| Thursday,
September 30, 2004 Subject: flight today
I caught the discussion on Brokaw this evening. He
appeared to be making fun of the roll and how they will never get paying
customers when that is a risk. This evening I spell "clueless" B-r-o-k-a-w.
Jim Woosley
Most of the press corps were told by various
experts on the ground that the roll was terribly dangerous as it was
happening. I thought so too, because I had confused what I was seeing: it
looked like a flat spin, which would make Melville the first pilot ever to
experience a flat spin upwards. But it wasn't a spin, it was a roll, and 140
degrees a minute isn't all that much for a ship like that. As Melville said,
it was rather comfortable.
I am not fond of engines that can give you
unexpected torques and variable thrust vectors, and I was, I admit, ready to
believe that this was another manifestation of uneven burning in the
engines. That may not have been the case: but it is possible, which is one
reason I don't care for hybrid engines (I am not all that fond of solids,
but we understand pours and molds of solids better than we do of hard
rubber.)
It's cool to fly with old tires and laughing gas an
ISP of way under 300, but there are a lot better ways to do it.
======================
Mr. Pournelle,
Every time I hear anyone complain about the state of
education I recall "Screwtape Proposes a Toast" published in the late
1950's. Lewis eloquently condemns the use of the word "democracy" to further
what we would today call outcomes based education. I never see any
references to what I feel is a most effective critique, and this puzzles me.
Phil
And the text can be found at
http://www.seark.net/~jlove/screwtape.htm
although it is well worth buying a copy of
The Screwtape Letters with Screwtape Proposes a Toast
included.
=========================
A Letter From Iraq
From: [Wall Street Journal reporter] Farnaz Fassihi
Subject: From Baghdad
Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is
like being under virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured
me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new
people in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could
make a difference.
Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has
defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good
reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and
never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat
in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for
stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes
of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English
outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at
checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling.
And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a
car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most
pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay
alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a
security personnel first, a reporter second.
It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly
began. Was it April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the
Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S.
military? Was it when Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population,
became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the
insurgency began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to
include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq
remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the
Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign
policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.
Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When
asked 'how are thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad."
What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi
government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs
going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of
innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by
hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers,
there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation,
basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people
died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking
that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public
transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now stopped disclosing them.
Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.
A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City
yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive
devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the
explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to
signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of
Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked
and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi
ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in
Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating
Iraq.
For journalists the significant turning point came
with the wave of abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe
around Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and
highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist
female friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from
their homes in broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this
week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential
neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock
electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one
of them at 6 a.m. when he came out to switch on the generator; his beheaded
body was thrown back near the neighborhoods.
WSJ reporter Fassahi's e-mail to friends /2 9/29/2004
2:47:12 PM
The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs
of calming down. If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more
sophisticated every day. The various elements within it-baathists,
criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating.
I went to an emergency meeting for foreign
correspondents with the military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We
were somberly told our fate would largely depend on where we were in the
kidnapping chain once it was determined we were missing. Here is how it
goes: criminal gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who
will in turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other
way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the
French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a
month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.
America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police
and National Guard units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The
cops are being murdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the
insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the
U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they
just trained to get rid of them quietly.
As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for
foreigners to operate that almost all projects have come to a halt. After
two years, of the $18 billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction
only about $1 billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been
reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going
here.
Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a
result of sabotage and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who
did this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam
is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?
Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in
exchange for insecurity. Guess what? They say they'd take security over
freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.
I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam
Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the
vote. This is truly sad.
Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk
to him about elections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the
importance of voting. He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a
democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about
democracy, forget about being a model for the region, we have to salvage
Iraq before all is lost."
One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond
salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any
thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of
terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result
of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle.
The Iraqi government is talking about having elections
in three months while half of the country remains a 'no go zone'-out of the
hands of the government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists.
In the other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up
at polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections,
leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that
will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war.
I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family
would participate in the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis
could to some degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and
vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and
murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice
democracy? Are you joking?"
-Farnaz
See
http://poynter.org/forum/?id=32365
Which is about as grim as it gets. How true a
picture is this? I don't know. It is certainly not what the neo-con
neo-Jacobins told us would happen. It is pretty close to what some of us old
Burkean paleo-cons expected -- expectations that got us read out of the
conservative movement by the egregious Frum --but hoped would not happen.
