Chaos Manor – Jerry Pournelle – Page 263 – the original blog of Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manor

The Burning City, and the price of local self government

By Jerry Pournelle | Mar 28, 2012 - 12:06 pm | Updated: March 28, 2012 - 1:20 pm | View

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View 718 Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Zimmerman and Martin Photos [see last night’s mail]

While I do think the reaction to this incident has been unbalanced, my understanding is that the photo of the person flipping off the camera is misattributed (and that this not of the same Trayvon Martin who was shot).

http://www.wtsp.com/news/article/247194/19/Fake-Trayvon-Martin-picture-circulates-on-the-web-image-actually-shows-a-different-person

Ian Perry

Thanks. As I said, I have no provenance for the pictures. And we certainly have no authenticated source of information on what really happened in this Florida situation. How could we? We don’t have any of the old school journalists I grew up reading. That kind of journalism went away with the rise of the Media, and we now have to rely on do it yourself efforts. The real point here is that this is not a national case. Juan Williams in today’s Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577307613183789698.html?mod=googlenews_wsj has a number of important things to say. He concludes:

Despite stereotypes, the responsibility for the Florida shooting lies with the individual who pulled the trigger. The fact that the man pursued the teen after a 911 operator told him to back off, and the fact that he alone had a gun, calls for him to be arrested and held accountable under law. The Department of Justice is investigating the incident and the governor of Florida has appointed a special prosecutor to review the case.

But on a larger scale, all of this should open a serious national conversation about how our culture made it easier for this type of crime to take place.

The conclusion that Zimmerman ought to be arrested suggests that Williams has more data than the rest of us including the local authorities, but that is assuming facts not in evidence; I suspect that’s Williams being ritually liberal. His article notes:

The most recent comprehensive study on black-on-black crime from the Justice Department should have been a clarion call for the black community to take action. There is no reason to believe that the trends it reported have decreased since 2005, the year for which the data were reported.

Almost one half of the nation’s murder victims that year were black and a majority of them were between the ages of 17 and 29. Black people accounted for 13% of the total U.S. population in 2005. Yet they were the victims of 49% of all the nation’s murders. And 93% of black murder victims were killed by other black people, according to the same report.

Of course he treats this in the usual liberal manner: this is a “social problem” and needs a “solution” through government action. One problem is that communities that have had great success in changing these dismal statistics are generally ignored by the press. There will be a few TV specials here and there, but the notion that discipline and hard work has an effect on education is generally ignored. I don’t think there is a ‘national’ education ‘solution’; there are schools that are effective.

As I write this I am listening to an advertisement for “I can afford college dot com” (maybe it’s I can’t afford college dot com) which is pretty well a stereotype: it advertises entitlements without any discussion of qualifications. Everyone is apparently entitled to college, whether qualified or not, and ‘college’ is a magic remedy, just as high school used to be. Because of the various quota laws we have adopted in the hopes of – well, it’s not clear what is hoped for – but because of the various laws and regulations we have adopted, personnel managers are forced to rely on external credentialism; which means that people of ability and character who haven’t managed to get the ‘credential’ are tossed out, while the credential factories are run as unionized bureaucracies thoroughly subject to the Iron Law. The radio add is disturbing. It is sponsored apparently as a public service advertisement. Almost as if it were a parody.

The Civil War amendments assumed that the freedmen would become American as the Melting Pot did its magic, as it had worked with the German, Irish, Jewish, Hungarian, Italian immigrants. As late as the 1960’s conservatives could and did argue that America was unique in that you could study and learn how to become an American, unlike, say, becoming a Swede or an Italian or an Irishman. All “hyphen” Americans – e.g. Italian-Americans, Hunkie-Americans, and so forth – had been discriminated against, and had overcome that. The freedmen would do the same. That was the assumption and in many places it was true. Signs of it working were the Tuskegee Airmen, the Red Ball Express, the integration – over time – of the US Army and Navy, all done without a lot of fanfare. But then came the big Civil Rights movements, and the notions of entitlement took over from the notions of civic responsibility. Being an American was an entitlement, and had no requirements whatever. An odd notion, but one which seems to prevail now. With the usual results.

The Zimmerman/Martin case is a local case for local authorities, and while there may be lessons to be learned, if it has a national legislative or executive policy effect, that effect will be to diminish libery.

A Republic of free self governing citizens will not get everything right everywhere and certainly every local community will not come up with policies that everyone else thinks are right. That is a certain outcome of liberty.

