Mail 689 Tuesday, August 23, 2011

· Who saved Libya?

· The Virginia Quake observed

· Higgs Boson

· Distributism

I get far more interesting mail than I can possibly publish. In some cases I save mail that I want to reply to, but often I never find time. Other mail is intriguing but there isn’t room for the day. Every now and then I go back and look for mail I flagged. Some of that is in tonight’s batch. And of course there’s the more topical mail.

Libya

Hi Jerry,

Being sort of a quasi-Frenchman these days I respectfully have to comment on this comment of yours:

> A tyrant is out, and unlike in Afghanistan and Iraq, we are not in.

> It happened on President Obama’s watch and he deserves the credit:

> without the US strike forces the rebels would long ago have been

> snuffed out.

Not to discredit President Obama, but your remark about the US strike forces is a bit off the mark. First, it’s really NATO strike forces as in this case the US did not contribute more than all others together as in Afghanistan or Iraq. And there is the matter of chronology. The coalition forces as a whole came into action in the early hours of 19 March, when amongst other things a large number of cruise missiles was fired by US vessels at Libyan air defense installations and military airfields, as the first step in guaranteeing unopposed operation of NATO (and allied) aircraft in Libyan airspace to enforce the no-fly zone and attack Qhadafi’s forces where they were threatening civilians. What has been conveniently glossed over in most media reports since is that it was not the US, but France that took the lead on the first day, that is Friday 18 March, the day immediately after the UN resolution 1973 was voted (on the evening of 17 March). Representatives of the involved Member States, essentially NATO members and some members of the Arab League, were meeting on Friday 18 March in Paris to discuss if, how and when they were going to actually interfere militarily. A lot of political hot air was expected to be generated. Meanwhile, Qhadafi had sent a column of heavy armour on its way to attack Benghazi, planned to enter that city in the early evening, with explicit orders to kill not only armed rebels but anyone supporting them, their families, women, children, elderly… Qhadafi’s message was clear: "We will kill you all." At that point the rebels had no heavy firepower, and could offer little resistance to a massed attack by tanks. At the opening of the meeting in Paris, which in my recollection was around or just after noon local time, the French president informed the representatives of the other states that French fighter aircraft had already taken off and were on their way to Benghazi.

In fact a small number of French Mirage and Rafale fighters had taken off from Nancy in Northeast France. They flew some three thousand kilometers, refueled over the Mediterranean, entered Libyan airspace before any of the air defense installations had been put out of commission and before any backup system was put in place to pick up downed pilots. They arrived in the nick of time when the lead tanks were about to enter the outskirts of Benghazi, and blasted them to rubble in an all-out attack that left a string of burnt-out hulks along the road. That evening Qhadafi’s armour did not enter Benghazi; the few that escaped ran like hell.

Thus the first NATO shots were fired by French pilots who took a huge risk to defend unarmed civilians against a violent dictator. If that air raid had not taken place, Qhadafis armoured troops would have razed Banghazi that night, killed thousands, strung up the rebels from lightpoles the way they had already done along the road into the city, and murdered their families and neighbours. The rebellion would have been effectively broken and Qhadafi would have laughed at NATO and the UN.

Yes, the US has played a major role in the operations and, being the nation with the world’s largest military by far, could contribute a lot of ordnance to be loosed at Qhadafi, stealth bombers and predator drones, and provide logistics once the large-scale operations had to be coordinated. But over a third of all air sorties over Libya during the entire period have been French, many of them in actual attacks. France had its one and only nuclear aircraft carrier in action off the Libyan coast, the US did not contribute a carrier. France, being a country one fifth the size of the US with a military a lot smaller than that, has shouldered a disproportional part of the military and economic load of this war. France urged the UN Security Council to make haste with the vote as there were only hours left to act, and France acted, alone, before all others. The people in Libya know that very well. It seems that people in the US do not.

Regards,

Frank Schweppe

P.S. Now we can only hope that the chaos following the liberation will not last too long and not too many atrocities will be committed by the new leadership in Libya. It won’t be easy – it can take almost two centuries after a revolution to come up with a democratic model that works reasonably well…

I don’t dispute any of that. Of course I have always thought it was Europe’s problem, as I thought the Balkans were Europe’s problem. It is very likely that if French and later the British had not acted promptly and appropriately, the Libyan rebels would have been snuffed out and there would have been nothing to support. I mostly congratulate President Obama for backing up the European effort so that the final result – well not final yet, but it looks to be pretty inevitable – is that Qadaffi is out and the US is NOT in, and that is all to the good.

Would that we had been content with that in Afghanistan: The Taliban out, and the US not in.

Not far from the epicenter, life went on as usual Jerry: At 1:50 PM today I was enjoying a late lunch at the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Ashland, VA, about 30 miles southeast of the earthquake epicenter in Mineral. When the roaring noise began and the building began to shake and our chairs and tables began vibrating the diners looked around wondering if a large train was running past the building. The waitstaff assured us there were no train tracks nearby, so we all concluded it was just an earthquake.

It seemed that most others, like myself, had never experienced an earthquake in all their decades of life. Shortly thereafter the shaking stopped and we all continued eating. About 30 minutes later I drove the 40 miles south to my home in Chester, VA. Along the way I saw no signs of any concerns or disruptions in the heavy traffic traveling at 75 mph on I-95. On the radio I heard about panic and disruptions in the D. C. to NY corridor. I concluded that in an earthquake you are better off surrounded by the kind of folks who frequent the Cracker Barrel than surrounded by the kind of folks who run away from the Pentagon and the Capitol. This government penchant for running away has bothered me ever since Congress ran away from the anthrax scare 10 years ago while the mailmen continued to handle the mail that so terrified our congress persons.

Best regards, –Harry M.

