View 422 July 10 - 16, 2006 (original) (raw)
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Friday, July 14, 2006
Bastille Day
On July 14 day I usually write an exposition on just what happened on Bastille Day: seven prisoners, all aristocrats, were liberated. Four forgers, two madmen, and a young man who had challenged the best swordsman in Paris to a duel, and had been locked up by the king at the request of the lad's father. The forgers vanished. The madmen were put into the common madhouse. The young aristocrat took a revolutionary name, joined the liberation forces, and was later beheaded during the Terror. The garrison of the Bastille consisted of retired soldiers, many of them missing limbs, and were as much waiters and attendants as guards, since the Bastille contained only aristocrats who were confined in relative comfort. The garrison was slaughtered and their heads put on pikes.
The Revolution brought in a new vision of man and government. Before it was over, French armies had ended the Venetian Republic, the oldest republic in history. The Revolution ended when Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, failed to incorporate all of Europe into a new Empire. Revolutions often have unintended consequences. Few people seem to learn anything other than "Next time for sure."
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The war in the Middle East continues. The wisdom of US involvement in that war -- in the territorial disputes of Europe -- is not often debated. Washington's advice was to avoid entangling alliances and avoid involvement in the territorial disputes of Europe.
When Soviet Russia threatened the world, containment made sense: don't let them expand, and eventually they will collapse. That is what happened. Our leadership of that Cold War was an exception to our historic policy of "We are a friend of Liberty everywhere, but the guardians only of our own," because guarding our liberty required attention to Europe and other places. It is not clear that there is any credible threat to our liberty now.
We are in Iraq, and leaving precipitously would be a disaster; but should we not rethink the whole notion of entangling alliances and involvement in overseas territorial disputes? After the fall of the Bastille, the French revolutionaries set forth on the noble task of carrying Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity across Europe on the points of their bayonets. That ended at Waterloo when the Guard died rather than surrender. (Let those who think the French cowardly contemplate that.) As Wellington said, Waterloo was a near run thing, the nearest run thing you ever did see.
The United States hoped to carry democracy across the Middle East on the barrels of our Abrams tanks. We do not yet know how that will end.
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Israel is not paying the Danegeld.
Where did the missile that hit Haifa come from? There's some evidence that it was fired from Iran. Is Israel now at war with Iran? Hezbollah is a pretty well wholly owned subsidiary of Iran, and Iran has control over them. I repeat: is Israel now at war with Iran?
The Israelis are certainly at war with Lebanon.
What will happen with the many thousands of Americans in Lebanon? Will the Navy be sent in to extract them? If Israel is blockading Lebanon, will they consider American intervention to rescue US citizens from a war zone an intrusion on their blockade? One can hope we are not in for another Liberty incident. ( http://www.ussliberty.org/ ; http://www.nsa.gov/liberty/ )
Hezbollah decided to stir the hornet's nest. They hope to get a full jihad, another Arab-Israeli war. Why they think that will produce a different result this time is actually quite clear if you understand the way they think. Allah could change it all in a day. You need only believe hard enough and be willing to make personal sacrifices, and all will come out right.
The Shah understood much of this and was bringing Iran into the modern world through his White Revolution. Such actions take time. Violent revolution generally brings disorder and Chaos. Jimmy Carter didn't understand any of that (what do they teach in political science at the Naval Academy, anyway? Not history, clearly.) and encouraged the overthrow of the Shah. We reap the rewards of what Jimmy Carter sowed. Alas, Madeleine Albright has no greater understanding of the world.
We can now look forward to CNN and scene after scene of crying children, wailing policemen, and screaming victims of Israeli air power. And we may be sure that at some point Jimmy Carter will offer his services in bring peace to the Middle East.
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I was reminded the other day of Ray Bradbury's comment on how to get to Alpha Centauri: do nothing, and wait about a hundred years. If we bankrupt ourselves we might be able to get a generation ship built, which would get there eventually to be greeted by those who didn't start for another hundred years.
The same thing is true for global warming, of course. Not that we should do nothing. We should continue to try to understand what is happening. But if we spend a great deal of money on remedies, even if we guess right on which direction we are headed and what remedies we can take, we will find that before the situation becomes serious there will be a number of far better, cheaper, and more effective remedies which may include large scale efforts like big mirrors in space and moving industries into orbital factories.
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Dr. Ernoehazy sends this gem:
That Hockey Stick
Looks like it broke.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjA3ZmUzY2MxYjJiMjg0YjQ0ZDEzYjViYmY3NDJjNjM=
for commentary and a link to the statistician's report.
That's gonna sting.