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

The Black Panthers have raised the amount of the reward offered for Mr. Zimmerman’s whereabouts. And there are threats to burn down cities if they cut back on entitlements. News at eleven. We can learn about this kind of government from Greece.

http://p.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/mar/27/picket-spike-lee-re-tweets-incorrect-address-trayv/

Last night’s mailbag had a note about fusion experiments in France. I have today:

Michio Kaku was almost certainly referring the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) project currently being constructed in France. This is funded by a consortium of countries, with the EU (not just France) funding 45% and the US funding 9%. First plasma is planned for November 2019 which ties in with the "8 year" timeframe. However, D-T operation is expected start in 2026.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

From that article:

"ITER’s mission is to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power, and prove that it can work without negative impact. Specifically, the project aims:

To momentarily produce ten times more thermal energy from fusion heating than is supplied by auxiliary heating (a Q value of 10).

To produce a steady-state plasma with a Q value greater than 5.

To maintain a fusion pulse for up to 480 seconds.

To ignite a ‘burning’ (self-sustaining) plasma.

To develop technologies and processes needed for a fusion power plant – including superconducting magnets and remote handling (maintenance by robot).

To verify tritium breeding concepts.

To refine neutron shield/heat conversion technology (most of energy in the D+T fusion reaction is released in the form of fast neutrons)."

If all goes well, ITER is to be succeeded by a demonstration commercial fusion reactor, known as DEMO:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO

Planned to start operating in 2033.

Alex

I used to follow fusion closely; for a long time fusion was the great hope for energy. Over time it became clear that we would have workable fusion energy Real Soon Now, but the date when we would have it continued to recede into the far future. I waited for some indication of real breakthroughs, but after a while I began to follow something else.

Energy either comes from the Sun or it’s nuclear.(Well, there’s tidal but that’s not the point.) “Fossil fuels” were (most think) originally solar energy gathered over a long period of time. All of the renewable stuff like green slime and rooftop solar are subject to the solar constant limit of about 1.2 KW/meter^2 meaning that it takes a big area to generate a lot of energy. Moreover that’s when the sun is shining. Growing green slime is just as subject to day/night cycles as any other; green slime, on the other hand, does accumulate the energy gathered. Rooftop solar needs to be used when generated or stored. Storage is the big problem. That makes rooftop particularly appropriate for hot summer day air conditioning since air conditioning demand is one of the major factors in setting peak power generation requirements. It is very close to economic to invest in rooftop solar for schools in southern areas where the summer skies tend to be clear – in particular in Los Angeles, given the state subsidies. Private schools are finding rooftop solar very economic, but alas, that depends in part on local political considerations and subsidies.

Green slime production has similar limits – you need long days of sunlight without clouds. Such areas are generally called deserts. Green slime requires a lot of water. Transporting water to deserts is – well you get the idea.

Nuclear power would solve a lot of problems; it can even solve water problems. I have often said that Los Angeles ought to build a nuclear power plant and use its power to pump the outfalls of the Hyperion sewage treatment plant up to the top of the Angeles Forest and let it run down refilling the water table and the artesian wells. That would save pumping water across the San Joaquin Valley where much evaporates while the various Sacramento delta critters are endangered. But Los Angeles can outvote the rest of the state so we have the numbers so we get the water. This is democracy in action. Welcome to the conversion from Republic to Democracy.

It’s late and I still have errands. At least I have energy.

The Secret of Black Ship Island continues to sell well. We are going to fix some minor formatting problems, but they are sufficiently minor that we are in no hurry, and you shouldn’t be concerned about buying it – they really are minor, and don’t really break the empathy in the story. We will fix them. There is a “review” on Amazon that complains that the book can’t be read in landscape as opposed to portrait mode. That concerned us, and we tested it. The problem appears to be with the commenter’s reader: we can read it landscape or portrait. By we I mean me, several advisors, and some readers. The “reviewer” gave us only 3 * rating because of this flaw, but it’s not our flaw. I don’t think that’s particularly fair, but it’s one of the growing pains of eBooks; at some point it will all even out. Despite the 3* rating (essentially that of a single person who says he did not read the book) we have

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,159 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

#20 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Science Fiction > High Tech
#23 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > High Tech

Which, I am told, isn’t bad. Particularly for a novella.

Zimmerman, contraception, mercenary arsenals, fusion, and other interesting stuff

By Jerry Pournelle | Mar 28, 2012 - 12:57 am | Updated: March 28, 2012 - 10:00 pm | Mail, View

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Mail 717 Tuesday , March 27, 2012

Not a complete mailbag, but a couple of topics are topical so to speak.

