Monthly Archives: September 2015

Chaos Manor View, Friday, September 11, 2015

Photo celebrating anniversary of the attack on the United States removed by popular request.

Errands today including banking. Eric salvaged a couple of old machines which we can give away, and we are slowly cleaning up some of the clutter. One older Pentium 4 runs Windows 7, but is too old for Windows 10; Eric will have something to say on that shortly. We continue to back up to the RAID, now backing up everything on the machines we are retiring; all redundant, since everything on them was copied onto their replacement machines, but storage space is cheap and it costs nothing to have that redundancy. (Well, maybe a few gazillion electrons, but they aren’t complaining.)

Meanwhile it continues to be hot. It was 99 F in the bank parking structure (shade) when I returned to the car, so warmer in the sun.

Memorials to 911 have been subdued.

We invaded Iraq in retaliation for the 911 attacks; I have never been sure why. Osama bin Laden was not an Iraqi, nor was he an ally of Saddam Hussein. It made no sense to me at the time, and it makes none now; we killed a lot of Iraqis in retaliation for bin Laden, but not to much effect. At the time I proposed that we build monuments: square blocks of wreckage and wasteland in the city centers of those places where there had been dancing for joy in the streets in celebration of the murders of American citizens. It wasn’t really a serious proposal, but it would have been preferable to what we actually did, and a great deal cheaper.

We learned not to engage in land wars in Asia, but you would have thought we had learned that lesson previously. We had to make a deliberate exception in Viet Nam because it was critical to our grand strategy of containment; and we actually won that war, and got our land troops out, and defeated the next invasion from the North with air and naval support the Army of the Republic of Viet Nam. Saigon remained Saigon, South Viet Nam remained an ally – at least they thought so — and Communism remained contained. We didn’t have to occupy the North, it cost Russia funds they did not have to maintain the North, and ARVN with our naval and air support could have resisted invasions from the North forever and aye. That was containment, and the collapse of the Soviet Union would not have been delayed.

The Democrats would have none if it; they controlled Congress, and when North Vietnam invaded the South with armored divisions again, the Democrats voted our “allies” 20 cartridges and two grenades per man – and no air support. Saigon accordingly became Ho Chi Minh city, and the world received another lesson about trusting liberal democracy when the going gets tough. So it goes.

We seem to be hard of learning; but that makes sense because our schools are designed for this result. If they deviate from that, we send in federal interference. So it goes.

Forget the Alamo

I note with gratitude that on this 9/11, we have spared ourselves a defeat celebration. Nationalist masochism does not appeal to me.
Paradocter

Osama bin Laden got what he wanted: 9/11 and the birth of the national security state

Since the World Trade Center bombings, our democracy has come undone. The terrorists accomplished their mission

http://www.salon.com/2015/09/11/osama_bin_laden_got_what_he_wanted_911
_and_the_birth_of_the_national_security_state/

  There Will Be War  Volume Ten 

Accepting submissions for a new volume of the There Will Be War series. Send with cover note to submission@therewillbewar.net. Stories should preferably be 20,000 words or less.  Poetry encouraged, but see the previous series; it needs to make sense. Hard science fiction mainly; urban fantasy with a military theme possibly acceptable, but mostly we want hard, realistic stories.  They need not be action adventure; good command decision stories encouraged. Space opera always considered.  Again see the previous nine volumes.

Nonexclusive anthology rights only are purchased.  Payment on acceptance is $100 advance against pro rata share of 50% of the revenues received from the publisher. Given the sales of the previous volumes we expect this to be a respectable payment. Original works will be considered, but author is welcome to sell it elsewhere; we purchase only nonexclusive anthology rights.

There will be a hardbound print edition, paperback if the sales indicate it, and eBook publication. Contributors will receive an author’s copy. Each contribution will have an introduction by the editor. The work will contain non-fiction essays by invited contributors: again see the previous volumes. 

Germany Age structure – Demographics

Jerry;

There is a point where incompetence becomes so egregious that it is indistinguishable from malice.

The vast majority of the current wave of immigrants are young, adult males.

This is a population pyramid of Germany.

There are only a few million young, adult males. Many of them already are Muslim immigrants. Introducing hundreds of thousands of more male Muslims will tilt the gender balance, intensify sexual competition, and put the young, ethnic German males at a fatal disadvantage.

http://www.indexmundi.com/germany/age_structure.html

James Crawford=

If hundreds of thousands of migrants come demanding tribute, it is only a plea for compassion. They have no obligation to assimilate; get used to that.

