Monthly Archives: May 2015

Chaos Manor View, Friday, May 29, 2015

Larry Niven is off to Chicago for the Nebula ceremonies, and will receive his well deserved Grand Master award. Congratulations. And last night at LASFS another of my collaborators, John DeChancie, announced publication of the ninth book in his Castle Perilous series.  If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s action/adventure comedy fantasy, and his latest is the ninth volume. http://www.amazon.com/John-Dechancie/e/B000APFJXI  If you aren’t familiar with it, start with the first, Castle Perilous. His other series, starting with Star Rigger, is straight action.adventure SF, I liked it.

We’re working on a novel, straight science fiction, about a near future time when we have a foothold in the asteroids. The Bureaucrats run Earth and tolerate the asteroid miners. The protagonist is Lisabetta, a teenage girl largely raised by an Artificial Intelligence on an asteroid prospecting ship after her mother dies. When her father is killed by “salvagers” she falls into the care of Earth Child Welfare Services, as the bureaucracy wrangles over who owns her ship. We’re about 40,000 words into it; I don’t type very fast any longer. so John is doing most of the work, as Steve Barnes is doing most of the work on the book Niven and I are doing with him.

Jerry:

I read once again your latest commentary about how it is not yet to late to stop ISIS, but you present no cogent reason why the US has a compelling interest to destroy ISIS. ISIS may be brutal, but so was Saddam. Just ask the Kurds and the Shia. While Saddam had been extremely close to acquiring nuclear weapons at the time of the first gulf war and certainly would have acquired nukes if he had remained in power long enough for the sanctions to be lifted (about one year?), there is no credible prospect of ISIS acquiring nukes anytime soon. Since NK already has nukes and Obama is negotiating to legitimize Iran’s nukes, two out of three of the members of Bush’s “axis of evil” will have the capability to wage nuclear terrorism against the US. It is becoming obvious that once Iran demonstrates a nuke, other countries will feel compelled to get nukes too. We will inevitably live in a world where the nuclear club will cease to be exclusive.

James Crawford=

I thought I had made it painfully clear.

At present, the Caliphate is not a major threat to the United States, but that is due to the lack of ability, not intention. As they grow that discrepancy diminishes. ISIS becomes more legitimate as they expand the territory they govern – but only so long as they do so by their interpretation of the Koran; which they believe commands them to make no peace with infidels. They can make truce, but never peace.

Considering the resources they have now, and their rate of growth, at what point does conflict become inevitable? Yes, they are far away, and we are developing some independence from Middle East oil and gas; but we have a political involvement with others in that area of the world; not just Israel, although I know of no serious candidate running on a platform of abandoning our commitment to Israel; there are also Christians in the area, although fewer now than a decade ago.

There was a time when we might have simply cut and run. Middle East for the Middle Easterners, and we wish peace and good will to everyone. That time has passed, partly due to our own actions in that area, just as our choosing the anti-Slavic side in the Balkan crisis changed our relations with Russia.

Since the Iraqi Army won’t fight, while the Iraqi government has a quite a bit of oil money, the logical solution is hiring Western mercenaries.

I figure that 10,000 would get the job done.

Gregory Cochran

I doubt there are enough organized and trained. The US can use a Foreign Legion for long term overseas commitments, bur building that kind of force takes time, and we don’t have it. I would undertake to eliminate the Caliphate with one division now, or two at year’s end (with the Air Support in all cases: all the Warthogs and enough support to build bases and operate them). A year from now would require more.

Mercs could be trained now to keep the situation stable, but they are too late to stabilize it.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hillary-clinton-paradox-1432857435

