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Mail 550 December 22 - 28, 2008

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Monday  December 21, 2008

Jerry:

The entry on Thursday the 18th, credited to a writer by the name of John appears to be plaigarized from Francis Turner's entry on the Baen forum on Mike's Madhouse on the same day. Francis' entry is time dated 16:36 GMT which would be about 7 - 8 AM Pacific. Francis is a contributer to several of the forums on Baen who lives in France but, I believe is either American or English. I haven't asked him. Just thought that I'd drop a line about it to let you have a head's up.

Tom Williams, Jr.

I suspect it was inadvertent and possible due to sloppy cutting and pasting on my part. More to the point it's out of date: current Swiss practice is not what it used to be, and there are home invasions there or were last year.

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

Little Ice Age Caused By Humans???

I am so confused! 8-)

Re-forestation after a pandemic caused the Little Ice Age? Then shouldn't we be worried about causing a new Ice Age if we do what the Greens want now?

BTW, notice how the author waits until three paragraphs from the end to mention volcanic eruption and reduced solar activity.

God bless and Merry Christmas.

Lee

= = =

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28353083/ 

'Little Ice Age' hastened fall of Aztecs, Incans

'Humans have been in altering climate for longer than we ever imagined'

In the 16th century, the diseases Europeans brought to the New World decimated native peoples. The reforestation that came next may have ushered in one of the first instances of human-induced climate change, helping cause the Little Ice Age  <clip>

I suspect the Maunder Minimum had more to do with it than reforestration. I don't really believe that CO2 has that much effect. The flatulence of cows will have more effect...

We need some climate models that will actually predict the past: that is, put in initial conditions for, say, 1900 and run it to see what happens in 1950. Until we can do that, spending billions on "remedies" is senseless.

Isn't one of the goals of the greens a form of reforestration?

===========

Bush and Cheney conspiracy!

http://washingtontimes.com/news/
2008/dec/22/bush-cheney-comforted-troops-privately/ 

Yep, they've been caught red-handed.

Operations involving thousands of troops, clandestine meetings, and private Presidential letters. . . It seems that the White House has sent personal letters from the President to each and every family of our troops killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Every Single One. No public proclamations, no press opportunities, just a personal thank you from the Commander in Chief.

THAT is what I call supporting the troops. Hats off to the White House. .

-- Recent novels from Michael Z. Williamson CONTACT WITH CHAOS, Apr 09 from Baen Books BETTER TO BEG FORGIVENESS, Mar 09 from Baen Books (mass market edition) THE WEAPON, Mar 07 from Baen Books (mass market edition)

I'd have been happier if we supported them by not going into Mesopotamia in the first place, but yes: having committed the Legions, we owe them our support as we expect them to support us.

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

Somali Piracy "What Happens Next"

Jerry,

The entirely predictable "what happens next" with regard to the Somali pirate rings is they will come ashore in East Africa from the Suez to South Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Eastern Indian Ocean to kidnap Western tourists and rich locals for ransom -- buying off the local cops and military patrols in the process. That's the historic pattern of pirates. There were a lot of kidnappings of wealthy citizens in the old Caribbean, as far as England with the Barbary Pirates and that was the main thing late Roman Republic pirates did ... purely a case of follow the money. The step after that -- which is probably the point where the world will act effectively -- is when they start actually seizing and looting sea coast tourist towns with Westerners in them.

The ultimate answer to this problem is to go ashore in Somalia, destroy every sea going craft, level every fishing village and to kill every armed person who resists with the attitude that collateral damage is a feature, and not a bug, for the operation.

We are not there yet and won't be for at least a decade. I do note that seizing a western tourist filled cruise ship off Southern Egypt, off South Africa or off the coast of Eastern India will be very close to that "actually seizing and looting towns" as far as tipping points are concerned.

T

Julius Caesar promised the pirates that if he were ransomed he would come back to crucify them. They didn't believe him. They should have.

As you say, predictable: but so long as the companies pay protection money for ships, this will proceed slowly. It's when the current revenue stream dries up that the fishermen will look for other ways to garner income.

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

Stalin assassinated Patton?

Dr. Pournelle,

I have no idea if this has any credibility or not, but Stalin certainly had reason to Hate Patton for reasons we all know.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/
northamerica/usa/3869117/General-George-S.-Patton
-was-assassinated-to-silence-his-criticism-
of-allied-war-leaders-claims-new-book.html 

"His book, "Target Patton", contains interviews with Mr Bazata, who died in 1999, and extracts from his diaries, detailing how he staged the car crash by getting a troop truck to plough into Patton's Cadillac and then shot the general with a low-velocity projectile, which broke his neck while his fellow passengers escaped without a scratch.

Mr Bazata also suggested that when Patton began to recover from his injuries, US officials turned a blind eye as agents of the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, poisoned the general."

