half-years-old/

Take the government loans and subsidies for your ‘green solution du

jour’ up front’, make the money disappear, then bail. So far, it has

worked better than all historical Ponzi schemes (not counting the

ongoing government versions) combined. Its only down side is that it

requires active collusion between the government and the scammers.

The upside is that the required collusion appears to be readily

obtainable.

Bob Ludwick

I am sure that many of those involved meant well. That’s one of the big problems with modern debate: much of it is based on an ethics of intention. “We meant well” is supposed to excuse all. Apparently prudence is no longer a required virtue.

The classic four cardinal virtues are Prudence, Temperance, Courage, and Justice. Without Prudence there is a far greater likelihood that a given action will not be virtuous at all. Pleading good intentions for imprudent actions is common now, but the plea ought not be accepted.

: Gave Up Looking?

Jerry,

I am constantly skeptical of the often reported notion that ‘x number of people gave up looking for work last month’. How is that counted? If someone is laid off from a job, and five months later is still unemployed, they are counted as unemployed, yes? But if they are still unemployed after 25 months and their unemployment insurance payments have been exhausted they are declared to have given up looking for work? Really? I know this has been commented on before, but I feel compelled to bring it up because going along with such misleading labels clouds perception and thereby judgment.

I understand that people do give up looking for work, either temporarily or permanently. That figure can only be estimated indirectly, as with the number of Americans who are still seeking jobs but for whom unemployment insurance payments have run out. The automatic classification of a person whose unemployment insurance payments have run out as having ‘stopped looking for work’ is ludicrous and is only useful as political propaganda by whomever is in office at the time. It’s akin to counting an emergency surgery successful because the (now deceased) patient no longer has a life threatening condition. I’m sure you know the old saying.

Regards,

George

I don’t think that’s how they count the “looking for work” crew. I could be mistaken.

Don’t be another Martha Stewart…

Give ’em a dose of their own medicine.

http://www.backwoodshome.com/columns/delsignore010812.html

Charles Brumbelow

Heh. Actually, I wonder if some more prudent variant of this might not be a good idea. As it stands, it really is a bad idea to talk to government officials about anything; yet self government requires that the citizens cooperate with the officials. Of course the whole notion of self government is not only under attack, but in many places and on many levels lies prostrate in defeat.

This Brit’s take on the situation is the funniest and most down-to-earth commentary that I have heard in a long time. Great ending.

British Commentator on Bin Laden

The British Commentator returns to discuss the ass-whopping OBL got. The last minute is hilarious. This guy is good.

http://dotsub.com/view/26655849-5998-4895-ac4e-3a073a16f639 <http://dotsub.com/view/26655849-5998-4895-ac4e-3a073a16f639> 

Subject: Yet another case of TSA terror Political Correctness

This young lady was likely to miss her flight because she was late, but clearly, the TSA overreacted.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/02/travel/air-passenger-gun-purse/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

I have a consulting engagement in Colorado Springs next week … it’s a 8 hour drive or one hour flight for me to Denver. The cost is about a wash, but I’m driving because of the TSA and what will happen when mixed with the holiday air traffic.

Tracy

TSA as Fashion Police

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/florida-teen-detained-tsa-design-her-purse-221835034.html

Security Theater continues.

“The irony is that even with all that cheating we still got an F on our latest progress report.”

<http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ed-dept-probes-principal-sharron-smalls-credit-scam-jane-addams-h-s-south-bronx-article-1.984905>

—

Roland Dobbins

Yeah.

Large volumes of water-ice found on Mars?

<http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMUGI2XFVG_index_0.html>

——–

Roland Dobbins

I follow this story with great interest. Of course I had thought we would have a colony on Mars by 2020.

“Silver bullets have won a lot of battles and for a long time. There’s not a lot of glory in winning by bribing the enemy commander or buying his supplies out from under him, but it’s almost always cheaper in blood and usually cheaper in gold than fighting it out.”

