| Tuesday,
September 7, 2010 I am way behind so
some of this will be short shrift. We have much interesting mail, and I'll
comment on some.
November
Dr. Pournelle --
There has been much talk of "conservatives" taking
control of the House and Senate with the November elections. I'm not as
confident as some seem to be. Too much talk of a sure thing can easily hurt
turnout. Furthermore, The "Tea Party" movement is still new. I don't know
how many have truly adopted the tenets of small government and less
spending, especially when they realize that it's not just the other person
who will have to do with less. Then, too, the candidates supported by the
Tea Party are sometimes new and novel. Independents have recently been
burned by the new and novel and they may be "twice shy" when they get to the
voting booth.
I'm not confident that conservatives taking the House
and Senate in November would necessarily be a good thing. Even with
conservatives in control I doubt that the administration would shift to the
center and allow anything to be done. In addition, so much of what has been
done in the past eighteen months has its costs and impacts back loaded that
it may well be that things will get worse in the run-up to the 2012
elections. This would give the administration and the liberals a clear
opening to argue that things had been getting better before the
conservatives took Congress. We could then be back where we are now, only
worse. However, there is always the question of whether we can survive the
next two years with things similar to as they are.
It took a long time for things to get as they are and
it will take time to get out of this fix. Does the electorate have the
patience and courage for the journey?
Pieter
The best thing that can happen in November is a
return to sanity in Congress, so that we stop the bleeding and the frantic
efforts to "Do Something" about the economy. There is an eerie resemblance
to the lurching about of the New Deal as the Great Depression continued
without much regard to what the very well intentioned Roosevelt did. As I
have said many times, the story is well told by Amity Schlaes The
Forgotten Man, a really well done history of the New Deal and the Great
Depression. (book)
(kindle).
As to the Tea Party movement it is important to provide the proper vectors
to any attempt to take back our government. The United States is very much
in trouble; there is a way back, but it requires us to know that we have
gone down the wrong path and need to return to the principles of The
Republic. That is not a party: I mean Republic as opposed to a national
plebiscitary democracy. Republics are limited governments, and the most
important issues are usually left to lower levels. Transparency and
subsidiarity. Fractioning of power. Power cannot be destroyed; it must be
partitioned and set in opposition to itself. We used to call that "checks
and balances", a phrase that seems to have been lost in our high school
civics books.
The real enemy is the notion that a centralized
government can solve all problems. The delusion of the "Big Government
Conservatives" was the same delusion as the Socialist Delusion: that there
are "social problems" and a big and powerful government can "do something"
about them. This was Bismark's principle -- but note that he was, and was
openly and enthusiastically, in the service of an Imperial
bureaucracy, and his goal was to convert the Prussian monarchy into the
Second Reich, a German Empire successor to the Holy Roman Empire. To this
end he introduced a number of national welfare programs. This was Big
Government Conservatism. I doubt that those among the post-Gingrich
Republicans who coined this phrase understood where the notion came from.
Two years of amicable chaos with a Republican
Congress and a Democratic White House will do no grat harm unless the
Republicans fall into the hands of the Creeps again. It is that end that
the Tea Parties must avoid, while those dedicated to transparencies and
subsidiarity organize and develop practical programs.
The real disaster would be a Republican Congress
that becomes tax collectors for Democratic programs. That would not quite
be as great a disaster as we are experiencing at present.
We got rid of the Creeps. We need to get rid of
the Nuts, and return to the notion of a Republic that provides rules and
order and does not attempt to "solve all problems."
God is not willing to do
everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which
belongs to us.
Niccolo Machiavelli
We need a Federal Government which understands
that applies to them, too. It isn't God.
============
Letter
from England
And a happy Labor Day to
everyone. Diane and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary by taking a
60-mile bike trip. <http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=262361&id=672530873&ref=mf>
Let there be light entertainment
<http://tinyurl.com/39ogkex>
Double-dip recession? <http://tinyurl.com/3accvf3>
UK ambivalent attitude towards
disability <http://tinyurl.com/2vl2u7p>.
Army chief: Labour betrayed UK
troops <http://tinyurl.com/2vmyu6q>
Diane and I have been enjoying
"Yes, Minister" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister>.
