A Mixed Bag on Saturday Night Mail 681 20110702

Mail 681 Saturday July 2, 2011

 

CRUTEM3

July 2, 2011 6:53 PM

UK academic wins right to climate change data

(AP) LONDON — Britain’s information watchdog says a closely guarded dataset held by the university at the center of the “Climategate” scandal must be disclosed.

Britain’s Information Commissioner says that the University of East Anglia must hand over a selection from its database of world temperatures records, called CRUTEM3, which draws on readings dating back more than 160 years.

The dataset is one of several which maps global temperature changes over the years and climate change skeptics have long demanded access to it.

In an incident known as Climategate, a series of e-mails stolen last year from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in Britain showed climate scientists stonewalling skeptics and discussing ways to keep opponents’ research out of peer-reviewed journals.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/02/ap/tech/main20076431.shtml

HM

As the data come out we may yet learn more about this. I would still doubt the accuracy of an average annual Earth temperature to a tenth of a degree even for the present year, and I know no evidence at all that we have 1/10 degree accuracy for the year 1800 or even 1890; but at least it will be interesting to see the data.

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Global Temperature sources, Arctic

Jerry:

Reading the latest information, here in Chaos Manor, about how to ‘see’ where the numbers come from, for the Average Global Temperature, I remembered how much the DC-3 bush pilots, flying out of Resolute Bay, NWT, trusted the Aviation Weather Forecasts, in the Arctic.

They did NOT. Because there were very, very few Weather Reporting Stations in the High Arctic.

Before flying out to our Seismic Camp (which was on giant sleigh runners), they would Radio, and speak with our Crew Manager, to get a Real Time Weather Report. Since he had a Thermometer on his Office Trailer, and an Anemometer and a Recording Wind Vane, on a pole above his Office Trailer, he was easily able to tell the truth. If our conditions were good, and were not deteriorating, the DC-3 supply-flight would come out west, from Resolute Bay, to our location on the Arctic ocean ice.

We were working an area between Mackenzie King Island; Lougheed island; the north tip of the Sabine Penninsula of Melville Island, and down the west side of the Sabine Penninsula. Our Airstrip was simple to build – just about 3/4 of a mile-long, 200 feet wide snowplowed clean by 2 D6 Cats. The edges of the cleared ice were marked, every 100 steps, by a black plastic garbage bag wrapped around a 3-surveyors’ lath tripod. Three extra black plastic-on-a-lath-tripod arrangements were placed across each end, and, to mark an extended centre-line, past both ends of the ice strip, we put up about an half-mile of Flags, made triple-height, (just combine lath in a 4; 3; 2; 1: sequence, nailed flat to each other) with a black plastic garbage bag pulled down, with the open end towards the ground, and tie the top end to the lath, then bunch a bit of the bottom edge that is touching the doubled lath, and tie that off, as well. the wind not only blows the garbage bag out like a flag, some of the wind gets into the open bottom, and slightly inflates the whole thing. I inspected the setups, from out Bell Jetranger helicopter, after each new DC-6 snowplowed ice stip was marked, and the extended centreline flags were easy to see, plus the edge & end markers also showed up well. snow never stuck to any of them, because the rippling caused by the winds made the snow fall off!

The Seismic Crews, working in the High Arctic, worked from October thru mid-December, then returned in late January (after the worst of the storms had gone). We still had a weeks worth of emergency food in each vehicle, due to the danger of a Blizzard making it impossible to see well enough to drive. And I have driven into the base of a 90-foot-tall cliff, when I strayed off of a previously-driven trail, on Banks island. My Rolligon’s headlights suddenly stopped glowing thru the flying snowflakes, and the 6-cylinder ford diesel tractor engine stalled. I started the engine, and backed up, gazing in wonder at a perfect imprint of the grille-guard, in the snow-covered cliff-face – until a big chunk of the snow-cornice arrive from on high!

I do wonder how good Climate Forecasts can be, when Weather Forecasts suffer from wildly-variable spacing of Weather Reporting Stations. I have looked up the number, and placements, of Weather Stations which launch at least one Weather Balloon a day, and see the scanty numbers as not being enough for coverage. The Arctic, the Antarctic, the pacific ocean, and Africa, all do not have many Weather Stations, and the ones that are there are not evenly spaced, either!

