There are two important topics to be covered, both generated by Newt Gingrich’s remarks at last night’s Republican candidates debate.

• A Strategy of Technology

• A Strategy of Immigration Control

Can water prevent dehydration?

I will not be able to get to either of them in detail today, but I will have essays on both; indeed, it is pretty clear that there is a real need for a revised version of The Strategy of Technology, by Stefan T. Possony, Jerry Pournelle, and Francis X. Kane. Dr. Possony was a former Intelligence Officer for Austria under Schuschnigg, for France after the anschluss, and then for the United States during World War II. When I met him he was a Senior Fellow for the Hoover Institution. Jerry Pournelle is me. Francis X. Kane is a retired Air Force Colonel, Ph.D. , and Director of Plans for General Schriever. When we wrote the book he was still a serving officer so his name does not appear on the published edition. The book was used as a text in all three US service academies and at two of the service War Colleges, and is said to have been influential in cold war planning policy. Mr. Gingrich has read it and has discussed it with me more than once. It is very much oriented to the Cold War threat, and most of the examples are from that era. The principles remain true and applicable, but both the original edition and the revisions were intended to be applicable to the Cold War. It needs a new edition applicable to the present era. I am reminded of this because in the Republican Candidate debate Mr. Gingrich, asked about defense policy and budget cuts, made it clear that his policy would be a strategy of technology to make the military more cost/effective.

For a fuller disquisition on The Strategy of Technology, see my essay with that title. When I was part of the team that advised Newt from 1981 until he left the office of Speaker I knew him to be a hands-on Congressman (like Bob Walker who was one of Newt’s team) who understood the matters he was dealing with. I met Newt originally when he telephoned me (having got my phone number form my publisher) to discuss A Step Farther Out . He had just been elected to the 6th District of Georgia and he wanted to discuss the book. We became friends, and I found he was quite serious about technology and space development. Clearly he still is.

If I were to wait until I could do a full revision of Strategy of Technology we might be a very long time; so next week I will try to do a brief essay on the application of a strategy of technology to our current strategic situation, and what might be some of the outcomes of that. Actually that is pretty well what the new book Niven and I are doing is all about, so it is not a shift of mental gears, and in the process of explaining it I will probably be able to generate scenes for the book, thus growing two crops on one field. A good use of my time.

The Immigration Issue

The second essay I need to write is a rational inquiry into immigration policy. One of Newt’s problems is that he assumes his listeners have thought about problems and have seen the obvious. That is why he often says things that seem inexplicable to new analysts who do not think through problems nor even attempt to.

In the Republican debates Newt said something obvious without doing much preparation for the announcement, and without making clear the prior conditions. To Newt it is obvious that one controls the borders; if you don’t you are not a sovereign nation. He also knows that we will have some kind of “guest worker” program whether it is legal or not: the nation has changed since the days of Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best, and whereas for a hundred years women’s liberation meant that women were free to stay home and not have to work outside the home, that all changed starting with World War II, and liberation came to mean equality very much including women working outside the home and having careers in academia and business. The result is a need for nannies and housekeepers. There is a need for agricultural workers, particularly seasonal. These two factors alone constitute a magnet for migrant workers. Closing the borders with barbed wire, electrified fences, drones, armored cars, watchtowers, troops with orders to shoot to kill – remember the Mexican goat herding boy shot by a Marine team at the border, and the flap THAT caused> — and other such measures is possible, but it is expensive, particularly so long as those and other magnets are in place.

But presume that all that works. The borders are controlled, probably by a combination of security measures using all appropriate technologies (sometimes the most appropriate technology is quite low tech, sometimes it is high tech, most often it’s a combination of both, perhaps combined with firepower). Once you have the borders secured what do you do with the 11 million illegal immigrants already here?

