View 843 Saturday, September 20, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

Chaos Manor Review returns.

Climate Change

Steven Koonin, former Undersecretary for Science in the Department of Energy during President Obama’s first term, has an article in today’s Wall Street Journal that well states and summarizes the rational scientific view of the Great Climate Science Debate.

Climate Science Is Not Settled

We are very far from the knowledge needed to make good climate policy, writes leading scientist Steven E. Koonin

The idea that "Climate science is settled" runs through today’s popular and policy discussions. Unfortunately, that claim is misguided. It has not only distorted our public and policy debates on issues related to energy, greenhouse-gas emissions and the environment. But it also has inhibited the scientific and policy discussions that we need to have about our climate future.

My training as a computational physicist—together with a 40-year career of scientific research, advising and management in academia, government and the private sector—has afforded me an extended, up-close perspective on climate science. Detailed technical discussions during the past year with leading climate scientists have given me an even better sense of what we know, and don’t know, about climate. I have come to appreciate the daunting scientific challenge of answering the questions that policy makers and the public are asking.

The crucial scientific question for policy isn’t whether the climate is changing. That is a settled matter: The climate has always changed and always will. Geological and historical records show the occurrence of major climate shifts, sometimes over only a few decades. We know, for instance, that during the 20th century the Earth’s global average surface temperature rose 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

Nor is the crucial question whether humans are influencing the climate. That is no hoax: There is little doubt in the scientific community that continually growing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, due largely to carbon-dioxide emissions from the conventional use of fossil fuels, are influencing the climate. There is also little doubt that the carbon dioxide will persist in the atmosphere for several centuries. The impact today of human activity appears to be comparable to the intrinsic, natural variability of the climate system itself.

Rather, the crucial, unsettled scientific question for policy is, "How will the climate change over the next century under both natural and human influences?" Answers to that question at the global and regional levels, as well as to equally complex questions of how ecosystems and human activities will be affected, should inform our choices about energy and infrastructure.

But—here’s the catch—those questions are the hardest ones to answer. They challenge, in a fundamental way, what science can tell us about future climates.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/climate-science-is-not-settled-1411143565

Dr. Koonin has different emphasis than I have, but nothing said in that opening summary is untrue. He is being a bit more conciliatory to the Believers than I would be, and I hope that works. I doubt that it will, and I look for denunciations of him as a traitor to mankind as one of the less severe charges to be brought against him, but the statements are true, and the analysis that follows will be at least in part familiar to long readers of this daybook.

For the latest IPCC report (September 2013), its Working Group I, which focuses on physical science, uses an ensemble of some 55 different models. Although most of these models are tuned to reproduce the gross features of the Earth’s climate, the marked differences in their details and projections reflect all of the limitations that I have described. For example:

• The models differ in their descriptions of the past century’s global average surface temperature by more than three times the entire warming recorded during that time. Such mismatches are also present in many other basic climate factors, including rainfall, which is fundamental to the atmosphere’s energy balance. As a result, the models give widely varying descriptions of the climate’s inner workings. Since they disagree so markedly, no more than one of them can be right.

• Although the Earth’s average surface temperature rose sharply by 0.9 degree Fahrenheit during the last quarter of the 20th century, it has increased much more slowly for the past 16 years, even as the human contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen by some 25%. This surprising fact demonstrates directly that natural influences and variability are powerful enough to counteract the present warming influence exerted by human activity.

Yet the models famously fail to capture this slowing in the temperature rise. Several dozen different explanations for this failure have been offered, with ocean variability most likely playing a major role. But the whole episode continues to highlight the limits of our modeling.

• The models roughly describe the shrinking extent of Arctic sea ice observed over the past two decades, but they fail to describe the comparable growth of Antarctic sea ice, which is now at a record high.

• The models predict that the lower atmosphere in the tropics will absorb much of the heat of the warming atmosphere. But that "hot spot" has not been confidently observed, casting doubt on our understanding of the crucial feedback of water vapor on temperature.

• Even though the human influence on climate was much smaller in the past, the models do not account for the fact that the rate of global sea-level rise 70 years ago was as large as what we observe today—about one foot per century.

• A crucial measure of our knowledge of feedbacks is climate sensitivity—that is, the warming induced by a hypothetical doubling of carbon-dioxide concentration. Today’s best estimate of the sensitivity (between 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit and 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit) is no different, and no more certain, than it was 30 years ago. And this is despite an heroic research effort costing billions of dollars.

