| Tuesday, October
28, 2003 I am supposed to go
down to the PDC this morning and perhaps I will, but this cold plus the
smoke are not making things easier. I may pass PDC today and have a look
tomorrow. Thursday is the Security presentation and that I will certainly
get to.
Meanwhile:
Dear Mr. Pournelle:
Our new issue is out, and it includes a cover story (by me) called
"Why
We're Not Losing the Culture Wars Anymore"--it's on the blogosphere
and the
revolution in conservative media. you may find it of interest:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_4_were_not_losing.html
I've also linked several other pieces you might want to look at--Victor
Hanson v. Francis Fukuyama on the direction of history:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_4_why_history.html
Heather Mac Donald on policing in L.A.--and what challenges Willam Bratton
faces:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_4_chief_bratton.html
Steve Malanga on who runs New York City(the municipal unions and the
social services groups, working with the increasingly powerful Working
Families Party):
http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_4_who_runs_ny.html
Plus other interesting stuff you'll want to look at on our site.
Hope all is well,
Brian C. Anderson
Senior Editor
City Journal
I have to confess I haven't looked at any of this,
and I have not seen City Journal before. I'll get to that when I can.
Thanks
Why am I not surprised?
WASHINGTON - A Web site that encourages students to
rate their teachers has been banned from hundreds of schools across the
nation and administrators are saying it's a distraction and an
abomination.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,101353,00.html
Loren
I have mixed emotions about this kind of thing.
But given the mess our schools are in, student ratings by teachers can't
do a lot of harm. What will never happen is any kind of teacher
accountability: the unions will not allow that. While in theory a teacher
union might protect a good teacher against a capricious principal or
school board, we all know that in practice the unions protect the
incompetent against quite valid complaints.
More on the costs of Iraq...
"Mechanics working on Marine Super Stallion
CH-53-E's, he continued, have found an average of 150 pounds of fine sand
distributed "throughout the aircraft."
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Oct2003
/n10222003_200310226.html
E.C. "Stan" Field
Hardly astonishing. As the President said this
morning, "Iraq is a dangerous place." Mesopotamia has been the
graveyard of a hundred armies of conquest, as well as the scene of the
first and most important Arab victory (Kadisiyah, where they won against
Rustam the Regent of Persia and thereby made possible the Muslim
conversion of Persia).
Just in case you haven't seen this one yet:
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/7100991.htm
Thanks for all you do!
E.C. "Stan" Field
Thanks. I know of a dozen such vulnerabilities.
Plus of course the wildfires. With about 200 dedicated agents in a
coordinated attack you could do some real damage to the United States, in
ways that would make 911 look tame. Most intelligent people know this. But
of course the remedy we get is TSA, and the persecution of Tom Butler.
Maybe I should write an end of civilization
thriller. The Y2K books were silly, but that doesn't mean all such would
be.
Jerry
Someone agrees with you:
October 28, 2003: Official Washington has been
atwitter recently over a memo, intended for strictly limited internal
distribution in the Department of Defense, but leaked to the media by a
person or persons as yet unknown. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had
drafted this memo with a number of "thinking points" to spur
debate and discussion amongst his staff. The media and political
opposition have since trumpeted their interpretation of this memo with
lurid story leads and headlines screaming "Rumsfeld Questions
War," or some such. A closer examination reveals that nothing could
be further from the truth.
Rumsfeld asked EXACTLY the right questions of his
most trusted subordinates. In his seminal work vom Krieg, Karl von
Clausewitz challenges military commanders to ask the same sort of
questions. It is the leader who questions nothing, and never countenances
that some preconceptions might be misconceptions, for instance an LBJ, or
a Jefferson Davis, that leads his nation to military disaster.
<snip>
http://www.strategypage.com/fyeo/
howtomakewar/default.asp?target=htlead.htm
Ed
I'm not astonished that Dunnigan comes to the
same conclusions I do. When we disagree we each take another look; I have
considerable respect for his views.
On the PDC
What the NYT had to say:
found on opinionjournal.com's best of the web for
Monday.
