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Thursday, July 15, 2010 Iran's answer
to Vitaly Yurchenko.
It's pretty obvious this guy was a double. Angleton
wept:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/world/middleeast/16iran.html>
- Roland Dobbins
============
Toyota was Right
<http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB100014240527487038346045
75364871534435744.html>
So their fix was the only one needed, and many of the
accidents were due to driver error.
David March
Transport Coordinator
Apparently the Highway Patrolman who was killed
with his family had an accelerator stuck by the floor rug? I would not
think he had panicked and the panic lasted several minutes. I would have
thought an experienced driver would put the car in neutral, giving him a
chance to coast to a stop, since you can't remove the key to kill the
ignition. I still think there ought to be a way to simply kill the
ignition. I'd rather drive dead stick without power steering and brakes
than have the accelerator stuck on full on.
It's hard to predict how people will react in an
unfamiliar crisis. Reaction times and cognitive skills change over time,
too.
=========
The Chicken and the Egg, Which Came First
Jerry,
In Wednesday's Mail there was a link to an article
that suggested that the Chicken came first.
I would propose that the authors were some what
confused.
While I would grant that the first egg layer may not
have come from an egg, I contend that the first Chicken came from an egg
that was laid by something not quite a Chicken. Ergo, the egg came first.
Of course, intelligent design believers might argue
otherwise.
Bob Holmes
So the debate isn't over after all!
Seriously, doesn't it depend on definitions of
both chicken and egg? Snakes and turtles lay eggs. The "shells" are quite
different from chicken eggs, of course. I don't know what kind of eggs a
platypus lays, but I suspect they don't have hard shells.
===========
"Closing up the village benefits everyone."
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
20100714/ap_on_re_as/as_china_
fenced_in;_ylt=AlrEEJZnSOM.E.t_
FHVDoHVzfNdF>\
--- Roland Dobbins
Opening an interesting debate. One might argue
that the States have the power to do such matters, but the Federal
Government does not. Interestingly, I suspect that in the US the argument
would not be that the States have not such powers, but the Federal
Government ought to and therefore at need does have such powers.
Strong government is necessary when there is real
danger to public order; but of course strong government is ever a dangrer
to liberty. The federal system was intended to allow strong government
while limiting its scope. When the FBI and other Federal Police
organizations were created they were intended to work with the states, and
not to be an actual police force; a bit like Scotland Yard, whose
inspectors were for a very long time still subordinate to the country
chief constables, this in a system where all authority comes from the
Crown.
Government power is more difficult to limit than
its scope. And yes, of course this means that some local governments will
abuse their powers.
We all used to know the price of liberty, but
that is no longer popular.
============
July snow in Alberta
Jerry,
Global warming? Global cooling? Or just weather.
July snow in Alberta.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/travel/
July+snow+torrential+rains+pound+province/
3275110/story.html
Jim
And in Los Angeles our June Gloom extended well
into July, but now it is 107 in the San Fernando Valley. Meanwhile the Sun
remains quiet. I don't think anyone's models are useful.
==
Concerning the Climate Blacklist:
My mind is kind of boggled by the study cited. They
chose their “sample” by taking the names off lists of scientists who signed
statements supporting or opposing the AGW concensus, plus the IPCC AR4
working group contributors were added as supporters. Then they compared the
expertise of the two groups. They can perhaps draw conclusions as to the
relative expertise of people who sign petitions, but they didn’t do that –
they actually state as a conclusion that 97-98% of climate experts agree
with the AGW consensus. And that’s how it’s referenced currently in
Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change.
Perhaps it didn’t occur to them that not everyone is
willing to sign such a public statement, particularly if it disagrees with
the well-known consensus of one’s community?
I presume the article and study are peer-reviewed, but
the incompetence involved is incredible.
mkr
The treatment of "deniers" is rather interesting.
What isn't discussed is the science and evidence. But then one doesn't
expect that.
==========
Subj: Bechtel teams with Babcock & Wilcox on Small
Modular Reactors
http://www.bechtel.com/2010-07-14.html
>>Babcock & Wilcox Nuclear Energy, Inc., (B&W NE) and
Bechtel Power Corporation today announced they have entered into a formal
alliance to design, license, and deploy the world’s first commercially
viable Generation III++ small modular nuclear power plant. ...<<
's 'bout time!
Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com
Hurrah.
