| Monday
April 20, 2009
Letter from England
Naples at Easter--see my blog <http://tinyurl.com/2xzz8k>
for pictures.
I'm hearing rumours that elements of the UK Police and
Home Office are becoming concerned with the indiscipline of the UK
population. Hence the recent actions against citizens opposing Government
policies <http://tinyurl.com/dxy4tm
> <http://tinyurl.com/d4xcpn>
<http://tinyurl.com/ccol62>
Guardian comment <http://tinyurl.com/d7s37j>
Times comment <http://tinyurl.com/ck9vs9>
<http://tinyurl.com/ch3dp7> .
Further stories--they conducted a second post-mortem on the man who died at
the G20 demonstration. It turns out he didn't have a heart attack, but died
of internal bleeding. Oh-oh... <http://tinyurl.com/dkus3f
> <http://tinyurl.com/dguy7a>
<http://tinyurl.com/c27kx4> <http://tinyurl.com/ccx2or
> <http://tinyurl.com/cfvemf>
<http://tinyurl.com/dn32me> <http://tinyurl.com/cop88w
> <http://tinyurl.com/d7w4qr> Be aware that the UK Police has
historically recruited mostly from the part of the male population that
quits school at age 16 and promote from within, so they are not particularly
representative of the population as a whole. The problems they have been
having taking rape crime seriously reflect this background.
A not-unrelated note: I teach DNA forensics and the
statistical treatment of DNA evidence to university seniors planning on
joining the police. According to Butler, “Statistical genetic information is
often more difficult for DNA analysts to grasp than the technology and
biology issues…because of its heavy use of mathematics particularly algebra.
The concepts of probabilities can be challenging to forensic scientists
schooled in biology rather than mathematics.” (Remember, most UK university
students quit math after algebra.) The implication I draw for my seniors is
that they may need to provide the necessary expertise, and what goes for
biologists will be even more true for police officers. 8(
The McBride affair--Gordon Brown's attack dog is
finally curbed. Apparently McBride has been doing this for years, initially
against Labour politicians seen as challengers to Brown. Gordon Brown is not
a humble man, and it took several days before the apologies came. <http://tinyurl.com/dmeq64
> <http://tinyurl.com/c9uj25>
<http://tinyurl.com/dx2sp9>
Local council snooping powers to be reconsidered. <http://tinyurl.com/crtpgx
> <http://tinyurl.com/cbrvaz>
<http://tinyurl.com/dezn54> <http://tinyurl.com/cdlpw6
> <http://tinyurl.com/d4v92z>
Outcome of the arrest of the Tory Damian Green is egg
on the faces of the police and the Labour Home minister. The Tory politician
had been told by the police that he faced life imprisonment. The Cross
Prosecution Service decided there was no case. <http://tinyurl.com/ctzft6
> <http://tinyurl.com/cjsml7>
<http://tinyurl.com/dmc3ut> <http://tinyurl.com/d3yhgr
> <http://tinyurl.com/dxftpr>
<http://tinyurl.com/cbbfry> <http://tinyurl.com/d9mj95
> There is now evidence the arrest was a 'fishing expedition' for
Green's possible contacts with a leading civil liberties campaigner <http://tinyurl.com/cxjfkb
> <http://tinyurl.com/ccwa74>
. The police accused the source of the leaks of being part of a network of
moles. <http://tinyurl.com/cnznzf>
Police deleting London tourists' photos 'to prevent
terrorism.' <http://tinyurl.com/cc7oge
>
EU challenges UK tracking of citizen internet
activity. <http://tinyurl.com/cyy94q
> <http://tinyurl.com/ct6mjl>
Independent comment on all this <http://tinyurl.com/ch2v87>
University stories: UK education and research
productivity to be tracked in 'Big-Brother'- style plan <http://tinyurl.com/d744be>
UK Government has politicised the direction of research <http://tinyurl.com/cje2br
> Continued research funding in the art and humanities
questionable <http://tinyurl.com/d7mcal
> Centralisation of masters and doctoral programmes in a minority
of the universities <http://tinyurl.com/co7co6>
Are UK universities complicit in visa fraud? <http://tinyurl.com/
dbbl9k> <http://tinyurl.com/dfeyu4>
You want it bad; you get it bad--number of scientific technicians
plummeting. <http://tinyurl.com/cy2oc2>
Cambridge comes under Government criticism for not following 'best
practices' despite being the best university in the UK. <http://tinyurl.com/c9abdu
>
On the weakness of secular ideologies <http://tinyurl.com/c5qhwp>
-- Harry Erwin, PhD, Program Leader, MSc Information
Systems Security, University of Sunderland.