Dr. Pournelle,
Since Czar Vlad the first will no doubt be involved, I’m not sure we can call it a European civil war — more likely might be the third phase of the European Imperial War, or the true WWIII (the first phase being roughly equivalent to that of the outset of the Russo-Japanese war through the armistice at Versailles).
Personally, I see Vlad I (actually Vlad III, but first Czar of the name) working to increase his influence in Greece and Turkey, and possibly Syria. Potentially, he could be adding East Ukraine and all or part of the other three to the empire. While Western Europe are involved with the influx of refugees created by their collective failure to intervene in the Middle East, Russia may get the opportunity to come to the rescue. It will depend entirely on how Russia can spin its relationship with conservative (as opposed to radical) Muslims.
Enablers for the potential scenario will be the E.U., Great Britain, and the U.S. to continue to treat the Greek economy, (East) Ukrainian Russian adventurism, South East Med unrest (with concurrent emigration), Iran, and Turkish political instability as separate problems.
I recognize and acknowledge that I’m not enough of an analyst to be able to make reliable predictions, but if any of the above is as much as 10% true, there will be war.
-d

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

Chaos Manor View, Thursday, September 10, 2015

I continue to be mystified by Deflategate; it must be a publicity stunt, since I have heard nothing about measures to require both teams to use the same balls, and to insure that those balls meet some specifications of suitability. If all that has been done and rule changes made to ensure it, why is this never mentioned? It is not reasonable to let each team provide the football when that team is on offense. I can think of ways to alter a football to make it easier to pass that would defy casual and even more serious inspection, as can most of you; the game becomes in part a technology competition rather than a sport.

It must all be publicity hoopla.

It’s 1600 and Time Warner has in effect shut down the Internet as is their custom, so I cannot review the latest about the Apple announcements. From what I have seen the tech journalists were not impressed unless they were already Apple fans, in which case they shout Hallelujah in chorus. My own view remains that I will probably buy the iPad Pro unless I have found reasons to expect a big improvement within a year, but by the time the iPad pro becomes available Microsoft may have so improved the Surface Pro software that it will be needless. I am curious about the Apple stylus; Microsoft’s is not bad, but improvements are possible, some obvious.

It is a very hot and miserable day in Los Angeles — must be global warming – and I have no energy, so today is short shrift.

EU civil war

If Vlad I provides a credible deterrent to the Caliphate, and is a stabilizing influence in the Eastern Med, then the EU will be on his side.  Great Britain will likely become more of what Orwell warned against, and will be more internally focused. Muslim stability will help England right along that path, but possibly at the loss of Scotland and (finally) Northern Ireland as direct subjugates (a Celtic patriot might wish for Welsh independence too, but English repression is so completely successful that there is even less Welsh national identity than there is a Ukrainian one).  If the U.S. continues down its current path, we’ll be right along with them, and Vlad I (or his successor — note to Vlad: work on that dynasty thing) will be on the cover of Time, at least, as the savior of the Middle East.

Any bets on a Russian – Israeli rapprochement, given Putin leashing or counter-weighing Iran?
If the U.S.A. continue as mercenaries to support and uphold the house of Saud and its attendants without changing them into a nation (as opposed to well-fed warlords) who can oppose the Caliphate without Russia, we might be buggered. 

Either way, we should look to regional consolidation and learn to play nice in South and Central America, and in the Caribbean.  “Giving up” Panama was a big mistake, and continuing to treat Mexico as a disreputable bandit (its government still is, but should not be treated so) is another.  There’s a lot of resources from here to Patagonia, and they could either be of use to the U.S.A., or a permanent drain — their neutrality is just not the way to bet. “It is better to marry than to burn,” and it is easy to run out of matches.

On top of the EU civil war, there’ll probably be a Chinese one, too.  I don’t want my grandkids being cannon fodder in far East Asia, either.  Perhaps it is time for the U.S. to become a stabilizing influence instead of a co-conspirator?

We need a strategy that considers the world as it is, instead of what we thought it was (and what we might be) a century ago.  If it was only Vlad, or Jong-un, or China, or the clan Saud, or the Caliphate, or only Euro-mid Eastern refugees, or only Iran, or only illegal U.S. immigrants it would all be easy — but in the reality of complex systems, easy solutions (e.g. building a Gadsden Purchase wall) are neither easy nor solutions for anyone but the contractors.
-d

Oh, there will be war, but whose side are we on in these territorial disputes in Europe.  And why.  But there will be war.

Jerry Pournelle

On further thought, I am guilty of creating what may be an oxymoron in my subject line: “an EU civil war” — perhaps the European Disunion might be better.  Sorry.   Perhaps a civil war within a Union is always inappropriate use of the language.
Of course, the acronym E.D. is already in use, but erectile dysfunction might also be an appropriate (in some circles) description of the inability of a combined Europe to deal with an external (or mass economic) threat.

Indulging in a little historical fiction myself:
European Disunion will be the end of NATO, or at least the end of U.S. involvement in it.
In case of war between the erstwhile members of the EU, if Germany and France are on the same side this time (which seems to be what is happening, however reluctantly), they will have all the European nukes (ignoring those of Airstrip One, which will be either not usable or will be kept at home, Korea-like, as a deterrent — this will keep England out of the war, even though they will secede from the EU). 