Things haven't changed in 30 years <http://tinyurl.com/337jgfn>
--
Harry Erwin, PhD
"Those who would give up
essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither
Liberty nor Safety." (Benjamin Franklin, 1755)
============
USAID to Foreign Countries
This is an interesting Foreign Aid Summary from the
USAID Site as of 2009. I'm certainly not sure it's everything the USA spends
on "aid" but $52 Billion in 2009 seems like a fair amount of tax dollars at
work.
http://www.usaid.gov/policy/budget/cbj2011/2011_CBJ_SummaryTables.pdf
The summary lists "Foreign Assistance" by program and
country. I guess I knew this in the back of my head somewhere, but it would
appear the single largest line item in the budget (by country) is "FMF"
(Foreign Military Financing) for Israel at around $2.4 Billion (with a "B").
Not far behind is FMF for Egypt at $1.3 Billion. Together, these 2 line
items are 7% and 4% of the total Foreign Operation Budget, respectively.
I've always thought Israel was a testing ground for US military weaponry. I
suppose giving Egypt a good amount of money somehow "stabilizes" the balance
of power in the region?
Interestingly, Aid for Iraq is a paltry $20 Million,
but I'm guessing there have been several billions that have been spent in
other government programs in Iraq (in support of Our Legions, of course.)
One rather heartening amount is about $1.4 Billion for
Global AIDS funding. If someone asks me if we are doing enough to combat
global epidemics, including AIDS, I think I can safely say the United States
is doing it's part.
Take care, Joe Conyers
I would think it time and past
time to have a national debate on Foreign Aid: what it's for and what it
accomplishes, and what we can afford; and why.
=========
Microsoft Knows Your Dirty Secrets,
Jerry
Microsoft dumped upon again, and it appears that this
dump contains much fertilizer:
http://www.strategypage.com/
htmw/htiw/articles/20100903.aspx
"Now that most hackers have figured out what was
happening, Microsoft revealed that, for years many hackers have unthinkingly
allowed their Windows operating system to send information back to
Microsoft. This came in the form of data files on failed attempts to build
new hacker code." <snip>
"These hacker files were so numerous that they
provided a reliable picture of what software the criminal programmers were
creating, and was a big help in making computer security software more
effective." <snip>
Ed
I continue to send in the
reports; I really don't mind and I know for a fact (we had sessions on this
at WinHEC) that Microsoft has used the information to my advantage in fixing
bugs.
============
Balkans: How Kosovo Is Ripping Europe Apart,
Jerry
In the "Sow the wind . . . " department we have this -
"How Kosovo Is Ripping Europe Apart:"
http://www.strategypage.com
/qnd/balkans/articles/20100903.aspx
" . . . One Bosnian Serb official made the interesting
argument that the ICJ's ruling supersedes the Dayton Accords which ended the
Bosnian War and established Bosnia's current government. In August several
other Balkan countries also indicated they are very interested in the ICJ's
July 22 decision. The court declared that it was ruling on Serbia's petition
about Kosovo - implying it was a unique case. Other nations aren't sure.
There are many observers who regard it as an indication that the time is
approaching when European borders will be allowed to shift." <snip> Georgia,
Moldova, Bosnia, etc.
Ed
=============
Ancient Nubians Made Antibiotic Beer:
Howdy, Jerry -
As the article points out, this was first noticed in
1981.
As I recall, Von Danikan (remember him? Chariots of
the Gods?) jumped on this as evidence of high technology in ancient times.
Who knew the ancients were using antibiotics? It must have been aliens.
As Ed says, you or I can't make this stuff up. There
are, however, those who can.
Regards,
Jim Martin
You can call it penicillin but
it's blue bread mold...
=============
Bookstore as coffee shop
There's some evidence that coffee shops are realizing
that they don't actually want "regulars" who order one $5 coffee and spend
ten hours blogging.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/
aug/08/business/la-fi-cafe-wifi-20100808
Mike
===========
Land of the free, home of the brave
Hello Jerry,
Reading Gary Pavek's letter on the latest financial
reporting requirements led me to remember a few surprises that I have
encountered as our society 'advanced'. Or should I say 'progressed'?
When I was in the Navy and not too long after Kennedy
was shot, I came home to WV on leave and went to Cumberland, MD with my
uncle. Of course, we went to a sporting goods store, which just happened to
have a S&W Model 41 target .22 that I thought would be just spiffy to take
back to RI and shoot in our pistol league. Not so fast, I was told. It was
now illegal for me, stationed in RI and with a permanent address in WV to
buy a pistol in MD. Guess that will teach all those wannabe Lee Harvey
Oswald's not to mess with Uncle Sam.