——————-

No, not if you want to nuke nuke nuke…

When the opposing country no longer exists, no more threat…

That is indeed true. Carthage was no longer a threat to Rome. But that hasn’t happened often in Western history; we usually accept surrender rather than insisting on extermination. Under the Constitution only Congress can declare war, as opposed to the King of England who could make war on anyone he chose (but then had to get Parliament to pay for it). As to wanting to nuke someone, I never met anyone who really wanted to do that. Certainly the people who controlled the weapons didn’t want to use them. They also knew there might be a situation in which they had to. One reason I wanted a policy of Assured Survival rather than Assured Destruction. When deterrence fails, you may have no choices left – Herman Kahn wrote a lot about that in Thinking about the Unthinkable, but not many read that book now. Perhaps they should.

Top Five Regrets of The Dying

Jerry

Top Five Regrets of The Dying:

http://exposingthetruth.info/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying/

“For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. . . . When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five” <snip>

Worth thinking about, I believe. I think I can see why you do what you do.

Ed

I have a lot of mail about military tribunals, and in particular the tribunal that tried and convicted the World War II saboteurs who landed in Florida and New York.

WWII military commission

Dear Dr Pournelle:

http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2009/summer/cramer.html

states that the complete trial records are held by the national archives, including the Executive Order convening the Commission and naming the members of the court, the prosecutors and defense counsels, all serving army officers I believe. Other material may prove of interest.

Hope this helps.

Best wishes

Very Respectfully

Matt Hayball

Robert Matthew (Matt) Hayball

—

Nazi tribunal info found in book

The book is "Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America" by Michael Dobbs.

The starting point was FDR’s orders. To quote from p. 204: "The president signed two documents relating to the saboteurs. The first was an order establishing a military commission to try the eight invaders, giving the chairman of the tribunal the right to admit any evidnece that would have "probative value to a reasonable man." The tribunal’s verdict and sentence would be transmitted directly to the president for action, rather than being subject to the normal review procedures contained in the Articles of War.

The second document was a presidential proclamation denying the defendants access to civilian courts. [Attorney General Francis] Biddle was worried that lawyers for the saboteurs might try to invoke a "troublesome" Supreme Court decision that dated back to 1866, just after the Civil War, restoring liberties suspended by Abraham Lincoln while he suppressed the Confederate rebellion. The Supreme Court had ruled in Ex parte Milligan that civilians could never be brought before a military tribunal at a time when civilian courts were "open and properly functioning." It was unclear whether the saboteurs were civilians or not: only two of them, Burger and Neubauer, were formally enrolled in the German army. It was also unclear whether the Supreme Court decision applied to foreigners. Roosevelt’s advisers hoped to avoid this legal controversy with a presidential order carving out an exception to the Milligan ruling."

(Let me see if I can pick out a few facts from a quick scan of the rest of the chapter. The tribunal consisted of Major General Frank McCoy and six others — three major generals and three brigadier generals.

Here’s a profile of the "reasonable man" in charge: "A distinguished soldier-diplomat, McCoy was the epitome of the ‘reasonable man’ standard established by the president for the conduct of the tribunal. Like most of his fellow judges, he had no legal background. But he had impeccable military credentials. He served in the Spanish-American War with Theodore Roosevelt and was wounded in the Rough Riders’ charge up San Juan Hill. TR later described his protege as ‘the best soldier I ever laid eyes on.’ Determined to prevent the saboteur case from getting bogged down in technical legal wrangling, McCoy even objected to [defense attorney Kenneth C.] Royall’s use of the term ‘court’ to describe the proceedings.

‘This is a military commission,’ he lectured. ‘Please use that term.’"

(me again) The men were charged this way:

* "Charge One: Violation of the Law of War." The defendants were "enemies of the United States acting for and on behalf of the German Reich," who had passed through American defense lines "in civilian dress contrary to the law of war … for the purpose of committing acts of sabotage, espionage, and other hostile acts." They were also charged with violating the eighty-first and eighty-second Articles of War. The first of these articles dealt with "relieving or attempting to relieve enemies of the United States with arms, munitions, supplies, money, and other things"; the second punished "lurking or acting as spies in or about the fortifications, posts and encampments of the armies of the United States." The final charge was criminal conspiracy."