These and many other open questions are in fact described in the IPCC research reports, although a detailed and knowledgeable reading is sometimes required to discern them. They are not "minor" issues to be "cleaned up" by further research. Rather, they are deficiencies that erode confidence in the computer projections. Work to resolve these shortcomings in climate models should be among the top priorities for climate research.

There is considerably more including one idea you have seen here:

A transparent rigor would also be a welcome development, especially given the momentous political and policy decisions at stake. That could be supported by regular, independent, "red team" reviews to stress-test and challenge the projections by focusing on their deficiencies and uncertainties; that would certainly be the best practice of the scientific method. But because the natural climate changes over decades, it will take many years to get the data needed to confidently isolate and quantify the effects of human influences.

I recommend that anyone, Denier or Believer, interested in the Climate Change phenomenon read this article in its entirety, then start over and read it again. It says a great deal that needs to be understood. The Climate Change phenomenon is real and has been for a very long time. How much mankind contributes to climate change is not known; we have more data than Arrhenius had at the turn of the 20^th Century, but our predictions are not much better than his back of the envelope projections. The matter is important (if for no other reason than to help decide where major investments ought to be), and we are developing the instruments needed. We should continue to develop means of measuring new data and recording it, and as Moore’s Law makes our computes more powerful, we will have computers capable of using that new data. What we must not do is start with the answers before we begin seriously to study the problem.

Dr. Pournelle,

I very much enjoyed the new Chaos Manor reboot. Looking forward to more.

As predicted, the wages of nuclear diplomacy are nuclear escalation. Ukraine is not worth cold war II, but in response to largely empty U.S. threats made early in the current crisis, Russia is upping the ante:

http://theweek.com/article/index/268137/russia-is-stealthily-threatening-america-with-nuclear-war

So much for that Nobel prize for contributions to anti proliferation.

You’ve written about your early participation in operational research and space suit development, and described skin tight suits in your fiction on several occasions; everything old IS new again:

http://techgenmag.com/2014/09/20/future-nasa-astronauts-will-wear-skintight-spacesuits/

-d

And the implications of that are far more serious than the Iraq Wars.  I lived in a time of full nuclear threat, and I don’t want to see those times again. but President Clinton chose the Muslim side in the Balkans against the Christian pan-Slavic Russians, President George Bush continued to encourage the encirclement of Russia, and President Obama despite his stated intent to ‘reset’ never understood the Russian view.  Estonia ought to be an armed neutrality like Sweden, but there is a move to turn it into a NATO fortress/base – 200 miles from St. Petersburg. Russia has always feared encirclement, and has a population crisis which means that Russia must rely on technology, not large armies and militias.

I am pleased to see that the Space Activity Suit is back in consideration, but apparently the authors of that piece are unaware that there was a lot of research into Space Activity Suit a long time ago: I have worn one in a Litton Industry test chamber at 90,000 feet altitude equivalence. This would be about 1960.

NASA’s new private man space contracts

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/nasa/3-things-to-know-about-nasas-new-private-space-contracts-17215622?click=pm_news

Notice Boeing got twice what Space X did. Old habits die hard. But at least we are making progress. Perhaps Elon will just build a new space station and lease it to NASA.

Phil Tharp

Okay, this is just weird

http://io9.com/marine-biologists-release-incredible-video-of-a-borg-li-1635336488?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Stephanie Osborn

Interstellar Woman of Mystery

http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com <http://www.stephanie-osborn.com/>

There will always be an England

Jerry,

There will always be a large island off the coast of France…

but there is no longer an England.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/rotherham-child-sex-victim-confronts-muslim-abuser-gets-arrested-for-racism/#.VBgqfIVQwjo.twitter

J

I have been holding this until I could comment, but I found this story so horrifying that I have been unable to comment.

Fighting ISI

"Four squadrons of Warthogs and a regiment of Green Berets would eliminate the Caliphate in short order, …"

Would you mind terribly if we substituted a mercenary regiment? If the thugs of ISIS want to cut people’s heads off, I suspect there can still be found Gurkhas that would gladly return the favor…

Karl

Ayo Gurkhali!

