View 804 Tuesday, December 31, 2013

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

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan. Period.

Barrack Obama, famously.

I’m still here. This will be brief: in an hour or so I have an appointment with audiologists who I hope will fit me with a newfangled design hearing aid that will take care of my hearing problems. We will see.

Thanks to all those who have renewed their subscriptions during this holiday season. I will not be going to CES but Alex is providing communications for several exhibitors, and I have other friends who are going. And this week I will be doing the year end essay.

But I mustn’t be late for my appointment.

1530: As it happens my web host was down and I could not post that before I went. I had a pleasant experience at COSTCO, and I may go there for other items sometimes. I know my friend Wayne Rash used to use Price Club for everything before Price Club and COSTCO merged, and I am given to understand that the founder of FEDCO, which Roberta and I liked a lot, is now the President of COSTCO; so we’ll see. If their Auditory department is an example of their competence I might just buy everything there.

The experience was pleasant and Kerry, the technician in Auditory is competent, pleasant, and explains things well. The tests and programming each ear device took about an hour; after which I wandered about through COSTCO with the new hearing aids. There was plenty of background noise but I could hear and understand individual conversations, including Spanish which I haven’t generally understood for years. Amazing. I haven’t heard this well since well before the big radiation treatments for the Lump, that big brain cancer that they managed to polish off in 2008. In other word, for as long as I can remember, really, I haven’t heard this well.

Alas I had to give back the demonstration models, which had been programmed just for me: programming takes a few minutes and is done by Bluetooth. They tell me my very own hearing aids will come in about a week. I confess I was tempted to run away with the demo units, but of course I didn’t. expect to hear more on this story in a coup-le of weeks.

Roberta won’t be going to Larry Niven’s New Year Party, but I’m going to trek out there because Niven’s parties are my one chance to see some people I don’t meet anywhere else, and Larry and I manage to get some work done at his parties anyway. And Wendy All will be there so we can talk about the revival of the children’s book Avogadro the Mole, which is a book introducing basic science concepts for people who like talking animals.

I’ve been reading some books on failure to develop Africa, and some of the concepts will go into my Tran novels. I am determined to finish Mamelukes by Spring, and I don’t see why I can’t. That will not end the series. Going through the Enlightenment, Reformation, Counter Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution all in one generation is not going to be easy, and I’m too much interested in it just to say they all lived happily every after. Or to kill off the characters and say they failed. Rick has to pass the torch and know he has done so before it’s all over. And you have yet to meet his children, who, like children of aristocratic houses of those times, spend more time with Nannies, Governesses, and other aristocrats than their own parents. Georgette Heyer has a wonderful novel My Lord John about the children and grandchildren of Belle Sire, John of Gaunt, brother of Edward the Black Prince, whose son Henry IV deposed Richard II and set the stage for the Wars of the Roses… Henry IV’s children Harry (eventually Henry V) and his brother John are shown in Shakespeare’s plays but Heyer does it better. Anyway, we are headed that way on Tran…

And if you’re looking for something to read before going to a party

Maps that changed the world…

Fascinating!

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/12/12-maps-that-changed-the-world/282666/#comments

(Len – Mackinder made the grade!)

s/f

Couv

David Couvillon

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

HAPPY NEW YEAR

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

View 803 Friday, December 27, 2013

Feast of St. John Apostle

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

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

Christians to Beirut. Alawites to the grave.

Syrian Freedom Fighters

What we have now is all we will ever have.

Conservationist motto

If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan. Period.

Barrack Obama, famously.

Cogito ergo sum.

Descartes

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum. Cogito,

Ambrose Bierce

Took yesterday and most of today off. I have notes on an essay on education, but someone grabbed the title and used it as a Wall Street Journal op ed page editorial today. We Pretend To Teach, and They Pretend to Learn. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303531204579204201833906182

It is very much on target, and says much of what I wanted to say. Anyone interested in the education mess should read it.

Back about 1970 I was involved with the Council that was to draw up the Master Plan for the University of California system. The program was very structured: the University System would have a limited number of campuses, and would do all the graduate school education. There would be a limited number of undergraduates at each of those campuses, and they would be the elite applicants. Tuition would be low for state residents, and very high for out of state and foreign students. This would be the University system, and it would be for the best and the brightest. Salaries would be high for an elite faculty.

In addition, there would be the California State Colleges, which would not be permitted to award graduate degrees. They would do undergraduate education, and send their best and brightest to compete for places in the University system graduate schools. Their primary purpose was teaching, and it was on their ability to teach that faculty members would be chosen and retained: no publish or perish, because their purpose was to teach, not to do “research”. They were not to discover knowledge, but to convey it to most of the undergraduates in the state. A small number would go to the University undergraduate system, but about 90% of all undergraduates enrolled in state higher education would be in the California State Colleges. This would include colleges of education and teacher. Again the focus would not be on ‘research’ or anything else other than producing great teachers for the California schools.

