It's been a busy day

We bought Miss D. a new-to-her used car yesterday, and spent the morning getting it emissions-tested, registered and licensed, as well as running other errands.  This evening we went for a walk ahead of the oncoming storm front.  Both of us have suffered injuries that act as internal barometers for atmospheric pressure changes, so it was painful, but a relief to get moving for a bit.  We met a little kitten on the way, who reminded us very much of our own recently-acquired cat.  She played happily with us, ran halfway up a tree, chased her own shadow . . . very kittenish, and a lot of fun.

My latest book is performing very differently from my first two SF novels.  Sales are much slower than I'm used to, but steady, and I suspect I'll see more of them when the first reviews begin appearing on Amazon.  The genres in which this book has been published - criminology and memoir, both non-fiction - are much slower-moving than novels.  Even at the slow pace of sales, I'm well up in the top 20 best-sellers in criminology, in both e-book and print sales.  In memoir, I'm much lower down in the e-book rankings, and I don't feature at all in print yet - but it's early days.

I'll put up more posts tomorrow morning.  To keep you going until then, here's a video clip that confuses me somewhat.  See what you think.

The man dribbles a small ball into the path of a car, deliberately obstructing traffic;  then he gets hit on the head by a traffic pole, but it can't possibly hurt him as badly as he's making it out to be (I've been hit by those poles myself, and they're more of a tap than a blow).  I think he's playing for sympathy, or perhaps planning a lawsuit.  After lying there, apparently deliberately, it seems the driver of the car also thinks he's faking it, loses patience with him, and runs over him.  As far as I'm concerned, he asked for it all . . . but then, I can be hard-hearted with idiots.  What do you think?

Peter

Making yourself drunk - without booze???

I was surprised to read of a man who made himself drunk through an internal disorder.  NPR reports:

This medical case may give a whole new meaning to the phrase "beer gut."

A 61-year-old man — with a history of home-brewing — stumbled into a Texas emergency room complaining of dizziness. Nurses ran a Breathalyzer test. And sure enough, the man's blood alcohol concentration was a whopping 0.37 percent, or almost five times the legal limit for driving in Texas.

There was just one hitch: The man said that he hadn't touched a drop of alcohol that day.

. . .

Other medical professionals chalked up the man's problem to "closet drinking." But Cordell and Dr. Justin McCarthy, a gastroenterologist in Lubbock, wanted to figure out what was really going on.

So the team searched the man's belongings for liquor and then isolated him in a hospital room for 24 hours. Throughout the day, he ate carbohydrate-rich foods, and the doctors periodically checked his blood for alcohol. At one point, it rose 0.12 percent.

Eventually, McCarthy and Cordell pinpointed the culprit: an overabundance of brewer's yeast in his gut.

That's right, folks. According to Cordell and McCarthy, the man's intestinal tract was acting like his own internal brewery.

There's more at the link, including details of how the problem occurred.

I can understand that if the man was exposed to large quantities of brewer's yeast (which he would have been through his home-brewing activities) he could, indeed, have developed an internal reaction to it.  Outlandish though the incident may sound, it's entirely feasible.

Hmm . . . If I could figure out how to 'graft' this yeast infection into inmates' stomachs in prison, I could render them capable of internally producing their own 'pruno' or 'hooch' to become permanently drunk!  I sense a business opportunity here . . .





Peter

Bombing a boat

The US Air Force has released a series of spectacular photographs of a speedboat target being struck by a GBU-10 Paveway II 2,000-pound laser-guided bomb in the Gulf of Mexico.

The bomb was inert, of course - this was a test of its guidance capabilities against a small, fast-moving maritime target, rather than its explosive force.

Military1.com reports:

Since its introduction to the Air Force in 1986, the B-1B Lancer has been the backbone of the bomber fleet because of its speed, payload and continuously upgraded capabilities.

On Sept. 4, a single B-1 from the 337th Test and Evaluation Squadron took off from Dyess Air Force Base, with the Gulf of Mexico as its destination.

The solo B-1, alongside other bomber and fighter aircraft, participated in a maritime tactics development and evaluation, or TD&E, with the goal of improving and better understanding the aircraft's capabilities.

During the evaluations, the B-1 dropped a total of six munitions to include a laser guided 500-pound bomb GBU-54, as well as 500 and 2,000-pound joint direct attack munitions.

"Many of the dynamic targeting skills we've refined over the past decade on land are directly applicable in the maritime environment," said Capt. Alicia Datzman, 337th Tactics and Evaluation Squadron chief of weapons and tactics. "This is the perfect opportunity to validate and refine these tactics."

"This evaluation solidifies what our crew members have already known, 'We can strike surface targets,'" said Lt. Col. Alejandro Gomez, 337th TES special projects officer. "The knowledge we gain from these events gives combatant commanders assurance that we can be called upon to complete the mission."

