|
Wednesday,
April 21, 2004 The latest from
Baghdad, dated April 14:
The last two days have been very eventful. We
have been going on patrols with the unit [1st Armored Division] that we are
replacing and the patrols have been very productive. We have seen action
almost every time that we leave our compound and a mission the first night
netted two known terrorists plus a cache of weapons. We have been very busy
and the operations tempo doesn't look to let up anytime soon.
The patrols also bring us in contact with the
Iraqi people. Most of the area we patrol is very friendly towards us, but
there are some rough spots. The city transitions from urban slum to suburban
middle class to junkyard with shanties to palace like houses very quickly.
Our patrols take us through huge gardens, open air markets, tenement
housing, landfills and industrial centers. It is very strange. The children
run to the sounds of our vehicles and anytime we stop and dismount we are
surrounded by cautious but very inquisitive crowds. They understand that we
mean business, but they also are not too afraid to have fun at our expense.
One boy stuck his hand out to my squad leader in a gesture of friendship
only to pull it back and run it through his hair when SSG [staff sergant--name
withheld] reached to shake it. The crowd and the soldiers all laughed
together at that one. The adults range from happiness to indifferent to
contempt. The women usually the first two.
The young men, like I mentioned before are the
ones we watch out for. The city is in pretty bad repair throughout, but many
people appear to be overweight which leads me to believe that living
conditions cannot be too bad for everyone.
The call to prayer is rarely heard in Baghdad
though it seems nonstop in the outskirts where we live. As for what you can
send me: I need a nice brush like a paint brush or shaving brush to clean my
weapons with. The sand gets everywhere. Any kind of beverage powder or
something to flavor water with would be great. Baby wipes are always nice
and magazines to read. Other than those things, I am not wanting for much.
I'm sure a list will develop after I really see what we have around here.
Classmate's end note:
I'm sure as time goes on these updates will be
less frequent, but at this time his family (my brother, his sisters and
mother) is interested in how he is settling in, and what his needs are.
(Notice the plural on the weapons--I think he has four, in total, a roof
mounted M-240 machine gun (on his Humvee), an M-240 for dismounted
operation, an M-4 carbine, and his 9mm sidearm, so he's got a lot of
cleaning to do!)
=======================
Subj: Marines' alt TV project in Iraq: progress
report
Today's _Wall Street Journal_ online, on the Editorial
Page, reports that, as of Tuesday afternoon, 20 April, Spirit of America had
received $707,750 of the target amount of $100,000 for the US Marines'
project of restoring seven small TV stations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
Yes: over seven times the target amount.
WSJ says: "Jim Hake is stunned by the response. He
says his friends in the Marine Corps are stunned. We are not."
Purchase of the equipment is now proceeding. Since the
project exceeded its funding goal, "Mr. Hake [founder of Spirit of America]
says ... the rebuilding and upgrading of community TV stations in Iraq can
be extended."
Thank you, Dr. Pournelle, for helping spread the word;
and thanks to all who contributed.
I'll keep my eye out for further progress reports --
none on spiritofamerica.net yet, as of 07:37 Eastern US time 22 Apr 2004.
Rod Montgomery==monty@sprintmail.com
Good. I am in fact not really astonished...
==============================
Subject: Civilian Contractors in Iraq
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ginmar/260699.html#cutid1
Livejournal post from a female soldier in Iraq. She
has some general complaints but also a longer bit about civilian contractors
in general. From this one data point, it seems like using civilian
contractors as REMF's may be transfering soldier's frustrations from the US
military to the US civilian population. Yet another down side of using
civilian contractors as we all know there are hazards when the military
stops respecting the population is is supposed to protect.
Other of her postings are here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ginmar/
Brian Renninger
==================
Subject: Interesting, if accurate.
Two pages:
http://www.villagevoice.com/print/issues/0416/vest.php
------ Roland Dobbins
But how can you tell? I can't.
Subject: "too unrealistic"
http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATODAY.com+-+NORAD+had+drills+of+jets+as+weapons&expire=&urlID=9961878&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fwashington%2F2004-04-18-norad_x.htm&partnerID=1660
--- Roland Dobbins
Perhaps not...
Jerry,
"Iraq is rich in the most dangerous resource -- idle
young men."
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TP
Story/LAC/20040417/DOUG17/TPComment/TopStories
Food for thought!
-P.
But easily forseen...
=====================
Now this is pretty bold, no?
Illegal in the US and yet making demands on the system.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29323-2004Apr20.html
Sue
It is called anarcho-tyranny. The US will tell you
that you must spend huge sums to educate backward children, tear out your
walls to allow wheel chair access, ban smoking in various places, have your
scissors confiscated in airports -- but can't enforce control of the
borders, or prevent terrorists from taking flying lessons and then using the
airplanes as cruise missiles.