Black Panther Party has offered reward for Zimmerman’s ‘capture’

It amazes me that this could happen and that the media gives it a pass:

Zimmerman has gone into hiding. A fringe group, the New Black Panther Party, has offered a $10,000 reward for his "capture."

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-26/news/os-trayvon-martin-zimmerman-account-20120326_1_miami-schools-punch-unarmed-black-teenager

Tracy

Few things have amazed me recently. Incidentally, the radio today reports that the Black Panther Party has raised the ‘reward’ for information on Zimmerman’s whereabouts. All races are equal, of course…

Media Bias?

Anon

I have no provenance for these pictures, but I have them from more than one source. It is an interesting question.

This just in:

Jerry,

I just wanted to let you know that the photo in the bottom right of the montage that is supposedly a photo of an older Treyvon Martin is an admitted fake. Please see this report from Fox News online: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/27/media-matters-honcho-sorry-after-blasting-drudge-for-trayvon-photo/?intcmp=obinsite.

There is more on this in tomorrow’s View. It all illustrates the point I have been trying to make: given the state of journalism we are not likely to get the facts, and there is no reason to conclude that the local authorities, who are a lot closer to this, have not or will not act properly. We can’t nationalize all events. If we did we would drown.

TSA

Sounds like someone might be reading your blog in congress, which I believe you have always suspected if not knew.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/03/congressional_t.html

Bob Gates

I know for a fact that at least two Congressmen and staffers of at least half a dozen more regularly read these posts.

Private arsenal ships

Jerry, I get regular newsletters from military.com. Today’s included a link to an article

(http://defensetech.org/2012/03/22/private-arsenal-ships-in-the-fight-against-piracy/)

about how private security companies are maintaining floating arsenals in international waters off of Somalia. The idea is that merchantmen should be able to protect themselves from pirates but there are laws against armed ships entering some ports, for obvious reasons. The biggest problem with this is the complete lack of safety standards and, in fact, even the companies running them are concerned because they don’t want any accidents or thefts either.

J

I seem to remember some similar problems for Mike Hoare’s outfits in the Katanga days. I can pretty well guarantee that putting blue helmets on troops doesn’t really make them less mercenary or more reliable when it comes to safety regulations…

Subject: 4-Year-Old’s Drawing Leads to Dad’s Arrest

I want to believe there was more to this story, but in today’s environment, I’m not sure any more.

From the article:

“One day last week at school Jessie Sansone’s 4-year-old daughter drew a picture of a man with a gun. The teacher didn’t like it, so she called Family and Social Services. If you think that’s an outrageous overreaction, just wait.

According to the Calgary Herald, when Jessie went to pick up his daughter and his other children at the end of the day, he was handcuffed, arrested, and strip searched <http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Father+arrested+girl+picture/6209132/story.html> , as they looked for this gun. They did actually find one after they went and searched the family’s home in Ontario … only it turned out to be a toy. Yes, the only gun in the entire house was a toy gun. “

http://thestir.cafemom.com/toddler/133600/4yearolds_drawing_leads_to_dads?quick_picks=1

Tracy

A startling story, but I am not familiar with the Canadian constitution. This sort of activity was a major factor in the Independence movements prior to 1776. Of course it could happen here…

Prostitutes have political power! =)

<.>

Spain’s high-class escorts are refusing to have sex with the nation’s bankers – until they open up credit lines to cash-strapped families and firms.

Madrid’s top-end prostitutes say their indefinite strike will continue until bank employees ‘fulfil their responsibility to society’ and start offering bigger loans for struggling Spaniards, it has been claimed.

Sneaky bankers were trying to circumvent the protest by claiming to be architects or engineers, the sex-workers said.

</>

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120984/Spains-high-class-hookers-ban-sex-bankers-provide-credit-cash-strapped-economy.html?ITO=1490

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

your nuclear power comment

A couple of weeks ago Michio Kaku was a guest on Coast to Coast and in passing mentioned that there’s a French experimental reactor that is trying to get HOT fusion up and running. He said they’re close and expect to be generating power in about 8 years.

I don’t know if I misheard him or not but I’ve seen nothing on this anywhere.

Have you heard anything about it ?

george senda

I have not seen anything on this. My last serious inquiry into fusion power led me to conclude that we know how to build a large and expensive device that would, using fusion, produce more energy than it consumed (provided that you could collect much of the heat wasted in confining the reaction) but it would not be economically break even, and building a demonstration unit would be extremely expensive. Two decades ago I thought inertial confinement and laser triggers would make fusion devices a great deal cheaper, but I have seen nothing on that either. I confess that my enthusiasm for fusion now has faded since for thirty years it has been there will be fusion Real Soon Now. Eventually it will happen, but there are other things we have to develop first, I think.