The B-1's role in the tactics development and evaluation was to detect, target and engage small boats using currently fielded and available weapons, released in all weather conditions.

Gomez said that B-1s are also prime aircraft, capable of protecting important assets at sea and patrolling allied shipping lanes, because of its speed and ability to stay in the air longer than most aircraft.

There's more at the link.

I've already seen several negative comments by various folks complaining that a 2,000-pound bomb is the last thing you want to drop on a small, fast target, being too big, too expensive, and wasteful of a large, complex aircraft that could be better used for other purposes.  I think such comments are missing the point.  This was designated as an evaluation exercise, to see what can be done if necessary.  It wasn't implementing a defined operational doctrine.  I'm here to tell you, in war, there are times when you use whatever you can get your hands on to do whatever job needs doing.  If that means 'using a sledgehammer to crack a nut', it's the nut's hard luck.  Sometimes you can't wait for the most appropriate tool for the job to arrive on the scene.

In that scenario, it's good to know that the B-1 can be used to interdict small, fast maritime targets like this.  It probably wouldn't use a 2,000-pound bomb on such a target if smaller weapons were available, but it's nice to know that in an emergency, it can do so.  Furthermore, the B-1 can carry up to 80 500-pound bombs.  If it carries that many GBU-12 guided bombs, think of the carnage just one such aircraft could wreak among a swarm of (say) Iranian Revolutionary Guard motor-boats trying to block the Straits of Hormuz.  All I can say is, I wouldn't like to be aboard one of them . . .





Peter

Wisdom from Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, has always been something of a maverick among successful businessmen.  I have a lot of respect for him.  He started a business with and from nothing, and has built it into what is today one of the most successful operations of its kind in the world.  A lot of people are envious and/or jealous and/or afraid of his success, and try to tear him down at any and every opportunity, but he keeps right on truckin' and doing what he does best.

Two articles have just been published containing his quotes and observations.  They're excellent food for thought.  The first is 'The 20 Smartest Things Jeff Bezos Has Ever Said', at The Motley Fool.  Here's an excerpt.

1. "All businesses need to be young forever. If your customer base ages with you, you're Woolworth's."

4. "If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away."

5. "We've had three big ideas at Amazon that we've stuck with for 18 years, and they're the reason we're successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient."

9. "In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts."

12. "We innovate by starting with the customer and working backwards. That becomes the touchstone for how we invent."

There's more at the link.

The second article, at Geekwire, is about an interview with Mr. Bezos:  'Jeff Bezos explains why Amazon doesn’t really care about its competitors'.

“If you have a customer-centric culture, that cures a lot of ills ... Let’s say you’re the leader in a particular arena, if you’re competitor-focused and you’re already the leader, then where does your energy come from? Whereas, if you’re customer focused, and you’re already the leader, customers are never satisfied.”

He continues, “If you’re customer-focused, you’re always waking up wondering, how can we make that customer say, wow? We want to impress our customers — we want them to say, wow. That kind of divine discontent comes from observing customers and noticing that things can always be better.”

. . .

“I don’t think that you can invent on behalf of customers unless you’re willing to think long-term, because a lot of invention doesn’t work. If you’re going to invent, it means you’re going to experiment, and if you’re going to experiment, you’re going to fail, and if you’re going to fail, you have to think long term.”

Again, more at the link, including the full 22-minute televised interview.

Both articles are highly recommended reading, particularly for those working in the business world, or who are (like me) self-employed or wanting to be that way.

Peter

“Walls, Wire, Bars and Souls” is now available

Thanks for being patient with me through all the long-drawn-out preparations to publish my memoir of prison chaplaincy.

"Walls, Wire, Bars and Souls" is now available at Amazon.com.  (If you'd like to 'try before you buy', you can 'look inside the book' to read the first 21 pages of the Kindle edition - click on the cover image at the link to see them.  That'll give you a reasonable idea what it's about.)

As always, no Digital Rights Management (DRM) has been imposed on the Kindle edition.  For those who don't have Kindle e-book readers or software, the lack of DRM means that you can easily convert the file into whatever format you choose.  The latest version of Calibre (which is free to download) will convert Amazon's MOBI file into EPUB (used by Barnes and Noble's NOOK reader) or any of several other formats of your choice.  I use it myself as a conversion tool - it's very useful.

I'm really on tenterhooks about this book, hoping that it'll succeed in the marketplace.  The subject is very important to me, and I've long been unhappy about how few books portray the reality of life behind bars.  Those by current and former inmates tend to dramatize and glorify their side of the story, and demonize prison authorities (mostly unfairly).  Those by former guards or executives go to the opposite extreme.  I haven't yet found a book that tries to look at both sides of the story;  so that's the book I've tried to write.  It's as fair, honest and balanced as I know how to make it.

