December 2011 – Page 5 – Chaos Manor

Problems or opportunities?

By Jerry Pournelle | Dec 15, 2011 - 5:16 pm | Updated: December 15, 2011 - 5:16 pm | Mail

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Mail 705 Wednesday, December 14, 2011 — 2

Catching up with interesting mail.

Interesting interactive map showing Republican candidates and their standing in various states.

http://www.economist.com/content/republican-candidates-president?fsrc=nlw%7Cnewe%7C12-14-2011%7Cnew_on_the_economist

Tracy

Giant methane plumes from the sea bed hitting the atmosphere

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/giant-plumes-methane-bubbling-surface-arctic-ocean-163804179.html

OK, so, here comes the next Irwin Allen blockbuster movie. Send in purpose-built submarines, and pitch a giant tent, a couple of miles across, over the plume source. Run a pipe from the peak of the tent to the surface, and into a compressor, and Voila! Natural gas and NO DRILLING!!!

I seem to recall a guy named Jerry Pournelle wrote several short stories that touched on doing things sorta like that, like sailing an iceberg from the Antarctic and running it aground someplace in Africa that *REALLY* needed fresh water…

–John R. Strohm

Stories, and articles in Galaxy Science Fiction, and in a book called A STEP FARTHER OUT. All of which is still true and possible. The only limit we have is nerve, but we seem to have lost a lot of that.

The proper solution to global warming is to go forward. But with the schools we have now and that attitudes that we are developing, that will not happen. But not all of our leaders have lost the dream. We have a few left who understand the challenge of man’s future.

Methane ‘fountains’ and sea ice

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Given how much dishonesty there appears to be in the climate debate right now, I am not sure how much weight to attach to this — it may prove to be as alarmist as the other notes. But I still present it for your perusal as a datum point. Evidently the Russians have discovered methane ‘fountains’ up north, seemingly actuated by the retreat of permafrost.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/shock-as-retreat-of-arctic-sea-ice-releases-deadly-greenhouse-gas-6276134.html

Respectfully,

Brian P.

What some see as problems others see as opportunities. There has always been methane emission in Siberia. Burning methane produces energy.

spooky! – Two Diamonds Linked by Strange Quantum Entanglement

Hi Jerry,

http://www.livescience.com/17264-quantum-entanglement-macroscopic-diamonds.html

What’s interesting is not just how deep the rabbit hole goes, but that

we are able to explore it at all. Interesting times ahead.

– Paul

Indeed. And who knows where that can lead.

Spengler :: The fifth horseman of the apocalypse

Jerry

An important note from Spengler on the decline of populations worldwide:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/ML13Dj05.html

Ed

SUBJ: What comes after gun control?

The brits have effectively had gun prohibition for a generation. Now . . .

This picture taken in downtown London.

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/945/ukknife1.jpg

I wonder if there will ever again be an England?

Cordially,

John

Roger L. Simon makes the case for Newt.

http://paulinhouston.blogspot.com/2011/12/case-for-newt.html

—

Paul Gordon

I never thought of Newt Gingrich as my first choice for President, but he is nearly always the smartest man in any room he is in, and he has not lost the spirit that caused him to read A STEP FARTHER OUT and call me to talk about it. And he does not want to be surrounded by people less bright than he is. That has to count for something. He spent years as a public intellectual after he was Speaker, and he seems to have learned a lot from being outside government in those years.

Regarding the UAV in Iran situation…

Jerry,

I’ll keep the snide “I told ya so” comments to a minimum, however I will point out that as early as world war 1, pilots would generally carry a grenade or flare with them to aid in the destruction of their aircraft, if forced down behind enemy lines. Not only that, the fighter aircraft arms race during in WWI surged when an aircraft fitted with a revolutionary through-the-propeller machine gun system crashed and was not sufficiently destroyed to hide the presence of the system (deflection wedges attached to the propeller blades). This compromise of cutting-edge military technology led directly to the rapid development of the machine gun interrupter system, making possible the first truly effective air to air machine guns.