A bit later (1992), I was now a civilian returning
home from a government job in Germany. Having saved my pennies while in
Germany I thought it would be amusing to buy my new car with cash, so I went
to my credit union, got a briefcase full of $100 bills, and bought the car.
And was satisfactorily amused by the dealer's reaction. A couple of days
later I got a frantic call from the dealer begging me to come in and fill
out a bunch of paperwork for the government stating exactly why I showed up
at the dealer with more than $10k in cash. Again, I had never heard of such
a thing, but having it explained as necessary to avoid a jail term, I filled
out the papers. Whoda thunk it?
New job; SSN required. New bank account; SSN required.
New physician; SSN required. New credit card; SSN required. Ride an
airplane; TWO forms of ID (at least) required. Visit a government building;
submit to being searched. I now learn that because the government is so
concerned about my privacy, I must give them carte blanche access to my
banking and medical records, and sign a paper thanking them (apparently)
every time I visit a physician, to ensure that they are properly protected.
From everyone except a government employee with a self-identified
need-to-know. Or morbid curiosity.
Want to buy a gun. OK as long as you get permission
from the government first.
Want to use drugs (I don't.)? The government is so
concerned with their ill effects on your health that it is willing to shoot
you, for your own good of course, if you persist in using them.
Last month I bought a car. I was doing fine with the
paperwork until I was told that I had to give the dealership my SSN. I asked
why, as it was going to be a simple transaction. I give them my old car and
a check; they give me the new car. Au contraire. I was told that they would
not be allowed to sell me the car until they submitted my SSN to the
government and received permission to proceed. Another new experience in
freedom. Of course I did have the freedom, unlike the upcoming brave new
world of medical insurance, to forgo the purchase.
Oh well. At least I am now safe, finally. Unless I
visit southwestern AZ or the 'wrong' section of any major city after dark,
identify myself as a conservative and attempt to give a speech on a college
campus, or tick off the government.
Maybe we're still brave.
Bob Ludwick
===========
Asking About Gold
Jerry:
Your correspondent Paul writes:
<quote> Thinking ('way behind the curve, I admit) it
might be worthwhile to invest gold coins in the event civil order broke down
I searched online for a local coin shop website and asked the following
question: "Given a desire for privacy, what is the threshold on purchases
not requiring reporting to the federal government?"
The answer came back:
"I can't help you structure your purchases to avoid
government reporting. That is a federal offense. Also I have your name. So
now that I know your intentions I am not able to sell you anything."
<end quote>
Sounds like it's time for a whole bunch of people to
send that question to every coin shop they can find.
.............Karl
O subtle one, O serpent...
============
The "Global Warming Thing" and NASA
Politics, Greenies, Global Warming and NASA
Seems to me that we are missing an opportunity here.
We seem to be getting lost amongst the trees, trying to measure a forest
(temperature of the earth). What we need to do is to build a large infrared
laser thermometer on the surface of the moon so that it will measure the
entire exposed face of Terra at one time - thereby smoothing the different
temperatures into one automatically. Do this for one entire orbit of the
moon around Terra and get an average. When the laser is built, make sure it
is on a articulated mount, so that we can use it on light sails, as a
secondary purpose. The laser would have to have a support colony, of course,
to try out several other methodologies. For example, to focus the multiple
terra-watt laser onto wherever that annoying Green Peace ship happens to be.
But wait! We would need another laser to confirm the first lasers findings.
So, using the first laser to boost the spacecraft, we should send another
colony to Mars (take me! take me!) to set up another articulated infrared
laser to confirm the moon unit (not the Frank Zappa one, the other one). But
what if there is a disagreement in readings? Well, we would have to send out
another colony to the asteroid belt to build a third laser. With all three
lasers giving us measurements, we would finally have the definitive
temperature, as long as any two agree. What if one of them goes down? I
guess we should send another colony to, um, Alpha Centauri. Everybody wins!
The Greens get rid of a bunch of "icky" people who use numbers a lot, NASA
has a sustainable political mission, and I get to go because I thought of
it.
Ronman
Blanchard, Idaho (Daddy, are we far enough away yet?.
. . .)
=============
Saudi Arabia builds World's Biggest Clock, Hopes to
replace GMT with "Mecca Time"
http://www.popsci.com/science/
article/2010-08/saudi-arabia-builds-
worlds-biggest-clock-mecca-hopes-
supercede-gmt-mecca-time
It would be funny if they weren't serious.
