Month: January 2005

Score another for Niven & Pournelle

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As you may know, these are the guys who wrote a novel about a comet-strike disaster – before anyone had a notion that such a strike might have killed off the dinosaurs, and more than 20 years before observations of comet strikes on Jupiter pretty much confirmed their predictions of its effects. (Update: I’m speaking of Lucifer’s Hammer)

Now a new study suggests that another of their works (with Michael Flynn), Fallen Angels, is much closer to the truth than one might have assumed when it first came out. In the novel, the ecofanatics prevail, the use of technology and particularly energy is severely restricted, and the emission of greenhouse gases by human activity is successfully curtailed – and as a result, a new ice age grips the Earth, with parts of the US and most of Canada covered by thick sheets of ice.

According to the article, “there is evidence that changes in solar radiation and greenhouse gas concentrations should have driven the Earth towards glacial conditions over the last few thousand years. “, but such a disaster was prevented by the release of those dreaded greenhouse gases by humans over the last 8000 years.

Now those favoring severe restrictions on the use of energy have spent the last couple of years insisting that the evidence for global climate change is pretty rock-solid and leaping from there to the notion that their favored restrictions need to be enacted without delay to head off disaster, without ever pausing to consider the question of whether human-caused climate change represents a degradation or an improvement of the environment. If it’s caused by humans, and especially if it’s caused by humans acting to solve their own problems and make their own lives better instead of wagging their tails and waiting for their betters to give them what they need, then it must be bad. Now this assumption that H. Sapiens and all his works are a blight upon the Earth is receiving closer scrutiny, and so far it’s not looking good for the prosecution.

I highly recommend you read both novels if you haven’t already. It’s nice to read stories and writings by people who believe that human beings using their minds and building progressively more powerful tools for solving their problems is fundamentally a good and noble activity rather than a desecration of some mythical benevolent “nature”.

The Long Nose of the Law

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Over at the The Volokh Conspiracy Orin Kerr notes that the Supreme Court has reaffirmed that getting sniffed by a police dog does not constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment. I wonder how this will play out if technology replaces the dogs?

There exists an emerging class of chemical detectors for which the best description is artificial noses. Like biological noses, these devices can detect a wide range of compounds wafting in the air. Some designs even use biological receptors embedded in microchips. Within 10 years or so these detectors will reach the level of sensitivity of a dog’s nose and they will fit in a handheld unit. Unlike a dog, these devices will be able to tell us exactly what they detected and in what amounts.

Let’s call these devices eSniffers. Their existence raises all kinds of interesting legal and cultural questions. For example, at what point does the use of an eSniffer become a search under the Fourth Amendment?

Read more

Those That Forget History….

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More than 10 years ago, the Israel and the PLO worked out the Oslo Accords. This was an agreement where Israel was to allow the Palestinians to form armed internal police forces, which were then supposed to confiscate weapons and forcibly disband terrorist cells. The PLO itself, on the verge of achieving a Palestinian state, would disband. Israel would relinquish some of the territory that had been seized for Jewish settlements, and the Palestinians would hold free and fair elections in order to form a legitimate government instead of being run by a bunch of terrorist organizations.

This was pretty much just the first steps, though. The idea was to eventually have a nation called Palestine which would rule its own territory and leave the Israelis alone, while Israel returned the favor.

A few of the first steps were actually completed. Some of the Jewish settlements were bulldozed and the land was returned to the Palestinians. The Palestinians were allowed to form armed internal security forces. Next step was elections.

Didn’t happen. The newly armed secruity forces recruited and armed many more gunmen than they said they would, many of them murderous terrorists. Of course, the first thing these guys wanted to do was use their shiny new AK’s and murder even more people.

And do you think that the “police” even tried to shut the PLO down or arrest terrorists? Don’t make me laugh.

I’m reminded of this painful episode of naivete on the part of the Israelis because of this news item. The terrorist organization Hamas is claiming that they’ll agree to a “truce” if Israel releases thousands of Palestinian prisoners. They also want the Israelis to redeploy their troops away from Gaza. Don’t worry about Jewish civilians after the army pulls out, Hamas says, because they’ll station Palestinian police forces in order to protect them.

Does anyone else see a pattern here? Or is it just me?

UPDATE
Francis Porretto says that calling a truce simply to gather strength for further hostilities is a favored Islamic tactic.

Perspective

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According to this news story, a high raking al-Queda operative has confessed to the bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad. He also claims that al-Queda has constructed about 75% of the car bombs that have been used in Baghdad.

AQ has been suffering from a loss of prestige so far as radical, murderous Islamo-Fascist terrorist groups go. This is probably some has-been blowing smoke to puff up his sense of importance. Sort of like those copycat serial killers who confess to crimes they didn’t commit so the cops will think they’re such big deals.

Still, he is a mover and shaker in AQ. There’s also no doubt that he’s one of the bad guys, a murderous punk with innocent blood on his hands. And it’s beyond question that he was captured in Iraq while up to no good.

But that doesn’t mean anything, right? It’s like all of those angry op-eds in the NYT told us. Saddam had nothing to do with terrorism, invading Iraq isn’t really attacking international terrorism, and the current attacks in Iraq are conducted by local “freedom fighters” trying to defend their homes without support from foreign terrorists desperate to prevent the formation of an Arab democracy.

So what was this al-Queda guy doing there? Uh…He was on vacation!

I hear that he was thinking of going to Disneyworld instead, but he looked like a geek in those mouse ears.

The Perspective of Academia

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An anecdote for Ralf and one not unrelated to Rummel’s latest: My husband was small talking Christmas family news with a colleague; he mentioned our oldest daughter spends every other Christmas in Germany with her husband’s parents. His colleague responded that her choice of husband must have made us happy. He replied that we did, indeed, like her choice very much. Then, his colleague made herself clearer: “You must have been really afraid she’d marry a Texan.” My husband who grew up in a small Texas town twenty miles away and is deeply immersed in a broad and tightly knit Czech-Texan family was a little taken aback. She did not seem to be joking–it is possible he misread her. But she seemed serious enough that he didn’t respond that our only complaint was that our son-in-law brought German politics with him and has not been disabused of these while living in cobalt Austin. (She and her husband bought a house and raised their children in France – where the children now live. Not all that many careers leave us free to live on one continent and get paid on another.)