"The defense lawyers objected that the accusation of "relieving" enemies of the United States was designed to be used against U.S. citizens who aided the enemy. Furthermore, the clients had never "lurked" about U.S. army encampments. McCoy overruled the objections in his usual brisk manner, causing Royall, who had been born and raised in the South, to think of an old saying from Reconstruction days: ‘Give the nigger a fair trial and hang him quick.’"

Regards,

Bill Peschel

—

1942 Tribunal

Jerry,

Perhaps this is what you are looking for:

http://www.conservativeusa.org/eo/1942/eo2.htm

Order Establishing a Military Commission to Try Eight Captured German Saboteurs

July 2, 1942

The Military Order:

By Virtue of the authority vested in me as President and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, under the Constitution and statutes of the United States, and more particularly the Thirty-eighth Article of War (U.S. C. Title 10, Sec. 1509), I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, do hereby appoint as a Military Commission the following persons:

Major General Frank R. McCoy, President

Major General Walter S. Grant

Major General Blanton Winship

Major General Lorenzo D. Gasser

Brigadier General Guy V. Henry

Brigadier General John T. Lewis

Brigadier General John T. Kennedy

The prosecution shall be conducted by the Attorney General and the Judge Advocate General. The defense counsel shall be Colonel Cassius M. Dowell and Colonel Kenneth Royall.

The Military Commission shall meet in Washington, D.C., on July 8th, 1942 or as soon thereafter as is practicable, to try for offenses against the Law of War and the Articles of War, the following persons:

Ernest Peter Burger

George John Dasch

Herbert Hans Haupt

Henry Harm Heinck

Edward John Kerling

Hermann Otto Neubauer

Richard Quirin

Werner Thiel

The Commission shall have power to and shall, as occasion requires, make such rules for the conduct of the proceedings, consistent with the powers of Military Commissions under the Articles of War, as it shall deem necessary for a full and fair trial of the matters before it. Such evidence shall be admitted as would, in the opinion of the President of the Commission, have probative value to a reasonable man. The concurrence of at least two-thirds of the Members of the Commission present shall be necessary for a conviction or sentence. The record of the trial including any judgment or sentence shall be transmitted directly to me for my action thereon.

Karl

Which pretty well settles this. Thanks.

You made the cover –

Jerry, you made the cover of the Modern Mechanix blog today. This blog

posts scans of old magazine articles and advertisements. Many of the

articles are from the early part of last century, but lately he’s been

mining the latter part of the century. Today’s top article is your

column from the July, 1984 Byte magazine. I’ve had to pause in reading

the article because I’m hyperventilating at the prices for hardware

and sizes and capacities. Oh, how times have changed!

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2011/12/01/computing-at-chaos-manor-macheads/

–Gary P.

Chaos Manor column from 1984 – ‘Mactribesmen’.

<http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2011/12/01/computing-at-chaos-manor-macheads/>

—–

Roland Dobbins

Interesting. Not sure about copyright. That was a well known column…

College students and nuclear secrets 

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I thought I would pass on to you this report on students at Georgetown university who have demonstrated the Chinese nuclear arsenal may be quite a bit larger than we’ve led to believe.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/georgetown-students-shed-light-on-chinas-tunnel-system-for-nuclear-weapons/2011/11/16/gIQA6AmKAO_story.html

Congratulations to the kids. Outstanding work.

The thing I don’t get is the criticism by the "non-proliferation experts" referenced in page 2 of the article. Their condemnation stems from the fact that this gives more countries a reason to hold onto nuclear weapons. I find their logic puzzling. Are they saying we should make policy based on what they want us to believe rather than the truth?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

The ethics of intention are pretty fundamental to modern liberalism. And after all, can’t wishing make it so?

Mail 703 Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A Perfect Climate Irony

Subject: cryptogon.com » Senate Bill 1867: U.S. Military Would Be Able to Indefinitely Detain American Civilians Without Charge or Trial Anywhere in the World

Jerry,

You warned us of this. I refused to heed the warning. You were right.

http://cryptogon.com/?p=26213

Jim Crawford

I understand the impulse to decide that this is war and use war tactics inside the United States; but that has severe repercussions. I don’t want to coddle traitors, but citizens do have rights, On the other hand we have carried procedural protection to pretty extreme ranges. Any expansion of the Patriot Act needs a lot of careful consideration. You don’t want to kill the republic in order to defend it.

