| Wednesday,
January 19, 2011
Letter from England
Covert UK police operations
against protest movements begin unravelling: <http://tinyurl.com/6zpmj8u>
Yeah! See <http://tinyurl.com/5u2mpeu>
Legal immunity over marks is
likely to become less than absolute: <http://tinyurl.com/688yhbd>
It appears few UK students will
be doing taught masters as fees rise to unaffordable levels: <http://tinyurl.com/6jmsuda>.
(This is consistent with a trend I've been watching in recent years.)
Inflation in the UK: <http://tinyurl.com/5rywato>
--
Harry Erwin, PhD
Consultant's advice: "Pay me now
or pay me later. It'll cost more later."
===========
Monday Morning News
Hi, Jerry,
There were a number of stories in the morning news
that might interest our American cousins.
First, the Met and the Home Office seem to be
suffering from a bad case of French police envy. The current story is about
the Met's infiltration of the environmental protest movement. The Telegraph
has a story indicating there were at least 16 officers working undercover,
and there are other stories of evidence being suppressed and protest
demonstrations being organised and planned by the police. Here are some
links: <http://tinyurl.com/6h75hgs>
<http://tinyurl.com/4sqwgou>
<http://tinyurl.com/5vehjnj>
<http://tinyurl.com/5u38sz4>
Police, naturally, are monitoring student protest planning: <http://tinyurl.com/6jzarmq>
Second, there's a cat-fight underway about what health
care the National Health Service should provide: <http://tinyurl.com/5vcqns3>
<http://tinyurl.com/6zgb5dr>
<http://tinyurl.com/6evutqo>
<http://tinyurl.com/63r3azt> .
Treatment is already rationed, especially if it is costly, there is no clear
diagnosis, or it is a new development, but this involves pulling back from
long-established standards.
Third, the previous House of Commons Speaker is now
being criticised for being out of costume: <http://tinyurl.com/6hexqt4>
Fourth, the Spanish legal system is trying to suppress
embarrassing news articles by telling Google not to link to them: <http://tinyurl.com/47gw3ld>
Next, a Science article on weather and prosperity: <http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/01/12/science.1197175>
Lastly, a liberal--perhaps even
libertarian--commentary on current events in the UK: <http://tinyurl.com/46ymncs>.
-- Harry Erwin, PhD "Those who would give up essential
Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor
Safety." (Benjamin Franklin, 1755)
=================w
The news this week continues to
be interesting.
It looks like we'll be hit by a
surge in inflation here: <http://tinyurl.com/68n4zgl>
<http://tinyurl.com/6jol8lt>.
In some parts of the economy, it has hit double digits.
The NHS debate turns nasty: <http://tinyurl.com/5t8hy4w>
<http://tinyurl.com/6ak8ue8>
<http://tinyurl.com/6849n4a>
<http://tinyurl.com/6x3frlo>
Covert policing to be cleaned
up: <http://tinyurl.com/654qwda>
Did you know it was being handled in the UK by a private company?
Use of libel actions to suppress
public debate: <http://tinyurl.com/65ltwnc>
If you want to discourage
something--in this case education for the poor after the age of
16--eliminate the subsidy: <http://tinyurl.com/5wba5mb>
<http://tinyurl.com/6yztbal>
Segways are illegal in the UK <http://tinyurl.com/6d22stg>.
Powered wheelchairs next?
--
Harry Erwin, PhD,
Senior Lecturer of Computing, University of Sunderland. Computational
neuroethologist:
http://crowan-scat.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/mediawiki/index.php
===========
Judge Impeached for lying to FBI and Senate
Dr. Pournelle,
I thought you would find this interesting.
In a precedent setting impeachment of a United States
District Judge, Congress has decided lying to the FBI and Senate justifies
removal from office.
It is a first.
The Judge in question was removed for four counts
charged by the House. One of the "high crimes and misdemeanors" was his
lying to the FBI, and subsequently the US Senate during the pre-confirmation
process.
See:
http://bit.ly/g78OOV
I found this in one of my twitter feeds. We've been
using twitter while we cruise in our retirement explorations. Twitter has
continued to improve and now is like the CNN of the internet for 'heads up'
cites to multiple news and info channels, which one is able to subscribe and
follow without taking too much time. Sort of like an old newsroom teletype.
Feel free to take a look at twitter's newest format at my web site: http://twitter.com/@captedkelly
. It's hard to describe its utility. The good info you get in is like
'narrowcasting' when you select what sources to follow. I certainly think it
merits a "recommended" on my list of valuable resources, right up there
close behind your column and mail.
Have a wonderful day.
Ed Kelly Ed & Sue Kelly on USSV Angel Louise, on hard
Ft. Pierce, FL ... crossing Atlantic in May
It is certainly a rare event...