I have had this mail for weeks:

President Obama & the E.U. “Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities”

Dr Pournelle,

I hope you’re feeling well enough to give your thoughts on this N.Y.

Times op-ed by John Bolton & John Yoo on the Obama administration’s unofficial adherence to the E.U.’s draft treaty on outer-space activities, including restrictions on the militarization of space:

<http://nytimes.com/2012/03/09/opinion/hands-off-the-heavens.html>,

“Hands Off the Heavens”.

I know this issue is important to you. I’ve been borrowing your “There Will be War” series from the Brooklyn Public Library, and I’m sure that American military presence in space is not much less important now than it was in the ’80s.

—Joel Salomon

I covered most of the principles on this in The Strategy of Technology. Space will be decisive and if you have no ability to defend your access to space you may very much wish you had. Take the high ground, boy, or they’ll kick hell out of you in the valleys.

Contraception

Contraception is pretty much universally available and affordable here in the US, yet the very people that you would think would most avail themselves of it don’t. http://neoneocon.com/2012/02/18/over-50-of-births-to-mothers-under-30-are-outside-marriage/ Digging into the data it seems that it is 59% among young Hispanic women and 78% among Blacks. This is an unmitigated disaster (particularly for the children) whose wave, I suspect, has not yet crested and to which government will inevitably turn its attention. In this regard the legislation mandating the universal availability of free contraception is not only a boon for Big Pharma, but a necessary precondition for a government mandate to **employ** contraception. The ‘Progressive’ welfare state has created a problem which can (notionally) only be solved by an even more controlling welfare state. There won’t be any unanticipated side effects, I’m sure; it’s all good. Strangely, I’m missing the troglodytic, pitchfork waving mobs burning down condom and pill factories. Perhaps they are only deemed to have rioted and burned.

Certain contraceptives seem to be a major cause of blood clots in women. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cts=1331257756266&ved=0CGAQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.webmd.com%2Fsex%2Fbirth-control%2Fnews%2F20111026%2Fnewer-birth-control-pills-may-double-blood-clot-risk&ei=fmFZT6CTE8eZiQLVlrHOCw&usg=AFQjCNE8osVr3Kexnui7VIWGUI8r7SdZyg&sig2=JgRZZM0Fbxi4zPaCRCZtxA

Women’s health is not really the driving force behind this movement.

Regarding Ms. Fluke and her alleged constituents, $1,000 a year on contraceptives would seem to indicative of a certain energetic and sustained focus on the prevention of the consequences of procreative activities. But perhaps they are merely obsessive compulsive consumers of these products rather than practitioners of pillow arts; better not to use nasty words in the absence of evidence; probability we’ll just ignore.

As for Malthusian prophecies, I have become sceptical. I clearly recall predictions that 25% of Americans would starve by 1990, and someone even went so far as to suggest the extermination of India as a realistic, if temporary solution to world overpopulation. The panic seems to have been a bit premature. What saved us? I submit: human ingenuity. Panic is still premature.

Leo Walker

Universal Health Care

A point from one of your commenters:

"Its time that we get past the idea of universal health care. Every industrialized, forward looking country has some type of universal coverage and it shows in their health statistics. The US if falling way behind in infant mortality, life-span and general health. This impacts us economically, and reduces our ability to compete."

He is the one behind the times. The truth is that all of these "forward looking" countries (and ours) have huge piles of debt. Politicians will promise anything to gain support, and just like Athens in ancient Greece or Athens today, it will catch up with us. I say "us" instead of "them" because this problem has been pushed off in the grand style of Louis the XIV "Apres moi, le deluge". There is nothing new under the sun and human nature is basically consistent. Bills always come due and you can never make specific calls on what is the best way for the economy to be micromanaged. The idea that macro economics is different than micro is absurd on its face, yet the "progressives" still insist that they just need to spend a bit more for the good of all and things will be perfect.

Damon

The one thing you can be sure of is that someone will pay soldiers.

Saw your mention of your "tendency to overly long and complex sentences" and realized that the sentence itself might be a case in

point: 72 words, 4 commas, 1 semi-colon, and 1 period. Also 6 pronouns, 6 proper names, and 6 verbs. I also count at least four separate timeframes-as-point-of-view (present, past retrospective to present, past influencing expectations of the present, past retrospective to present (again), present, and past). On the gripping hand, the sentence was perfectly and easily undersandable on first reading.