We already have the Insurrection Act, why on Earth do we need this, too?

I’m not a big fan of the ACLU, but they’re spot-on with regards to this enormity, IMHO:

<http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/senators-demand-military-lock-american-citizens-battlefield-they-define-being>

Roland Dobbins

Education stats riddle

"It is also true that the average black student performance in Texas is higher than black student performance in Wisconsin. The average Hispanic student performance in Texas is higher than the average Hispanic student performance in Wisconsin. The average white (non-Latino) student performance in Texas is higher than the average white (non-Latino) student performance in Wisconsin. The three classes are collectively exhaustive.

These facts are true, and they are not contradictory although they may appear to be."

Well, I thought it was fairly obvious? Higher percent of Latino and/or black students in Texas compared to Wisconsin? Or it is absolutely politically incorrect to state that, while average Hispanic student performance in Texas is higher than that of Hispanic student in Wisconsin, it is lower than average white non-Latino student in Wisconsin?

But be assured – it is absolutely politically incorrect here in Israel to observe that high poverty levels among Muslim Arabs and ultra-religious Jews are somehow connected to observed empirical fact that that they usually have a lot of children and only one bread-winner in the family.

Alex Krol

Texas and Wisconsin

There are more blacks and Hispanics in Texas than in Wisconsin and they do so much worse than anglos that they bring the average down. It could be argued by the PC brigade that it is just that blacks and hispanics are the poor section of society and the poor always score worse in education so if they weren’t black they would just be the poor of Wisconsin.

Reminds me of the Scot who moved to England and after he left his acquaintances agreed he had thereby increased average IQ levels on both sides of the border. http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/smi/0201d20638/04

Neil Craig

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

http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/

Wisconsin vs Texas

Jerry,

The seeming contradiction is resolved by noting differences in demographics.

Texas has higher performance within each group, but the fact remains that there are significant differences in the performance of each group in both states. Hispanics outperform blacks and whites out perform Hispanics (and Asians outperform whites). While Texas does a better job of educating each group, Texas has a much larger population of Blacks and Hispanics which makes it appear that Texas does not doing a good job of educating.

Unfortunately; pointing out this indisputable fact will get you branded as a racist. I have often pointed out that the non-Hispanic, caucasion homicide rate in the US is comparable to most European countries. The apparent discrepancy is do to the astonishingly high homicide rate among certain minorities. Blacks account for barely one-eigth of the population but FBI stats show that the commit over half the homicides. The homicide rate by Hispanics is also severely elevated. In spite of the proliferation of guns, the homicide rate for Asians is astonishingly low.

James Crawford

Moon and Earth’s Limb

Jerry,

Another "boring" picture

<http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=76534>

I’ll take as many as I can get.

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

Averages

"Many a statistician has drowned whilst crossing a very wide river with an average depth of 1 foot."

mojo

…comes the Ice

My comment is nothing profound (or original), but wouldn’t it be killingly funny if anthropogenic global warming were exactly what we need to halt the descent into the next glacial maximum?

Best regards,

Robert

Indeed.

Now for the irony:

Perfect Climate Irony

Jerry, I’ve stayed away from your sites for some time, as I’m engrossed in the Great Climate Resistance movement (my neological label), and your stuff is just too damn fascinating, and distracts me.

But I happened across a nice post summarizing the issues around the IBUKU satellite results released by JAXA:

http://co2insanity.com/2011/11/15/new-satellite-data-contradicts-carbon-dioxide-climate-theory

Hard data showing the industrialized countries are CO2 sinks, undeveloped ones are sources. Totally 180° opposite of the Climate Science claims and assumptions. As usual.

The logic of "climate reparations" means, as I commented:

"A more perfect natural irony could not be conceived.

The undeveloped nations have two choices: industrialize as fast as possible, or pay huge reparations to the West.

What’s not to love?"

Heh.

Brian Hall

Obama Ditching Working Class

Jerry,

More and more it sounds like the Lords and the Lordkin verses the Kinless. Let the Burning City Burn!

http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/limbaugh-obama/2011/11/28/id/419266?s=al&promo_code=D98A-1

Jim Crawford

Nomenklatura

"One of the simplest ways to end the Depression we are entering is to abolish many of the Federal regulatory agencies and give those powers to the states."

