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Mail 407 March 27 - April 2, 2006

 

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Monday March 27, 2006

In addition, see below; there's more where this came from...

Subject: Letter from England

UK exam stress http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1739868,00.html
 

National Health Service http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article353714.ece
 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/
news.html?in_article_id=381092&in_page_id=1770

 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,1740045,00.html
 http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article353689.ece
 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1739825,00.html
 

Civil liberties http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4846878.stm
 

Iraqi story http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article353678.ece
 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2103695,00.html
 

Smoking ban in Scotland http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4847258.stm
 

Labour loans story spreads to Tories. (Don't mud-wrestle with a pig; it gets you dirty, and the pig enjoys it. Or as Napoleon said: "Don't interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4846090.stm
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4843908.stm
 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1739871,00.html
 http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article353691.ece
 

-- Harry Erwin, PhD, Senior Lecturer of Computing, University of Sunderland.
Computational neuroethologist: http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/phpwiki/index.php/ AuditoryResearch

==

Subject: Holding patterns.

Holding patterns.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1740281,00.html

-- Roland Dobbins

Not exclusive to England, of course

==

Sunday, March 26, 2006

[David Bernstein, March 26, 2006 at 8:01pm] 0 Trackbacks / Possibly More Trackbacks

YOU CAN'T SAY THAT! IN ENGLAND: Where America is heading [ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-2100915,00.html ], if the First Amendment is found to have a "hostile environment" exception:

A UNIVERSITY lecturer who claimed that black people were less intelligent than whites was suspended from his post yesterday. Frank Ellis, a lecturer in Russian and Slavonic Studies, was sent home on full pay by the University of Leeds, which accused him of breaching its obligations to promote racial harmony under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. It is the first significant test of academic freedom since the introduction of the Act, which places a duty on public bodies to promote equality of opportunity and good relations between different races. .... He voiced support for the theory set out in The Bell Curve, a book published in 1994 by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, that white people had higher average IQs than blacks. He said the study had "demonstrated to me beyond any reasonable doubt there is a persistent gap in average black and white average intelligence". Dr Ellis also told Leeds students that women did not have the same intellectual capacity as men and that feminism, along with multiculturalism, was "corroding" Britain. His views outraged students, who staged a campaign to have him dismissed from the university. Leeds responded initially by stating that Dr Ellis had a right to express his views, although they were 'abhorrent to the overwhelming majority of our staff and students". Officials said that they had no evidence that his beliefs had led him to discriminate against students or colleagues. Yesterday, however, it announced that the ViceChancellor, Professor Michael Arthur, had suspended Dr Ellis and that disciplinary proceedings had begun. Roger Gair, the University Secretary, said that in publicising his views Dr Ellis had "acted in breach of our equality and diversity policy, and in a way that is wholly at odds with our values".<snip>

==

The Sunday Times March 26, 2006

The SAS man who lobbed a non-PC grenade PROFILE Frank Ellis

Every month, it seems, freedom of speech commands our attention and prompts a new bout of hand wringing. The revisionist historian David Irving has been jailed for Holocaust denial, western embassies were torched during the Danish cartoon row and Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard after arguing that women scientists were not up to snuff.

The debate has now fastened on whether Frank Ellis, a university lecturer, had the right to say that white people were more intelligent than black people and that women did not have the same intellectual capacity as men.

Last week Leeds University made its own judgment, first by gagging the 52- year-old lecturer in Russian and Slavonic studies and then suspending him a few days later after students boycotted his classes and threatened to mobilise other campuses.

Formal disciplinary proceedings have begun against Ellis, a fervent convert to Enoch Powell's prophecy that immigration would lead to "rivers of blood". He favours "humane" immigrant repatriation and has joked that the BNP is "a bit too socialist" for his liking.

Some have wondered what gives a former SAS soldier with an intimate grasp of Slavonic languages the authority to pronounce on race and intelligence. "I have read an enormous amount of literature on this subject and I find it extremely convincing," he told BBC Radio 5 Live this month.

One of his main sources is the Bell Curve theory, examined in a book by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, which concludes that ethnicity can play a part in IQ levels. Persuaded that the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans was 70, Ellis said that in the West such individuals would be regarded as being "very close (to) or within the range of mental retardation".

Writing in Leeds Student newspaper, he wondered whether it was possible for people of such low intelligence to achieve "a technologically sophisticated civilisation". If Africans "refuse to behave responsibly, they condemn themselves to death" from Aids.

"The West has no moral responsibility whatsoever to assist Africa in dealing with Aids," he declared. Bob Geldof and "the hordes of emotional parasites who follow him" were free to live in Africa as long as they did not come back when they needed medical treatment.

It comes as no surprise that Ellis has praised the BNP as "the only party in Britain that has consistently attacked the scandalously high levels of legal and illegal immigration". The BNP has reciprocated his admiration.

Ellis's detractors accuse him of attention seeking and relishing the controversy that he has stirred up. Yet he is reported to be "outraged" that his human rights have been violated and uncomprehending of what offence he has committed. "I don't consider my views to be abhorrent," he told The Daily Telegraph this month.

Among his eccentricities, it is said that despite being christened Norman he has rejected this first name because he "doesn't feel like a Norman". Frank he certainly is.

Psychologists have pounced on his pronouncements with glee, pointing out that IQ tests have been discredited as a reliable measure of intelligence because they were developed by white researchers and tested on white populations, so were unsuitable for other cultures.

