| Wednesday,
December 3, 2008
Send 'em up pilgrim...
Sent by a Marine Pilot
In addition to communicating with the local air
traffic control facility, aircraft are required to give the Iranian Air
Defense Radar (military) a ten minute 'heads up' that they will be
transiting Iranian airspace. This is a common procedure for commercial
aircraft and involves giving them your call sign, transponder code, type
aircraft, and points of origin and destination. I just flew with a guy who
overheard this conversation on the VHF Guard (emergency) frequency 121.5
MHz while flying from Europe to Dubai . It's too good not to pass along.
The conversation went something like this... Air Defense Radar: 'Unknown
aircraft at (location unknown), you are in Iranian airspace. Identify
yourself.' Aircraft: 'This is a United States aircraft. I am in Iraqi
airspace.' Air Defense Radar: 'You are in Iranian airspace. If you do not
depart our airspace we will launch interceptor aircraft!' Aircraft: 'This
is a United States FA-18 fighter. Send 'em up!' Air Defense Radar: (no
response ... total silence)
===========
About education
"Lessons From 40 Years of Education 'Reform' "
http://s.wsj.net/article/SB122809533452168067.html
"- Abolish all local school districts, save 70 (50 states; 20 largest
cities). Some states may choose to leave some of the rest as community
service organizations, but they would have no direct involvement in the
critical task of establishing standards, selecting teachers, and developing
curricula."
-- Paal Steinar Berg
Possibly the best formula for disaster I have ever
heard; straight out of Jesse Unruh who consolidated all the local school
districts in Los Angeles into the ungovernable and ineffective LS Unified
School District, where parents have to schedule appearances before their
School Board 6 months in advance and get precisely 3 minutes to make their
presentation when the finally get their appointment; and which has some of
the worst schools in the country.
It is straight out of the educationist playbook,
and would put total control in the hands of Washington -- Washington which
spends the most per kid for the least effect of any school district in
history.
It confirms the principle of centralization. It
used to be that there were three enormous failed bureaucracies: the Soviet
System of Agriculture; NASA; and the US system of education. They all failed
for the same reason, that bureaucracies are always subject to
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy no matter how important the goals
of the organization. One of those bureaucracies is gone. The other two
continue. (And of course this is not an exhaustive list; merely what I
thought of off the top of my head when I was looking for examples.)
The remedy to US education problems is not more
centralization, it is more dispersion. It is repeal of the miserable
principle that the US Supreme Court jammed down our throats when it
forbade local district financing of its schools, thus making certain that
the goal of the schools would be attendance not education and stripping
local school boards of any power over their schools. Good Grief! If
your goal were to destroy the schools, csan you think of a better way than
decoupling financing from local school board control? If the goal were to
send more money into the inner city schools, then send them money; but no,
the Us Supreme Court in its infinite wisdom decided that the Constitution
-- which never mentions education at all -- requires an imbecile system of
school financing in which schools get paid for attendance without regard
to performance, strips the local boards of any real means of control, and
then for good measure allows Washington bureaucrats to impose No Child
Left Behind which means that No Child Shall Ever Get Ahead.
If we want good schools the first thing to do is
create good schools. The Congress has full and final authority over the
District of Columbia. Let it assert that and install school officials who
can educate the children in DC. It has full authority to drown them in
money if that will do the job. It can do anything it likes: let the
Congress, then, experiment with the DC school system. Let it create
charter schools there. Let it create anything it can conceive of in its
infinite wisdom. When it achieves success, then it will be no problem
exporting that success. A good example -- given local control, anyway --
will be compelling to everyone else.
And for that matter, overturn the idiotic
decoupling of financing from control imposed by the ideologues on the
Supreme Court.
Transparency and subsidiarity -- i.e. local
fiduciary responsibility: those are the keys to good government. See Jane
Jacobs
Dark Age Ahead for some details and more arguments on how to avoid the
Dark Age Ahead -- assuming we can avoid it.