I love it. Cambridge doesn't follow best
practices. De we know what best practices are? And how? One does wonder:
is any society headed for more freedom? Or is freedom a lost cause?
=============
Sunday's Stories on the UK Police
There's a good deal of commentary by both liberal and
conservative newspapers about growing police and Home Office
authoritarianism. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has begun
expressing its concern.
BBC stories <http://tinyurl.com/cp48ws>
<http://tinyurl.com/c6aang>
Telegraph story <http://tinyurl.com/cwovax>
Observer stories <http://tinyurl.com/c79p4k>
<http://tinyurl.com/d5job5>
-- Harry Erwin, PhD, Program Leader, MSc Information
Systems Security, University of Sunderland. <http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw>
Weblog at: <http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/
~harryerw/blog/index.php>
===========
Climate Models
Jerry,
After reading your comments from Saturday, I think you
would be interested in Dr. John Christy's testimony to Congress this year:
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/
media/pdf/111/ctest.pdf
If you look at the graphs on page 7 and 8 he makes a
similar point about the climate models that IPCC uses do a very poor job of
predicting the present.
He also makes the point on page 6, that the
legislative proposals, even if implemented globally, would have too little
impact on global temperature to even measure.
Dr. Christy was a lead author on IPCC 2001.
Another link I suggest is here:
http://brneurosci.org/co2.html
The point here is that Greenhouse gasses (Water Vapor,
CO2 et. al.) have already raised the global temperature by 33 degrees
centigrade. Any increase in CO2 will only effect infrared that isn't already
being absorbed. The result of his calculations were that a doubling of CO2
would increase temperatures by about 0.6 degrees Centigrade. At the current
rate of increase in CO2, that would be in the year 2255.
Joel Upchurch
I had not seen the 33 degree postulate before;
but I am hardly a climate expert. I do know that the Earth has been both
warmer and colder than it is now, and that in historical times.
==============
On Tea Parties, Third Parties, and
more...
Last Wednesday, you wrote:
Protest rallies can be important because they build
morale. They also signal danger to the opposition, and provoke retaliation
-- the Cooper article is an example.
But as Reynolds notes, rallies aren't going to change
the nation. They won't take back your government. I'm not sure what will.
First we need a leader and a party; and at the moment it's not clear that we
have either. Meanwhile, Obama continues to campaign.
The Republican and Democratic parties have both become
captive to special interests and the greed of the political class. When
Republicans can fill a bill with earmarks and then vote against it, knowing
they can count on their Democratic colleagues will pass it; when the
Republicans then come home and claim that they were frugal with your money
at the same time they "brought home the bacon," then hypocrisy has reached
critical mass.
The Tea Party movement and 9/12 "We Surround Them" are
actually separate organizations; both are sponsoring tea parties, but they
appear to be of different minds on this issue. Neither has a party or a
national leader -- local 9/12ers don't even want one, and refuse to endorse
anyone. While non-partisan / non-candidate events like the tea parties and
mailing tea bags is a major part of movement to take back our country, in
the end, we do not elect principles, we elect people to office. There must
be a time and place in our "citizen uprising" for determining what our exact
goals are, deciding who will best represent us in office, gathering the
forces to support those candidates, and then actually getting them elected.
"A leader and a party." It's not going to be one of
the two main parties, that's clear. There are plenty of third parties, and
some "insurgent" candidates (such as Ron Paul) but each have their problems
-- Paul lards up bills with earmarks, and is weak on defense, while the
Constitution Party alienates some voters with its social conservatism. The
Libertarian party's open borders and weak defense policies will not attract
mainstream voters. As the link above indicates, many (though not all) of our
elected representatives do not "get it" and will continue to sell our future
as long as they are in office; 22 Republican Senators (a majority) voted for
the $5.7 billion "Give/Serve Act," which has been histrionically, if not
entirely inaccurately, compared to the Hitler Youth Program.