How so? On Sea Level Rise Off The Coast Of Florida
Jerry,
One of your contributors was perplexed by the notion that the sea level could rise three or four times faster off the coast of Florida than it is rising in other parts of the world because all of the oceans are connected, presuming that this means sea level rise should be uniform around the world.
While the oceans are all connected, sea level around the world is not uniform. In point of fact, if you could calm the seas of the entire planet at once so that there was not a single wave anywhere in the world and then subtract away the tides, a frozen ocean surface would reveal hills and valleys deviating a full sixty feet from a mean altitude. How?
There are several reasons. First, water does not flow to the lowest spot as we were all told as children. It flows to the highest gravitational potential. Generally, lower spots have higher gravitational potential, so that is where the water goes. But, anomalies in how mass is distributed through the body of the Earth allows water to ‘pile up’ on some places, being attracted to the mass. The Earth’s continents represent such a mass distribution anomaly, so sea level will be generally high there than elsewhere in the oceans. Variations in the density of the Earth’s crust also affect sea level the same way. Valleys on the sea floor cause a surface low in gravity while sea mounts cause a surface high in gravity. Unusually dense pockets of material in the mantel attract more sea water than do low or average density pockets.
Second, water expands when heated, contracts when cooled (until it freezes), so hot water has more volume than cold water. The coast of Florida hosts the Gulf Stream, already one of the hottest currents of water in the world and it is getting warmer.
Third, water in motion tends to pile up due to frictional forces. The Gulf Stream off of Florida is moving at quite a clip and getting faster due to its getting warmer, leading to more piling up.
Fourth, the distribution of water in the oceans is affected by the Earth’s rotation, causing more water to flow towards the equator and less towards the poles. This effect fights a gravitational influence that wants to pull the water towards the poles as the Earth physically bulges out at the equator and is flattened towards its center at the poles, making gravity weaker at the equator and stronger at the poles. If the Earth stopped rotating, the water would leave the equator completely until the Earth’s mass becomes more spherically distributed, which would take millions of years.
Fifth, local affects of long term wind patterns push water away from some areas and pile it up in others. As a child, I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay and could watch the water disappear from the western shore where I lived for a week or more each Fall due to steady twenty mile an hour winds blowing from west to east over the bay. Water that would have been up to twenty feet deep was gone, leaving dry land for hundred of yards off the shore. I am sure the folks on the Eastern Shore were as alarmed by the excess water as we were by its loss. The point is, steady onshore winds contribute to the rise of sea level.
The East coast of the United States happens to have a number of these factors dead against it, so a lot more of any excess water volume is going to end up on the East coast of the United States and not elsewhere in the world. Florida happens to be deeper in the cross-hairs of these factors.

Kevin

Buchanan: Secularists vs. Suicide Bombers.

<http://www.unz.com/pbuchanan/secularists-vs-suicide-bombers/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

The coldest case.

<http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-earliest-known-murder-victim-20150526-story.html>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

: oh REALLY?

http://toprightnews.com/muslims-say-u-s-military-should-not-be-honored-on-memorial-day/

Stephanie Osborn

“The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”
http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com

“I Don’t Think We Are Losing To ISIS”

Jerry,

President Obama’s statement to the effect that he does not think we are losing to ISIS despite the fact that ISIS is advancing and we are retreating struck a resonant chord in memory, but I could not at first recall where I had come across such an idiotic, farcical statement.

Then I recalled a line from the satirical 1957 science fiction novel cum terrorist s’ handbook “Wasp” by Eric Frank Russell that I had read as a teenager:

“For months we have been making triumphant retreats before a demoralized enemy who is advancing in utter disorder.”

BRAVO ZULU, Mr. Obama!!!  Once again, life imitates art…

Best,

Rodger Morris

The last official view from the President was that the Caliphate is the junior varsity

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Chaos Manor View, Thursday, May 28, 2015

Story conference with Barnes and Niven yesterday. Satisfactory but mentally exhausted so the rest of the day after lunch was consumed by locusts.

Back in the 50’s when there was no federal Department of Education, and there was spirited debate over the wisdom of Federal Aid to Education, it was generally thought that education was best left to the States; Federal Aid would come at the creeping but inevitable cost of Federal Control, and would be a disaster. It was argued that for the cost of a few B-52’s we could have a fine education for all. Our schools were generally good, but some were backward, rural, or inner city; Federal Aid would fix that and improve the other schools as well. And then came Sputnik and the idea that Russian schools were much better than US schools, and Russians learned Science and Engineering, and look at this backward school in the Ozarks, and we must have education to win the Cold War, and…

The alarmists won the argument of course. We got Federal Aid and we got it good and hard. With it came credentialism and strong teachers unions. Reagan tried to abolish the Department of Education and much of Federal Aid, but he couldn’t; since Reagan no one has tried very hard.

And then came various national education policies. No child left behind – better described as no child gets ahead – may have been the worst. There was also the idiocy of “every American kid should get a world class university prep education” which doesn’t even make sense. Most industrial workers couldn’t make use of a university education, and vast numbers couldn’t pass the final exams. But if you have a right to get one, the universities will, at great cost (and profit) see that it happens. You can major in some field or another, and if you can’t do maths we’ll find you a major that doesn’t need them.

So down went higher education while turning out more graduates; but meanwhile the high schools, and then the grade schools, were suffering.