Now for gangsters of any age the answer is simple: get them out of here. They’re illegal, deport them. If their country of origin will not take them, bribe some foreign country to give them a visa. Get them out of here. Then there is a great number of more ambiguous cases. And on the other end of the spectrum comes Newt’s sudden speculation (he’s prone to examining the limits, something that all systems analysts are taught to do routinely). Take the case of a hard working family that has been here 25 years, never in trouble with the law, parents of citizens, grandparents of citizens: in the real world no one in their right mind want to deport Grandpa and Grandma whether they be from Latin America or Eastern Europe or West Africa. We aren’t going to do it, and it’s madness to assume we will. Since we are not going to deport them, what do we do? Well that implies that we think of some means to make them legal residents but not give them citizenship. And in the real world that’s about all we can do, and we all know it.

But most illegal immigrants are neither gangsters nor Grandpa Lorca. How do we decide who goes and who stays, once we have the borders secure and a reasonable guest worker program?

What everyone seems to have missed is that Newt speculated that perhaps we need thousands of local commissions, very like the Selective Service Commissions we formed back in the days of conscription. Greetings, a commission of your friends and neighbors has selected you — etc. He didn’t get very far with that speculation, but it preceded his remarks about what to do with Granma Lorca. It’s clear he was speculating and hadn’t thought this through very far, but since then I’ve given it some thought, and it’s a good starting place. We really do have to deal with the problem. There will be illegal immigrants who are neither gangsters nor pillars of the community. More on this another time.

But no one up on that stage would put Granma Lorca in handcuffs and shove her across the border into Tia Juana, and everyone knows that.

Incidentally, one of Newt’s observations is obvious: any immigrant graduate in any of the hard sciences should automatically be offered permanent residency. As Governor Perry put it, there ought to be a visa stapled to the degree certificate. I can’t think anyone would object to that. If we are going to implement a strategy of technology to get ourselves out of this mess – and we could do that – we will need smart people to implement that strategy. It is madness to send an MIT computer science graduate go back home to a foreign competitor if there is any chance of getting that graduate to stay and work here. Same goes for medical and most health care graduates.

One other obvious observation: if this were a serious country, we would not be wondering about Iranian and Iraqi oil. We would rely on our own resources and in a year we could have supplies and refineries. The difficulties in doing that are not technological. We can do it.

During World War II we built a liberty ship a day. Advanced fighter aircraft went from design board to operations in combat in under 150 days.(For those who doubt it, look up the history of the P-51.)  During the Depression we built Hoover Dam in about five years. We built the Empire State Building in not much more than a year. We supplied oil for England as well as America and carried it through submarine infested waters to get it there. We organized D-Day, the most complex operation in the history of the world, and carried it off despite facing Rommel and his beach defenses. Have we so degenerated that we can no longer do those things?

Energy and freedom could make this country great again. But we have to treat those matters seriously.

This week remains frantic. Roberta has a cold, and I have been advised to stay off my knee for a few days (twisted a ligament somehow) which means that neither of us have been getting out for a walk, which means that Sable has decided that she has been remiss in doing her job which is to be sure these humans she lives with get out for their exercise and also do the daily hunting for the pack, so she has decided to remind us, at fairly frequent intervals.

Meanwhile they are coming to remove the whacking big desiccation machine from my bathroom, and they’ll be back next week to put in new floor covering. It’s Chaotic at Chaos Manor.

You can view Strategy of Technology on line free, but if you want a pdf copy it is available. I also send a copy to new Platinum and Patron subscribers to this web site, so if you were thinking of becoming a patron of this site, that may be relevant information.

For a copy of Strategy of Technology in pdf format, go to http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/2011/Q2/mail669.html and scroll down to the end, where you will find a button. I have tried to transfer this but I don’t know how, and I haven’t time to learn it. I am presuming that the old web site buttons still work. If not I’ll find another way, but the simplest way is to become a Patron subscriber. That works because I do it myself.  And now I have work.

Can Water Prevent Dehydration?

Not according to the European Union and its panel of 21 scientists. Of course there is some controversy.