Similarly, the Bell Curve has been dismissed as an outdated theory that showed lower achievements among the black population because its members were economically worse off. A study of pre-school children in 2002 by Birmingham local education authority found that black children were second only to white middle-class children in achievement. One conclusion was that parenting was more important than genetics.

A key factor in the row was the likely effect on Ellis's black and female students of knowing his scornful views. Hind Hassan, treasurer of Unite Against Fascism at Leeds University, said last week: "How can female students or those from ethnic minorities possibly get a fair educational experience?" At first Leeds seemed to give Ellis the benefit of the doubt, pronouncing itself satisfied that "the question of discrimination does not arise in student assessment" since students' work was double-marked.

Indeed, Ellis was said to be scrupulous in not imposing his racial views on his students. But last weekend seven of his former students complained in a letter to a newspaper that they "had to endure crudely ill-informed and offensive comments concerning the intellectual inferiority of black people and women during seminars".

These comments, they wrote, undermined their confidence in Ellis's ability to treat them on merit and in some cases "led us to doubt our own abilities and potential". Ellis maintains that he has never treated black students differently. "I have no strong feelings towards black people either way," he said. Former SAS comrades in arms remember Ellis as a man "without a racist bone in his body" who was second to none in his admiration of the Fijians he served alongside while protecting the Sultan of Oman from rebels in the late 1970s.

He was "a great guy to be with when the bullets were flying", an old colleague told the Daily Mail. "He was like any other SAS soldier - he took people for what they were and worked harmoniously with anybody so long as they were professional."

His view of his fellow man has evidently undergone a profound change. The first recorded example of this was in 2000 when the university failed to prevent him addressing a conference, called by the far-right American Renaissance group, which had previously attracted prominent figures from white supremacist organisations including the Ku Klux Klan and various neo-Nazi groupings.

His paper, subtitled Racial Hysteria in Britain, attacked the Macpherson report on the police inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager, which he likened to one of Stalin's show trials. Political correctness enrages him equally: "To oppose or to criticise PC is to expose oneself to charges of racism, sexism or any of the complex formulations that PC cohorts have cooked up to banish insensitivity."

Paradoxically, Ellis is sensitive to other cultures. A gifted linguist, he learnt Arabic with ease in Oman and was sent to the SAS educational centre to teach the language to other soldiers posted to the Middle East. Also fluent in Russian and German, he worked as a military interpreter in Berlin in the early 1980s.

It was only after leaving the army that he went to Bristol University, where he gained a degree in Russian and a PhD in Russian literature. Later he taught for a year in Las Vegas before arriving at Leeds eight years ago.

According to Jamie Caldwell, one of his students: "He was a very, very good teacher. He certainly knew his stuff. But I felt absolutely sickened when I read what he said and I stopped going to his lectures."

Ellis is not the first academic to be accused of racism. In 1996 Chris Brand, a lecturer at Edinburgh University, made similar claims and eventually left. In 2002 Geoffrey Sampson, a professor at Sussex University, caused a furor when he argued that there was overwhelming scientific evidence that races differ in intelligence. He is still in his post.

A circle of eminent psychologists have fuelled controversy over race and intelligence, notably Hans Eysenck (1916-97) who was famously punched on the nose during a talk at the London School of Economics, and Richard Lynn, who claimed east Asians were more intelligent than whites.

The Education Act 1986 legally protects Ellis from interference in the expression of his lawful views. But this is the first time that a university has faced such a high profile case since the Race Relations Act came into force in 2002, requiring universities to promote racial equality.

Other views intrude. Has the liberal impulse of never giving offence gone too far? Has Ellis abused his privileged position of authority?

Ellis's right to freedom of speech was trumped by the students' right to boycott his lectures. There is no more eloquent argument than an empty classroom.

I point out that some of this is nonsense: IQ tests have been examined for cultural bias for a long time without finding much and what was found has been pretty well eliminated: and the standard tests correlate highly with results from such tests as Raven's Progressive Matrices in which it is impossible to discern many traces of culture bias, and with tests of judgmental reaction times which do not seem to have any possible cultural bias. IQ tests are nowhere near perfect, but they remain the best single predictor of success that we have, and they don't do a bad job of that. Of course they are politically incorrect and outlawed by court rulings, but that is hardly science.

==

This is a very shoddy piece of writing for a broadsheet newspaper (which I assume the ST still is). "The Bell Curve Theory"? Does this writer have any clue what he is talking about? And what about his closing recommendation that students simply not attend Ellis's lectures? Isn't the point of higher ed to exchange ideas? How are you going to do that if you boycott a man's lectures?

What a pass we have come to.

JD

Indeed.

==================

> Of course, the leaders of China have every right and reason
> to pursue the economic strategy they have chosen. However,
> that doesn't mean we should pretend that it will necessarily help the U.S.

I hope we can take a few things as ground truths:

1) short of nuclear war, the US and Europe cannot prevent the rise of China 2) if China achieves economic parity with the US, this might be a decline in American *power* in absolute terms, but certainly not in relative terms.

The right analogy is the rise of the US and Germany in the 19th and early 20th centuries during a time when the UK was the world power. Did the UK become poorer in absolute terms as a result? No, but it lost ground in relative terms. Then again, what could it have done to stop the Germans and Americans from developing? And short of infecting their civilization with a virus comparable to Communism in economic/societal virulence, what can realistically be done to keep millions of Chinese from blasting their way to the top?