I don’t suppose I need say a lot more on the quality of education. Look at the California Sixth Grade Reader of 1915 http://www.amazon.com/California-Sixth-Grade-Reader-Pournelle-ebook/dp/B00LZ7PB7E or see Bill whittle http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/bill-whittle-struggle-stupidity for more. Somehow what we expected 6^th Graders to study before WW II is now too difficult for high school.

But the real argument against Federal Aid To Education was the warning about indoctrination: at the time it was mostly Liberals who feared indoctrination by right wingers. Bit different now, but the arguments still hold: it’s a direct violation of the intentions of the Framers and a complete intrusion on state’s sovereignty.

Schoolroom Climate Change Indoctrination

In one assignment, students measure the size of their family’s carbon footprint and suggest ways to shrink it.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/schoolroom-climate-change-indoctrination-1432767611

By

Paul H. Tice

May 27, 2015 7:00 p.m. ET

1165 COMMENTS

While many American parents are angry about the Common Core educational standards and related student assessments in math and English, less attention is being paid to the federally driven green Common Core that is now being rolled out across the country. Under the guise of the first new K-12 science curriculum to be introduced in 15 years, the real goal seems to be to expose students to politically correct climate-change orthodoxy during their formative learning years.

The Next Generation of Science Standards were released in April 2013. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted them, including my state of New Jersey, which signed on in July 2014 and plans to phase in the new curriculum beginning with the 2016-2017 school year. The standards were designed to provide students with an internationally benchmarked science education.

While publicly billed as the result of a state-led process, the new science standards rely on a framework developed by the Washington, D.C.-based National Research Council. That is the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences that works closely with the federal government on most scientific matters.

There is more but you get the idea. Indoctrination with Al Gore.

And you get to pay for it, and your children will come home ashamed of their Denier parents: even as the evidence pours in showing that we don’t know much about climate even with our multi-million dollar models, and until they can account for clouds, they will never be accurate: no model can take the 1960 initial conditions and “predict” the conditions in 2000.

And without cloud data they can’t, because Nighttime Radiative Cooling http://misfitsarchitecture.com/2013/03/01/its-not-rocket-science-5-night-sky-radiant-cooling/ is governed by clouds.

But that isn’t going to be taught to your kids.

Our school system is so bad that perhaps it won’t be effective in indoctrination; but the next step will be to have the kids report their Denier parents, and then send Child Protective Services to help the kids resist the evil parents who are teaching The Wrong Stuff to their kids.

I know.

It Can’t Happen Here.

How to generate a science scam

Dear Dr. Pournelle, 

This article is by a journalist who did his levelheaded best to scam the scientific community with a bogus study. The ease with which it is done is quite sad and speaks to gatekeeping, at least in scientific journalism.
http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800

Respectfully,

Brian P.

It is worth reading. And it isn’t just journalism that lets nonsense past. Modern education in actual science in universities is not universally – or even usually – very good. That’s true of many of the “best” universities. But my god how the money rolls in.

Did Market Leninism Win the Cold War?

<http://www.unz.com/article/the-worst-of-all-possible-worlds/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

“The Worst of All Possible Worlds

Did Market Leninism Win the Cold War?

Imagine an alternative universe in which the two major Cold War superpowers evolved into the United Soviet Socialist States. The conjoined entity, linked perhaps by a new Bering Straits land bridge, combines the optimal features of capitalism and collectivism. From Siberia to Sioux City, we’d all be living in one giant Sweden.

It sounds like either the paranoid nightmare of a John Bircher or the wildly optimistic dream of Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, however, this was a rather conventional view, at least among influential thinkers like economist John Kenneth Galbraith who predicted that the United States and the Soviet Union would converge at some point in the future with the market tempered by planning and planning invigorated by the market. Like many an academic notion, it didn’t come to pass. The United States veered off in the direction of Reaganomics. And the Soviet Union eventually collapsed. So much for “convergence theory,” which like EST or cold fusion went the way of most crackpot ideas.

Or did it? Take another look at our world in 2015 and tell me if, somehow we haven’t backed our way through the looking glass into that very alternative universe — with a twist. The planet currently seems to be on the cusp of a decidedly unharmonic convergence.

Consider what’s happening in Russia, where an elected autocrat presides over a free market shaped by a powerful state apparatus. Similarly, China’s mash-up of market Leninism offers a one-from-column-A-and-one-from-Column-B combination platter. Both countries are also rife with crime, corruption, growing inequality, and militarism. Think of them as the un-Swedens.”

CoDominium?

Query for the seminar: are you REAL sure you want to raise the minimum wage?

“I chose crab bisque as a dish because it’s a real challenge for human chef to make well, never mind a machine,” Anderson said.