Jerry,

I would like to hear your reasoning behind the above statement. Wouldn’t the effect be to multiply the lobbying and regulatory agencies by 50? The iron law rules as always. Or would it be that the states would then compete with each other to see who could have the fewest rules and regulations, fostering a ‘wild west’ type atmosphere for businesses of all sorts. Where would one draw the line? Un-checked polluters? Toxic waste dumps?

While I agree that lobbying and the rise of the nomenklatura on a national level has many undesirable and or unintended consequences, shouldn’t all Americans, regardless of which state they live in, live by a common set of rules?

As a Canadian, have I missed the essence of what is America? I view it as a single (great!) country, not as 50 separate countries.

gord

Gordon Crone

States would compete with each other, and there might well be conflicts between neighboring states; but what we have now is pretty well intolerable. Leaving such matters to the states won’t instantly destroy the country, and just now the regulations as they work now very well could. I suspect much of what we do by regulation could better be done with suits for damages, and that would be a lot less stifling. The current situation isn’t working. Leaving matters to the states is one way to dismantle what we have; if it has to be started over, that would probably be preferable to what we’ve built.

“There have never been any reported accidents from these kinds of devices on planes.”

<http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/disruptions-fliers-must-turn-off-devices-but-its-not-clear-why/>

In reality, *nobody* actually powers off these devices – they merely ‘close’ or ‘sleep’ them. Which means that all the supposedly evil RFI from their wireless radios is in fact echoing around the cabin for the entirety of the flight (if you don’t believe me, covertly run a WiFi scanner on your phone, or just look at all the discoverable Bluetooth-enabled phones you can find via your phone’s Bluetooth discovery function). It’s simply safety theatre.

The airlines support this nonsense because they would like to have a justification for forbidding passengers from using electronic devices at all during flight, thus herding them towards using pay-per-use electronic entertainment media systems which have been installed on practically all modern airliners.

Roland Dobbins

All I really know is that no one seems to have objected to my old Zenith clamshell laptop back when laptops were rare, and the first time I took one on an airplane the stewardess was so impressed that she went and got the Captain, who insisted that I show it to him. No one told me to turn it off at any time in the flight. Then somewhere in there we started getting the message to turn the devices off. I comply, but I have never really understood what problems they cause. I suppose I can conceive of badly made devices that might be able to interfere with navigation systems, and since they can’t tell those from others – on the other hand, it’s very easy simply not to turn off an electronic device if you actually mean harm to the aircraft.

Cold fusion

Hello Jerry,

Here is a link to ‘ecat news’: http://ecatnews.com/

If you scroll down a bit, you come to a video of a presentation at

Cafe Scientifique Silicon Valley by Mike McKubre of SRI International

that you may find interesting. It is in eight segments totaling

around 102 minutes and gives the history of cold fusion

experimentation, results achieved at SRI, and some commentary about

Rossi’s eCat.

Whether cold fusion, in whatever form, ever turns out to be real,

repeatable, and commercially viable, the field is certainly not

confined to kooks, frauds, and incompetents. SRI has put at least 60

man years into it and there is a lot of other research going on in

the field in the US and in other countries around the world. Summing

up Mike’s presentation, the effect is real, it is reproducible, so

far it (except possibly for Rossi’s eCat) does not produce excess

energy in commercially exploitable form, and no one really

understands exactly what is going on inside the experiments.

Bob Ludwick

Actually the Navy continues to fund cold fusion research; the payoff is so high that even though the probabilities of it working to produce usable power are very low, the research still makes a certain amount of sense. That’s the kind of research I think governments ought to engage in, actually. Very high risk, very high payoff.

Your neighbor?

Perusing Google Earth seem to show that Ed Begley Jr.’s little wind turbine is no longer in place. Is that the case?

Best wishes to you and your family in this holiday season.

Regards,

Michael Walters

Ed took down his little wind turbine the last time he had the roof worked on. It just wasn’t cost effective, which is hardly surprising; winds strong enough to generate real power are rare in Los Angeles except in a Santa Ana season and when that happens the wind may be too strong. It was an experiment.