I hope and pray 'Walls, Wire, Bars and Souls' succeeds in getting more people interested in one of the largest single social issues confronting the USA today.  We're spending as much, if not more, on incarcerating convicts and the criminal justice system as we are on national defense - and much of it is wasted or unnecessary expenditure.  If we don't reform the system soon, it's going to grow into an unmanageable, self-perpetuating monstrosity.  I hope my book will contribute to finding a solution.

As always, I'll be very grateful if you'll please spread the word about the book's availability.  Those of you who have your own blogs or social media pages, please mention it to your readers, if you'd be so kind.  Also, if you purchase a copy, please, please leave a review on Amazon.com!  That's vitally important to inform other potential readers about what to expect.

Thanks to many of you for your encouragement and support during the writing of this book.  A lot of my life has gone into it.  I hope and pray it bears good fruit.

Peter

Would you drink out of a bottle made from sewage?

A news report on the BBC informed me that containers and utensils could now be made out of plastic produced from raw human and animal sewage.  The thought alone was nauseating, but it led me to do an Internet search.  That produced several articles about this new technology.  Even though the concept is off-putting (to put it mildly!), I can see how it would help to greatly reduce plastic waste fill.

Here's a video clip from one of the founders of the company concerned, demonstrating how the process works.  I actually found it quite interesting, despite the subject matter.

I daresay we'll see a lot more of this sort of technology in future - and if we go into space, where landfills are few and far between and raw materials aren't easily gathered, it'll have to be an integral part of waste management.

Peter

Training's supposed to hurt, but . . .

. . . I didn't think it was supposed to hurt the assistant - at least, not like this!

Peter

The Moon in the round - and round, and round . . .

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been looping around and around the Moon since 2009.  Now the agency has released this video loop, compiled from who knows how many individual photographs, showing the entire surface of the Moon, including the 'dark side' previously seen only by astronauts.  As Geekquinox explains:

The moon really does rotate, even though it doesn't look like it from here. Because the moon is 'tidally locked' to the Earth, that means that it always has one face pointed towards us. However, it also means that the time it takes to rotate once is the same as the time it takes to go around the Earth — 27 days.

There's more at the link.  Here's the video.  I highly recommend watching it in full-screen mode.

I can remember the Moon landings very clearly.  I'd expected there to be colonies on the Moon by now, perhaps even a tourist resort or two.  I guess we dropped the ball on that one . . . but not to worry.  China plans to have its astronauts on the moon within a year or two.

Peter

Feeling unsteady on your feet?

I've just learned that it may be for reasons other than your balance.  According to Science World Report:

Researchers from the University of Leeds revealed that  the Earth's center spins at a faster pace in an eastward direction while the outer core, which is made up of molten iron, spins at a slower pace in a westward direction. This study is the first to link the way the inner core spins to the behavior of the outer core.

"The link is simply explained in terms of equal and opposite action", explained Dr Philip Livermore, of the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. "The magnetic field pushes eastwards on the inner core, causing it to spin faster than the Earth, but it also pushes in the opposite direction in the liquid outer core, which creates a westward motion."

There's more at the link.

So the Earth's inner core revolves one way, the outer core revolves the opposite way, and the surface of the planet revolves in the same direction as the inner core - but at a different speed.

Confused yet?  (Not to mention unbalanced!)





Peter

A temporary caution about my new book

Friends, I know many of you are waiting for the release of my prison chaplaincy memoir, which is in progress right now.  However, I'd like to ask you to please be patient for a few days longer, while I get all the bugs ironed out.

I've just spent four hours (!!!) trying to upload a 'clean' copy to Amazon's Kindle store.  It's been a very frustrating exercise, even using their recommended word processing software.  Using their preview mode reveals that tabs end up zooming across more than half the page;  carefully aligned text isn't;  italics disappear where they're wanted and appear where they're not;  and my carefully crafted and hot-linked end-notes appear to have minds of their own!  This book's formatting requirements are far more complex than my first two novels, and as a result it's much more difficult to get it uploaded correctly.  (Also, let's be honest:  the Kindle format works very well for novels and simple formatting, but it's not yet at a point where it can handle greater complexity very well.  AFAIK, no e-book format has yet reached that level of sophistication.)

I think I've got things roughly sorted out, after no less than ten cycles (so far, this morning) of correction and uploads, but I'm not yet sure.  I've also got to get the print edition loaded on CreateSpace, and working correctly on that platform.  Therefore, even if you see the new book appear on Amazon.com, please be aware that there may be formatting problems and other issues right now.  I'm in the process of dealing with them, but I have to actually have Amazon's converted Kindle file in my hot little hands to see what mistakes it generates, before I can fix them.  That's very frustrating, but there's no other way to do it right now.

Please hold off on buying the book for a few days.  I'll officially launch it over the weekend, once I've got all my ducks in a nicely formatted row.  Look for an announcement on this blog at that time.  (Amazon will also inform any early purchasers that there's a newer version of the book available for download, so they won't lose out - but I'd as soon you avoided that frustration!)