“If it can cook a bisque, it can do stir-fries and we’re looking forward to teaching it many more recipes in the months to come.”

http://www.scmp.com/tech/innovation/article/1808963/worlds-first-robot-kitchen-cooks-visitors-ces-asia-shanghai

Rod

K wrote:

“ I am not advocating the armed conflict that was the first step toward positive change two hundred years ago; we have tools of communication at our disposal now that did not exist then.”

—–

Those very same tools of communications are an important component of the instrumentality of tyranny. Had the War of Independence been delayed until the advent of the telegraph and the Gatling gun, it would in all likelihood not been successful; the example of the Second American Revolution (also known as the War of Northern Aggression, the War Between the States, or the American Civil War) is pertinent.

Those tools are even more important during long spans of notional ‘peace’.

—————————————

Roland Dobbins <roland.dobbins@mac.com>

“The Kurds at the moment have ambitions that are not in conflict with our interests except at the margins; that is also true of Saudi Arabia, and Israel for that matter.”

Only true of the Kurds.

Greg Cochran

In absolute terms, yes; but the conflicts are resolvable in the case of Saudi Arabia and Israel. What is needed from Arabia is protection of the Sunni minority from the Shia of Baghdad. Baathist Iraq certainly had goals in conflict with the US but the situation in Iraq was much better under Baath than it is under our liberated democracy.

How so?

http://listverse.com/2015/05/25/10-major-natural-disasters-predicted-in-the-near-future/

In one of the potential disasters described, a statement is made that “…a US Geological Survey study done by scientists in Florida that states that the sea level of the East Coast is rising three or four times faster than anywhere else in the world.”

How can that be, since all oceans actually are a single body of water?

Charles Brumbelow

“A 2012 study by emeritus professor John Boon of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science claimed that significant changes in sea level along the East Coast from Key West, Florida, to Newfoundland, Canada, started around 1987. His study shows that the sea level is increasing 0.3 millimeters per year. This study dovetails with a US Geological Survey study done by scientists in Florida that states that the sea level of the East Coast is rising three or four times faster than anywhere else in the world.”

I would presume he finds the Floridian Coastland sinking? Or being lower? It is purportedly explained in http://www.nature.com/news/us-northeast-coast-is-hotspot-for-rising-sea-levels-1.10880

About that small minority of terrorists

Al Jazeera is one of the Islamic world’s largest TV outlets. They performed a survey.

81% of respondents to Al Jazeera poll support the Islamic State http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/05/81-of-respondents-to-al-jazeera-poll-support-the-islamic-state

When I went to school 81% is not a small minority. I guess the new math has kicked in or something.

As support let’s travel to a typical Egyptian Mosque.

Typical Egyptian mosque sermons identical to “non-Islamic” Islamic State http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/05/typical-egyptian-mosque-sermons-identical-to-non-islamic-islamic-state

Oops, that didn’t work either. Maybe we just have to live with it. After all they are nice people, aren’t they? Surely they treat us as equals as we treat them, right?

Muslim Judge: ‘Unacceptable for Christian to Testify Against Muslims’

http://pamelageller.com/2015/05/muslim-judge-unacceptable-for-christian-to-testify-against-muslims.html

Oops, that didn’t turn out so well. But gee, they’re still basically nice people, aren’t they? Erm, unless, maybe, you are gay.

VIDEO: Muslim Brutally Beats Gay Couple in NY Restaurant http://pamelageller.com/2015/05/video-muslim-attacks-gay-couple-in-ny-restaurant.html

Hm, this doesn’t look too good. But they’re just gays.

Islamic State forces Yezidi boys to convert to Islam, sends them into battle http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/05/islamic-state-forces-yezidi-boys-to-convert-to-islam-sends-them-into-battle

Waitaminit that’s not nice of them. Does it get worse? Yes, especially if you are woman.

Pamela Geller, WND: “U.K. Rape Jihadis: ‘This Is OK In Our Culture’”

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/05/pamela-geller-wnd-u-k-rape-jihadis-this-is-ok-in-our-culture

Pamela Geller, Breitbart: “The UK’s Rape Jihad: A Survivor’s Tale”

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/05/pamela-geller-breitbart-the-uks-rape-jihad-a-survivors-tale

It’s even not very nice for Christian men in moderate secular Egypt.

Grandson of medical pioneer cannot follow same profession for being Christian http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/05/grandson-of-medical-pioneer-cannot-follow-same-profession-for-being-christian

Oh, nevermind! I overreacted. Obama tells me it’s all due to climate change!