Of course this is one more development of the rule of the Nomenklatura in Europe and the United States. It’s not enough for the regulators simply to take the money and do their jobs keeping the system running. The modern bureaucrat is educated, a college graduate (who has probably learned little of any use, but it’s the credential that counts) and feels compelled to contribute something. What better way than to be certain that his – or her – benighted subjects benefit from the wisdom of the Nomenklatura? Hence bunny inspectors, water doesn’t dehydrate, the streets fill with pothole – there’s nothing creative about filling a pothole, let’s look for something to do that reflects our superiority – and civilization spirals down in a morass of permits and regulations.

Query: if you were a paladin given the Low and Middle Justice and sent out to make the world better, what might you do? I can use some incidents of bureaucratic madness that could be corrected by someone with power and common sense. Send me your examples.  And now I really do have to work, but first I have some errands.

View 702 Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The occupy people heckled President Obama, who told them he is their leader, and he is in office for them.

I’m still catching up with things. My time was consumed by locusts yesterday, and I returned to find my bathroom – mine, the one in my office suite – has been stripped of its flooring and a huge machine has been set up in there to dehydrate the subfloor. The room is functional but just barely. Things are even more chaotic than usual at Chaos Manor.

I’m trying to catch up. Thanks for your patience, particularly to those who subscribe or renew just now.

The debate tonight will be interesting, with Newt now the leading candidate. The moderators will be after him, trying to goad him into blackguarding the other candidates and otherwise make enemies of the other Republicans. Newt is generally too smart for this, but I expect one of the press to go too far – they’re surely planning on what they can to do irritate Newt – and it will be interesting to see how he handles this. Newt is generally the smartest guy in any room he is in, and will be so tonight, and he’s used to having people gang up on him. I can remember the days when he was trying to rebuild the conservative wing of the Republican Party in the House, with those long after-session speeches. CNN used to pan the empty House chamber as Newt spoke. He said “it’s not important that the House is full or not if the speech is good,” and slowly and over time the logic of his speeches moved him to the position of Minority Whip, then Speaker. He was an effective Whip; many have forgotten that.

Pepper Spray and Public Order

One thing I am following is the problem of military control in cases of civil order. It’s relevant to the book we’re writing. If the army has to take control, what happens next?

Several of you have sent mail regarding the infamous pepper spray incident. I have selected two:

Campus Pepper

Hi,

I have been trained in the use of pepper spray and been sprayed myself many times. It is a safe way to gain compliance. Probably not fun for those getting sprayed but oh well. You need to give somebody a good blast to make sure it gets into the eyes and mucus membranes. It is not often that you get such an ideal opportunity to methodically spray somebody outside training but they were doing exactly what they should have.

The officers were methodical and pretty much emotionless about the whole deal because they’ve been sprayed (probably with the order to keep their eyes open while getting sprayed) and know that it does not harm them. The worst after effects are that you smell enchilada sauce for a couple days until it clears out of your hair and sinuses.

Thanks,

Don

BTW protesters have in the past led to the death of people in aid cars and such. I feel no sympathy for the idiots in the road.

Also:

Pepper spray

Dear Jerry:

First of all, all campus police officers are police officers, not security guards. I state that because a lot of people get it wrong. They are POST trained and certified. That said, these guys deserve to be fired. Pepper spray was a gross overreaction to the situation they confronted. The stuff is supposed to only be deployed in defense against a violent act or overwhelming threat. The protesters showed great discipline, did not break ranks or respond and the cops lost the battle right there. They were in the wrong even if what they did was permitted by law and custom because they were shown to be bullies and thugs rather than law enforcement officers dealing with a difficult situation. Martin Luther King used similar tactics against the police in the South during the Civil Rights marches and demonstrations. A recent poll showed that six out of ten people are indifferent to the Occupy movement and its actions. These images may change that. Nothing like a little righteous indignation to recruit people to a cause. My own response would have been to simply turn on a garden hose in a place where water would flow down the sidewalk to the protesters. Just a gentle, but cold stream. An hour or so of that would have broken their ranks. Pepper spray made martyrs. It provided images that the public will not soon forget. Cold water would not be as memorable and more effective in making people move.