I saw a fair amount of damage on the 6 PM news tonight; more than had been reported earlier. But so far no one injured. I do find it interesting that on the East Coast a tremble makes people suspect terrorists while out here it’s Temblor! Out here, though, there’s a lot of crazy reaction including charging outside and running around in circles flapping your arms.

Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilizations, say scientists

Amazing.

I would have thought that 80-90 years of blantant, man-made RF emissions and some nuclear detonations would be a much more significant tip off to an alien race than a fraction of a degree rise in temperature that could easily be explained by natural phenomena.

Who knew that they so simultaneously dense and picky at the same time?

John Harlow, President BravePoint

Humorous commentary on aliens destroying Earth

Scary thought if you really think about it. Assume that there are aliens who wish to destroy potential rivals for galactic resources. Also assume that interstellar travel is difficult and expensive for the aliens so that it isn’t feasible to invade or simply destroy other planets. What better way to eliminate a competing race at minimal expense than to send a small probe that would use some means to persuade an alien species to destroy their own technological civilization by limiting their energy supply? This would explain why the greenie weenies are opposed to nuclear power as well as fossil fuels. Perhaps Al Gore’s transformation into the high priest of Global Warming Theology using the same tactics and style of a stereotypical televangelist is as much the result of alien influence as his training in a seminary? Was Al Gore abducted by aliens? Was he conditioned and programed to wage jihad against technological civilization by being subjected to repeated probings? One can only hope unless he enjoyed it.

Jim Crawford

Code and Regs

Joshua Jordan wrote, "The President likes to use federal regulations as if these were laws."

I’m sure his point was that a rule originating in the Executive branch is in some sense less genuine than a black-letter law passed by Congress. But is it?

I could cite from the Internal Revenue Code any number of instances where Congress outlined basic concepts then explicitly added that "the Secretary" (i.e., of the Treasury) is directed to create regulations for making these general principles work in practice.

Where Congress has delegated such authority the courts usually defer to the regulations — exactly as if they were laws.

–Mike Glyer

Which opens the whole Constitutional debate on delegation of power and separation of powers. For 180 years the Courts were meticulous on what could be delegated. After Roosevelt’s court packing threats "a switch in time saved nine" and there was a 5-4 majority on the court to allow considerable delegation. But there is still the principle that power delegated to the legislature by the people cannot be further delegated to non-elected officers.

It hasn’t been tested in a while; but it was good law in my day that there was a strict limit on delegation of legislative power.

It is time, I think, to reopen that debate. The authority to delegate legislative power can and often does lead to tyranny; something the Framers very well understood.

fixing the cognitive elite problem

I’m a computer professional who has recently discovered a bit of educational research from Dr. Benjamin Bloom. Called Bloom’s 2 sigma problem, it is a generally accepted observation that one to one tutoring provides superior educational results, the best possible, but that it is possible with a change in learning techniques to approximate those results. You can find Bloom’s study here:

http://www.comp.dit.ie/dgordon/Courses/ILT/ILT0004/TheTwoSigmaProblem.pdf

The shape of the bell curve is not appreciably altered at the high end. High performers are high performers and remain about the same. The remarkable changes are on the low end and in the middle, resulting in a narrowing of the distribution and an appreciably more egalitarian start to adult life for all the kids. That would reinvigorate the American ideal that "everybody can grow up to be president" as, yes, the vast majority would then have the tools needed.

This *should* put an end to talk I sometimes hear about "cognitive elites" ending the American dream and ushering in a new class based society. There’s just one problem, left and right neither seem to be talking seriously about applying Bloom’s insight and holding school systems to producing the sort of results he identified were possible, a high quality education that turns out the vast majority of kids with results we today label gifted and talented, elite, or other such labels.

My name is T. Michael Lutas but on the net I’m almost universally known as TMLutas and would appreciate being identified as such if you publish this.

TMLutas

About those job-killing regulations

Courtesy of the nation’s most self-destructive state

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/14/local/la-me-bed-sheets-20110814

Steve Chu

I was astounded by the comments of "Bruce". One line in particular stood out:

"Consumers create jobs. We need more consumers."

So if "consumers" want computers, they’ll just magically appear? Nobody will have to invest billions of dollars in, say, chip-making plants or other manufacturing buildings to actually create those computers? Somebody had better notify Intel, which has wasted billions on such plants in the last few decades.

Meanwhile, the Buffett article which Bruce refers to commits at least one lie of omission. Buffett refers to the relatively low rate of taxation for "dividend income", while not mentioning that that dividend was subject to corporate income taxes (Federal + Nebraska rates are at least 40% combined) before it showed up on his books. So the real tax rate for that income was around 50%.

For someone who is SO enthusiastic about "taxing the rich", Buffett is curiously silent about _his_ plans to put his estate in a trust, so it won’t be subject to a 55% death tax. Since Buffett is shielding his fortune from the death tax, and he shows no apparent interest in voluntarily contributing more to the Federal government, I’m a little skeptical that he’s being totally honest in his presentation.

Sincerely,

Calvin Dodge

Hi Jerry,

Just a response to your correspondent Bruce (to whom I commend Atlas Shrugged as an outstanding response to his point of view).

First off, it’s amusing to see billionaires wanting the government to take more of my money. You could take 90% of Buffett’s, and he’ll still be rich. Take more of mine, and I’ll find a way to cut my spending even more than I have (or close my business as being unprofitable). There’s nothing stopping Buffett from writing a check to the feds right now – why doesn’t he do it? Because it’s not about money. It’s about power, control, coercion, and ego.