Thanks muchly.

Peter

Pearl Harbor and the Costa Concordia salvage operation

I'm sure most people aren't aware of it, but there's a link between the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the salvage of the Costa Concordia cruise liner currently in progress.

The salvors are using a technique known as parbuckling or parbuckle salvage, where lines are fastened to and around a ship and used to haul her upright.  Prior to the current operation, the largest ship recovered from the seabed using this technique was the battleship USS Oklahoma, sunk at Pearl Harbor.  She was righted in 1943 using the parbuckling technique (shown below).

Compare the parbuckling cables above (leading to winches ashore) to those attached to the Costa Concordia, below, which lead to a steel framework sunk into the seabed, and from there to tugs and winches to pull her upright.

Here's a series of pictures of salvage work on USS Oklahoma and USS Utah at Pearl Harbor during World War II.  I recommend watching it in full-screen mode.  After the former was hauled upright, cofferdams were built around her to permit repairs to be made to her hull, restoring her watertight integrity.  Refloated, she was taken into dry dock.  Parbuckling was also attempted on the latter vessel, but failed when the ship slid along the seabed rather than turn upright.  She was abandoned in place, and still lies there.  The music is the Washington Post March by John Philip Sousa.

More photographs of the salvage of USS Oklahoma may be found here.

The end of USS Oklahoma was both dramatic and very dangerous.  Wikipedia reports:

In May 1947, a two-tug towing operation began to move the hull of the Oklahoma from Pearl Harbor to the scrapyard in San Francisco Bay. However, disaster struck on 17 May when the ships entered a storm more than 500 miles from Hawaii. The tug Hercules put her searchlight on the former battleship, revealing that she had begun listing heavily. After radioing the naval base at Pearl Harbor, both tugs were instructed to turn around and head back to port. But suddenly, without warning, the Hercules was pulled back past the Monarch, which was being dragged backwards at 15 knots herself. The Oklahoma had began to sink straight down causing water to swamp the sterns of both tugs.

Fortuitously both tug skippers, Kelly Sprague of the Hercules and George Anderson of the Monarch, had loosened their cable drums which connected the 1,400 feet tow lines to the Oklahoma. As the battleship rapidly sank, the line from the Monarch quickly played out releasing the tug. However the Hercules' cables didn't release until the last possible moment, leaving her tossing and pitching above the grave of the sunken Oklahoma.

I imagine that must have been a pretty scary experience for the crews of the tugs!

Here's a video report about a veteran of USS Oklahoma and his recollections of her sinking.

May all who died aboard her, and the other ships targeted at Pearl Harbor, rest in peace:  and may the same grace be granted to the dead of the Costa Concordia.

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  This video clip shows a time-lapse portrayal of the righting of the Costa Concordia.  From about the 1m.5sec. mark, you can see a series of shots of the ship upright in the water, including some focusing on her starboard side, which has been underwater and pressed against a rocky outcrop since she sank.  You can see how the massive weight of the ship, pressing down on the rock, has actually conformed her outer hull to the shape of the seabed.  That demonstrates what a difficult job this salvage has been (and will continue to be).

The return of the 'Freedom Fighter'?

Many readers will recall the Northrop F-5A/B of the 1960's, dubbed the 'Freedom Fighter', and its further developed siblings, the F-5E/F Tiger II of the 1970's.  They were designed as lightweight, low-cost fighter-bombers, to be supplied to US allies who lacked the technological infrastructure to operate higher-performance, more complex aircraft, or which could not afford them.  They were an extremely successful design, and many upgraded examples are still flying in the air forces of Botswana, Brazil, Iran, Kenya, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan and elsewhere.  The trainer version of the aircraft, known as the T-38 Talon, is still the USAF's only dedicated supersonic training aircraft.

Here's a 1960's promotional film from Northrop highlighting the F-5A's capabilities.

Other companies tried to produce low-cost, simple combat aircraft, with some success.  Cessna developed its T-37 Tweet trainer into the A-37 Dragonfly light strike aircraft, which saw service during the Vietnam War.  It was later exported to several countries.  The video clip below shows a former South Vietnamese Air Force A-37, filmed at an air show in New Zealand.

It looks like these lightweight, simple strike aircraft are about to be joined by a modern successor.  Textron Corp., parent company of Cessna and Bell Helicopter, has partnered with Airland Enterprises to develop - at their own expense - a new lightweight strike aircraft that can also be used for 'homeland security'-type missions.

They're calling it the Scorpion - a name that will be familiar to aviation enthusiasts from the late 1940's and 1950's.  Its internal bay will have a capacity of up to 3,000 pounds of weapons and/or sensors and/or fuel, plus up to 6,200 pounds on six underwing stations.

