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THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

View 226 October 7 - 13, 2002

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Monday  October 7, 2002

I seem to be in Anaheim for the Microsoft MEC conference. It's really for people concerned with larger networks than I work on, and I may not stay all that long. Anyway, I am here.

 

The President has laid out his case. I haven't the information to dispute his conclusions. I'm not concerned about winning this war that looks increasingly inevitable. I do worry about what obligations that victory will put on us. 

 

 

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Tuesday, October 8, 2002

MEC began this morning. Alas, at this conference they do not have tables or electric power for the press, so although there was a wireless connection to their net and I could get on the web, I couldn't do what I did at WinHEC and send pictures and reports of the keynotes live.

The best part was Jansen Harris, Lead Program Manager for Microsoft Outlook, on Outlook 11. Harris was formerly the Product Manager for the Macintosh Outlook product, so he has a slightly different view of user needs and expectations from some of the other Microsoft managers.  Outlook 11, due out next Summer along with a new version of Exchange, will be neat. Really neat, and if things go the way they say -- you can't count on that, of course, but when the worker bees at Microsoft say they will do something it often happens -- then Outlook 11 will be the PIM and mail handler we have all wished Outlook would be for years. Some of the new features are really neat.

Also ran into Sue Mosher, http://www.slipstick.com who understands Outlook and how to fix its problems better than anyone else.

All told it has been interesting and I am glad I came down, but I think I will head for the barn.  BURNING TOWER is still unwritten.

I'll see what I can do about mail tonight.


 

Got home in the evening. Plenty to do here. All's well. 

 

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Wednesday, October 9, 2002

I am home. 


Jim Seymour, RIP

http://www.thestreet.com/funds/editorsdesk/10046684.html

Jim was a long time friend and colleague. We generally had dinner together a couple of times a year at COMDEX shows. We weren't close friends, but we could call on each other for favors, and we shared contacts. I was never worried that Jim would abuse or take advantage of any information I gave him.

I haven't thought about him for a while, so I can't say I'll miss him greatly, but he was a good man, and deserves to be remembered.


I have a lot to do on fiction for the rest of the week. 

A short disquisition, not well organized.

It's hard to read the situation regarding the coming war. The President made a good case, and Saddam Hussein has a long record of defying inspectors and playing obfuscatory games. That's the Arab way, but playing that this time will probably get him killed, or at least deposed. I believe he has already exhausted the patience of our President and his advisors; soon he will exhaust the patience of the American people, and his doom will be sealed. So be it.

If the United States is determined to be involved in the affairs of the Middle East, and absent a vigorous energy independence program I suppose we have little choice, then a change of regimes in Iraq is probably a good thing in the long run. The danger to us is what may do with that victory. The first fruits of empire are often very sweet, and lead to a lust for more.

At home, my quarrel with current events is that war always brings about more centralization of government, more conversion of republic to empire, and that trend often accelerates when the war isn't so popular and law and coercion have to be used as well as national enthusiasm to enforce policies necessary to the war effort. By empire I mean centralization, concentration of political power in one city and in one small group whose decisions affect everyone.

The old republic I remember, when Washington D.C. was a small town in Maryland and the local sheriff and mayor were more important to your life than the President; when the major Federal presence in rural Tennessee was the County Agent who had really good information about terracing and contour plowing and land conservation; those days are pretty well gone, and it's unlikely we'll ever devolve enough power to the states to bring them back.

It may be that those of us who loved the old republic, and who believe that minding our own business is hard enough, may need to rethink who we are and what we call ourselves. I used to say I was conservative, but I don't have much in common with the people who are now the leaders of what calls itself the conservative movement. I don't thirst for overseas adventures, I don't want vexillations of US legions scattered all over the globe, I don't want our pro-c0nsuls governing people with our Special Forces enforcing their will; and if those things come to pass because we have no choice, I may cheer our soldiers but I will not cheer the outcome; and I will continue to look for ways to give us other and better choices.

Those who now claim the leadership of the conservatives rejoice at our lack of choices. They long for the thrill of American parades in foreign capitals. When I was young, I recall a British friend of my father's who told of his joy at seeing more and more of the world map turn pink. He thought that grand, and I can understand that thrill. It is seductive. And you can make a good case that much of the world was better off under the British Raj than it is now; that the world is a better place for the former existence of the British Empire. But is Britain?