Gurkhas probably could be persuaded to work for the United States (provided the Brits would agree), but Foreign Legions and other essentially mercenary armies are more suited to empires than to Republics.  They are a permanent force that can be used to intervene in other people’s affairs at low political cost; note that the original charter of the Foreign Legion was that it should never set foot in France, but then came World War I, and the incorporation of Algeria into Metropolitan France, and other such necessities.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 843 Friday, September 19, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

Chaos Manor Reviews is back.

After 36 months I have restarted the column. My managing editor is posting it in parts, one part a week, but with luck I’ll get well ahead of him. The entire September column is done, and I intend to have the October column done in the first two weeks of October.

You may also comment at Chaos Manor Reviews. I’ll read the comments, but I am not the editor of that section. I may have comments of my own. The intent is to have rational discussions, which sometimes happens on the Internet, but all too often they degenerate into something else; we intend to prevent that. The policy on letters here at View continues unchanged: send me mail. I post some of it.

You will note that we try to keep politics out of Chaos Manor Reviews, which is mostly about using technology although we do have discussions of its effects.

Looking for Angel to Save Bradbury’s Hugo

A Strategy for Defeating the Caliphate

Now that the column is done, edited, rewritten, and generally fussed with, I’ve time for the strategy theme.

I have been opposed to US involvements in the territorial disputes of Europe and the Middle East. There were US interests involved in the defeat of the Taliban, and that was done in a matter of weeks once the US committed to that goal. After that came the fantasy of nation building and constructing a liberal democracy in a country that needs a Charlemagne or an Akbar. See Chapter One of John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty.

Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charlemagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one.

J.S. Mill On Liberty

The one thing that unites the Afghan people is the sight of foreign armies in their land. Anyone with any familiarity of the history of that land, from the time of Alexander the Great to the present, would know that.

We were equally foolish in taking sides in the Balkans, where two factions sought to eliminate the presence of the other. When we stopped the ethnic cleansing practiced by one faction, we gave the other its shot at the same practices. At no point was there a US interest.

And the failure of America in Iraq needs no discussion.

The Caliphate does form a threat to the Unites States, and must be dealt with. Fortunately we have the means to do that, so long as we set rational war aims.

More on this next week.

I’ve just come back from almost 20 days in Israel including the first two days of this (so called) truce, I say so called because in the last three days well over 60 missiles have been launched against the border towns in Israel and the IDF has mostly responded.

Life in Israel does go on, people go to work, school is out so there’s the problem of what to do with the kids, where is it safe for them to go, nevertheless you noticed much lower traffic levels and people sticking to doing exactly what they needed to do. In a large country like the US it may be difficult to understand the moral impact of the deaths of those 63 men had. To gauge it properly one would have to have a kid in the army or to be stand at the central station in Beersheba (when the weekend ends and busses and trains arrive bringing the soldiers in) everyone of those soldiers is someone’s son, and while this may seem trite it is a powerful truth at the most basic levels in Israeli society. This in turn, together with a keen acknowledgement of the suffering experienced by southern communities (which have been showered with mortars and missiles for years, but out of sight etc.) have led to a new position among many Israelis. There has to be a solution, but there is strong resistance to any kind of proposal that will leave Hamas armed and able to replenish its stores. Meanwhile the fact that the Jewish state did not roll over and play dead does not sit well with many governments, not only Erdogan in Turkey said that Jews should condemn Israel, many Latin American governments, supposedly democratic ones, have followed Brazil’s lead in attacking Israel. And that in turn when taken with the very public declarations made by officials all over the place is driving anti-Semitism to levels unseen in 50 years (since the Eichmann trials). Please note, this is not impromptu anti-Semitism, when someone takes all night to pay anti Jewish signs along 3 miles of highway it speaks of an organization with a lot of people willing to do such work. And history teaches, clearly, what follows. Latin American governments see nothing wrong in Iran, ISIS, the slaughter of Nazarene Christians in the Middle East and the extinction of ancient communities, but they will solidly stand with the political and ideological blood brothers (and I mean blood in the literal sense as Hamas has hounded and persecuted Christians in Gaza for quite some time) of such barbarians. Evidently the left leaning governments of the region believed there is no risk in promoting these anti-western parties. It may well be that they will find out they were wrong, but by then it’ll be way too late.

