A Place to Stand

The Scotsman says that Hilary Clinton is about to "get tough" to combat her falling polls.

Bill Clinton's secretary of state, Madelein Albright, in an off the record briefing, told the western media that she had prevented the Serbs being offered a deal they could honourably accept because "the Serbs need a little bombing".

If Mrs Clinton is engaged in a "get tough strategy" does this mean she will be bombing hospitals in New Hampshire?

On a similar note googling Ron Paul together with Kosovo I found this from Ron Paul published by him in Texas:

Citizens of a free country ought to expect they won't be burdened with the kind of propaganda barrage that has come to be associated with Nazi "interior ministers" such as Josef Goebbles or Soviet "media spokesmen" like Vladimir Posner. However, the more information that comes out about the NATO war in Kosovo, the more evident is the fact that NATO made an apparent "policy decision" to lie about Serbian atrocities......

.....we were told before the bombings that there was mass genocide occurring, the figure of "100,000 or more" was tossed around even though there was no evidence to back-up this claim. One media pundit suggested the number would be a quarter-of-a-million dead. NATO even gave a name to this "campaign of mass genocide," it was dubbed "Operation Horseshoe".....The actual number of people found in the reported mass-graves totals slightly more than 2,000.....Kosovo was safer than any major U.S. city prior to the NATO bombing. Moreover, as Steele shows, it is hardly evident that each of those bodies was killed as a result of a campaign of genocide....

The sad trail of lies in Kosovo merely reinforces two facts. The first is that our republic depends upon a press that will question the claims of our leaders instead of just accepting them. The second is that Congress has shirked both its Constitutional responsibility to declare war before U.S. troops are sent into battle and its oversight responsibility to closely monitor the administration in its carrying out of foreign policy

Having yesterday largely supported his position on space development & the X-Prize I am extremely impressed to see not only that we are in agreement on a totally unrelated subject but that he has the balls & integrity to publicly say what he believes to be the truth when it is against all the propaganda the state has been pushing. America is extremely fortunate to have such a man. I wish we had anybody a quarter as good. I doubt if he will get the money needed to become President but Vice President must be a strong possibility.

Ron Paul's writings In an age when any political idea has to be reduced to a one sentence soundbite for the TV he seems to be quite remarkably literate.

On this side of the pond the US Presidential race is looking interesting but we hear far more about what gender/colour/religious conviction everybody is than the boring stuff about actual policies. Well tough. Policies are what are inside the box. Everything else, no matter how colourful, is just the advertising.

Being particularly interested in Space, a subject which crosses party lines, on which original thought is both allowed & needed & which is going to be vital to the future of us all when the Iraq war will be merely a historical footnote, I checked out this link.

Hilary will produce a "space-based Climate Change Initiative", more robot programmes & reverse Bush's funding cuts of NASA". So she has an interest in the subject & would spend more but in the wrong ways & for a politically correct reason

Edwards "I am a strong supporter of our space program. It reflects the best of the American spirit of optimism, discovery and progress. We need a balanced space and aeronautics program. We need to support solar system exploration as an important goal for our human and robotic programs, but only as one goal among several. And we need to invite other countries to share in a meaningful way in both the adventure and the cost of space exploration." So considerable interest & I agree about international involvement but nothing really specific

Obama "He will maintain fiscal responsibility and prevent any increase in the deficit by offsetting cuts and revenue sources in other parts of the government. The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years" Now I approve of fiscal responsibility, Bush has spent 8 years kiting cheques & I think NASA is a waste of money so i can't actually disagree with this but he really doesn't have anything positive to say (eg X-Prizes

Guiliani says "Not only did it help us ultimately win the Cold War, it helped us in countless other ways, in scientific development and products. We can do the same thing with energy independence. But we've got to have a president who knows how to get things done." which seems quite sensible & shows an interest in space, but again no actual proposals, though energy independence, if he means it seriously, must include nuclear & probably solar power satellites