However, it'll almost certainly never carry that much in total - its empty weight is given as 11,800 pounds, and its maximum takeoff weight at 21,250 pounds, meaning it can carry a maximum payload of 9,450 pounds, including pilot(s), fuel, weapons, any special sensors or guidance pods, etc.  It'll probably carry 2,000 to 4,000 pounds of ordnance on typical missions.  Nevertheless, this is a significant capability, given modern precision-guided weapons.  For example, if it carries the 250lb. Small Diameter Bomb, it could easily load eight to twelve of them, with a high probability of most of them hitting their targets.  It's been portrayed with sensor turrets front and rear (see below), meaning it could guide such weapons to their targets itself if needed, or designate targets for weapons dropped by other aircraft.

A news report cited at the company's Web site had this to say:

It takes a gutsy move for a company to pitch a brand new, clean-sheet aircraft to the Pentagon for a set of requirements it has not even said it wants, and to present this idea while defense spending in the U.S. faces massive cuts.

But, that is exactly what a newly formed joint venture between Textron and a young company—AirLand Enterprises, formed in 2011—is doing. Textron is best known for its Cessna business jets and turboprops, as well as Bell Helicopter’s long experience with rotorcraft. Its partner, AirLand, however, was formed by a small group of investors, including retired defense officials, to explore a new concept for light attack.

. . .

The Scorpion demonstrator is intended to whet the U.S. Air Force’s appetite with the promise of a low procurement and operating cost. The pitch is for this aircraft, which is optimized for 5-hr. endurance with onboard intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) collectors and weapons, to handle the Air Force’s low-end missions such as U.S.-based interdiction, quick-reaction natural disaster support and air sovereignty patrols. The goal is to field an aircraft capable of operating for less than $3,000 per flying hour; the company declined to cite a target unit cost. By contrast, the Pentagon in June cited the cost per flying hour of the F-16, which currently performs many of these missions, as $24,899.

There's more at the link.

This is a very interesting development.  No price for the aircraft has yet been revealed, but the very successful single-engined turboprop Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano is available for $10-$12 million apiece, depending on sensor and avionics fit.  If the Scorpion uses commercially available components and engines (and economical 4,000lb.-class turbofan engines are commonplace on larger executive jets), it could conceivably come in at not much higher than that price level - perhaps $15 million for an adequately-equipped aircraft, or up to $20 million for a really well-equipped one with lots of electronics on board.  It would offer a lot more speed and load capacity than the Super Tucano, plus longer endurance and greater versatility.

The operating cost per hour is a very significant motivating factor.  As noted above, if the Scorpion hits its target running cost of no more than $3,000 per hour, that'll be more than eight times less than a contemporary single-engined fighter such as the F-16.  As for fifth-generation aircraft like the F-22 or F-35, there's no comparison at all.  The USAF might well field some of these as light strike aircraft for the Air National Guard, saving a bundle on maintaining its aircrews' flight status, and equip them with avionics that aren't all that dissimilar to the front-line combat aircraft they might fly in time of war.  They would even deploy the same weapons, in many cases.  Furthermore, in operating theaters like Afghanistan, where there are few air defenses to worry about and 'fast movers' are really overkill, these lighter, slower aircraft would come into their own.

It's also interesting to consider the Scorpion as a potential jet trainer.  It's already a two-seater, so altering the cockpit configuration to suit an instructor-and-student combination wouldn't be much of a stretch.  The T-38 Talon trainer was developed out of the F-5B fighter-bomber, and the A-37 Dragonfly was the reverse - a strike aircraft developed from the T-37 Tweet trainer.  Could the process be repeated again with the Scorpion?  This would have significant cost advantages for cash-strapped countries, which could buy Scorpions as both light strike aircraft and advanced trainers.  Aircraft performing the latter function would retain their weapons capability, so that in time of need they could be 'mobilized' as additional combat aircraft.

There's another aspect to consider.  This could easily be developed into an optionally piloted aircraft, so that instead of sending vulnerable aircrew out on a long surveillance mission over potentially hostile terrain or in potentially hazardous conditions, the aircraft could be treated as a UAV and dispatched under the control of a pilot sitting safely on the ground.  I daresay that wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

There are several publicity videos of the new aircraft on YouTube.  Here's one - a time-lapse showing the assembly of the prototype.

I'll be watching the further development of this aircraft with considerable interest.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #729

I've heard of a Dodge Ram in the automotive sense, but I never thought of it as a recommendation in the animal one!  In this idiot's case, perhaps it should have been a command . . .

Peter

Beware of flood-damaged cars

Images of flooded cars in Colorado are all over the news media at the moment.  In the aftermath of the floods there, thousands of vehicles are expected to be written off by insurance companies.

Unfortunately, many owners may not be able to afford to scrap their flood-damaged vehicles.  For their information, here's a useful article from Popular Mechanics on how to start drying out your vehicle.

Also, unscrupulous dealers may re-title flood-damaged vehicles and try to sell them as 'normal' used cars.  There are several tricks they can try.  Another Popular Mechanics article provides hints on how to spot such cars before you get stuck with one.