This is why Generals pride themselves on being military historians, and is an example of why those arrogant Air Force fighter pilots freak out when non-pilots set policy for air operations without the knowledge or experience gained only through both operational flying and an interest in aviation history.

Or in other words… DUH, any fighter pilot could have seen this coming. It was only a matter of time, no matter what the engineers said. Sometimes the automation goes stupid and then your UAV (or cruise missile or smart bomb or…) goes walkabout. Assuming operational necessity leads to this sort of system employment, the ONLY true mitigating factor is to have a plan ready to use for when (not if, but when) your fancy UAV ends up in the worst possible location and once there, does the worst possible thing. I suppose flying into Pakistan and shacking a mosque would have been worse, but landing intact in Iran is almost pegged on the good-bad scale.

S

Thanks.

We missed a Scandal?

I think we missed an important scandal; with so many happening these days I guess it’s easy to do. I suspected this was happening — or something like it — and I’m pretty sure you did too.

<.>

In 2011, Forbes’ 23rd ‘Most Powerful Woman In The World’, HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius was caught double-counting in the ObamaCare budget. Since then, the scandal has been ‘forgotten‘ – deep sixed.

‘What? Kathleen Sebelius?? ObamaCare??? Double-Counting???? No one told me about it!’ Bull crap. I told you HERE and HERE.

Long shot, I know… but it’s as if Kathleen Sebelius, Goldman Sachs, GE, GM, Solyndra, Verizon,Toyota, National Association of Realtors and so many others knew all along there would be zero penalty for cooking the books.

Try double-counting your tax write-off’s…

</>

http://sadhillnews.com/2011/12/14/bailout-payback-realtors-double-counted-home-sales-for-last-five-years

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Federal Expenditures <> government spending

I read Brendan’s email, in which he said:

GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)….

Federal Expenditures = government spending So, Federal Expenditures per capita per GDP is …

Federal Expenditures/Capita/(private consumption + gross investment + Federal Expenditures + (exports − imports))

He made a major simplifying factor that needs to be addressed. Government Spending is NOT limited to the Federal Government. There are lots and lots of local governments, all of whom (for a very long time) increased their spending at an even faster rate than the Federal Government. But because the national media has no incentive to cover local stories and the local media doesn’t have the time and money to hire people who can dig into local spending, the growth was largely under the radar.

This is a pity because it is far easier to made a difference at the local level than the federal level. Heck, you could even run for office and possibly win.

As a local government employee, I urge all your readers to pay attention to their local governments. Get involved. Read the budget. Read the Board Meeting Agendas. For most localities, that information is posted on the governmental web site. If it isn’t, go to the next meeting and ask — no, DEMAND — them to post the information.

There are even national standards as to what a published budget document should include. These are published by the Government Finance Officers Association (gfoa.org). If your local government budget documents are not vetted by the GFOA, again, ask why. The cost is relatively low, but the information required is useful to taxpayers. (No, the GFOA doesn’t say what your budget should include, just how it should be disclosed.)

The most depressing thing about my job is going to the public budget hearings to present (and defend?) the budget, and no one from the community has bothered to show up.

—

Fredrik V Coulter

Good advice. Really good advice. Thanks

Blood and Gore and Climate

By Jerry Pournelle | Dec 14, 2011 - 1:34 pm | Updated: December 14, 2011 - 3:22 pm | View

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View 705 Wednesday, December 14, 2011

I’m behind as usual. I did want to call attention to “A Manifesto for Sustainable Capitalism” (link) by Gore and Blood. It may be that I am losing my faculties, but I at first I did not comprehend it as a serious work. It seemed like a parody, especially when I saw that the authors were Gore and Blood, but apparently it is quite serious.