Franco-Germany will be the “winner” of the war, but the remaining alliance may not include Sweden, Finland, nor the Baltics, nor Belarus — the E.D. might be enough to drive the latter two over to the protection of Imperial Russia.  The North-west corner of Ukraine will be admitted to the E.U.’s successor, perhaps as the Franco-German province of East Poland, but the Southern part, from Lvov/Lviv to Odessa, might not.

The U.S. will pull the few remaining NATO nukes as the alliance falls apart, but probably not precipitating it.  Greece and Turkey will be NATO’s Jenga blocks, and will come to be under the protection of the Czar, but they will leave NATO peaceably when Russia makes good their debts and solves their border problems.

It seems most likely Spain will (again) be on the losing side of the civil war, but it remains to be seen who they will take with them.  Italy has been unified a little too long.  Some of the littles like Monaco might not make it as post-war independents if they stand out, but more likely they’ll be mouse-quiet (not in the style of Grand Fenwick). 

When Greece sells out to Putin, he will get the fealty of Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, etc. as part of the package.  I think they’ll be voluntarily bound by treaty, but perhaps there’ll be some military arm-twisting.  The fate of Romania and Bulgaria and their like might depend on whether they sign on with Franco-Germany or the losers.  They may see the writing on the wall, or may be bought by the offer of incorporating Southwestern Ukraine (Moldova gets buried).  What’s left of Ukraine becomes land locked and the Black Sea is a Russian pond as well as its gateway to the Med.

Putin’s price to Syria and Turkey could easily be an independent Kurdistan, however reluctantly those two might surrender the territory.  Kurdish Iraq and Iran will secede, probably violently, to join up with the new homeland, so Tehran will be too busy for Israel, anyway. Kurds get a promised land, Putin get’s his Time photo op.

I’m probably wrong on all counts, but (rhetorically) if the situation does change drastically, who might the U.S. have to deter — the lite version of Airstrip One, Franco-Germany, the Russo-Israel alliance?  Might there be a Co-Dominion after all?  Who should we ally with, if anyone?
-d

An interesting scenario. I confess to being literally under the weather – my wife hates air conditioning, and I cannot go upstairs to my air conditioned writing suite, although if this keeps up I am going to find a way. We will see what comments this gets. Thank you.

Europe is accommodating 800,000 migrants who what the best they can find in welfare benefits including dental care. If 800,000 armed persons came in demanding tribute it would be called an invasion. More will come, of course, and they will want better benefits; how long that will go on is not clear.

Swedes, not being entirely insane, and once one of the most war-like people on Earth, may decide to take a different course; on the other hand, robots may save us. The main trouble with socialism is you run out of other people’s money; the hope is that technology will substitute robots for other people, and that people can be paid to settle in and learn to be good, if not citizens, then migrants.

France seems to be finding that doesn’t work well. There are parts of the United States that are teaching the same lesson. The United States had great success with the Melting Pot, but that pot is being overwhelmed with numbers and the schools are teaching diversity, not assimilation. I doubt any of us will live to see the denouement of that.

We sow the wind. We have been doing so for decades. The debt rises. But then Moore’s Law is inexorable; still there are few exponentials in the real world, and the ogive may level off. It’s a race to see whether the robot economy can afford what our merely human one demands.

Iran Deal

Understanding the Corker bill is key to understanding the current situation. Within the context of the broader agreement with Iran, the key US action is the lifting of US sanctions. These sanctions are encoded is US law, independent of the international sanctions (which were negotiated for, but obviously have nothing to do with US law, nor were they every part of a formal treaty that would require the Senate to consent to changes).

The Corker law preemptively lifted these sanctions in support of an agreement negotiated by the president as long as 1) all of the relevant agreements (both those involving the US as party and significantly any third-party deals such as the IAEA inspection arrangements) are submitted to Congress within 90 days of the agreement 2) Congress does not pass a formal rejection of the deal (which, since it would be reversing the Corker law, must be it’s own bill, and survive a presumptive veto).

There are secondary arrangements that have been mentioned (such as the US providing assistance with Iranian enrichment efforts under certain conditions) that would require some kind of affirmative legislation that could presumably be blocked by Congress, but none are all that significant compared to this – if the Administration has fulfilled its obligation to report the deal in its entirety to Congress, the sanctions are legally lifted, as Congress obviously cannot pass legislation reinstating them. At this point the international sanctions regime also shuts down, and most of what Iran wants from the deal has been achieved. After that, attempting to reinstate sanctions just provides the Iranians with a justification for walking away from their obligations under the deal.
Obama has clearly learned the obvious lesson from the shutdown fight of several years ago – given the current filibuster rules, the side in any legislative battle that wins if no bill passes has a decisive advantage. Why the Republicans signed off on the Corker bill is a separate question, but having done that, Obama now has a solid legal foundation for the key US concessions in the deal, and these concessions are largely irreversible. He can easily leverage that into either formal approval of the remaining elements that need it – or at least prevent any serious attempt to stop any of it on the obvious grounds that we’ve already given up 90% of what we’ve agreed to in the hope that Iran will follow through on their side of the deal, so everyone is just going to have to suck it up and hope for the best.