Just Wait Till Last Year "Some 7,000 people
have registered to attend Microsoft's professional developers conference,
which begins today in Los Angeles. The turnout is a record, Microsoft
says. The computer professionals will be shown glimpses of Microsoft's
next version of Windows, named Longhorn, which will be built using Web
services standards. Microsoft has not said when Longhorn will be ready,
but it is not expected to be shipped until late 1995 or 1996."--New
York Times, Oct. 27, 2003
The title of this excerpt was hyperlinked to (I
believe) this site at the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/27/technology/
27neco.html&OQ=pagewantedQ3Dall
Jim Woosley
All true, but rather superficial. Alex and I are
both there (well I am not just at the moment but will be this PM) and
we'll have a full report in BYTE as well as some details here.
There were over 100 press, which is a record in
itself.
Re: payment to the New York Times...
The New York Times online edition DOES require
registration, it DOES NOT require payment.
Articles "age off" after a certain number
of days, and are sent to the archives. Articles in the archives require
payment before they can be read. --
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Freedom of speech isn't
working out so well for liberals now that they aren't the only ones with a
microphone. It's not so much fun when the rabbit's got the gun." --
Ann Coulter
Gary R. Utter utter@syndicomm.com
Be vewwy vewwy quiet...
Dr. Pournelle,
Here is yet another validation of your premise that
manufacturing job loss is both significant and a crucial issue for our
economy. There are some interesting points in this article as follows:
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P62365.asp
"...Manufacturing jobs in the United States pay
an average of $650 a week or about $34,000 a year, according to
outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Retail jobs, in
contrast, pay an average of $373 a week, or about $19,000 a year. Even as
the recovery starts to pick up speed, the U.S. economy is shedding
$34,000-a-year jobs and replacing them with $19,000-a-year jobs..."
Isn't THIS a crucial issue, and one that is
frequently overlooked?
-- Gary, looking forward to more adventures by
Glloway & Co."
Aristotle defined democracy as rule by the middle
class. The middle class are those who possess the goods of fortune in
moderation. Retail jobs don't make one middle class.
The glory of the US was the enormous middle class
that included many blue collar workers. That was why communism never got
far here. Recall that fascism was Marxist in outlook too: Communism would
end class warfare through the dictatorship of the proletariat and the
liquidation of the middle class AKA bourgeoisie; fascism forced the
classes to work together by putting the state, as a coalition of middle
and upper classes plus church and army, above all class warfare.
The American alternative was Aristotelian
democracy. Whether that's possible with the increasing differentiation
between those who benefit from sending jobs offshore -- executives, the
managerial class -- and those who lose by it -- the working classes -- is
not entirely clear. And yes, I understand that cheaper goods are supposed
to benefit all of us, and I continue to point out that the costs of job
export are not accounted against that. Social disorder and alienation are
terribly dangerous but economists never take those into account.
==========================
One opinion, FWIW. I don't mean
to offend or upset, but I've gotta say something to get it out of my
system.
I've been following the discussion on Drudge about
the upcoming CBS "biopic" of Reagan.
Disclosure: I was raised in a "yellow-dog"
Democratic household; the family had been Democratic for almost as long as
the Democratic party has existed as such. With that background and under
the influence of liberal friends, I voted against Mr. Reagan in '80 and
'84, giving heed to their arguments that he would roll back certain
socially liberal/libertarian policies that they (and I) generally favored.
However, my transformation had already begun under
the previous administration, trying to listen to Daddy try to defend the
amnesty of the Viet Nam era draft evaders after he spent almost 6 years
over there. And listening to him talk about Carter's charlie fotxrot in
the Iranian desert in March of 1980 (as experienced on the ground, though
I admit he didn't really give a lot of details...) And listening,
virtually every time he gave a political opinion, say something that was
radically at odds with everything I was reading in the Democratic
literature and hearing on the news...
In any event, by the time '88 rolled around,
switching parties was at most only peripherally related to voting my
pocket book, instead being rather firmly based in comparing Dukakis and
Bush I, even as discounted by my father's choice personal commentary
regarding Bush I. Because I had seen that my friend's social-based
concerns were mostly groundless -- and that the economic and defense
policies of the Republicans were generally to be preferred. (With a strong
wish that a shift closer to libertarianism would be possible, but that's a
different story.)