I quote from myself:
On the other hand, Jane Jacobs has shown us
that Dark Ages, in which we not only have forgotten how we used to do
certain things, but have forgotten that we could do them at all, can
still happen. Take, for example, the education establishment, which is
entirely unaware that at one time there were essentially no children who
had been through four years of schooling and remained unable to read.
Illiteracy used to be confined to the unschooled.
And conclude that what the US has done, the US can
aspire to...
==
German family seeks asylum in US because they
home-school
Dr. Pournelle:
http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000008782.cfm (website
affiliated with /Focus on the Family/)
The Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) is
supporting a first-of-its-kind application for political asylum by a German
home schooling family.
Uwe and Hannelore Romeike left their home in Bissingen,
Germany, to escape government persecution directed at them because they
home-school. They arrived in the United States in August and are settling in
Tennessee.
<snip>
Political asylum is available to people in the United
States who fear returning to their home country due to persecution or who
have a well-founded fear of persecution.
jomath
Is comment required?
=============
ON SOMALI PIRACY
Somali piracy background - misplaced efforts?
Dr. Pournelle,
There is always a second side to every story, and
finally CNN explains a bit of the history behind the Somali piracy.
According to an interviewed Somali pirate, one key reason they are attacking
unarmed merchants is that foreign fishing poachers have depleted the fish
stocks off of Somalia due to a lack of fishing rights enforcement. When the
Somalis attempted to ward off the illegal fishing boats the fishing boats
armed themselves and fought back. With the collapse of the local fishing
industry and no way to protect what probably should rightfully be a Somali
natural resource, the out of work fishermen turned to another source of
income for survival - piracy against unarmed merchant boats.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/
africa/12/01/pirate.interview/index.html
This makes the "accidental" attack against an alleged
non-pirate fishing boat a whole lot more explainable. Apparently the fishing
boat fired on a military vessel with heavy weapons, was identified as a
pirate mothership, and was sunk in the ensuing battle. Some nation claimed
that the boat was just a fishing boat but gave no explanation as to why it
was so heavily armed. If armed fishermen are poaching in Somali waters, that
certainly explains a lot.
Korea and Japan have this sort of problem, but their
governments work very hard to enforce territorial waters. Maybe someone
ought to loan the Somalis a coastal fleet to enforce their territorial
rights instead of just going after the pirates who saw their livelihood
destroyed by illegal fishing. Directing efforts against a wronged and
desperate people isn't going to work while helping enforce internationally
recognized territorial resource rights would help cure the underlying
problem.
Of course, the home countries of the fishermen would
cry foul and that would be a pretty big problem. A major nation needs to
really sort out the problem and launch an international PR campaign
explaining what's really going on before anyone cracks down on illegal
fishing. Just because a country can't enforce its territorial rights doesn't
mean it's ok for everyone to sail in and loot the place.
Sean
Does it mean that it's our business? We are a
maritime nation; keeping shipping lanes open is very much in our national
interest. But is foreign aid to a failed state?
==
Dr. Pournelle,
Keeping shipping lines open is certainly our business.
My point was in part that altering the underlying state of affairs that led
to the piracy may lead to a cheaper and more beneficial solution than simply
chasing around fairly desperate RPG wielding pirates who are driving
under-utilized fishing boats. That is not cost effective even if the moral
questions surrounding the destruction of out-of-work fishermen turned pirate
is not considered. That alternative solution deserves some consideration
beyond dismissal as being none of our business.
The idea that the USCG could send
or loan a "training" detachment to Somalia is a good one, and I think
that is probably the sort of deal the Somali govt (however dubious it's
authority) is hoping to get with Russia. Rather than focusing on killing
pirates who might be perfectly happy going back to fishing, the focus would
be on lawful conduct by all parties in the AOR including shipping, fishing,
etc.