We are the friends of liberty everywhere. We are
the guardians only of our own. When there is a significant threat to our
freedom, or we have a solemn obligation to a friend and ally, we will spend
blood and treasure to guard liberty anywhere in the world; but not
otherwise. We reserve the right to mount punitive expeditions and remove
regimes that declare ourselves to be our enemies. We assume no obligation to
build nations overseas.
===================
I got the Farnaz letter above from other sources,
but here is one source:
Subject: Poynter Online - Forums
Dear Jerry:
Romesko has put up what started as a private e-mail to
her friends from an American correspondent ( Arab heritage) in Iraq. It has
circulated widely in the journalistic community and is being praised for the
unusual insights it gives to conditions there. Well worth reading. People
have been asking why it has not appeared as front page news. I suspect that
the various gatekeepers at Big Media publications have shied away from this
level of coverage for several reasons, including the fact that they are
embarrassed by their inability to cover the story properly because it is
just too damn dangerous.
There is a big discussion now in that community about
whether or not blogs are really a form of journalism. This, written by a
professional reporter, has not been edited and homogenized and demonstrates
that such personal accounts have their place. Especially now, when all we're
hearing from the Bush Administration is Happy Talk and denial.
Regards, Francis Hamit
http://poynter.org/forum/?id=32365
Dear Jerry:
Ginmar's blog entry today seems to indicate that the
troops in Iraq are being denied computer acess by something called "Websense".
THey also are suddenly having trouble buying phone cards so thay can call
home. Her comments are very much on point. I do wonder if this is some kind
of clumsy attempt to control the military vote and/or information for the
home front.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ginmar/
Again: I have many sources in Iraq and I get
conflicting reports. Some are not quite so grim as this one. But certainly
things are not good there.
==============
Subject: The beginning and the end of Iraq?
Dr Pournelle,
The beginning and the end of Iraq?
Patrick Boyle: “Winston Churchill made up the nation
of Iraq one afternoon in 1922 in Cairo.”
Notwithstanding the confession by his grandson and
namesake at http://www.warroom.com/iraqiwar/churchill.htm Churchill did not
invent Iraq. What he did do as Colonial Secretary in 1921 was to change the
country’s name from Mesopotamia to Iraq, and place the Hashemite King Faisal
on its throne.
According to Margaret Macmillan’s excellent and highly
authoritative work* on the Paris Conference that followed the end of WWI and
led to the Versailles Treaty of 1919, the new country had come into being
two years before Churchill did what he did.
Macmillan tells us that Iraq, or Mesopotamia as it was
then called, came into existence in Paris in 1919, when Churchill was not a
member of the British Government. In the course of what amounted to a
horse-trading session between British Prime Minister Lloyd George and French
Prime Minister Clemenceau after a previous three-way settlement involving
the French having what is now Syria and the Lebanon, the British having
Basra plus the area around Baghdad now comprising central Iraq, and United
States having what was than called Mosul, but which roughly corresponds to
what is now the Kurdish-controlled area of Iraq, had broken down when it
became clear that the Americans had lost interest.
At first, the British were agreeable to the French
taking over Mosul in place of the Americans, but then they heard that there
might be oil in Mosul. There was no hard evidence of oil yet, but now they
wanted Mosul too.
To quote Macmillan...
The conversation on the Middle East was short and
good-humoured. “Well,” said Clemenceau , “what are we to discuss?” Lloyd
George replied, “Mesopotamia and Palestine.” Clemenceau: “Tell me what you
want?” Lloyd George: “I want Mosul.” Clemenceau : You shall have it.
Anything else?” Lloyd George: “Yes I want Jerusalem too.” Clemenceau: “You
shall have it…” (end quote)
Which leads one to wonder if the three distinct
geographical and ethnic/religious regions—Basra (Shi’ites), Baghdad (Sunnis)
and Mosul (Kurds)—that were thrown together to made up Mesopotamia, or Iraq,
might not all be a lot better off if they were rent asunder again?
At present, the Kurdish area that approximates to
Mosul is the only part pf Iraq that is fundamentally peaceful. There is
relatively much less trouble in the Basra region than in the central region
around and to the west of Baghdad.
If Basra and Mosul broke away from Iraq, there would
be three benefits I can see:
(1) All the oil would be in relatively secure hands.