It is much easier to enforce pettifogging
regulations on law abiding people than it is to catch bad guys; so guess
which course bureaucratic tyrants will pursue?
Eventually you have a nation that simply doesn't
care to be law abiding. You have a generation of vipers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/national/nationalspecial2/18COW.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1082532729-R9KC8LQGC0uyj7eN7mtFvQ
We have sown the wind.
And see below
===============================
Subject: More Hydrogen
house in Myanmar
And why didn't the Myanmar eco-house builder just use
the electricity from the PV cells? There are serious losses in the
electrolysis process.
"The gas is used as a domestic heater to provide hot
water to a stove or burner, and operate a fuel cell to produce electricity
for other appliances."
Okay, maybe a hydrogen gas heater is more efficient
than an electric heater. But there's no way in heck that running your lights
on
PV --> electricity --> H2 from water --> fuel cell -->
electricity
is as efficient as running your lights on
PV --> electricity
What a joke.
Steve Setzer
It is an X project, and I for one applaud their
efforts. I'd like to see something of the sort done in Mojave. Yes: direct
electric is more efficient; but if you are using solar energy, "efficiency"
isn't the only goal. At the moment the trick is to develop all parts of a
system to avoid use of fossil fuels. One of those is developing mobile
storage systems, such as fuel cells. There are no hydrogen wells, so you
also need a way to generate hydrogen. The process makes waste heat. Houses
need heat. Tuning that kind of interdependent system is worth learning
about.
Subject: minor mea culpa on the H2 house
A neighbor reminded me that solar cells don't work at
night (duh!) and that fuel cells are more efficient storage than batteries.
The efficiency of the electricity --> H2 -->
elecricity process is about 37.5% (.75 * .5)
The efficiency of batteries is about 30%.
So I guess they chose a good model after all.
Still, I'm looking for H2 wells...
Steve
Well -- yes.
========================
Following is commentary to my
BYTE.COM article this week. FYI I do the
entire 10,000 word column at one whack and the BYTE editors chop it into
weekly segments. This week is mostly on greed, Hollywood, digital cable,
etc.
The fact that if you have "premium" channels or
digital cable you have to tune in each channel manually when you want to use
it is not a problem, it is a scandal. For two decades I have been able to
program a whole sequence of programs on different channels on the VCR - and
conflicting programs on different VCRs - and watch them when I have time -
(and I haven't watched a commercial in years}. This ability is vital to me.
Therefore I cannot get premium channels or digital TV, even though I would
like some of those channels. New channels are not being added to analog
cable. The problem is cable companies' utter refusal to deal with this
intolerable problem for 25 years. I heard some standards people were working
on it but that was years ago. I have not heard of any reason why the decoder
cannot be put in a separate box from the evil manual tuner which is 25 years
out of date (how often do you use your 25 year old desktop?). This would at
least solve the problem for the first 165 channels. I would be very pleased
if you flamed the cable companies in your upcoming piece on entertainment
systems.
Richard Hunt
But many premium channels would not exist without
advertising. I agree this is a big problem. Microsoft is working on some
technical fixes; I'll know more about that when I get back from Seattle in
mid-May.
Incidentally, many digital tuners have some
features not available on the clicker you get from the cable company, but if
you buy the clicker direct from the tuner maker the buttons are there and
they work...
=======================
Blows
against the Empire
Creative Destruction and the Tax Payer (An Appeal)
I was heartened to read your ideas on a "Tax Payer's
Union".....Right up to the last line: "Ah Well. We can dream".
In this age of instant communication, is the idea of
at least going through the initial motions of constructing such an entity
really a total impossiblity?
Is there no one among your readers who would want to
even 'play' with the idea, at least as a mental exercise?
It is just within the past few months that I have been
envisioning an "Employee Rights" organization that lobbies for what its name
implies. Personally I believe that lobbies are a horrific allowance within
our political system. But if you can't beat them....
Your idea of a Tax Payer's Union is much wider in
scope, and could ideally be even more useful.
To my immense frustration, I have little to no
knowledge of how to structure an organization. But I can envision people
among your readers who DO know how, and who can peruse the bylaws and
organizational structures of existing organizations to come up with a
skeletal structure for so fascinating an idea as a "Tax Payer's Union".
I can further envision some among your readers who
have marketing experience getting this to play on the internet. The trick of
course it getting them together. That would require only a response.
I can read, I can write, I can think. I have no idea
where to begin, but I would be willing to do whatever grunt work that my
time allows to further such an endeavor, should I be asked.