"Niven and Barnes and I have developed pretty good editorial habits and we’ve worked together long enough to know some of each other’s weaknesses, such as my tendency to overly long and complex sentences and Steve’s addiction to gerunds, so our works are generally well edited; having said that I don’t want to diminish the contribution of editors like Ed Kuehn, Bob Gleason, and Jim Baen on our works in the past."

Once in High School I decided to see just how long a sentence I could write. It ended up being shortly over one page, long-hand, on wide-ruled paper. Didn’t actually *say* much, but I said it verbosely and within the bounds of proper English grammar. I think I had you beat by a bit (at least in number of semi-colons), but if I kept it I don’t know where the page would be. And it still wouldn’t be worth re-reading except for the same amusement value that caused its creation.

You keep on writing and I’ll keep on reading. Unlike my younger self, you have a lot to say that’s worth saying.

–Gary P.

I was impressed by Macaulay at an early age and never got over it…

Zero trust in the professional force

http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=29019

"The U.S. Navy will start giving Breathalyzer tests to Marines and sailors reporting for duty aboard ships and submarines and at squadrons, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced Monday in a worldwide call to forces."

I see many results to come from this, none desirable. Provided, that is, that the goal is to improve the defense of the United States.

works and days…

By Jerry Pournelle | Mar 28, 2012 - 12:22 am | Updated: March 28, 2012 - 12:22 am | View

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View 718 Tuesday, March 27, 2012

My love affair with the Thermaltake Case continues, but alas the new system isn’t finished: there appear to be problems with the motherboard. Not with the case and not caused by the case. Our difficulties have to do with installation, but things worked well enough that I found that this massive elegant case is very quiet as well as easy to service.

But we didn’t get the system going yet. I’m shooting for Windows 8, and if that is too much trouble we’ll drop back to Windows 7; and meanwhile we’ll keep all the older machines until the new one is trustworthy. I always keep several machines in operation and my backup system besides home server is mostly to be sure everything important is copied all over the place. There are better ways, but this is an old habit.

Much of the day was devoured by locusts again, and more work piles up. And I have to make ready for the big conference in Colorado Springs next Monday and Tuesday; Space Command is having a conference/symposium. I also have contest finals to judge, housekeeping stuff, errands, and I have been trying to throw out junk as we do excavation down to the layers that accumulated when I was getting my hard x-ray treatment. And they have scheduled another MRI which ought to be routine.

And we found just enough errors in the eBook publication of The Secret of Black Ship Island, and I went through it all today to find them. Most are trivial – Forward instead of Foreword, some stray and/or missing carriage returns, a couple of run-on words, and an actual scene inconsistency which I won’t call attention to but Dave Kenny did. My thanks! Anyway that had to be fixed and I found a bunch of minor errors when I went through the published edition – all fairly trivial, one run-on word (andall) and as I said, some small formatting errors. I should have them all noted and off to our agent, and Kristine will be able to fix them in one pass. Anyone who bought the novella from Amazon will be able to trade it in on a free upgraded copy when we’re done.

From reader comments including Mr. Kenny’s the minor errors aren’t enough to spoil the reading experience, but it’s still our job to produce the best copy we can. Mr. Heinlein drilled that into my head from earliest days in the racket. We owe the reader our best effort – and now that we are both authors and publishers we have a bit more to do. I have always appreciated the copy editors who have worked with our books all these years, (even though copy editors are popularly referred to as the class enemy by most authors): Now I appreciate them even more. It’s tough work.

I’ll also get up a mail bag tonight. There’s more information on the Zimmerman/Martin case. Some is shocking.

Zimmerman-Martin, alas poor ornithopter, and other matters

By Jerry Pournelle | Mar 27, 2012 - 12:30 am | Updated: March 27, 2012 - 12:30 am | Mail

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Mail 718 Monday, March 26, 2012

Martin-Zimmerman Story

Jerry,

Most of the coverage of this case is sloppy, and some of the sloppiness seems deliberately inflammatory. Take a look at these if you want what’s actually known so far.

– The Orlando Sentinel with leaked info from the local PD (since pretty much confirmed as authentic by the local city manager in the course of saying he wants an investigation of the leak.)

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-26/news/os-trayvon-martin-zimmerman-account-20120326_1_miami-schools-punch-unarmed-black-teenager

– ABC News with an account from Martin’s girlfriend, who was on the phone with him at the time.

http://gma.yahoo.com/trayvon-martin-shooter-told-cops-teenager-went-gun-030349812–abc-news.html

and more from the girlfriend in the Orlando Sentinel

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-20/news/os-trayvon-martin-girlfriend-speaks-details-20120320_1_shooting-death-gated-attorneys

The mob wants to crucify Zimmerman. Looks to me the local cops made the right call; there’s no case there. If anything, there’d be more of a case (not much, but more) against Martin for assault and battery, if Zimmerman hadn’t made the point moot.

sign me

Porkypine

One more data point – Martin was caught with a bunch of women’s jewelry plus a large flat-blade screwdriver in his bag at school last October.

