When the Earth Was Warm; Iran will get the bomb

Chaos Manor View, Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Bastille Day

On July 14, 1789, the Paris mob aided by units of the National Guard stormed the Bastille Fortress which stood in what had been the Royal area of France before the Louvre and Tuilleries took over that function. The Bastille was a bit like the Tower of London, a fortress prison under direct control of the Monarchy. It was used to house unusual prisoners, all aristocrats, in rather comfortable durance. The garrison consisted of soldiers invalided out of service and some older soldiers who didn’t want to retire; it was considered an honor to be posted there, and the garrison took turns acting as valets to the aristocratic prisoners kept there by Royal order (not convicted by any court).
On July 14, 1789, the prisoner population consisted of four forgers, three madmen, and another. The forgers were aristocrats and were locked away in the Bastille rather than be sentenced by the regular courts. The madmen were kept in the Bastille in preference to the asylums: they were unmanageable at home, and needed to be locked away. The servants/warders were bribed to treat them well. The Bastille was stormed; the garrison was slaughtered to a man, some being stamped to death; their heads were displayed on pikes; and the prisoners were freed. The forgers vanished into the general population. The madmen were sent to the general madhouse. The last person freed was a young man who had challenged the best swordsman in Paris to a duel, and who had been locked up at his father’s insistence lest he be killed. This worthy joined the mob and took on the name of Citizen Egalite. He was active in revolutionary politics until Robespierre had him beheaded in The Terror.

The garrison of the Bastille consisted mostly of aging soldiers posted to soft duty as a form of honorable retirement. They were slaughtered to a man.

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view318.html

There is no way to be certain, but it is probable that the entire Earth–almost certainly the Northern Hemisphere– was warmer in the 11^th Century than today. There is more data but it has not been made available to the general scientific community. The latest solar activity predictions indicate that the next few solar cycles will be quieter. We do not have records for more than 170 years, but the last time we had a prolonged period of minimal solar activity included the so-called Maunder Minimum, and fell in the middle of what is now called The Little Ice Age.

We know the Earth was warmer during the Viking Period, possibly – I think probably – than it is now.  In 1325 there was a noticeable change in weather patterns in Northern Europe, and by the 1700’s the Thames froze over. In 1776 the Hudson froze hard enough for Col. Alexander Hamilton to bring the guns captured by Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys from the British fortress at Ticonderoga across the Hudson ice to General George Washington in Harlem Heights, thus covering Washington’s retreat from the encircling British General Howe. It was a decisive event of the Revolutionary War. During the 18^th and 19^th Centuries there was a period of unified warming (interrupted by The Year Without a Summer q.v.). Note that the interruption of solar radiation caused by Tambora had a decided and recorded effect on annual temperature; it was neither predicted nor predictable, and climate models do not accommodate it – although periodic variations in solar output can have effects on the solar radiation Earth receives.

<snip> Greg Kopp of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, pointed out that while the variations in luminosity over the 11-year solar cycle amount to only a tenth of a percent of the sun’s total output, such a small fraction is still important.  “Even typical short term variations of 0.1% in incident irradiance exceed all other energy sources (such as natural radioactivity in Earth’s core) combined,” he says.

Of particular importance is the sun’s extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation, which peaks during the years around solar maximum.  Within the relatively narrow band of EUV wavelengths, the sun’s output varies not by a minuscule 0.1%, but by whopping factors of 10 or more.  This can strongly affect the chemistry and thermal structure of the upper atmosphere.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/ has much more of interest.

Climate Scientists Road to Hell

https://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2012/12/27/climate-scientists-road-to-hell/

particularly the first cartoon.

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

PhD Comics: Dante’s Inferno, Academic Edition

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1813

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

It is almost certain that the “deal” with Iran makes it certain that Iran will have one or more nuclear weapons within a year of Obama leaving office. He will be able to say it didn’t happen on his watch.

Good afternoon, Dr. Pournelle,
Regarding the treaty with Iran, I’ve added a few links from The American Conservative for a different perspective:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/iran-past-the-paranoia/
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/obamas-legacy-will-be-with-iran/
I don’t like the current US president, but in this case I think he is making the correct choice. And the question still remains: so what if Iran gets nuclear weapons? Israel has a lot more of them, and frankly I’m more concerned about the leaders pursuing the so-called “Samson Option” in a moment of paranoia.
Regards,
Don Parker

It may well be that we have no choices now, and may not have had any for two years. Israel is unwilling to begin all-out war with Iran by striking their nuclear facilities; Iraq, their historic enemy, is weakened, and much of Iraq is now under control of Iran and Iranian Shiite allies including the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

https://altairastrology.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/algol-and-pluto-two-astrological-hobgoblins/ 

Skimming through old journals I found http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view370.html which is the View for the week including July 14 back in 1985. It’s mostly stuff from the past, but it does have my views of the Wilson/Plame affair, which most have forgotten. If you have any interest you will find them there.

Matter to be considered:

8614ACommercial Space Accident Report—

In-Flight Breakup During Test Flight, Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo, N339SS,

Near Koehn Dry Lake, California, October 31, 2014.