Of course as soon as the Master Plan was adopted and funded, the California State Colleges began a political campaign to be turned into universities, with salaries comparable to the Universities, and graduate schools with research, and publish or perish, and all the rest of it; and instead of being teaching institutions they would become second rate copies of the Universities, with a faculty neglecting teaching in order to gather prestige in research and publication, or, perhaps, at least to look as if they were. In any event the California State Colleges became California State Universities, their commitment to actual undergraduate education was tempered to make room for the graduate schools, budgets were higher, costs were higher, and tuition, which had been designed to be very low, began to climb.

I make no doubt that something like that happened in many other states. When Roberta and I were undergraduates, tuition was low enough that you could, literally, work your way through college. In her case she did office work and she was good enough at it to earn a respectable salary as she managed to go to the University of Washington and study music, as well as get a teaching credential. I managed my first couple of years with the funds from the Korean GI Bill, then wangled undergraduate assistantships doing technical work – I built electronic stuff for Van Allen at Iowa and worked on polygraph equipment for Al Ax at the University of Washington, then later did computer programming for the NRL projects at UW under Dvorak – who had been a submarine commander in WW II, and who invented the Dvorak keyboard. We seldom saw him, but he was legendary even then. Apparently supervision of Navy Research Contracts fell under his sway because he was a USNR Captain.

My point is that we could work our way through college. The Korean GI Bill was good enough to pay state resident tuition and we could wait on tables or find other work to stay alive. Student loans were not a real option, and few graduated with debts. I managed to learn enough to get a job as an aviation psychologist and human factors engineer at Boeing, and Roberta got her music degree and teaching position in the Seattle public school system.

None of that is possible now – and from my perusal of the course catalogs of local universities, I could never have managed to learn enough to get a professional job at Boeing in four years.

The Universities pretend to teach and the students pretend to learn, the costs rise and the number qualified to do something a company might actually pay them to do goes down. And the rising salaries of the teachers and professors and deans and assistants to the Associate Deans, and all the rest continue. They also invented the ‘Post Doc” fellowship, which pays a pittance to someone who has actually earned a PhD but can’t find anything useful to do with it. Gardeners and maintenance crews get larger and are paid more. And every year the Faculty Senate pleads that the University is in danger without higher tuition. Meanwhile, grade inflation makes credentials meaningless.

Credentials are essential and expensive, and they are not worthless because you generally can’t get a job without them; but they don’t really certify that you can do anything, only that you have acquired the credential, something that you must have even to be considered for a job

And so it goes.

I note that in May of 2011 I proposed one remedy to awful schools.

You may take it as a general rule: get the worst 10% of the teachers out of a school, distributing their students to the remaining teachers, and you will improve the school, probably very dramatically. So designate one awful school as the place to send all the worst teachers. It won’t hurt that school much, because not much can. It complies with the silly laws and rules that make it impossible to fire bad, incompetent, malicious, and generally unsatisfactory teachers, and it will do some good for the other schools. Admittedly it’s a silly way to improve a school system, but it may well be the only possible way, since there appears to be no way to change the rules.

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2011/Q2/view674.html#Tuesday

 

It’s not politically possible, but it would work without firing any teachers…

If your career interacts with the military, Colonel Couvillon recommends this:

Lessons of combat

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20131227.aspx#startofcomments

[enthusiastic comment deleted]

Alas, as the war(s) have wound down, the bureaucrats and ‘managers’ emerge from  the shadows and start issuing all manner of (CYA) safety regulations, EPA restrictions, and cost-saving measures. Additionally, those without combat experience will move to the forefront of promotion and command queues because of their sterling record of ‘education’ and accident (i.e. risk) free service.

David Couvillon

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

I had intended to try to learn the Word Press editor that operates directly on the web site, since I hoped it would be easier to use than this, but alas, the learning curve is steep. This is good enough, but I’ll keep trying. I confess I preferred the FrontPage system to all this, but that is apparently no longer an option.  Ah well.

Good night, and happy New Year.

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

View 803 Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas

We’re going out for Christmas dinner. Roberta sang at Midnight Mass last night, and we’ve had a good day, with SKYPE to the grandchildren in Washington DC, and a visit from Alex, our oldest, who will come to dinner with us.

And we have Sable. After her cancer diagnosis a year ago in November I was certain that last year was her last Christmas. That was not so. She remains a happy dog, and we just returned from our walk. She even put up with being combed, since it is spring outside and she is shedding. The mocking birds have decided that it is spring and are building nests, so they will be glad of the wolf fur.   It has been a good day.

O ye, beneath life’s crushing load,

whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
with painful steps and slow,

Look now! For glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing:
O rest beside the weary road,
and hear the angels sing!

Yet with the woes of sin and strife,
the world has suffered long
Beneath the heavenly strain have rolled
two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not
the tidings that they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
and hear the angels sing!

And to all a good night.