It is in that gap, that unfilled need for a fiscally
conservative and socially neutral party, where the American Conservative
Party is organizing. We seek to be the political arm for the tea party
movement, the focused expression of voter rage. Started by blogger Bill
Quick last year, the ACP is organizing chapters in 14 states already, with
four more targeted for expansion this year.
A new political party run solely by amateurs cannot
hope to raise millions, and elect replacement senators overnight. This is a
significant challenge for a group of previously non-political citizens.
We've had to educate ourselves in election law, public relations,
fundraising, and the minutiae of federal campaign and tax regulations. Where
we don't have the time to acquire the skills, we have to hire them, placing
fundraising as one of our crucial needs. It may not be an accident that part
of our problem is that we have to raise money to hire lawyers and
accountants to report the money that we raised to hire the lawyers and
accountants. "Campaign reform"... isn't all it's cracked up to be -- but it
guarantees employment for lawyers and accountants!
We have to dot all the i's and cross the t's to make
sure the current administration cannot use technicalities to hound
volunteers -- and small donors -- into peonage. Yes, this is a "bleg"; one I
hope you will pass on to your readers, if not choose to support yourself.
Our goal is to raise $10,000 for legal fees in the next thirty days -- a
small enough amount, given the millions washing through our political system
every day. We have selected our legal representation in Washington, D.C.; we
only need the ability to sit down and say, "make it happen."
In closing, I hope that you or your readers can agree
and support our cause. Our website is at
http://www.theamericanconservatives.org. For myself, I want to
thank you for being such an interesting and intelligent writer of science
fiction for all these years. Your novels are not just entertainment, but
thought-provoking looks at the human condition.
Charles Domino
National Secretary,
American Conservative Party
Thank you for your kind words.
==========
"The Missing Hotspot" quick look
Jerry,
A quick look at
"The Missing Hotspot."
The system feedback model approximation looks
reasonable. However, linearizing the parameters does not adequately account
for the effects of CO2, since absorption is non-linear. In particular, the
saturation of CO2 absorption is not discussed, with the effect that the
"traditional" model effects of CO2 are still overstated.
In other words, the article successfully refutes
conventional anthropomorphic global warming theory, but still overstates the
possible effects of human contribution to global temperatures.
Jim
===========
Antarctic ice is growing, not melting away
ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to
the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental
ice cap.
The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice
monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of
Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent's
western coast.
Antarctica has 90 per cent of the Earth's ice and 80
per cent of its fresh water, The Australian reports. Extensive melting of
Antarctic ice sheets would be required to raise sea levels substantially,
and ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica. The destabilisation of the
Wilkins ice shelf generated international headlines this month.
However, the picture is very different in east
Antarctica, which includes the territory claimed by Australia.
East Antarctica is four times the size of west
Antarctica and parts of it are cooling. The Scientific Committee on
Antarctic Research report prepared for last week's meeting of Antarctic
Treaty nations in Washington noted the South Pole had shown "significant
cooling in recent decades".
http://www.news.com.au/story
/0,27574,25348657-401,00.html
Tim Boettcher
By including and excluding certain temperature
reports from the weighted average that is reported as "global temperature"
you can get almost any result you want.
===========
voip vs. pots
Dr. Pournelle:
This is in response to Jim Coffey's letter which
started out: "As others have mentioned before. VOIP requires electricity at
BOTH your house and at all the routers between your house and the internet
backbone."
Absolutely true. However, pretty much also true for
POTS service. Your phone of COURSE uses electricity, but it comes in over
the same wires as the phone signal itself. It is also true that your phone
needs power not only to itself, but to every SS7 switch (think phone router)
or TDM channel bank (think "hub" for phones) between itself and the other
end of the call. And these switches are not just located in big telco
central office buildings - in rural areas or urban and sub-urban areas where
fast unexpected growth in phone deployment has occurred, the switches and
channel banks are often located out in the local area they service. Maybe in
a box at the end of your street.