It is, in fact, a fairly good if dense statement of the liberal socialist view of the future, a command economy with all the results and goals set by central experts rather than consumers, owners, and the market. Private ownership remains, but it is managed by the smart people at the center. The central premises here are almost indistinguishable from peace time fascism as put forth by Mussolini. Benito Mussolini was a life long socialist who believed in industrial efficiency and growth, and given the Italian state and culture when he came to power was able to make some spectacular gains. He not only made the trains run on time, but he also built the railroads and airports. If you look closely at the cornerstone of Da Vinci airport outside Rome, or most of the better train stations, you’ll find a bronze plaque proclaiming this a work of Victor Emmanuel II, Rex, and Benito Mussolini, Duce. Mussolini meant well for the working people of Italy, and while he was ruthless in suppressing dissent, he was really not so much more so than many in the left liberal community have been in suppressing dissent in science and academia.

Of course Blood and Gore have different central goals from Italian Fascism, and unlike Mussolini don’t seem to worry about productivity and efficiency; but then Mussolini wanted efficiency so that he would have the goods to distribute. He was a socialist, after all. He also got sidetracked by visions of the former glory that was Rome, and experimented with Imperialism in Libya and Somalia and Ethiopia, whereas Blood and Gore have different ultimate goals.

Like Mussolini, Blood and Gore set their goals independent of the consumer and the market; they after all are the Enlightened, and it would be silly to consult the Benighted about such complex matters; even Blood and Gore don’t understand climate science, but they have their teams of scientists who do, and who will frequently explain what must be done and what it will cost. Blood is enough of an economist to describe regulatory measures to manipulate the values of the enterprises whose operations he wants to control, and by fiat will make pension obligations, which the market considers as liabilities, actual assets which add to the value of the company. At least I think that’s what they mean:

Because ESG metrics directly affect companies’ long-term value, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, foundations and the like—investors with long-term liabilities—should include these metrics as an essential aspect of valuation and investment strategy. Sustainable capitalism requires investors to be good investors, to fully understand the companies they invest in and to believe in their long-term value and potential.

I conclude that this Gore and Blood essay is far from being intended as a joke; it’s a picture of the future they want to make, a future that has no place for Schumpeter’s creative destruction. Of course Schumpeter had a rather gloomy picture of the future:

“ Can capitalism survive? No. I do not think it can.” Thus opens Schumpeter’s prologue to a section of his 1942 book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. One might think, on the basis of the quote, that Schumpeter was a Marxist. But the analysis that led Schumpeter to his conclusion differed totally from Karl Marx’s. Marx believed that capitalism would be destroyed by its enemies (the proletariat), whom capitalism had purportedly exploited, and he relished the prospect. Schumpeter believed that capitalism would be destroyed by its successes, that it would spawn a large intellectual class that made its living by attacking the very bourgeois system of private property and freedom so necessary for the intellectual class’s existence. And unlike Marx, Schumpeter did not relish the destruction of capitalism. “If a doctor predicts that his patient will die presently,” he wrote, “this does not mean that he desires it.” http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Schumpeter.html

What Blood and Gore prescribe is in fact the end of capitalism as it has been understood. The difference between them and Schumpeter is that Gore and Blood desire the end of capitalism without understanding what capitalism is, while Schumpeter understood it perfectly.

Another who understood capitalism described where thoughts like those of Blood and Gore had already taken much of the world before 1942 and where it was now taking them: Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, published in Britain and then the United States before World War II was over showed just what would happen if the regulatory state had its way.

Once again I remind you that freedom is not free, free men are not equal, and equal men are not free. But then you knew that.

= = = =

[NOTE: Italian fascism was not officially anti-Semitic until the alliance with Hitler. The Fascist State had a number of high ranking Jewish officials in its hierarchy, including the Minister of Information (who was also at one time Mussolini’s mistress).]

And now it’s lunch time.

President Obama: "Well, what we’re going to have to do is continue to make progress on the economy over the next several months. And where Congress is not willing to act, we’re going to go ahead and do it ourselves. But it would be nice if we could get a little bit of help from Capitol Hill."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/12/14/obama_where_congress_is_not_willing_to_act_were_going_to_go_ahead_and_do_it_ourselves.html

The usual solution to that sort of problem has been to replace the legislature, or “reform” its election laws to make the legislature more democratic. In Italy it led to the Grand Council of Fasces.

