Saturday, March 07, 2009
1900's PREDICTIONS FOR 2000
This is a fisk of the predictions of the Ladies Home Journal in 1900. I doubt if Hello or Heat did one for 2100.:
Prediction #1: There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century. Nicaragua will ask for admission to our Union after the completion of the great canal. Mexico will be next. Europe, seeking more territory to the south of us, will cause many of the South and Central American republics to be voted into the Union by their own people.”
Failed for social reasons. The US doesn't want that many Spanish speaking voters.
Prediction #2: The American will be taller by from one to two inches. His increase of stature will result from better health, due to vast reforms in medicine, sanitation, food and athletics. He will live fifty years instead of thirty-five as at present – for he will reside in the suburbs. The city house will practically be no more. Building in blocks will be illegal. The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.
Far exceeded - life expectancy is nearly 80. The "penny" fare is probably reached if you discount for inflation.
Prediction #3: Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.
Failed. A lot of us weaklings prefer being couch potatoes. There are an awful lot of health clubs & even more fitness machines & a lot of people who don't use them
Prediction #4: There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains. Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises.
Failed. All of this is possible but, with the exception of moving stairs, hasn't been done. The exception is revealing. All the others require mass infrastructure changes which would have to be authorised at government level.
Prediction #5: Trains will run two miles a minute, normally; express trains one hundred and fifty miles an hour. To go from New York to San Francisco will take a day and a night by fast express. There will be cigar-shaped electric locomotives hauling long trains of cars. Cars will, like houses, be artificially cooled. Along the railroads there will be no smoke, no cinders, because coal will neither be carried nor burned. There will be no stops for water. Passengers will travel through hot or dusty country regions with windows down.
Exceeded. The predictors have not expected air travel which makes a day & night to Chicago slow. Trains like that would be possible but are unnecessary. Air conditioning is common.
Prediction #6: Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Farmers will own automobile hay-wagons, automobile truck-wagons, plows, harrows and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these vehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more. Children will ride in automobile sleighs in winter. Automobiles will have been substituted for every horse vehicle now known. There will be, as already exist today, automobile hearses, automobile police patrols, automobile ambulances, automobile street sweepers. The horse in harness will be as scarce, if, indeed, not even scarcer, then as the yoked ox is today.
Long achieved. In fact automobiles (known as cars or autos - the shortening showing how useful they are) have considerably better than2 horsepower.
Prediction #7: There will be air-ships, but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic. They will be maintained as deadly war-vessels by all military nations. Some will transport men and goods. Others will be used by scientists making observations at great heights above the earth.
Completely wrong. Again the authors never expected the Wright brothers & it seems they are talking about dirigibles.
Prediction #8: Aerial War-Ships and Forts on Wheels. Giant guns will shoot twenty-five miles or more, and will hurl anywhere within such a radius shells exploding and destroying whole cities. Such guns will be armed by aid of compasses when used on land or sea, and telescopes when directed from great heights. Fleets of air-ships, hiding themselves with dense, smoky mists, thrown off by themselves as they move, will float over cities, fortifications, camps or fleets. They will surprise foes below by hurling upon them deadly thunderbolts. These aerial war-ships will necessitate bomb-proof forts, protected by great steel plates over their tops as well as at their sides. Huge forts on wheels will dash across open spaces at the speed of express trains of to-day. They will make what are now known as cavalry charges. Great automobile plows will dig deep entrenchments as fast as soldiers can occupy them. Rifles will use silent cartridges. Submarine boats submerged for days will be capable of wiping a whole navy off the face of the deep. Balloons and flying machines will carry telescopes of one-hundred-mile vision with camera attachments, photographing an enemy within that radius. These photographs as distinct and large as if taken from across the street, will be lowered to the commanding officer in charge of troops below.
Far exceeded even by 1945. We do have shells that can destroy whole cities but rather than going 25 miles they cross continents.
Prediction #9: Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colors.
Exceeded. Photographs of disasters in China, or indeed less striking events, cross the world & are available in your own home on the net in seconds.
Prediction #10: Man will See Around the World. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move.
Far exceeded. All of this is available not in theatres but in the comfort of our own homes.