Peter

The benefits of using the right tool for the job

I wrote yesterday about finally 'taking the plunge' and buying Microsoft Word, instead of using a patchwork of lower-cost (and less-functional) word processors and document editors to prepare my manuscripts.  After two days using Word, I'm forced to admit that I was silly not to have bought it at the beginning of this exercise.  It's far more complex (and complicated) than I need for most of my work, but once you master its intricacies, it can produce better results with cross-referenced manuscripts than anything else I've tried.

I really don't like the 'ribbon bar' interface that was introduced in the 2007 version of Microsoft Office.  I'm sure that when one's used to it, it's very functional:  but I was trained to use earlier versions of Word and similar software (which I did until 2004, after which I could no longer afford to update commercial software on a disability income).  Those 'classic menu' interfaces worked well for me, and I missed them greatly in the new Word - until I came across a truly elegant solution.  An outfit called Addintools has produced a software 'patch' for MS Word that adds the classic menus to the ribbon bar interface, allowing technological dinosaurs like me to use the more modern versions of the software with greater ease.  I installed it this morning, and found it to be exactly what I needed.  It's speeded up the conversion to MS Word of my manuscript by an order of magnitude.  Kudos to Addintools for providing so useful a solution.  I highly recommend it for anyone who prefers the old-style interface.

I've spent the day editing the Kindle edition of my manuscript, ensuring that it's word-for-word identical to the print edition.  That task completed, the final step is to hot-link the Table of Contents and end-notes, then convert the document to EPUB format (to make sure all the hot-links work) and upload it to Amazon.com.  I've also got to do a final edit of the print edition, making sure that there are no widow or orphan paragraphs, and that all text has a good visual 'flow' from page to page.  All being well, the book will go into the final acceptance phase with Amazon.com and CreateSpace by Tuesday.  Watch this space for the publication announcement when everything goes live!

I must admit, I'm in some trepidation about this one.  I've no idea whether it will prove popular with the general reading public.  It's non-fiction, partly a factual account of prisons and convicts, partly a personal memoir of my interaction with them.  I hope very much that it gains wide acceptance, because the subject is important to me, and I'd love to contribute to the ongoing debate on how to improve a criminal justice system that's basically gridlocked right now.  Also, there's a lot of entertainment industry interest in the field right now - think 'Orange Is The New Black' - so that may help gain me added exposure to potential readers.  Here's hoping!

As always, I'll be very grateful to you, dear readers, if you'll please spread the word to your friends about the book when it's published.  I'm going to have a little competition to help spread the word, with give-aways for the best reviews on Amazon.com.  More details later in the week.

Peter

More on Big Brother's contempt for our privacy and other rights

The fallout from the NSA scandal continues to build.  Let's hope it gathers sufficient momentum to force reforms (although I won't hold my breath that they'll be sufficient, or go far enough, to reverse the trashing of our Constitution that's already taken place.  Stronger measures will be needed for that.)  Professor Yochai Benkler makes an excellent case for such reforms in the Guardian.  Here's an excerpt.

The spate of new NSA disclosures substantially raises the stakes of this debate. We now know that the intelligence establishment systematically undermines oversight by lying to both Congress and the courts. We know that the NSA infiltrates internet standard-setting processes to security protocols that make surveillance harder. We know that the NSA uses persuasion, subterfuge, and legal coercion to distort software and hardware product design by commercial companies.

We have learned that in pursuit of its bureaucratic mission to obtain signals intelligence in a pervasively networked world, the NSA has mounted a systematic campaign against the foundations of American power: constitutional checks and balances, technological leadership, and market entrepreneurship. The NSA scandal is no longer about privacy, or a particular violation of constitutional or legislative obligations. The American body politic is suffering a severe case of auto-immune disease: our defense system is attacking other critical systems of our body.

. . .

Given the persistent lying and strategic errors of judgment that this week's revelations disclosed, the NSA needs to be put into receivership. Insiders, beginning at the very top, need to be removed and excluded from the restructuring process. Their expertise led to this mess, and would be a hindrance, not a help, in cleaning it up. We need a forceful, truly independent outsider, with strong, direct congressional support, who would recruit former insider-dissenters like Thomas Drake or William Binney to reveal where the bodies are buried.

Anything short of root-and-branch reconstruction will be serving weak tea to a patient with a debilitating auto-immune disease.

There's more at the link.  Highly recommended reading.

