| Tuesday,
January 25, 2011 =
TSA update
Jerry,
The embattled TSA--on the heels of a major lawsuit
they lost--has another high-profile lawsuit to deal with. This one comes
from the real Govenator. That's right, someone who actually was in the field
and proved his mettle in the real world as opposed to winning the hearts and
minds of the living room warriors of America. Jesse Ventura--former Navy
Seal, former Mongol, and Governor--is filing a lawsuit against the TSA.
Infowars has the inside scoop because Jesse Ventura is
close with the guys at infowars--and so are his son Tyrel and their producer
for Jesse and Tryel's show on TruTV. I do not watch TV, but I am aware of
the show. This suit could get interesting.
http://www.infowars.com/ventura-strikes-back-with-lawsuit-against-tsa/
--------
BDAB,
Joshua Jordan,
KSC Percussa Resurgo
I suspect I will never see that show, but the
lawsuit may be interesting. Someone should stand up to these petty
tyrants. The TSA is trying to convert Americans from citizens to subjects.
They are succeeding so far, and there seem to be no political remedies.
We'll see.
=============
How Public Unions Took Taxpayers Hostage
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527
48703909904576052150177439350.html?
mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
I guess the will to stay in office (power) is stronger
than the will to carry out your oath of office.
Phil
I do not see why Civil Service employees should
be allowed to participate in politics in any way, particularly through
unions and automatic dues collection. The notion of Civil Service was to
protect the bureaucrats from political interference. The theory doesn't
work well, but under the Hatch Act it was a lot better than now. The
alternative is political responsibility: the incoming political powers get
to fire all the public employees and appoint their own. If they can't do
that, and the public employees get to engage in politics, the result is
both predictable and predicted.
==========
UK Economy Contracts
Stagflation? <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12272717>
<http://tinyurl.com/6828wox>
<http://tinyurl.com/6zxy3tn>
<http://tinyurl.com/5t74nue>
-- Beware Outside Context Problems
--Harry Erwin, PhD
==========
Siberia
Cold weather in Russia
Dr. Pournelle:
Some years back, the architect that designed our
building returned from a trip to Moscow. The energy management systems
employed there were very rudimentary--the tenant in the top floor of the
apartment building opened his windows when he got too hot, while the
downstairs people kept theirs closed. I wonder how this impacted the urban
heat island effect. Temperatures may well have been colder in cities except
for all the escaping heat. Perhaps this is still the case in Moscow. Another
variable to account for when verifying temperature data.
jomath
An interesting experiment comes to mind...
==
on metrology
Jerry,
When I emailed you the link on the Scripps Institute
of Oceanology participation in the project to measure climate factors I was
thinking of using the term "metrology", but I went with "measurement" --
figuring your readers would mostly not be familiar with an inside baseball
word like metrology. I was amused to see someone else sent you a metrology
article anyway.
Part of my undergrad physics curriculum at Vanderbilt
University was Physics 220, a 1-credit course in lab metrology from whence I
developed a strong interest in metrology itself…
Jim Dodd Santee, CA
I am an old Operations Research man; I was always
more interested in the gory details than in grand theories. Enough good
data will generate good theories; sloppy data generates another kind of
theory.
===========
"Blocking judicial review of this key question
essentially says that the rule of law goes out the window if and when a
major crisis occurs."
<http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20029302-501465.html>
-- Roland Dobbins
============
Madness and guns
Like those poor schizoid paranoids at Waco. They armed
themselves because they were afraid the government might attack and kill
them all. What a pack of loonies.
Best,
Hugh
==
Redux
"a thought on madness, and guns
Dr. Pournelle i was reading some of your thoughts on
the delicate nature of the handling of the insane among us and had a
rather disturbing idea. i apologize for my lack of writing skill, but the
idea was this. clearly you don't want some one who is insane to own a gun.
so you must determine if the purchaser of a fire arm is in fact sane. the
trouble is, its not a far leap to make the very act of buying a gun a
symptom of a deep paranoia. that is to say you are buying a lethal weapon
in order to defend yourself from people you don't know and may not even
exits because you feel threatened.
with a few skill-full twists and turns , you could
almost completely bypass the 2nd amendment by saying any sane person can
own a gun sure, but only crazy people would want to own one.. again my
apologies for my poor writing, i hope i was able to get my point to you.
yours
Shelby Poor
Exactly
JEP"
Catch 22
David Couvillon
Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; Former Governor of Wasit
Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; Distinguished
Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog Excellance; Avoider of Yard Work
===========
Is Science Fiction Getting More Conservative?