(2) All the military resources, or almost all, of the
Coalition could be concentrated on dealing with the troubles of the Sunni
Triangle and Baghdad,
(3) By disentangling the multiethnic, multi-religious
strands of present-day Iraq, one or perhaps two layers of complexity would
be peeled away, making it that much easier to stabilise and make governable
each of the three smaller nations that would make up the former Iraq.
There are two issues (among many others) I feel it is
particularly important to have addressed before this scheme could be
seriously considered.
One is the Kurdistan problem. The Kurdish people live
in an area that occupies not just northern Iraq but also parts of eastern
Turkey and western Iran, which, taken together, they consider to be
Kurdistan, their territory. However the Turks, Iranians, and indeed the
Iraqis, have been most unwilling to part with their territory in the form of
a gift to the Kurds, or even to see a formal, UN-recognised Kurdistan
created in their neighbour’s territory as it would create what they would
see as a dangerous precedent.
But now we may have a window of opportunity to silence
Turkish opposition at least. Turkey has applied to join the EU. I consider
this to be a lunatic proposal for the EU to accept, but in the meantime the
negotiations for Turkish membership are likely to drag out over 15 years,
and through all that time Turkey will have to be on its best behaviour:
democracy, free speech, the rule of law, the military firmly under the
thumbs of the politicians and not the other way around as had been the case
for so much of Turkey’s history in the 20th Century. If Turkey is to do all
this, it will find it increasingly difficult to object to a Kurdistan
springing up next door in what was Iraq.
As for Iranian objections, why should we care at the
moment? Indeed, a defensive treaty with the new Kurdistan would be logical.
And if Turkey is behaving properly, even NATO membership might one day be
possible. (Turkey is a member of NATO.)
The other problem is the religious entanglement that
straightforward partition would leave in the Baghdad region—especially in
the city of Baghdad itself where there is a significant Shi’ite minority.
While that remains so, I fear there would continue to be ongoing friction
between the religious groups that would feed the present violence, and
indeed feeds off that violence too; a sort of positive feedback, of the
least desirable kind.
Perhaps the answer would be a population movement
timed to coincide with the partition. This sort of action can have terrible
consequences, as witnessed by the millions killed in the population movement
that happened at the time of the partition of India into Hindu India and
Muslim Pakistan. But forewarned is forearmed, they say, so hopefully we
could manage things like this better now. In any case the numbers involved
are much fewer than was the case in the Indian example.
Now I don’t imagine that either of these issues are
trivial or easily sorted.
But is that the first glimmer of light I see at the
end of the tunnel?
Jim Mangles
*which for some obscure reason is entitled “The
Peacemakers” in the UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0719562376/ref=pd_sxp_elt_l1/026-7619798-1534004
but “Paris 1919” in the US http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375760520/qid=1096529752/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-3294920-0390515
The sad part is that every bit of that was
discussed here and elsewhere before we sent troops to Mesopotamia
Subject: The Legacy of Lawrence
Jerry,
If you want to understand Iraq see the movie
Lawrence of Arabia. Er, no. Read Seven Pillars of
Wisdom by Lawrence. Modern Iraq is indeed an amalgam of Sunni, Shiite, and
Kurd but is also an amalgam of countless tribes each of a few hundred people
united in Lawrence's time only by their detestation of their Turkish
colonial masters but divided by their detestation of everyone not of their
tribe. Lawrence's great achievement was to persuade enough them to put aside
their other differences and to form an effective guerrilla to attack, and to
keep on attacking the Turks. At the great peace conference after the war the
imperative for the victorious parties was to agree amongst themselves.
Unauthorised promises made by an irregular soldier like Lawrence to a bunch
of ragged tribesmen carried no weight against European considerations. For
example, the French and Italians were each left the conference with vast
areas of sand and all Britain got was the oil and the Suez Canal.
Regards
John Edwards
=======================
Subject: Skilly would be proud
Baghdad Bombings Kill 35 Children
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040930/D85E4I300.html
GH
==================
Subject: Iraq /3
"Iraq is not a natural country in the sense of
encompassing a geographically contiguous area with a single liguistically
and culturally homogenious people. It is intrinsically unstable. Had
Churchill had a little better information or taken a bit more time, there
might never have been the Iraq we have today. He seems to have designed a
nation doomed to civil war.