My family has several small businesses. One has made the decision to not grow because the incremental cost of an employee is far higher than the productivity they would get. Another is planning on dropping healthcare coverage and paying the fines because it’s cheaper. One is struggling to stay afloat because of the cost of unemployment insurance (even though they haven’t laid anyone off). The regulations are absolutely stifling – sure GE can afford to hire a battery of attorneys to deal with them, but why on earth should someone have to hire their fifth employee to do that? It’s completely nuts – especially when the regulations don’t do any good! I just bought a new lamp…with an unremovable tag stuck next to the plug warning me not to lick the prongs while they’re plugged in (only a slight exaggeration). Colorado is about to pass regulations on day care centers to ensure that they have a racially balanced population….of dolls. Explain to me why that’s a critical government function (or in any way legitimate)?

There’s only one thing that Government can do to to help grow the economy and create jobs.

To quote John Galt:

"Get the hell out of my way"

Cheers,

Doug

You suggested yesterday that regulations and regulatory agencies should be subject to a sunset provision. I wonder whether this would result in such agencies, when they are about to face a vote on whether they should continue to exist, staging a media-fueled "crisis" in their area of control, to prevent legislators from voting them out of existence (lest they be portrayed as indifferent to such "crises"). Bureaucracies have done worse things to protect themselves.

Some such crises might not do any real harm (for example, a crisis that’s pure media, such as the "Alar is poisoning our apples!" scare), but I recall that the raid on the Branch Davidians at Waco was said to have been initiated by BATF for such a reason. (A congressional hearing was to be held over problems with BATF enforcement and corruption, and the upper reaches of the agency were worried.) They needed a photogenic media event to protect them from any move to disband the agency or distribute its responsibilities among other departments. I don’t think they were intending for it to be nearly as "photogenic" as it got – since they were legal gun merchants, a raid resulting in piles of weapons to be photographed and displayed on CNN was probably what they were hoping for – but in the event, this agency’s need to protect itself ultimately resulted in scores of deaths.

I worry about what bureaucracies might do when threatened with extinction. Of course, that consideration is much of the reason for the kudzu-like growth of the bureaucratic apparatus in the first place! I have no solution, other than to be very careful about creating departments and agencies, since it’s so difficult to get rid of them.

job killing regs

I work for a small business manufacturing oil drilling tools we have a backlog of orders, are losing sales because of extended delivery but adding a 50th employee would change all sorts of catagories we would be in. So we have 49 and idle machines and reduced output.

rob Boyce

Buffet and higher taxes

Dr. Pournelle,

Unlike some of your other readers, I am completely unconvinced and deeply suspicious of Warren Buffet’s plea for higher taxes. The reason is simple: it would be easy for him to voluntarily contribute at a higher rate. As the ad says, Just Do It. He would instantly gain enormous credibility, become a folk hero overnight, and be proclaimed a True Patriot and the embodiment of noblesse oblige. Buffet has been pushing this schtick for years. So what’s stopping him, fanboys?

I think it is worthwhile to point out that massive tax code simplification, which would also be very popular, could accomplish the same end. In my lumpenproletariat opinion, this would be much more likely to be effective than modifying the current Byzantine structure. The major reason the existing rules are so complex is to give the rich ways to avoid paying the base rate, a situation that Mr. Buffet rather paradoxically exploits. It is entirely possible to rewrite the tax code so that a higher base rate could be more than offset by deductions.

Steve Chu

Raising Taxes Per Buffett’s Request

Stewart Varney had an excellent report this morning on Warren Buffet’s desire for higher taxes on the rich and its relationship to his business: The higher the taxes, the more insurance rates he can rake in. The New York Times’ article did not include a disclaimer to this effect and it should have.

Bikini Red

P.S. I’m a big fan. Love Fallen Angels, Mote In God’s Eye, etc.

Distributism

I think you completely mischaracterized Distributism as Communism-lite. If all you go by are the early Chesterton/etc. writings, that could be an acceptable error. The theory evolved and expanded.

Distributism sees the family as the atom of production and consumption, but it also recognizes employee-owned companies versus investor-owned entities. By this definition, United Airlines would be considered Distributist. You could also include the franchise model. That would include 85 percent of the 14,000 McDonalds in the US, let alone globally. While McDonalds Corporate sets the standards and owns the brand, boards of franchise representatives have final say on many issues, particularly where their own spending is concerned. In a similar vein, Credit Unions are considered Distributist versus conventional banks.

The iconic distributist is the plumber, who owns his own tools, business, and so on. Programmers for smart phone apps are a more recent entrepreneurial class. Guilds for training are acceptable and encouraged, minus the union and so on. Online education, certification programs, and so on may replace the higher education bubble. Homeschooling and private schools replace the lower education bubble of over-administration and underperformance.

The core issue with Distributism versus Corporatism or Communism is simple – stop screwing me. Rather a lot of large companies operate on a model that offshores excessively (GE), politicizes (GE), or seeks short term gains and golden parachutes over long term stability (1980’s MBA programs, WaMu after they brought in executives from… yep, GE). Another example was a factory incentive bonus for Caterpillar. In the first year, a massive bonus for factory productivity was awarded to the workers. In the second year, the manager of the factory kept half of it personally.

Communism replaces the exploitive, short-sighted kleptocratic executive with his identical party member twin. I don’t think the horror stories of socialism need to be recounted here, but I will make one exception. “The aristocracy will be quite as ready to “administer” Collectivism as they were to administer Puritanism or Manchesterism; in some ways a centralized political power is necessarily attractive to them… The Duke of Sussex will be quite as ready to be the Administrator of Sussex at the same screw. Sir William Harcourt, that typical aristocrat, put it quite correctly. “We” (that is, the aristocracy) “are all socialists now.”

G K Chesterton’s book “What’s Wrong with the World” (1910).

Thus predating the Obama/Pelosi/Reid Newsweek cover by almost 100 years.