The telcos all have batteries for these. Ever been in
a situation where you had a long power outage and one to three or so days
into it the phone went dead? That's because one of the switches (either at
the CO or between you and the CO) used up it's battery.
What gets me is that the same sorts of technologies
are available for ethernet, but simply have not been deployed for consumer
VOIP - the ISPs could supply ethernet to the home using power over ethernet,
the 802.3af standard, to power a small router with built in VOIP SIP
adapter. (there may be issues with it being able to supply enough power to
ring several "REN 1" old style electro-mechanical bell type phones (as
opposed to phones with electronic ringers) - but not to many folks still
have these. Most carrier class ethernet (ie: nortel passport 8600 series)
switches are available in a 48V DC version which would allow them to be
hooked right into the existing telco DC battery backed power systems.
The reason this has not been done has been explained
to me thus: Most of the existing telco wire plants and infrastructure are
all pre-ATT break up. When ATT was a monopoly, and they charged (what seem
today to be) exorbitant long distance rates, they had capital left over to
reinvest in infrastructure. And supposedly they did so in spades. Nowadays
there is massive competition, and not just from competing telco's. They have
cut consumer pricing to rock bottom (good for all of us consumers) but at
the cost of investing in new infrastructure.
The reliable way to do things would be to roll out
fiber down the line to the curb in each neighborhood, where it terminates at
a battery backed POE switch. From there cat 5 cable takes the 48v DC POE and
Ethernet signals into each home.
Problem is this is an expensive and complete rebuild
of the entire infrastructure. Almost nothing existing would be re-used. The
stock holders panic over the capital expenditure needed for simply running
fiber to the curb - what I describe above would be much more ambitious.
Our national communications network needs a complete
overhaul. Really, the whole thing should be redone as IP/Ethernet. Ditch the
ATM, TDM T1's and T3's, etc. All of it can be done over IP/Ethernet, and
done quite well. I am sure some of your other readers will quibble with
that, for various reasons, all of which I am well aware, but I shall stand
by that remark - it should all be done over IP/Ethernet. Each and every
objection I have heard from telco engineers (aside from the sheer scope and
resulting logistics nightmare in the project planning of such an overhaul)
has either been a non-issue or has an existing solution.
Nortel seemed to be taking this stand several years
ago when they discontinued many of their ATM switch lines, announcing that
ethernet was obsoleting the technology. Unfortunately the customer side of
the carrier market did not follow their lead.
If done right, an all IP/Ethernet communications
infrastructure would be just as, if not more, reliable than existing POTS/TDM/ATM
system we have, and would be much more flexible. At the end of the day,
packing switching is, even for real time applications such as voice, a
superior technology to circuit switching.
Sean
============
You may also find this amusing
"I think I hear the models trends shouting 'I took
Cialis; it really helps me keep things up!'. The observations seem to
whisper, 'Maybe my discount Viagra was counterfeit?' Anyone have any other
explanations?"
http://rankexploits.com/musings/
2009/longish-trends-much-lower-than-models/
Lucia is one of the trouble makers.
Why debate? IPCC theories fill rice bowls.
In 1680 Samuel Butler wrote in 'Hudibras' as follows:
What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was proved true before, Prove false again? Two hundred
more.
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/hdbrs10.txt
-Joe
==
Jerry,
Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in
Huntsville:
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/
atmos/christy.html
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/
atmos/christy/2009_DouglassC_EE.pdf
Contrast this statement with the claim in the Foxnews
report earlier that the last decade has been the warmest on record: the data
DO NOT support that claim.
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/
christy/2007_Dougless_etal.pdf
ALL of the computer models used to predict global
warming consistently yield higher temperatures than are actually observed.
Jim
==========
"Those in power view anybody asking questions as
challenging the legitimacy of the government."
http://www.latimes.com/news/
nationworld/world/la-fg-china-
deathtoll19-2009apr19,0,453131,full.story
-- Roland Dobbins
===========d
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