Jerry,
I expect you have already seen this but just in
case... -
Is Science Fiction Getting More Conservative? <http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2663043/posts>
Pajamas Media ^ <http://www.freerepublic.com/%5Ehttp://
pajamasmedia.com/blog/is-science-fiction-
getting-more-conservative/?singlepage=true>
| January 25, 2011 | Patrick Richardson
Two legends and two newcomers weigh in.
I am a complete science fiction geek.
It started when I was little more than a toddler.
One of my earliest memories: sitting in the basement with my parents as
they watched Walter Cronkite narrate one of the Apollo missions as it
rounded the moon. (Which one? I couldn’t have been more than three or
four, and I was born in 1971. You do the math.) It left an impression.
I’ve been a fan ever since.
In the last few years, I’ve noticed more and more
that science fiction has taken a bit of a turn to the right. I’ve also
seen more than a few reviews lambasting those authors for their views —
which seems to matter not a whit to their sales.
So I emailed four of them — two relative newcomers
and two legends — and asked why.
The legends, Dr Jerry Pournelle and Orson Scott
Card need no introduction. But it bears mention that Ender’s Game, Card’s
best-known work, is on the Commandant of the Marine Corps recommended
reading list as a treatise on what it means to be a leader. The newcomers,
Lt. Col Tom Kratman and LarryCorreia both write for Baen
I asked them all three simple questions: Why do you
think there has been a trend toward conservatism in mainstream SF over the
last few years? What does this mean for the future of the genre? And: is
this a good or a bad thing for science fiction, and why?
Being writers, their answers roamed freely — but
revealingly.
Suggesting that part of the problem is defining
“conservatism,” Dr. Pournelle isn’t sure there’s been such a drift.
“The problem here,” he said, “is that ‘conservatism’
means many things to different people — and many of those you call
conservative would not call themselves that, nor would many conservatives
call them that. There has certainly been a move toward the concept of
freedom as a good thing, but that was always true of most science fiction
writers.
“Meanwhile, planetary history has shown that vast
powerful central bureaucracies don’t generally produce either general
welfare or freedom or wealth, and science fiction writers have sort of
noticed that — even as welfare liberalism has become a consensus among a
large part of the literary elites in academia.”
Card noted that he wasn’t at all sure where the
trends even stood in science fiction these days — because he had long
since stopped paying attention. “I left SFWA [the Science Fiction &
Fantasy Writers of America] in 1987,” he said, “and haven’t looked back. I
have very few friends among sci-fi writers and have no idea at all what
their politics might be.”
“Back when I cared,” he continued, “most of the
writers of my generation were so extremely leftist in their formal
opinions, and so extremely elitist in their practices, that it would be
difficult to discern where they actually stood on anything. It’s as if the
entire Tsarist aristocracy fervently preached Bolshevism even as they
oppressed their peasants. But that view is based on observations back in
the mid-1980s. Since then, my only exposure to their views has been the
general boycott of mine. In short,” he said, “I’m their Devil, but I have
no idea who their God is anymore.”
Correia, author of the excellent Monster Hunter
International books, said sci-fi writers are increasingly unafraid to
speak out.
“I don’t really know if there are more of us or if
we have just become less shy about it,” he said. “The publishing industry
is primarily based out of Manhattan, which I’ve been led to believe is a
completely paved island that doesn’t even have any shooting ranges. Of
course us conservative types from fly-over country are going to seem odd
to them. I’ve heard some real horror stories from other writers about the
way they’ve been treated because of their personal politics.”
Correia also noted that most of the bad reviews he’s
gotten have been from people who apparently objected to his politics.
“I’m primarily known as a contemporary fantasy
author rather than a sci-fi author,” he said. “I’m usually writing about
our current world with some fantastical elements thrown in.”