Sean
==
Re: Somali Fishermen
Well, it's not really useful to enforce Somali
territorial waters against Kenyan fishers--because the Somalis would
immediately fish the grounds to extinction exactly like the Kenyans did.
Exactly like EVERYONE did. Wild fish gathering, for all its mechanization
and scale, is shockingly primitive in technique--we're doing the same things
that they did when nets were plant fiber and boats were made of skin, only
now we have bigger nets and faster boats. If the meat-animal were run like
commercial fisheries, we'd still be going after herds of wild buffalo!
The problem is that people criticize fish farms for
being dirty, or for allowing disease to spread. Well...those are the same
difficulties faced by land-based farms, and they seem to manage (although
not well enough to suit the squeamish attitudes of modern Americans.)
-- Mike T. Powers
See
EXILE -- AND GLORY!! by Jerry Pournelle. Farming is always more
efficient that hunting/gathering. But farming requires property rights.
==
Dr. Pournelle,
I too feel sympathy for these Somali Fishermen. Like
yours, my sympathy also ends at piracy. If the solution to the Somali
problem lies anywhere outside of Somalia then it lies with Africa as a whole
and perhaps the Arab world, not the West. The African continent has all the
resources it needs to become wealthy and prosperous. It only needs the
political will and organization to use them. Enough said on that.
Back to the matter at hand; after reading the various
suggestions on different ways to curtail piracy and in particular why
allowing ship’s crews to arm themselves would not work/be foolish, I am now
more convinced than ever that allowing crews to arm themselves is the only
lasting way to stop piracy.
First, let’s examine just who these ship’s crews would
be fighting (for a change). They are former fishermen. They are not former
SEALS or Marines or Commandos. They have no formal training of any kind.
From the pictures I have seen, many of them are just scrawny kids. The media
likes to make believe they are Black Beard incarnate but it just ain’t so.
Basically, they are yahoos with guns. Nothing that a trained man need worry
about.
Next, let’s look at what they are armed with and the
platforms from which they are firing. All evidence says that they sortie out
from “mother ships” in small boats. Media photos show small,
outboard-powered skiffs. Ever try to fire a weapon from a small boat? I
have. It’s hard (and that was in calm water, not rolling seas). Unless you
have a well-made pintle mount, you basically can’t hit much of anything.
3 years ago, when they tried to hijack the Sea-borne
Spirit, they managed to hit the ship with an RPG. Reports are that they
fired over a dozen. One lucky hit. No one was hurt (They are also very short
ranged. 300 meters on a moving target).
A large oceangoing vessel on the other hand provides a
very stable firing platform. If you had look-outs posted on, say, all four
corners of a ship armed with practically anything in 7.62x51mm NATO Standard
(M14, FN FAL, H&K G3 or their civilian counterparts) you could easily keep
small boats of this kind at bay well outside their max effective weapons
range. Any of the weapons I mentioned (and scores of others) can be made
effective to a minimum of 600 meters with an optic and a rifle rest.
Remember, the pirates are out to make money, not get killed. As soon as they
take effective fire, they will break off their attack.
What I’ve given here is just one scenario, which I
came up with off the top of my head while I was writing. I am sure there are
lots of ways to do it. Some more gutsy Captains and crew might like the idea
of letting them start to climb boarding ladders and letting them have it
then, when there can be no ambiguity as to who they are or what they are
about. Leave it up to the crews. They can best determine how to defend their
ships.
Notice that what I am talking about is letting crews
arm and defend themselves, not governments arming crews or stationing cops
or soldiers on ships or hiring private security. Home invasions go down when
burglars know that people are armed. This has been pretty well proven. I
suspect it would be the same with Piracy. Once they know that the crews are
likely armed and will fight back, they just won’t bother anymore.
That’s my solution. It won’t be allowed of course.
Governments do not trust their people to be armed unless they are under
strict control (in the military or police). That’s another discussion, but
you can see how it applies here.