I’m no authority on sin, but despair is not an option, my grandparents survived the Zar’s (and his Cossack’s) pogroms, we need, as a civilization, to find a way to stand up to this new crop of culture killers. Upon reading about their cruelty and ruthlessness I’m inclined to believe the story about the burning of the Alexandria library authorized by an Arab chieftain who said "the Koran is enough".

A

The ISIS jihadists believe they are doing God’s will.  As did the Crusaders who shouted God wills it!  And the language of the Koran is plain and clear (of course I have comprehended only translations, and the Koran explicitly states that it cannot be translated, but bilingual frie3nds tell me.)

‘What he and later modern historians of early science found is that the Enlightenment myths of the Middle Ages as a scientific dark age suppressed by the dead hand of an oppressive Church were nonsense.’

<http://www.quora.com/Why-did-science-make-little-real-progress-in-Europe-in-the-Middle-Ages/answer/Tim-ONeill-1?share=1>

—————-

Roland Dobbins

The constitutional issue was resolved in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, 542 U.S. 177 (2004). If a police officer has reasonable suspicion (note–this is not the same as probable cause) to believe a criminal offense has been committed, he’s entitled to demand identification and arrest someone who refuses that demand. A complaint, even an anonymous one, is probably sufficient for reasonable suspicion. The demand for identification is part of a policeman’s investigation of a possible offense, and refusal to provide it is (or may be, at least) obstruction of a police officer in the performance of his duty. The Nevada case was founded in part on a Nevada statute that authorized stop-and-identify but only upon upon reasonable suspicion. Absent such a statute (does CA have such?), it would appear that the officer has no such right.

It is more a question of what is law. There was once a view that took law more seriously, and legislation was more a matter of discovery than of creation. We have lost that view. Note that the Caliphate does not have that problem. For them there is no bad law, because bad law is no law at all, but mankind usurping the role of God.

One need not go that far to question whether rules and procedures created by politicians necessarily deserve the respect and reverence that Americans once had for The Law (Lincoln’s famous speech on that was once a highlight of a visit to Disneyland; this was intentional on Walter Knott’s part.)

We will discuss this again in future: but I do point out that rule of law is a key concept in American history and is usually credited with American success; and there has long been a strong American intellectual defense of the notion that Law is more than the mutterings of a legislature. Does one have a moral obligation to obey and defend bad law made by politicians in their own interest? Do the police and army?

For another time.

And for those who didn’t see it:

For one thought about the implications of 3D printing, see the short-short story by Mary Lowd at http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/robots-and-computers/mary-e-lowd/pegacornus-rex It takes almost no time to read, and it has a point.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

DO NOT FORGET THAT NEXT FRIDAY IS INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY.

View 843 Monday, September 15, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

I am hard at work on the new Chaos Manor Review column. Friends and advisors say it is coming along nicely, but it does take up time. I intend to have – I will have – it done by the end of the week, and immediately start on the next one.

Meanwhile the world goes on. The Russians continue to outmaneuver the West regarding the Ukraine but in a way that’s to be expected. The Ukraine is a major if not vital interest to Russia, while to the West it’s just part of the old balance of power game, and to the United States it is a territorial dispute in Europe whose outcome is more of interest to oligarchs East and West than to the American people. More on that another time.

I do note that despite the tough talk from the President last week there is still no shock and awe, no massive air attacks – just more warning to the Caliphate to dig in.  I believe the Israelis could tall us that is not a winning strategy.

We have our own idiotic scandal in Studio City.

The partner of Daniele Watts says he suspects the LAPD thought she was a prostitute

Django Unchained actress Danièle Watts says she was detained and handcuffed by police officers near Studio City, Calif., after “showing affection, fully clothed, in a public place,” according to a Thursday Facebook post she wrote the day the incident took place.

Watts, who has also appeared in Showtime’s Weeds and FX sitcom Partners, had been kissing her partner, Brian James Lucas, when two officers approached them and asked for identification. Lucas offered his ID when asked, according to his own Facebook post about the exchange, but Watts, who was on the phone with her father and believed she had done nothing wrong, refused and was consequently handcuffed and detained in the back of a police car.

http://time.com/3373525/daniele-watts-police-pda/

Apparently Watts and partner were snogging in a Mercedes with an open door in a Studio City parking lot about a quarter mile from my house when a citizen called 911 to report indecent exposure in a public place. It is not known whether the police know the identity of the caller. No other complaint was made, and by the time the police arrived – one suspects they hurried to answer the call— just as the Ontario Regional Police hurried to send a 12 man squad to investigate reports of a wild party when a mundane called to say SF Fans at a convention there were doing obscene things with a pillow called the penisaurus – but they were too late. The couple were out of the car and she was using her cell phone when they arrived. The story doesn’t say if they used red lights and sirens.