“I often get lumped into the genre ‘urban fantasy’,”
he said. “Apparently, in urban fantasy it is really odd to have a main
character who is a gun-loving, anti-authoritarian, stay-off-my-lawn
libertarian accountant, who ends of working for a group of Alabama
contractors that are constantly being harassed by petty regulations even
while trying to kill monsters. I’ve received many negative reviews from
people who don’t think it is realistic that I show the government as
lumbering and bureaucratic at best, and cold-bloodedly ruthless at worst.
This tells me that these reviewers have never worked with the government
in real life. Ironically, every really scathing review I’ve gotten has
felt the need to mention my personal politics.”
Dr. Pournelle cautioned that any discussion of an
ideological drift would have to account for writers like Stanislaw Lem.
While basically “socialist,” they thought that “individual liberty was a
good thing,” if not always “easily achieved.” Norman Spinrad, for
instance, “has always been for liberty, while embracing socialist economic
ideas and often rather radical social beliefs.”
Like Dr. Pournelle, Col. Kratman — perhaps best
known for his collaborations with John Ringo and his solo work such as A
Desert Called Peace — was not entirely certain there has been a drift to
the right, but perhaps for different reasons.
“I’m not sure that’s the way to describe it. If
there has been such a drift,” he said, “I sense — and it’s only a sense —
that it’s been more of a drift away from socialist Utopian science
fiction. The whys of the thing are probably rather complex,” he warned,
“and my understanding of them, such as it is, is no doubt colored and
clouded by my being very America-centric.”
“Still,” he went on, “surely the collapse of
communism in the former USSR, and the revelation of communist crimes so
starkly that only loons can deny them — and rejection of the reality while
retaining the name in China — have something to do with it.” For Kratman,
“previous generations of heavily left-wing sci-fi have probably motivated
some conservative writers.”
Motivated him? “No, not so much. I tend to take my
motivation from leftist thought outside of science fiction, though I admit
to urinating on the glib sci-fi staple of monocultural, unified, peaceful
planets wherever possible. We probably ought not discount the growing and
obvious failure of the social democratic state and
liberalism-slash-progressivism, either.”
As for the future of science fiction, Pournelle
submitted that “science fiction will always be just a bit out of the
mainstream of political thought.”
The authors weren’t quite in agreement as to whether
this move to the right — assuming it exists — was a good thing.
“The thing is, I write what I know,” said Correia.
“I’ve been a small business owner, firearms instructor, and a military
contractor. That’s the perspective that I have. Some people absolutely
hate that I dare to have a worldview that differs from theirs. On the
other hand, conservatives are used to being able to overlook the politics
of the entertainer we’re watching/reading/listening to, because if we
weren’t, we sure wouldn’t be able to watch very many movies.”
“The thing is,” he told me, “all of us red-staters
read books too, and though we are used to being constantly beaten over the
head about how everything we believe in is wrong by Hollywood and
Manhattan, it is really refreshing for us to be able to be entertained
while not being bludgeoned about the dangers of global warming, mean
capitalists, or whatever the liberal cause of the day is. There is a huge
market of people that just want to be entertained, without being
personally slighted, and not to be preached to.”
Kratman took a more cynical position. “What does it
mean? Probably not much.” Any shift is “probably neutral,” he said. “Some
more or less conservative-leaning readers may join or come back to sci-fi.
But there will still be enough progressive and socialist pap to feed the —
ahem — ‘enlightened cravings of the masses.’”
He admitted that “a close debate may someday rage.
It isn’t raging yet because, for the most part, the leftist and rightist
wings pretty much ignore each other,” with the lefties “fairly well
cocooned by the magazines, the awards system, the reviewers, and no small
number of readers who read only them, and the right by — I think — smaller
groups of fans who are probably more loyal readers” than their opposite
numbers.
“In any case,” Kratman concluded, “nobody converts
anybody; we, as a society, are way past that. Right and left don’t share
basic assumptions, don’t use the same words with the same meanings, and
generally just talk past each other.”
Correia was more optimistic. “It is kind of like how
most of the mainstream news outlets can’t figure out why they’re getting
lousy ratings and Fox is getting such good ratings,” he said. “When the
population is divided in half, and ten outlets are competing for one half,
and one outlet is competing for the other half … well, duh. If openly
conservative writers sell well, then there will be more writers that
aren’t afraid to be open about what they believe in.”