Robert Spencer, PJM: Obama: Climate Change Causes Jihad http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/05/robert-spencer-pjm-obama-climate-change-causes-jihad

Ya know, just off the top of my head, it’s time we do something about this “stuff” before that “stuff” really hits the fan. And it’s preciously close to the big stuff hitting fan episode.

{o.o}

ISIS is vulnerable now but becoming exponentially less so. Time is not on our side.

: Dogs and human evolution
They say that we domesticated dogs. What if they domesticated us?
Imagine our primitive ancestors. Some were assholes, and were mean to animals. Others were more open-minded, and could bond with other species such as dogs. The latter then would get the advantage of another species with superior olfaction, hearing, night vision, and alertness. Perhaps natural selection could favor the latter? Perhaps it could assist in domesticating other species such as horses (utterly vital for civilization for several thousand years). Perhaps these adaptations could even spill over into our relations with each other?
Perhaps our dogs shaped us? Perhaps we need more of that?

TG

Well we had all that forebrain we had been using to smell with, and now it could evolve other functions.

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/Sixthgradesample.html

“This article mentions the “idiotic claims” made by the “national news media” on a “daily basis”. One case in point is the so-called “unprecedented” flooding that put Houston “under water”. And the chant is “climate change, fear, climate change, fear!” But, the article reveals this flooding is not unprecedented and mentions more than eight instances of worse flooding and demonstrates the Houston is not under water. And then we have this:

<.>

On the other issue, the entire climate change situation has become politicized, which I hate. Those on the right, and those on the left hang out in “echo chambers”, listening to those with similar world views refusing to believe anything else could be true.

Everyone knows the climate is changing; it always has, and always will. I do not know of a single “climate denier”. I am still waiting to meet one.

The debate involves the anthropogenic impact, and this is not why I am writing this piece. Let’s just say the Houston flood this week is weather, and not climate, and leave it at that.

</>

https://medium.com/@spann/the-age-of-disinformation-98d55837d7d”“

How sensible.. But, how many “normal” people understand that difference between climate and weather? Maybe about as many that understand the difference between strategy and tactics, RAM and ROM, and so on? Is that why these “idiotic claims” pass for facts?

Perhaps a lack of historical perspective to provide some context is a contributing factor?

The effect of whatever you want to call these cultural tendencies to ignorance of words and their meanings, lack of context, lack of perspective and so on reminds me of Orwell’s 1984, the Newspeak Dictionary, and the work Winston Smith undertook at the Ministry of Truth. Only this takes matters a step further. You don’t need to destroy old newspaper articles and write new articles when no one bothers to read the facts in the first place. You don’t need a newspeak dictionary when few understand the definitions of most words or how the language works.

A timely example: I was in an online chat today and some cantankerous person spewed off some word salad that made no sense, much to the irritation of the other participants. I commented that he might consider using proper English so we could understand what he wanted to say. My sentence used a semi-colon and one of the other participants remarked, “That’s amusing, can you use a semi-colon in proper English?  haha Can you even do that?”

I, politely, explained a semicolon can be used in place of a conjunction to link two independent clauses and he said, “Dude, I don’t know what the **** you’re talking about.”

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,
Joshua Jordan, KSC
Percussa Resurgo

As Freeman Dyson frequently says, we just don’t know how to model climate. 

The way to bet is that it’s getting warmer, but then things happen.  Tambora caused the year without a summer – worldwide.  Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.  But that was not man-made.  Yet don’t forget Carl Sagan’s Nuclear Winter fears. We don’t know enough about clouds to model climate.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Chaos Manor View, Monday, May 25, 2015

MEMORIAL DAY

We give our thanks and tribute to those who have defended us. May the survivors find peace and tranquility; may the dead rest in peace; and God bless those who remain on guard.

We are bringing out, in both electronic and print production, The Strategy of Technology, a 1970 book that was once a text in some of the Service Academies and still is in use at two of the War Colleges. This is not a new edition: it remains mostly the same as the hard to read copy available as an eBook on line or at exorbitant prices as used printed books. There are also Xerox copies kicking around.

The principles of the strategy of technology remain pretty constant, but all the examples in the book are of course Cold War or World War II, with a few “Small War” lessons and a bit on Korea.

It does not take account of Martin Van Crevold’s Transformation of War http://www.amazon.com/The-Transformation-War-Reinterpretation-Clausewitz/dp/0029331552 and it should acknowledge that important work; war has changed radically since 1970, and while Van Crevold mistakenly uses the politically motivated American retreat from Viet Nam as an example of the new era, subsequent events have made it clear that while Clausewitz remains important he is incomplete.