Anyway, back on what's being disclosed on Drudge
about the upcoming Reagan telepic. As you can see from above, I came to
being a Republican too late to be a Reagan Republican, and so never
developed the respectful attitude towards the gentleman held by my new
political role models. Despite that, Drudge's descriptions of the way
Reagan is being portrayed by James Brolin ("Mr. Barbara Striesand")
are sickening. Claiming that Reagan referred to himself as the
anti-Christ? Claiming that Reagan said that AIDS victims are getting what
they deserve for their sins? In scenes where the claims cannot be
corroborated?
Drudge reports today that Mrs. Reagan is seeking to
have the production stopped, and I sincerely hope she succeeds. This
abomination goes against everything that the liberals in the Democratic
Party claim to stand for -- which only goes once again to prove how
shallow have become their beliefs.
http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/
2003/10/24/20031024_134805_rr4.htm
http://www.drudgereport.com/rr5.htm
(link good this evening but likely to be moved to the Archive site
tomorrow).
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/
emmetttyrrell/et20031023.shtml
<snip> some exerpts which summarize my
reaction fairly well:
To dramatize Reagan's alleged neglect of AIDS,
"The Reagans" depict the president making a moralistic statement
about AIDS victims that he never made. Even the scriptwriter admits the
statement was a fiction. An even more contemptible slur included in this
miniseries about a man who at the age when most are in retirement ran the
largest corporation on earth is the stress the Hollywoodians put on
Reagan's supposed forgetfulness. This is high drama for a Hollywood
scriptwriter -- for, you see, Reagan now ekes out his daily life through
the fog of Alzheimer's disease... A bestselling book of his lifetime
correspondence, "Reagan: A Life in Letters," shows a sharp mind
at work right up to retirement. Yet the 92-year-old former president does
have Alzheimer's disease. His wife, family and friends live with great
sadness, and for Mrs. Reagan grave burdens. So what can we say in the end
of CBS's broadcast just now of this anti-historical life of a great man?
We can say A) the child-like mind of the Hollywood artistes ignored
"the evidence," and B) CBS and the producers of "The
Reagans" have publicly committed an act of remarkable cruelty.
Jim Woosley
I do not intend to watch that. We knew Reagan
before he became a politician. As Republican County Co-Chairman of San
Bernardino County in 1964 we invited him to come speak at the Orange Fair
Grounds, and Mrs. Pournelle (County Co-Chairman) was among the first to
urge him to run for public office. We saw the research notes he used for
his speech. There was nothing wrong with his reason in '64, or '68.
In 1981-85 he personally read all the reports of
the council I chaired and the papers General Graham and I and others
produced on SDI. There was nothing wrong with his reason in those years. I
lost contact after 1988.
I am not astonished that this particular
Hollywood outfit has committed an act of cruelty. Why should I be?
FOR a mild instance of what's going on now
http://www.noindoctrination.org/cgibin/
display_record.cgi?uid=270
===================
I have several letters on
this, but haven't been able to get to them:
Jerry, I'm running Mac OS 10.3, and I can assure
that Expose bears about as much resemblance to any version of Window's
Cascade or Tile function as an AR-15 does to a club with a nail in. Expose
is simply so many orders of magnitude more useful and elegant that it's
not even worth comparing the two. With a touch of a key it quickly and
seamlessly scales down all the individual windows, proportionally and with
the content still running, and then restores them the same way. However,
it's rather like telling you that Gene Kelley dances pretty well in Singin
in the Rain; you really have to see it in auction to believe just who good
it looks. And its one of those interface innovations that after you've
started using it, you wonder how you lived without it. Tell you what: Get
your hands on a current Mac running 10.3 and press F9. If, at the very
least, you don't go "Damn, that is nifty!", I'll buy you a drink
(alcoholic or non-) the next time we're both at the same science fiction
convention.
Cheers!
Lawrence Person lawrence@io.com My Web Page: http://www.io.com/~lawrence/
Nova Express: http://www.io.com/~lawrence/nova.html Lame Excuse Books:
http://www.io.com/~lawrence/lame.html
I'll have a 15" Mac in a few days.