Watts wouldn’t identify herself unless they were going to charge her. California law is a bit peculiar on this matter. Had she been Hispanic they certainly would have had no right to demand documentation absent a criminal report, and it’s not entirely clear that police do have a right to demand identification absent a crime or a charge. Many homeless don’t have any. They handcuffed her, roughly according to her husband, and in his words “flung her into the back seat” of a cop car.

An LAPD public information officer said there was no record of the incident as Watts wasn’t arrested or brought into the station for questioning.

Black Actress Daniele Watts Handcuffed, Detained in Studio City for Kissing her Husband in Public [UPDATE: With Links to Audio!]

Brian Doherty

 

[UPDATE: To vicariously live through and hear exactly why Watts, and other Americans, get so aggravated with police, it’s worth listening to some audio of the incident released by celeb gossip website TMZ, in which a Sgt. Parker tells Watts with maddening supercilious arrogance that "I do have more power than you. Yes it’s true. I have more power than you" and "I don’t work for you" and "When I tell you to do something you have to do it, ma’am. That’s the law….We actually have no charges now" when stressing she was not arrested but merely being detained. TMZ also found eyewitnesses who claim that Watts and her husband were having intercourse in the parked car, though nothing in the audio they released corroborates that as the complaint.]

For the "why relations between the American people and their law officers can be strained" department, even in the hallowed halls of Tinseltown (adjacent) and involving stars of the silver screen, such as Daniele Watts of Django Unchained and the TV show Partners fame, cops are still officious asses, as reported by Mic.com:

-American actress Danièle Watts claims she was "handcuffed and detained" by police officers from the Studio City Police Department in Los Angeles on Thursday after allegedly being mistaken for a prostitute.

According to accounts by Watts and her husband Brian James Lucas, two police officers mistook the couple for a prostitute and client when they were seen showing affection in public. Watts refused to show her ID to the cops when questioned and was subsequently handcuffed and placed in the back of their car while police attempted to ascertain her identity. The two officers released Watts shortly afterwards.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/09/13/black-actress-daniele-watts-handcuffed-d

It’s also an odd story. This is Studio City, and the incident took place about a block from the CBS Studio. Both Watts and her husband are fairly well known on TV. The car is an expensive Mercedes. There was no victim and no allegation of a victim. What did the police think they were accomplishing? Establishing their status as Masters rather than public servants? Why handcuffs? Watts’ husband showed his identity cards although he didn’t actually have to. Was there any possibility of a good arrest for an actual crime here, so the ‘perp’ had to be restrained lest she walk away?

No arrests were made, no crime was alleged – how could there be when no one seems to have come forward as a witness to any crime – and the police were hoping it would all quietly go away, but of course it won’t. I suspect that this incident will cost the city about a million dollars to settle before it is over. I suspect that a two day rif for the cops involved would save the city a lot of money by making the police aware that they really do work for the public, and most of us are damned grateful that they do, but they have not become our masters.

1500 Monday:

http://pagesix.com/2014/09/15/police-django-unchained-actress-was-having-sex/?_ga=1.212848336.536651813.1410818179

1520

I’m now listening on KFI to Sergeant Jim Parker, the first officer on the scene, who was responding to the dispatcher who had taken a 911 call about people having intercourse in public. He has a recording of the entire incident, which he is apparently going public with.  That should be interesting.

Sergeant Parker is protesting that it was all done in accordance with law and order.  The officer is insisting that they have every right to handcuff anyone who walks away from them.  That’s “totally what we do.” I wonder if that’s not grounds for a lawsuit right there.  If there has been no crime committed, and you are not under arrest, why must you be handcuffed for walking away from the police? 