Peter

===========

A discussion from another conference:

A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

"The government should give every American $10,000--and nothing more"

BY CHARLES MURRAY Sunday, March 26, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008142 

This is a summary of Murray's latest book, 'In Our Hands':

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0844742236/ 

Interestingly, I was going to bring up the obvious contradiction, which Murray doesn't address, between libertarian plans such as this, and the fact of the IQ spectrum. Fortunately, I notice The Economist picked up on it:

""In Our Hands" raises as many questions as it answers. What happens to people who squander their money either through innate dullness—Mr Murray believes that IQ is partly inherited—or through poor character? And what happens to the children of improvident parents?"

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5660806

J

And a reply:

Annually. We'll have to factor in the cost of raising the border fences to 10 feet instead of 7, of course. But otherwise, nice idea.

As always, Murray is very much worth reading, starting with http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008142  and continuing with his book.

Discussion continues below.

=========

A Sad state of affairs:

"Marriage is for white people!"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006032500029.html 

E

I noticed that one, too. Sad indeed.

==========

Subject: This Spartan Life.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/spartan.html

 Roland Dobbins

Now that's neat! I'd love to set up something like that!

I can see it all now...

======d

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Tuesday, March 28, 2006

From "The Hill e-News"...

*****

The Tipsheet for March 24, 2006

House Dems demand answers about typo in budget bill

Senior House Democrats have again demanded that the White House disclose whether it knew of the clerical error that continues to plague the deficit-reduction bill signed by President Bush last month.

Democrats have suspected that Bush was aware when he signed the legislation that the House and Senate had passed slightly different versions. A Wall Street Journal article published Wednesday bolstered those suspicious by quoting a senior House GOP aide as saying congressional leaders consulted the White House about the discrepancy.

The House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) wrote a letter to the president that included a primer on congressional procedure: "A bill is not a law unless the same version is passed by both the House and Senate and signed by the President," they wrote.

"There is now growing evidence that your action on February 8 breached this fundamental tenet of our democracy with the full knowledge of high-ranking congressional and White House officials," Pelosi and Waxman assert. Waxman wrote at letter to White House Chief of Staff Andy Card last week, asking the same questions: if the administration knew there was a discrepancy between the two versions of the bill.

*****

Charles Brumbelow

Is Congress going to explain how RIAA provisions on music contracts got into their bill when no Congresscritter will admit being aware of these grabs?

Subject: Richard the 3rd? 

You mention that Richard III lost to Saladin. I thought that Richard the 3rd lost to Henry Tudor. And Shakespeare had him emoting about the loss of a horse on the battlefield. I do believe that Richard I had a tough time with Saladin, of course, Richard the "lion hearted" had to watch his back against his French "ally" Louis at the same time. Some things never change.

Rodney Kendrick

Of course I meant Richard I Couer de Lion; thank you. For those interested in Richard III Crookback, I recommend "The Daughter of Time" by Josephine Tey ...

===============

On IQ

Hi Jerry,

I am on the road, using a weird web-mail client, so I hope this arrives...

In any case, in response to the IQ debates, an article has just appeared in the most widely read Swiss newspaper "20 Minuten". Here is a quick translation of the most interesting bit:

"Germans and dutch have an average IQ of 107, just ahead of Poles, who have an average of 106. Then come Swedes (104) and Italians (102). Swiss, with 101, place 6th along with Austrians and Portugese. Farther behind are the British with 101, the Spanish with 98 and the French at 94."

The article quotes "The Times" in Ulster, Ireland as the source. As far as I know, no one has lost their job over this.

Cheers,

Brad

Chinese in China average 104 to 105; which is an enormous advantage compared to 100, which is the US average. Of course none of these places are Lake Wobegon, and half of their children are below average...

==========

Subject: IQ tests

Has anyone ever challenged those who denounce IQ tests on the grounds of cultural bias to devise a test that would similarly allow blacks to score higher than whites? I doubt that such a test is possible, but at least it would call their bluff.

WH

==========

Subject: Sixth-grade reader feedback - I'm in

Greetings sir. Probably no need to pass this along to your readers, but I've been jotting notes to myself over the years about the differences in expectations and materials for grade-school education. RAH wrote both fiction and non-fiction with specific references. When I lived in DC, I occasionally heard G. Gordon Liddy talk about his own boyhood schooling. Here are some of my hastily-captured notes:

Liddy's dad's education: reading; expository prose; diagramming sentences; math; multiplication tables; logic; philosophy; Latin; Greek, ancient, modern & American history; physics; organic chem; inorganic chem; algebra; plane & solid geo; trig

Liddy's own junior-prep 1946 textbook described as 'graduate level' by high school teacher recently

[Don't recall the source for this excerpt - I plead guilty to sloppy citation.] John Taylor Gatto, who has been named on multiple occasions the "Teacher of the Year" in both the city and the state of New York: "In 1882, Gatto reminds us, fifth graders read in their 'Appleton School Reader' the original prose of such authors as William Shakespeare, Henry Thoreau, George Washington, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, Daniel Webster, Lewis Carroll, and Tom Jefferson.

Yet by 1995, a student teacher of fifth graders in Minneapolis was writing to the local newspaper: 'I was told children are not to be expected to spell the following words correctly: back, big, call, came, can, day, did, dog, down, get, good ... Is this nuts?'

I don't have the RAH material handy, but I recall a rant about California's university system and the widespread need for "Bonehead English" among the incoming freshmen.

So, yes, I'm very interested in seeing all three of the books you mentioned in PDF format.

Sincerely,

Tim Elliott

One does need to understand that fewer went to high school in those times; an 8th grade education was reasonable for many going into the family business, as an example. But the readers in those days gave a cultural minimum that allowed communications (Jacques Barzun has an excellent discussion of this in his indispensable Teacher in America) and understanding.