I am not an ardent free trader. I recognize that international trade is a way to keep out own industries efficient, and that lack of competition leads to stagnation; I know that without efficient industry there are fewer goods of fortune to distribute and that rising tides float all boats, etc., etc. I know that free trade maximizes the choice of goods at minimum prices; but I also know displaced people are unhappy and restless, and become more dependent on government. I know that a nation of rootless people who can be thought of as that commodity "labor" and moved from place to place with no more concern than we would have for where we ought to locate a new pig farm or chicken ranch is a nation that will need more and more police and "law enforcement" and welfare and the rest of it, and is a nation whose citizens are more and more dependent on the government for their lives; and I think unrestricted free trade inevitably leads there.

I am not a libertarian as such. Libertarianism is a vector, not a goal, and for the moment we ought to be headed toward less government control rather than more, but there are exceptions there as well. The world is a dangerous place. The public safety can be endangered by a very few, especially if they have the resources of a foreign government. I have always know that; after all, I was a Cold Warrior most of my life. I may know more about how a small conspiracy well supplied with foreign gold can endanger the republic than most people alive today.

But the world has always been dangerous, which is why governments are instituted among men: left to themselves, most people live quiet and decent lives, but there are plenty enough to disrupt the public peace and order. For every right there are those who think to enjoy the fruits of others by violating those rights. These include thieves and robbers and petty bureaucratic tyrants as well.

Rights don't exist outside a mechanism to enforce them; even the old Roman Republic found that out, when a Roman court might award you possession of a farm but it was up to you to find ways to enforce that. The result was inevitably the patron/client system, in which the clientes were in theory free, but in practice had little choice but to call on their patron at his bidding and whim, and at all times to "show respect." If that sounds familiarly like certain extra-legal organizations, I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

We need government and it needs to be strong; but its jurisdiction and scope needs to be limited, and the more power it has to stick its nose into your business, the closer to you, and the more local, it ought to be. Every case ought not be a federal case.

The above are unorganized and random observations about important matters. I'll leave them stand, but do not consider the above as anything more than musings over coffee; one day I'll write a more coherent essay.

But the conclusion I draw, reluctantly, is that we will never restore the old republic; and given that, the goal ought to be competent empire that serves its citizens; and ought to maintain the fiction that the purpose of government was given in the Declaration:

To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That is no longer true and we all know it; but perhaps if we try to act as if it were true, the changes will be a bit slower and less fearsome. And as we try to determine who we -- the American people, the American nation -- are, we need to be mindful that there are those who hate us, and the more we inject ourselves into their part of the world, the more hatred there will be.  Republics generally don't have friends, but they often lack for enemies. Empires have friend and supplicants and clients; and they seldom lack for enemies.

Empires must serve their citizens; inevitably, though, they serve others, often to the detriment of the citizens. Keep that always in mind.

And I almost ceaselessly repeat, we really do need to use our technology to make ourselves as independent of others as we can be. Gold may not get you good soldiers, good soldiers can always get you gold, but it's even better if you own the gold mines so no one resents you the wherewithal to pay your good soldiers....


I just ran across this:

THE NEW YORK TIMES

http://nytimes.com/2002/09/29/health/29MALA.html 

September 29, 2002 Virginia Mosquitoes Found With Malaria By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

[L] EESBURG, Va., Sept. 28 (AP) ‹ Malaria-carrying mosquitoes have been found near the homes of two teenagers infected with the disease. The authorities say it is the first case in at least two decades in which malaria has been detected in mosquitoes and humans in an American community.

Two pools of malarial mosquitoes were discovered Wednesday near the Potomac River, one 4 miles and the other 6 miles from the Loudoun County homes of the two teenagers, who were given diagnoses of malaria over the summer, county officials said.

From another source:

By the way, be very careful about taking Lariam, the prescription anti-malaria drug. Dan Olmsted at UPI has been doing a series on how Lariam seems to set off clinical depression, with a disproportionate number of suicides. There are older (and less convenient) anti-malarial drug that don't seem to have these side effects


And an interesting notion on  Transportation Agency rules...

Then we have:

 

Observer | Raging boffins http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4506082,00.html 

[Oliver James vs. Steven Pinker, who really gets around! I add that Pinker's evidence is based on analysis of variance in a *current* population. This does not preclude large generations effects, as per Strauss-Howe, or of broad civilizational and racial differences.]

Raging boffins

The nature v nurture debate has never been so fierce. Robin McKie and Vanessa Thorpe report on the bitter row between two leading scientists

Robin McKie and Vanessa Thorpe Sunday September 22, 2002 The Observer

One is a boor, a scientific dinosaur and 'a hardline left-winger' whose ideas have long since ceased to matter. The other is a 'wicked' individual whose ideas could lead more children to be assaulted by abusive parents.

