Mail 714 Saturday, February 25, 2012

Even the liberal media is concerned –

I’m surprised at a couple of the articles that have been published in the local alternative weekly paper. The paper leans heavily to the left, but at least one of their columnists is taking a hard look at the current administration’s record. Here are two well-researched, well-written articles that are critical of President Obama and the current administration. The first scares the heck out of me. The second only surprises me because the right hasn’t picked up on it.

Letters at 3AM: It Came From the White House Obama and a majority of Democratic legislators support the NDAA, allowing the arrest of U.S. citizens without a warrant http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2012-02-10/letters-at-3am-it-came-from-the-white-house/

"Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., noticed that to subject American citizens to arrest without warrant and to detain us without trial violates the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution. Feinstein proposed to specifically exempt American citizens from the NDAA’s arrest policy.

Her clarification of the NDAA passed the Senate by a vote of 98 to 1. That’s as bipartisan as it gets, even in good times. In these times, passage of Feinstein’s clarification was a miracle of agreement.

Yet in the NDAA’s final version, as signed by President Obama, American citizens are not exempt. How did that happen?"

Letters at 3AM: Obama, Nukes, and Us

President Barack Obama fudges the truth of his nuclear policies http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2011-04-08/letters-at-3am-obama-nukes-and-usmichael-ventura/

–Gary P.

We also have proscription lists – lists of people including American citizens who shall be killed on sight if there is no way to apprehend them, or perhaps even if there is — bin Laden was apparently given no chance to surrender. Now of course soldiers in the field are allowed and encouraged to kill hostiles on sight, but that’s not quite the same thing as sending snipers in gillie suits or drones with Hellfire missiles to seek them out.

Courts still have the writ of habeas corpus, which demands that anyone holding someone against their will be required to produce that person and tell the court why it is legal to detain him. (If you don’t really believe that in the English language the male pronoun includes the female, feel free to change that to “detain him or her” or better, substitute Damon Knight’s ‘yeye’.) The question becomes whether it is a proper and sufficient return to the writ to state that yeye is being held pursuant to the NDAA act, yeye having been placed on the list of enemies of the people or whatever designation the NDAA gives them.

I haven’t done an extensive search on this. Snopes http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/ndaa.asp gives the statement that the military can arrest anyone without trial or warrant a “mixed” rating meaning partially true, but isn’t clear as to what parts are not true. Snopes seems to be relying on a signing statement by President Obama stating that it isn’t his intention to hold people indefinitely without trial. He did not say that they couldn’t be arrested and held; and he did not specify how long they might be held. Nor did he say anything about response to a writ of habeas corpus. Of course for a writ to be issued a judge has to know that someone is being held, and who holds that person.

Even the Daily Kos isn’t sure what the act authorizes.

I expect we’ll find out soon enough. http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2012-02-10/letters-at-3am-it-came-from-the-white-house/

The white house’s e-petitions

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I thought you might be interested in this technical innovation the White House has put together:

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/%21/petition/rescind-hhs-dept-mandate-requiring-catholic-employers-provide-contraceptivesabortifacients-their/lBxr7SdP

You’ve heard of e-petitions, right? The white house actually put e-petition software on their own web site. If enough people sign the petition, they promise a response of some kind. Essentially it’s the same thing as a letter to the White House, updated to the digital age.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I wonder what kind of petitions they get or allow to be displayed?

Boffins build blood-swimming medical microbot,

Jerry

Fantastic Voyage — a blood-swimming medical microbot:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/25/autonomous_implantable_robot/print.html

I just added ‘microbot’ to my spellcheck dictionary.

Ed

Now that is fascinating. We should hear more about this soon.

Subject: Follow up to Himalayan glaciers have lost no ice in the past 10 years, new study reveal

Some previous estimates of ice loss <http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/09/himalayan-glaciers-have-lost-no-ice-in-past-10-years-new-study-reveals/?intcmp=features##> in the high Asia mountains had predicted up to 50 billion tons of melting ice annually, said Wahr, who is also a fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Instead, results from GRACE pin the estimated ice loss from those peaks — including ranges like the Himalayas and the nearby Pamir and Tien Shan — at only about 4 billion tons of ice annually.