Pat "
Yet in my experience in Iraq I was stunned that the
people truly identify themselves as Iraqis and take a pride in their country
(maybe this is a result of the war with the Persians?). While I was there,
an attempt was made to re-revise the Iraqi flag to that before Saddam
decreed the words "In God We Trust" be placed on the flag. A minor uproar
ensued. In fact, the police refused to wear the 'old flag' on their
uniforms, insisting on the current flag. Then look a the fiasco of the
attempt to change to totally change the flag! Almost universal derision
throughout Iraq. Even though the Iraqis identify with their region, they
still identify themselves as Iraqis. I had floated an idea of a "Southern
Confederacy of Iraq" for the Shia areas to influentential southern Iraqis
(and the CPA). There was no serious consideration by the Iraqis. In my
opinion, if a civil war erupts, it will not be one of schism, but one for
domination of the whole country. Failing domination, though, the Kurds will
continue to accept semi-autonomy if only to assure the rest of the country's
participation in defense against the Persians.
David Couvillon
Interesting indeed. Thanks
I've previously hypothesized that Bush's invasion of
Iraq, even though it was a huge miscalculation, may turn out to be a net
benefit to the West. Why? Because if it causes the Muslims to rise up in the
West much sooner then the response from Westerners will prevent a total
demographic catastrophe in Europe.
France would be better off in the long run if the
Jihad started next year than in 20 years. Better to crystallize the nature
of the fight now before many more immigrants are allowed in and many more
babies are born. It is not too late to deport illegals and to cut off all
Muslim immigration. In the extreme it would even be possible to start
revoking citizenships and deporting Muslims.
The EU mandarins want to ignore the obvious. Well, an
insurgency in Europe would so enrage the populace that the mandarins would
be forced to take action.
R
=======
Subject: L.A. Spammer Pleads Guilty
Dr. Pournelle:
A small victory :
"A Los Angeles man who used other people's Wi-Fi
networks to send thousands of unsolicited adult-themed emails from his car
pleaded guilty to a single felony Monday, in what prosecutors say is the
first criminal conviction under the federal CAN-SPAM Act.
In a plea agreement with prosecutors, Nicholas Tombros,
37, faces a likely sentencing range stretching from probation to six months
in custody, assuming he has no prior criminal convictions. Sentencing is set
for 27 December."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/30/warspammer_guilty/
Regards, Rick Hellewell
Not enough. Not nearly enough. Note what he did and
how he did it. Secure your networks!!
Subject: Replacing LCDs in the future?
Your question about replacing LCDs in the future seems
to have already started. This article in eweek:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1660949,00.asp
TOKYO (AP)—Toshiba Corp. on Tuesday unveiled a
flat-panel TV that uses a new technology developed jointly by the Japanese
electronics maker and the Japanese camera company Canon.
The new TV uses SED—surface-conduction
electron-emitter display—which uses beam-emitting technology similar to the
old-style cathode-ray tube televisions, and delivers similar clear imagery
but onto a flat panel.
snip..........
Dave Krecklow
=====================
On another subject:
Subject: Education at the Right End
I've been reading a lot of what you've been writing
lately about education, and how our current system doesn't serve those on
the left end of the Bell Curve, but have you considered that it might not be
serving those on the right end either? I know it's probably a bit of hubris
for me to assume that my problems are related to a general trend in schools,
and not the result of specific factors in my life, but honestly, I cannot
perceive any value I received from my education either.
And it's not that I did poorly, I got good grades and
did well on all the tests they gave us. While it's not impossible my grades
were inflated, and maybe even the standardized tests I've taken were
weighted poorly, earlier this year I took an IQ test and my score was 143,
which I don't think was simply a matter of luck. I don't have any personal
confidence in the psychologist who gave me the test, in fact I have severe
doubts about his conduct, but I don't believe he was that grossly inaccurate
about my IQ. I can't see why he'd lie either, so I'll take it as a given,
I'm smart in at least some ways..
The problem is, I just don't see any real benefit from
it, basically, I perceive no ability on my part to well, be anything in
life. There's just a great void when it comes to doing anything, and sadly,
I don't know where it comes from, so I can't fix it. Note, I'm not saying I
see no opportunities out there in life, I do not believe in a lack of
opportunties so much as I feel an inability to do them. Or even a lack of
interest in them. "Sure, I could get a job, do well, have lots of money, but
why?" That's a response that goes through my mind when people try to nag me
about my situation. That and "You're not helping me by attacking me" but I
doubt they perceive that either.