This California 6th Grade reader has material that I fear university graduates haven't been exposed to, and that's a bit sad. Everyone ought to have read some of this material.

============

Subject: No more Black Watch, now Royal Regiment of Scotland

The Royal Highland Fusiliers, the Black Watch, The Highlanders and The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders form four battalions of the new regiment.

Later this year the King's Own Scottish Borderers and the Royal Scots will merge to form the 1st battalion RRS.

 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4850276.stm

* "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." --George Orwell

"The Regiments that never die..."  This is sad.

==========

Subject: ESA researchers and Podkletnov Effect

Dear Doctor P,

A correspondent reported:

"ESA researchers have measured significant "accelerations" in motionless accelerometers - on the order of 1/10,000th G, something like 10 to the twentieth larger than predicted by General Relativity - near a spinning superconducting coil"

Do you recall about ten years ago the reports of a so-called "Podkletnov Effect"? A Russian researcher, Podkletnow, reported in a refereed physics journal, that objects weighed less when suspended over a superconducting disc rotated at high RPM. There were a flurry of reports, NASA funded a small story, and then very little else. Apparently there were big difficulties in reproroducing the experimental apparatus Podkletnov reported using (the biggest problem was making a superconducting disc you could rotate at high speed and not have it fly apart. Apparently the materials available are highly frangible, if that is the right term for something that flies into a million pieces when you spin it at 10K RPM?).

Anyway, this sounds like the same sort of experiment and effect, or am I misunderstanding the ESA report? If this is confirmation of Podkletnov's research, it's possibly bigger news than if it is an new procedure and effect. As I recall, Podkletnov had not theory to explain the effect, to my best recollection he is more of an engineer than theoretician.

Article on Podkletnov Effect:

http://www.rialian.com/rnboyd/podkletnov.htm 

"The effect has a direct relationship to the experiments at NASA by Li and Torr, which also involved voltages applied to a rotating object. "

This may indeed be big news. One hopes it is on the level of the printing press and steam engine. One hopes. But we have been disappointed so many times...

Petronius

I sure hope it works; I sure hope there is some kind of reactionless drive.

=

Dr. Pournelle,

Knowing your history with the Dean drive, I thought you might be interested in the following links:

http://chaos.fullerton.edu/Woodward.html 

http://chaos.fullerton.edu/%7Ejimw/kill-time/ 

http://www.cphonx.net/weffect/alt.php 

The first two are to the website of a Cal State Fullerton physics professor who claims to have a working model of a P-P (Propellantless Propulsion) device. The third is apparently an explanatory site by a fan of Woodward’s theories. Some of the physics is rather dense, at least to this engineer, but the essence, as I understand it, is a theory (Mach’s principle) that the phenomenon of inertia is a field effect of the action of all the other matter in the universe on the mass being measured, and that this effect may be used to produce accelerations without a propellant, and furthermore that devices have been produced (copious illustrations in the links) to demonstrate the effect.

Can any of your correspondents with better understandings of physics than my own comment on the theories? I see from some of the citations that John Cramer is at least aware of Woodward’s work.

-- Cecil Rose alabama@earthlink.net

Apex, NC

Theories are not much use; a result would be. We need a demonstrable result.

 

 

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Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Subject: Is a richer-but-warmer world better than poorer-but-cooler worlds?

A HUGELY important paper on the economic effects of global warming and the proposed "cures" for warming.

Bottom line: human well-being is likely to be highest in the richest-but-warmest world and lower in poorer-but-cooler worlds.

Petronius

Is a richer-but-warmer world better than poorer-but-cooler worlds?

http://members.cox.net/igoklany/richer-but-warmer.pdf

Indur M. Goklany

Greater economic growth could lead to greater greenhouse gas emissions, while simultaneously enhancing various aspects of human well-being and the capacity to adapt to climate change. This begs the question as to whether and, if so, for how long would a richer-but-warmer world be better for well-being than poorer-but-cooler worlds. To shed light on this issue, this paper draws upon results of the "Fast Track" assessment (FTA) reported in a special issue of Global Environmental Change: Part A 14(1): 1-99 (2004), which employed the IPCC’s emissions scenarios to project future climate change and its global impacts on various determinants of human and environmental well-being. Results suggest that notwithstanding climate change, through much of this century, human well-being is likely to be highest in the richest-but-warmest (A1F1) world and lower in poorer-but-cooler worlds. With respect to environmental well-being, matters may be best under the A1F1 world for some critical environmental indicators through 2085-2100, but not necessarily for others.

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Thursday, March 30, 2006

Subject: Sorry legislation

Hi Jerry.

It will soon be possible to say "sorry" in British Columbia without necessarily admitting liability:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20060329.wxbcapology29/BNStory/National/home 

Cheers,

Mike Casey

Now that has a bunch of implications....

Subject: It happened in Wales, too

Over 600 years of Welsh military tradition has come to an end on St David's Day with the merger of two famous Welsh regiments.

The names Royal Welch Fusiliers and The Royal Regiment of Wales were consigned to history with the birth of the new regiment, The Royal Welsh.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4760102.stm

Also sad.

Steven

===========

Subject: Ebook interest, copy protection,  pricing

Dr. Pournelle,

I am interested in your readers, all of them. I however would not be interested in a document that had my credit card number embedded in any fashion, translucent, crosswise, diagonal, or in a header or footer, as suggested by your correspondent Phil. It would certainly deter piracy, as it would deter an original purchase.