-jim
============
the continuing discussion about
18 USC 1001 (aka: The Martha Stewart crime)
Dear Dr. Pournelle:
On several occasions in your excellent webpage, you
have remarked upon the Martha Stewart crime (i.e., 18 USC 1001). For those
who have not read those comments, or who have been unacquainted with modern
events, I will offer a brief reminder: It is a crime to lie to a federal
officer. It does not matter if what you lie about is of no account. It does
not matter if you were not under oath when you made the 'little white lie'.
If you say some thing that is not true to a U.S. agent, no matter how small,
it is a federal crime, and a felony. It has a five year prison term, unless
you've done something particularly nasty. Then it is eight years in Club
Fed. End of story.
You have recommended that anyone who has to speak with
a federal agent simply not talk with that agent. I write because this may
not be the wisest of alternatives. It seems that 18 USC 1001 (a)(1) also
makes it a crime if one "falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick,
scheme, or device a material fact". I invite the reader to check out the
Cornell School of Law website, which provides a copy of 18 USC 1001, here:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/
uscode18/usc_sec_18_00001001----000-.html
In short, it is also a crime to refuse to speak with a
federal officer.
As I find neither alternative to be acceptable, I've
taken the time to look for, and (I think) to find, a means of escaping the
horns of this dilemma. Cutting to the chase, I suggest that one first read
this article:
http://library.findlaw.com/2004/May/11/147945.html
One might also consider taking the advice given in the
above article:
"Is there an intelligent alternative to lying or
telling the truth that we have not yet examined? Yes. In our hypothetical
interview, you can politely decline to be interviewed by the FBI agent. Tell
the agent that you have an attorney and that "my attorney will be in contact
with you." If the agent persists, say that you will not discuss anything
without first consulting counsel. Ask for the agent's card, to give to your
attorney. If you have not yet hired a lawyer, tell the agent that "I want to
consult a lawyer first" or that "an attorney will be in touch with you." The
absolutely essential thing to keep in mind is to say nothing of substance
about the matter under investigation. It is preferable to do this by
politely declining to be interviewed in the absence of counsel. If the agent
asks "why do you need an attorney?" or "what do you have to hide?" do not
take his bait and directly respond to such questions. (Do not even say that
you have nothing to hide.) Simply state that you will not discuss the matter
at all without first consulting counsel and that counsel will be in touch
with him. If the agent asks for a commitment from you to speak with him
after you have consulted or retained counsel, do not oblige him. Just
respond that you will consult with your attorney (or "an" attorney) and that
the attorney will be in touch. And by all means do not get bullied or
panicked into making up a phony reason for refusing to talk. You are not
obliged to explain your decision to anyone."
In short, tell the federal agent that you will not
speak with him without the presence of counsel. Repeat as needed.
The money quote (sorry for the porn reference) is even
more interesting:
"Your invocation of counsel, however, cannot be used
against you at trial. United States v. McDonald , 620 F.2d 559, 561-64 (5th
Cir. 1980). Your refusal to talk substance in the absence of counsel will
force the prosecutor to decide whether your information is important enough
to justify a grand jury subpoena for your testimony. "
I find it interesting to note that the author of this
article does NOT suggest that one have counsel present when one speaks to
the agent. Apparently, Martha had counsel present when she had her 'oopsy'
moment. The author recommends NEVER speaking with a federal agent if one can
help it. So ultimately, your advice is sound. As is usual with the law,
though, it is important just HOW one tells the agent to go to Hell. I would
suggest both politeness and a knowledge of the law. I have found that
combination to have satisfactory results.
Hoping that this might be of some help, I am
Very truly yours,
Bernard Brandt
P.S., you have my permission to post this missive.
P.P.S. Thank you again for your website. I must say
that while I watch Fox Network when I want to [annoy] my left-wing brother,
I read your weblog to get a better grasp of the news than I am able to
obtain from CNN, Fox, or MSNBC. You have an intelligent and informed
readership who are willing to share their knowledge and experience. You
yourself also appear to be 'smarter than the average bear'.
Thank you for the advice and
for the kind words.
The law cannot require me to
have an accurate memory; and since I no longer do, it would seem to me
simple prudence to say that I am not sure of my recollection and therefore I
don't think I should say anything.