Regards,

Neil Frandsen

in Lethbridge, Alberta, where the Chinook Winds _blow_. or not… Grin.

Ah but they are doing it the easy way, determining the average temperature of the entire Earth. Much simpler than in your case.

 

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I got a .50 ’cause they don’t make it in .51

http://www.guncrafterindustries.com/

J

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

Dwight David Eisenhower

I will stay with the Colt Government Model myself.

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Where in the Constitution does it say that anything harmful to minorities is illegal?

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said today he will appeal a court ruling that overturned the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which bans the use of race and gender preferences in college admissions and government hiring and contracting.

Schuette said he will make a formal request for a rehearing with the appeals court, a move that will keep the civil rights initiative — known as Proposal 2 — in place at least temporarily.

“MCRI embodies the fundamental premise of what America is all about:

equal opportunity under the law,” Schuette said in a statement.

“Entrance to our great universities must be based upon merit, and I will continue the fight for equality, fairness and rule of law.”

A federal appeals court today overturned Proposal 2, saying the voter-approved measure harms minorities and is unconstitutional.

From The Detroit News:

http://detnews.com/article/20110701/SCHOOLS/107010416/State-to-fight-ruling-against-ban-on-race-in-college-admissions#ixzz1QtUcbwmD

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Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Bill Buckley was fond of saying that we need a new Constitutional Amendment. It should say “nor shall any state for reasons of race or sex deny to any person the equal protection of the laws, and this time we damned well mean it.” Of course that can never happen.

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Sarkozi — who is not French but Royal Hungarian — had two aids who posted about Strauss-Khan on Twitter vis-a-vis the alleged rape 30 minutes before the arrest happened. How would they know? Well, it’s a set up right? Their excuse was they had spies following him and that is how they knew. It’s in google. It is worth knowing. It happens all the time, but this is a great public event where normal people can take 10 minutes of time and learn something. Maybe you could write a view on it?

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Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

I expect DSK told them. One possible story: he was seduced and accepted the offer. He was then warned by someone in the DA’s office of the coming auto de fe in his honor. He sent his story to aides. Of course that’s just a story, but it’s a lot more likely than the one told by the maid.

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Afghanistan logistics not yet dumb enough

They’re even talking air. Uncle Sam wept.

Gregory Cochran

U.S. turns to other routes to supply Afghan war as relations with Pakistan fray

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-turns-to-other-routes-to-supply-afghan-war-as-relations-with-pakistan-fray/2011/06/30/AGfflYvH_story.html

What are you, an isolationist?

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Libertarian Republican: Bachmann – Palin Mud Wrestling match?

Jerry,

Perhaps this would be the proper method for the Republican Party to nominate a Presidential candidate? May be even make it pay per view to fund the campaign?

http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2011/06/bachmann-palin-mud-wrestling-match.html

Jim

I do not think either would participate. For perhaps different reasons. But I can think of other interesting mud wrestling matches. Think of Pelosi—

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going John Galt

 

Message Body:

Dear Doctor Pournelle,

I’m in a bad mood today, but it seems to me John Galt was right.

Since we are punitively taxing the rich, and since we are now going after the means of creating wealth, I am serously considering saying to hell with it and just voting democrat. If that’s want people want, if we have to crash everything in order to rebuild it in a more rational manner … then let’s go ahead and get it over with. The best way to crash everything at the moment seems to be to vote democrat.

I know, “despair is a sin,” and all that.

Jim

Sounds like IWW logic.

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The DSK Affair surfaces again View 681 20110702-2

View 681 Saturday July 2, 2011 – 2

It was a bizarre story from the beginning. Dominic Strauss-Kahn, CEO of the International Monetary Fund and presumptive Socialist candidate for President of France, was arrested with fanfare, perp walk, and press conference by New York authorities. The District Attorney is the son of Cyrus Vance, Kennedy’s Secretary of the Army and Carter’s Secretary of State, and it was his press conference. The charge was that DSK had forcibly raped a hotel maid, supposedly after he came out of the shower to discover her presence in the $2,000 a night suite; overcome with lust, he forced her to have sex with him. Then he tried to flee the country. Incidentally, the DA is running for Mayor.