Ed is not naïve about all this, and he keeps good records about the cost of living off the grid, or trying to. I’m trying to get him and Niven together to do solar panels for Niven’s house: given the tax credits and subsidies it might be a good idea for Niven, who doesn’t live in the LA power district. Without the subsidies it wouldn’t be a consideration, but if you are already paying a lot in taxes, the tax credits for doing “green” can cover a great deal of the capital costs, and that changes the picture a lot. Solar works for some times and places; wind is a great deal less likely to be cost effective or even affordable.

Fallen Angels at 20.

<http://file770.com/?p=7597>

Roland Dobbins

Tory Aardvark

Jerry,

You are probably aware of this but I thought I would send this link.

http://toryaardvark.com/2011/11/17/14000-abandoned-wind-turbines-in-the-usa/

Even the most optimistic advocates project that wind turbines take decades to pay for themselves. Having the turbines abandoned because the operating costs are too high illustrates the fact that they never will economical energy sources.

Jim

It is my understanding that except for certain places in Scandinavia there are no windmill setups that have generated more usable power than it took to manufacture them. The breakeaven point is surprisingly high. Wind is good when it can do intermittent tasks: the old farm windmills used to fill animal watering troughs, and so long as the trough got refilled before it was empty, it didn’t matter when that happened, evening or dawn or night or noon. I recall when nearly every farm had one. They were safe for birds, too. Now these windmill fields are killing migrating birds and lots of bats. Ah well.

Doom and gloom – intelligence is an evolutionary dead end

It seems intelligence may well be an evolutionary dead end. And we’ll go out

with a sniffle rather than a large explosion.

Paper On Super Flu Strain May Be Banned From Publication

http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/11/29/0015216/paper-on-super-flu-strain-may-be-banned-from-publication

A Dutch researcher has created a strain of H5N1 genetically engineered to be

extremely contagious. Why was he working on this? What will this mean to the

future of the human species? Will flu shots do any good?

{O.O}

Carl Sagan used to speculate that one answer to Fermi’s paradox is that when a species gets intelligent enough it wipes itself out.

Mail 701 Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Gingrich on Immigration

Newt’s local commission immigration amnesty proposal is fairly daft. The problem is that some jurisdictions will grant amnesty to practically everyone (hello, Berkeley) and there’s no real practical way to keep immigrants from moving to friendlier jurisdictions, nor is there any practical way to keep them there once they’re amnestied.

Adam Greenwood

Which is to say that the United States is no longer capable of self-government? Perhaps so, or perhaps commissions consisting of retired police and military officers? I confess I don’t know. I see your point, but how did we avoid such matters with Selective Service? Surely there were Selective Service boards more willing to give deferments, and there were no laws against moving to those neighborhoods. But things were different in many ways then.

I would note that some restrictions can easily be placed on what we can, for lack of a better term, call Green Card Boards or GCB. Any felony conviction would require the decision be made at a far higher level than the local board. Residency of fewer than ten years would simply remove that applicant from the local board’s jurisdiction. And so forth.

The purpose here is to prevent needless litigation and prevent absurdities. It is still the case that you will find few Javerts in these United States, who would expel a 25 year resident never accused much less convicted of any crime, and who was thoroughly integrated into the community and the nation. Since it will cost thousands of dollars per illegal to track them down and expel them (even if there are not large legal fees as well), surely there is some answer other than to set computerized hounds loose whose job is to expel anyone not here legally. I am not sure what that is, nor do I think Mr. Gingrich has been given any gift of enlightenment. Yet it remains a real question: once you secure the borders, what comes next? We can eliminate the obvious, those accused of crimes – don’t bother to prosecute them, send them to the border, as was done, for example, some 25 years ago when some burglars tried to break into our neighbors house and were caught in the act. They were conducted to the border: cheaper all around. Of course with porous borders that may not be much of a solution, but once the borders are under better control it’s a great deal cheaper to the state, the county, and the city. Or so I thought at the time.

Newt has the habit of speculating in public about matters like this. It’s not optimum politics and were I his political advisor I would certainly advise him not to bring such matters up in public debates; yes, they need discussion and thought, but think them through among friends before going public with them. But then that’s the advice Newt would give to any candidate.