Prediction #11: No Mosquitoes nor Flies. Insect screens will be unnecessary. Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated. Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding-grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams. The extermination of the horse and its stable will reduce the house-fly.
In the developed world this has nearly happened though actually exterminating all flies is probably beyond human ability. Malaria has been gone from the developed world for generations & could have been gone everywhere had the "environmentalists" not stopped the use of DDT when deaths were down to 50,000. They are now back up to nearly 2 million annually.
Prediction #12: Peas as Large as Beets. Peas and beans will be as large as beets are to-day. Sugar cane will produce twice as much sugar as the sugar beet now does. Cane will once more be the chief source of our sugar supply. The milkweed will have been developed into a rubber plant. Cheap native rubber will be harvested by machinery all over this country. Plants will be made proof against disease microbes just as readily as man is to-day against smallpox. The soil will be kept enriched by plants which take their nutrition from the air and give fertility to the earth.
Modern plant species produce more peas rather than larger ones. Nitrogen fixing plants of all types are possible with genetic modification. That they didn't foresee governments preventing them doing so is not the LHJ's fault.
Prediction #13: Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. One will suffice for the fruit course of each person. Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes. Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless. Figs will be cultivated over the entire United States.
Same answer as 12
Prediction #14: Black, Blue and Green Roses. Roses will be as large as cabbage heads. Violets will grow to the size of orchids. A pansy will be as large in diameter as a sunflower. A century ago the pansy measured but half an inch across its face. There will be black, blue and green roses. It will be possible to grow any flower in any color and to transfer the perfume of a scented flower to another which is odorless. Then may the pansy be given the perfume of the violet.
Same answer as 12
Prediction #15: No Foods will be Exposed. Storekeepers who expose food to air breathed out by patrons or to the atmosphere of the busy streets will be arrested with those who sell stale or adulterated produce. Liquid-air refrigerators will keep great quantities of food fresh for long intervals.
Pretty much. Don't try selling anything past its sell by date. The idea that we would have refrigeration at home was clearly to wild to contemplate.
Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.
Wholly wrong. This is not a technological prediction but a social one involving a decision by society/government.
Prediction #17: How Children will be Taught. A university education will be free to every man and woman. Several great national universities will have been established. Children will study a simple English grammar adapted to simplified English, and not copied after the Latin. Time will be saved by grouping like studies. Poor students will be given free board, free clothing and free books if ambitious and actually unable to meet their school and college expenses. Medical inspectors regularly visiting the public schools will furnish poor children free eyeglasses, free dentistry and free medical attention of every kind. The very poor will, when necessary, get free rides to and from school and free lunches between sessions. In vacation time poor children will be taken on trips to various parts of the world. Etiquette and housekeeping will be important studies in the public schools.
All of this has been achieved. How much education has improved is a matter of debate.
Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a “hello girl”.
Very conservative. We not only have all of that but mobile phones, with cameras, & internet connections.
Prediction #19: Grand Opera will be telephoned to private homes, and will sound as harmonious as though enjoyed from a theatre box. Automatic instruments reproducing original airs exactly will bring the best music to the families of the untalented. Great musicians gathered in one enclosure in New York will, by manipulating electric keys, produce at the same time music from instruments arranged in theatres or halls in San Francisco or New Orleans, for instance. Thus will great bands and orchestras give long-distance concerts. In great cities there will be public opera-houses whose singers and musicians are paid from funds endowed by philanthropists and by the government. The piano will be capable of changing its tone from cheerful to sad. Many devises will add to the emotional effect of music.
All of that was achieved long ago with records & radio. Somewhat simpler than having "automatic instruments" replaying the notes at home.
Prediction #20: Coal will not be used for heating or cooking. It will be scarce, but not entirely exhausted. The earth’s hard coal will last until the year 2050 or 2100; its soft-coal mines until 2200 or 2300. Meanwhile both kinds of coal will have become more and more expensive. Man will have found electricity manufactured by waterpower to be much cheaper. Every river or creek with any suitable fall will be equipped with water-motors, turning dynamos, making electricity. Along the seacoast will be numerous reservoirs continually filled by waves and tides washing in. Out of these the water will be constantly falling over revolving wheels. All of our restless waters, fresh and salt, will thus be harnessed to do the work which Niagara is doing today: making electricity for heat, light and fuel.