DSK is pretty well known as a womanizer, but he is also very rich, and New York is a city with no shortage of models, escorts, and call girls of various degrees of elegance. One suspects that for less than the cost of the suite DSK could have been met as he emerged from the shower by a far more attractive young lady than a Guinean single mother working as a hotel maid. The French reaction from a Socialist leader:

To tell the truth, everybody knows that Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a libertine; what distinguishes him from plenty of others is his propensity not to hide it. In Puritan American, impregnated with rigorous Protestantism, they tolerate infinitely better the sins of money than the pleasures of the flesh. It would be easy to trap a personality so unresistant to feminine attractions as D.S.K. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/05/the-dsk-affair.html

It’s a reasonable reaction, and one that ought to have occurred to Cyrus Vance. If ever there was a situation made to order for a detective story, this was it: wealthy man, bizarre crime, victim with a very unusual story; no witnesses and little evidence other than the story of the victim; but apparently the temptation to have a say in French politics was too much for Mr. Vance, thus the perp walk and press conference before any real examination of the credibility of the accuser.

Now, it comes out, there may have been a few flaws in the case. The victim turns out to have made up stories before, to have asked at least one shady character how she could make money out of this, and to have received a rather large sum of money from some mysterious friends: exactly the elements one expects to find in a mystery story. I suspect we will see a Castle episode about this sometime in future. It ought to play well. Cyrus Vance Senior was often accused of credulity in dealing with the Russians. Apparently it runs in the family.

Of course this proclivity to believe the worst about anyone of stature is a rampant part of the modern age. For decades we have had best selling mystery novels in which the major plot element is that the most venerable and respected person in the story is inevitably the villain. We have seen episode after episode of Law and Order in which murders are never committed by street urchins or hoodlums: it’s always by a Park Avenue physician, or a stock broker, or the socially prominent wife of a wealthy professional, or – well, you get the idea. Prior to those, Ross MacDonald made a career of villainizing the prominent members of Santa Barbara county. And, of course, there had to be the fetish of giving greater weight to the (improbable) story told by an illegal immigrant hotel maid than to that told by a high ranking member of the international ruling class. The irony is that DSK is a prominent Socialist and liberal intellectual. I am sure that Mr. Vance would have been much happier had the supposed rapist been, say, Sarah Palin’s husband, or Rush Limbaugh rather than DSK; but when you’re running for Mayor against a fortune, you take what you can get for publicity.

We still don’t know precisely what happened in that hotel suite, but there was a time when everyone automatically would have suspected: maid sees opportunity, offers sexual favors to prominent and very wealthy man, continues to clean the room afterwards, and contemplates how she can make a bit of money out of the deal. That may not have been what happened, but most of my generation would have suspected it from the beginning. DSK, after all, could have afforded the most expensive call girl in Manhattan, and the hotel will not lack people who can tell him how to make the arrangement in case he didn’t know. “Go take your shower, monsieur, and when you emerge someone will be waiting…”

Ah well. Perhaps Cyrus Vance, Junior, doesn’t read detective stories.

And we have not heard the last of this one.

School Thought Experiment View 681 20110702

View 681 Saturday, July 2, 2011 – 1

I’ve been catching up all day. I’ve been working on fiction, including getting some older books ready for Kindle publication, but also on the new novella with Niven and Barnes. This takes place in the Legacy of Heorot world, and is set in the time between that first book and Beowulf’s Children. (The Kindle version of Beowulf’s Children is in preparation.) We are calling this a novella but it will be about 50,000 words, which was a novel when I got into this racket.

There’s a ton of stuff to write about, but it’s late.

Thought experiment: in most cities now the average expenditure per child in school is $10,000. Now High Schools may have different requirements, but in my time, grade school was 2 grades to the room, about 20-25 students to the grade, and a teacher with a 2 year Normal school degree. Imagine now that we take a four-year degreed teacher, give her 25 students, and $200,000. She is free to do with the money as she sees fit, but for every student who doesn’t get a passing grade (we’ll quibble about how we go about determining that another time) she gets docked $8,000, and for every student who gets outstanding grades she gets a $10,000 bonus. Again we can quibble about how all this is determined, but assume it’s meaningful and real, not just a way to stroke the unions. She’s free to teach anywhere she wants; we can be sure that capitalism will take care of offering classrooms for rent with desks and chalkboards and all the expected accoutrements. She can hire assistants as she likes. She can buy or rent computers, and Internet connections. In other words, she is free to try what she likes and keep the profits, so long as the kids learn, and she can go for the bonuses.