Bristol University glaciologist Jonathan Bamber, who was not part of the research team, told the Guardian that such a level of melting was practically insignificant.

"The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero," he told the Guardian.

…and…

“According to GRACE data published in the study, total sea level <http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/09/himalayan-glaciers-have-lost-no-ice-in-past-10-years-new-study-reveals/?intcmp=features##> rise from all land-based ice on Earth including Greenland <http://www.foxnews.com/topics/greenland.htm#r_src=ramp> and Antarctica was roughly 1.5 millimeters per year annually or about one-half inch total, from 2003 to 2010, Wahr said.”

It occurs to me with the above statement from the article that using the sample data below, over a one hundred year time span the total rise in sea level would amount to a little over 7 inches. This would hardly cause the catastrophic scenario the AGW alarmists are predicting in which coastal communities would be several feet under water.

The usual back of the envelope assumption is that the seas have been rising about a foot a century for a long time. Since the Ice Age some of the land formerly covered by glaciers has been rising. Obviously the presence of sea ice in the Arctic will have little effect on sea levels, although water density is affected by temperature of course.

The size of local glaciers in high and cold places is mostly affected by the amount of precipitation. In dry years there isn’t any snow and the sun still shines. In wet years with lots of snow glaciers grow. The snows of Kilimanjaro have been shrinking but there has been drought in that area.

http://tohatchacrow.blogspot.com/2011/03/kilimanjaro-snow-levels-increase-after.html

Scientists Reply on Global Warming

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203646004577213244084429540.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The interest generated by our Wall Street Journal op-ed of Jan. 27, "No Need to Panic about Global Warming," is gratifying but so extensive that we will limit our response to the letter to the editor the Journal published on Feb. 1, 2012 by Kevin Trenberth and 37 other signatories, and to the Feb. 6 letter by Robert Byer, President of the American Physical Society. (We, of course, thank the writers of supportive letters.)

We agree with Mr. Trenberth et al. that expertise is important in medical care, as it is in any matter of importance to humans or our environment. Consider then that by eliminating fossil fuels, the recipient of medical care (all of us) is being asked to submit to what amounts to an economic heart transplant. According to most patient bills of rights, the patient has a strong say in the treatment decision. Natural questions from the patient are whether a heart transplant is really needed, and how successful the diagnostic team has been in the past.

Why The Generals Hate The A-10

Nice summary: http://www.rense.com/general38/a10.htm

It’s ugly. It’s lumbering and it’s old. But the A-10 Warthog almost certainly remains the best performing airplane in the Air Force’s fleet. The 30-year-old attack plane is safe, efficient, durable and cheap. GI’s call it the friend of the grunt, because it flies low, showers lethal covering fire and greatly reduces the risk of friendly fire deaths and civilian casualties.

While the high-tech fighters and attack helicopters faltered in desert winds, smoke-clotted skies and in icy temperatures, the A-10 proved a workhorse in Gulf War I, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the latest war on Iraq.

Naturally, the Air Force brass now wants to junk it.

And now the Air Force plan is to replace the inexpensive, durable, effective A-10 with the F-35????

It amazes me that the Army hasn’t taken back control of their own destiny and regained control of the close air support role. The Air Force doesn’t want to do it, they just want the $ associated with the mission.

John Harlow

The close support and interdiction missions should belong to the Army. The problem is that aviation is not a good career path for Army officers. It’s one reason why warrant officers are employed as helicopter pilots. The Luftwaffe solved this somewhat by allowing them to have ground units, but that doesn’t work very well either. Being a hot helicopter pilot doesn’t make one a good field grade officer. The Air Force has always had the myth that good pilots can learn command, and they have career paths for boffins, but it has always been a problem.