Paul

Thank you.

Edge and Scrolling and Searching and Windows 10

Your entry today (9 Sep 2015) mentioned issues with using Edge on your Surface, and sites that require horizontal scrolling, where that scrolling is not on Firefox.

I am not sure that you did a proper test of that issue. If a site does not ‘adjust’ to the browser window properly, it is most usually the fault of the site, not the browser. A site needs to be ‘responsive’ to the size of the viewport (viewing area of the browser window on the device). If it is responsive, then the site will adjust it’s display of content to be legible, without horizontal scrolling, on any device.

Take your site, for instance, or www.chaosmanorreviews.com . Both of those sites have a ‘responsive’ design, which is intended to adjust for the viewport of the devices browser, no matter which browser you use. If you look at those sites in Edge, or Firefox, on any device, the text/content should be readable, from phone to tablet to pad to notebook to desktop, in any width of the browser. It’s not perfect, but both sites will not require horizontal scrolling on any device and any browser.
Your notes didn’t specify the sites you were looking at, but I suspect that you didn’t look at the same site on Edge and Firefox. I suspect that a site that require horizontal scrolling on Edge will also require horizontal scrolling on Firefox, on the same device.

So, proper testing would require that you test the same URL on both browsers (Edge and Firefox) and see if the horizontal scrolling is required on both browser; I suspect that it will.

A non-responsive site, such as www.krebsonsecurity.com (who should know better) requires horizontal scrolling and zooming on my L3 phone, and my LG table. (On the phone, I have to turn the phone in landscape mode and zoom in to be able to make the content legible.)

Although I don’t have a Surface, I do have Windows 10 and Edge. I usually use Firefox (out of habit), but the same sites behave the same on both browsers.

As for the default search engine in Edge: it is true that Bing is the out-of-box default. But that is easily changed to the search engine of your choice. Even Bing searches will tell you how to do it.
Edge does show you some ads on startup, but they don’t insert ads on other sites (other than the ads those sites already have). A test with the same site on both browser should show that.
As for Windows 10, I have upgraded my home systems (HP Laptops, 17″ screen) to Windows 10 from Windows 7, and I like the improvements. In particular, I noticed that the screen is much ‘crisper’ than in Windows 7. The Start menu is still there, and it is easy to find a program (just click the Window key, and start typing the name of the program you need). Once you find the program in the list, you can ‘pin’ it to your Start menu so it is there the next time.

I didn’t much like the interface of Windows 8, although my wife got used to it (after some struggle) on her laptop. She has since converted to Windows 10, and there have been minimal calls out to ‘tech support’ (me) for issues with the new OS.

Apologize for the length of this, but a proper comparison of how a site looks in Edge and Firefox requires that you test the same site in both browser, and not the first results you see from different search engines for the same topic.

Regards, your long-suffering web guy, Rick Hellewell

I thank you for the long suffering; I could not do this place without you.

I was unclear, and I have gone back and edited the piece to clarify: yes, I looked at the same web sire – Verge – in both Edge and Firefox. Edge required horizontal scrolling, and always kept some ads visible. Firefox snapped to fit the space available. This may have been misuse on my part due to unfamiliarity with Edge.

Wheelchair Accessible Transportation

Hi, Jerry.   You write:  “I see an article on how Uber needs regulating so that they have to take care of customers in wheel chairs thus making the drivers get out of the car. If people in wheel chairs cannot use Uber, then of course no one can.”

Uber won’t take Medicare or Medi-Cal in payment, but here in Sacramento, Paratransit  and MedStar  will.  There are probably similar services in any city large enough to support an Uber base. Even if Uber could take wheelchairs, would people pay for that service when the gummit will provide it?

Ken Mitchell           

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the  socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”
Frederic Bastiat, “The Law”

Dr. Pournelle,
This is worth your time, for a laugh: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/politically-correct-lord-of-the-flies?mbid=social_facebook
-d

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

Chaos Manor View, Wednesday, September 09, 2015

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/01_1.shtml

After this great glaciation, a succession of smaller glaciations has followed, each separated by about 100,000 years from its predecessor, according to changes in the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit (a fact first discovered by the astronomer Johannes Kepler, 1571-1630). These periods of time when large areas of the Earth are covered by ice sheets are called “ice ages.” The last of the ice ages in human experience (often referred to as the Ice Age) reached its maximum roughly 20,000 years ago, and then gave way to warming. Sea level rose in two major steps, one centered near 14,000 years and the other near 11,500 years. However, between these two periods of rapid melting there was a pause in melting and sea level rise, known as the “Younger Dryas” period. During the Younger Dryas the climate system went back into almost fully glacial conditions, after having offered balmy conditions for more than 1000 years. The reasons for these large swings in climate change are not yet well understood.