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/26/3515140/multiple-suspensions-paint-complicated.html

One reason Zimmerman was out patrolling was because of multiple recent burglaries in the neighborhood. I’d be curious when they started, versus when Martin came to stay in the neighborhood. Also, was he on a reasonable route from the store he’d been to back to where he was staying when Zimmerman followed him, or wandering somewhere else?

Not proof of anything either way, of course, but indicative. I won’t hold my breath to see answers to these, mind. Even asking the questions doesn’t fit the "innocent martyr to gun-toting racism" narrative.

Porkypine

I have more mail on this, but most of it points to this being a case for the local authorities, and indicates that the original investigating officers made the right decision. The reopening of this may have been no real favor to Mr. Martin’s family. Our local radio talk show dug into the records and although they continue to demean Mr. Zimmerman, they have broadcast that Mr. Zimmerman made an average of 2 911 calls a year.

Re: Crime Procedurals

"I don’t think I have read more than one crime procedural novel taking place in Florida"

Well maybe they don’t actually count as ‘crime pprocedurals’ in a normal way (as Elmore Leonard’s don’t either) but the Travis McGee stories by John D. MacDonald surely count in my estimation.

As to Special Prosecutors, one particular failure of G.W.Bush in my mind was that he did not, *immediately* upon learning the Patrick Fitzgerald KNEW from Armitage’s confession, that no-one else was quilty of anything, fire Fitzgerald ‘with prejudice’ and pardon Libby.

It is to my mind unconscionable that a ‘special prosecutor’ should question anyone about anything when the object of the prosecutional investigation has been determined.

It was as far as I can tell, GWB’s only failure of nerve. He knew that the MSM would howl, and he left Libby in the wind, when he was legally and morally in the right to stop the investigation at that point, and to punish Fitzgerald for his arrogance and tyranny.

My $.02 worth

Geoff

Special Prosecutors find something to prosecute or they have nothing to do. So they keep looking. I think it is a very bad thing to do. The Constitution makes Congress the Grand Inquest of the Nation, but it has seldom functioned so. I do not think that was GWB’s only failure of nerve, but it was a major one.

I have a flood of mail on keyboards, and I will have a report on keyboards I can recommend. I have ordered two keyboards to try out; I had standardized on the Microsoft Comfortcurve keyboards until I started thinking about it and realized that although I have several of them including on my writing maches (one running a ThinkPad, for instance) I actually type faster on this Ortek. I hoave thought that before and then let the thought go because there ain’t no more Ortek boards.

Mechanical Keyboard Club!

Jerry

Once upon a time I was looking into mechanical keyboards. I started here:

http://www.overclock.net/t/538389/mechanical-keyboard-club/0_30

Not being a fan of clicky keyboards, I settled on one that I can’t remember. I foolishly deleted my bookmarks on the subject. I recall that I was looking for white backlights to work in the dark, silent keys but that clicky feel. Most of the best switches are by Cherry these days.

A decent one (a Das kb) seems to be here: http://www.daskeyboard.com/model-s-professional-silent/

Another good one (Filco Majestouch): http://www.diatec.co.jp/en/det.php?prod_c=757

Ah! Found my keyboard: http://www.deckkeyboards.com/product_info.php?products_id=95

It’s the Deck Legend – Frost (tactile). And it’s big. “The Deck 105 key Legend measures 18.5" long x 7" deep x 2" high (with feet raised) and weighs 3.5 pounds. Cable length is approximately 6 feet (exposed). Tactile feedback switches (Cherry MX1A-C1NW, clear).”

Yup. This is the one. I still want it, actually. But my 1997 Dell is still holding up so well I can’t justify the purchase.

Ed

Ed also adds:

Jerry

One more thing: the place that specializes in keyboard enthusiasts is http://geekhack.org/

Ed

I have an old keyboard. Like your ‘old’ it is very very very old. A MaxiSwitch MaxiTouch Model 2189022xx PN 218902200-21200.

This is a full size, heavy, PROGRAMMABLE keyboard with a separate Insaert/Home/Page section and number section. A full 20" wide by 8"

deep. Solid, heavy, well built.

Iirc I ordered it because you wrote a review about it. Nice medium to heavy key action, No click, but I HATED that about the IBM keyboards.

This is very close to the IBMin feel.