Ah. She was halfway down the block and was handcuffed by newly arriving police on orders from Sergeant Parker because she was walking away from him, although she was not under arrest.  I thought the very notion of arrest was that you were restrained from leaving the scene: if you’re not under arrest why can’t you leave?  And if you are handcuffed and stuffed into a police car on orders of a sergeant who says he’s too smart to touch a 90 pound female who isn’t under arrest—  I would think that being handcuffed and put into a police car is the essence of being arrested.  Yet that has been no crime other than refusing to join in the police fiction that there is grounds for – well, not arresting but restraining you.  Only how is being physically restrained different from being arrested?

It was 1500 and the temperature was 97 F in Studio City last Thursday when this happened.

The police sergeant is now insisting that all she had to do was show an ID – which it turns out she didn’t have with her, that being in the car – then there would have been nothing else to say.  In which case why did he need her ID?  She was handcuffed after the sergeant ordered the other officers to stop her and bring her back to him.   But what I am hearing is that Sergeant Parker believes that the citizens must defer to the police at all times even though there has been no crime observed. I presume that means any time, anywhere, under any circumstances.  You can be having dinner in a restaurant and a police sergeant can demand your ID.  At that point you cannot leave, even though you are not under arrest.  I am sure his defense would be that he would never do that unless there were serious reasons to do so.  Apparently a report of indecent exposure in Mercedes with a door open is a serious reason to demand the ID of people standing next to the now empty Mercedes. 

And the male chap with her is a boy friend not husband.  Partner. 

It all sounds more and more like Hollywood to me.

And I will still bet money that before this is over the city of LA will pay a million dollars to settle it. 

There remains the question: if you are not under arrest, why is it a crime to walk away from a policeman?  When I was growing up the notion that you would not cooperate with the police never came up: it was assumed that you would.  If it is a crime to walk away from the police, must they arrest you to stop you? That is, if they are going to use physical force to stop you, and place you in handcuffs and put you in a police car under guard, and that is not an arrest, then is it not an assault?  Surely the police don’t have the right to walk up, decide you aren’t cooperating, and pound on you – although the young lad in Fullerton who was crushed to death calling for his father might disagree.  Apparently the police to have the right to shoot you for pointing a garden hose nozzle at a policemen even though the police have not identified themselves nor made you aware of their presence – and the Long Beach Chief of Police who ruled that a righteous shooting is now the leading candidate for elected sheriff in Los Angeles.  And Martha Stewart, who clearly should have refused to talk to the authorities, got sent to prison for denying that she did something that was not a crime whether she did it or not.  It is clear that cooperating with police is not a winning proposition.

Obviously the lesson is to show your identification on demand.  The policeman wants to see if you are wanted for anything else.  He wants you identified then run through their data base. Since there has been no crime, he can’t arrest you, but perhaps you are wanted for not paying parking tickets. In the tape Sergeant Parker is insisting that all Watts had to do was show ID and it would have been five minutes.  Now they’re apparently talking about considering a psych evaluation.

It’s all amusing, but the question remains: can the police stop you and demand that you give them identification and wait for them to see if you are wanted for anything, even though there has been no crime observed by the police or officially reported? Is a 911 call of “obscene acts in public” sufficient to allow the police to insist on you identifying yourself and waiting for them to check their computers for wants and warrants?  And suppose you are an undocumented illegal alien and have no valid ID?  LA police are under orders NOT to do that.  I don’t agree with that police order but it has been held by the courts to be legal.

I think the relations between police and public are deteriorating – if you assume this is a republic.  They’re pretty good if you assume this is a imperial government in the making, and the  police really believe, as Sergeant Parker apparently says to Ms. Watts, “We do not work for you.”  Precisely whom they do work for is not so clear, but it is not for the public; or so this long time LAPD veteran believes.  And that may be the most disturbing thing about this otherwise mostly amusing incident.

1730: I’ve heard the tape.  Sergeant Jim Parker ought to be ashamed of himself.  He seems to have been insulted by Ms. Watts – and certainly was – and decided to get his own back.  He talks down to her, uses sarcasm, and a condescending tone of voice.  He has no doubt that he has all the authority he needs because he was sent there – he says he has “probable cause” – even though he has seen no crime nor any evidence of a crime. All he has is that the dispatcher says they have a report of indecent exposure.  He’s not seen any indecent exposure, nor has he spoken to anyone who has seen any indecent exposure. He tells her he will get her ID, but he says it in a taunting manner.  This is his tape so he believes it exonerates him but I think her lawyers will make much of it when comes the inevitable million dollar lawsuit.