===========
Hi, Jerry. You note: “Rush Limbaugh is an
entertainer. He states this himself. He uses the device of the "Limbaugh
Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies in describing his show, but I
do not think he takes that seriously.”
I’ve been a Limbaugh fan since his first show, when he
took over a small, one-hour radio talk show here in Sacramento, CA. He was
here in Sacramento on KFBK for three years before he took his show to New
York and went national, 23 or so years ago. Back then, Rush used to describe
his schtick as “demonstrating absurdity by being absurd”. I haven’t heard
him use this phrase in years, but this is still the touchstone of his show;
he goes “over the top”, sometimes extravagantly so, in parodying his targets
and trying to make them seem ridiculous. In many cases, Limbaugh is able to
goad foolish people into becoming, if this is possible, even MORE foolish
than they already were.
I will freely grant you that his over-the-top
performances are sometimes annoying; even I think so. And sometimes the
incessant drumbeat becomes tiresome. But he’s making 20+ million dollars a
year, re-made the very CONCEPT of “talk radio”, and has the largest radio
audience in history, with the exception of Paul Harvey. A lot of people
apparently think he’s saying at least SOME of the right things, most of the
time.
---
Ken Mitchell
I think you make my point exactly. Note that I did
not say "merely" an entertainer. Of course Rush is a commentator, and he
tries to be reasonably accurate in his observations and when he states
facts; but he is not lecturing in an institution of higher learning, nor
does he claim to be. That was all I meant.
============
Report: Women should be allowed in combat units -
USATODAY.com
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/
2011-01-14-women-combat_N.htm?csp=YahooModule_News
Dear Jerry:
I wrote an Op/Ed for Defense News in 1991 on this
issue. In it I pointed out, that in the modern combat environment the
difference between "combat' and "combat support" is the word "support". And
so it has proved in Iraq and Afghanistan. There women assigned to Civil
Affairs units found themselves manning machine guns on convoys, as much at
risk as any other soldier. The MPs have had this reality since the Panama
Invasion when Capt. Linda Bray led her company in a fire fight with local
insurgents. So the reality is that women are already in combat arms units.
The neat little clerical evasion here is that they are not "assigned" but
"attached". A meaningless distinction. Over the last twenty years that 1991
essay of mine has been quoted and referenced many times in support of
changing the rules to reflect the reality.
A lot of the fears expressed by those opposed to this
change are simply bad assumptions. Women go through the same Basic Combat
Training and are equally capable of handling whatever comes. I recall an
episode where a platoon of MPs on convoy duty had an argument at their
destination with a local prude who wanted the women to find separate
sleeping accommodations. The response, from a Male NCO was " we fight
together, we eat together and we lodge together". Everyone was tired and
they had another convoy the next morning over the same very dangerous route.
So they weren't having any.
My stage play, "Memorial Day" is about a bunch of
people in a small town. most of whom have served, often heroically, who have
to deal with the death of the home town girl who went to West Point and
became a career Army officer; killed by an IED in Iraq leading her battalion
of MPs. I hope to get that produced again. It's not a matter of letting
girls into the club house because they are already there. It's a matter of
acknowledging their presence and getting on with the job.
Sincerely,
Francis Hamit
==========
The Hunt's The Thing
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2011/01/12/AR201101120
4703.html?sid=ST2011011205425
The Hunting Act <http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/37/contents>
, which became the law of this land in 2005 following months of protest and
parliamentary debate, made it illegal to use dogs to hunt foxes. It also
protects some other mammals, such as hare (but not rabbits), mice (but not
rats) and mink (but not men).
Several pink-cheeked and puffing specimens of which
are now scrambling through hedgerows of hawthorn and wild rose, plunging
into icy irrigation channels and laboring across plowed fields that are
sodden with just-thawed snow from Britain's uncharacteristically cold
winter.
This is a manhunt.
Let me get this straight; it is STILL the pursuit of
the inedible by the unspeakable, right?
Jim w.
==========
Afghanistan
Afghanistan makes nothing we need or ought to
want, and the best we can accomplish there is that it not be a haven for
launching attacks against the American people and the United States. This
has already been accomplished. I see no reason why we cannot declare
victory and leave, with some precautions and warnings. As to the Afghan
practices with boys, I don't have to have a public opinion.
-----
We have landed on Al-Qaeda <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda>
hard, but it is not gone, and Bin Loudmouth is still around. Once we leave,
he will proclaim victory in that he drove us out. He will then rebuild his
organization. He will then start seeking revenge on anyone who co-operated
with us. Once those are wiped out he will consolidate his power. Once that
is done he will launch another attack, and we will have to come back and do
it over.