We won't be hitting "peak coal" any time soon. We might have had to turn to these renewables if we had. As it is we are turning to renewables as a political token while nuclear power, which not unreasonably wasn't predicted, keeps the lights on.
Prediction #21: Hot and Cold Air from Spigots. Hot or cold air will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house as we now turn on hot or cold water from spigots to regulate the temperature of the bath. Central plants will supply this cool air and heat to city houses in the same way as now our gas or electricity is furnished. Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times. Homes will have no chimneys, because no smoke will be created within their walls.
This has been achieved with the interesting exception that air conditioning is done in house rather than from some central location. Basically it turned out easier to transport electricity than cool air.
Prediction #22: Store Purchases by Tube. Pneumatic tubes, instead of store wagons, will deliver packages and bundles. These tubes will collect, deliver and transport mail over certain distances, perhaps for hundreds of miles. They will at first connect with the private houses of the wealthy; then with all homes. Great business establishments will extend them to stations, similar to our branch post-offices of today, whence fast automobile vehicles will distribute purchases from house to house.
Partial. Internet mail order delivery sales are growing. The automated house delivery system, though probably not pneumatically, is feasible but would require enormous public infrastructure investment.
Prediction #23: Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today. They will purchase materials in tremendous wholesale quantities and sell the cooked foods at a price much lower than the cost of individual cooking. Food will be served hot or cold to private houses in pneumatic tubes or automobile wagons. The meal being over, the dishes used will be packed and returned to the cooking establishments where they will be washed. Such wholesale cookery will be done in electric laboratories rather than in kitchens. These laboratories will be equipped with electric stoves, and all sorts of electric devices, such as coffee-grinders, egg-beaters, stirrers, shakers, parers, meat-choppers, meat-saws, potato-mashers, lemon-squeezers, dish-washers, dish-dryers and the like. All such utensils will be washed in chemicals fatal to disease microbes. Having one’s own cook and purchasing one’s own food will be an extravagance.
Achieved but again by having all these devices at home rather than centrally.
Prediction #24: Vegetables Grown by Electricity. Winter will be turned into summer and night into day by the farmer. In cold weather he will place heat-conducting electric wires under the soil of his garden and thus warm his growing plants. He will also grow large gardens under glass. At night his vegetables will be bathed in powerful electric light, serving, like sunlight, to hasten their growth. Electric currents applied to the soil will make valuable plants grow larger and faster, and will kill troublesome weeds. Rays of colored light will hasten the growth of many plants. Electricity applied to garden seeds will make them sprout and develop unusually early.
Partly this fails by not realising that the amount of power in sunlight is orders of magnitude more than most electricity. This could be done & indeed is done for cannabis, but isn't economic for more traditional crops. Artificial heating of greenhouses is sometimes economic.
Prediction #25: Oranges will grow in Philadelphia. Fast-flying refrigerators on land and sea will bring delicious fruits from the tropics and southern temperate zone within a few days. The farmers of South America, South Africa, Australia and the South Sea Islands, whose seasons are directly opposite to ours, will thus supply us in winter with fresh summer foods, which cannot be grown here. Scientist will have discovered how to raise here many fruits now confined to much hotter or colder climates. Delicious oranges will be grown in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Cantaloupes and other summer fruits will be of such a hardy nature that they can be stored through the winter as potatoes are now.
This is done faster, better & cheaper by airfreight.
Prediction #26: Strawberries as large as apples will be eaten by our great great grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. One will suffice for the fruit course of each person. Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes. Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless. Figs will be cultivated over the entire United States.
As in answers 12 & 25
Prediction #27: Few drugs will be swallowed or taken into the stomach unless needed for the direct treatment of that organ itself. Drugs needed by the lungs, for instance, will be applied directly to those organs through the skin and flesh. They will be carried with the electric current applied without pain to the outside skin of the body. Microscopes will lay bare the vital organs, through the living flesh, of men and animals. The living body will to all medical purposes be transparent. Not only will it be possible for a physician to actually see a living, throbbing heart inside the chest, but he will be able to magnify and photograph any part of it. This work will be done with rays of invisible light.