That tape does not make me feel better about the Police/Public relationship. She assumes it’s us vs. them when it comes to the public and the police.  We can hope that’s not a really popular attitude although it’s getting clear that hope may not be justified.  But Sergeant Jim Parker seems to assume it too, and it’s job to get in his own licks. “Someone called and that gives me the right to be here and gives me the right to identify you,” he says.  Which means that if someone called and said she was armed and dangerous, would that justify him acting that way?  She’s hysterical; but he’s acting like a he-man.  “Keep yelling, that really helps.  That really helps.”  And this is his tape.

Larry Elder, a black conservative talk show host in LA, says she ought to be ashamed.  Yes, of course.  But so should Sergeant Parker.

Another police officer calls in.  Of course Parker has probable cause, says the officer calling in. We had a complaint.  So if I call in a complaint – which may be anonymous for all the responding officer knows – that gives the police probable cause.  I note they are not saying what actions they have probable cause to perform.  This gets a bit more frightening as we go on.

Sergeant Parker knew this:  he was in Studio City next to the CBS Studio; the car was a Mercedes; everyone was fully clothed; no one had tried to run away; no one threatened him; no one was coming forward to accuse either of them of anything.  And there was no evidence of any crime having been committed. The girl is upset, and resentful of the police presence. And it’s Studio City.

One would expect a veteran patrol sergeant in the North Hollywood Division to have a better grasp on reality than he showed.  It’s clear he became angry at her, and he was going to give as good as he gets. Had a candidate patrol officer under his command acted like that I suspect he would have known exactly what to do.  When it came to it being him, how dare she?

1500 Tuesday: the talk shows are still talking. It’s Hollywood.

Arrest a publicity stunt?

Call me cynical, but the Daniele Watts "almost" arrest really looks like a publicity stunt to me… parking near an office building and making out, and then "setting up" a situation where she would be detained, just seems to me to be a way to get free publicity (and, as you say, a possible payout by the city to make her stop talking)

They have homes (a shared home?) so why in the world would they drive and park next to an office building to get all kissy in the car?

John

You would find many to agree with you.

Subject: this is the way the world ends…..

http://chronicle.com/article/Is-Artificial-Intelligence-a/148763/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

Francis

Strong Artificial Intelligence. Will AI be our Last Invention? https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/republic-and-democracy-is-ai-our-last-invention/

Disraeli and democratic suicide

Dear Mr. Pournelle:

I believe Winston Churchill’s remarks are pertinent:

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Assume, for the moment, that Disraeli is correct. (Though I wonder if he’d have been any more complimentary about republics?) That’s still only half the question. Democracy has dangers. Of course. We’ve involved humans. We will not find a system of government we can’t mess up. What would need to be proved by evidence is that some other system is less subject to perversion.

As I follow the discussion, I am unpersuaded that a contrast between democracy (which we don’t have anyway) and a representative republic is anywhere near the core of our problems. More to the point, I think, are your observations concerning assimilation and diversity. It would seem that a "res publica" does indeed require a *public* that’s willing to be involved in a common endeavor. Beyond that, I suspect that the Founders’ insistence on checks and balances is a more practical corrective to the dangers of democracy than fiddling with the franchise.

Yours,

Allan E. Johnson

Diversity has historically always led to Empire, and often to officially declaring the Emperor a god; it gives something for the army to be loyal to. The Hittites had a diverse empire, but over time assimilated; that practice came to Rome (according to legend by refugees from Troy who would have been familiar with empires of diverse people). Roman founding legends included the Rape of the Sabine Women, amalgamating two entirely different people, and Roman patricians acknowledged their descent from outlaws and refugees; but they still insisted on Roman virtues until the Empire found they couldn’t do that any longer.

Leaving matters of diversity to the states, while insisting on a certain degree of assimilation on a Federal level – universal conscription helped. Many Americans learned what other Americans were like in boot camp. But of course some like Robert Heinlein insisted that a republic that had to resort to conscription didn’t deserve to exist.

It is a complex problem. The American experiment of mass immigration worked but it was at a time when assimilation – the Melting Pot – was the goal. Mass immigration while insisting on diversity is a new experiment for republics. Venice, whose example was well known to the Framers in 1787, accepted immigrants, but insisted on assimilation. That worked well: the Venetian Republic lasted longer than any other Republic in history, being ended only when Napoleon brought them Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, mass looting, rapine and pillage and handed the city, stripped of its territories, over to Austria.