Subj: If Congress does not act, I will act – Obama channeling FDR

That bit from Obama reminded me of a Bonapartist piece by FDR, ordering the Congress to pass anti-inflation legislation, that James Burnham quoted in _The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom_:

[begin quote]

I ask the Congress to take this action by the first of October. Inaction on your part by that date will leave me with an inescapable responsibility to the people of the country to see to it that the war effort is no longer imperiled by threat of domestic chaos. In the event that the Congress should fail to act, and act adequately, I shall accept the responsibility, and I will act. At the same time that farm prices are stabilized, wages can and will be stabilized also. This I will do.

… When the war is won, the powers under which I act automatically revert to the people — to whom they belong.

[end quote]

Of course, since the Emergency under which Obama is acting will never end — *can* never end — Obama will not have to worry about his powers eventually reverting to the people.

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Limits of forecasting

TTAWA — Two top U.S. hurricane forecasters, famous across Deep South hurricane country, are quitting the practice of making a seasonal forecast in December because it doesn’t work.

William Gray and Phil Klotzbach say a look back shows their past 20 years of forecasts had no predictive value.

The two scientists from Colorado State University will still discuss different probabilities of hurricane seasons in December. But the shift signals how far humans are, even with supercomputers, from truly knowing what our weather will do in the long run.

Colorado State has been known for decades for forecasts of how many named storms and hurricanes can be expected each official hurricane season (which runs from June to November.)

Last week, the pair made this announcement:

“We are discontinuing our early December quantitative hurricane forecast for the next year … Our early December Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecasts of the last 20 years have not shown real-time forecast skill even though the hindcast studies on which they were based had considerable skill.”

The two will still make the traditional forecasts closer to hurricane season.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly said they were stopping all forecasts.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Hurricane+experts+admit+they+predict+hurricanes+early+December+forecasts+unreliable/5847032/story.html#ixzz1gWm5kgH5

Tom Donlan

Which needs no real comment. The weather and climate are too complex for our models. That may not always be true, but it’s true enough now. I gather that the Alps are having unusual weather now. Somewhere there is always a place with unusual weather. And Europe is still nowhere near as warm as it was before 1300.

Energy, climate, economics, INSS Macarthur, and other interesting stuff

By Jerry Pournelle | Dec 14, 2011 - 1:27 am | Updated: December 14, 2011 - 1:27 am | Mail

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Mail 705 Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Sad state of energy in Oregon

This is just sad to me. Living in a state with such abundant Hydro electric power and our utilities now are forced to pay for more expensive Wind energy "because it’s green."

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2011/12/regulators_tell_bonneville_to.html

The even sadder part is that they ignore the reasons why BPA was pulling the plug on the wind farms to begin with. I’d rather have Salmon in the waters then energy from windmills.

Erik

One reason for leaving most regulations to the states, not Washington.

U.N. Climate Court

Ah, now we get into the life tax and the New World Order with all the unelected technocrats — just like in Europe.

<.>

Bureaucrats at the UN Climate Summit in Durban have outlined plans for the most draconian, harebrained and madcap climate change treaty ever produced, under which the west would be mandated to respect “the rights of Mother Earth” by paying a “climate debt” which would act as a slush fund for bankrolling an all-powerful world government.

</>

http://www.infowars.com/un-calls-for-eco-fascist-world-government-at-durban-summit/

So, now some city even further away and more alienated from real life than Washington is going to tell us how much money we owe them to fund their political projects and idealistic quests?

At what point do we stop participating in this madness?

I want my country back.

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

I doubt that the Congress will have much to do with that. Even England is backing away from the EU bureaucrats. And certainly none of the Republican candidates would consider this more than a joke.

Click here: A Place to Stand: Prizes – In Other Areas – They Work To <http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2011/12/prizes-in-other-areas-they-work-to.html>

A blog article I have done on government and other use of prizes more generally than technologically. I hope it interests you.