Huckabee says "Whether we ought to go to Mars is not a decision that I would want to make, but I would certainly want to make sure that we expand the space program, because every one of us who are sitting here tonight have our lives dramatically improved because there was a space program — whether it's these screens that we see or the incredible electronics that we use, including the GPS systems that got many of you to this arena tonight.Some of you were late because you didn't have one, by the way. Or whether it's the medical technologies that saved many of our lives or the lives or our families, it's the direct result of the space program, and we need to put more money into science and technology and exploration." The first bit is not well phrased because he is running for the job that does involve making that decision (my opinion is that Mars should not be the immediate aim - cheap space access should). Nonetheless he is quite correct in understanding the importance of space, but again has no actual proposals.


Hunter, as a Congressman wrote to Bush about the vital importance of not being outclassed by China, though largely on a military rather than industrial basis.

McCain "When asked ... did not respond." Well screw him

Romney supports Bush's vision for space exploration and has no reason yet to propose a new direction". So nothing then

And the winner & champeen

Ron Paul "Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate and commend the designers, builders, sponsors, and pilot of SpaceShipOne on the occasion of its successful flight out of earth's atmosphere on June 21, 2004. What is most remarkable about SpaceShipOne, of course, is that it is the first privately-financed and privately built vehicle to leave the Earth's atmosphere."
& "Ron Paul consistently opposes taxpayer funding for NASA"
The guy has not only heard of Spaceship One but understands it. There is no promise that NASA funds, or even 10% of them which would be enough give America the solar system, will be put into X-Prizes but you can't have everything.

This is a wonderful series of short articles by extremely bright people which I ran across through Mangan's Miscellany.
The particular one I am going to quote from is Freeman Dyson on whether the Atom Bomb made Japan surrender:

"Facts causing me to change my mind were brought to my attention by Ward Wilson. Wilson summarized the facts in an article, "The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in the Light of Hiroshima", in the Spring 2007 issue of the magazine, "International Security". He gives references to primary source documents and to analyses published by other historians, in particular by Robert Pape and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa. The facts are as follows:

1. Members of the Supreme Council, which customarily met with the Emperor to take important decisions, learned of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945. Although Foreign Minister Togo asked for a meeting, no meeting was held for three days.

2. A surviving diary records a conversation of Navy Minister Yonai, who was a member of the Supreme Council, with his deputy on August 8. The Hiroshima bombing is mentioned only incidentally. More attention is given to the fact that the rice ration in Tokyo is to be reduced by ten percent.

3. On the morning of August 9, Soviet troops invaded Manchuria. Six hours after hearing this news, the Supreme Council was in session. News of the Nagasaki bombing, which happened the same morning, only reached the Council after the session started.

4. The August 9 session of the Supreme Council resulted in the decision to surrender.

5. The Emperor, in his rescript to the military forces ordering their surrender, does not mention the nuclear bombs but emphasizes the historical analogy between the situation in 1945 and the situation at the end of the Sino-Japanese war in 1895. In 1895 Japan had defeated China, but accepted a humiliating peace when European powers led by Russia moved into Manchuria and the Russians occupied Port Arthur. By making peace, the emperor Meiji had kept the Russians out of Japan. Emperor Hirohito had this analogy in his mind when he ordered the surrender.

6. The Japanese leaders had two good reasons for lying when they spoke to Robert Butow. The first reason was explained afterwards by Lord Privy Seal Kido, another member of the Supreme Council: "If military leaders could convince themselves that they were defeated by the power of science but not by lack of spiritual power or strategic errors, they could save face to some extent". The second reason was that they were telling the Americans what the Americans wanted to hear, and the Americans did not want to hear that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria brought the war to an end."