Still in the cupboard as a backup, with a DIN to PS2 adapter rubber banded onto the end of the cable. And I saw the Manual not too long ago.

It explains the programming features. Macros at your fingertips.

If you want it, just say the word and give me an address, and I will drop it off at Fedex, paid from my end, as a ‘Non-returnable Review sample’!! I would consider it my donation to the cause. But only if you expect that it will not just become an aggregation to the midden known as Chaos Manor!

But I have given up on cables, since I need extensions to reach from the computer case beside the credenza, up into the credenza to the keyboard slide. Now using a Logitech DiNovo which is a bluetooth cordless kb + mouse combo. I don’t think I could go back to a corded mouse. But if IBM made a cordless keyboard with a trackpoint, I’d be THERE in a flash (they only make a corded trackpoint’ed version).

Geoff

This will do until I get some boards in to try.

Jerry

What would it be like to live on the evil side of an alternate universe portal?

http://www.gocomics.com/brewsterrockit/2012/03/25

Ed

Brewster Rocket knows…

One comment to the letter from "Stephanie S" regarding Pfizer’s prospective profits under Obamacare: history has shown that socialized medicine is not a boon for the pharmaceutical companies, as expensive new remedies are never funded for implementation. Even the European pharmaceuticals today make up their R&D money proving new drugs in the US market, as they are obligated to provide any new remedies at a small markup on cost elsewhere — if they make that much.

Admittedly, Obamacare was sold as a boon to the pharmaceuticals in the short term. That was just one more lie…

The market system has done well for the United States. Adding a safety net when we can afford it is a nice thing to do, but charity works better on that. Political systems can’t really distinguish between the deserving and undeserving poor, and that makes a difference, as you will find if you have to make several trips to an emergency room and are observant.

Aristotle tells us that injustice consists of treating equal things unequally and also of treating unequal things equally.

The main difference between Germany, Japan, and Afghanistan.

The main difference between Germany, Japan, and Afghanistan is that Germany is inhabited by Germans and governed by Germans; Japan is inhabited by Japanese and governed by Japanese; and Afghanistan is inhabited by Pashtuns, Gilzais, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazara, Almaks, Turkmen, Balochs, etc., and is governed by no one.

–

Roland Dobbins

That is certainly an important difference. And Iraq consists of Arab Shiities, Arab Sunni, Arab Baathist atheists, and Kurds who aren’t Arabs at all. Plus some other diversities. If diversity is a good thing for a democracy they have it. Usually diversity promotes empire or did historically. Indeed the Hittites and their Trojan neighbors (who were said to be the founders of Rome had the trick of bringing in and assimilating different peoples and having them become loyal to the state. The Greek democracies never did learn that trick. Rome did…

Various

Jerry,

In response to your Sunday Chaos Manor:-

There is great educational value in having Wiki bookmarked on the screen when reading your postings. For example I now know what a J curve is and the meaning of isentropic.

The traditional way of sinking submarines was to drop a series of bombs each about the size of a 45 gallon barrel at the place where you hoped the submarine would be when the bomb arrived. This was not particularly effective. It was then realised by some OR type that there was a reason that flying birds are not hunted with rifles but with shotguns which fire a projectile with an effective diameter of a couple of feet. Hence hedgehog, a sort of marinised mortar shell, fused to explode on contact. A small explosion in contact with the pressure hull did the business, could be carried in very large numbers, and didn’t deafen your sonar.

In comparing the success of WW2 occupations with the present efforts you left out one of the factors essential for success. In 1943 the United States began training the administrators who were to run the captured territories. Then when they were needed they were fluent in the local language and had a good grasp of local administration. The Iraqi people, not to be confused with the Iraqi armed forces, never felt defeated and some continued the war using new tactics for which the occupiers had no effective counter. It is far worse in Afghanistan. Here each man, family, and village constitutes it’s own armed forces. The only way to bring peace to such a country is to defeat, ie., kill them in detail. What Tacitus once described as making a desert and then calling it peace. Not a sensible way to spend borrowed money even if the money can never be repaid.