Warning that entertainers shouldn’t “go out of their
way to offend any of their potential market,” Correia insisted that more
conservative science fiction authors “should write what we’re passionate
about and not have to sulk in the shadows. Just because I believe that I
shouldn’t have to give half of my income to pay for ACORN’s Honduran sex
slaves doesn’t make me a bad person. I’m lucky in that my publishing house
doesn’t care what their authors’ politics are. We’ve got actual socialists
all the way to people just to the right of Genghis Khan, as long as they
write entertaining books.”
In the end, all four men seemed to see science
fiction as a place where ideas like individual freedom could be freely
examined and explored.
Me, I just got to talk to four of my favorite
authors.
You could say I’m over the moon.
Al and Ann Perrella
In case it is not already obvious, I will add
that my reply was spontaneous and first draft, and I suspect that is true
for my colleagues.
During the Viet Nam War SFWA was bitterly
divided, to the point of rudeness, and that lasted for some time, which
probably gave many the impression that SF had moved leftwards. In those
days military science fiction wasn't popular, and some of my early works
including The Mercenary were credited with reviving an interest in
military science fiction. Perhaps so, perhaps not, but I am pleased to be
mentioned.
Anyway it was a short exchange of letters, and
they seem to have edited this into something interesting. Congratulations.
==
SF becoming more conservative?
I read the interview of you (and others) in
Pajamasmedia.
It occurs to me that while the answer to "is SF
becoming more conservative?" is "yes", the question misses the point. It's
not that SF is becoming conservative; it's that *conservative* is becoming
*SF*. SF has always had a strong countercultural element to it--and, in
modern times, strong expressions of individual authority and personal
responsibility are countercultural...
-- Mike T. Powers
There has been a lot of SF that postulates
"rationally organized" societies. Such as Heinlein's Beyond This Horizon.
Heinlein was at the time he wrote that an Upton Sinclair Ham and Eggs
Democrat, but still the libertarian streak comes through...
Science fiction has always been for individual
achievement and personal liberty. Even the SF that came out of the
communist world was.
===========
Pioneers--and Pioneering
Hello Jerry,
I followed the link provided by R. F. York to http://www.centauri-dreams.org/
and found this: "No, it’s not systems reliability that’s the Achilles’ heel
of interstellar flight. As always, it’s propulsion, and that other great
imponderable: The will to explore."
Well, strictly speaking, the statement is correct. It
IS propulsion. Or, more to the point, physics. Unless and until physics
comes up with a 'warp drive' or its moral equivalent, we ain't goin'
nowhere. At least nowhere outside the immediate, inner planet region of our
solar system. We certainly are not going anywhere near another star.
Once they get outside (picking arbitrarily) Saturn,
the only energy that our intrepid space travelers are going to have is the
energy they brought with them. And no matter how you slice it, they are
never going to be able to bring very much and certainly not enough to supply
the needs of interstellar travel.
Come to think of it, Achilles heel may not be the most
appropriate example of the obstacles to interstellar travel, unless Achilles
was built along the lines of a millipede. While propulsion (neglecting warp
drive) is ONE of the Achilles heels of interstellar travel, it is only one
of many. EVERY SUBSYSTEM of a proposed interstellar vehicle, including its
crew, is an 'Achilles heel' of interstellar flight. Given what we know about
physics and physiology today there is exactly zero chance that the human
race will ever migrate to another solar system, no matter how strong the
'will to explore'.
Make no mistake, the Pioneers ARE engineering marvels
and they have produced science undreamed of by the design team (Just why ARE
they slowing down faster than expected?). After all, they are only 35 years
into their mission and they are already 16 light hours out. And nearly out
of energy. Can interstellar tourism be far behind?
Bob Ludwick
I do not think the prospects for generation ships
is as bleak as you seem to believe. Fusion energy and anti-matter should
be sufficient to get across ten lightyear gaps. Freeman Dyson once
calculated that once antimatter drives were perfected it would take only a
few million years -- an eyeblink in geologic time -- to settle the entire
galaxy. (Assume 100 years to cross a 10 lightyear gap in a generation
ship, then 1000 years to build a star-ship at the new planet (( after all
we went from medieval times to now in that time)). Assume each new colony
builds two generation ships before being exhausted by the effort. Apply
this exponential... His conclusion is that there is probably one
intelligent civilization per galaxy.
==========
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