Medical science has far surpassed this. CAT scans are incresingly used rather than the X-rays mentioned because they are safer.
Prediction #28: There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated. The horse will have become practically extinct. A few of high breed will be kept by the rich for racing, hunting and exercise. The automobile will have driven out the horse. Cattle and sheep will have no horns. They will be unable to run faster than the fattened hog of today. A century ago the wild hog could outrun a horse. Food animals will be bred to expend practically all of their life energy in producing meat, milk, wool and other by-products. Horns, bones, muscles and lungs will have been neglected.
We still have some wild animals but only because they are very small or because we have used the law to protect them. Cows have now been bred to produce far more milk than in 1900.
Prediction #29: To England in Two Days. Fast electric ships, crossing the ocean at more than a mile a minute, will go from New York to Liverpool in two days. The bodies of these ships will be built above the waves. They will be supported upon runners, somewhat like those of the sleigh. These runners will be very buoyant. Upon their under sides will be apertures expelling jets of air. In this way a film of air will be kept between them and the water’s surface. This film, together with the small surface of the runners, will reduce friction against the waves to the smallest possible degree. Propellers turned by electricity will screw themselves through both the water beneath and the air above. Ships with cabins artificially cooled will be entirely fireproof. In storm they will dive below the water and there await fair weather.
This is describing hovercraft & hydrofoils. This could all be done but international air transport does it faster.
In many ways this article was remarkably prescient. The misses are as interesting as the hits. Aircraft, except in a very limited form, & nuclear power are both missing. This matches best scientific opinion of the time. They consistently expected more mass activities & less in the home. Reality has repeatedly exceeded expectations & in those cases where it hasn't it isn't because of technology but because social infrastructure failed or even because government prevented it.
On that basis 2100 will either be better than we imagine with scientific breakthroughs which go against current theory (anti-gravity, FTL drives, aging reversal?) or an overly regulated bureaucracy actively preventing progress while providing celebrity gossip. Both trends are evident but one must overwhelm the other.
Prediction #1: There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century. Nicaragua will ask for admission to our Union after the completion of the great canal. Mexico will be next. Europe, seeking more territory to the south of us, will cause many of the South and Central American republics to be voted into the Union by their own people.”
Failed for social reasons. The US doesn't want that many Spanish speaking voters.
Prediction #2: The American will be taller by from one to two inches. His increase of stature will result from better health, due to vast reforms in medicine, sanitation, food and athletics. He will live fifty years instead of thirty-five as at present – for he will reside in the suburbs. The city house will practically be no more. Building in blocks will be illegal. The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.
Far exceeded - life expectancy is nearly 80. The "penny" fare is probably reached if you discount for inflation.
Prediction #3: Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.
Failed. A lot of us weaklings prefer being couch potatoes. There are an awful lot of health clubs & even more fitness machines & a lot of people who don't use them
Prediction #4: There Will Be No Street Cars in Our Large Cities. All hurry traffic will be below or high above ground when brought within city limits. In most cities it will be confined to broad subways or tunnels, well lighted and well ventilated, or to high trestles with “moving-sidewalk” stairways leading to the top. These underground or overhead streets will teem with capacious automobile passenger coaches and freight with cushioned wheels. Subways or trestles will be reserved for express trains. Cities, therefore, will be free from all noises.
Failed. All of this is possible but, with the exception of moving stairs, hasn't been done. The exception is revealing. All the others require mass infrastructure changes which would have to be authorised at government level.
Prediction #5: Trains will run two miles a minute, normally; express trains one hundred and fifty miles an hour. To go from New York to San Francisco will take a day and a night by fast express. There will be cigar-shaped electric locomotives hauling long trains of cars. Cars will, like houses, be artificially cooled. Along the railroads there will be no smoke, no cinders, because coal will neither be carried nor burned. There will be no stops for water. Passengers will travel through hot or dusty country regions with windows down.
Exceeded. The predictors have not expected air travel which makes a day & night to Chicago slow. Trains like that would be possible but are unnecessary. Air conditioning is common.