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/07/14/2015-17377/sunshine-act-meeting?utm_campaign=subscription+mailing+list&utm_medium=email&utm_source=federalregister.gov

: The BATTLESHIP—

Interesting facts …
Not only is the picture awesome but so are the statistics!
During the 3-1/2 years of World War 2 that started with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and ended with the Surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945, “We the People of the U.S.A.”  produced the following:
22 aircraft carriers,
8 battleships,
48 cruisers,
349 destroyers,
420 destroyer escorts,
203 submarines,
34 million tons of merchant ships,
100,000 fighter aircraft,
98,000 bombers,
24,000 transport aircraft,
58,000 training aircraft,
93,000 tanks,
257,000 artillery pieces,
105,000 mortars,
3,000,000 machine guns, and
2,500,000 military trucks.
We put 16.1 million men in uniform in the various armed services, invaded Africa, invaded Sicily and Italy, won the battle for the Atlantic, planned and executed D-Day, marched across the Pacific and Europe, developed the atomic bomb, and ultimately conquered Japan and Germany.
It’s worth noting, that during the almost exact amount of time, the Obama Administration couldn’t even build a web site that worked.

“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” – Voltaire

You didn’t see this on the “News at Five”

But, from the UK: 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3003142/Boys-15-charged-killing-dog-walker-botched-robbery.html

More evidence that the media is tainted.  Freedom (bs) of the press.
A man out for a walk with his dog last week was gunned down by two black teens. And when police found the man’s body, they made a heartbreaking find right next to it.   
As NBC Philadelphia reported, the three black teens got “bored” playing basketball and decided to go rob someone. After seeing one man with a large dog, and deciding not to rob him, they then saw 51-year-old James Patrick Stuhlman walking his terrier.
Stuhlman typically walked his dog with his 13-year-old daughter. But on the night of his murder, March 12, he had told her to stay home because it was getting dark out, which very likely saved her life.
As he walked down the street, Stuhlman, who owned a local landscaping company, saw three teens approach him.. Then they grabbed and robbed him, and shot him once in the leg. They could have just taken his money and ran at that point. But they did not.
“At one point, he did plead for his life, ” Captain James Clark said Thursday at a news conference, according to the New York Daily News. “He said, ‘Please don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me,’ and they still shot him one more time.”
That second shot took his life.
So “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” really did happen   – not in Ferguson – but in a Black-on-White capital murder in Philadelphia.
So can we expect Barack Obama and Eric Holder to demand a civil right investigation? Don’t bet on it.
Police have arrested 15-year-old Brandon Smith.. They also arrested a 14-year-old whose name has been withheld – because he is supposedly a “child.”.
They said they decided to rob Stuhlman because his dog was smaller than their intended first target. The shooter who gunned down this father in cold blood, 15-year old Tyfine Hamilton, is “still at large”. Philadelphia police consider him “armed and dangerous.”
Smith has been charged in relation to the murder and is still in custody. But the unnamed teen was inexplicably just charged with robbery despite being an accessory to murder. Police are offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Hamilton.
  < u>
Typically, the teens have all been in trouble with the law in the past. It is stunning at what early age vicious murderers are now made. 15? Unbelievable.
Capt. Clark warned Hamilt on at a press conference: “Get with your parent and turn yourself in before we come and get you…We know where you are.”
Philadelphia Police Lt. John Walker said that when police arrived at the scene Stuhlman was laying in a pool of blood and was already unresponsive. The family man still had his flashlight in his hand.
But what police found next to him was heartbreaking. His dog was pawing him, sniffing at his face, and whimpering. “The dog was lying next to him – appeared to be scared and in shock,” Walker said.
“His daughter goes for a walk with him almost every night,” Clark said. “For whatever reason, he said to her, ‘it’s a little late tonight I don’t want you walking with me.’ So in effect, he may have saved his daughter’s life.”
Thank God he did, but that is small consolation for the young girl who is now without a father, and will forever fear walking at dusk, thanks to the savage brutality these young monsters inflicted on her own dad.
Author’s personal note: I don’t usually do this, but feel I must. The media is censoring this story. You know why. They made the Michael Brown fraud front page news for months. But they will bury this REAL “Hands up, Don’t Shoot” horror. It is up to you to share this article with everyone you know. We can bypass the media censorship and get the truth out there. Thank you.

“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” – Voltaire

F-16 kicks F-35’s tail?
Dr. Pournelle,
I’ve overfilled my quota for contacts to you today, but thought that you might not have seen this : http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/07/disastrous-f-35-vs-f-16-face-off-was-also-a-battle-of-philosophies/
Reminds me a bit of your comments on TFX. Someone apparently forgot requirement number 1: “Fight and win,” but it was probably not a career-enhancer, anyway.
-d

There are still few prizes for second place in an air superiority contest. And there are still good reasons why ground support aircraft do not make good air superiority weapons, nor air superiority aircraft make good ground support operations craft. The missions are different, the pilot skills are different, and the career paths for the people involved are different.

How World War III became possible: A nuclear conflict with Russia is likelier than you think – Vox

Jerry:

I offer some interesting speculations on how WW-3 could get started.

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war

IMHO, the author discredits himself at the end when he cites the prospect of Nuclear Winter. However; it is still interesting.

The bottom line is that the most probable trigger for WW-3 is NATO expansionism provoking Russia to assert itself militarily. The provocation of Ukraine crisis by Obama and Hillary Clinton by inciting the coup against a constitutionally elected government might go down in history as just as insane as the assignation of Arch Duke Ferdinand which incited WW-1.

James Crawford=

Russia doesn’t want a world war; they haven’t enough Russians to survive winning it. What Russia needs is Russians, in areas contiguous with Russia. They tried colonies (East Germany for example) and those did little for Russia. Putin is not Comintern; he is Russian. Of course he wants Crimea, and Kiev. They are part of the heart of Russia as he understands it.

I had reference to this in another conference; it is still valid, and may be of interest.

HOW TO GET MY JOB

Jerry Pournelle

This was originally published in the December 1996 BYTE as part of my regular column. I have added a few sentences here and there, but it’s mostly unchanged. It was true when I wrote it and I have no reason to think differently now.

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/myjob.html

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.