John Edwards

When the military were conquering Iraq in the early days of the war, the generals told the Iraqi generals to keep their troops in barracks, keep them orderly, and “you will have an honorable place in the rebuilding of Iraq.” Then came Bremer who sent the Iraqi army home armed and unemployed. The worst proconsul since the Romans led legions into that desert …

Medieval warming WAS global – new science contradicts IPCC

Once again, you are proven right…

Medieval warming WAS global – new science contradicts IPCC More peer-reviewed science contradicting the warming-alarmist "scientific consensus" was announced yesterday, as a new study shows that the well-documented warm period which took place in medieval times was not limited to Europe, or the northern hemisphere: it reached all the way to Antarctica.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/23/warm_period_little_ice_age_global/

Abstract:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X12000659

Calcium carbonate can crystallize in a hydrated form as ikaite at low temperatures. The hydration water in ikaite grown in laboratory experiments records the δ18O of ambient water, a feature potentially useful for reconstructing δ18O of local seawater. We report the first downcore δ18O record of natural ikaite hydration waters and crystals collected from the Antarctic Peninsula (AP), a region sensitive to climate fluctuations. We are able to establish the zone of ikaite formation within shallow sediments, based on porewater chemical and isotopic data.

Having constrained the depth of ikaite formation and δ18O of ikaite crystals and hydration waters, we are able to infer local changes in fjord δ18O versus time during the late Holocene. This ikaite record qualitatively supports that both the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age extended to the Antarctic Peninsula.

Description: Horizontal_Line

Chuck Ruthroff

The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one. — Elbert Hubbard

I try to pay attention to all the evidence. Novelists need to be plausible, attorneys need to accumulate evidence, but scientists must account for ALL the data… http://www.jerrypournelle.com/science/voodoo.html

Moon News

This is big news, but not so big when you think about it and I’ll get to that at the end.

<.>

In the new research, published online today in Nature Geoscience, geochemists led by Junjun Zhang at the University of Chicago in Illinois, together with a colleague at the University of Bern in Switzerland, looked at titanium isotopes in 24 separate samples of lunar rock and soil. The proportion of 50Ti to 47Ti is another good indicator of whether a sample came from Earth, and, just as with oxygen, the researchers found the moon’s proportion was effectively the same as Earth’s and different from elsewhere in the solar system. Zhang explains that it’s unlikely Earth could have exchanged titanium gas with the magma disk because titanium has a very high boiling point. "The oxygen isotopic composition would be very easily homogenized because oxygen is much more volatile, but we would expect homogenizing titanium to be very difficult."

So, if the giant impact hypothesis doesn’t explain the moon, how did it get there? One possibility is that a glancing blow from a passing body left Earth spinning so rapidly that it threw some of itself off into space like a shot put, forming the disk that coalesced into the moon. This would explain why the moon seems to be made entirely of Earth material. But there are problems with this model, too, such as the difficulty of explaining where all the extra angular momentum went after the moon formed, and the researchers aren’t claiming to have refuted the giant impact hypothesis.

</>

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/03/findings-cast-doubt-on-moon-orig.html?ref=hp

The models I saw showed a planet hitting the earth in a glancing blow and creating the moon. This theory is not completely inconsistent with the old one. Something could have hit the Earth, causing the spin that planet may have kept going. I think we are fine tuning a larger theory here, but this article frames it as if we are going in a whole new direction. I don’t think the author of this article saw any of the mathematical models or computer models on the subject. What do you think?

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I fear I have not thought much about it. I have heard many “exciting new” theories of the origin of the moon over the decades.

Interesting thing the President said overheard

Jerry,

What an interesting thing to say. What positions will change after voter opinion doesn’t matter?

"This is my last election," Obama told Medvedev. "After my election I have more flexibility."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/26/open-mic-catches-obama-asking-russian-president-for-space-on-missile-defense/?hpt=hp_t3

Seriously, wow. This is a hell of a lot more than merely asking for negotiating room, but the media is presenting this as a simple request to tone down rhetoric for a while instead of a signal that the President will make some real foreign policy changes as soon as he has no internal political consequences for doing so.

To refresh our memory on the President’s starting position:

http://macsmind.com/wordpress/2008/06/08/obama-wants-to-protect-america/

Is that where policy is going after the election?

Please withhold my name, since Tennyson had it right. Theirs not to wonder why…

As a former troop I can wonder in public…

‘Is the Kindle changing the reading habits of science fiction readers?’

<http://jameswharris.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/what-is-the-kindle-doing-to-the-science-fiction-genre/>

——

Roland Dobbins

The Kindle is changing the reading habits of a very large part of the reading public… I now sell more eBooks than print books.

Live and Let Spy.

<http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_preview/12266>

<http://www.amazon.com/Live-Let-Spy-BRIXMIS-ebook/dp/B00724WU2I/>

–

Roland Dobbins

Ornithopter

Dr. Pournelle,

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the ornithopter guy did, indeed, fake it.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/diy-flying/why-its-so-hard-to-build-a-human-powered-winged-aircraft-7539894?click=pm_news

Still nice to dream about, though.

Ben

Ben Barlow

Alas.