Do you think this would be an improvement over what we are doing now?

It’s late. Good night.

 

War and Defense Mail 681 2011701

Mail 681 July 1, 2011 – 3

An Opening Note: I am composing this with cut and paste special in an ordinary Word window, after which I will convert it to Word Blog and go through and apply a style to my comments. At some point I am going to develop a “reply” style I can apply to my replies so I don’t have to use “quote”, and thus can use “quote” for quotes within mail to me.

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The end of cheap Verizon High Speed Data

Jerry,

After resisting mightily for several years, I finally succumbed and upgraded to a Verizon smart phone. I made my bet on Android and purchased a Samsung Droid Charge….More for the spectacular screen than for any other reason. So far, I am simply delighted with it.

Of interest to you, with your high speed internet access issues, and possibly to your readers, is the cost of high speed access. When I purchased the phone a couple weeks ago I was required to purchase a $30/month data plan. On the Verizon LTE (4G) network, available to me here on Long Island, NY, internet access is quite speedy….and since the phone can act as a data point for my netbook, the potential for large amounts of data makes the Verizon plan very attractive: $30/month for unlimited data!

The week after I committed to a 2 year renewal, one of the Droid sites reported that Verizon was going to terminate their unlimited plan in favor of a tiered usage plan. My $30/month would only purchase 2 GB!

I immediately contacted Verizon customer service (always a dreadful experience). The CSR I spoke with had not heard of this plan change and headed off to speak to her supervision….when she came back she confirmed it. But she also stated that existing plan users would be grandfathered in….both for their current contract AND for all future renewals!!

Since I have been burned by Verizon in the past and have become somewhat paranoid in dealing with them, I asked if she could email me a statement to that effect. I expected her to have to either clear that email with management or simply refuse. Much to my surprise and delight, she sent me that email the same day.

The point to this longer dissertation than I had expected is simply this: the $30/month unlimited data plan is STILL available to anyone under contract by July 7th. Given the skyrocketing cost of data across all the various providers, it will quickly amortize even the outrageous early termination fees charged. It might just be the most cost effective solution to your travelling high speed internet access needs.

And lastly, I highly recommend the Samsung Droid Charge….so far at least…it just works and that display really is wonderful. On the other hand, if any device is in need of “The Missing Manual” this is the one!

Warm regards,

Larry Cunningham

This really ought to go in Chaos Manor Mail and I may duplicate it there. Thanks. I will Tuesday 5 July head out to Verizon to see what they offer me: I can just about afford $30 a month to have known reliable unlimited data, but on the other hand I don’t travel so much any more. If AT&T had offered that I would probably have bought it: at the moment it costs me $50 for a gigabyte and the account is good for a month. I have used about 170 mb in the past two days here, but some of that was installing some programs and doing some updates. It’s clear I can’t do all my connectivity at that price. It’s not clear that I need a permanent road warrior solution. Thanks.

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AFRICOM: AF, Navy still flying Libya missions – Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq – Air Force Times

Jerry,

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2011/06/defense-africom-air-force-navy-flying-libya-missions-063011/

This is reminiscent of covert ops in Cambodia. Unfortunately; the mendacity is more blatant and unlike the Vietnam War which was just one battle in the Cold War, there is no cogent argument that the Libya intervention much less the overthrow of Mubarak serves US interests. The only explanation that seems plausible is articulated in Dinesh D’Souza’s, “The Roots of Obama’s Rage”. Obama views Mubarak and Quadaffi as NeoColonial puppet regimes that have to be overthrown because they made peace with the US. This doesn’t serve US interests.

Jim Crawford

One can make a case for wringing Qadaffi’s neck as being in the national interest pour encourager les autres; that is, as a general message that you shouldn’t down US planes with bombs, and you should not unduly annoy the President of the United States. Actions have consequences. Ghadaffi in particular has earned some special attention from the US. But if that is the objective, it ought to be accomplished and gotten over with: surely we do not want to send the message that we will bankrupt ourselves pursuing but not catching our enemies.

The odd part, to me, is that if the explanation is the rage of the President, why doesn’t he just do it? Running about dropping bombs in a rather uncoordinated way enriches no one. Except for those who make bombs, of course.

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Missile Defense

Jerry,

There was a letter in yesterday’s Washington Post proposing eliminating missile defense as part of the budget deals:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-good-start-for-pentagon-cuts-missile-defense/2011/06/30/AGPYBmsH_story.html

What I found interesting is that the author (a partner with Ted Postol of MIT) admits that the Russians would have to treat a missile defense system as effective, whether or not it truly was. As I recall, this was an argument that you had used in in the past to argue in favor of the system — the Russians would have to assume it would be effective, and therefore would have to expend that much more to overcome it.

The author here uses the same point to argue against the system, saying that the Russians and Chinese would have to build more to overcome the defenses (which he views as a bad thing) and would therefore not be as willing to enter into arms control deals.

Karl

The Constitution states that we should provide for the common defense, not for Mutually Assured Destruction. MAD Deterrence was important in the early times of the Post WW II Cold War, but the goal should always have been Assured Survival, not Assured Destruction, and when Reagan turned to that, it became the decisive move in the Cold War. A Navy and Coast Artillery – with BMD being the modern equivalent of coastal defense – are required.

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Who’ll keep taking Windows Tablets in the iPad era? • The Register

Jerry: Article on some of the history of Bill Gates 2001 tablet:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/01/windows_tablets_then_and_now/

Chris C

An excellent ramble by Andrew Orlanski , last man to be using a Psion. He talked me into trying to use mine. It was a great idea, but it never quite got there. Having said all that, I will continue to say that the HP TabletPC plus OneNote made in combination the best research tool ever made, and had that been updated with a faster CPU and more memory and storage, I think it would have caught on. I love mine to this day even though she’s old and cranky and slow and a real fussbudget. But there’s something great about being able to scribble a note. Nowadays it would be possible to make that in two pieces with a Bluetooth keyboard for production work and the on screen keyboard for notes and stuff. I’d buy a really good update of LisaBeta in a heartbeat. I can recall doing an entire COMDEX with no other computer, and while the swivel keyboard made typing a bit awkward compared to, say, a ThinkPad, I was able to file daily reports plus a show report, and still keep up some of my BIX conferences, all from the Press Room; at nights I could use dialup to do some work with mail. Those were busy times, but I sure loved that machine. I would really like to see a revival of the Gates-inspired tablets.

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1998 Bronco Accident

Your pictures were impressive, as was your narrative that you were only going 35 mph or so when it happened. However, looking through your photos, I found it impossible to identify which tire was blown. Either the tire is too stiff without a load on it to be very flat, or AAA threw the spare on to make it easier to pull on the flatbed.

Makes a very good example of why drivers shouldn’t exceed the recommended speeds for their tires. A blowout at 65, 85, or 105 mph has far more catastrophic results than you experienced at 35. Accidents at 105 mph shred vehicles into small pieces. Tire Rack.com, http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=35 has a good set of charts on how to read load and speed ratings on tires. What they don’t mention is that is the ratings are only for brand new tires. Their load and speed capabilities degrade with wear and as the wire and ‘cloth’ belts break inside. Hit a few curbs too hard, and you’ll have breaks which look like scuffs and dimples in your tire (especially the sidewalls). If you figure on a 20% degradation in strength (a very loose guestimate), you’re down into the ‘normal’ high speed ranges. Take a look at a few cars tires in the parking lot; it gets very sobering.

As for giving up cruising Death Valley, just don’t do it solo anymore. Make a couples weekend of it with Larry & his wife. And don’t forget to bring your puppy.

Mike Houst

Well, I wasn’t going very fast for a desert dirt road, and had there not been that stupid berm on the side of the road I wouldn’t have rolled. I certainly wasn’t exceeding the capabilities of the Bronco II. Alas, something had damaged the tire or rim, and I hadn’t known that.

Cruising alone in Death Valley was never all that good an idea to begin with. And it’s a lot drive out there. Great old days though. Niven and I wrote some of the best Footfall scenes in a beat up old motel out on the ridge overlooking Death Valley…

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