I don’t fault Dan Rather for going to Baghdad. If someone had interviewed Hitler in ‘39 for three hours, we’d prize the tapes as an invaluable historical document.
– James Lileks from his Bleat this morning
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February 28th, 2003 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
 I ran across this great quote from the Cold War generation:
February 28th, 2003 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
When I was ten years old, I was informed that:
When I was twenty, some British politicians still asserted each of these statements, although none seemed to believe all of them anymore. There seemed to be an equal number of politicians claiming that each of these thing was ‘a National disgrace’, which given this was the public sector, was no doubt true. The elite forces of the British Army are no doubt excellent. Some bits of British military design are excellent. But this does not mean that the British armed forces are fit for combat. In May 1940 the French Army had as many tanks as the Germans. The French Air Force in aerial battle shot down more German planes than the Germans did of theirs. The French tanks were certainly good enough for use by the Germans in other parts of Europe… but even good equipment can be misused, and the finest army in the world can be run into the ground by bad management. Since 1991, the British Army has recruited according to the whims of political correctness. The rifle only works if assembled in a tent and cleaned before and after each use. The boots melt in the Middle East. The troops have not enough sleeping bags, clothes, soap, tents or fuel for their vehicles. Their communications equipment does not work, last time they saw action in Europe they were able to use their mobile phones, this time these are unlikely to work. The new British tank breaks down. The British Army version of the Apache apears to be less reliable than the version used by the US in 1991. There is not enough ammunition for any of the weapons. There is no medical service worth talking about to save money and because of staff shortages: casualties will queue and die on trolleys in the National Health Service if they are unfortunate enough to be flown home. Obviously the best scenario for a British wounded soldier is to be picked up and treated by one of the other allies (except perhaps Turkey). This may sound like the Crimea in 1854-56. On that occasion the Times decribed the British Army as it left as ‘the finest army that has ever left these shores’. Less than ten per cent of the British casualties of the Crimean War came from combat. It may be that the US is capable of defeating Iraq rapidly and without considerable losses. But the British Army is not properly equipped, the logistics are very poor and the medical facilities inadequate. I would rather air these points now, than wait for a report from a modern Scutari. February 27th, 2003 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Everyone is reactionary about subjects he understands. February 27th, 2003 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
During the course of this past month the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 has come into force. This is the legislative instrument which has introduced US-style asset forfeiture into UK law. But the Act goes much further than that. It also consolidates and widens the existing anti-money laundering laws and places a quite terrifying onus on those who are charged with enforcing them. Prior to this Act the UK already had an anti-money laundering regime in place. It was aimed at the proceeds of drug trafficking and potential terrorist funding. The regime established a ‘regulated sector’ which consists of people such as bankers, accountants, lawyers, financial advisers, stockbrokers and anybody else who is broadly engaged in the business of money management. The laws imposed an obligation on professionals working in that sector to establish and maintain procedures for obtaining and then keeping personal and business information about their own clients so that this could be used to assess whether or not, at any later time, there are unusual or unexpected patterns of spending or behaviour which may indicate money-laundering activity. But that is not all, for it is professional advisers who are required to police their own clients. If the professional adviser suspects, for any reason, that his or client may be engaging in money-laundering then he or she is required their client and the circumstances of the transaction in question to a special police agency. Once a report has been made the professional adviser can take no further action on behalf of the client until they have been given express permission to do so by the police. Penalties for non-compliance can be severe. In the case of non-disclosure of a suspicion of money-laundering, the maximum penalty is 14 years in prison. → Continue reading: The British government declares war on Britain February 27th, 2003 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
I followed Instapundit to this:
February 27th, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
I recall a conversation I had a couple of years ago with another British libertarian who argued that ‘pundits are the new priests’; they deliver ‘sermons’ from their TV or radio pulpits and minister to a befuddled public about the mysterious ways of our secular lords. Although I can see the argument, I don’t entirely agree. However, the very fact that this kind of argument can be plausibly advanced at all is because we are all aware of the decline of the ‘old’ priests; a phenomenon which gets little attention but is highlighted by leaders like this in the Telegraph:
The leader quoted above is, in fact, an open letter from a twenty-something British Christian woman to the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. It is a plea to the Church to arrest its slide into irrelevence and provide some meaningful spiritual guidance to Britain’s Christians. Despite not being a member of the Church, I can wholly understand her desperation because I can also see that it has gone quite disastrously off of the rails. The absurd and frantic mission to ‘modernise’ has resulted in just about every senior member of the clergy tripping over each other in the headlong rush to embrace every manifestation of fashionable claptrap from global warming to grievance politics. → Continue reading: The Last Trumpet February 27th, 2003 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
On the face of it the Conservative Party just now is having a terrible time, with the very telegenic Michael Portillo making life an utter misery for the deeply untelegenic Iain Duncan Smith. But something big is happening in the world which could see off the Labour Party for the next little slice of British history, and bring the Conservatives right back into contention. The voters in Britain infuriate me. I like the people, by and large. Salt of the earth, most of them. But when they get around to voting, they have profoundly different priorities to me, or to anyone with a serious interest in politics. Basically Britain’s voters would sooner vote for a party which is united in agreeing to do the wrong thing, than a party which is divided about just how enthusiastically it should resist that (or some other) wrong thing, or do any right thing. Division is all. Unity is all. They vote against the former and for the latter, regardless of what is being agreed or disagreed about. I loath and despise this, as I say, but that is how it is. Well, for the last fifteen years, ever since the Cold War fizzled out, the Big Thing in British politics has been Europe. Labour is a tiny bit disunited about it. Most Labourites love it that Europe gives them as much socialism as the real world is ever going to give them, in the form of a ocean of capitalism-hobbling regulations and interferences. A few Labourites aren’t satisfied only with that much socialism and would prefer more and on that basis they complain about Europe. But such bickerings are nothing compared to the giant axe that Europe slammed into the very torso of the Conservative Party. Conservatives have been at each others’ throats about Europe for, as I say, the last decade and a half. It did for Thatcher. It did for Major. It did for the lot of them. But now, post 9/11, the issue is no longer Europe. The issue is, to put it bluntly: the USA. Well, not the USA as such, merely its policy of choosing actively to prosecute the War Against Terror (i.e. against terrorists) rather than just hoping that terrorism and terrorists will go away. President Bush has decided to hunt them varmints until there ain’t none left, and what’s more to hunt down the no-good preachers who are stirring them all up, and if Europe don’t like it, too bad for Europe. As Bush said – in one of those scary speeches he made soon after 9/11, which sophisticated Europeans ignored as the gaseous emissions of a politician seeking mere poll numbers and re-election, but which Bush himself actually, it is now turning out, meant – either you’re with us or you’re agin’ us. That is now the Big Question. And it so happens that the Conservatives are united in being with George Bush, less a few freakish europhiliac grumblers, while Labour is catastrophically divided about the War Against Terror (in the form that the Americans are now choosing to fight it), as today’s dramas in the House of Commons have now made very clear. If it is true, as I found myself saying last week, that this War Against Terror thing is not just going to be an episode, but maybe something more like an era, then to that exact degree the news is now a lot better for the Conservatives. February 27th, 2003 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
On Sunday (2nd March) a demonstration will be held in Paris outside the U.S. embassy. The assembly point will be the place de la Concorde. The rally has an English name: “Friends and Freedom”, which in itself is unique. It aims to promote: “Friendship and confidence between the French and American peoples” and “Friendship and solidarity between France and the United States of America”. The slogans are French. More details can be found here. Among French libertarians there is the same division as in the US, with minarchists tending to support a war of liberation and both the anarcho-capitalists and the conservatives against. The Catholic liberals (almost the exact opposite of the socialist ‘liberal Catholics’) are opposed to war both for the damage it could cause (some French people remember the ‘collateral damage’ of Caen in 1944), and the fear that a successor government might be less religiously tolerant than Saddam. An example of this view can be found here. I regard the different cases being forward (in public by Messrs Bush and Blair) for war with Iraq as poor because they are either wrong (the Iraqi dictator probably has fewer ‘weapons of mass destruction’ than either Kim Jong Il or General Musharraf) or contradictory (is Saddam an ally of Bin Laden Yes or No?). Tyranncide is good enough and UNESCO can go and get stuffed. I also consider the British forces almost entirely incapable of offering any worthwhile help to the Americans for reasons I’ve mentioned here before. Lend-Lease the air tankers and the SAS to the US and that’s all. ‘The Borrowers’ are probably going to get in the way of a US air strike or hold up the advance when the British made tanks break down in “the wrong kind of sand”. Despite these misgivings, I would certainly go to the place de la Concorde this Sunday if I could afford the fare. The nasty game being played by French and German political leaders is as much a threat to world peace and the prosperity of this corner of the planet as any gang of terrorists.  February 27th, 2003 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