Brice
Quite possibly. There are costs and benefits to any
policy. Fortunately I don't have to decide. I do think we need to keep
looking for the objectives, and whether we are getting closer to them or
not. The objective, so far as I am concerned, is not to build a liberal
democracy in Afghanistan with Kabul's writ running to all the borders; it is
to deny our enemies bases in Afghanistan. Do note there is mineral wealth in
Afghanistan -- and that China is setting up to exploit it. Perhaps Chinese
conquest of Afghanistan will follow. That might be interesting, China
advancing into the graveyard of empires.
Perhaps the following is irrelevant, but it does
have an effect on the Legions:
Sodomy and Sufism in Afgaynistan
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MA11Df03.html By Spengler
Social scientists attached to the Second
Marine Battalion in Afghanistan last year circulated a startling report
on Pashtun sociology, in the form of a human terrain report on male
sexuality among America's Afghan allies. The document, made available by
military sources, is not classified, just disturbing. Don't ask, don't
tell doesn't begin to qualify the problem. These are things you didn't
want to know, and regret having heard. The marines got their money's
worth from their Human Terrain adjuncts, but the report might have
considered whether male pedophilia in Afghanistan has a religious
dimension as well as a cultural one. I will explain why below.
Most Pashtun men, Human Terrain Team AF-6
reports, engage in sex with men--boys--in fact, the vast majority of
their sexual contacts are with males. "A culturally-contrived
homosexuality [significantly not termed as such by its practitioners]
appears to affect a far greater population base then some researchers
would argue is attributable to natural inclination. Some of its root
causes lie in the severe segregation of women, the prohibitive cost of
marriage within Pashtun tribal codes, and the depressed economic
situation into which young Pashtun men are placed." The human terrain
team responded to scandalous interactions between Pashtun fighters and
North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops, some reported with hilarity
by the media. An article in the Scotsman of May 24, 2002, reported, for
example: "In Bagram, British marines returning from an operation deep in
the Afghan mountains spoke last night of an alarming new threat--being
propositioned by swarms of gay local farmers. An Arbroath marine, James
Fletcher, said: 'They were more terrifying than the al-Qaeda. One bloke
who had painted toenails was offering to paint ours. They go about hand
in hand, mincing around the village.'
While the marines failed to find any
al-Qaeda during the seven-day Operation Condor, they were propositioned
by dozens of men in villages the troops were ordered to search." Another
interviewee in the article, a marine in his 20s, stated, "It was hell.
Every village we went into we got a group of men wearing makeup coming
up, stroking our hair and cheeks and making kissing noises."<snip>
==========
: Antimatter in thunderstorms
Jerry:
Here's what Anthony Watts has to say about it. <http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/10/
thunderstorms-proven-to-create-antimatter/>
Apparently, the electric fields in a lightning bolt
can speed electrons up to the point where collisions with matter produce
gamma rays. Photons are generated when charged particles are accelerated.
Photons with at least 1.011 MeV of energy can convert into matter, an
electron/positron pair when they pass close enough to an atomic nucleus, a
process called "pair production". (The atomic nucleus takes up the momentum
carried by the photon, as required by conservation laws.)
...........Karl
==========
Microsoft graphing
calculator app now free
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9caca722-5235-401c-8d3f-9e242b794c3a
They used to ask $20 for this but it is now a freebie.
Pretty much a must for any student carrying around a compatible machine.
Eric Pobirs
===========
The DSM vs the rest of us
Hello Jerry,
Postulating that 'View' today was an unofficial
'election' between you and Don, I got Jerry in a landslide.
Like you (probably even MORE than you), I am very
distrustful of the DSM. I have never read it, but when I run across the DSM
secondarily it almost always strikes me as more of a political document than
a medical document.
One example would be its treatment of homosexuality.
When you and I were young, homosexuality was thought to be a mental
disorder. The DSM (or its '50's equivalent) thought so too. Now, not only is
it not a mental disorder, it is a condition to be celebrated and taught to
our elementary children as something laudable. There are others.
I'm with you. I think that government with the power
and willingness to lock up people on the premise that they MAY commit a
crime is far more dangerous than the random, but rare, nut who gets a gun
and proceeds to shoot as many people as possible. Upsetting, of course, but
the nut body count pales into insignificance against that of self- declared
beneficent governments.
Bob Ludwick
==
Involuntary Commitment
Don's remarks regarding involuntary commitment:
"If in these cases some 'harmless' people were
committed long enough to determine their possible danger we as a society can
pay that price."
are well-worded and sound reasonable. However, I am
disturbed by the 'society can pay the price' part. 'Society' doesn't pay the
price, individuals do. I wonder if Don would be so civic-minded if he were
the one locked up.