Distributism removes the parasite element of both capitalist and communist models at a single stroke. It is far from perfect, but applied to a significant quantity of the population, it provides a blanket of skilled “distributed computing” to a robust economic model exactly the way “too big to fail” doesn’t. It allows the growth of small business, franchises, and employee-owned enterprises who know that the company has to continue sustainably if their retirement pension is to exist. In a disaster (economic, natural, or terrorist), I would like to have at least basic economic capacity to not be at the globalist level. Friedman’s famous description of a pencil as a marvel of globalist capitalism is also, unintentionally, a warning. Interconnected dominoes are not interlocked bricks – they make the system far weaker, and mean that a disruption anywhere is a disruption everywhere. Add to this just-in-time inventories and a population completely oblivious to where food or water comes from and you have a house of cards.

Distributism in the pure sense repeats the nonsense of Marx in that someone can be a farmer in the morning, a tailor in the afternoon, and a critic that night. It ignores the simple fact that not everyone will be competent at everything, and many are barely competent at one thing. Chesterton describes the working husband as “something to everyone” (butcher or baker, etc.) whereas the stay-at-home mom is “everything to someone” (the child’s nurse, teacher, etc.). It also points to the fact that the specialist and the generalist should share the same roof. The overspecialization of capitalism (where we fall into traps of obsolescence and disaster helplessness) or the overgeneralization of pure Marxism (where this theoretical community would never get past the 1700’s because no one would have the resources to specialize in mining, metallurgy, etc.) are both ultimately disastrous.

Kent Nebergall

In my attempt at brevity I may have been too brief: I certainly did not mean to lump in Belloc and Chesterton with Marx, nor characterize Distributism as Communism-lite. I have far more respect for Distributism than that.

Bill Buckley and I used to argue over whether it was possible to be distributist and conservative. I also discussed this at length with Russell Kirk. We all concluded that it was not, and certainly during the Cold War it wasn’t possible. It is also difficult to see how to get there from here. I was never sure of this.

But I find Chesterton much worth reading, and I find the distributist world, like the Jeffersonian world, intriguing and attractive. As an ideal I find it far more worthy than unregulated capitalism or Rand’s brand of whatever it is.

Chesterton and Belloc well understood the concept of the “New Class” that seems always to appear in socialism, and The Servile State that seems to accompany socialism. A bureaucracy of Iron Law generation is never very attractive. If maximum freedom is a goal – well, that’s a long discussion. Thanks for your presentation. I agree that I did not give a very accurate picture of what Chesterton was advocating.

I will also point out that I have always been in favor of anti-trust laws. Companies that are too big to fail should not be allowed to exist. There should not be 5 Huge Banks; better would be 50 Large ones. I do not think that enormous conglomerates are even efficient – they may be for a while but they are unstable because subject to disruptions beyond their control, Black Swans. The result goes far beyond creative destruction, and indeed creative destruction can be devastating for those going through it. A distributist economy would favor profitable enterprises over continued expansion. I would rather pay a bit more for just the right bush jacket chosen from a number of companies that offered them – as was the case at one time – than pay less for one of the few offered by coagulations of once revered names like Cable Car and Eddie Bauer which are now simply brand names. Often small and profitable is merely a short stage in the “growth” and “development” of a company before it is bought up to be part of the “growth” of a rising conglomerate on its way to be too big to fail. When I was a lad there were a dozen American automobile companies. Gee our old LaSalle ran great, went the song; and there was a bit of truth to that.

You say “Communism replaces the exploitive, short-sighted kleptocratic executive with his identical party member twin,” and that is very well said. It is an inevitable consequence of the Iron Law, which is a pretty nearly inevitable consequence of tax and reward structures that favor “growth” by acquisition over smaller and more stable operations. On the gripping hand, often those smaller profitable operations are not sustainable, and over time there must be creative destruction.

The advance of technology and distribution of computing power – the power to gather, hold, store, and manipulate data – changes what is possible in politics and the world. I saw that from the earliest days of the personal computer. It is a great equalizer.

All this is worth considerably more discussion at another time.

Charity, etc.

Etc. first…Perhaps those who believe in distributism should read the Honor Harrington series of SF novels, which have an arc concerning what happens to a society when the ‘dolists’ run the show. Oh, wait! Just look at the UK!

Charity – I believe that personal charity implies a social contract: I’ll help you out, but I expect YOU to help yourself to not need charity in the future. I can look the person in the eye, not to force shame, but to encourage and expect responsibility. Once Big Guv’mint (BG) takes over that role, as it largely has, that eye-contact is lost. No longer is there any responsibility, expectation or social contract.

In the recent debt-limit debate, several ‘loop-holes’ were mentioned as targets for closure. One of the options is to eliminate the charitable donations deduction. So now, BG not only has the role, but reinforces it be eliminating even the financial incentive to do ‘side charity’. I suppose the following step would to make personal charity illegal, eh?

FYI, BG employees are taking it in the shorts. Pay freezes this FY and next, and now discussions about paying taxes on health and retirement payments. The latter, of course, will ALSO be taxed upon payout after retirement, conveniently forgetting that the money has already been taxed once.

Best of health,

Dave

Inyokern

We no longer debate matters like the difference between the deservinf poor and the undeserving poor, although a tiny bit of that remains in the conversation between Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle’s father; but no one takes it seriously now. Perhaps it is time to do so again. There is a difference. Doolittle said he was undeserving poor and couldn’t afford morals…

Hope this guy gets a jury trial

Police officer shot dead after being ordered to kill man’s dogs

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2025812/Police-officer-Robert-Lasso-shot-dead-pointing-stun-gun-mans-dogs.html#ixzz1VEVFeemy

Don’t know about Pennsylvania, but around here, the Gummint would have a

hard time getting a jury to convict a citizen defending his family pets.

I know how I’d vote.