I did find some of the other proposed solutions to be
of great interest. I wonder what would happen if shipping/insurance
companies just refused to pay ransoms or if governments forbade it. This is
very interesting. What if the pirates then just kill crews until someone
pays? It could happen if they are desperate/brutal enough.
As to programming ships to do whatever or go wherever
if hijacked…… well I don’t really know how to respond to that. It’s a pretty
ridiculous idea. How about this for a scenario; “Captain, take your ship to
the port of Eyle or I will cut off your hand, then the other, then on to
your feet…………… ”. Get the idea? Yeah, I can see that defense ending pretty
quickly.
Finally, I would like to address the subject of taking
military action against the Pirates, for example attacking their home bases.
Without going into the details of past U.S. Military incursions into
Somalia, let’s think a little bit about just what we would be doing there. I
can accept that these Pirates may be fishermen who have fallen on hard times
and do what they do out of desperation. Fine. You pay your money and you
take your chances. They’ve taken theirs. What of the rest of the people who
occupy these small fishing villages? Women? Children? Do they deserve to be
attacked as well? I don’t know, but my own preference would be to err on the
side of extreme caution on that one. Deal with the pirates at sea first.
They are the combatants. Leave attacking their homes as an extreme last
resort (my guess is that there would be no need if we could just let crews
defend themselves).
Also, a little off the subject, but it was mentioned.
If anyone thinks that the U.S. exports most of the world’s small arms, they
should do a little research on the subject. We aren’t even in the top 3 (in
fact, we import a lot of ours these days). Take a look at practically every
insurgency and tin-pot dictatorship in the world (and particularly in
Africa) and you will find that their guns come from one place; Russia and
the former East Block. In fact, most such people are very derisive towards
American small arms. They like the Eastern European stuff better. If you
want to reduce the number of small arms in that area, you’re barking up the
wrong tree.
Anyway, let the crews defend themselves. It is the
only practical, affordable, sustainable way to convince Somali Fishermen
that they had best stick to their chosen profession instead of diversifying.
Regards,
Matt Kirchner
Houston, TX
Well we no longer bombard ports as a way to induce
better behavior....
============
Cruise ship flies Marshall Islands flag
Good question, "was this a US flagged ship?"
According to the World Shipping Register
http://e-ships.net/ships.htm
the Nautica flies the flag of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. She is
owned, through a couple of subsidiaries, by Apollo Management, L.P., based
in New York.
-- Jim Bennett
===========
Pop culture wars
Jerry,
Sheesh. From the battle front of the Pop Culture Wars:
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/
2008/12/01/Burger-King-whopper-
virgins/?icid=200100125x1213987186x1200959186
It appears that Burger King is pushing out a new ad
campaign based on flying Burger King "Whoppers" and Macdonald "Big Macs" to
isolated locations (rural Thailand, Rumania, Greenland's Inuit, etc.) for
taste tests by persons who've had neither before.
I suspected when I saw the headline about an
"offensive" ad campaign that the offense had to do with the use of the term
Virgins in the ad. No, according to the article, it's because of the crass
commercialism involved, the carbon footprint of the project, and mocking
these unsuspecting peasants by pushing such patently unhealthy high-fat food
off on them.
Jim
===================
On Internet Governance
And you can print this...
I just started receiving the attached crap from the
UN's "Internet Governance Forum". I never asked for it, I wouldn't want it
if asked, and was given no option to opt-out. I guess they're supposedly
deciding the fate of the Internet in Hyderabad starting today, hence the
press crap.
There was an attachment, a Word document, too. That's
two major rookie mistakes, from an organization supposedly smart enough to
make worldwide decisions about the most revolutionary communications network
since the self-dialed telephone.
If that wasn't bad enough, their own reflector doesn't
screen out e-mail from outside their own domain, so the dozens of "I don't
want this!" messages from enraged recipients are appearing in my inbox.
No wonder people in Africa run as soon as they see the
blue helmets arrive.