My Regards

Neil Craig

"a lone wolf howling in despair in the intellectual wilderness of Scots politics"

You may be interested in my political blog http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/

I have been advocating prizes for a long time, and when my son was a Congressional staffer he did some memos on prizes for Mr. Gengrich at the Speaker’s request. Newt has long been in favor of prizes.

Subject: As California mandate looms, some LGBT curriculum already in place <http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/10/lgbt-curriculum-already-in-place-in-some-california-classrooms-as-state-mandate-looms/>

Jerry,

It seems the PC police are firmly in charge…it isn’t enough for people’s accomplishments to stand on their own, we have to call special attention to them because they are gay.

For me, force feeding to our kids just causes me to be angry, accomplishing the opposite of what they intended.

http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/10/lgbt-curriculum-already-in-place-in-some-california-classrooms-as-state-mandate-looms/?hpt=hp_c1

Tracy

You wrote about Radio Shack. Do they still have real Radio Shacks where you live? Up here they all look like strip mall kiosks or sub-compact shoppettes full of cell phones, related accessories, and a few useful objects here and there. When I was a child, going to radioshack was fun. They had stuff that was radioshack brand and it was decent. You could get metal detectors, walkie talkies, and anything you needed for electronic hobbies. You can’t get any of that now. Is this happening in your neck of the woods?

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Our local Radio Shack hasn’t changed for 20 years. It’s in the same location on Ventura Boulevard, and it apparently gets enough business that it stays open. Being that it’s walking distance I generally go there when I need something. I bought more stuff there before Fry’s opened in Burbank, and I got my Tandy computer there many years ago when they first came out. I remember the old Allied Radio Shack days just after WW II. This isn’t like that, but it’s still a fairly cool place.

INSS MacArthur

Dr. Pournelle;

It was inevitable — and gladly so — that some 3D modelling wizards out there would build images of the MacArthur [although they misidentify it as the Leif Ericson].

Here are the links:

http://www.projectrho.com/portfolio/port09.html

http://www.projectrho.com/portfolio/port10.html

http://www.projectrho.com/portfolio/port11.html

http://www.projectrho.com/portfolio/port18.html

http://www.projectrho.com/portfolio/port19.html

http://www.projectrho.com/portfolio/port20.html

The last one could be a Motie copy just before its destruction inside of Murcheson’s Eye.

Pete Nofel

My pictures of my model of INSS Macarthur are here http://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosreports/macarthur.html

I liked the model enough that I came up with reasons for its shape and design. And see http://www.angelfire.com/trek/deangelisium/inssmac.html which is gorgeous. Thanks.

Who to admit, follow up

Hello Jerry,

I forgot to add, in the frantic race to save the world’s GLBT’s from

the stigma of being ridiculed, there was NO suggestion that Coptic

Christians in Egypt, or for that matter, Christians in general,

should be given preferential immigration status just because they

were, as Christians, being murdered in wholesale quantities by their

governments, friends, and neighbors.

Of course, given the all out war against Christianity being waged by

the US Government inside the US, we should be grateful that the State

Department isn’t ARMING the Egyptian Muslims who are murdering

the……….

Oh wait, never mind.

Bob Ludwick

several comments

Jerry:

Several comments on yesterday’s posts.

I spent two semesters as a visiting professor at the Marmara University School of Engineering in Istanbul. Every one of my Turkish faculty colleagues had received his/her PhD at a university in either Europe or the US. They were reaching the point where Turkey could begin to produce engineering PhDs domestically, with quality comparable to those from Europe or the US. The Dean of Engineering was later picked to head TUBITAK, the Turkish equivalent of the National Science Foundation. Her major contribution there was to break up the "old boy" network that kept younger researchers from getting grants. While she was still at Marmara, I had provided her with samples of the materials we used at my home base, University of Dayton Research Institute. She got a lot of bad press for upsetting a lot of rice bowls, but she had the backing of the government, and succeeded in opening up Turkish science. She recently retired. I don’t know if her reforms will be continued.

Regarding the effects of Federal funding on science, in my 1992 book SCIENCE FUNDING: POLITICS AND PORKBARREL, I examined the extent to which Federal money had corrupted the scientific enterprise in the US. I’m sure it has gotten worse since then, but I’ve retired from the grant-hustling game, and no longer keep track.