The obvious remedy to this
nonsense is to bring back the practice that was standard for most of my
life: that which you state under penalty of perjury is in fact accurate
under penalty of perjury. That which is simply said to investigators,
agents, hirelings and bondsmen of the various regimes is to be evaluated by
the agent's experience and judgment. I was brought up on the notion that it
was a civic duty to cooperate with the police and authorities, and I count
it a major disaster that we have thrown that all away in favor of the rule
of fear and terror. The Martha Stewart case was treason against the entire
notion of a Republic: not Ms. Stewart, but the "investigators" who ought to
be dismissed and the prosecutors who ought to be disbarred and dismissed
with prejudice.
The notion that one can be
prosecuted for denying that you did something that is not a crime to begin
with is monstrous and those involved in that prosecution ought to be so
ashamed that they withdraw forever from public life. They have neither honor
nor good sense.
Discussion
continues below
==========
NASA's lighter side
http://spaceyourface.nasa.gov/
Cheers Tim Cunningham
============
Volcanic heating of the oceans
Hello Jerry,
The Global Warming clergy are quick to dismiss
undersea volcanos as a significant driver of the temperature of the oceans.
They make the argument that the oceans are vast and although volcanos put
out seemingly large amounts of heat, that heat is not sufficient to warm the
oceans noticeably.
Well, maybe, and keeping in mind that no one seems to
have any real knowledge as to the total amount of volcanic activity on the
sea beds, at least to an order of magnitude, we DO know with iron clad
certainty that there is a large number of undersea volcanos and that each of
them dumps huge quantities of heat into the ocean when they erupt.
Now A volcanic eruption may not release enough energy
to raise the overall temperature of the oceans appreciably, but it is not
dumped into the oceans, plural. It is released essentially as a point source
and raises the temperature of the ocean, singular, at THAT point VERY
noticeably.
Weather, and by extension, climate, are highly
dependent on ocean currents, which in turn are driven by ocean thermal
gradients, among other things. What the volcanos do is to inject enormous,
but unknown, quantities of heat into the ocean at random points and at
random times. The process produces a highly localized and very steep thermal
gradients, introducing in turn local perturbations in the ocean currents.
These random perturbations in the large scale currents may not affect the
'temperature of the ocean' very much, but they will do something, at random,
affecting how that temperature is distributed. When the ocean currents
change, the weather changes. When they change at random, by random amounts,
good luck on 'predicting the weather', long term.
Bob Ludwick
El Nino has more effect on
climate than anything else I know other than the Sun. It is somewhat
cyclical but there is a very large unpredictability. It could I suspect be
caused by a thin mantle layer at the Mindanao Deep or similar area in the
Pacific, where there is more conductivity between the core and the biosphere
(if you can call those benthic depths part of the biosphere -- certainly
they are connected to it by nothing more than a column of water). Until we
know more about El Nino, models of climate are a bit incomplete I would say.
Actually I am being restrained...
===============
There follow a number of mails
sent over the past six months and all trapped by a spam filter. I just found
them, and salvaged some.
NOAA Surface Temperature Stations Survey Results /
http://www.heartland.org/books/PDFs/SurfaceStations.pdf
"The reliability of data used to document
temperature trends is of great importance in this debate (i.e. global
warming). We can’t know for sure if global warming is a problem if we
can’t trust the data."
"The official record of temperatures in the
continental United States comes from a network of 1,221 climate-monitoring
stations overseen by the National Weather Service, a department of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Until now, no one
had ever conducted a comprehensive review of the quality of the
measurement environment of those stations."
"During the past few years I recruited a team of
more than 650 volunteers to visually inspect and photographically document
more than 860 of these temperature stations. We were shocked by what we
found."
"We found stations located next to the exhaust fans
of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads,
on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb
and radiate heat. We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment
plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be
higher than in surrounding areas."
"In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations –
nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own
siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or
more away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source."
"In other words, 9 of every 10 stations are likely
reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited."
"It gets worse. We observed that changes in the
technology of temperature stations over time also has caused them to
report a false warming trend. We found major gaps in the data record that
were filled in with data from nearby sites, a practice that propagates and
compounds errors. We found that adjustments to the data by both NOAA and
another government agency, NASA, cause recent temperatures to look even
higher."
Mark
============
Those sophists
"They did not pretend to teach how the truth is to be
attained. They did not care whether it could be attained or not. They aimed
to impart to their pupils the ability to make the better cause seem the
worse, and the worse the better."
http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Sophists
==============
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
Fascinating documentary on the true history of Project
Orion (Old Bang Bang, not the current NASA project about to be canceled):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18L4E4myDAs&feature=related
Freeman Dyson and several of the other original Orion
researchers are interviewed.There is some great footage of actual model
Orion tests with high explosives, proof of the workability of the concept.