For example, I can't possibly pirate anything published by Sony as I will not buy their original products. The same goes for any game "protected" (infected) by the starforce crippleware scheme. I suppose in my case the sony rootkits and starforce are 100% effective anti-piracy deterrents as I would threaten bodily harm against anyone attempting to simply place any sony or starforce product NEAR my computer, let alone using my computer to copy it...

Back on topic, just be careful about implementing anti-piracy solutions that would inhibit sales, especially at the reasonable prices you have been discussing. Regarding the prices you have mentioned, I personally would have picked somewhere around $5 ($4.99?) because for some reason a $10 bill is more emotionally significant than a $5 bill and at your price point I'd have to break a $10, which makes buying one of your books at $7.95 "real money". But that's just me, and thank goodness I'm a subscriber and could buy for $4.95. I'm one of those people who will walk a mile to find a coke machine selling cans for 50 cents or do without, even if a nearby alternative is merely 55 cents... I used to buy paperbacks at $4.95 and since they've exceeded $5 everywhere, I've found myself buying fewer paperbacks because anything over $5 is "real" money, subject to thoughtful consideration. If I don't NEED it it won't be bought and as a result, I have absolutely no idea who today's good SciFi/Fantasy writers are because to find out I'd have to buy a bunch of books for more than $5 each.

I even cringe whenever I buy a fast food meal for over $5.

It's stupid, but that's the way it is. I'll happily buy $1,200 in camera gear because I've done 6 months of research before buying, and then I'll buy a $4.49 burger meal instead of the $5.49 meal based on price alone.

Sean Long

Oh, I'd never take the trouble to put any "watermark" other than one pointing to me on anything. I certainly wouldn't do anything so drastic as put someone else's credit card number anywhere.

I'll think on pricing; my main purpose at the moment is to recover a couple of thousand dollars invested in ISBN numbers and editorial costs. I never thought I'd get rich off this, except that if we can get some quality reading going on the country will be a lot richer and better to live in. (And giving them away isn't an option: few people value what's free. Alas.)

==========

Subject: IQ and Nationality

Following up the earlier email from Brad, the original article about IQs across Europe was in The Times on Monday, the researcher is from the University of Ulster.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2105519,00.html 

The research not only compares the IQs between countries but within countries - those from the capital apparently come out smarter.

It is interesting that in the week we have had the crass stupidity in Leeds, with a lecturer suspended for expressing unpopular views, this research has attracted almost no comment. I wonder what would have happened if he had compared IQs between the UK and Nigeria or Zimbabwe? It appears it is alright to say there are differences between two groups of whites but not between black and white or - as it notes in the article - between men and women.

Cheers,

Alasdair Urquhart

===============

A Discussion of Murray's Plan to Replace Welfare

First:

Charles Murray interview

http://www.tcsdaily.com/Article.aspx?id=032806A

-- Roland Dobbins

Charles Murray's IN OUR HANDS is a brilliant book. This discussion comes from a closed discussion group; you'd recognize the names of some of the participants, but the rules don't allow me to quote them by name.

I actually think this plan is brilliant. I'm sure Murray has done the calculations to show that current spending (including opportunity costs imposed by taxation induced deadweights and so on) is north of $10k per person.

Moreover, if the low IQ squander their money...great! They will no longer have the moral club to ask us for more. It will be visible and in plain sight. Everyone can -- and *WILL* -- ask "what did you do with your $10000"?

Unless the answer is "I spent it on my dying grandma", the bottomless well of abstract "sympathy" for the underclass -- which in general does not survive an encounter with the *real* underclass -- will dry up.

The proposal, if passed, subtly offers a brilliant rhetorical club, a shared frame of reference that will push the debate forward. When *everyone* agrees on something (e.g. "Nazis bad"), that is when you get a powerful secular offset in society.

If everyone agrees "you should have spent your $10k intelligently", then the screwups of the dumb become far more obvious. Equalize environment and heredity becomes dominant. Most importantly, most liberal excuses re: opportunity etc. are undercut. All in all...it's brilliant, IMO -- *if* it could be accompanied by slashing all redistributive programs entirely.

If not, it would be a disaster.

G

==

> Moreover, if the low IQ squander their money...great! They will no
> longer have the moral club to ask us for more. It will be visible and
> in plain sight. Everyone can -- and *WILL* -- ask "what did you do
> with your $10000"?

You confuse me. It makes no sense to on the one hand, think that genetics predestine people for suffering, and on the hand feel that justice has been done when that suffering is allowed to happen. In fact it's pretty monstrous.

Murray's plan makes no sense because it is both socialism, and through the inevitable mismanagement of funds that will occur with the genetic underclass, *ineffective* socialism (as you have just admitted). Redistribution should, if it is going to happen, work to mitigate the worst aspects of inequality. Good socialism would, in theory, narrow most of the divide between the middleclass and underclass, by directing its largesse at the most unfortunate members of society. (A Rawlsian sentiment that makes even more sense if you think merits are the unearned luck of the genetic draw) Murray's plan on the other hand just sounds like it will mostly benefit the middleclass, narrowing the gap between the middle and the top, and leaving those at the bottom in an even more degraded and unequal state.

How is that fair or desirable? It doesn't even make sense. People at the bottom are there because they couldn't take responsibility in the first place, giving them *more* isn't going to help them, only underline their patheticness. It's a waste of the tons of money we are giving them, and in the end is not solving the problem it should be solving, because the underclass will be just as vulnerable and unprotected. The result, I guarantee you, will be calls for even *more* socialism, not simply the acquiescence to suffering that you appear to want.