Biden, Hell, and AAC

Dr. Pournelle,

You wrote " One does wonder what Vice President Biden would do if put in charge. " I refuse to consider it: IMO the only thing worse than the Veep as CINC would be the SecState in that same position. Narrowly, better the fool you know….

Having written the statement above, it is perhaps bitterly ironic to remember that the Cinc received a Nobel prize for an undemonstrated "reduction in nuclear proliferation" and was elected on a platform of ending middle east involvement. In the last 90 days he has threatened an Eastern European redeployment of nukes (reversing the progress toward non-proliferation by at least three of his predecessors) and upped the ante in Syria and Iraq.

I think we’re agreed on the need for better air support for ground forces, and I’ll accept your proposal on an AAC as a means to that end. However, the last 13 years of GWOT and the more knee-jerk portions of the Patriot act have totally ruined much of what was little remained useful the DOD and intelligence services acquisition systems. We are spending many times more in resources than what is necessary to obtain functional weapon systems and technical intelligence resources, and perhaps for the fifth time in my lifetime are in need of drastic acquisition reform. Any force structure, including the present one, yours, or the one the country thought it was getting in 1948, will fail under the burden of the corrupt and unwieldy system we have now, regardless of who is in charge. My king-for-a-day move would be a pretty drastic cut of many current programs and (dare I say laser-like) reduced, and more focused scope for much of the remainder.

-d

I assure you I was not serious about Biden, who remains an enormous deterrent to any thought of impeaching the President. I agree that the “consolidation” of the intelligence services has been a disaster. And I remind you of Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

For one thought about the implications of 3D printing, see the short-short story by Mary Lowd at http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/robots-and-computers/mary-e-lowd/pegacornus-rex

The ISIS Strategy

We now have a clear strategy to deal with ISIS and that involves:

(1) Community organizing — of the international variety

(2) Air strikes to support ineffective, expensive Iraqi forces

(3) Training indigenous forces to take the fight to ISIS

Community organizing remains problematic as nobody can step into the Middle East without bringing baggage. Iran has a complicated history with others in the region. Turkey also has a complicated history.

The Western nations aren’t seen as working and playing well with others either. Other regional players would, largely, act under the shadow of suspicion about their motives as well.

Airstrikes, alone, would — likely — accomplish little without boots on the ground and it does not seem that suitable ground forces will flow from a community organizing campaign or a series of press conferences.

Training indigenous forces may offer a solution. Covert programs involving training of indigenous forces from the region to combat ISIS continue from some time in the past. But, now we have this:

<.>

Obama’s non-Iranian options look particularly bleak after yesterday’s shocking assassination of one of Syria’s top anti-ISIS rebel commanders and dozens of his lieutenants. The commander, Hassan Abboud, was killed in an explosion during an underground meeting. So many members of his group, Ahrar al-Sham, were killed in the explosion that it’s now unclear whether it will continue to exist and provide a key counterweight to ISIS. Ahrar al-Sham was one of the best organized Syrian opposition factions aside from ISIS.

</>

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/10/americas-incomprehensible-isis-policy/

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Is the mission Imperial and do we really want that?

DO NOT FORGET THAT NEXT FRIDAY IS INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 842 Saturday, September 13, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

I have obligations this weekend, so this much will have to do:

Some different views on the Russian crisis:

The Ukraine, Corrupted Journalism, and the Atlanticist Faith

By Karel van Wolferen

http://www.unz.com/article/the-ukraine-corrupted-journalism-and-the-atlanticist-faith/

NATO’s Eastward Expansion: Did the West Break Its Promise to Moscow?

By Uwe Klußmann, Matthias Schepp and Klaus Wiegrefe

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accused the West of breaking promises made after the fall of the Iron Curtain, saying that NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe violated commitments made during the negotiations over German reunification. Newly discovered documents from Western archives support the Russian position.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html

The discussions following the van Wolferen piece show one reason I don’t have a comments section here. Yes, there are some very worth while comments in there, and some of the discussion threads are useful, but the return on time invested is simply not worth that investment.

The return of Chaos Manor Reviews is under way, and I am rewriting now.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.