I was surprised but pleased to find that Herman Kahn’s books are still in print. With nuclear weapon proliferation continuing, Kahn’s thinking remains relevant. In my 1988 book A FIGHTING CHANCE: THE MORAL USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS, I applied Just War Doctrine to the use of nuclear weapons for war-fighting, not just for deterrence. I’m afraid that, too, may become relevant again.

Joseph P. Martino

So am I, and there isn’t so much debate as there used to be. I find that STRATEGY OF TECHNOLOGY and my old USAF study of stability are in use in some graduate classes at major universities and war colleges, so at least there’s some discussion of these matters or importance.

This article makes a good point of the rise in government spending. It’s not gone down since 1954

With those numbers in mind, some cynics might assume that government spending has grown over the past 55 years just to keep pace with inflation. Others might point out that there are a lot more Americans for government to serve today than there were back in 1954.

But the truth is that adjusting for population growth and inflation doesn’t even begin to account for the explosion of government spending. Since 1965, the year the Beatles played Shea Stadium and the miniskirt came to America, government spending has grown faster than the combined total of inflation plus population growth every year but one.

If government spending in America had just held pace with population growth and inflation since 1954, government spending today would total $1.3 trillion. Instead, spending this year will top $5.4 trillion.

http://takimag.com/article/the_roots_of_voter_anger_go_back_to_1954

Dave Krecklow

GDP

In reference to Steve’s email….

GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)….

Federal Expenditures = government spending So, Federal Expenditures per capita per GDP is …

Federal Expenditures/Capita/(private consumption + gross investment + Federal Expenditures + (exports − imports))

So, of course its close to constant! You’ve just eliminated something that makes up a huge percentage. The news media likes to talk about GDP, but we really need a new metric. GDP assumes that government spending has no negative impacts on the private sector. It also means that if I am Obama and want to pump up GDP artificially, I can borrow a bunch of money from China, spend it here, and tell everyone GDP looks better…

Has Larry Niven found the new term to describe the President, "Lead from Behind" to be amusing? I laughed when I heard it, because I really do think our current administration is filled with controlling bullies and cowards….

Love your work!

Best,

Brendan

"The relevant statistic is not raw dollars spent, but instead is Federal Expenditures per capita per GDP"

political sleight of hand – counting population growth twice since population growth affects GDP.

By this formula he is admitting the Federal proportion has grown with the square of population growth and such trends are clearly unsustainable.

The formula he should be using is

Federal Expenditure per capita per GDP PER CAPITA

or simplifying Federal expenditure as a proportion of GDP

—————————-

"Hansen’s Bulldog", according to the Register article, says that warming has been "between 0.014C and 0.018C a year" which (A) looks to be well inside any margin of error and (B) not remotely catastrophic or even outside historical experience. And this is the worst "Bulldog" can claim.

Neil Craig

Government attempts at micromanagement create perverse incentives as universities game the system.

"Students whose A-level grades fall just short of AAB next year could be at risk of missing out on a university place altogether, a number of institutions have warned." <http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=418369&c=1>

"A pre-1992 university has cut almost £1 million in planned cash support for poorer students while offering tuition-fee discounts for high-achieving applicants so that it can bid for extra places on two fronts." <http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=418367&c=1>

Cheating in the examination system: <http://preview.tinyurl.com/clyv6oh> <http://preview.tinyurl.com/7csm8el> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16076471> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16067541>

I’m beginning to have second thoughts about staying around to watch the train wreck.

—

Harry Erwin, PhD

"If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning." (Catherine Aird)

A school board member in Florida doesn’t know any of the answers to the 10th grade Florida math test. The test is helpfully included.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2011/12/sandbagging/

Oh dear.

A couple of the questions used notation I don’t know, and a friend noticed that question #2 is a bit ill-defined, but I fail to see how someone with a BS was unable to do any of the questions. The board member in question said that no one in his circle of friends has to do problems like this at work. Is the purpose of the math curriculum to teach people how to do specific problems they will have to do some day or teach them how to address and solve what questions may arise. Note that in many of the algebra story problems, the test actually sets up the equations for the test taker.