With matters of such federal importance it may be necessary to place restrictions on the principle of subsidiarity, but I am convinced that transparency and subsidiarity – in other words self government at local level whenever possible – is the best way to preserve freedom. I will agree that we have tended toward creating a professional political class that is rapidly becoming a Nomenklatura, an American New Class, that rules without much limitation.

Immigration Problem ~

Hi Jerry,

The debate I seem to hear most often is an argument about two extreme alternatives for the approximately 11 million illegal immigrants we already have. The arguments swing from "amnesty" to force marches to the border. Both extremes have consequences that I don’t think the general population would tolerate. Amnesty will just increase the amount of immigrants trying to get in on the window of opportunity. Forced deportation will generate too many heart wrenching stories of those affected (i.e. kids) that had no input into the decisions made by their parents. These stories would make any deportation program a short-term effort in terms of popular support and we’d find ourselves not being able to finish the job begun or even make significant progress.

I think a "Pay-to-Stay" system would be as good a compromise as we could get in our current political environment. Those discovered to be illegal through district commissions such as Newt started to suggest could pay an annual fine to help support their stay here until they get "legalized" through the normal process. This way, the immigration institutions could focus their resources (i.e. personnel and jail space) on deporting those who we really need to go such as criminals or those who continue their ways and try to avoid these fines. (Note: I also like the idea of using the IRS to go after people violating our laws instead of trying to squeeze more money out of citizens). There is no reason to insist that the "maximum penalty" of deportation must always be applied. As well, it would minimize the heart-wrenching stories that undermine enforcement efforts over time.

A guest worker program could also be considered for agricultural workers to fill in gaps for those who ordinarily would not earn enough to cover such fines. As an incentive, acquiring a useful degree or military service could exempt them from such fines to encourage useful contributions to the country.

All this would not preclude securing our borders as a separate step. I think for the most part that would get substantial bi-partisan support as a standalone effort rather than as part of a "comprehensive" reform.

V/R

Nathan Stiltner

Clearly the goal ought to be deportation of all those who are here for entitlements and have no interest in paying their share. Often it’s cheaper to deport someone than to convict them of minor crimes. That saves both the costs of crime and punishment, and quite often considerable amounts in entitlements.

Another goal ought to be the retention of those who actually add value to the society, and aren’t just consumers of taxes.

One can’t really apply those goals to citizens, but it seems reasonable to be selective regarding those who are not citizens.

Regarding military service, I think we can all have general agreement that, say, twenty years service with an honorable discharge is more than enough to qualify one for citizenship along with a pension. We can debate how many fewer years are needed to ‘earn’ citizenship, but surely we can all agree on that much? (Or of course there is the question of honorable discharge due to service related disabilities. Alas, that opens the shell shock can of worms, and no, I don’t want to get into that debate just now.)

England sinks another notch lower

SUBJ: You can’t make this stuff up

"You can’t buy that lime… it could be classed as a weapon: Shock for

chef shopping at Asda"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063954/Asda-tell-chef-You-buy-lime–classed-weapon.html

I wonder if there will ever again be an England.

Cordially,

John

As you say, you can’t make this stuff up. Or can you? What do they do about vinegar? And I presume that no one has his own swimming pool? The more I think on this the more I suspect a store scanner programmer with a wicked sense of humor.

dehydration & rehydration

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Regarding dehydration, could the doctors have been using the word in a technical sense with a different meaning from the general one? A personal experience from about 15 years ago to make this point.

About that long ago I went with my late father to attend a family function in Bombay. There he got a bad attack of indigestion (change of tolerated bacteria probably) and later actually collapsed in public.

A cousin who is a doctor was there and diagnosed his condition as acute dehydration and treated him with an oral rehydration regime.

I remember him saying that acute dehydration results in the body losing salts and sugar as well as water and drinking water after an serious attack of ‘lose motion’ sometimes just made the liquid/salts balance worse.

A packet of "over the shelf" rehydration powder was procured and mixed with the water my father was given. He was back to normal in a few hours.

Yours

Ramesh Nayar

PS The powder was a mixture of salts and glucose with lime extract to mask the taste in a sealed foil cover. It tasted awful.