Denny Hullihen Lancaster, PA dennyh_60@yahoo.com
Faith, ye're welcome to try... and see next.
Warning: read the comment that follows as well.
Subject: Publicizing restricted information
Greetings, Doc.
Your mail from Monday, Apr 5, included a note by
Patrick that the TSA's employment application includes an NDA regarding the
application itself.
If Patrick wishes to publicize this application or any
other unapproved information, he has several options. One is to send mail to
John Young ( mailto:jya@pipeline.com
), maintainer of the Cryptome web site (
http://cryptome.org ). This site archives quite a few data that the
powers-that-be would rather be kept quiet. The US gov't hasn't shut him
down, though it seems they'd like to -- the FBI recently came to visit Young
at home to try to impress upon him the homeland security implications of his
site and to protest the publication of FBI agents' names (
http://cryptome.quintessenz.org/mirror/fbi-cryptome.htm ). (Note that
the imperial federal government is allowed to be careless with the personal
data (and property, well-being, and lives) of its subjects but that the
members of the government are to be protected from the scrutiny subjects.)
Young is good at keeping secret the identity of correspondents who wish to
remain anonymous.
Another option is to use anonymous remailers to send
the information to individual mail accounts or to mailing lists that might
be interested. Two web-based remailer front ends are at
http://www.gilc.org/speech/anonymous/remailer.html and
https://riot.eu.org/anon/remailer.html . (The latter is in principle
more secure because it uses a secure HTTPS connection to the user's browser.
On the other hand, their certificate seems to be broken, so the user can't
actually confirm that it's a secure connection. Use at your own risk.) A
mailing list that is interested in things of this nature is Cypherpunks (
mailto:cypherpunks@ds.pro-ns.net
).
Regards, Steve Furlong
Use at your own risk, indeed.
I will point out that John Young is hardly
reliable, having published a list of journalists who were supposedly CIA
members that included the entire directory of an organization that included
many people who were never part of the Company and never worked for it.
Thus when he lists FBI agents' names one might want
to have the salt shaker handy. I know for a certain fact that some of the
people he has identified as CIA agents never worked for the Agency in any
capacity. Being identified as CIA can cause problems obtaining visas to many
countries.
People I have some regard for have no regard for
him, and question the statement that he is "good at keeping secrets."
I posted this yesterday in haste without paying
sufficient attention. Thanks to those who have pointed this out. Keep the
salt shaker handy.
Subject: _Let's Discuss Prices_
<
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/view303.html#Thursday > Best bit of
fiction I've read from you in a while; I'd encourage you to finish it. As
for real life, your proposal may be a bit extreme, but I'm open to
contributing to more moderate endeavors. Thanks for the Fred link; I've got
sensitivity training this month, and that may help me to avoid taking it too
seriously.
Keep your head straight. Be sensitive. As I am,
always...
From Jim Hightower's website.
http://www.jimhightower.com/air/read.asp?id=11329
'You've heard of the Bush Doctrine of Preemptive
Strikes, used as an excuse to attack Iraq and whoknowswhere next. But
there's a companion doctrine here in "The Homeland" called the Bush Doctrine
of "Contained Dissent." '
--G
Sir:
Here is something that might interest you: an
open-source link-editor for HTML.
Andrew D. Todd
http://rowboats-sd-ca.com/adtodd1/adt01.htm#htm_linker
Thanks!
=======================
What it's like to surrender
to spyware:
http://news.com.com/2010-1032-5187106.html
--- Roland Dobbins
Beware!
===================
Subject: The old Shell Game
Dear Jerry:
Recent events have made me wonder just how many troops
we do have in Iraq. It seems that force protection and convoy security which
, in my day, were done by military police, have now been turned over to
civilian contractors, as have the mail, the mess halls and a host of other
functions.
This is the typical Harvard MBA approach to to the
military : focus on your core business and outsource the rest. Stateside, in
non combat zones this may save money in the short run. In a combat zone it
is pure lunacy to trust civilians to do any major support function. The
reason is very simple: They're civilians and not subject to normal military
control or discipline. With troops, you are promised a job, but if that job
is not aviialble or you are needed elsewhere, you can be ordered to new
duties.
That's happening right now with all of t5he soldiers
in Armor and Artillery units who are being converted, at least for the
moment, to Military Police duties. The hidden reserve of the military is all
of those people who do other things than carry a rifle. Push come to shove,
they can and do carry a rifle and in a combat zone that skill set comes in
very handy. A case in point is PFC Miller, the welder with the 507th
Maintenance Company who about a year ago won a Silver Star for taking out an
enemy mortar position and nine enemy soldiers. The more such jobs you
convert to "civilian" the less capable the force becomes. Now the so-called
"security guards" doing convoy duty are "former" soldiers whose employers
get between $1,500 and $2,000 per day for their services. How does tusing
them instead of line troops save the government money?