I must admit that I wasn’t expecting to see A Clockwork Orange and Apocalypse Now show up in a 10th grade math test.

Mike Johns

Long knives, economy managing, and a feline factors space experiment

By Jerry Pournelle | Dec 14, 2011 - 12:51 am | Updated: December 14, 2011 - 12:54 am | View

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View 705 Tuesday, December 13, 2011

A Microgravity Experiment

The long knives are out for Newt Gingrich, but they don’t seem to have anything that hasn’t been known for years and years. Newt’s problem is that although he’s a professional politician, he doesn’t always act like one. When he gets a thought he generally expresses it, and since he generally surrounds himself with smart people who will argue with him if they think he’s got a wild idea, that often works out well – but it’s an awful debating technique. The immigration thing, for instance: there was no need for him to bring that up. It’s certainly true that the people of the United States are not going to insist on sending federal cops in to arrest the sextant of the local church who’s worked as a church janitor for 25 years, has no criminal record, and is father and grandfather of citizens. We’re not going to deport that man, and we all know it. On the other hand, we’re eager to find reasons to deport thugs and habitual criminals. Now we’ve tested the limits: do we have a rule that sort out those we deport from those we don’t?

Newt’s notion of a local commission has one defect that isn’t obvious until you look at it, but then stands out like a sore thumb: there are local communities that would love to grant green cards to every illegal alien, whether churchwarden or gang leader, and if the classification worked like conscription did, the local board’s decision was pretty well binding on the whole country – and back in Viet Nam days that was well known to some of those who didn’t want to be conscripted. The obvious remedy to that would involve restricting the effect of a local green card to the local community. That might be awkward. And this discussion could go on all night, and back when Newt and I were closer such discussions did go on all night. It’s the way he operates. He had no business acting as if the Republican Candidate debates were just good old bull sessions, but it’s probably as well for the voters to see him in that mode since he’s in it a lot. He likes spirited discussions. One thing you can be pretty sure of, if Newt ever becomes President he won’t fill the White House with yes men or stupid advisors.

Me, I will stick with my conclusion: there’s not a one of those six I wouldn’t prefer to Barrack Obama as President of these United States.

I have a lot of mail to deal with, and I’m working on it. Sometimes it works into View. As Samuel Johnson told us, men seldom need educating, but they often need reminding:

"The polls show no confidence in Obama’s ability to manage the economy."

And therein lies the problem. It is apparently accepted by both the pollers and the pollees that it is the job of the US Government, and more specifically the President of the United States, to ‘manage the

economy’. That in the face of all evidence that an overwhelming

majority of our economic problems are the direct consequences of the EFFORTS of the government to ‘manage the economy’. The argument is only about which individual or political party should do the managing.

Here, for example, is one recent example of typical government ‘managing the economy’ action.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20111212/D9RISCB00.html

Just where the government GOT the power to force a company to buy commercial time on a specific, government favored TV program was not stated, but it is apparently accepted by all concerned that they do HAVE that power.

Bob Ludwick=

Mr Ludwick reminds us that the concept of managing the economy was developed quite late in our history. The purpose of the Constitution was “in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Nothing about managing an economy. To the extent that economies needed managing, that was the job of the States, with some hoping the states would be very active in such matters, others wanting nothing more than to be left alone. And don’t forget those blessings of liberty.

So long as the states compete there is a chance of liberty. Were I a younger and more ambitious man I would long ago have considered leaving California with its silly and mostly corrupt government and headed for some place that favored freedom and liberty. As it is I’ve been here a long time and I like the weather, and I don’t use the roads all that much (California in general and Los Angeles in particular appear to be running for the position of pothole champion of the civilized world). But since California can no longer serve as a good example – as our schools actually once did before the liberals reformed them – it will just have to serve as a horrible example, in education, and taxes, and waste, and potholes and – well, they also serve who only serve as awful examples. And here and there we find some remnants of civilization. Most of our schools are awful, but a few retain the old magic. We’ve got great art and drama schools. Out opera has an excellent chorus, and heck, starlets make great waitresses. I like it here so long as I don’t pay much attention to the politicians.