I had generally held to the theory that the Bomb did not shorten the war. Indeed that Truman deliberately used it not for that purpose but to frighten Stalin. At the Potsdam conference Stalin had told Truman that The Japanese wanted to make peace pretty much on unconditional terms except that they wanted to keep their Emperor. Stalin wasn't keen - after all, having promised to attack Japan 3 months after the end of the European war he expected to be able to conquer Manchuria & Korea. Truman's reluctance is more difficult to explain, particularly since he later did allow Hirohito to stay. However if we take it that he was intending to cow the the Russians it is clearer. It should also be remembered that, having spent several billions (1940s billions so multiply by 100s) Congress & public would have crucified them had it never been used,

The Soviet invasion of Manchuria is not well known in the west (I doubt if 1 person in 100 could tell you it happened). Though it only lasted a week it was a massive undertaking involving 40 didvions yet I found it quite difficult to find a serious online history of it. The Soviets, with an army forged in the war with Hitler & tanks designed for that war, engaged in a 1 week land campaign against a Japanese army which, while large, was equipped to take on Chinese guerrillas & whose best tanks were equal to what we had in 1940 ie harmless. In that week they advanced, in places, up to 600km. Just as Soviets did most of the fighting in WW2 & the Anglo/Americans got all the valuable territory (ie western Europe) the Soviets could, for similar geographical reasons, have expected to take the valuable stuff in the east (China, all of Korea & at least half of Japan.

If Stalin also appreciated the role of the Soviet army in causing the surrender it probably explains the Soviet failure to drop to their knees when America used the Bomb.

It is possible to imagine how the world would have gone had the US not used the Bomb & Japan surrendered anyway. Certainly Americans & Brits would have had a beter understanding of the capabilities & problems of the USSR. One thing I have not changed my mind on over the years is that, however bad Stalin's rule may have been, the Cold War was caused by us not him.

In reply to somebody who said that the unemployed not only cost us money but that they created the need for big government to help them I said this which i would like to keep:

I think it is largely the other way round. That the form fillers need "clients" to help & protect if they are to keep their jobs. Ask most families how keen they are to see a social worker on their doorstep.

We live in a society that is enormously richer than any in history. However government, like any parasite, grows as much as its environment will allow & unlike even the worst historical tyrannies, our society can afford smoking police & regulations which increase cost enormously. The new Forth crossing is promised to cost 10 to 100 times what the rest of the world can do it for & houses, which cost the same as a car a century ago, now cost 50 times as much.

This is why the "caring professions" have had to redefine income inequality rather than being poor as "poverty", why so many benefits are closely comparable to the income taxes the "beneficiaries" pay & why, even so, an ever increasing share of government spending is not transfer payments but on regulation or subsidies for useless nostrums like windmills which nobody would pay for with their own money.. I think we can afford a decent safety net for the poor far more easily than we can afford overgovernment.

This morning Radio Scotland did a piece on how EON are about to put up electricity prices by 10%. They had John Swinburne from the pensioner's party saying how people should vote for his party because they wanted increased money for pensioners to cover rising electricity costs. In the phone in section somebody rang to say that electricity prices in Cyprus were half ours & Gary asked for people to phone in to tell him what prices abroad are. I rang & got on the air to say that while I couldn't give the retail price the French were manufacturing 85% of their power by nuclear at 1.3p a unit, half the price of coal power & 1/4 that of windmills. Gary did say that we also have nuclear but accepted my reply that they are rather old reactors & that Hunterston is working at well under capacity because of age.

I was only on for 30 seconds, which is not unreasonable because it was at the end of the programme, but I think I got the point across.

I also put this comment on the Herald

The "environmentalist" movement & in practice most politicians is opposed to any method of producing electricity that actually works.

Coincidentally EON are about to put up electricity prices 10%. This will be denounced by "environmentalists" & most politicians., (but not by a single honest one).

The French produce as much electricity as they want plus as much as they can profitably sell abroad at 1.3p a unit. We could do the same & the responsibility for high electricity prices & 24,000 consequent hypothermia death lies entirely with the eco-fascists & the politicians.

I am indexing my articles here. It will not exactly be done quickly but I have got the last 2 months up.

Link to it on http://neilsindex.blogspot.com/