Instead of letting the underclass (and to a certain extent the middleclass) squander real money, why not manage it for them competently, so that they can actually benefit from it? This is what behavioral economics is telling us makes the most sense:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=405940

JM

==

No, the socialists would just claim that $10,000 isn't much money and they would be right. Look, how can these poor folks buy medical insurance, food, and rent with $10000 per year? Depending on their age they could be spending $200 or $300 per month on medical insurance and stll have a few thousand dollar deductible and no insurance for buying drugs. So they might spend a third or more of their money on medical expenses.

Plus, when they showed up at emergency wards the public would still insist that they be treated.

Also, what about the schizophrenics, quadraplegics, and other severely disabled?

Even if Murray's plan could get implemented (and it can't) the result would be a public calling for more social spending to deal with all the stuff it would not address. People do not want to see suffering. They would not say "great" as you do. The abstract sympathy puts a lot of Democrats into Congress.

R

==

The Welfare State is here to stay, especially since the LHS tail of the Bell Curve does not show much immediate prospect of getting shorter.

A good civics policy is to make the Welfare state more conservative, rather than "constructive". That is, transfer payments should be made more conditional on community-spirited behaviour and personal propriety.

Mutual Obligation. Paternalism.

This is both politically popular and policy practical.

JS

==

> Instead of letting the underclass (and to a certain extent the
> middleclass) squander real money, why not manage it for them
> competently, so that they can actually benefit from it

I think my point is that nothing can really be done for them. I have become more and more cynical about any attempts to "help" the poor. Not to say that one should stand in their way, but rather that what holds true for countries is true for individuals -- no one gets rich off welfare or foreign aid.

Insofar as this kind of payment was a "one and done", it would mean spending less (net) on welfare. By concentrating the payment economically and -- more importantly -- psychologically rather than diffusing it over a million different programs, you underline their incompetence with $.

The reason it is important to prove that the poor are simply incompetent rather than unfortunate and/or victims is that it would be the beginning of a mature societal conversation about income inequality. Like I said to Ikram, there is a world of difference between:

"it's your fault I'm poor"

vs.

"it's not my fault I'm dumb"

The former is an angry accusation which demands recompense; the latter is a sad request for charity. BIG difference in terms of social consequences.

Once you admit the poor are "victims", the game is up. But by magnifying their failure with a "standardized test" of financial decisionmaking, you can actually prove to the masses -- without regression analysis or statistics -- that the poor will mismanage whatever is given to them.

Similarly, I would be for slavery reparations if that meant a complete and immediate end to all affirmative action programs. It wouldn't in practice, of course, which is why I oppose it.

On this particular issue, all of you make good points about the likelihood of this policy being implemented with Lee Kuan Yew style efficiency in the US. If implemented at all it would be on top of the alphabet soup of existing agencies, which would be exactly counterproductive. Again people would hear from a Murray book only what they wanted to hear ("free money" in this case).

Perhaps we have now come to a point where it is utopian to dream of abolishing most governmental transfer payments (medicare, etc.) in favor of a direct cash payment. Ah well...then again, it was utopian 30-40 years ago to talk about free market economics, and utopian today to talk about genetic engineering...

G

And that's a lot to think about.

==============

A contribution to the immigration discussion:

Subject: Notes toward an essay on illegal immigration

Jerry On this I must say your education is sorely lacking. I have worked in Gas Stations, garages and small manufacturing since the mid 50s when I was in high school. At that time almost everybody in school had some kind of a dirty hands apprentice job except for the teachers pets that were on a collage track. You can not get in today’s world young people either white or black to work in a shop environment, it will just not happen except for a very small minority.

Most if not all auto mechanics and station help today are immigrants because our young people will not learn the jobs. Most if not all fast food and mini mart employees are immigrants for the same reason. Most if not all truck drivers, machinists, machine operators and maintenance people are immigrants. Why, because our schools do not teach basic job skills any longer, they assume all are going to collage and if the teacher does not think the student is suitable or qualified for collage the student is pressured by teachers and councilors to drop out. I personally have not seen an American born white or black come to the door of any company where real work is involved and apply for a job. We have tried to hire them and as soon as they see machines working or in some cases hear them they are gone.

What do they say as they are leaving, "I am not going to do beaner work for any price, I will not demean myself." We have hired some in shipping and receiving or inspection but they quit after a few weeks because they feel such dirty hands on labor is beneath their dignity to perform, they deserve better working conditions and money. Our immigrant workers pay through withholding all the same taxes as any other worker in this country pays and the illegal ones do not get refunds because they can not file for one so they end up paying more taxes than those that are legal do.

Do not blame the immigrants for taking jobs that our young aristocrats would not take and perform at any price because they do not wish to get their fastidious hands a little bit dirty. Get the facts man and not from the NY Times or CBS broadcasting. Most small business in this country would be out of business if it were not for immigrant labor from all over the world and yes some of it might be illegal but they get paid the same because we can not tell the difference. Do not put the immigrants down Jerry because our industry at all levels would grind to a screeching halt without them, period!!

-- James Early Long Beach, CA

A proud decendent of Dutch, Irish, Scotch and Welsh ancestors who worked and died to make this country strong and keep ti free.

A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity. Robert A. Heinlein

Considering how much I have written about the deficiencies of our school system, particularly with regard to no longer teaching basic skills, I would not have thought my education so lacking as to find anything new in this letter.