If you want an economic boom, the formula is well known. Cheap energy, and "…a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." We’ve known that a long time. It’s just that we need reminding.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free. And I have been having fun with a novel that sort of looks at that. What does happen after Atlas shrugs?

dosbox and battles

OK Jerry, now for the DOS illiterate, where are DOSBOX for dummies instructions to run battles? I have successfully installed dosbox, and downloaded battles (winrar file)

Now what?

Thanks for your help and understanding.

Roger

Actually, Roger figured it out before I could answer him. For those who don’t know, DOSBOX is freeware that allows Windows 7 to run most old DOS programs including abandonware. It has the drivers to get Windows to run most of the old DOS sound programs, and many old programs like Battles of Destiny run without any problem at all once you have DOSBOX installed. That isn’t terribly tricky but it will take an afternoon. I’ve long had it going, so in the case of Battles I downloaded the zip file http://www.holistic-design.com/?page_id=133&did=7, created a directory called BATTLES in DOSBOX, and expanded the zip in that folder. After that it’s open DOSBOX to believe the DOSBOX directory is C:\ (all explained in the stuff you get with DOSBOX), change to the BATTLES directory, and launch using the batch file that comes with the game. The game itself is tricky enough that you probably need the manual http://www.hotud.org/component/content/article/44-war/19797. It’s an old turn based strategy game that holds up pretty well if you like that sort of thing.

Here Kitty

Dog meets microgravity

This compilation has some short dog videos that range from funny to tragi-comic to "failure of interspecies communication," but the one I like best can only be classed "pilot error." It starts about 36 seconds into it. Pilot demonstrating zero-gravity parabolas in a small plane and forgot that he had a few loose items in the cabin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb92wQpPG-s

Gary P.

A long time ago at a Human Factors lab on an Air Force base in Texas, a group of human factors space scientists and Air Force pilots were sitting in the O Club and got to talking about cats and zero gravity. How would a cat orient in micro gravity? Visually? They always land on their feet. But what if they couldn’t feel which way was down?

A few drinks later we realized that one of the pilots wasn’t having a drink because he had to do a proficiency flight later that afternoon. And we already had a camera rigged in the cockpit of a T Bird, and if a couple of us certified this as a human factors experiment it wouldn’t cost the government anything it wasn’t going to spend on the proficiency flight, and it would be an interesting experiment, and — Well, it seemed like a great idea at the time, and the captain who’d be flying thought it would be a good idea.

We rigged up the body sensors – he did have to insert the rectal thermometer thermistor, and we put on the face and hand temperature sensors and the other polygraph stuff and turned on the recorders. Then we captured the O Club cat, a calico, and he carried her along to the T Bird, and with the cat sitting comfortably in his lap he took off with a flight plan that included a long parabolic arc that would produce more than 15 seconds of essentially zero gravity.

All was well until he got into the parabolic flight, at which point he took the cat off his lap and released her in zero gravity. The camera recorded it all. The cat looked about wildly, realized it wasn’t moving, rotated itself so that its feet were straight out toward the pilot’s chest, and teleported – that’s the best description I could make from seeing that film run several times – toward the pilot. Claws extended. It anchored itself, finding the opening in the flight suit from which the physiological sensor wires protruded. Claws out. Firmly anchored.

The rest of the film shows the pilot frantically trying to fly while trying to peel the cat off his chest. It held fast until after landing. Then the cat allowed the pilot to carry it off the airplane and back to the club, whereupon it vanished and wouldn’t speak to any of us for a week.

But we did learn that in zero gravity a cat will orient toward the nearest human, latch on, and never let go. I suppose that film is still making the rounds of USAF, but maybe not. It was film long before digitizing film was easy or even possible, and eventually that wears out. I haven’t seen it for years.