War remains, but its nature has changed. To Clausewitz war was the continuation of diplomacy by other means. As Van Crevold shows, there are new forms combat that Clausewitz would not recognize that can be as decisive as the old forms of war – ask the inhabitants of the Crimea, or eastern Ukraine. There are also combatants who are not nations: al Qaeda being a famous example. Yet States and Armies remain and can be decisive.

Anyway I am re-reading Van Crevold and preparing a “Postword” or final Chapter to show that the principles of the strategy of technology apply in this new kind of war – and that I am aware of the need for a book on the subject, and provide some thwarting materials for it. The subject is important. The subtitle of SOT was “Winning the Decisive War”, and that title is still relevant. At the same time, the age old principles of war as understood by both Sun Tzu and Machiavelli remain relevant.

It remains true that There Will Be War.

Alex is here and it is time for a walk. More later

Decoration Day

Jerry,

On this day I am reminded of O’Hara’s “Bivouac of the Day” posted around Arlington National Cemetery

Theodore O’Hara’s poem, “Bivouac of the Dead,”<http://www.cem.va.gov/history/bivouac.asp>

The poem itself: <http://www.cem.va.gov/cem/history/BODpoem.asp>

And a Decoration Day postcard (at the first link): <http://www.cem.va.gov/cem/images/decday1.jpg>

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

Subj: Rethink cozying up to the Kurds?

http://www.aei.org/publication/have-the-kurds-lied-to-congress/

Sounds to me like Yet Another Instance of a well-known pattern, to wit:

whenever someone utters some generality about “the X”, for some X, one’s antennae should twitch about the implication that what is said applies

*uniformly* over all X, with no within-X variation worth mentioning.

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Why yes, of course; they are not our friends except from necessity. It was Saladin the Kurd who defeated the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Horns of Hattin, and ended the Christian rule in the Holy Land. He also made a peace with Richard Couer de Leon that was beneficial to both sides. Then he went on to unite the Middle East.

The Kurds at the moment have ambitions that are not in conflict with our interests except at the margins; that is also true of Saudi Arabia, and Israel for that matter. Can we hope for more? I would rather Northern Iraq were in the hands of the Kurds than the Caliphate.

ISIS and idiotic US Hubris Subject : ISIS and idiotic US Hubris Message : Contact Message below
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-west-saw-isis-as-strategic-asset-b99ad7a29092
http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf
So the redacted classified DIA document obtained by Judicial watch via FOIA shows that the US viewed ISIS AS A STRATEGIC ASSET!!!!! And clearly understood that something like ISIS was a collateral risk. This is consistent with the conspiratorial assertions years ago that ISIS was (created? – encouraged? – supported?) for the specific purpose of overthrowing Asad to enable a GCC gas pipeline to Europe without passing through Israel or IRAQ.
Hubris, Greed, and Amorality resulting in death and destruction – who wudda thought?

: john

“The reason it’s controversial is, it violates Newton’s Third Law.”

<http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/no-warp-drive-here-nasa-downplays-impossible-em-drive-space-n357151>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

That’s always a problem. Seriously, we must pay attention to “impossible” data if it can be reproduced; but extraordinary claims always require extraordinary evidence. It is increasingly clear that this one doesn’t have that.

Everyone I have talked to on Wall Street seems to agree it’s a pretty godless place. Is this new or has it always been like this?

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/seven-years-later-wall-street-hasnt-learned-anything/393623/?utm_source=SFFB

It’s been said many times, in many places, even well before the Great Recession: The culture on Wall Street is terrible. It encourages bad behavior. More recently, there are concerns that the Wall Street that caused the financial crisis is back.

A new report by The University of Notre Dame, commissioned by the law firm Labaton Sucharow, which represents whistleblowers, has some alarming numbers to add to this well-trodden narrative. The report surveyed more than 1,200 people in the financial-services industry—account executives, wealth advisors, financial analysts, investment bankers, operations managers, and portfolio managers—in both the U.S. and the U.K. to look at whether increased regulations, along with calls for a cultural change, have had any demonstrable effects.

Why I am shocked, shocked…

Financial Times Says it All

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such an apt and succinct observation:

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The Fed is forecasting US growth of 2.5 per cent for the next two years, which is only marginally above the tepid rates achieved since the start of the recovery, which is now about to enter its seventh year. Should unemployment fall to 5 per cent by the end of 2015, wage growth may finally start to pick up, in which case the Fed will probably need to remove the punch bowl. The balance of risk is skewed the other way, however. After years of virtually no income growth, Main Street is unprepared for positive shocks. It is, for instance, striking that that the US consumer has opted to pocket the recent gains from lower [gas] prices rather than boost spending. The same applies to corporate investment, which remains disappointingly weak.