--Alex Pournelle
I refer you to Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
There is no bureaucracy quite like a UN bureaucracy; nor one more bound by
the Iron Law.
Begin forwarded message:
From: press@intgovforum.org Date: December 3,
2008 9:46:52 AM PST To: press@intgovforum.org Subject: [Press] UNSUBSCRIBE
UNSUBSCRIBE
Am 03.12.2008 um 18:10 schrieb press@intgovforum.org:
MEDIA CONTACT -- To set up interviews with
experts on issues such as cyber-security, expanding Internet access,
Internet governance, and child on-line protection, please contact staff in
the IGF media centre: Aparna Mitter, (+91) 929-280-2203, mitter.aparna.igf@gmail.com
; Vinod Janardhanan, (+91) 929-277-3306, vinod@unicindia.org ; Pragati
Pascale, (+91) 929-270-2040, pascale@un.org . For a complete schedule and
list of speakers, see www.intgovforum.org .
INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM OPENS IN HYDERABAD
(3 December) -- The third meeting of the
Internet Governance Forum officially opened today in Hyderabad , India ,
focussing on the overall issue of "Internet for all". Participants from
government, the private sector, civil society and the Internet community
are gathering for the next four days to share information, experiences and
best practices and to explore how the Internet can be used to its full
potential for the benefit of all while combating its use for harmful
purposes.
The meeting will address five main themes:
reaching the next billion; promoting cyber-security and trust; managing
critical Internet resources; taking stock and the way forward; and
emerging issues -- the Internet of tomorrow. In addition to plenary
sessions on these themes, there will be open meetings and thematic
workshops to discuss specific issues and share best practices.
At the opening of the meeting, participants
stood for a minute of silence to commemorate the victims of the terrorist
attacks of last week in Mumbai, at the request of the UN Assistant
Secretary-General for Economic Development, Jomo Kwame Sundaram, who
expressed, on behalf of the Secretary-General, his condolences to the
families of the victims of the attacks.
Opening ceremony
The UN Assistant Secretary-General said India
was a very appropriate venue for this meeting. Here, in India 's Silicon
Plateau, we see at first hand how well the savvy application of
information and communication technologies has accelerated the nation's
development. The Internet has become the backbone of our globalized world
and is transforming our lives, and thus we should all take an interest in
how it is run and managed. That is very much the spirit of the Internet
Governance Forum (IGF), a space for frank and enlightened debate, shaping
and informing the decision-making processes. The IGF has become a valuable
melting pot for forging a common understanding of complex Internet issues
from diverse points of views. The year 2010 will represent a turning point
for the Forum, when the General Assembly will decide on whether or not to
extend the initial five-year mandate of the IGF. Mr. Jomo announced that
the 2010 IGF meeting would take place in Vilnius , Lithuania .
Though we are on the way to a not too distant
future when the next billion people will have access to the Internet,
providing access alone is not enough, Mr. Jomo continued. Access needs to
take into account the diversity of the world's population -- the diversity
of languages but also the diversity of people of different abilities.
Clearly, the IGF has much work ahead of it, in terms of suggesting further
ways to bridge the digital divide, particularly through dynamic coalitions
to foster inclusive governance and evolution of the Internet. The IGF will
continue to accompany the evolution of the Internet and provide useful
counsel to decision-makers and policy-makers on the further deployment and
equitable development of the Internet and how best to use it, while coping
with abuse and threats to its security. Furthermore, the IGF will both
build bridges between the various actors involved and deepen their
understanding of how the Internet works and is governed.
Nitin Desai, Special Advisor to the
Secretary-General for Internet Governance and chairman of the
Multistakeholder Advisory Group, said the real challenge for Internet
governance which has led to the formation of this forum is the future. The
Internet has become central to the economy. It is central to politics, it
is central to society, with the growth of social networking sites. In this
respect, he mentioned that when the events happened in Mumbai, the blogs
and social networking sites played a major role in keeping people
informed. Much of the expansion is taking place in developing countries,
in countries where English is not a language of choice, where Latin is not
the preferred script, Mr. Desai continued.