Some of the essence of the difficulty is shown – not deliberately – in the movie Command Decision with Clark Gable (there’s more in the actual novel it was based on).

Earmarks

Dr. Pournelle,

I must agree with your earmark comments, and add that the ability for a weapons program to find at least one congressional champion is a key darwinian challenge for any system. Without a tame congresscritter, the contractors I’ve been involved with can’t build weapons systems that we _do_ know how to build. Grooming, care, and feeding of such champions becomes more important (measured in time and effort expended), in many cases, than the development and implementation of the technical aspect of the system. It is also easy to cross the somewhat arbitrary line between legitimate sales/support and illegal influence. Just my observations, mind you, but they seem in line with your own and the Iron Law.

Glad you are recuperating. Our own recoveries from a similar ailment have also been slow, but eventually successful (this is one of the first good day’s I’ve had in a month).

Looking forward to the new book…and combing the web for advance sales.

-d

Congress must control spending. That means it can’t fund everything the executive branch – including the generals – wants. On the other hand sometimes the executive branch, and especially the generals, are just plain wrong in rejecting some projects. The earmark system is flawed and can lead to waste, but it’s better than having no Congressional control at all.

Legend of Black Ship Island will be up sometime next week I think.

Extraordinary Korean War Vet,

Jerry

A friend sent me the link below. He commented. “That one did not go in the direction I thought it would. Almost stopped it at the beginning of Fanfare for the Common Man, as I thought it would be a lengthy slide show, but held on. Glad I did. Not a widely known gent, but obviously a deep soul. Thanks.”

<http://www.greatamericans.com/video/Portraits-of-Valor-Tibor-Rubin>

The vid is 12 minutes. It is about Tibor Rubin, a Hungarian concentration camp survivor who came to the US and ended up in the Pusan pocket. He was left behind as his company retreated to impede the NK’s. He held out for a few days, came back to US lines, and after a number of patrols was captured. Since he was an experienced prison camp survivor, he helped others. At about 9 minutes he tells about how he fed a man “goat shit,” telling him they were pills but also telling his patient “You have to help yourself.” Finally in 2005 he got his MOH. Nice short piece. Worth watching – and I usually don’t watch vids.

Ed

Subject: We probably didn’t need an added incentive to get into space.

There could probably be volumes printed about this … Robert Heinlein would probably not be shocked.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/24/playboy-and-virgin-galactic-fantasize-cosmic-mens-space-club/?intcmp=features

Tracy

Bunny inspectors?

SUBJ: Movie recommendation

Dear Jerry,

Just watched an excellent, nay, out-STAND-ing movie that I think you would thoroughly enjoy. The movie’s title is "Longitude" and is about the British Royal Navy’s search to find a way to reliably calculate longitude in the 1700’s.

The story is fascinating. Its an historical drama. The movie contains military history, technical invention and innovation, politics, faith, betrayal and triumph all in an English historical setting. It also deals closely with government prizes, which you have been discussing lately. The movie contains both 18th-century and 20th-century components. It is well-written, well-made and well-told.

For an unabashed Anglophile movies and history nut (like me), it doesn’t get any better.

Netflix has it, although I found it at my local library too.

Cordially,

John

Instruments made of ice.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17162066

The fleeting nature of these instruments makes the all the more beguiling.

Andrew

Andrew McCann

Oath of Fealty –

Hi Jerry,

There’s also an iBook edition, which I’d picked up as my ’emergency read’ for plane trips. During my last delay, I too was recaptured by the story – it’s one of my favorites, and definitely holds up well.

Cheers,

Doug=

Thanks for the kind words. I am really quite fond of Oath of Fealty. It was the second novel Niven and I began, but we put it aside to do Inferno and Lucifer’s Hammer.

A Feast for the Eyes: Favorite Pictures of EPOD for 2011

Jerry,

Enjoy!

<http://epod.usra.edu/blog/vote-2011.html>

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE