Usurpations, education, amusements, and more

Mail 708 Thursday, January 05, 2012

Sorrow for Harry Erwin’s passing Dr Pournelle

I feel sorrow for the loss of Harry Erwin. I have prayed for the repose of his soul and for the comfort of his family.

I knew Harry only as a correspondent to Chaos Manor. Even at that great remove, Harry made my life richer. I shall miss him.

Thank you for introducing me to Harry Erwin.

Live long and prosper h lynn keith

This is typical of many messages I have concerning the late Harry Erwin. His Letter from England was read by many people, as were his astute comments on science and education. We will all miss him.

Power Grab III

Another power grab, this one is a jobs program:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/01/white-house-cant-wait-to-help-young-people-get-summer-jobs/

—– Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC Percussa Resurgo

I am unaware of the numbering scheme you are using, and I suspect that I would assign a far higher number if I were numerically tracking the current President’s usurpations, but it is a rather breath-taking achievement. From the article:

“America’s young people face record unemployment, and we need to do everything we can to make sure they’ve got the opportunity to earn the skills and a work ethic that come with a job. It’s important for their future, and for America’s. That’s why I proposed a summer jobs program for youth in the American Jobs Act — a plan that Congress failed to pass. America’s youth can’t wait for Congress to act. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Obama said in a written statement. Given that there are a dozen House passed bills lying dormant in the Democratic controlled Senate, this is pure politics and usurpation of the power of Congress. If the Democrats really want to help they can do a bit of compromise across the aisle; but since the President’s sole strategy is to run against a “do nothing Congress,” it is very much in his interest to be certain that Congress does nothing by killing all House bills in the Senate. And the people never catch wise.

Hot Mic

An interesting hot mic.

As C-SPAN was waiting for President Obama’s Defense Strategic Review press conference to begin a hot mic caught a reporter taking a swing at Ron Paul.

"See this room? Two-thirds of us laid off when Ron Paul is president," the reporter said.

Before the comment was made, the reporter could be heard laughing about Ron Paul.

Soon after the reporter made his remark C-SPAN turned down the audio while an anchor announced the details of the press conference. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/01/05/hot_mic_at_pentagon_presser_catches_reporter_see_this_room_two-thirds_of_us_laid-off_when_ron_paul_is_president.html

—– Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC Percussa Resurgo

Another data point on the supposed objectivity of the media.

From Bunny Inspectors to Whale Feeding Regulators

(Note the catch-all "lying to investigators" charge, thrown in to ensure that she’ll be found guilty of SOMETHING and they can claim that this was a successful prosecution at the end-of-year budget-justification review.)

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_19675364

Grand jury indicts marine biologist for allegedly feeding killer whales in Monterey Bay

By Howard Mintz

A prominent Monterey marine biologist who specializes in the study of whales is the target of a federal grand jury indictment accusing her of violating various marine mammal protection laws, including two alleged instances in which she fed a killer whale in Monterey Bay’s waters.

Nancy Black, whose expertise on killer whales and other species has been featured everywhere from National Geographic to Animal Planet, was charged in San Jose federal court Wednesday with committing the violations in 2004 and 2005 while operating her whale watching business in Monterey Bay.

The four-page indictment alleges that Black twice violated provisions of federal laws barring a host of activities involving protected marine mammals in national marine sanctuaries such as Monterey Bay. Among other things, the indictment alleges that Black violated provisions that bar the feeding, or attempted feeding, of whales, a rare prosecution under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

…Black is also charged with lying to investigators about altering an October 2005 video of a whale watching expedition involving possible illegal contact with a humpback whale in the bay. Monterey Bay was designated one of 13 federal marine sanctuaries in 1992.

Should we be borrowing money from China in order to investigate and prosecute people who may have fed a whale? Is this a reasonable use of public money in a time of bankruptcy? Yet another instance of the Iron Law in action.

Colonizing the asteroids

Dr. Pournelle,

I’m not sure how much bearing your L5 Society lunar colony project has on colonizing the asteroids. I would think that asteroid mining would look more like the boom towns of the American west in the 1880’s, with large numbers of transient young men showing up to a dig, then moving on as the strike plays out.

It seems to me that what you’re really after is something more like what happened in the Midwest (or the Northwest, as it was then called) or the Great Plains. Those settlers were looking for what we would call an independent career, and a chance to own real property that produced an income. The factors which made that possible were relatively rich natural resources of food, fuel, and building materials; relatively cheap transportation (via the Mississippi river system and the Great Lakes/Erie canal/Hudson River system, and later via railroad); and security, from both physical and legal threats. I could probably make a case that the early English colonies embodied the same three factors.

I’m not sure what piece of attainable real estate would encompass those three factors, but I’m pretty sure that’s what is required to engage individual aspirations in developing "another basket" for our "eggs".

Neil Tice

Question about e-mail formatting

Jerry:

I’m curious as to why the e-mail you posted from me in Mail 708 about the marine cribs came out double-spaced.

I’m one of those old-fashioned guys who tries to use only ASCII plain text in e-mail. I use Eudora, which does not put a hard return at the end of each line, and I double-space only between paragraphs.

I notice some other e-mails you posted display as double-spaced, but many others do not.

Best regards, –Harry M.

I view mail in a plaintext preview window, and copy and paste from that. Your mail, pasted into Word, has a carriage return at the end of each line as well as a double cr at the end of each paragraph. I have a macro to deal with that, and I have used it on this mail – which did have that feature – but I don’t always think to do that until after I post. I ran it this time.

Health Care, Your Response To Jim

Jerry,

One of the wisest things our Founding Fathers did was leave us with a living constitution. They understood that they could not write a constitution in 1787 that would remain 100% in accord with our society into the indefinite future. So, while the intentions of our Founding Fathers are important and must be considered carefully in any debate over the meaning of any clause of the constitution, their intentions cannot be the only consideration.

That being said, I agree with you over the issue of health care and general government involvement with anyone’s personal life. When I become responsible for paying for another person’s health care, do I not also become responsible for their behavior? Do they not become accountable to me for making bad choices? This is where seatbelt laws and helmet laws come from. If we follow this line of reasoning, should I not have the right to make smoking out-right illegal as it is the source of nearly half of our national health care woes? How about teenage pregnancy? The list goes on.

So, how can I be responsible for the health care bills of all Americans without being allowed to control their actions? Is this what we all want?

Kevin L. Keegan

You either believe in self-government and consent of the governed or you do not…

Health Care as a Social Concern

When it comes to infectious diseases we are not individuals. We are all vectors in the disease pool. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the growth of cities which have always been pools for infectious diseases. I suspect this is not unrelated to the growth of welfare states, from Bismarck’s to Roosevelt’s at the time. Nobody, no matter how libertarian, says people in cities should be free to store shit in our apartments. The great Victorian public sanitation systems were carried out by city governments run by unrepentant capitalists.

For the long term i.e. decades not presidential terms, the important fact is that infectious diseases are no longer serious killers (with the possible exception of AIDS) but diseases of age and lifestyle to which we react as individuals not vectors. This means that much of the social basis for welfare is gone.

In some ways i regret this. As a society we are far richer than the Founders could imagine & we can afford to look after people to an extent they couldn’t.

Neil Craig

B36

The article referenced in your post about the B36 mentioned watching B36s flying out of San Antonio is in error. The B36 was never stationed at Kelly field. That was the XC99, the one cargo version of the B36. In 1954, I was an aviation cadet going through preflight training at Lackland AFB. About once a week, the XC99 would take off hauling cargo to a base on the west coast. After taking off from Kelly AFB, the XC99 would circle around over Lackland at about 2000 feet. Quite an impressive sight and I will never forget the sound. Not quite the same as the production B36 since it didn’t have the four J47 jet engines.

Chuck Anderson

Education in the Nation’s Capital

Jerry,

The new year has brought some rather interesting, if conflicting, attitudes in DC towards education:

D.C. bill mandates college application for high school diploma Brown also wants all students to take entrance exams http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/3/dc-bill-mandates-college-application-for-high-scho/

EEOC: High school diploma requirement might violate Americans with Disabilities Act http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/1/eeoc-high-school-diploma-might-violate-americans-w/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

Karl

Hawking turns 70

Jerry,

http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/01/05/3638890/stephen-hawking-to-turn-70-defying.html

I think I first heard of Hawking, as a high school student, in my first-ever issue of Galaxy, which featured a column about a Niven-Pournelle field trip (to JPL? Stanford?) to hear him speak. "Fuzzy black holes have no hair."

(I can’t however say that it influenced my career choice — that was set when I decided to become Fred Rodebush and Lyman Cleveland in 8th grade…not that I’ve gotten close to that. Yet.)

Jim

Pentagon Day Care Center

Sir:

I had not checked into your site for a quite a while. I was totally consumed with a special study for KSC much of last year (into other uses for the VAB) and with various other personal things since then.

I had not heard the story of the Marines circling the cribs but I was at the Pentagon for 4.5 years, 1988 -1993, and can tell you that the installation does have a day care center. It is not located within the 5 sided structure itself but is on the edge of the parking lot on the side nearest to the White House, to use an imprecise direction.

This location means that it is perhaps not "near" the impact point of the airliner on 9/11/01 (compared to some other parts of the building) but it was not very far away at all and was within easy sight of it. It is not at all difficult to think that the people operating the day care center would be concerned with evacuating it; the smoke from the impact area may have been reason enough. As I understand it from people who were in the main building at that time, all non-essential personnel were evacuated in any case.

May you have a Happy New Year!

Wayne Eleazer

The Marine story was probably a myth, but it’s the kind of myth we are not harmed by knowing. Removing myths from the world is not always a good thing.

‘Our government has built an anti-Constitutional framework that can and will eventually be turned against our citizens.’

<http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/our_growing_police_state.html>

–

Roland Dobbins