Higgs boson — or not

Scientists at CERN seem to be closing in on the Higgs boson — or, rather, they seem to be placing increasingly tighter bounds on its mass and production cross-section. So tight, in fact, that they are beginning to openly speculate that it doesn’t exist at all.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/23/god-particle-may-be-mirage-scientists-hint/?test=faces

Of course, I’ve been saying that for twenty-five or so years; not because I didn’t understand the mechanism of "spontaneous symmetry breaking" but because I didn’t believe in it; symmetry, if broken, must be broken through dynamical mechanisms. (If I had published that speculation while I was in grad school, could I be expecting my call from Stockholm this fall? 🙂 Of course, I only formulated it intuitively rather than mathematically, hence the lack of a paper trail. I’ll never make that mistake again. Until the next time…

Anyway, the question which remains is "what comes next." The article says "new physics" without defining that.

I say, following the same intuitive train, most likely preons. My personal "best guess" remains something with the following features:

a) The preons will look something like Harari’s "rishon" model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishon_model) ; however, all of the apparent non-dynamical aspects of the model should be dropped.

b) Mass is derived from the energy density of the color (and hypercolor) fields.

c) It is plausible that the quarks are expressions of an intermediate structure on the way to a set of preons which also incorporate the electrons. That is, it is plausible to postulate an entity called the sub-quark which is composed of the same set of preons as the electron, with color dynamics as the asymptotic limit of subquark binding in a fashion similar to the role of mesons in nuclear physics.

d) The families of quarks and leptons are generated as excited states of the preons. The model does not preclude higher occurrences, perhaps with properties similar to Weinberg’s Technicolor models which attempt dynamical symmetry breaking to bypass the Higgs mechanism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor_(physics) . One should not assume that the discovery of Technicolor at LHC eliminates the possibility of preons.

e) Baryon asymmetry in the observed universe is basically a consequence of the dominant preon composition of the primordial fireball at the moment the fireball became transparent to preons.

f) As a corollary to d), and similarly to the rishon model, the net preon-antipreon composition of elementary matter is neutral; that is, the combination of elementary particles (nu-e-bar, e-, p, n) contains a complete set of preons and anti-preons.

g) Supersymmetry manifests either at the preon level or at some more fundamental level of constituents; more likely the latter, since it should be a manifestation of elementary particles at the Planck length – Planck mass scale where gravitation becomes integrated, and we’re still several decades from that.

Jim

I do not pretend competence to comment on this. I can manage relativity up to having to actually solve tensors, but my understanding of quantum mechanics and QED is pretty well descriptive, not comprehension.

Mail 689 Monday, August 22, 2011

A mixed bag of items on many subjects. I can’t publish all the interesting mail I get, but I try to keep up.

‘It would be an even more dreadful outcome if all we have done by intervening militarily in Libya is to advance the Islamist wave now sweeping the Arab and Muslim world.’

<http://www.nationalreview.com/david-pryce-jones/275180/where-responsibility-lies>

Roland Dobbins

That has always been my concern. I remember when President Carter abandoned the Shah hoping for a liberal democratic regime in Iran. We have regretted that ever since.

Jerry

Subj: STRATFOR:Friedman on Libya and the Arab Spring

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/georgefriedman/2011/08/22/re-examining_the_arab_spring/page/full/

Jim

A decent summary of the possibilities and perils in the “Arab Spring.” We seem to have learned little, and our State Department professionals have never studied actual strategy. I am now told that to become a Foreign Service Officer one’s qualifications, say degrees in history and mastery of Mandarin with business experience in China is insufficient: you need to go join the Peace Corps and spend time delivering blankets in West Africa. One does not build a Diplomatic Corps of any great ability that way. God help the Republic.

One should build golden bridges for one’s enemy to retreat across; but of course that never occurs to those shouting for justice though the heavens fall.

Ernest Rutherford

Apropos an annual variation in radioactive decay rates. I do not know how good the evidence is for this, but I am sure that Rutherford would have been fascinated or thrilled by the evidence rather than shocked.

Peter D Morgan

Yes, I completely agree. Rutherford would have been thrilled.

Do understand, some dispute the evidence, but last time I looked the data were pretty solid: the variance in decay rates with seasons is small, and hard to detect – you have to be looking for it—but repeatable. There is so far as I know absolutely no acceptable theory that allows this. (The reference is the last bit of mail in https://jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=1559)

The Man Who Sold the Moon gets the last laugh.

Over the last several months, SpaceX has been hard at work preparing for our next flight — a mission designed to demonstrate that a privately-developed space transportation system can deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has given us a Nov. 30, 2011 launch date, which should be followed nine days later by Dragon berthing at the ISS.

Would they name it the Heinlein?

From the FYEOD group

Letter from England

The following paper applies to a lot of issues in public policy, not just information security: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/econ.pdf

Latest on the phone hacking scandal: http://tinyurl.com/437de2z It’s not going away for the Government, Police, or Murdoch.

UK running low on university places: http://tinyurl.com/3opfj6y

Corruption in India. Police have to back off attempted suppression of the protests: http://tinyurl.com/3p2qjhy

It looks like recession: http://tinyurl.com/3eb7xn3

—

Beware Outside Context Problems–Harry Erwin, PhD

Unemployment in the UK

It’s starting to take off, and the Government is now retrying failed solutions from the past.

See http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-stimulation-good-intervention-bad-2339456.html

—

Harry Erwin, PhD

"If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning." (Catherine Aird)

Tony Blair has a prescription for what ails the Brits

Wait for it…

More government intervention.

"By the end of my time as prime minister, I concluded that the solution was specific and quite different from conventional policy. We had to be prepared to intervene literally family by family and at an early stage, even before any criminality had occurred."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/20/tony-blair-riots-crime-family

A case worker in every living room, and all will be well. Government can fix every problem.

Steve Chu

It looks like the global downswing when the Great Depression got worse after it was thought there was a way out. Look for more floundering.

"How dare you hire H-1Bs when there are so many unemployed Americans out there that fit the job description better?"

