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THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

View 178 November 5 - 11, 2001

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Monday  November 5, 2001

I was in a discussion in another conference, and was challenged about the republic vs. the empire, and what I would do about the current situation, and in particular, what would I "campaign for"? (My questioner was English.) Here, with some embellishment, is my response:

 

New Age of Empire

What I campaign for is billions for investment in energy resources. The most outlandish estimates of costs for hemispheric energy independence are small compared to the costs of war. Wars are expensive.

I propose the following:

Break enough heads in the Middle East that the ruling classes there are afraid of the US. Make it clear that they have not acted responsibly and we really don't care WHO governs over there, but we will not have the place governed by people who allow their territories to be used to attack us. That means to me outright replacement of the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq, and a clear message to Egypt, Kuwait, and Arabia that our patience is not only not endless but has worn thin.

Then make war on energy dependence: an all out campaign to build a large nuclear plant in every state within four years. Development of domestic oil resources.

And $20 billion a year on X programs in space. By X programs I mean real X projects: fly something within 4 years or don't get paid. Build flying hardware, 3 tail numbers per ship, fly one until it breaks, use what you learned to modify #2 and fly it but don't prang it, and keep #3 in case you do break #2 but probably it goes to the Smithsonian. Have several simultaneous projects, all with the aim of cheap access to space. Try multiple approaches: two stages to orbit, NASP-like vehicles, Black Horse if you like, but be sure to do the follow-on to DC/X that we proposed a dozen years and more ago, and which could have been done for the money wasted on the Lockheed "Venture Star" shitepoke.

Build up the armed forces: the United States of America has only 100 heavy bombers in the entire inventory. Only 100, and they are terribly expensive. We could easily build another hundred heavy bombers that would be effective in today's military environment. They wouldn't be a threat to the USSR. They would be a threat to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Build up the Navy. It's silly to have an under-strength Navy.  We're a maritime power. We should act as if we are.

 

I could go on, but I find it fascinating that anyone could believe that mucking around with perpetual war for perpetual peace is going to be cheaper or more effective than developing technology and shoring up competitive enterprises here.

Wars are costly: they cost in money, they cost in freedom, and they cost in mental energy. They cost in letting government grow without bounds. they build the central state rather than decentralize to federal structure and self government. Wars are far more expensive than R&D programs. The only good thing about a war is that when it is over you can disband a lot of the structure you built to win it.

As to the jihad, if we show we are to be feared, then come home -- and I have said before what coming home means -- the incentives to target the US will not be particularly high. One reason  we are a target is that we insist on minding other people's business. We should be the friends of liberty everywhere, but we need be guardians only of our own. We don't need to be concerned about who governs in every country in the world. We can be friendly with friends, indifferent to others; we don't need to make enemies. I am not buying into the notion that we somehow "deserved" the Black September attacks. We can, however, avoid provoking fanatics. On the other hand, if we do provoke fanatics, we had better be prepared to do something about them, and quickly. We weren't, and we aren't, and if for no other reason than that we should speak a bit more softly.

Of course this won't happen. We aren't coming home: we're going to do some nation building. So who is going to officer the Legions that we will have to build so that we can play Imperialist? The Raj could do it because it had an aristocracy, loyal sons to bind to exile, sergeants who obeyed Colonel Blimp, but mostly an aristocracy that really did feel itself superior to those it governed and sometimes was -- but which knew damned well that their places demanded loyalty.

We have to set out to build an officer corps promoted through pure merit except of course we must have affirmative action. And from this we will fashion the leaders who will be officers in the world imperial army, but will remain loyal to the US. My fear is that we will build Legions from the places you usually get Legionnaires -- jails and the under class -- and the officers will be tax farmers.

Incompetent Empire is far less stable than self-governing republic.


And this from Roland:

Subject: Lost Akkad and the Seven Judges of Hell.

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml%3B

$sessionid$41ZD1XYAAA5OLQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0

?xml=/news/2001/11/04/wmet04.xml&sSheet=/news

/2001/11/04/ixhomef.html%5C 

Now that's a URL!

And Linux for Aunt Minnie over in mail...

Mostly I am hard at work on a double deadline while Niven champs at me over doing a pass through Burning Tower. No rest for the wicked...

And from Trent Telenko:

They picked up suspects in N.J. for the anthrax mailings.

They are being held on immigration charges.

And they are by no means "Mid-Western Right Wing White Guys."

The link:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/US_ANTHRAX.html 

The story:

One man, identified as Allah Rakah, was detained Friday. After FBI agents raided his residence, agents wearing protective gear searched the apartment, his car, which had Florida license plates, and a nearby mailbox.

Which, given the spate of articles yesterday about how "sources" said the FBI was convinced this was the act of domestic organizations, says a lot: that the FBI may in fact be more competent than it appears (the CIA always was: in the 60's they WORKED at an image of bumbling incompetence) and that the deception worked on Woodward and other ace reporters...

Presuming that they've got someone with real connections, anyway.