New York is a place I have got to love in my all-too brief visits there, but one of its less endearing characteristics is the puritan bossiness of some of the folk who unfortunately get to run that city. Mayor Bloomberg has already succeeded in a total ban on smoking in private places like bars, regardless of the wishes of the owners of such private property. Well, now they are trying to regulate the teaching of martial arts, as pointed out by a justifiably enraged Russell Whitaker over at his excellent blog. What the hell is it with these people? Do they really, actually want us to have no means by which we can defend ourselves? Do they really want us to be like so many docile sheep? The only logical answer, I fear, is “Yes.” Addendum: definitely bookmark Russell’s site. Strongly recommended for those like me who are interested in everything from self-defence issues to space. February 26th, 2003 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
History certainly does have a knack of repeating itself here in the UK. Just as we’re about to embark on another war against a mustachioed despot, we’re all set to bring back rationing:
But why stop there? Why not compulsory jogging every morning? Followed by an invigorating dip in ice-water? How about mandatory colonic irrigation, too? Actually the question is redundant, because, whoever the ‘Food Commission Campaign group’ are, we all know that they have not the slightest intention of stopping there. They wll get what they want and then move on to Stage 2 (and Lord alone knows what that consists of). And because this is Britain we can all more-or-less write the script for these campaigns now. It is even becoming mundane. I don’t know who these campaigners are but perhaps, by some extraordinary stroke of luck, it will transpire that they have some connection with the WTC attacks. Then the Americans can come and drag them all off to Camp X-Ray. P.S. Don’t forget the hoods! February 26th, 2003 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have not been posting on this subject for awhile as there has not been any single bit of news significant enough to require it. The weight of the bits and pieces has finally built to the point at which I must return to it. Little has changed in the basic scenario of the breakup. Most everything I have read has added detail or backed up early scenarios. One of the more interesting bits was the set of internal emails released by NASA. As an engineer myself, I know this sort of “what-if” goes on all the time. In any given team at any given time there will be persons who are overly optimistic or pessimistic. Everyone takes a turn in these roles; everyone has a day of certitude on some new hypothesis. The problem a manager faces is how to figure out whether that person is actually correct on some particular day and some particular issue. Usually the answer is in the middle ground. When it isn’t, you’ve just bet your career, In this case the pessimist wasn’t pessimistic enough. He was worried about a portside gear door burn through causing a failure of that gear to descend on landing. An aircraft with one gear down is in deep shit. A friend of mine managed to get he and his wife safely on the ground in a Cessna 180 with that problem… but none of the techniques he used would work on a brick that doesn’t so much land as carry out a controlled 220 mph near-crash. Believe me, you really, really do not want to ground loop at those kinds of speeds. I’m sure anyone else out there who has ever landed an airplane by their sweet lonesome would get the same retractive reflex I get at the thought. The point is, things were far worse than the most polyannish engineers thought. Some of the other interesting news is confirmation bits were coming off even before the shuttle crossed the Pacific coast. This validates the report we noted from a San Francisco paper, and the first hand report of one of our friends at XCOR in the Mojave Desert. A shuttle tile has been recovered from Nevada. They are searching for more in the area as it is those earliest bits of debris which will tell the greatest tale. The USAF has a lot more detail on the radar reflection from near the shuttle on Day 1. Something 1×1.3 feet in size was floating near the shuttle shortly after a “major maneuver”. I’ll guess that means a brief blip on the OMS system. If something were loose, that is exactly when you’d expect a seperation. No one knows what it was. The size and orbital characteristics coupled with the time it appeared suggest to me it is not from a waste water dump and not due to an orbital debris impact. We’re left with either something floating out of the payload bay or something broken during the ascent. Its’ rapid de-orbiting tells us it had a low mass to area ratio. That certainly isn’t true of water at 60 pounds per cubic foot. I cannot tell you much else though. Virtually anything structural on the shuttles is quite light. I read this as evidence of quite severe damage caused by the foam/ice impact we’ve all seen in slo-mo by this time. The news I found rather amazing is the recovery of video tape that was in the cabin. Some was burned: I am utterly amazed that it wasn’t all fried, or at the very least heated above it’s Curie point and completely demagnetized. This is a sad experiment to have the results of, but I must admit the details are fascinating and not at all what I had expected. Other than the larger debris footprint, the results are little different from an airliner crash. Some bits are amazingly intact through sheer providence… and nearby parts ravaged beyond belief. It seems clear another of my early predictions is correct as well. They are never going to find more than a fraction of the vehicle. Tangled bits will be showing up for centuries. Farmers will be plowing them up and selling them to museums and collectors 500 years from now. It may even be centuries, or at least many decades before the last of the major parts turns up. Columbia is now an eternal part of the Texas landscape and history. February 26th, 2003 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
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