I thought of this after I posted the note in View, and of course it’s true: I can even see why forbidding the claim that water prevents dehydration might make a certain amount of sense if one is trying to avoid lawsuits. You can’t assume common sense.

It is certainly the case that drinking too much water can flush the system of electrolytes. Every hikemaster must be taught this, as must directors of campuses in remote places: I know, because having been both, I have had to be aware of it. Hikers who drink too much water can collapse. It’s not likely, but it can happen, and it is important to replace electrolytes when one sweats profusely.

It’s even worse if one has a disorder that causes diarrhea. Montezuma’s Revenge as an example: it can be fatal if one does not drink enough liquids. The problem is that if you give only water, eventually the lack of electrolytes will cause the victim to pass out. At that point it becomes very dangerous because how to you rehydrate? The usual solution is Gatorade, or some other drink that contains electrolytes. Even soda pop is preferable to just plain water in those cases.

So perhaps this is what the commission meant? Dehydration literally means lack of water, but in fact lack of electrolytes is what becomes the great danger, and both water and electrolytes must be replaced as they are lost to sweating or diarrhea.

Pepper Spray and Tactics

Jerry:

I agree that the command officer at UC Davis should be ordered to take a class in strategy and tactics. Even if he had one, or dozens, during his training. I suspect any training he had is obsolete if it’s more than a couple of years old. In particular, police need to take the Internet into account at all times. Assume anything they do is being recorded for later posting on You-Tube.

In Fandom, we have a saying along the lines of, "never put anything in a fanzine you don’t want on the front page of the newspaper." In business, it’s morphed into "never put anything in an e-mail you don’t want read aloud in court." Now it’s "never do anything you don’t want going viral on the Internet."

Tactics must take into account not only how to handle the sort of hostile situations police have dealt with since ever, but how to handle the fact that whatever they do is subject to being reduced to a thirty-second clip, carefully stripped of all context by someone who doesn’t like them.

If it means police officers wearing those webcams that look like Bluetooth earpieces, well, they’re $150 according to Popular Science.

………….Karl

It has certainly proven to be the wrong decision on many levels.

Fluoride shuttle increases storage capacity: Researchers develop new concept for rechargeable batteries

Jerry,

Interesting article on a new battery technology.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111021125521.htm

I think this new battery technology just might give electric vehicles comparable range to gasoline cars. The energy density still is not comparable to gasoline, but when the total system mass including fuel/battery, engine, transmission, drivelines and axels is considered, the electric car might become competitive.

Jim Crawford

Indeed interesting. One the biggest problems with intermittent energy sources like wind and ground based solar is the immense cost and inefficiency of power storage. The electric car starts with the disadvantage that the generation system is inefficient, then the transmission system, then the storage; whereas the internal combustion engine has only the original power conversion inefficiency. If electric power is cheap enough – say in places with lots of hydro-electric power, or nuclear (whose costs are more related to safety systems than to the actual power generation costs) – electric cars compete nicely. Regenerative braking can convert a reasonable fraction of kinetic energy back into stored power; storage efficiencies become very important in that cycle.

Saving the planet

Hello Jerry,

Apparently, when you are a government astronomer involved in the

crucial work of ‘saving the planet’, you are excused from all the

little nit-picky bureaucratic hassles, such as reporting outside

income and such, that lesser govvies have to endure. Or be

terminated and/or jailed.

For example: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/18/dr-james-hansens- growing-financial-scandal-now-over-a-million-dollars-of-outside-income/

Bob Ludwick

But if your mission is saving the planet, surely you ought not be hobbled with regulatory impediments…

Jefferson and the pendulum as unit of measure

By a strange coincidence I had just been reading Jefferson’s letter to Dr. Robert Patterson this morning regarding this subject, and the basic measure that Jefferson suggested was a half-period of 1 second, which is 0.994 m (which he described as longer than our yard and less than the ell). A pendulum with a period of 1 second would be slightly less than 10 inches in length (L = (T/(2 * pi)) ** 2 * g).

Lon McWrightman

This will have to do for tonight. I continue to get more interesting mail than I can publish and comment.