Also connected to the NSA scandal:

• The head of the NSA built an 'Information Dominance Center' modeled after the bridge of the fictional Star Trek's spaceship Enterprise.  Why does such megalomania not surprise me in such an individual?
• One of his predecessors has claimed that 'terrorists love using Gmail' - which is, of course, completely unprovable, and sounds like a tailor-made excuse for the NSA to intercept, analyze and indefinitely store every Gmail message, whether connected to terrorism or not.
• The FBI has admitted it took control of the supposedly confidential servers of the TOR anonymizing Web hosting service, then downloaded malware to clients enabling it to track them and monitor their Internet activities - whether or not they were involved in anything illegal.  So much for the Fourth Amendment.  Furthermore, if crimes were committed using those servers while the FBI controlled them - for example, the exchange of child pornography between pedophiles - that makes the FBI an accessory to those crimes.  Do you think anyone at the agency will ever be charged with such an offense?  Dream on . . .
• The US government wants to include 'social and behavioral' data in everyone's online medical records.  Gee, do you really think we can trust them with that?  In the light of everything else we've learned - the IRS abuse of the tax system to harass opponents of the current Administration, the NSA's colossal overreach of its authority and blatant disregard of the Constitution, and so on - I personally wouldn't trust Big Brother any further than I can throw him . . . and that's not very far at all.  I agree with XBradTC's observation:

So will our medical records, available to anyone who can breach a Federal system (a challenge for “black hats” roughly equivalent to tic-tac-toe), or to the Federal Government for the taking, contain information as to whether or not we belong to shooting ranges?  Have purchased firearms?  Attended Tea Party rallies?  How we voted?  Where our campaign contributions went?  Home-schooled our children?  Or, in turn, have been home-schooled?  In short, will our medical records be flagged if we exhibit behavior counter to what is Government-approved conduct?  If so, will that subject us to “medical” restrictions and classifications that will be held against us for things like job applications, firearms purchases, or make us the subject of “audits”?  Will our health records containing information the Government considers pejorative be considered “prior history” disclosure if we find ourselves on trial?

Is there, with this Administration in particular, a solitary reason to believe otherwise?   Given the widespread violations of our Fourth Amendment rights by the NSA under this Administration, the malfeasance and deliberate misconduct of the Justice Department, the militarizing (and increasing hostility toward citizens) of our nation’s police forces, the course we are currently steering makes using such a seemingly-innocuous initiative an instrument for political strong-arming and punishment of opposition all but certain.

Word.

In another privacy-related matter, it seems that New York City toll passes are being used to track motorists elsewhere in the city as well - without so much as a 'by your leave' or any hint from the toll authorities that this is being done.  Again, so much for privacy.  I wonder whether any other locations are doing the same thing, either with NYC toll passes or with their own equivalents?  And who said it was OK to violate our privacy in this way in the first place?

Makes you wonder what those 70+ Federal agencies with armed officers, all with powers of arrest, are really up to . . . doesn't it?






Peter

Awwww!

Courtesy of an article at the Huffington Post, we find this overwhelmingly cute video clip of a two-month-old Golden Retriever puppy meeting an 8-month-old baby girl.  It's love at first sight for both of them!

All together, now:  Awwww!





Peter

EDITED TO ADD: Here's the same encounter, filmed from a different perspective - but just as cute!

Why Russia doesn't want the US in Syria

I've been watching the to-ings and fro-ings over Syria during the past ten days with great interest.  What strikes me most forcibly is the abysmal ignorance of Russia's real motives, and the power structure in the region, that's been displayed by US politicians and journalists alike.

Consider these facts:

1.  Russia has a large Islamic population within and around its borders, and has bitter experience of fundamentalist Muslim terrorism.  Chechnya is the best-known of these conflicts, but similar problems exist in Dagestan, Ingushetia and other provinces of the North Caucasian Federal District.  They played a role in the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.  Russia needs no telling about how dangerous Islamic terrorism can be.  As Der Spiegel pointed out:

Russia, Putin has made clear, is interested in the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles for three reasons. First, the existence of such weapons could trigger a foreign intervention in Syria, to which Moscow is opposed. Second, there is a danger that the poison gas could fall into the hands of fundamentalist extremists. And third, armed Syrian rebels could use these weapons against Israel.

Russia wants to keep fundamentalist Islamic terrorists as far away from its borders as possible.  It knows that Saudi and Iranian sources are funding most jihadist movements, and doesn't want to see them triumph.  It knows that if the Islamic rebels in Syria take over that country, it would instantly move from being Russia's last foothold in the Middle East to a direct and immediate threat to Russian security.

2.  Russia regards President Obama and his administration with contempt.  It's noted their waffling and indecision in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere, and no longer has any respect for the USA at all.  (I can assure you, if the Russian embassy in Benghazi had been attacked and its ambassador slaughtered like ours was, there would have been a robust and very lethal response.  Russia may not have the resources of the USA to mount an immediate counterstrike, but a counterstrike there would have been, and one extremely damaging to those responsible for the attack.)  In the absence of any serious, meaningful US strategic interests in or commitment to Syria and its manifest reluctance to act against Islamic fundamentalists, Russia is stepping up to the plate in keeping with its own national interests.

