View 303 March 29 - April 4, 2004

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Highlights this week:

Sir Peter Ustinov, RIP
Space Development Conference
Hubble
After Fallujah
- What to do next

This is a day book. It's not all that well edited. I try to keep this up daily, but sometimes I can't. I'll keep trying. See also the monthly COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR column, 4,000 - 7,000 words, depending. (Older columns here.) For more on what this page is about, please go to the VIEW PAGE. If you have never read the explanatory material on that page, please do so. If you got here through a link that didn't take you to the front page of this site, click here for a better explanation of what we're trying to do here.

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If you want to PAY FOR THIS there are problems, but I keep the latest HERE. I'm trying. MY THANKS to all of you who sent money. Some of you went to a lot of trouble to send money from overseas. Thank you! There are also some new payment methods. I am preparing a special (electronic) mailing to all those who paid: there will be a couple of these. I am also toying with the notion of a subscriber section of the page. LET ME KNOW your thoughts.
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Monday March 29, 2004

I will be going to the Space Development Conference in Phoenix, April 22-25, this year. I'll be giving a talk on X-Programs, and my current project is to get a definition of X projects that can be used by Congress and other institutions to refuse to allow shitepokes like X-33 to be given the X designation. X projects have been extremely important to the US, and are the best way for government to participate in technology development without overwhelming and destroying the industry base needed for a republic. The alternative, arsenals (including development centers like Marshal) sometimes work but often don't, and always become ossified; eventually they are the problem set.

Anyway, that's what we'll be doing this month.

Space Access '04 conference next month. (April 22-24 in Phoenix, for details see http://www.space-access.org/updates/sa04info.html )

If you want to know why Hubble is important, and you have a high speed connection, go here:

Have you seen:

http://wires.news.com.au/special/mm/030811-hubble.htm

Jim P-P

==================

Sir Peter Ustinov, RIP
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/29/obit.ustinov/index.html

We had not seen him for a while. His Oscars were for both acting and writing. I think my favorite performance of his was in Romanoff and Juliet, which he also wrote; a Cold War spoof that was actually funny; but then I have a weird sense of humor.

========================

More on Space Access Conference:

Space Access '04 is Space Access Society's twelfth annual conference on the business, politics, and technology of radically cheaper access to space, featuring a cross-section of who's who in the emerging low-cost launch industry, presenting an intensive, informal snapshot of where things are this spring of 2004.

Space Access '04 runs from Thursday afternoon April 22nd through Saturday night April 24th, 2004, at the Ramada Hotel in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. Check our web site http://www.space-access.org for registration and hotel info, the current confirmed conference speakers list, and occasional "Space Access Updates" with the latest on this fast-moving field.

I'll be there. Will you?

Monday TOP Current Mail

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Tuesday, March 30, 2004

I got this yesterday, and it's just clever enough that I have sent a warning to subscribers:

================

From: staff@jerrypournelle.com [mailto:staff@jerrypournelle.com] Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004 8:44 PM To: jerryp@jerrypournelle.com Subject: Email account utilization warning.

Dear user of e-mail server "Jerrypournelle.com",

Your e-mail account has been temporary disabled because of unauthorized access.

For details see the attached file.

For security reasons attached file is password protected. The password is "32058".

Best wishes, The Jerrypournelle.com team http://www.jerrypournelle.com

========================

Needless to say there is no "staff" at jerrypournlle.com, nor any Jerrypournelle.com "team", and there was a virus attached to install itself if I complied with the instructions. Jerrypournelle.com is run by the folks at Mazin and they would never send me a message like that. Note the social engineering in this attempt to get me to infect myself.

Do not open unexpected mail attachments. Do not open unexpected mail attachments. Do not open unexpected mail attachments. What I tell you three times is true.

===============

Still working on X Program definitions.

======

And I wrote more than I intended about the election in answer to some mail.

================================================

A few pictures and explanations:

Sable and friend at Chaos Manor. This is her teddy bear mood.

And on a night walk. She's a bit more of a wolf at night.

My daily witch's brew. Actually this is the morning concoction. I don't know if it helps or it's just expensive, but I am still productive and reasonably healthy, and I'll keep it up for a while...

As to what they are: upper right, 4 Personal Radical Shield. Right to left, Radical Shield, CoQ10, Lecithin, Gamme E Tocopherol, Saw Palmetto, PS 100, Cognitex, next row right to left TMG, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, B-12, B-100, a time lapse general anti-oxident, "Joint support", SAMe (the two round yellow things), and another "joint support" formula.

I wash it down with no-sugar Citrucel for fiber. It's probably more than one needs, but as I said, it seems to be working. So far. Note I am not advocating any of this, and I am not advising anyone on what to do.

=====================

If you run out of things to read, here are a few:

A reasonable piece about Kerry and the Commission:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/033004B.html

Iran and The Bomb:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/032904F.html

And a homily on hubris:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/032904A.html

And there will be a discussion in Mail.