The US economy’s key growth drivers each seem to be waiting for the other to move first. Investors are reluctant to invest and consumers are hesitant to spend. What will it take to stoke their animal spirits?

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4fa54706-008b-11e5-b91e-00144feabdc0.html

What will it take for animus to drive the market? I see

witchdoctors, but these witchdoctors have a point.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

It takes someone who believes in American Exceptionalism rather than Social Justice

The speech deconstructed by Viscount Monckton

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/21/does-the-leader-of-the-free-world-really-know-so-little-about-climate/

DNA hints at earlier dog evolution 

Jerry

Ha! You and I have been right all these years:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32691843

They push it back to 27,000 years. But the baby and wolf (proto-dog) footprints date back 35,000 years.

Ed

I have always believed that dogs were extremely important in human evolution,  And there was a dramatic rise in intelligence about then…

“We’ve disconnected the consequences of war from the American public.”

<http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-warrior-main-20150524-story.html>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

“Stay together. Pay the soldiers. Take no heed of the rest.” Septimius Severus

Or see Machiavelli 

Cultivating the Wind

Jerry,
I have been away a while, buried by work and family obligations. I should not have been catching up this morning, but sometimes the mind needs a constructive distraction…
While I was catching up, it struck me how much of your blog is concerned with the issue of “sow[ing] the wind.” You warn us all that U.S. culture and culture around the world is changing, but not for the better. Ominous trends are afoot in education, politics, economics, entertainment, and discourse. I see the same ominous changes, so I am inclined to agree with you. However, it troubles me that we sit quite comfortably in our electronic pub, rationally discussing these issues while the world continues to deteriorate apace.
About 250 years ago, the people of the American British colonies sat comfortably in their physical pubs, rationally discussing the issues of their day, when at least one of them realized that discussion was not enough. Pointing out the problems, leveling criticisms, worrying about the prospects for the future were not changing anything. These people, the educated and able of their day, decided to stop simply talking about the problems and decided to start fixing them.
It has struck me that we — you, your direct friends, the people you have reached through your blog — have to inherit the mantle those people of 250 years ago once wore. We are the educated and able of our day. This is our world that needs to be changed for the better. We have the ability to define and to bring about that change. We are at the turn of an exponential curve and simple discussion will not longer suffice.
Can we not use our knowledge and experience to formulate a strategy for cultivating the wind? Can we not find a way to effectively influence cultural change for the better? I am not advocating the armed conflict that was the first step toward positive change two hundred years ago; we have tools of communication at our disposal now that did not exist then.
Cultivate the wind. Let us gather here to define a better future and make the effort to bring that future.

K

Despair is a sin.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Chaos Manor View, Thursday, May 21, 2015

Obama Says ‘I Don’t Think We’re Losing’ to ISIS; Militants Ready for Iraqi Counterattack

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/obama-says-i-dont-think-were-losing-isis-n362621

President Barack Obama said in an interview published Thursday that “I don’t think we’re losing” to ISIS, despite its capture of an Iraqi city last week and renewed questions about the state of the Iraqi military.

His interview with The Atlantic was published hours after ISIS claimed to have captured the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, a victory that one monitoring group said gave ISIS control of half the country.

And U.S. officials told NBC News that In Ramadi, Iraq, the city captured by the militants last weekend, ISIS fighters are digging trenches, building berms and steeling themselves for an Iraqi military push to retake the city.

ISIS is ‘everywhere’ in Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra

http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/21/middleeast/isis-syria-iraq/

The Fall of Palmyra Is a Strategic, Historical, and Human Loss
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418704/fall-palmyra-strategic-historical-and-human-loss-tom-rogan

It is estimated that the Caliphate controls about a third of Iraq.