That is how two leading scientists have denounced each other over their claims to know the causes of human aggression. Violence is in the air and, it appears, at its roots.

In his book They F*** You Up British psychologist Oliver James argues family influences are critical. Neuroscientist Steven Pinker says nothing matters more than our genes. Both are openly abusive about each other's stance. Hence, the accusation of one of Pinker's allies that James is 'fucked-up' while he has retorted in turn that his opponent is telling lies.

The extraordinarily angry row reveals the depth of the scientific battle that is emerging over the soul of mankind. On one side stand the followers of the fledgling science of evolutionary psychology, led by Pinker. They say studies of human evolution show that parents have little impact on their children's behaviour. Only their genes, and a person's interaction with peers and friends, matter in the shaping of violent personalities. Road rage and murder are in our DNA.

<snip>

And everyone thought that all went away with The Bell Curve. What differences are inherited? And does that have an implication for public policy?

 

 

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Thursday, October 10, 2002

It's another of those days in which I seem to have run out of energy early. I should be writing both fiction and essays. I'll try getting to work shortly.

 

 

 

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Friday, October 11, 2002

It appears that the French tanker was the victim of an Al Queda terrorist attack. Interesting.

We have an urgent warning for those with XP installed on HP systems.  See mail.


At the Security session at the Windows MEC conference, security experts -- Foundstone not Microsoft -- reported a study at one company. A window pops up. It says:

You are about to install a Trojan Horse program on your computer. Continue?  Yes.    No.

Over 65% clicked YES.


I have just put up my 1998 Intellectual Capital column about the impending Y2K disaster. It was entitled "Don't Panic". I got a tonne of hate mail over that: I was irresponsible, and not taking this terrible threat seriously enough, and I ought to be jailed or shot...

I also have another I am proud of, on Changing The Rules and what that will do to the Long Boom and such like.


The president has his authorization from Congress, removing one of my objections to the coming war.

And DeLay made as persuasive a case as any0ne when he said that Yes, Saddam Hussein would be deterred from using his weapons, but a standoff with a nuclear armed Iraq might well turn that country into a new haven for world terror. The analogy is the Old Man of the Mountain, who had an impregnable fortress from which he sent his assassins far and wide. 

(He had both Richard Lion Heart and Saladin afraid, and so long as his fortress couldn't be taken his influence continued. The Mongols managed to get his successor and get him to persuade the fortress to surrender, after which all the power of the Assassins was lost; the remnant is the Agha Khan's group who are pacifists, an odd legacy of the original Assassins.)

An Iraqi sanctuary would be a dangerous thing; and we have probably gone too far to make any kind of deal that would prevent that. I suppose there is nothing for it, but to go in and remove him. I still fear the aftermath.

And: if we hadn't been involved over there in the first place the attacks probably wouldn't have happened. No matter. They did happen, and we do need to establish the principle.

O is my basnet a widow's curch, or my lance a wand of the willow tree?

And is my hand a lady's lily hand, that this English lord should lightly me?

Niven's law: don't throw excrement at an armed man. Corollary: don't stand next to someone who is throwing excrement at an armed man.

I could add, don't harbor people who have declared war on the United States. Don't even look as if you are harboring such people.

See Greg Cochran's view in Mail


I need to sort out my thoughts on just what citizenship means, and what economic obligations and privileges come with it. I'll do that over the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, Harry Erwin has some observations on security aspects of exporting some jobs.


I may be the last person to find this out but Drew Kaplan is back. I remember fondly the DAK advertisements and catalogs back in the 90's. DAK is a gadget freak, and he has a web site advertising gadgets he likes.  I loved the old DAK, and I just found the new.

http://www.dak2000.com/ 

 

 

 

 

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Saturday, October 12, 2002

I'm still working on that essay trying to take into account both economic and political realities. Do understand, by "the republic" I do NOT mean a mass plebiscitory democracy. We all know where those go. They are merely part of the eternal cycle of governments which the Framers hoped to get us out of.

By Republic I meant a constitutional republic, a government of limited jurisdiction but supreme within its limits. We used to have one. I grew up in it, and as late as 1964 it seemed to exist: those were the days when the Federal Budget was $100 billion and that was thought too high and temporary because of the Cold War.