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Wednesday, March 31, 2004

It's after Noon and I am still catching up on the small details of life. Just little things like getting dressed and taking pills and clearing off my desk and making phone calls about maintenance of the house and eliminating the bees, and it's time to stop whimpering and just get at it.

More later. The world moves apace, and sometimes we have to pay attention.

Short discussion of expected outcomes in Iraq over in mail.

And note:

I received an extremely high-quality fraudulent e-mail today. It was supposedly from the Bank of America, but the site was bankofamerica1.com. It advertised "Tax Help for Late Filers", but it appears to be a phishing scam. I'm getting a bit tired of this sort of thing.
--
Harry Erwin, PhD, Senior Lecturer of Computing, University of Sunderland. Security engineer and analyst.
http://www.theworld.com/~herwin/

Aren't we all!

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Thursday, April 1, 2004

I have never been fond of "April Fool" issues in journalism to begin with and after Fallujah yesterday I am even less so.

As far as I know, the United States has never entered a battle to the accompanying notes of the deguello and flying the black flag, nor have we ever formally offered a city to be sacked by our troops. It is as well for the people of Fallujah that I am not in charge of our occupation forces there. Sacking cities is not the the American tradition, but we have allies for whom it is an old story, and perhaps they can teach us how.

Of course that sort of thing is fatal to discipline; but allowing events like yesterday's without giving those who participated a comeuppance is fatal to morale. We have pictures of those who rejoiced; and surely they know the identities of the masked men who began it. One can have a bit more sympathy for the actual killers, masked or not, who attacked armed men in an occupied zone; those who merely used the short fight as an excuse to revert to barbarism deserve less.

Of course giving a city over to be sacked is fairly barbaric, and the morning after regrets more than outweigh the brief satisfactions, and we won't do that: but I see no reason at all not to put a $10,000 reward on the heads of those who participated. We have their pictures. I am sure there are plenty of bounty hunters who would undertake the job. Indeed, at breakfast this morning I half outlined a novel about precisely such an event.

"Mr. Beckett, that's my son's body in that picture. You see these guys? This one, and this one, those grinning monkeys dragging his body? I want them. Well, actually, I want their testicles, but you'll have to bring either a head or the live body without testicles so I can be sure it's them. Let's discuss prices."

I don't suppose I will write it. But I presume there are still a few in the Company who understand that you can't allow this sort of thing. Whether those men were Agency people as the Arab barbarians thought, or really were technicians engaged in bringing water and power and sewage treatment to Fallujah isn't important: they were killed because it was thought they were part of the Agency. The Company will ignore that to the peril of every agent it has.

We have the pictures. The mob in Fallujah was proud of those deeds.

Republic or Empire: such actions should have consequences. And see below.

"Your Empire is like a tyranny. Perhaps it was wrong to take it, but it is certainly dangerous to let it go."

Pericles to the Athenians

Subject: Responses of Empire.

http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/256517|
top|04-01-2004::15:47|reuters.html

Roland Dobbins

How small can a nuke be? http://www.techcentralstation.com/040104C.html

earweaponarchive.org/News/Lebedbomb.html.

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Friday, April 2m 2004

And you might have a look at:

Driving Down Unknown Roads
The Feminization Of America
by Fred Reed
http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm
March 29, 2004

Then get another dose of Fred asking about evolution:

Lockstep Thinking
Spare Me
http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm
Tuesday, March 3, 2004
==========================================

Fallujah still stands and we seem to have done nothing. While I understand that indiscriminate action, such as sacking the city or turning the Shiites loose on the place is unwise, something must be done quickly. One proposal is to go in and tear that bridge down. That should be done before tomorrow morning. It should be done by men on the ground protected with the full might of the Unites States of America, air and armor, as a visible sign; and it should be done quickly. And if anyone whose pictures match those of That Day dares put in an appearance, he should be taken, alive, and carried away to Guantanamo.

And it must be done quickly.

"Your Empire is like a tyranny. Perhaps it was wrong to take it, but it is certainly dangerous to let it go."

Pericles to the Athenians

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Saturday,

And it's worth reading this once in a while. If we are to be an empire...

http://www.wargames.co.uk/Poems/Grave.htm

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Sunday, April 4, 2004

Palm Sunday

The price of Empire rises:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/05/
international/middleeast/05IRAQ.html?hp

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
articles/A50349-2004Apr4.html

The question is, will we pay the price it requires to keep Mesopotamia? The Brits were willing in 1920: they recreated the old Sunni rule system which the Turks had used before, and which Saddam continued after the monarchy was overthrown.

The Shiites want "democracy" and they want it now; what they will vote to do after they have it is something else again. More on this in mail. And see next week.

Sunday TOP Current View

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