Sincerely,

Francis Hamit

I certainly find Mr. Hamit’s solution to the problem more elegant than the pepper spray was. I don’t know the status of Campus Police in California. When I was a (part time; I needed a job while in graduate school) Campus Police Officer at the University of Washington in the 1950’s, we were State Police Officers, authorized and encouraged to carry weapons off duty. There wasn’t a lot of training involved, but there wasn’t a lot to do either. For amusement we might patrol lover’s lane areas, and we did have to keep watch on people visiting the campus at night in search of unlocked offices with calculators and typewriters to be stolen, but little else. We weren’t encouraged to make arrests, but in one case I had no choice, a chap who had no student ID and was carrying a burlap bag containing a typewriter and two calculators out the door of the business administration classroom. His claim that he was taking them to a student study conclave was not believable, in part because his grammar left much to be desired and he couldn’t name any of his teachers or any of the students awaiting his arrival to do their homework. The resulting paper work didn’t encourage me to make any other arrests. We did have instructions to look out for the Library Naked Guy, who wandered about in a trench coat in the library stacks (a maze and warren in which one could easily get lost) in search of young women to whom he could expose himself. Eventually he tried that on a female campus cop out of uniform, who although unarmed was able to arrest him by simply ordering him about. But I ramble.

I agree with Francis that the campus police played into the hands of the demonstrators by giving them a safe way to be heroic. I might even go so far as to require the command officer who actually ordered the pepper spraying to take a class on strategy and tactics, but really, no one there exceeded his authority. Bad judgment, perhaps, but there’s a lot of that going around.

Of course the incident will be used to take away attention from the real question, which is what the heck are we paying for at these terribly expensive universities? The students come out loaded with debt, the number of administrators rises without limit, and the notion that we are investing in our future by funding the Department of Ethnic Studies and the Department of Electrical Engineering at the same pay scales is patently absurd. This is investing in the future?

I agree that the Campus Police were out of line here, and the commanding officer needs some attention, but he didn’t give an illegal order, Firing the police who carried it out is not justified. As my first correspondent notes, the pepper spray makes you uncomfortable, but it’s not unreasonable to prefer it to the use of batons and physical force.

Me, I prefer Francis’s notion. It’s a cold day. Turn on the water upstream of the sitting students, and let them watch the water slowly come toward them. If that doesn’t work there are similar tactics. Of course you’ll be accused of brutality for turning the water on. Ah. Well.

The Mamelukes seem to be in trouble in Egypt. We will see how their resolve holds up. One alternative is a regime similar to Syria or Iraq under Saddam. Another is simply to take the money and run. After the treatment of Mubarak the Marshall and the Generals understand what their future will be if they do nothing. They have seen the fall of Qaddaffi. So has Bashar in Syria. Arab Spring has already lead to Christian Disaster. The Middle East story continues. The Cairo protestors now demand that the Marshall “Leave”, which was the demand made of Mubarak. We have seen what happened to him.

My radio is telling me that the Egyptians are people with legitimate concerns. Now they want the fruits of their victory. It doesn’t mention that one of those fruits was pillaging the Christian communities that have coexisted in Egypt for a very long time. This isn’t your Occupy Wall Street movement. It’s not clear just who it is, or what the vast majority of the Egyptians think of this. At least some have their doubts: they’ve seen what happened in Iran.

It’s lunch time and I’m still behind. There’s a lot of mail, and I’ll try to deal with some of that, but I also have fiction to work on. I’m making up the viewpoint characters.

Anne McCaffrey, RIP

Annie was an old friend, a fellow WOTF judge, and all around good to know. I’ll miss seeing her every year at the WOTF events.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/11/anne-mccaffrey-in-remembrance

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,
et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.

I have now watched the Republican debate. No one seriously injured, no clear winner. Newt as usual ‘won’ in the sense of being the best prepared. I note his references to rebuilding the armed forces according to a strategic design. A conversation we had many times when I was associated with him.