I'm not going to blame school for everything, I know
I've had enough other trauma in my life that at least some of it comes from
elsewhere, but really, I got nothing out of school, and while I could
continue to go to college and get credits, maybe even get a very advanced
degree, I don't think it would really be productive for me. Maybe it isn't
school, I really don't know, and I'm not sure I've said quite what I really
feel here either, but I think I can boil it down to one thing, you bring up
a concern about when society fails those on the lower end, but I think
there's a need to worry about those failed elsewhere too. What can we do to
even recognize those who are being failed before it is too late?
Ah well, thanks for letting me vent in your direction,
I just wish I believed a solution was out there.
Please don't post my name or e-mail address with this,
I really want to say this, but I've had enough people in my life giving me
bad advice that I'd rather not give random strangers a chance. Not worried
about spam though, my e-mail program just dumped a hundred into the junkmail
folder over night.
PS, I hope the formatting on this is ok, I'm not sure
how to make Thunderbird display the final draft, or how it'll appear on your
end.
Oh I make no doubt that education suffers for those
on the right end of the bell curve: especially when a class is filled with
people who don't want to be in the class and are disruptive; and there is
one poor girl or guy who wants to learn and could learn and understands this
is a way out of the poverty loop. We need to rescue those!
Upper socio-economic groups understand the problems
and deal with them one way or another. Those with no resources have a much
harder problem.
What is Thunderbird?
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
Thunderbird is Mozilla's email client. I find it easy
to use, although I would hate to try to sync POP accounts between machines
(in reference to your eternal quest for easy transfers of Outlook PST
files).
John
--
Subject: What is Thunderbird, you ask?
Jerry -
Thunderbird is the next-generation version of
Mozilla's e-mail client, and goes hand-in-hand with the Firefox web browser.
I've been using the beta 0.7 version for a couple of months now, ever since
I concluded that Internet Explorer/Outlook Express was too hazardous for my
mental health, what with all of the recent security scares.
Although Thunderbird has a few rough edges (after all,
it is beta), I've been pretty happy with it. There's a version 0.8 out, but
I figure I'll wait until 1.0, unless there is some compelling security
reason to upgrade sooner.
As a side note: both Firefox and Thunderbird have done
away with that rather ugly dinosaur icon present in Mozilla 1.7; the new
artwork is mighty "cool". (Grin!)
Following is a link to Mozilla's site, for the benefit
of anyone reading this should you post it:
http://www.mozilla.org/
Regards,
Bob Shepard
======================
Subject: Branson dumps cyberspace on road to outer
space (Reuters)
Branson dumps cyberspace on road to outer space
By Jeffrey Goldfarb
LONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Richard Branson is
abandoning cyberspace as he heads for outer space.
Branson, whose privately-owned Virgin Group 1/8VA.UL
3/8 operates a wide range of businesses, on Monday announced plans to launch
the world's first passenger service to space in 2007.
But the swashbuckling British entrepreneur's Virgin
Media Group on Tuesday revealed it had agreed to drop out of the Internet
business by selling its 51 percent stake in Virgin Net to minority partner
NTL Inc. <NTLI.O>, the UK cable communications provider.
The Internet service provider, a joint venture that
launched in 1996 with Branson wearing a silver space suit as he burst
through a polystyrene wall, will retain the Virgin name. <snip>
=====================
Subject: Oil oil everywhere
Was Thomas Gold correct after all? Is there more oil
under our feet than we ever thought possible?
http://people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/index.html
From the National Academy of Sciences:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0405930101v1.pdf
Loy Myers
Tommy Gold was persuasive the few times I met him.
But I have no right to opinions. Possony became convinced that the classical
theories of how oil was formed were dead wrong.
===========================
Subject: ISDF film clip
>> Fair warning:
this is a disturbing video. It
shows troops doing what, >> if they were anyone but Israelis, would be
instantly labeled acts of terrorism.
Isn't this a bit extreme? Are there problems? sure --
but what happened in the clip is no worse than things US soldiers are doing
in Iraq.
These things happen in war. The goal is trying to
minimize the impact on civilians -- something the IDF DOES do, and something
terrorists by definition DON'T do.
(While one can argue if the IDF is doing enough --
it's a fact that IDF soldiers are routinely killed in battle because the IDF
tries to minimize the impact in civilians)
Akiva
--
"If you want to build a ship, then don't drum up men
to gather wood, give orders, and divide the work. Rather, teach them to
yearn for the far and endless sea." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I suppose. Some of our people in Korea got accused
of war crimes for a lot less. I have said repeatedly that I don't know how
to deal with the Palestinian situation, and I am glad I don't have to.