==
Got Fusion?-Further information
Dear Dr. Pournelle:
You make reference in your Wednesday Bastille Day news
to this:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/solomon1.1.1.html
and you ask:
This is all news to me. I guess I can't keep up with
everything. Making neutrons is a big deal. I'm astonished that we don't all
know a lot more. Is there a story here?
Indeed it is news. A pity that those who claim to be
the media haven't been following it, with the possible exception of a very
occasional squib from MSNBC.
While I agree with you that generally, wikipedia is
uneven, in this case, they present sufficient information to be able to
learn more. For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
Of more interest is the fact that the late Dr. Robert
Bussard (of Bussard Ramjet fame) had been continuing work on the Fusor up
until the time of his death
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Bussard
Of more importance, at least to me, is the fact that
Dr. Robert Bussard's work is being continued by Dr. Richard Nebel of Los
Alamos
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/05
/interview-dr-richard-nebel-of.html
I would like to know what's been happening lately, but
it seems that no one is following this story. Pity.
Very truly yours,
Bernard Brandt
Bussard was an old friend who sometimes came by
Chaos Manor for breakfast, but I have not followed what happened to his
work after his death. Perhaps some readers know more on this. The last
time I saw Doc he said "The problem is that all the easy stuff has been
done. It's hard now." He meant physics specifically, but his suggestion
was that we are up at the top knee in the technology S-curve and we don't
know where the new S Curve begins. We were going to talk about this
more, but that didn't happen, largely because we both got cancer at about
the same time. I survived mine. Doc was about my age.
================
Britain's public debt
A correspondent wrote:
Britain's public debt four times greater than
previously admitted: <http://tinyurl.com/397mc3a>
£4 trillion is about $6 trillion dollars. That is very
nearly $100,000 per inhabitant in the U.K. (Not per family or per
taxpayer...per inhabitant.)
A family of four's share is $400,000 today. With an
interest rate of 2% and no more deficit spending that family of 4 will owe
nearly a half million dollars in 10 years.
On top of that, what are the odds that the British
government will magically suddenly balance their budget and eliminate
deficits?
A much lower standard of living, inflation, higher
taxes, rationing and currency devaluation will ultimately be the way to get
out of such levels of debt. Who's up for that?
John Harlow, President BravePoint
The problem with socialism is that you run out of
other people's money, and after a while the work ethic sort of vanishes as
everyone wants to get in on it. The result is Detroit. Worldwide.
We sow the wind.
==========
Fritz Leiber
http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB100014240527487039641045
75335074084796494.html?mod=
WSJ_article_MoreIn_Books
"We've seen the disturbing videos of oil gushing up
from aquatic depths, the unsettling maps of our spoiled sea, and the
troubling pictures of pelicans covered in crude. It isn't hard to despair
for the Gulf of Mexico.
"Yet things could be much worse, at least in the vivid
imagination of the author Fritz Leiber (1910-1992). In his 1964 short story
"The Black Gondolier," petroleum threatens humanity not as a mindless
environmental hazard but as a sentient menace. As one character speculates,
what if man hadn't found oil, but "oil had found man"? What if the dark ooze
"had thrust up its vicious feelers like some vast blind monster, and finally
made contact"?"
Charles Brumbelow
It's a good article about Fritz. He lived in the
LA area until his wife Jonquil died, and we saw him at reasonable
intervals, and infrequently when he visited LA. He and his wife Jonquil
both had drinking problems. That's fairly common with writers, alas. It
was my understanding that Fritz's father was better known for performing
as Othello, not Iago, but that may be a false memory. Fritz used to
be active in LASFS and acted in a couple of early LASFS-made short clips.
He loved to act. I recall him in Chicago in 1962 devising a costume as
"King of the Spiders" out of what he had in his pockets. I
I always enjoyed his company. There were stories
about his living in poverty in San Francisco, but I had dinner with him in
the late 1980's in San Francisco and he insisted on taking me to an
expensive restaurant, and in the conversation he said he was doing pretty
well, actually. He lived in a poor area but said he always ate out and it
didn't matter. I tried to pay for the dinner since my trip was on the BYTE
expense account, but I was never given the chance: he had an account and
no logarismo was ever presented.
We used to have a saying: if there's a great
story with a strange twist and you can't remember the author, it's
probably Fritz Leiber.
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