“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded—here and there, now and then—are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

“This is known as ‘bad luck’.”

– Robert A. Heinlein

Apple had their announcements today, but I had story conferences so I could not watch them live. I finished my fiction work about lunch time, so I thought to view some reports, and it is time I learned more about the new Windows and get more use to my Surface 3 Pro; a fitting machine to view new Apple products, particularly their new iPad Pro which is I expect their answer to the Surface Pro and Windows 10.

My usual browser is Firefox, which has features I don’t love but by and large I get along with it; but with the Surface it seemed appropriate to make a serious effort to use Edge, the new Microsoft Browser. Of course it has Microsoft Bing the default search engine. It also doesn’t really understand the size of the Pro. It gave me horizontal scrolling, even though I had Edge full screen. I looked up Apple announcements, and Bing gave me a nice list. Right click on the nice bent Microsoft pocket wireless mouse, and open a repost in a new screen. Lo, I have to do horizontal scrolling; Edge makes sure there are ads on screen at all times, so you have to horizontal screen the text to see all of it. Line by line. But I can always see some ads. Edge makes sure I don’t miss ads. It doesn’t care whether I can read the text I was looking for, but it is more careful about the ads. I’m sure that makes the advertisers happy, but I’m not so sure about the users. I thought I went looking for an article, not for ads.

Edge also kept doing things I hadn’t asked it to, and I’d lose the text. Eventually I found if I closed the window and went back to the Bing screen and right clicked to open that same window in a new tab, I was able to – carefully – screen through the text, and adjust the screen so all the text was on screen even though there was still horizontal scrolling possible. This is probably a function of inexperience, but using a touch screen and Edge is a new experience.

Even so it was a rough read. I gave up and went to Firefox on the Surface Pro. Firefox has Google as its default browser, and the top selections it offered me – all I could see on one screen – were different from the ones I saw with Bing. I had to do a bit of scrolling to find the article I had been trying to read, but eventually I found it. Right click to open it in a new Tab. Voila. All my text in the center. I could read it. Much easier. For the record: same site, adjusted to width in Firefox on the Surface Pro, horizontal scrolling of the same article viewed in Edge.  Probably my fault, but I don’t know what I did wrong.

Now in Microsoft’s defense, I don’t know Edge very well; but if you are going to a Surface Pro, you may well find Firefox easier to use than Edge. A lot easier to use.

As to Google vs. Bing, in this one case I found Bing superior; what it offered me had more content. But Edge is advertiser friendly, not User friendly.

So it goes. I am going to practice with the Surface Pro – I got my workspace organized so it’s easier to work with, and I am determined to like it because I really want to be proficient with OneNote and a tablet. I will therefore practice with Edge, but I am sure not going to erase Firefox! So far, Edge approaches awful. My fault for using it pretty cold, but it should tell you that you have to learn Edge; it’s not intuitive – not to me – for one accustomed to Firefox and Windows 7.

Every time I update Alien Artifact, my main machine which uses Windows 7, Microsoft offers me a free copy of Windows 10. I refuse. I am beginning to live with 10 on Swan, a more modern machine I keep in the back bedroom, and I will eventually get used to it, but I see no obvious advantages over 7, and some very obvious disadvantages. And Swan has Office 365, which has a Word version I hate – it too does things I did not ask it to do, as well as having eliminated some commands I was used to – the “improvements” have yet to appeal, but the ruination of some features I liked are obvious.

Windows 10 no longer is the disaster that Windows 8 was. You can live with 10, and some parts are edible; I suspect it’s a matter of getting to know it. Office 365 Word is not as good as Word 2008 or Word 10, and by a long shot. Their improvements were detractions, and I am sure put in to show they did something, not from user requests. Tell you what, Microsoft: bundle up an Office package containing Word 10. I’ll buy it for the same yearly fee as I pay for the current abomination. I’d prefer you fire the Word 365 designers because I don’t really want them working on anything else, but I’ll compromise if I just don’t have ever to use Word 365 so long as I live.

My ancient ThinkPad needs replacing, and I don’t know what to get. Perhaps an Apple portable, either a Mac Book Pro or a new Air. They both look good, and I can scrape up some money from new royalties on There Will Be War. Those are like finding the money in the street: I told the publishers to be generous with the contributors and there’s still money, and we’re only at number four in the series. Indeed I am contemplating a new Volume to come out next year, but of course that means work, and I’m in manic mode because the book with Niven and Barnes is going so well.