I know that his position is predicated on the
assumption that it will be qualified experts making the decision. I, for
one, have little confidence in the experts, at least those with whom I have
no personal acquaintance (and even some of those with whom I do). As you
have pointed out, many perfectly sane people were committed in the past by
someone's 'experts'.
Best regards,
Richard in Austin
-- "One of the penalties for refusing to participate
in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." --Plato
==
Mental Illness
Jerry, Love your site and find your insights very
realistic and thought provoking.
Perhaps we should make "mental illness with potential
for violence" a crime. Charge a person with this "crime" and allow a jury to
decide if the person should be locked up. This would allow the state to
present its case as well as for the suspected mentally ill person to defend
himself. A jury could/should decide.
This could at least eliminate the concerns about due
process and the potential for abuse by some future tyrannical government.
Best, Tom
==========
String Theory,
Jerry
Finally, a 3D movie expose of string theory:
http://xkcd.com/848/
Heh.
Ed
===========
"What’s really at root in this case is whether
travel is a right that we have under the Constitution - an ability to move
about the country without having to show papers - which has been one of
the defining characteristics of American freedom."
<http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S1875813.shtml>
- Roland Dobbins
================
Obama and the Zeroth Law
I'm reading Foundation's Fear by Gregory Benford. It
mentions the Zeroth Law of robotics, which requires robots to put the good
of humanity as a whole above the good of an individual or group. It occurred
to me that the Obama administration can be viewed as following this law,
putting a utopian vision of humanity as a whole above the immediate good of
Americans. Discouraging offshore oil production in the U.S. while
subsidizing it in Brazil seems to be consistent with this view.
Bill Dooley
Probably because I was exposed to "With Folded
Hands" early in my reading life, I have considerable concern about any
directive to "the good of humanity"...
=========
More China comments
A contributor made comments on China’s increasing
foreign aid to areas the west has typically made big commitments in. It is
happening, and during my past decade of trips to Africa putting in medical
systems I saw a great deal of it. The difference with China is that they
rarely do anything like this without some kind of agreement on the side. One
place I was in was suffering because China had agreed to upgrade the
country’s power generation infrastructure….the side commitment was that they
would take over managing it for an agreed period of time. What happened was
China started selling the country’s power generation capacity across the
border to a country with less capability there, but more money, and the
local economy started having lots of brownouts and blackouts. There was a
lot of discussion about it, but the agreements were pretty iron clad, and
short of nationalization, nothing was going to work.
China doesn’t do things for free, and when you shake
their hand on a deal, you’d better be checking your wallet.
Tracy Walters, CISSP
============
Statistical Errors
My father taught political science for nearly 30 years
at MacMaster University.
The following book was required reading in all his
statistical analysis courses.
http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Damn-Statistics-
Manipulation-Opinion/dp/0440351219
DM
David March
===========
HOLEY MOLEY! MS OneNote
was just released for the iPhone
Jerry, I just downloaded OneNote from MS for the
iPhone from the Apple App Store...its temporarily free!!! They must read
your column :-) rh
"If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an
electrical problem!"
Does it work?
Jerry Pournelle Chaos Manor
It seems to. I had to sign in with my Windows Live ID,
then Bob's yer uncle! Its touted as OneNote Mobile Edition.
It opens to the Home Page with the "Recently Viewed",
"Unfiled Notes" and "Personal (Web)" generic Tabs. I created a couple of
notes, I did a sync and since its linked to the iPhone camera, I took a
picture and added notes and sync'd that.
This looks like a win for we inveterate note takers.
Here's hoping they have an iPad edition in test at the
App store as we speak, because I think that would be the ultimate tool.
cheers....rh
Richard Hakala
Thanks. I have a note on this from Peter Glaskowsky
on this also. This is very good news. One Note and a Tablet PC make up a
very powerful research tool.
==
Just what the doctor ordered! :)
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2375932,00.asp
Paul
=====
Just downloaded it on both the iphone and ipad. It
is not a native ipad app, but will run "blown up" in 2X mode. Having
trouble syncing, probably because I don't have windows live setup right.
= =
onenote on iphone/ipad
You need to sign up at skydrive.live.com first. This
will enable a "cloud" place to store your one note files. If you don't the
onenote app will never sync and you will not be able to use onenote. Once
you do that, one note works!
Phil
If you already have a Windows Live identity this
will all be very simple. Microsoft is mostly looking for your agreement to
the terms. You get 25 gB of cloud drive, which ought to be enough for most
sane users. If you have not signed up with Windows Live, it's not difficult.
=============w
TOP
CURRENT
VIEW Wednesday
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