At the end there is a segment on laser launch systems as the most likely
utilization of the pulse rocket idea.
One of the researchers comments at the end of the film
that nuclear energy is a million times more powerful than any chemical
rocket fuel possible. To equal the lifting power of one Orion flight with a
chemical rocket you would need a fuel load the size of the Earth!
Petronius
============
IQ, ecucation and the Iron Law
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
In grade school forty plus years ago I was regularly
tested, along with all other students, annually in a day long battery of
tests. The standard sort of "Choose the correct answer and fill in all of
the circle next to it with your Number Two pencil."
Those test results were never communicated to me. To
the best of my knowledge, they were never given to my parents. My teachers
may have been privy to them. I don't know that they were.
For all of my school up to grade 12 I was never told I
was anything but average. I still recall my GPA at high school graduation:
2.12 out of four possible.
Typically, in high school and even before, I would get
either an A if the class interested me, or a low c to D if it bored me.
I struggled through three years (!) of community
college. D average, about 1.82.
Then, like the typical 21 year old I was, I fell in
love, got my heart broken, and Saw My Local Recruiter. Seemed like a good
way to Get Out Of Dodge. "The Girl I Left Behind Me", etc.
The recruiter, since it was his job to find good
recruits, made sure I was tested ten ways from Sunday. He then sked me what
sir if soldiering I wanted to do. "I always thought artillery looked
interesting," I put forth.
The recruiter gave me that look Sergeants have been
giving Dumb Ass Recruits since about 500 BCE. "Your scores are way too high
for that. I was in MI, and you are perfect for that. Your language aptitude
scores are off the charts. You ought to go to language school, and be an MI
specialist."
"But I flunked out of German when I took it last
year..."
He said a few pointed things about how the Army knew
how to teach languages to Dumb Asses better than any civilian, and started
me filling out forms.
Three years later I was an E-5 Military Intelligence
Specialist, with three semesters of college credit on the books from Army
training of one sort or another, all of it at high B to A grades, and a
whole new view of myself.
Not to mention the Army showed me my test scores. The
company clerk at my first duty station called me in to check my records. He
was sure there had been a mistake. He showed me my GT score, the "General
Test" that all soldiers take before induction. It was 160. I told him 160
was correct, that was what it had always been.
He shook his head. "No way. I've been doing this job
one place or another for twelve years, and I never saw a 160 before."
I just looked confused, and said something about not
seeing what was the problem.
"Don't you know what 160 is?" he asked. " |A pretty
good score?" I answered.
He made a funny face at me, as if I was an idiot.
"It's a (censored) Perfect Score' Never saw one
before."
Then he got thoughtful, anmd tld me tog et out of his
(censored) office,.
The next week he had a new car. He earned the down
payment thanks to my score.
Over beers at the NCO CLub, he told every other
company clerk in the Headquarters Battalion of the First Infantry Division
that he had a soldier with a perfect GT score.
"No way! Im-(censored)-Possible!)" they averred.
Wanna bet?" he replied
He got more action on that bet than if the Little
Sisters of Mercy were playing the Colts in the Super Bowl and he was backing
the nuns.
Ny point? You are absolutely right that the schools do
not know how to handle exceptional children of any sort. It has only gotten
wrose since my time in the barrel.
My eleven year old son was identified in Kindergarten
(after two weeks!), as in need of Special Education.
At eleven he is now halfway through the fifth Harry
Potter book, completely on his own in developing a taste for books of that
length. A few weeks back I found that he had gotten out his microscope on
his own and was "researching" everything in the kitchen to see what looked
like under the 'scope. He has a telescope at his mothers (we're divorced)
and uses it. Studying flue and piano.
But the schools still have him in Special Ed., and
insist he will never be mainstreamed. He's become part of someone's RIce
Bowl, and that bowl is made of Iron as cold and hard as your own Iron Law.
The schools treated me like I was average, and I rose
to that level. Why they hid my test scores, which had to be above average,
is beyond me. I suspect that it was important to some bureaucrat to limit
the number of above average students in that school or district. It was his
Iron Law Rice Bowl.
There has to be a special circle in the Inferno for
those who run such a system. Think of the ruined lives, the cost to
civilization.
At least, once the Army straightened me out, I went on
to Magna Cum Laude work at the University of California, and a career as a
writer.
We live in the world of "Harrison Bergeron".