View 702 Monday, November 21, 2011

I have my medical class again this afternoon, and this morning I had to go out to get my fasting blood work done, so the day is a bit shot. I have been hard at work creating a new character for our book, and that part goes well if a bit slowly. I had hoped to have more words done, but that won’t happen today of course.

The storm over the pepper spray event at UC Davis continues. The protestors got what they wanted, except that there doesn’t seem to be any message from the protestors. The incident was ugly and won’t go much to the credit of the police, but it was an incident. It wasn’t Kent State. Now they have suspended the campus police chief. That’s silly, as is the campaign against the chancellor.

And the long knives are out: some Democratic Party officials are suggesting that President Obama ought to announce that he will not run for re-election, thus making things smooth for Hillary Clinton, who would certainly get the nomination.

As expected, the Supercommitee could agree on nothing, and will disband as Congress takes flight for the holidays. Now we will have the automatic drastic cuts: Medicare and the Military budgets will grow only 16% over the next five years instead of 21% as was planned. There will still be a huge deficit, spending will continue to go up, and the National Debt will continue to increase. We will still be dependent on borrowed money to run the federal government. The media will continue to tell us about the drastic budget cuts, only there won’t be anything cut. There will still be bunny inspectors and the TSA will continue its Kabuki Safety Dances, while planning to expand to trains, and busses. And the beat goes on.

Regarding my corrections in mail yesterday:

CERN, FTL, and evolution

Jerry

You wrote: "Evolution is hardly in danger from CERN."

But wait! Given FTL information transmission by neutrinos, can time reversal be out of the question? In that case, could not a rabbit be sent back to the pre-Cambrian era to become fossilized for future excavation?

Mike

I should have thought of that!

David Em is a long time friend and advisor and a very early pioneer in the use of computers to generate fine art. His “The Art of David Em” was one of the first computer-generated books of art ever published. I met him at a presentation at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science back when using computers to do presentations and art was science news – I forget precisely when, but during the 1980’s. Today I got this announcement from Michelle:

THE SHAPE OF THE UNIVERSE:

Recent Deep Space Photography

Curated by David Em

November 30, 2011 – February 9, 2012 (Gallery closed for the holidays, Dec 17 – Jan 8)

Reception: Wednesday, November 30, 6 – 9 PM.

Pasadena City College art gallery

—————-

The Shape of the Universe is an exhibition of deep‐space photography, curated by artist David Em. The exhibition features recent images captured by NASA’s Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra space telescopes, as well as several ground‐based astronomical telescopes.

Assembled with the cooperation of NASA’s Spitzer Science Center at Caltech, the European Southern Observatory and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, curator David Em presents high-resolution prints in a way that encourages their consideration both as photographs in the context of fine art and as documents of new discoveries in cosmology. Additional information about the exhibit is at http://pasadena.edu/artgallery

—————

This exhibition was made possible by support from the Pasadena Art Alliance, the PCC Foundation, the Division of Natural Sciences and the Division of Visual Arts and Media Studies.

Image credit: NASA/JPL—Caltech. Infrared image of our Milky Way galaxy produced by NASA’s Spitzer space telescope, 2009.

GALLERY INFORMATION:

The gallery will be closed from December 17 through January 8.

DECEMBER HOURS: Monday through Thursday: 11:00 A.M. to 8:00 P.M; Friday, Saturday: Noon to 4:00 P.M. Closed Sundays and school holidays.

WINTER HOURS: (Jan. and Feb.): Monday – Thursdays: 11:00 AM – 4 PM. Closed Fridays and Weekends.

Recorded Gallery information: (626) 585-3285 <tel:%28626%29%20585-3285>

Gallery admission, reception and related events are all free of charge and open to the public.

PASADENA CITY COLLEGE ART GALLERY

1570 East Colorado Blvd.

Pasadena, CA 91106

I certainly intend to go see that!