Anyway, there is a lot to like about the new iPad pro; it is certainly the main competition for the Surface Pro, and if experience be any guide, it will be easy to use right out of the box, with lots of features to learn but productive from hour one. I don’t go on the road much now, so I suppose I could get by with the ThinkPad, but he really is getting old and cranky. And his Ethernet port socket has something mechanical broke. And I have to be careful with him and I’m no longer good at careful except about myself.

But will the iPad Pro do, and will it be better the Surface Pro with OneNote? I figure with thee (available at extra cost) keyboard and the (available for $99) stylus pen, the whole package is about $1200, and while that’s not cheap, it should be good for four years. And I got a phone call saying the War anthologies earned me more than that in the last six months, and it will be something to write about here — I’d have ordered it if it were available to order. But it won’t be until November. By then there may be even more unexpected royalties…

As to a new laptop as opposed to a tablet, I’m open to suggestions. Probably nothing, although Barnes is very happy with his new Air, as is Dr. Jack Cohen with his; and I liked Khloe, the Mac Book Air that got me through the 2008 radiation treatments for brain cancer, so I admit I’m a bit partial. We’ll see.

Apple is said to have improved the iPhone 6, but I’m very happy with the one I bought last summer, and I can wait a while for improvements. I love the big screen iPhone 6. It’s all the phone I need for a while, and better than what Larry and I envisioned in the pocket computers Rod and Sally carried in The Mote in God’s Eye back when we wrote it in 1972. I do note that the link to the website said to list the ten worst things about the new iPhone gets a ‘File Not Found’ error.

I have just tried to get the Surface Pro to tell me more, but it keeps going places I did not ask it to go, and giving me horizontal scrolls, and it’s too much like work trying to outsmart it. I have better things to do, and I’ll read the stories on a big screen and Firefox on Windows 7. Microsoft, why do you hate your customers? Because you can? Can I pay you more money to get you on my side? I bought this machine from you. The hardware works. But the software?

http://www.pressreader.com/usa/los-angeles-times/20150909/281749858130887/TextView

I see an article on how Uber needs regulating so that they have to take care of customers in wheel chairs thus making the drivers get out of the car. If people in wheel chairs cannot use Uber, then of course no one can. The wheelchair people of course could call a taxi, with a driver used to putting the wheel chair in the trunk, but no, if you won’t get out of the vehicle and put the thing away, you are not fit to drive anyone, and you can’t work. We’ll regulate you, by gollies, to make the world fair. If the wheelchair guy can’t use Uber, then nobody can.

Now let me tell you about my friend in the iron lung.  And we wonder why we are still in a depression.

Apparently they amended the Constitution while I was not watching. Obama can make deals which become the law of the land so long as 41 Senators will approve a resolution closing debate on the subject after the House approves a bill denouncing his deal; or if both houses do condemn him, he can veto the condemnation, and his deal with a foreign country is then the supreme law of the land. This is so absurdly opposite to what the Constitution says that it would be laughable if it were not deadly serious.

The House somehow has to fund implementation of the deal unless the Senate disapprove of it, or something like that. The President gets to spend the money. And the House country club Republican leadership goes along because they are afraid or something.

Taking Responsibility for the Iran Deal

Congressional Democrats and the White House are working to avoid having a vote. That’s a bad idea.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/taking-responsibility-for-the-iran-deal-1441755239

Eurocivil war

Jerry:

Thank you for publishing the link to the Eurocivilwar blog. It is a poorly written hybrid of fiction and history, but it describes a very real and alarming possibility. The fact that France and Great Britain already have sophisticated nuclear arsenals makes this scenario terrifying.

The continuing flood of Muslim refugees into Europe reminds me of the tactics employed by the Saurons on Haven in your Warworld series. Attacking one group would trigger a mass migration of refugees who would invade and destabilize their neighbors. Obama’s incitement of the Arab Spring allowed ISIS to become a potent military and political force. The depredations of ISIS are creating a tidal wave of refugees. Aside from the certainty that many of the refugees actually are ISIS operatives, there is a significant risk that even moderate Muslims will not assimilate to European culture and become radicalized. The fact that the recent wave of refugees are overwhelmingly young, adult males ensures that there will be conflict. One has to ask if Hillary and Obama intended to destabilize Europe when they incited the rebellions against Ghadaffi and Mubarak as well as Asad while abandoning Iraq. If this was the intent, then we have a Manchurian candidate in the oval office.

James Crawford=

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The Vise Tightens Further

A well oiled vise doesn’t make sounds as it tightens, but I hear the sound of bones starting crack:

<.>

Two top Senate investigators floated the idea of immunity Tuesday to Bryan Pagliano, the staffer who set up the email server in former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s home, in exchange for testimony about her activities.

</>

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/8/hillary-clinton-emails-senators-offer-immunity-bry/

And this incident wastes precious resources:

<.>

The U.S. State Department plans to move about 50 workers into temporary jobs to bolster the office sifting through Hillary Clinton’s emails and grappling with a vast backlog of other requests for information to be declassified, officials said on Tuesday.