Matt Kirchner

I heard George Noory interview the author on Coast to Coast. It sounds like a very complicated scheme, and I find it hard to believe it could be kept confidential for so long, but there were a lot of Stalinists back in those days: Joe McCarthy wasn't smooth, but he was right in many cases (including the cleaning woman); and there were a lot of people who thought that Patton was trying to get us into a war with the USSR (and I suppose he was; "We have to fight them sometime so why don't we do it while we have a goddam army over here to do it with"); but by the time he died I think the opportunity was over, wasn't it? It's unlikely that Patton was a threat to Stalin by then. And ordering a hit on a popular general would have been very dangerous. More likely someone who wanted us to fight Stalin would have a better motive but then it wouldn't have remained hidden: the point of a false flag operation is to have the false flag seen to be operating...

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

Alert: Scientist Fired By Gore Says Warming Alarm "Mistaken" - Joins Senate Report of More Than 650 Dissenters

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord
_id=5ef55aa3-802a-23ad-4ce4-89c4f49995d2 

Prominent Scientist Fired By Gore Says Warming Alarm "Mistaken" Monday, December 22, 2008

Posted By Marc Morano – 8:25 AM – Marc_Morano@EPW.Senate.Gov 

Prominent Scientist Fired By Gore Says Warming Alarm ‘Mistaken’

Joins Senate Report of More Than 650 Dissenting Scientists

‘The current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken’

Weblink to this Release: <http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord
_id=5ef55aa3-802a-23ad-4ce4-89c4f49995d2

Link to Full Printable PDF Report of More Than 650 Dissenting Scientists <http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_
id=83947f5d-d84a-4a84-ad5d-6e2d71db52d9

Dissent from the consensus can be hazardous.

=============d

 

 

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Tuesday,  December 23, 2008

LeMay wept.

<http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1208/121908kp1.htm>

- Roland Dobbins

I can recall when there was SAC and then there were the rest of the armed forces.

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

Letting 60,000 flowers blossom?

<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122990342979025141.html>

-- Roland Dobbins

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

Obama, Time Man of the Year, on 'climate change': 'All the indicators are that this is happening faster than even the most pessimistic scientists were anticipating a couple of years ago.'

He's also troubled that gasoline prices are below $4/gallon:

<http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1865069,00.html

-- Roland Dobbins

Despair is a sin...

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Merry Christmas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Friday,  December 26, 2008

Jerry

Iraq has made Christmas an official holiday:

http://www.military.com/news/article
/iraq-makes-christmas-an-official-holiday.
html?col=1186032310810 

"A senior Shiite cleric, Ammar al-Hakim, attended the Mass flanked by bodyguards in a gesture of cooperation with Christians. . . . He is the son and heir-apparent of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, Iraq's biggest mainstream Shiite party. <snip>"

Ed

===========

Jerry

This sort of thing should scare us all to death: amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home -

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081225
/ap_on_sc/do_it_yourself_dna;_ylt=
AkwUFGcv.z0KvusSa8WinJt34T0D 

I wonder if something like the Co-Dominium restrictions against science might be in the offing.

Ed

===========

Jerry

Here's a vid on how to clone a Twinkie:

http://video.yahoo.com/network/100000089?v=2704765&l=100022574 

As a bonus, he unveils 13-year-old Twinkies at the end.

Ed

 

 

 

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Saturday, December 27, 2008

 

I pretty well took the day off.

 

 

 

 

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Sunday,  December 28, 2008     

Americans in the gulag.

<http://entertainment.timesonline.
co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/
the_tls/article5390210.ece>

- Roland Dobbins

'Tis the season to count our blessings....

===========

Homicide clearance rate in 1963: 91%. Homicide clearance rate in 2007: 61%.

<http://www.washingtonpost.com
/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/
27/AR2008122701145.html>

-- Roland Dobbins

Perhaps Obama is Kennedy returned? But in those days the courts allowed the states to govern, I suppose. I can think of a number of other well-intended changes since that time. I thought Kennedy a terrible president until Johnson succeeded him with his Great Society. Now I really wish we had a Kennedy we could trust to be a Kennedy.

Or do I? It's easy enough to be nostalgic. Interestingly, Kennedy understood there really was a Cold War, even if he made up the Missile Gap in order to get the office of President. He understood that containment meant containment which meant sending troops to Indo-China. But then he surrounded himself with the best and the brightest who thought that Southeast Asian peasants thought like Harvard undergraduates.

===========

2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
comment/columnists/christopher
booker/3982101/2008-was-the-
year-man-made-global-warming-
was-disproved.html 

 

Looking back over my columns of the past 12 months, one of their major themes was neatly encapsulated by two recent items from The Daily Telegraph.

By Christopher Booker Last Updated: 5:51PM GMT 27 Dec 2008

The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/
3342553/Climate-change-threat-to-alpine-ski-resorts.html>  , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/snowandski/3851179/
The-Alps-have-best-snow-conditions-in-a-generation.html>  , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.

Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise. <snip>

Emphasis added

I will wait for a bit more data before pronouncing Global Warming a threat of the past, but I think it's pretty clear that the man-made hypothesis is shown to have a very low probability: the number of ad hoc assumptions required to explain the observations from 1900 to present have grown to nightmarish proportions.

I don't know if the Earth is warming or cooling. If I had to bet, it would be cooling over the long haul simply because we are, as we all know, in an Inter-Glacial period. The one thing I am sure of is that energy prices have a very high negative correlation with productivity and wealth.

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