Neither does the US. (My suggestion: build a fence along the Green Line or
as near to it as possible, set up automatic artillery responses to bombard
anyplace from which projectiles fired into Israel from the Territories
comes, and turn over the Territories on the other side of the fence to the
Palestinians. Settlers have the option of leaving first. I think this would
produce "peace" along the lines of the pre-1968 truce. Beyond that I have no
suggestions other than that I don't want to be part of it. But I don't want
to be part of our activities in Iraq either, and never did.)
========================
Personnel psychologists have looked at the predictive
value of various personal traits. The only two that seem to have substantial
value across all jobs (that is, are generalizable) are g and
conscientiousness/integrity. Others (such as extraversion) have incremental
value beyond g in a smaller range of jobs. This is not to say that
specialized forms of knowledge are not important. The huge Army Project A is
the best single study on this issue. It looks at the relation of different
dimensions of the predictor domain (abilities, interests, etc.), on the one
hand, with different dimensions in the criterion domain (core technical
performance, leadership, etc.).
Research on genius-level contributions points to g as
a necessary but not sufficient condition (e.g., see Eysenck or Simonton;
also Ellen Winner on extremely gifted children)
Non-g traits may often contribute to performance, but
there are none that can substitute for g when it is lacking--not a winning
personality, not lengthy experience, not anything.
There are not independent mental abilities that can
compensate for g because there aren't any that are independent of g. g is
the platform for them all. Gardner's more mental "intelligences" are just
different flavors of g. I don't know what the others are, partly because
they do not seem to reside primarily in the mental realm and mostly because
he has never measured them and echews ever doing so in any psychometrically
rigorous way.
Sternberg's "intelligences" have never been shown to
exist as independent abilities--at least not with any credible research
(including his).
The more complex the activity, the bigger the edge a
higher g gives a person. The lower a person's g level, the more critical it
is, I suspect, that they have favorable personality traits. Consider
retarded individuals, who need to elicit support from more capable people,
which they are not likely to do when they are hostile, aggressive, or
otherwise unpleasant.
Linda
=======
On intelligences:
"The details are a little too complex to go into here
(although he Carroll outlines it well in his book), but what he found was
that when there were enough tests to analyze, g existed by itself as the
higher order factor, but that there were 8 sub-factors (Gf and Gc being two
of them) and under each subfactors were about 60 narrower abilities."
You can find a pictorial breakdown here:
http://www.iapsych.com/carolmod.htm
and the full post here (links active in original):
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/000939.html
Note what Linda says about utilities.
=================
The Kurds were doing OK before the War. They have more
trouble on their hands now that the insurgency has metastasised.
The Bush admin thought Iraq would be a huge electoral
plus - a "career destroyer for liberal Democrats" according to one
Republican official who chose not to be named.
Rove okayed the invasion because he thought that an
easy victory over an Islamic Arab country would bring out the Sectarian
Christian/Ethnic Caucasian vote. And intimidate the Democrats.
The war did not work out according to plan. This is a
reflects badly on Rove's competence. His Mayberry Machiavellian malevolence
is not in question.
J
======================
Subject: A chronicle of "stronger security"
stupidities (via RISKS Digest)
Subject: Stupidsecurity (via Dave Farber's IP)
Finally, someone is chronicling the stupidity that
passes for "stronger security" post-September 11:
http://www.stupidsecurity.com
Topics include:
Teacher Arrested After Bookmark Called Concealed
Weapon
Big Trouble For Mentioning a Plastic Explosive in the Airport
You Can't Hide In Chicago
Washington Post: Freedom's Light Hidden Under A Security Blanket
Government Asks Court to Keep ID Arguments Secret
Putting a Price Tag on US Visa Stupidity
TSA Cynicism
New York Convention
Barefoot toddlers delay Air NZ flight
Police Delay Departure From Plane to Catch A Dangerous Criminal
Cleveland Air Show In Danger....
It's Fun To See The Power Of Stupidity Turned On Its Sources...
Delete PIN When It Has Become Invalid
Nuclear Power Plants Security Gaps to be Withheld From Public
Let's Intimidate our Innocents -- That'll Scare the Terrorists!
High-Tech Wallpaper Keeps Wireless Wardrivers Out
HM department of vague paranoia
===========
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