The move illustrates the huge administrative burden caused by Clinton’s decision to use a private email address for official communications as secretary of state and a judge’s ruling in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that they be released.

</>

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/08/us-usa-election-clinton-statedept-exclus-idUSKCN0R82QG20150908

Meanwhile, at the law offices of whomever:

<.>

A new lawsuit is demanding that the State Department explain how Hillary Clinton’s private attorney, David Kendall, got permission from the State Department to retain copies of Clinton’s emails after the agency determined some of them were classified.

</>

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2015/09/lawsuit-asks-how-clinton-lawyer-got-ok-to-store-classified-info-213425#ixzz3lCxJ8MF9

“That was a mistake. I’m sorry about that.” –Hillary Clinton

Now, look at the video where she says that or see the screenshot I’ve uploaded:

http://prntscr.com/8e8xap

Notice her snarky expression and the smirk on her face as she apologizes?

More importantly, look at how she’s sitting. It appears to be a relaxed position, but it isn’t. It’s a complete lockdown. The legs are crossed at the ankles to anchor her legs. Notice her hands are clasped over her lap; this is another lockdown position.

This is significant because she is much more open in most of her other interviews, while she often locks her ankles, she normally starts off very open, using her hands a lot, and leaning in with her balsamic smile.

I would iterate that you cannot detect deception — no matter what ex-CIA and ex-police authors’ books may say — but you can detect stress. However, I am not claiming that I’ve detected stress in this instance; I’m simply saying that I’ve noticed variations from her baseline behavior.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-private-email-mistake-im/story?id=33608970

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

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

Chaos Manor View, Tuesday, September 08, 2015

I keep hearing about the NFL quarterback who, to satisfy baying hounds of sports writers, is to be suspended or whatever they call it, from the first four season games because of numerous stories about his deflating, or allowing others to deflate, or possibly knowing others had deflated, or maybe knowing others were going to deflate, or were thinking about deflating, the footballs he was going to throw when his team was on the offensive during the Superbowl. Now a court says that the NFL Commissioner, who has arbitrary power, doesn’t really have arbitrary power, and there are rules of arbitration, and you have to tell people in advance if they are to suspend them. Or something. It’s all told in the deflategate story on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflategate and elsewhere if you really want the details.

The problem is that it doesn’t make sense. If deflated footballs were used during the Superbowl, the first move by the NFL should be to change the rules that allow the offensive team to supply its own footballs. That’s the NFL’s job. While they are at it, they can fire the referee for incompetence: surely the rules require that the referee inspect the ball before it is put in place for the next play? In basketball the ball has to be returned to the officials before the play begins each time the action is stopped; how can it not be the same for football, where the ball is much more subject to abuse?

So when the NFL fires the officials who presided at the Superbowl for incompetence – they let one, but only one, team play with deflated footballs – and fires the employees who wrote the rules not requiring the officials rather than the offensive team to provide the balls in play, then the Commissioner might consider penalizing the key player of the winning team. This isn’t about fairness, it’s about competence: they penalize the most competent man they can find to hide their own inabilities.

It might be pleaded that the referee can’t tell if the football has been deflated. That’s absurd. The ball is subjected to impacts and abuses on every play. Of course it will be deflated with use. How seriously I do not know; probably not enough to notice most times, which probably means that a small amount of deflation, too small to notice on casual inspection, won’t make any noticeable difference in play; requiring a metered inspection and reflation each quarter would be sufficient; possibly at half time would be enough to assure fairness, and in any event making both teams use the same ball seems reasonable; why should the offense be allowed to fool with the balls before playing with them? (If actually they can do so; it seems so unreasonable that I have trouble believing that an intelligent commissioner would allow it, although Wikipedia says that it is so; possibly the NFL should find a rational commissioner?)

If the NFL provided the footballs, and the same ones were used by both sides, the story would have never developed. It would be trivial to make it go away. I expect that won’t be done.

Of course I am still hoping that someone at Microsoft will go sane and restore the easy access to the autocorrect dictionary in Word 2008 to the Word you get with Office 365.  Hope springs eternal.

Migrant Wave Inspires Others to Try to Reach Europe A1

Images of migrants pouring into Europe are inspiring thousands more, from Iraq to Nigeria, to rush out on their own risky journeys, posing a burgeoning problem for policy makers focused mainly on Syrian refugees.

http://www.wsj.com/itp

What a surprise! A successful invasion is followed by successive waves of occupiers! And note that no one is invading – or migrating to – wealthy Arab oil kingdoms. Suleiman only wanted Vienna in 1529; this year the Moslem invasion goes into the heart of Europe.

And they are being paid to come in!