====================
The fear here is not of dirty needles. No, it is of
rumours that the vaccine itself has HIV. Africa is such a pathetic place.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?
type=healthNews&storyID=3697456
*Northern Nigerian States Suspend Polio Campaign.* /
Mon October 27, 2003 12:17 PM ET / (Page 1 of 2) ABUJA, Nigeria (Reuters)
- Three states in northern Nigeria have suspended a polio immunization
program led by the World Health Organization (WHO), saying they suspected
it spread AIDS and caused infertility, Nigerian officials said on Monday.
In Geneva, the WHO said there was no question about
the purity or safety of the vaccine it used.
RP
================
And more revelations about SCO
SCO, in their eternal quest to reach new lows of
absurdity, claims in court filings that the General Public License is both
voidable and unconstitutional. For example, their "Eighth Affirmative
Defense" states
"The GPL violates the U.S. Constitution,
together with copyright, antitrust and export control laws, and IBM's
claims based thereon, or related thereto, are barred."
To quote our esteemed host, "ye flipping
gods."
Full details, analysis, and reasonable s/n ratio at http://www.groklaw.net/
Steve Setzer
===============
This hadn't escaped us:
Subj: The fire-god awakes?
About an hour ago I finally finished reading “The
Burning City". Remember the last page?
“Yangin-Atep feeds the fires that move a billion
automobiles and a million airplanes everywhere in the world. Not cook
fires alone but also automobile and diesel motors are each a nerve ending
for Yangin-Atep. The god’s nerve trunks reach along freeways, paths that
once ran through forest, then and still Yangin-Atep’s tail. From time to
time the fire god’s attention shifts, and then the Burning comes again…”
In the very same place, yet.
--Milton
=================
Jerry,
The link posted for the NYT article on Levitt
requires purchasing the article. However I found a free copy at:
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/03/030803.levitt-nyt.html
Roy Harvey Beacon Falls, CT
================================
Jerry:
Drug Prohibition has worked exactly as well as did
Alcohol Prohibition!
The Law of Unexpected Consequences is _still_
working well, with the poorly endowed with Etical Scruples selling the
refined products of humble plants at a very high markup, enriching the
bottlenecks in the distribution chain something wonderful.
We are not enduring an Heroin War, nor a Cocaine
War, only because the Producing States are belly-crawling weak, compared
the the Military of their best customers.
All Drugs, including Alcohol, are much better legal
for Consumption, with well-understood consequences for consuming to
Intoxication, and then operating a motor vehicle, or going to work. The
highly educated and skilled North American Agricultual Community would
out-produce the other couintrys, and come up with a higher quality
product. As an example, it is rumored that West Coasts of the US and
Canada grown Marijuania is sold in Mexico, at a profit!
To give the harried Traffic Police some help, a
Hand-Held Sniffer, capable of detecting the metabolites of all known
Intoxicating Drugs (including Alcohol), is a mandatory chunk of equipment.
Security Gruards at Offices and Factorys, as well as foremen and
Supervisors, also each need one. My own experiences with those silly
enough to come to work, or consume intoxicants while at work, lead me to
conclude that such a Sniffer-Brick would be a literal Life-Saver!
I am a retired Seismic Surveyor, who worked in
Northern Alberta and BC, in the Arctic, and in the High Arctic. Alcohol
and Marijuana were the bigger problems, with other Drugs a lesser problem
only because of their cost. Total Prohibition of all "Recreational
Drugs", in Bush Camps, became the Default Solution. This irritated
the "Old Hands", but saved the Crew Manager, the Operator, the
Drill Push, the Cat Foreman, and the Surveyors, many problems. The 18 to
22 year-olds had to do their experimentation on their own time!
We really need a King Canute, to place his Anti-Drug
Throne at the Low-Tide Line, then have his Hangers-On, who claimed that
The King can DO Anything, to stand fast and see how well the Tide obeyed
his command to stop. Our many Drug-War Experts, who keep claiming that
more money and people will enable Victory "real soon now"
(thanks, Dr. P.), do remind me of King Canute and his hangers-on.
Neil Frandsen bigfootneil@shaw.ca Apt 601 535-8th
Street South Lethbridge, Alberta T1J 2J9
Unintended consequences indeed.
I have mixed emotions on all this.
=================
Hmmm, but would I really want it in my back yard?
;->
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2568084521&
category=4661#ebayphotohosting
Aleta
And cheap at the price, too...
g
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