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This week:

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Tuesday, November 6, 2001

"It is among the evils, and perhaps is not the smallest, of democratical governments, that the people must feel, before they will see. When this happens, they are roused to action--hence it is that this form of government is so slow."  George Washington

I seem to have lost my copy of that wonderful picture of the Earth at night, with all the blazing lights in the West and the blank spots in other parts of the world. I'd appreciate a pointer so I can find another. [Thanks to all of you who sent the link. 

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights_dmsp_big.jpg 

or the original

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001127.html 

And I have more or less got the November column done. Hurrah.

 

 

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Wednesday, November 7, 2001

One column is off. Another to go...

 

 

 

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This week:

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Thursday,

If you have any extra time, take a look at:

http://www.overlawyered.com 

to see just what our legal system is capable of...

Column is off on the wire, cleaning up now. And getting ready for COMDEX...

You would not believe how complicated Palm makes getting your Palm VII back in service if they have to roll over your credit card. Their procedure is the best marketing tool for Blackberry I have ever heard of. I have been more than a week at this, with 20 minute holds on the telephone, and endless emails. They had to have my old credit card number from me before they could deactivate my account which had to be done before they could reactivate. But the old card had been cancelled and thus I didn't think I had it, but without that they -- 

Palmnet must really want people to switch to Blackberry.

 

 

 

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This week:

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Friday, November 9, 2001

I am completely agape:

Bizarre chemical discovery gives homeopathic hint http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991532

19:00 07 November 01 Andy Coghlan

It is a chance discovery so unexpected it defies belief and threatens to reignite debate about whether there is a scientific basis for thinking homeopathic medicines really work.

A team in South Korea has discovered a whole new dimension to just about the simplest chemical reaction in the book - what happens when you dissolve a substance in water and then add more water.

Conventional wisdom says that the dissolved molecules simply spread further and further apart as a solution is diluted. But two chemists have found that some do the opposite: they clump together, first as clusters of molecules, then as bigger aggregates of those clusters. Far from drifting apart from their neighbours, they got closer together.

The discovery has stunned chemists, and could provide the first scientific insight into how some homeopathic remedies work. Homeopaths repeatedly dilute medications, believing that the higher the dilution, the more potent the remedy becomes.

Some dilute to "infinity" until no molecules of the remedy remain. They believe that water holds a memory, or "imprint" of the active ingredient which is more potent than the ingredient itself. But others use less dilute solutions - often diluting a remedy six-fold. The Korean findings might at last go some way to reconciling the potency of these less dilute solutions with orthodox science.

Completely counterintuitive

German chemist Kurt Geckeler and his colleague Shashadhar Samal stumbled on the effect while investigating fullerenes at their lab in the Kwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea. They found that the football-shaped buckyball molecules kept forming untidy aggregates in solution, and Geckler asked Samal to look for ways to control how these clumps formed.

It's like finding that the Hieronymus Machine works! 

And Egghead is dead, dead, dead.

There was a widely circulated story about how the head of the Green Party as denied access to her flight so she could make a speech.  Perhaps this will help:

Here's what the Urban Legend website www.snopes.com has to say about this:

http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/oden.htm 

I am not a great fan of professional debunkers, who can sometimes get things wrong because the facts just aren't available, but they are always a useful place to start. I'm also not happy about their site opening new advertising windows I didn't want...

In the Bitching and Moaning department:

I hate DirecPC satellites. Not enough to stop using it: when there's a lot of material to move back and forth it's needed. But it fails at critical moments. Just doesn't work. Nothing to be done about it but wait. Evil spirits or flights of birds or random airplanes or I don't hold my mouth right, it fails. After a while it works again. Sigh.

 

 

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Saturday, November 10, 2001

Off to Comdex. I'll be taking a pretty good machine with me so I should be able to keep this place up.

Safe in Las Vegas. Long drive. Saw The Blue Men at the Luxor. All kinds of things happen tomorrow.

Hotel has a T1 Line and direct connection to the Internet. It's wonderful...

 

I tried to send this to subscribers, but Dirtlink is playing games again. Warning: A new security hole:

The only fix is to turn of Active Scripting. Note this from Microsoft:

-----

Frequently asked questions

Why isn't there a patch available for this issue?

The person who discovered this vulnerability has chosen to handle it

irresponsibly , and has deliberately made this issue public only a few

days after reporting it to Microsoft. It is simply not possible to

build, test and release a patch within this timeframe and still meet

reasonable quality standards.

 

 

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/ms01-055.asp 

and

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp

 

 

 

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Sunday, November 12, 2001 ARMISTICE DAY

At COMDEX. 

Note that in the above Microsoft warning, that's their words. I don't need abuse from readers who don't understand that most of my readers are capable of drawing their own conclusions and don't always need me to tell them what to think. Good heavens! I ought to publish a couple of the letters taking me to task for what Microsoft said as if I had said it.  

Niven used to say "Reading Larry Niven is a privilege, not a right. Your letter is offensive, and I will henceforth instruct book stores never to sell you another Niven story. Have a nice day."  The only problem is that he then got a letter, not a joke, from a lawyer saying he (Niven) had no right to tell bookstores what they could sell.

But then as Niven often says, Bad Taste is Timeless.

Comdex all week. There will be www.byte.com reports.

 

 

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