And we are told that you cannot cut welfare benefits. It’s inhuman. Better to borrow the money; we can become indebted to the Chinese government. The National Debt:

* As of April 3, 2015, the official debt of the United States government is $18.2 trillion ($18,152,112,019,695).[1] This amounts to:

• $56,649 for every person living in the U.S.[2]
• $147,304 for every household in the U.S.[3]
• 103% of the U.S. gross domestic product.[4]
• 540% of annual federal revenues.[5]

http://www.justfacts.com/nationaldebt.asp

In other words, we directly owe a year’s work to the government to pay off the Debt; now for some that may be working for themselves – you work to get your money back with some interest – but most of us do not own any part of that national debt. My grandchildren have some of it, thanks to my wife’s practice of giving government bonds for Christmas and birthdays; I’d hate to see that defaulted. And then there is the underfunded Social Security and its empty Trust Fund (all loaned to the general government). We might get past this: it’s only 5% of everyone’s income for 20 years – but in twenty years we will owe $20 Trillion.

And that assumes that we are not invaded by another 10 million illegal migrants between now and 2030.

European Civil War 2017

https://eurocivilwar2017.wordpress.com/

    This came to my attention today. Apparently he started it last year and hasn’t updated it since November. I hope he gets back to it before his story is overtaken by events.

As Rush Limbaugh points out, the country club Republican leadership has a way to reject the Iran Deal.  They can keep the sanctions, because Obama did not meet the requirements listed in the egregious Corker Bill.  Not that they will do it.  Iran will have the bomb.  Live with it.

Israel second strike potential

Dr. Pournelle,
Israel _does have_ naval-based second strike capabilities (five “Dolphin”-class submarines operational and one more on the way. So it is 96 long-range cruise missiles).
Best regards,
Alex Krol

If you consider water launched pilotless aircraft a sufficient deterrent

Jerry Pournelle

Well, since it is widely assumed that each of these cruise missiles is equipped with 200 kiloton nuclear warhead..

And don’t forget about our ICBMs as well – I presume that missile silos in Soreq valley area are properly hardened.

( It may be not obvious from my e-mail address, but yes, I’m from Israel)

Regards,

    Alex Krol

I presume Israel could build a 400 megaton dirty bomb and mount it at the border with Gaza, but I do not think it will be much use. The size of warhead is less important than the accuracy of delivery if you are fighting a war. If you are city busting accuracy is not so important. Assurance that your cruise missile will get over Iraq and make its way to Tehran is important; if Tehran is ringed with missiles that intercept at tens of miles distance, deterrence suffers.

Iran plans to sign contract for Russian S-300 missiles next week

DUBAI

Russian S-300 anti-missile rocket system move along a central street during a rehearsal for a military parade in Moscow May 4, 2009.

Reuters/Alexander Natruskin

Iran will sign a contract with Russia next week to buy four S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, the Iranian defense minister said on Tuesday, bringing Tehran closer to acquiring an advanced air defense capability.

Russian state arms producer Almaz-Antey in June said it would supply Iran with a modernized version of the S-300, among the world’s most capable air defense systems, once a commercial agreement was reached.

“The text of the contract is ready and our friends will go to Russia next week to sign the contract,” Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.

Russia says it canceled a contract to deliver S-300s to Iran in 2010 under pressure from the West. But President Vladimir Putin lifted that self-imposed ban in April following an interim nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/18/us-russia-iran-arms-idUSKCN0QN11B20150818

Israel already likely has a second-strike capability via ‘pocket SSGNs’.

On 8 Sep 2015, at 3:19, Roland Dobbins wrote:

> They’re a bit more than Snarks, sir – smaller, more maneuverable, much

> lower RCS, etc.

Of course, this likely explains Iran’s recent investments in Russian AA and SAM systems . . .

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

“Reporting rural unemployment is just too dangerous politically.”

<http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-economic-data-20150908-story.html>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Indeed: it is hard to justify the notion that the Recession is ending; I can make a case that we are still in a second Depression.

Intel Federal and power consumption

Intel Federal got started to build lower power, more efficient processors for NSA and later Dept. of Energy. NSA is build massive data centers across the country. They are huge power hogs. Hence the need for more efficient processors to handle their specific work loads. Same for DOE.

So, Apple investing in solar is along the same lines.

Phil

Who has the balls?

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/08/great_generations_and_others_comments.html#disqus_thread

You get a mention in the comments… (sort oldest first).

David Couvillon
Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; 
Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; 
Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; 
Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; 
Chef de Hot Dog Excellance;  Avoider of Yard Work

11 Reasons Terry Pratchett Is A Literary Genius

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kayetoal/stories-of-imagination-tend-to-upset-those-without-one?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Books+96&utm_content=Books+96+CID_c56a69b2fb90f073b2a3c5c1efdd2aba&utm_source=BuzzFeed%20Newsletters&utm_term=11%20Reasons%20Terry%20Pratchett%20Is%20A%20Literary%20Genius#.ciqnQW8wv

Charles Brumbelow

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