This letter paints a lovely picture of a factory with steady work, good wages, taxes withheld including social security, and no American takers. I suspect that is not a highly usual situation.

=

Dear Senator

I work in jails in New Jersey, so I know that young men who are trying to find entry level jobs at a decent wage in this state cannot do so because of competition from illegal aliens who bid down their wages.

I have watched jobs that used to be done by skilled union tradesmen being done by illegal aliens. It takes them a lot longer, but their labor is so cheap that non-union contractors can out-compete union contractors. This saddens me because I have belonged to labor unions.

In sum, this new push in the Senate to legalize illegal aliens will betray the core constituents of the Democratic Party.

I am fully aware that sending illegals home will separate some parents from their children. My grandparents came here in 1910, never to see their parents again. The same is true for my wife. These days, with airline travel and inexpensive-even free-international telephone service, such separation is not nearly as bad as it was in decades past.

I know that many farmers and growers depend on foreign workers. Maybe it is time that they began to automate their operations the way the grain farmers did 150 years ago. We have far better technology now, and maybe Americans would get factory work making the equipment.

Granting amnesty in the 1980's only encouraged more to come here. When Bush first mentioned an amnesty, the influx of illegals surged. If you forgive our current crop, more will come.

Build a wall. Send the illegals home.

Yours truly,

Ed

============

"Daddy, I was a Jew today."

http://www.local6.com/news/8345157/detail.html

- Roland Dobbins

==========

Archaeologist links palace to legendary Ajax.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12080932/

- Roland Dobbins

Fascinating. This would be Ajax the Greater, not the Lesser Ajax who defied the lightning and liked to kill people. Astonishing how often we find hints of the truth of old legends.

 

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Friday, March 31, 2006

The immigration debates continue.

Subject: police and illegals 

Jerry,

I have been corresponding with a friend who has been a California law enforcement officer (Fresno) and is doing LE work in Arizona now.

My friend Bill says that local LE used to routinely detain illegals and hold them for the federal immigration people, but years back they were told they could no longer do that. I do not know what federal law/rule/regulation changed, but Bill says local cops combined with controls on the Border for new illegals trying to come in could get the situation under control over time. And cheaply too as compared to adding 10,000 Border Patrol.

He told me too that cops were initially glad not to hold illegals because it reduced their work. Now the pendulum has swung the other way, and crime by illegals takes up a lot of their time. They would like to go back to the former way, but the feds won’t let them. This is crazy of course.

Jim Dodd

San Diego

==

This showed up in my email, from a mailing list I read. Forwarded with permission of the sender, with identifying information removed.

 The following is one of my favorite thoughts on the issue of  immigration. It's from President Theodore Roosevelt in a letter to the  American Defense Society in 1919, 10 years after his presidency.  --Lou Dobbs  

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes  here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us,  he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is  an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or  birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming  in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...   There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an  American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have  room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red  flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just  as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are  hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the  English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that  is a loyalty to the American people."  

--Theodore Roosevelt, 1919

==

Subject: Immigration issues

I wonder if a large part of the problem in finding a solution to the immigration problem can be directly attributed to the income tax and other withholding based taxes? Such taxes are a burden on the employer and provide a financial incentive beyond ignoring the minimum wage laws. "Guest worker" and amnesty programs are no solution because just as soon as a worker becomes documented, their cost eliminates them from consideration for the lowest paying jobs. Thus a new wave of illegal immigrants can find jobs freshly vacated by the prior wave.

The elimination, or at least reduction, in state and federal payroll taxes might reduce the incentives to hire illegal immigrants. Replacing the revenue streams with sale and use taxes would provide contributions from everyone without regard for their status.

--- Al Lipscomb CISSP MCSE

Certainly the cost of paperwork and having workers "on the books" contributes. If we want to hire someone for the day, it's convenient to go to Home Depot or Lowe's and get someone we will (we hope) never see again after we have paid him off for a day of digging. No W2 no withholding no workman comp; and that is as true for someone who needs a worker for a week, or a month, as it is by the day.

In France they are rioting because the government wants to give employers the right to fire an employee at will during the employee's first two years. After that the worker has tenure essentially for life. Interestingly, France has enormous unemployment.

The German Economic Miracle happened when Gen. Lucius Clay allowed Erhard to go on the air and announce an end to all employment regulations, and complete economic freedom.

Subject: An Immigration FAQ

Dr. Pournelle,

Here's an interesting Immigration FAQ I tripped over. It looks like employment enforcement is theoretically enough to cause illegals to leave the US. No job, no incentive to stay. Anyhow, it apparently worked until some Congress Critters sabotaged it.

http://www.rightwingnews.com/category.php?ent=5455 

Paul

==

Subject: Immigration and jobs

The question of whether American workers will take a factory job at any price is an empirical question. Maybe James Early could arrange to offer a boring and dirty, but legal, factory job at, say, $100,000 a year and see if there are any American takers. If there are, it would seem to imply that it is not an issue of Americans not wanting to get their hands dirty, but of what their alternatives are, in terms of salary and working conditions relative to the wages actually offered in current jobs or public assistance.

At least if we could conduct such an experiment, then we would know whether to frame this debate in terms of what we have to pay to get dirty jobs done and not whether Americans are too snooty to work hard.

I, personally, take offense at statements that Americans won't take certain jobs and the implication that it is, somehow, an indication that there is something wrong with those Americans, rather than that there is something wrong with those jobs or their pay scales.