<http://www.pcworldme.net/2011/08/16/outsourced-and-fired-it-workers-fight-back/>

Roland Dobbins

Intimidation of Lawyers

<.> The attorney-client privilege assuring confidentiality between the two parties is one of the most cherished rights of the American law system, but according to internationally recognized lawyer, author and professor Francis A. Boyle of the the University of Illinois-Champaign, government agents violated that privilege in a jarring summer 2004 visit.

Speaking to The Arab American News, Boyle confirmed recent reports that he was visited by two agents from a joint FBI-CIA anti-terrorist fusion center located about a 90-minute drive away in Springfield, Ill. in his office in Champaign, who attempted to persuade him to become an informant on his Arab American and American Muslim clients.

He said he repeatedly refused their requests to violate his clients’ constitutional rights, only to find himself placed on the U.S. Government’s terrorist watch list.

"There’s five or six of them, and my lawyer informed me that I’m on all of them," Boyle said

"I filed an appeal but they told me, sorry, I would stay on the watch list forever until the agencies that put me on there took me off." </> http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/08/21/antiwar-com-vs-the-fbi/

I have nothing constuctive to add here; my wry comments are probably in everyone’s mind anyway so I won’t repeat the obvious.   —– Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC Percussa Resurgo

I have no confirmation of the story. Clearly no comment beyond the obvious is needed if this be a true account.

RE statement you made about Soc. Sec.

Jerry:

In a response to an email, you wrote: "Those who paid into Social Security have both legal and moral rights to what they were promised in return." I can only agree with that statement in part — the "moral" part. And I disagree not because I want to, but simply because I don’t think that’s how it works (though it ought).

Check out the Supreme Court case "Flemming v. Nestor". There’s a Wikipedia write up on it. I would assume more information is available around the web. If I understand the ruling, it comes down to the unhappy fact that people do not have a legal right to their Social Security pay-outs. If I’m wrong … well, here’s one instance in which I’d really be happy to be wrong.

Cheers.

–rick grehan

Perhaps I should have said “moral and political” right? I do not believe any government could survive that asserted a right simply to confiscate Social Security.

Jerry,

Remember when Bernanke said that he could not tell you where the money went? As an aside, I lack the time to find the video; the uniformed can find the video on Google.

Here is where 1.2 trillion of it went: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-21/wall-street-aristocracy-got-1-2-trillion-in-fed-s-secret-loans.html

Bank of America (BAC) may be insolvent; that was news more than a year ago now and it is not news now. It seems only a matter of time. Even with the 91.4 billion U.S. Dollars (USD) in bailout funds — BAC’s market capitalization is only 70.64 billion USD — BAC remains in danger of collapse in 2011!

But, we no longer have free markets in the United States — the concept of a "bailout" defeats the purpose and implementation of such markets. So, who knows? Maybe Santa will keep giving away bags of money to losers who still trade shares and do business with a neoclassical model that is largely irrelevant in 2011. I believe the so-called "Global Financial Crisis" proved that, but you won’t get that story from the corporate media. Why?

The corporate media want you to tune in. If you can do your own trades and fiscal thinking then why would you tune it to see some hack like Kramer — literally (I mean it, tune in) — screaming and squealing and hitting things with mallets like he’s on Looney Tunes? He reminds me more of a clown I saw at a circus when I was a kid than a real person, but most people on TV are clowns and their audience seems to be mainly clowns as well.

You won’t get any truth from the corporate media because the truth sets you free and they want you to remain heavily invested in their company by tuning in and generating ratings. The beat goes on… But, thankfully, we have more than one beat.

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

The decline of US manufacturing

Can we reverse it? I’d say it is doubtful, because to do so will require substantive changes, both in society and in government.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/17/why-amazon-cant-make-a-kindle-in-the-usa/

RW Salnick

can’t make a kindle in the US

Jerry: Three part article on the results of outsourcing, and the destruction of manufacturing capability in the US.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/17/why-amazon-cant-make-a-kindle-in-the-usa/

Chris C=

See also http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/20/does-it-really-matter-that-amazon-cant-manufacture-a-kindle-in-the-usa/

Regulations and decrees

I saw this coming for years, and so did others.  The President likes to use federal regulations as if these were laws.  The State Department can for several pages of documents and asks several pages of questins to get a passport now — the letters the come with these requests site federal regulations; not United States Code. 

Obama planned to close the power plants; and offer GE a greater hold on the market.  Who is advising the President, isn’t it a GE guy?  Well, smack me in the head with a brick.  I think I see a conflict of interests and if government was on the other side of this thing you would probably see an investigation.  Well, the President will wait to implement a carbon tax after he beats Perry or whatever hack the GOP runs this year. 

But, what Obama does now is reduce our power and take more of our money viz. financial power.  The government is literally taking your power and not just the kind that comes in little black wires.  But, the kind in the little black wires is the kind I want to talk about:

<.>

Two state utilities said this week new federal pollution rules will lead to higher electricity costs come January.

</>

http://www.jsonline.com/business/128109718.html

Prices increase even as I type this email:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-18/u-s-july-consumer-price-index-report-text-.html

It could strain Texas’ already lackluster grid:  http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/08/19/3301808/new-epa-rule-could-lead-to-rolling.html

<.>

Over the next 18 months, the Environmental Protection Agency will finalize a flurry of new rules to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants. Mercury, smog, ozone, greenhouse gases, water intake, coal ash—it’s all getting regulated. And, not surprisingly, some lawmakers are grumbling.

Industry groups such the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, and the American Legislative Exchange Council have dubbed the coming rules “EPA’s Regulatory Train Wreck.” The regulations, they say, will cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity. Given that coal provides 45 percent of the country’s power, that means higher electric bills, more blackouts and fewer jobs.