This does reduce the number of "soldiers" needed in
Irag, but its basically a con. More money spent for the force needed so that
Rumsfeld et al can keep the headcount of "troops" down. Last I heard we had
over 20,000 contractor personnel in Iraq, all of whom are targets for enemy
action. This whole idea of doing the military part of this war on the cheap
actually turns out to be very expensive. I think we've been conned from the
beginning about this war; the cost, the effort, etc. And as Barry McCaffrety
said on CNN the other day, we have eight of our ten Army divisions bogged
down there. We have, as he put it "shot our bolt." First Armored is being
held there at least another three months to deal with the current uprising.
I said at the begiining this thing was a tar baby. Seems I underestimated
just how much of one it would be. Like you I wasn't in favor and feared the
worst.
Well, here we are, stuck. Can't solve it with the
troops on hand and no one else wants in; most of those in want out. No
suprise then that the Pentagon has asked the Selective Service to prepare
for a "selective" draft.
Sincerely,
Francis Hamit
Indeed
More news from the front:
Hello Dr. Pournelle.
I'm pulling another of those awful long lights.
I watched a few minutes of BBC earlier today while
eating. I found what the reporter said interesting. He talked about how the
hearts and minds of the Iraqi people had been lost over the last year, and
everyone thinks things are worse and worsening. Then he said that some polls
disagree. Like all of the ones I've seen. I'm wondering why he bothered to
include that pesky detail.
As for preventing 911, I agree that without the
immediate repeal of our PC rules, it couldn't, and can't happen. There are
lots of people out there, and while the US has lots of resources, it can
still be spread too thin. I've been astonished at some of the things I've
heard were done back there in the world in the name of security.
It turns out I've left some of the War World books
back at my home. This shouldn't terribly impact my work on the AV product,
though it would be nice to have them at hand to ensure I've been
comprehensive and checked everything.
I was thinking earlier today about some of the
unexpected implications of computers. I am writing to you, an author whose
books I've been reading for decades, and after I send this I'm going to
compose a message to another of my pen pals, a playboy playmate from the
60s. Earlier I exchanged mail with my brother. I was able to check on the
books and movies I ordered from Amazon, though I was unable to convince
Norelco to send me a new electric razor since I'm not in the continental US.
These are amazing times, and I don't think we appreciate that fact enough.
It hasn't been that long, as such things go, since being here was one of the
better options for exile. Neat.
I thought for a while about spinning a metaphor for
the arrests that sparked the current troubles in Iraq using a hypothetical
arrest of somebody like Jesse Jackson, but I find I lack the courage. Too
much of a risk I fear.
On a more fun note, I have been ordering Buffy and
Angel DVDs here. Next I just need Buffy season 6 so I can watch the musical
episode.
Sandy Bones
========================
CURSES!
Subject: Now THIS is useful! Importance: High
<<An tInneall Mallachtaí - The Curse Engine.url>>
http://hermes.lincolnu.edu/~focal/scripts/mallacht.htm
Rod McFadden
Yeah!
==============
On Partitioning Iraq:
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
I have read Carroll Morse's "The Case for Partitioning
Iraq". I find him shockingly naïve -- at least, I prefer to think that it is
naïveté, not depravity, that causes him to write so.
At a minimum, I would ask what he expects to have
happen when the Turkish (Iranian, Syrian) army sweeps across the former
border, intent on murdering all the Kurds (Arabs, sincere Muslims) it can
find? Perhaps he feels that his reply is made when he writes: "Ten years
after Rwanda, the international community should be "sophisticated" enough
to offer the people of Iraq something more than a promise that they will not
be victims of ethnic violence unless it is violence perpetrated by legal
residents of their home state." Yet, I think that the current "ethnic
violence" -- to phrase it mildly -- in Sudan is clear refutation of his
idealism.
We may certainly question the conditions and reasons
why we invaded Iraq, or why we decide to occupy it for any length of time.
If we are determined that it be partitioned among its neighbors, however,
let us say and do so explicitly.
------------------------------------------------ John
W. Braue, III <braue@ratsnest.win.net> http://www.win.net/ratsnest/log.htm
"Gold cannot always get you good soldiers, but good
soldiers can always get you gold" -- Niccolò Machiavelli
I would have thought it clear that any partition
would have to be accompanied by border guarantees backed up by the US
Military. What the US hath put asunder let no man join together... Or steal.
TOP
CURRENT
VIEW Wednesday
|
CLICK HERE for
a Special Request. 
