Mail 361 May 9 - 15, 2005 (original) (raw)
Thursday, May 12, 2005
I get some very strange email:
Subject: Jerry Pournelle
I hope you don't mind that I have taken the liberty of assuming that you are newpagan on stormfront.org, since newpagan's profile points to your web site?
If that is the case, then I am wondering what inspires you to post on a well known internet hate site? Although stormfront is not rated as the largest hate group in the world, I think that it is by far boasting the largest online membership, or at least the largest of those that I have seen.
I think I noticed the reference somewhere to a title of Dr., referring to you. I am wondering doctor of what, since I haven't taken the time to read far enough to figure that out for myself. I am interested in doctors since my son is a medical doctor specializing in anaesthesiology.
Anyway I am quite interested in groups, such as stormfront, as examples of man at his worst. I have posted from time to time on stormfront.org, but invariably, if I express any opposition to the views of the moderators there, I am banned. While I have managed to acquire new email addresses and new on-line identities, I have only been somewhat successful in staying on the site for any length of time.
I am sure that most people think of stormfront and their allies as comical relief, but when one sees that known hate mongers such as David Duke, Don Black, Paul Fromm, David Lane (does he post from prison or is he just quoted by others?) are the leadership of such a group, one has to entertain the possiblity that stormfront is for real.
I'm sure that you will agree with me that most white people would not even consider the ideas that stormfront promotes, much less actually promote them, however it is somewhat disconcerting that groups such as stormfront are even permitted to use the internet for such purposes, other than comic relief that is.
Fortunately, most white people in the world are more civilized than to promote animosity against other people. Both my country, Canada, and the United States are well-known world-wide for their multi-culturalism, although Canada has somewhat of a better reputation than America in that regard, at least to some people. Also Canada takes a somewhat less tolerant stand with racists and bigots, and certain types of promotion of racial hatred are discouraged and even banned here, eg Ernst Zundel.
I would have been quite happy to permit my taxes to help pay for Zundel's incarceration for the remainder of his life, however the powers that be saw fit to send him back to his beloved homeland to face hate charges there. We can only hope that the Germans decide to give him the very maximum punishment that his actions deserve.
Anyway, I just thought I would drop you a line, as it is not every member of the hate groups that provide an email address where they can be contacted. Forgive me that I am attempting to hide my identity, but the truth is I get tired of being kicked off hate sites so frequently so I thought disquising myself might slow down that process a little.
comfeiy [hqitel702@sneakemail.com]e.
I have never heard of stormfront.org. I do know know who Zundel is.
I do think that "multiculturalism" is pernicious; I have always thought that the melting pot Americanization process worked just fine so long as it is not overwhelmed with too many immigrants. America is unique or nearly so in that you can study to be an American no matter what your origins; that is not true of many civilizations. But multiculturalism is a way of destroying the entire process; the problem is that when you go beyond tolerance to encouragement of disruptive elements, you find yourself disarmed when it comes to defense of civilization vs. barbarism. The barbarians come within the gates: you can civilize them or give in to them. But that has not a lot to do with white vs oriental vs black.
As to my personal credentials why do you ask? If you don't take the trouble to find out to whom you speak, or whether the people you speak are who you think they are, do you really expect personal answers?
Subject: I NEVER KNEW BRITAIN WENT TO SPACE
I NEVER KNEW BRITAIN WENT TO SPACE <http://www.spaceuk.org/>
I was having a drink with my brother the other day when the conversation turned, as it does (with us anyway), to space travel. He told me that in the 70s Britain launched our own satellite but Whitehall, being Whitehall, never mentioned it.
Being somewhat flabbergasted I asked him for a link & here it is:
http://www.spaceuk.org/introduction.htm
What of the Black Knight development? The Black Arrow project was put into hand. Prototypes were built. Then this too was cancelled. A satellite was launched in 1971 with the hardware left over. British Government involvement in space research came effectively to an end at that point. There was to be a Services satellite communication system, Skynet, that relied on US launchers, but that was it.
There are several infuriating aspects to all of this. To produce a missile, and then realise it was the wrong missile. To convert it to a satellite launcher, one that looked to be highly successful, and then to cancel again. And the cancellation took place in the late 60s, when the uses of satellites in TV [the Tokyo Olympics of '64 were the first to be transmitted by satellite], telephone communications, weather observation were becoming apparent and obvious.
I like the understatement about several infuriating aspects. To be fair to Whitehall this programme was always aimed at giving us a nuclear capacity against the USSR. The problem with this (well the technological problem) is that Britain is a geographically small country 4 minutes missile time from Russia (the US is 15). To make a retaliatory strike, since there is no way a launch could be made before theirs got here, would require serious numbers of hardened silos spread around our island, some of which would inevitably be near cities. Polaris, when it became available, was a better option. Of course if you regard the technological future of humanity as important then it is still well worth doing.
Amazing the things that don't get reported.
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Subject: Re: Dread
I am skeptical of the "no recoil" claim. Recoil might be reduced by the absence of muzzle blast, but you're still putting mass downrange, and Newton says, at those velocities, there'll still be significant recoil.
Joe Veazey
I expect so: the third law holds so far as I know.
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Subject: Mozilla notes
Dear Dr Pournelle, As various people have predicted, notably Rick Hellewell, as Firefox became more popular the number of known exploits has increased. Someone's girlfriend or similar leaked a proof-of-concept exploit under investigation by a white hat team to the trade press, and as a result the Mozilla foundation have scrambled to issue a quick fix.
This one is particularly dangerous - Secunia has for the first time issued its highest degree of criticality to a Mozilla vulnerability. It potentially hijacks the security update process. There have been no exploits in the wild - yet - of "MFSA 2005-42 Code execution via javascript: IconURL". A history of the security vulnerabilities is available at
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html#Mozilla
- Note that at this writing this most recent vulnerability has no fix, although Mozilla has been able to take some steps. On past history there will be an update within days. Keep examining the above link if need be.
Regards, TC
-- Terry Cole System Administrator, OU Physics tcole@physics.otago.ac.nz tel: 64 3 4797801
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Subject: IMPORTANT - Firefox Updates, Microsoft Spam Fighters, SpamCapital in Florida
Dr. Pournelle:
- An update to Firefox (to version 1.04) is now available to fix two 'extremely critical' vulnerabilities. Firefox users should immediately apply the update. They can do this by clicking the 'red arrow' that is displayed (rather obscurely, I think) in the upper right corner of the Firefox window.
It is noted that Firefox doesn't emphasize, IMHO, the availability of updates. Some browsers (and add-ins, like the Maxthon add-in for IE, which has tabbed browsing and groups) will tell you about an uninstalled update when you start the program. Although FireFox has an option in the Tools menu to check for updates, it is not an automatic check. You don't get an alert unless you manually click that "update" button (or if you happen to notice the red arrow in the screen corner).
Microsoft assisted in the 'bust' of a spam ring based in Boston. (Readers can find info in their favorite news site.)
A report from an South Florida paper indicates that 25% of the top 180 spammers are based in Florida. (Boca Raton seems to be the 'spam capitol'.) And the reduction in spam last fall seems to be due to the series of hurricanes that hit Florida during that time. Story is here: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-sbspammain08may08,0,7702631.story?page=1&coll=sfla-news-sfla ("TinyUrl" is http://tinyurl.com/8tmmn -- no funny business apparent at the TinyUrl site).
Hope you are enjoying your trip, TSA notwithstanding.
Regards, Rick Hellewell
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