</>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/getting-ready-for-a-wave-of-coal-plant-shutdowns/2011/08/19/gIQAzkZ0PJ_blog.html

Well, the President created one job — my research project vis-a-vis living elsewhere.  If you like, I may write a small technical summary of my findings for the community.  I am not sure when I would do it, but I might be inclined to work on it if enough people want real solutions.  I’m convinced that Wall Street will continue to rip us off, the politicians will continue to lie to us, and the media will continue to whore to anyone it can. 

Thank you for ruining this country, Mister President.  Yes we can!

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I remind you that despair is a sin. Cheer, for the devil is none so black as he is painted…

Wisdom of Pournelle

I have done a new series of quotes from the last year and a half of Chaos Manor http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2011/08/more-political-and-economic-wisdom-of.html

and also added it as an update to the previous one.

http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2010/02/economic-political-wisdom-jerry.html

Regards

Neil Craig

Mail 688 Sunday, August 21, 2011

End of the Cold War (post 2011-08-20)

Hi Jerry,

In these times of bickering over important economic issues and generally depressing other news, I’ve been reminding myself that it’s not _all_ bad news: we did survive the Cold War, which at the time provoked much depressing news also. (With an even then biased media: Regan got terrible coverage here in Australia, and as a teenager I’d not read your "Strategy of Technology" for background understanding. Didn’t find that work until the web came along.) So thanks for your post of 2011-08-20 reminding us of the fall of the USSR: painful for many I am sure — I have a Czech friend who says it was "interesting" — but pain that so far as I can tell was unavoidable.

Similarly looking for a silver lining (as you sometimes say, despair is a sin) debating the USA debt problem looks to me like progress: even if the recent brouhaha didn’t give anyone anything they wanted the issue has been raised and isn’t likely to go away quietly. The first step to solving a problem is to recognise that you have it.

Best regards,

Giles

P.S. Bunny inspectors. :sigh: I’m sure I could come up with local examples, but they’d just raise my blood pressure for no value. Should you ever want an Australian example, let me know and I’ll find you one. I’ll bet it would not be hard …

Giles Lean

It is well to remember and count our blessings. For thirty years and more we lived in fear that a madman would take power in Moscow, with its 26,000 nuclear warheads, and thousands of intercontinental missiles; with our young men and women on Christmas day down in the silos, hoping they would not hear the blare of the Klaxon and the dread words, Emergency War Orders, Emergency War Orders, This is no drill, this is no drill. I have a message in ten parts. Tango. Xray. Alfa.

I think that if we can keep things together until November 2012 we will see improvements.

The economy would immediately improve if they adopted some of the measures I have advocated.

Once again

Consumers Create Jobs

Jerry,

I noticed one of your correspondents took issue with that statement. I try to control my logic to the extent that I don’t allow it walk me off the edge of a precipice. It does not matter what the product might be, how finely and precisely it is crafted, nor how efficiently it is produced; if there are not sufficient buyers, there is little to no profit. If there is not sufficient profit, there are no additional workers hired. Doubtless you can call a number of examples to mind?

It is not at all obvious that “demand alone creates little”. While capital and intelligence and efficient production are important, without demand they are little more than a wad of money and ‘smarts’. One need look no farther than the personal computer. IBM certainly had the capital and intelligence, but was not, it would seem in retrospect, keenly aware of the demand. On the other hand, Jobs and Wozniak seemed to have a handle on the demand side of things, did they not? There are some who might say that “consumer appeal” is the driving force that has made Apple what it is today.

Ask some of your “Mac” friends.

Bruce

I am clearly unable to explain to you that I understand that without demand there is no trade; but we have tried stimulus valiantly, close to a trillion dollars, and the result is that unemployment holds high and steady. Demand alone cannot create a boom: the US for years enjoyed an economy of which a major portion consisted of opening cargo containers from China, and paying for them with money borrowed from China. There need to be jobs in the US, and those jobs have to pay enough to let the workers buy products. Demand will take care of itself. Henry Ford understood this.

Demand alone creates nothing. I can wish mightily that I had a new car, and if I wish hard enough and have the political clout I may be able to get a tax collector to take the money from you and give it to me: but when I buy my new car from China I won’t have created anything. Creation takes application of labor to materials. Perhaps I was unclear as to what I meant by creation?

I understand that too many goods chasing too little money can cause deflation, and that this was one component of the Great Depression; but it has not happened here in this cycle. Fortunately we have little inflation so far, but I would think inflation a larger threat than deflation. Our problem is not that people do not want stuff, it’s that too many either don’t or won’t work to get it. But for them to work to get what they want there must be someone employing them. And, I fear, I weary of talking in such elementary terms, and I am sure you weary of hearing them.

As to the history of the personal computer, I saw most of it happen through booms and busts, and I don’t know of any simple description of its history. I have some insights into why some companies succeeded and some failed, why Apple almost went out of business while Microsoft thrived, and the competition between IBM and everyone else; I told that story as it was happening. Is it necessary to point out that competition involves creative destruction and some companies thrive until they stagnate?

My Response To Buffett And Obama

Amen, and pass the savings account!

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903639404576516724218259688.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop&mg=reno-wsj

“What gets me most upset is two other things about this argument: the unfair way taxes are collected, and the violation of the implicit social contract between me and my government that my taxes will be spent—effectively and efficiently—on purposes that support the general needs of the country. Before you call me greedy, make sure you operate fairly on both fronts.

“Today, top earners—the 250,000 people who earn $1 million or more—pay 20% of all income taxes, and the 3% who earn more than $200,000 pay almost half. Almost half of all filers pay no income taxes at all. Clearly they earn less and should pay less. But they should pay something and have a stake in our government spending their money too. “ <snip>

Phil

I repeat: I am willing to discuss restructuring taxes as a means of equalization and fairness, but that is not what is at stake here. What the government wants is more revenue so that the 7% exponential growth of government can continue. We do not want the government to have the money. I’d rather Warren Buffet had to give more money to the Gates Foundation than that he had to give money to the government. My suspicion is that if the government isn’t going to get the money, it won’t be interested in raising taxes. Fairness demands that the money be well spent. We all know it will not be.