Recalling that the IGF is a multistakeholder
forum, Mr. Desai said that underlying this, essentially, is a dialogue
between two groups of people. On the one hand, people who feel that the
present modalities of management of the Internet are working and will
work, even in the future, who are afraid that any major change in the way
in which these arrangements are set up would compromise the Internet in
some form. And on the other hand, many people who are dependent on the
Internet for their activities – whether economic, social or political --
feel that they have to have a say in the public policy issues which affect
how the Net runs. "The purpose of the IGF is, in fact, to get these two
groups who do not normally meet to come together and listen to each
other,” Mr. Desai stated, “and I think we have succeeded".
Damodar Reddy, Minister for Information
Technology of Andhra Pradesh, welcoming delegates, said that information
technology and the Internet had transformed the capital of his state, its
economic activities, education, health care, and other services. He
expressed the hope that the IGF would focus on issues such as the
challenge of universal and equitable access to the Internet for all and
for the benefits of the common man, including people living in remote,
rural areas. He underlined the efforts made by the state government to
promote this sector, in its endeavour to improve the quality of life of
the common man.
Andimuthu Raja, Indian Cabinet Minister for
Communications and Information Technology, stressed the role of the IGF to
build up an Internet society which is inclusive, human centred and geared
to development. India believes that IT infrastructure is the key to rapid
economic and social development of the country. In order to promote
education and other services, and access to the Internet, the Government
of India has embarked on a national programme to make the Internet
available to the citizens through common service centres. Access to
information by the people not only helps democracy by having transparency
in the functioning of the government but also enhances the participation
of the people in the governing process. Without appropriate information,
people cannot adequately exercise their rights as citizens.
[For a more extensive summary of the day's
discussions, please see the attached document.] <IGF3Highlights3Dec.doc>
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
==
Alex sent them this:
Dear supposedly competent person:
It appears (via another e-mail from another victim)
that you are using the mail management application "MailMan". Unfortunately,
with great power comes great responsibility, and, as you are hopefully now
learning, great chances for self-inflicted wounds. Please reconfigure it,
and if you are not competent to do so, immediately discontinue its use until
you find someone who is.
You have now created a cosmic crapstorm of rage at the
UN, the Directorate, and by extension any and all NGOs associated with the
UN. In the future, please learn how to configure MailMan, what proper
Internet etiquette (Commonly called "Netiquette", I suggest you search for
the term and read up) looks like, what attachments should and should not be
associated with mass mailings, what "opt-in" means, why you should always
double-check a mass mailing before you send it, why you should stay in the
office for at least an hour after sending ANY mass mailing, and why so many
otherwise rational and pleasant people around the world now hate your guts.
The only bright spot is that your do-nothing
organization has no power (thank the Positive Role Model) other than to
annoy, which you are doing in spades, hearts and diamonds. Good luck on your
next career choice, which I hope has fewer chances for life-altering or
-risking activity. I suggest sandbox attendant.
Disappointed, Alex Pournelle
=========================
Subj: Bug Bots, Body Regeneration at Army Science
Confab
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/12/armys-testicula.html
>>At most military confabs, if you haven't paid the
zillion dollars to attend, you can't hear the speeches -- or see what
research is being presented. This year's Army Science Conference is
different, however. Not only is the Army webcasting most of the talks. All
of the scientific papers have already been put online, before they're even
presented. ...<<
Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com
==============
'In one of the biggest heists in American history,
the Daily News "stole" the $2 billion Empire State Building.'
http://www.nydailynews.com/money/
2008/12/02/2008-12-02_it_took_90_
minutes_for_daily_news_to_ste.html?
print=1&page=all
-- Roland Dobbins
TOP
CURRENT
VIEW Wednesday
|
Have
no fear, UN Internet Governance will soon be here!!