Petronius
=============
Aircraft contrls and that term
I don['t know if they called it "Fly By Wire" or if
anyone called a cable control system "wire control", but I do know it's
hardly a new concept to use electrical motors and electrical wire that
conducts a fluctuating current to servomotors that actually work aircraft
control surfaces.
Martin Caidin, the great aviation writer, wrote in his
classic history of the B-17 bomber of World War Two "Flying Fotrts" that one
reason the Fort's brought crews home safe when other bombers would have
fallen from the sky was that it used a system of servomotors and electrical
wire to move the control surfaces, rather than hydraulics or cable. It was
much harder for a lucky bullet, shell or piece of random flak to destroy a
1/8 inch or so electrical wire than a hydraulic line or wire cable. A small
hole in hydraulics can lower pressure enough to severely limit control, and
could cascade to further damage and zero pressure/control. Same with wire
cable. A nick in it, and the stress of pulling it can lead to a complete
severance of connection/control. Electrical wire is smaller and harder to
hit, is easily run through armored portions of the aircraft, you can have
more than one line per servo at small added cost in time, money OR weight,
AND even if damaged might still get the signal through If connection is
broken, you can reconnect electrical wires a lot easier than hydraulic lines
in the air, wearing gloves while being shot at (!), or splicing a wire cable
under the same conditions,
My first car, a 63' Mercury, did not have a wire
between the gas pedal and throttle anyway. it was a mechanical linkage, a
rod with levers and hinges Archimedes himself would have been proud of. You
could adjust it to give you massive "Hot Rod" power at a twitch (which is
great when you are 19!), or pull it out and turn it into a "Only On Sundays
To Church" Little Old Lady ( if not from Pasadena!)showboat.. At this point,
perhaps someone at Toyota ought consider putting one of those back in, just
as a fallback. It would make a lot of older auto mechanics sentimental for
the days when a scope and a timing light was all the electronics you needed
in an auto shop!
Paleomodern
Actually the Fortress and the
B-52 still had cables -- physical cables -- from the yoke to the control
surface. The BUFF can be flown without hydraulics at all. It takes two men
and a boy to horse that yoke back, but it can be done.
============
Another polar rescue must send chills down spines of
alarmists (
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/
another-polar-rescue-must-send/story-
e6frfhqf-1225856131380 Stupid is as stupid does.
-Joe
==============
No need to put fingers on a diet?
Jerry: John Derbyshire at NRO suggests last week's
stock hiccup was normal market workings, amplified. <http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?
q=NDVlMzY0OTcwYTYxMWVlYWQwNG
JlOGJlZjQwZDg4ZWI=>
(quote) Consider two market players, A and B. A sells
a stock to B. Why is this happening? Well, A thinks the stock is overvalued,
so he wants to sell it. B, contrariwise, thinks the stock is undervalued, so
he wants to buy it.
Why do A and B have different views, though? ....
One common reason is that they’re working with
different time horizons. A might be looking two weeks ahead, B may be
looking two years ahead. On this basis, they might both be right: the stock
may be overvalued in the short term, but undervalued in the long term.
A lot of trading is like that. Most commonly the trade
will be between someone with a higher appetite for risk (short time horizon)
and someone with a lower (long time horizon — probably an institutional
investor). This long-term/short-term balance is one of the things that keeps
the market stable.
Politics can upset this balance by introducing
uncertainty into the long-term picture. The bailouts did just that.
Investors — and many more long-term investors than short-term — are asking:
“How do I know who’s Too Big to Fail? How do I know when there’ll be a
bailout and when nature will take its course? What are the rules?” (end
quote)
To the extent that trading is both rules-based and
fast (the very definition of computer-based trading), this kind of thing
will keep happening when conditions are right. You can address the problem
by turning off the computers. You can try banning rules, but I don't think
that'll work.
One fix would be to quit tinkering with the shape and
slope of the playing field -- quit fiddling with the rules so traders have
some idea what to expect in the long term. But politicians live to fiddle
with rules, and will resist any laws to turn off *their* computers.
.................Karl
=============
The Wheat Farmer
Dear Jerry,
You ask "under which provision of the Constitution
does the Congress have the power to forbid the possession and sale of
marijuana? Heroin? Cocaine? Forbid their interstate shipment, yes, perhaps,
but forbid a California farmer from growing hemp for sale within
California?"
The answer is the Commerce Clause in conjunction with
the "Aggregation Principle" articulated by the Supreme Court in Wickard v.
Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942). It turns out that a farmer growing wheat for
his own consumption is engaged in interstate commerce because of the
aggregative effect of home-grown wheat of many farmers competing with wheat
in commerce. The modern version of this is the medical marijuana case,
Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005), which has, according to the opinion by
Justice Stevens, "striking" similarities with Wickard. O'Connor, Rehnquist,
and Thomas had the good sense to dissent in Raich, but Scalia wrote a
concurring opinion. So much for the States as "laboratories".
By the way, if we are ever again to see a Commerce
Clause kept within its proper bounds, it will be because of the Supreme
Court, not Congress.
Gordon Sollars
I still do not see how
Marijuana comes under the Constitution but Alcohol does not. Clearly there
is no power to forbid alcohol -- it took the 18th amendment to do that, and
it was repealed. Where is marijuana different?
==============
thoughts on the wikilieaks debacle
Dr. Pournelle,
I thought I would share a few thoughts on the
Wikileaks debacle from an Information Assurance perspective. I offer them as
someone who has worked in IT for 29 years, 11 of them in the Army, in a
variety of roles and has a MS in Information Assurance.
I have seen quite a bit of commentary on the fact that
the data released was copied unto CDs. While the fact that that was even
possible reveals a fundamental failure of security it only begins to scratch
the surface of a work culture that must have had a total disregard for basic
security standards and procedures.
The ability to copy the documents to a removable media
is only one of several security lapses necessary for the successful
smuggling of classified documents out of the (supposedly) secure network
where they were stored. Before he could copy the documents the PFC
(apparently formerly SPC, which raises additional reasons for concern) in
question had to be able to access them. Why in the world would a PFC have
access to 90,000+ classified documents? The fact that he did demonstrates
that the concept of access control (also known as need to know) could not
have been being practiced. Furthermore, assuming that he was functioning in
some capacity where his access could not be restricted (extremely unlikely)
or he somehow overcame those restrictions (a process called privilege
escalation), why then was access to the documents not being audited? The
fact that someone was accessing and copying huge numbers of files should
have raised automated alarms alerting someone to investigate what could only
be a security breach.
Frankly Dr. Pournelle, the lack of seriousness shown
towards information and operational security demonstrated by this fiasco
leads me to believe that you are underestimating the amount of damage that
has been inflicted on the United States. How can any ally trust us with any
intelligence whatsoever? Especially when this security failure is coupled
with the recent news that high level officials in the Pentagon and various
intelligence agencies were downloading pornography onto their work
computers, including one individual in the NSA who was discovered with child
pornography (he has apparently fled to Libya.) It is clear that many
agencies of the United States government lack an understanding of the
fundamental principles of information security. I find this especially
egregious because those principles: access control, auditing, least
privileges, and personnel reliability to name the ones most obviously
ignored in this case, predate computing systems by thousands of years. The
Pharaohs, Xerces, Alexander the Great, Caesar, Charlemagne, Saladin,
Washington, Napoleon, and Patton all had to deal with these issues. We
moderns have no excuse for not doing so.
This is a staggering demonstration of ineptitude from
an institution (the U.S. Military) that was both trusted and believed to be
competent. God help us if we have to face the Chinese on the battlefield.
Ralph Hyatt
I think you misunderstand my
views.
As you said, Caesar had to
deal with such problems. We can also.
============
The rise of robotic exoskeletons
Dr Pournelle
Shades of Fritz Leiber's _A Spectre Is Haunting
Texas_.
BehindTheMedspeak: The rise of robotic exoskeletons
link:
http://www.bookofjoe.com/ (See the top entry for August 06, 2010.)
Live long and prosper
h lynn keith
PS Not all that can be counted counts. Not all that
counts can be counted.
==========
What we are leaving behindi n Iraq
Dear Jerry,
In reference to the supposed ending of American combat
operations in Iraq, you wrote in View for August 31:
"If you have the stomach for it, you can see what we
are leaving behind:"
followed by a link to a video of men being stoend to
death. However, the website where the linked video is embedded states that
the video is of a stoning that took place in Iran in 1994, not in
contemporary Iraq.
Afraid I don't see the connection to Iraq today, good,
bad or indifferent though it may be..
Paleomodern
I was persuaded that the link
led to the video of the girl being stoned to death. I didn't watch it,
because I did not care to. I should have checked to see that the link was to
what I was told it was to.
The link should have led to
the stoning of a young woman by her brother and father and the neighbors.
==========================w
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