3.  I agree that President Assad is one of the most murderous dictators as yet unhung, and the sooner he shuffles off this mortal coil, the better.  However, even so, Russia regards him as a better bet than having an Islamic fundamentalist administration in Syria;  and it's built a position as Assad's main weapons supplier that gives it a fair amount of leverage with him.  It'll use that position to overtly put pressure on him to give up his chemical weapons;  but under the table, I won't be surprised to learn that Spetsnaz teams are already operating against Syrian rebels as a quid pro quo for Assad's co-operation.  Certainly, Russia wants Syrian chemical weapons out of the way, if only to ensure that they don't end up in the hands of terrorists;  and it's ruthless enough to buy their elimination with the bodies of Assad's enemies.

4.  I'm willing to bet that Russia and Israel are more than just talking to one another about all this.  Israel hates Assad, and would be very happy to see him gone:  the same applies to his erstwhile allies, Hezbollah and Hamas.  On the other hand, Israel really doesn't want chemical and/or biological weapons to fall into the hands of fundamentalist Islamic terrorists, who might use them against Israel without any compunction.  They might also fall into the hands of Hezbollah and/or Hamas, which would be disastrous.  Therefore, if Russia can act as 'honest broker' and destroy or render inoperative those weapons, it will suit Israel just fine, even if that means Assad's political survival.

5.  Other surrounding states really don't want to see Syria collapse into anarchy.  Iraq is already unstable enough that a Syrian revolution might lead to civil war there.  Turkey is overburdened with Syrian refugees, and is also seriously worried about a Syrian collapse causing problems in Syrian Kurdistan.  (Such problems would probably spill over into Turkish Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdistan as well.)  Lebanon is already in near-anarchy, with Hezbollah a fierce and vocal rival to the country's unstable government;  any Syrian collapse would only worsen the situation, particularly if Hezbollah felt threatened by developments and lashed out at the Lebanese army - even against Israel - in its paranoia.  Jordan has already apparently given sanctuary to Syrian refugees and political dissidents, and has conducted joint military exercises with US forces near the Syrian border - something that's angered both Syria and Russia.  I'm willing to bet that all those nations are talking to each other, and to Israel, and to Russia.  In the absence of US leadership, they're probably actively encouraging Russia to take the lead in dealing with the situation.

6.  It suits Russia just fine to take the lead.  It's a good way to re-establish its influence in a part of the world from which it had been systematically excluded over the past couple of decades, since the collapse of the Soviet Union.  In particular, President Putin has been eager to re-establish Russian influence over sources of energy to Europe and the First World.  If he can extend Russian influence into the oil-producing regions of the Middle East, that will be a big step forward.  (Russia has already discussed the joint marketing of Israeli national gas to Europe, potentially allowing it a say in which countries will get access to it, and at what price.  Discussions are continuing.)  Russian success in Syria would cement its influence and undermine that of the USA.

Putting all those elements together, is it any wonder that the rest of the world is writing off the US administration?  As a Telegraph commentator said on Friday:

It’s obvious to even the dullest pundit that no new international process can bring about the safe collection and destruction of Syria’s sizeable CW stocks over any timescale that matters. Moscow is not interested in this. Rather it means to re-legitimise the Assad regime by making it a prime interlocutor in the whole phoney process. The exercise soon will be bogged down in footling exchanges of diplomatic notes and labyrinths of internationalised technical bickering that ensure that any "progress" occurs only on Moscow/Assad terms. Meanwhile the civil war in Syria will drag on, with Assad emboldened. In due course Washington will have so much credibility invested in Syria’s CW non-disarmament that it will start to need Assad to stay in power to guarantee some crumbs of success.

This outcome shows what happens when you enter a brutal neighbourhood proclaiming your unwillingness to fight: those who are prepared to fight crush you. The Obama administration knows that it is experiencing unprecedented humiliation. So it proclaims victory. John Kerry emits faux toughness to pretend that Washington is really driving things along. “Words are not enough.” “This is not a game.” “There ought (sic) to be consequences” if Assad does not dismantle its CW arsenal. “We do believe there is a way to get this done.” Such empty mock-heroic phrases are the sort of thing a cartoon character might say as he walks off the edge of the cliff, striding purposefully out into thin air before plummeting to his doom.

In short, we have gone from “Assad must go!” to “Assad has to negotiate with us on a UN resolution for handing over his CW stocks, or there definitely ought to be consequences!” It’s a short sad step from that to “Assad must stay!”

This is something quite new in world affairs: Washington sprawling on its back after falling for the Grandmother of All Putinesque Judo-flips.

Word.

Peter

Brain divided

This reminded me of some madcap misadventures of my younger days . . . and explained a lot about how (un)well they went!

Peter

A master musician at work

Thanks to reader E. S. for sending me the link to this video clip of Eric Johnson playing what many consider to be his instrumental masterpiece, 'Cliffs Of Dover'.  This recording is from a live concert in 1988.

Aahhhhh . . . music to our ears, indeed!

Peter