I hear what you are saying about ISIS. Sure, a US armored division could take them out. So what?
In WWII the US army and government could both win wars and govern in the aftermath. Today, we can destroy, but our elites are so corrupt that we can no longer govern.
You have complained about our incompetent proconsul, Paul Bremer, in the aftermath of the Iraq war. But we don’t have anyone better at hand!
To paraphrase someone famous, you don’t go into a war with the leadership that you wish you had, but with the leadership that you do have. The days of Eisenhower and FDR and even Nixon are long gone. Our current elites can only create chaos. Sure our army still has the ability to trash ISIS (until outsourcing finally breaks the logistical tail), but so what. We trash ISIS, and then what? We destroy Turkey, and Iran and Saudi Arabia?
Let’s admit it – our country no longer has the ability to both win wars and govern in the aftermath. If a bunch of looney tunes in the deep desert are killing themselves how about we just STAY THE HECK OUT OF THEIR WAY AND LET THEM KILL EACH OTHER. I think Napoleon had something to say on that topic.
As Admiral Palpatine once said, we only have to keep them from escaping.
TG

I understand what you are saying, but fortunately the corruption of leadership does not go as deep as you fear. It remains something to worry about, but it is not the immediate problem.

The immediate objective is not to establish a democratic republic in Iraq, or even to rule Iraq; it is to eradicate the Caliphate. ISIS is a self-proclaimed mortal enemy of the West in general and the United States in particular. If they survive we will have to fight them. They will not choose to fight until they believe they are strong enough to work the Will of Allah.

Since we must fight them to the death, it were well that we do it before they are stronger.

As for Iraq, our war with the Caliphate on their territory will be a disaster, probably as bad or worse (at least for Shia) than rule by the Caliphate; but we have no choice. They are a mortal enemy and they are growing more powerful. The time to put paid to these pretenders is now.

The territory in which we will fight is no longer Iraq, and Baghdad’s writ does not run there. Baghdad cannot claim a right to rule there: they allowed it be taken by mortal enemies of the US. One reason they lost was that the Shia militia came down very hard on the Sunni inhabitants.

One alternative to maintaining the integrity of Iraq was to dismember it into at least three states: Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia. This is now de facto happening and has happened. If US troops liberate territory from the Caliphate, we can give it to whomever we wish. I suggest we give it to the inhabitants, not Baghdad.

As to the Caliphate, it has one obvious vulnerability: it asserts the right to rule, and ruling by strict Islamic Law demonstrates that right: but it must have something to rule. If it has no territory it is merely another militia movement, and its rapid growth in power ceases. War would no longer feed war. At the moment one US division with massive air support could bring this about. By next year it will take far more than that. And by 2016 it will take the full might of the US – which leaves us little to counter other enemies.

Strike now, and decisively; later it will cost more and may not be accomplish the mission.

The Caliphate must be destroyed.

The number of Americans out of work is 93 million; some large number, between 25 and 50% are no longer looking for work; for one reason or another they have given up. They are not starving. Nearly all have phones and TV. But they are not working.

Dr Pournelle,
I had my 1st exposure to the concept of light sails back in the mid-70s when I read The Mote in God’s Eye. As an impatient high school student, with even the Shuttle years away, I always wished the Future would get here SOONER.
…and now (40 yrs later) I find out that I can actually help support a working lightsail. Yesterday, Bill Nye launched a Kickstarter to help fund a lightsail mission in 2016. Details here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theplanetarysociety/lightsail-a-revolutionary-solar-sailing-spacecraft
Apparently a prototype just went up on the Atlas V that also put the X-37 into orbit.
with best regards,
Ron Artigues

Thank you!

Jerry,

Dr. Schramm’s essay was marvelous.  It helps me not drop into despair during Heinlein’s “Crazy Years.”

Thank you for posting the link to the essay.  It was a needed pick me up!

Regards, Charles Adams

> either the factories move to low-wage places like Viet Nam

Jerry,

I have a Pentax DSLR. It’s “only” 6MP, but I am inured to Megapixel Madness, having in my possession 16×20 (chromogenic) prints made from 3MP images I made with my wife’s ancient Olympus P&S. Being far better than “acceptably” sharp (by which I mean sharper than most of the 35mm work I’ve seen), I don’t consider 6MP much of a handicap.

The reason I point this out is to create a timeframe for its manufacture

— it’s far from recent.

The lens I use the most is the Pentax “kit” zoom lens. It’s beautifully made; optically excellent; and according to the small label at the bottom of the lens barrel, it comes from Vietnam.

That just blew me away when I saw it…

If that’s what they could do several years ago, I wonder what they’re building -now-???

(And I wonder too, how long they’ll remain “low wage”?)

In my darker, more cynical moments, I wonder if the day will come, perhaps after China “calls in” the dollar (by whatever mechanism they find expedient), when WE will be the “low wage” venue of choice for Chinese megacorporations.

History might suggest that stranger (and sadder) things have happened.

And Santayana, although ignored in this land, has never been debunked.

Anon

It is always unwise to underestimate future competitors. Note that the original quote there is not mine; I merely printed it.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.