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

View 803 Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Christmas Eve

Earthrise

Forty Five Years Ago: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-releases-new-earthrise-simulation-video/#.UrnzkbT9m4I

Jerry:
It’s not clear to me why you quote from Matthew 7:1-6 about judgment while writing about Charlie Sheen and Duck Dynasty at the bottom of your post at
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/bureaucracy-and-the-laws-of-physics-health-care-mandates-delayed-duck-dynasty/
People frequently quote these verses at other people when they wish to shut down a discussion, leaving unexamined the moral implications of human behaviors. They are saying that people should not make any judgments at all about the behavior of others, that all behaviors are acceptable, perhaps even to be celebrated, as we manifest that ultimate virtue known as tolerance.
I have always thought that making judgments is among the highest callings of mankind, perhaps second only to getting wisdom (both being subordinate to loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.)
There are myriad discussions of these verses on the web. One I came across recently is at
http://myburg.blogspot.com/2013/11/should-church-be-non-judgmental.html
where the author concludes:

"But ongoing and healthy judgment means that the church — by regular application of the Word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit — sees truth ever more clearly, exposing the lies we believe, walking in the light rather than darkness, and pursuing goodness rather than evil. 

"The term "non-judgmental" is really not very useful.  It may lead to the conclusion that sin is no big deal."

"Catholic Answers Magazine" says at
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/judge-not

"Jesus then explains how to judge rightly: "First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye." Much to the point of this article, there can be no doubt that those final words­"take the speck out of your brother’s eye"­are, indeed, permission to judge so long as it is done rightly.

"Other Bible passages which seem on the surface to indicate a condemnation of judging others’ behavior may be treated similarly in their full context. The idea of rightly judging the behavior of others can be found throughout the New Testament."

Responsible citizens must constantly make judgments about the behavior of celebrities, teachers, media personalities, and even our neighbors in order to protect our children and grandchildren from the evils others seek to teach them.
Best regards,
–Harry M.

I have no power to designate nor to forgive except as it applies to me, and I am instructed that my own forgiveness is contingent on my forgiveness of those who have offended against me. Recently the head of the Church of England issued a posthumous pardon to Alan Turing. I know of nothing that Turing has done that harmed me, and much that he did which benefitted me.

My views on gay marriage are derived from my views of the Constitution and limited government, but for more than fifty years I have supported laws that would require domestic partnership contracts to convey the rights and duties of marriage. When I was growing up we all learned to despise and behave despicably toward ‘queers’, but I was never taught that by the teachers I most admired, nor do I believe I am commanded to do so now. I would not have agreed with the law under which Turing was prosecuted, nor the punishment decreed for him.  I suspect that all of us including Phil Robertson could agree at least that much, and probably a great deal more.

About repealing the laws of physics

Regarding the letter you posted about a meeting of automotive engineers with a team from the Obama administration, where the Obama minions wanted to change the laws of physics… Funny. Delicious. Marvelous. And for those of us with government sector experience and some knowledge of the hard sciences, quite believable! Sadly, not true, or at least wrongly attributed.

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/06/obamas-auto-team-the-laws-of-physics/

–Gary P.

We dealt with this yesterday: as I noted, the real story is not that the incident didn’t happen as indicated, but that anyone would believe that well educated senior members of government might have said such things, and needed to turn to some debunking web site or another to confirm that it had not happened. When I was a lad I would never have supposed this anything but a tall tale generated to make a political point. Alas, I encountered Gus Speth, President Carter’s chosen leader of the Presidential Environmental Council, at a Boston AAAS meeting during the Carter Administration, and my faith in such matters was shaken, as I said in my Galaxy Column at the time. Speth was concerned about storage of nuclear waste – that it not be dispersed across the land by the return of the Glaciers. It was not his expectation of Glaciation that concerned me: nearly everyone in the large room of this meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science expected Fimbulwinter. As I said to him at the time, “Mr. Presidential Advisor, if my house is under a hundred feet of ice, do you expect me to worry much about much else?”

A rational discussion of the issue would have involved the pattern of decay of radioactive waste – after about 600 years what is left is actinides, and the whole mess is no more dangerous than the ores that the fuel pellets came from – but he wasn’t aware of that. He just knew because Gothman had told him so that no nukes is good nukes, and all nukes are bad nukes, and all radiation is bad except some is worse. What else did he need to know? The notion that we might need the energy to prevent the glaciations did not interest him.

It’s a pity that we have to believe it possible that it could have happened.

re laws of physics Message

the guy making the snide comments re your quoting the David Cole story was way off base. the Snopes story ends with this– supports the story in large part, I think.

We asked Dr. Cole directly about this anecdote, and his response was that it had been garbled: He said that although he did once encounter, in a meeting with members of Congress, the suggestion that a "law of physics" should be legislatively amended, that meeting took place several years ago and did not involve representatives of the Obama administration (with whom Dr. Cole has never met):

I have not met personally with the Obama Auto Task Force. The comments related to the "laws of physics" came from a discussion I had a number of years ago with several congressmen who said that we should pass a new 2nd law of thermodynamics.

All the Congressmen I have known would be joking if they said that, and in fact a couple of them have said it with regard to getting anything done. I seldom consult Snopes.

My thanks:

Apollo 8 Earthrise

Jerry,

I first saw it on Chuck Wood’s LPOD wiki

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-releases-new-earthrise-simulation-video/>

Apollo 8 pictures, transcripts, Earth data, and LRO data synched up.

Quite the recreation

And we remain in Hiatus, 887 days since wheel stop on Atlantis.

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

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