*g*
cordially, Bill
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From another conference:
Einstein's affairs should surprise no one, says Desmond Morris. It is all in the genius's genes
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Pennsylvania Town Enacts Strict Illegal Immigration Ordinance
Friday , July 14, 2006
HAZLETON, Pa. - Illegal immigrants seeking to make a home in this northeastern Pennsylvania city could face barriers to finding a home and job after the city council passed one of the nation's strictest ordinances to fight illegal immigration.
City documents would be printed in English, landlords would face $1,000 fines for each illegal immigrant found renting their properties and business who employ illegal immigrants wouldn't be granted licenses.
The ordinance, designed to make the city one of the most hostile in the country for illegal immigrants, passed on a 4-to-1 vote after two hours of passionate debate.
"The illegal citizens, I would recommend they leave," said Mayor Lou Barletta, who said he wore a bulletproof vest to the vote as a precaution because the issue was emotionally charged.
Outside City Hall, about people gathered with opponents of the measure, some with signs that read "Bias," separated by a line of police from supporters, some waving American flags.
Anna Arias asked the council, "Are any of us ready to support U.S. citizens born of someone who is undocumented?" Several people in the audience responded, "Yes!"
She warned the council that approving the ordinance would make Hazleton "the first Nazi city in the country."
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We use AIM for conferencing for board meetings of the Heinlein Society. I try to turn every bit of the damned thing off without uninstalling it, but it keeps sending me updates to a thing called Triton which acts as a worm to eat cycles and slow down my system. Is there any way I can stay able to do AIM conferencing once a month and get rid of this horror for the rest of the month, or must I uninstall every trace of it? Must I resign from that board because I just can't stand this any longer?
I have a great deal of mail on this. I'll put it together when I get a chance. Thanks. For the meantime I had to go into safe mode, but I uninstalled the whole darned thing. It speeded up my system something wonderful. It no longer takes 20 seconds to open mail for forward in Outlook, and I no longer have this Trojan demanding that I install updates to it.
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GLOBAL BUSINESS
Lifeline From China A visit to bustling Dandong shows why economic sanctions against North Korea may not work
After North Korea's July 4 fireworks -- seven missile tests launched toward Japan -- it would be easy to assume that the hermit kingdom is more isolated than ever. Don't tell that to the residents of Dandong, a bustling border town in northeastern China.
The city of 800,000, a gritty combination of chaos and glitz, is booming in large part because of thriving trade with North Korea. Streets are lined with small guesthouses catering to North Koreans, while restaurants serve up Korean specialties such as cold noodle soup and spicy kimchi. And just hours after the missiles flew, hundreds of trucks resumed their daily parade across the Friendship Bridge, the main passage over the Yalu River dividing the two countries.
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JULY 14, 2006 Technology
Friendster's Patent Possibilities Social-networking upstarts have stolen its lead, but the site now may have a potent legal weapon at its command
Friendster.com may be losing some of its "friends" to upstart MySpace.com. But the old-school social-networking site just got something that MySpace lacks: a patent on�you guessed it�social networking.
The patent, issued on June 27, refers to a "system, method, and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks." While that's pretty general, it certainly covers the activities of the dozens of other social-networking Web sites that have sprung up since Friendster filed for the patent in June, 2003 (see BusinessWeek.com, 12/12/05, "The MySpace Generation").
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Valerie Plame's twins had nothing to do with her reassignment from overseas to domestic analysis?
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I have uninstalled AIM. That seems to have speeded up my system.
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JULY 14, 2006
Innovation
The Dyson School: Feel Free to Fail British style maven James Dyson plans to open a free school where teenagers can experiment with hands-on projects and problem-solving design
Before design evangelist James Dyson invented the bagless vacuum cleaner, he swept through 5,126 iterations that didn't work. This freedom to fail, he believes, is missing from the public education system. So, on July 10, Dyson announced plans to build the Dyson School of Design Innovation, a $40.4 million project�funded equally by the James Dyson Foundation and the British government�that will encourage teens to explore engineering through hands-on projects and relationships with mentors in the field.
Set to open in the fall of 2008, the school will provide a free education to 2,500 students aged 16 to 18 in and around Bath, Somerset, where Dyson got his start. It will also conduct weeklong residencies and other enrichment programs for children ages 13 to 16 to nurture an interest in design and engineering.
The latter group, Dyson believes, gets a bad rap among students. "We graduated 24,000 engineers last year," Dyson says with urgency. "Compare that to 300,000 coming out of China and 450,000 coming out of India." For businesses hungry for engineering talent, that's a crisis. That's why companies like Airbus, Rolls Royce, and Williams F1 have already pledged their support in the form of prototypes, guest teachers, and student internships.
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And now to run errands and get some writing done.
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Another thousand words on Inferno II. I have finished some scenes and need to discuss this with Niven before I can go further. I think I'll turn to Mamelukes now.
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