We now believe that government, and by that we mean the central government, can educate the children, give everyone health care, limit campaign contributions, enforce ethics in the corporations, even out the business cycle, defend us from terror, deliver the mail, operate an air traffic control system, do science, keep up a space station, inspect the food, ensure that all drugs are safe and effective, keep us from being burned by too hot coffee being served in driveins and punish any company that serves coffee that is too hot, prevent racial discrimination everywhere, protect us all from hate crimes, give the elderly a decent and carefree retirement with dignity, give everyone decent health care, mandate peace in the Middle East and elsewhere, keep a strong Army and Navy, see that everyone has a place to stay, protect minorities from hate, ensure civil rights to all, prosecute local police who have been acquitted by local juries, build the highways, keep the railroads operating, dredge harbors, protect the environment including making sure that all toxic waste sites are cleaned up, prosecute people for interfering with navigable waterways even if the waterway hasn't had any water in it for a decade, preserve endangeres species, prevent forest fires, sponsor research for future generations, transfer enough wealth from the young to keep the elderly in good shape, transfer enough wealth from the productive to keep the unproductive out of poverty, keep the ports open, settle labor disputes, end poverty everywhere, and I am sure I have left something out.

If you run for office on a platform of "He's your Uncle, not your Dad" and "People ought to take care of themselves, not depend on the government," I'll vote for you but it's unlikely you'll win.

I better stop before I get more depressed.

 

Regarding the war: Tom DeLay has made the most impressive argument, to wit:

  1.   Saddam Hussein is not likely to attack us if he gets nuclear weapons. 
  2. He will use them in a classic deterrence posture to keep us from attacking him.
  3. He has enough reason to dislike us not to want to discourage terrorists from using Iraq as a sanctuary.
  4. He has enough to fear from some terrorist groups to want to appease them.
  5. Therefore Iraq with the bomb will very likely become a base of operations for those who want to move against the US.
  6. He can be stopped now at relatively low cost.

I have done an off the top of my head summary, but it's not an unreasonable one. There can be embellishments, but I think each of the statements is true, leaving a fairly obvious conclusion.

I still fear the consequences of our success, but I note above that the old republic is probably gone anyway, and perhaps distracting the feds with the problem of governing Iraq will slow some of the domestic growth. Not likely, but perhaps.

Iraq is not a "quagmire" in the sense one usually uses the word. But I note that we have a respectable army in Korea, 52 years after we went in there; we have an army in Germany; we have troops in former Yugoslavia; we have troops in Sinai. Those are not "quagmires", but they are places we got into and have yet to get out of. Iraq will be the same.

And I find I wrote on some of these subjects in 1998, and I don't have a lot of reason to regret what I said then.

I now have the first year of my Intellectual Capital columns posted. This is 1998, Part One, and Part Two, and they remain pretty good if I do say so.

 

 

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Sunday, October 13, 2002

We saw The Man From The Elysian Fields last night. Good acting but they sure don't know how writers operate.

There's some interesting mail, and I'll have more later.


My misgivings about the coming war -- it seems inevitable now, and once it starts I at least will have no choice but to rally behind the troops and hope for a swift victory -- my misgivings put me in strange and unaccustomed company. Maureen Dowd and Ted Kennedy are not usually on my side in major issues. Nor do I think of them as supporters of the old republic.

In the current issue of National Review, Paul Johnson, for whom I have great respect, makes the case that civilization has no choice here, and yes, it is America's lot to be the world policeman. I do not much care for that role. 

Take up the White Man's Burden--

Send forth the best ye breed--

Go, bind your sons to exile,

To serve your captives' need;

To wait in heavy harness

On fluttered folk and wild--

Your new-caught sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child--

That was said of our effort in the Philippines. Kipling was not unsympathetic.

It may be what we must do. Doubtless we will be more multicultural this time. The spirit of the expeditions to the Sudan, where the goal was to prevent enslavement of the black Africans in the South by the northern "more civilized" Muslims is no longer with us (and in the recent remake of The Four Feathers, which was about that campaign, it is all forgotten, as if there were some profit to be made from taking over the Sudan; the Brits knew far better than that, and Kitchener wasn't sent in there to add the Sudan to the Empire, but to carry civilization. Of course the silly movie has it all wrong and seems to think that the expedition was the earlier one, the vain attempt to rescue Chinese Gordon who had been sent in to evacuate the Sudan of British and Egyptian presence.

Incidentally, some of the best soldiers in the expedition were black, and the famous dervishes and fuzzy wuzzies were Berber and Beja, not the blacks who were (and still are) mainly Christian and were (and still are) being enslaved by their Muslim betters.  But that is another story.

So we will go into Iraq and become the world's police, even if we no longer think of ourselves as cultural superiors or the bearers of civilization to the heathen.

 

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