: Bureausclerosis

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/06/human-capability-peaked-about-1975-and.html

—

"The past, while much studied, is little read."

– M.M.

"In the first and in the final analysis, so-called multiculturalists are simply Western radicals, in the Western radical tradition, with the most imperial, dogmatic, and absolutist aspirations of all."

– Alan Charles Kors

James

Perfect illustration

This image:

http://a57.foxnews.com/www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/0/0/qaddafii_20110821_211632.jpg

illustrated this article on Fox News’ front page:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/08/21/explosions-rock-tripoli-amid-reports-rebel-advances-in-capital-116547133/

How UTTERLY UTTERLY appropriate – the left hand half of the front page picture

for this article showed a man with a shaved head giving a Nazi salute.

Mohammedanism and Nazism go hand in glove. They worked together in WW-II, with

the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem traveling to Berlin, living there for some years,

helping Hitler plan the extermination camps and raise troops in Mohammedan

dominated areas of Europe.

Read more:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/08/21/explosions-rock-tripoli-amid-reports-rebel-advances-in-capital-116547133/#ixzz1ViooojSl

This is what Obama is empowering in Libya. I have a bad feeling about this.

{O.O}

I do not know what will happen in Libya. It will certianly cost us less than Iraq did.

$3 million worth of busses

On 15 August, you wrote, “and the president buys $3 million worth of busses to take a political tour”.

Remember Gabby Giffords [D. Ariz.]?

Several reputable news sources have quoted the following:

“The buses are multipurpose vehicles, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said Thursday, and won’t just be used by Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other presidential candidates on the 2012 campaign trail. He said any government dignitary going on a bus tour or heading to a remote area will use the buses.”

The armored buses you referenced were not purchased by Mr. Obama for his personal use. They were purchased by the Secret Service. The Secret Service has been tasked with protecting our elected officials and major electoral candidates.

You are not citing an example of profligacy, as much as how life threatening it is to be, or want to be an elected official of the Republic in these uncertain times.

Charles

Charles Watanabe

I have seen no evidence that the President objected to any part of this, and he is, after all, the President; it’s not as if the Secret Service is part of the national defense. I am not at all sanguine about the increased cost of the Presidential bodyguard; to the Athenians any public official who insisted on a personal security bodyguard was thought to be a tyrant, and the Roman tried to regulate the bodyguards to specified numbers of lictors: when the Consuls began to be accompanied by Praetorians things changed. Harry Truman insisted on walking the streets of Washington, even on the day after the Puerto Rican Independence people shot up Blair House in an attempt to kill him and his family.

No, I do not begrudge the President his guard; but I do wonder about the ever increasing needs, shutting down Pennsylvania Ave., closing entire Los Angeles neighborhoods while the Presidential entourage goes through, and the rest of it.

And I do not so much consider it profligacy as arrogant foolishness, and political blindness to boot. I suspect that candidates who put walls of troops between them and the people will not fare well at the polls. But we will test that in a year.

As Harry Truman said when he insisted on taking his walk among the people of Washington, “Comes with the job.”

Private eye rescues kids in night-time missions

Jerry,

I thought that given your opinion of the public employees unions that dominate the public schools, you would find this interesting.

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=334233

My own probable response to such a seizing of my children would be nuclear.

Jim Crawford

Why are they “your” children?

I understand this is a strange question, and I have not time to write an essay on parental powers in an egalitarian republic. Under the Roman Republic the Pater familias had pretty near absolute power over his children; one Roman matron walled her daughter into a room to starve because of her moral transgressions. We would not concede such a “right” to any parent today (although we do insist that women have that right until the child has been born, but not afterwards); but what rights of control do people have? We seem to have conceded that the state knows better than the parent how to raise children, particularly with regard to punishments. We seem to believe that experts know best and expert opinions can be enforced by force even in family matters. This has not bee discussed very openly. Perhaps it should be.

Re: Regulations, Parkinson’s Law Mail 20110819

Parkinson’s book "Evolution of political though" is apparently out of copyright and is freely available in Kindle, PDF, TXT and other formats from http://www.archive.org/details/evolutionofpolit00park

Igor

I have several messages to this effect. Alas, the file is awful. The formatting is bad and the scan is bad. The book is out of copyright – apparently the Parkinson estate did not renew the copyright. I have tentative plans to put together a properly formatted copy, add a forward and some observations, and make it available at a nominal fee on Amazon Kindle. That would be a labor of love: I have some feeling of indebtedness to Parkinson. His book is readable, and the subject tends to be dull if not properly presented. He does sometimes make it a bit hard to tell when he is being serious and when he is being droll, but it’s usually pretty clear; and he knows his subject. It remains a great introduction to the history of political philosopy as well as a good read. But, alas, not in this free edition, which wasn’t proof read at all.

radiation variation

Hi Dr Pournelle – I just "found" your piece about the small, but possibly significant annual variation in the radiation rate of moderately radioactive materials. It came to me that the intensity of radiation of neutrinos from the sun would be inversely related to distance from the sun, and as most neutrinos pass right through the earth unimpeded, a direct hit by a neutrino on an atomic nucleus in a vulnerable quantum state to induce radiation would be a possible candidate for the variation. One way to test it would be to check the radiation rate of satellites containing appropriate samples as they moved further out into the solar system. It might also be a way of checking the origin and history of space rocks. A complicating factor is the propensity of nuetrinos to alter their type whilst on the move. regards Sandy

Sandy Henderson

I have no qualifications in the matter; I just know that it is very curious, and would have shocked Rutherford.