Robert Hoskins

==

Immigration and Jobs

In my experience James Early Long has it wrong about our youth and jobs. Perhaps he is correct for where he lives but my company hires young people all the time for “dirty, menial” jobs. Cleaning cars and working outside on a car lot isn’t very nice, especially in bad weather, but we’ve rarely had trouble getting people to apply. True there are many who get on the job and shortly leave but there are those that stay because after all it is a job that pays on a regular schedule and most of them have graduated from high school. The picture that Mr. Long puts forth is that there is nothing but immigrants filling all jobs that are considered low paying and dirty. I challenge him to come to Memphis and look around. True there are immigrants filling some of those jobs here but nothing like the image that he portrays.

Will

==============

The 7468 mile kill(s)

Balad Air Base, Iraq -- An MQ-1B Predator unmanned aerial vehicle engaged three anti-Iraqi forces in the process of placing an improvised explosive device along a road near Balad Air Base yesterday evening. The Predator launched an AGM-114 Hellfire missile against the group. They’re dead Jim. (ok, I added that…)

http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/003587.html 

The point not made in the article that’s relevant:

Predator MQ-1 drones are normally controlled by the 57th Air Wing, based at Nellis AFB, Nevada, within sight of the Las Vegas Strip. The distance from Las Vegas to Balad is 7468 miles. Guys in theatre (at places like Balad), launch the Predators and control them till level flight, then hand over to a several teams of operators based at Nellis who fly them in shifts, looking for targets. At the moment, most members of the 57th Wing controlling drone aircraft are actually fighter pilots, however they’re investigating training non-pilots to control the drones. I’d suggest they use teenagers, myself. They’d really be in to it.

Info on the Air Warfare Center, Nellis AFB, Nevada:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/usaf/awc.htm 

-jcp-

==============

Subject: bogus science

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Your readers should know this anyway, but "The Seven Warning signs of Bogus Science" by Robert L. Park at http://chronicle.com/free/v49/i21/21b02001.htm  clearly explains when it is time to sit on your wallet and check the facts before committing time and money to the latest scientific breakthrough.

My own thoughts are simpler. If I build an antigravity machine powered by garbage disposal output that would be wonderful (a miracle in fact). If an educated skeptic, such as a member of the Pournelle family, could duplicate my working model, then it is time to seek investors.

regards,

William L. Jones

==========

This is the article by the estimable Caitlin Flanagan to which Peter  referred in his recent email to you re: low-wage immigration on our liberal elite.

JIM

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/03/flanagan.htm 

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY March 2004

How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement

Dispatches from the nanny wars

by Caitlin Flanagan

When my twin sons were babies, we lived a block away from a day-care center, and just as I was setting out with the stroller for the first walk of the day--usually at 7:30, right after the first segment of the Today show ended--I would see mothers dropping off their children, many of whom were infants no older than mine. I'd slow down as I passed, taking an interested look at these mothers, who were always in such a rush, bogged down with diaper bags and teddy bears, and then I would walk on, headed for the park. The long, long day would begin to unfold: the walk, the end of the Today show, the morning nap, lunch, another walk, the afternoon nap, two solid hours of MSNBC (sometimes more), and then, at five or so, the last walk of the day. Often I would see the same mothers picking up the babies I'd seen dropped off ten hours before, and I would marvel at the sight. In fact, I sort of planned my day around it: it was my little treat. Think of all they've missed, I would say smugly to myself. I felt in every way superior to them: every day while they had been miles away from their babies, I'd been right there with mine, catching every little smile, writing down every advance--rolling over! eating a bit of mashed banana!--on the lined ivory pages of their baby books, importantly calling the pediatrician if anything seemed slightly awry. That so much of the day had been tedious and (truth be told) mildly depressing was itself a badge of honor. Unlike those women parking their kids in day care while they went to work, I was a mother virtuously willing to sacrifice her own happiness for the sake of her children, and being rewarded with the ultimate prize: I wasn't missing a moment of their fleeting, precious, and unrecoverable childhoods.<snip>

============

Illegal immigration

Rear Jerry, I don't think it unfair to describe cheap labor as crystal meth for businessfolk. They'll always want more and the end may not be pretty.

Tim.

=========

Subject: Dr Who in Wales

Jerry;

Thought you might find this of interest. On the BBC news site, under "UK", N. Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales each has its own news page. I noticed that stories about the Dr. Who show always were in the Wales section, and asked why. This was their reply.

Steve

-From: NewsOnline [mailto:newsonline@bbc.co.uk] Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 8:59 AM To: Dunn, Steven J. Subject: RE: Feedback [NewsWatch]

Dear Mr Dunn,

The series is produced in and around Cardiff by BBC Wales. In this example, the launch was held in Cardiff.

Regards BBC News Website http://news.bbc.co.uk/

===========

Subject: Sleep-Deprived Teens Pose Safety Hazard

Once again, we discuss something here and a month or two later it hits the wires for the rest of the world.

Can we call it the Pournelle Effect?

Petronius

Sleep-Deprived Teens Pose Safety Hazard

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20060328/hl_hsn/sleepdeprivedteensposesafetyhazard 

Much of the problem lies not with teens but with society. Adolescents naturally feel more alert later at night and wake up later in the morning. More than half (54 percent) of high-school seniors go to bed at 11 p.m. or later. Yet those same adolescents have to wake up at around 6:30 in order to get to school.

"It is the natural tendency of adolescent to go to bed later because of their body clock," confirmed Perez-Guerra. "There is some bias."

But apart from asking schools to start later (which some states have done), what can be done?

=========w

f

g

 

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Saturday, April 1, 2006

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