Prediction #6: Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Farmers will own automobile hay-wagons, automobile truck-wagons, plows, harrows and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these vehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more. Children will ride in automobile sleighs in winter. Automobiles will have been substituted for every horse vehicle now known. There will be, as already exist today, automobile hearses, automobile police patrols, automobile ambulances, automobile street sweepers. The horse in harness will be as scarce, if, indeed, not even scarcer, then as the yoked ox is today.
Long achieved. In fact automobiles (known as cars or autos - the shortening showing how useful they are) have considerably better than2 horsepower.
Prediction #7: There will be air-ships, but they will not successfully compete with surface cars and water vessels for passenger or freight traffic. They will be maintained as deadly war-vessels by all military nations. Some will transport men and goods. Others will be used by scientists making observations at great heights above the earth.
Completely wrong. Again the authors never expected the Wright brothers & it seems they are talking about dirigibles.
Prediction #8: Aerial War-Ships and Forts on Wheels. Giant guns will shoot twenty-five miles or more, and will hurl anywhere within such a radius shells exploding and destroying whole cities. Such guns will be armed by aid of compasses when used on land or sea, and telescopes when directed from great heights. Fleets of air-ships, hiding themselves with dense, smoky mists, thrown off by themselves as they move, will float over cities, fortifications, camps or fleets. They will surprise foes below by hurling upon them deadly thunderbolts. These aerial war-ships will necessitate bomb-proof forts, protected by great steel plates over their tops as well as at their sides. Huge forts on wheels will dash across open spaces at the speed of express trains of to-day. They will make what are now known as cavalry charges. Great automobile plows will dig deep entrenchments as fast as soldiers can occupy them. Rifles will use silent cartridges. Submarine boats submerged for days will be capable of wiping a whole navy off the face of the deep. Balloons and flying machines will carry telescopes of one-hundred-mile vision with camera attachments, photographing an enemy within that radius. These photographs as distinct and large as if taken from across the street, will be lowered to the commanding officer in charge of troops below.
Far exceeded even by 1945. We do have shells that can destroy whole cities but rather than going 25 miles they cross continents.
Prediction #9: Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colors.
Exceeded. Photographs of disasters in China, or indeed less striking events, cross the world & are available in your own home on the net in seconds.
Prediction #10: Man will See Around the World. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move.
Far exceeded. All of this is available not in theatres but in the comfort of our own homes.
Prediction #11: No Mosquitoes nor Flies. Insect screens will be unnecessary. Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated. Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding-grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams. The extermination of the horse and its stable will reduce the house-fly.
In the developed world this has nearly happened though actually exterminating all flies is probably beyond human ability. Malaria has been gone from the developed world for generations & could have been gone everywhere had the "environmentalists" not stopped the use of DDT when deaths were down to 50,000. They are now back up to nearly 2 million annually.
Prediction #12: Peas as Large as Beets. Peas and beans will be as large as beets are to-day. Sugar cane will produce twice as much sugar as the sugar beet now does. Cane will once more be the chief source of our sugar supply. The milkweed will have been developed into a rubber plant. Cheap native rubber will be harvested by machinery all over this country. Plants will be made proof against disease microbes just as readily as man is to-day against smallpox. The soil will be kept enriched by plants which take their nutrition from the air and give fertility to the earth.
Modern plant species produce more peas rather than larger ones. Nitrogen fixing plants of all types are possible with genetic modification. That they didn't foresee governments preventing them doing so is not the LHJ's fault.
Prediction #13: Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. One will suffice for the fruit course of each person. Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes. Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless. Figs will be cultivated over the entire United States.
Same answer as 12
Prediction #14: Black, Blue and Green Roses. Roses will be as large as cabbage heads. Violets will grow to the size of orchids. A pansy will be as large in diameter as a sunflower. A century ago the pansy measured but half an inch across its face. There will be black, blue and green roses. It will be possible to grow any flower in any color and to transfer the perfume of a scented flower to another which is odorless. Then may the pansy be given the perfume of the violet.
Same answer as 12
Prediction #15: No Foods will be Exposed. Storekeepers who expose food to air breathed out by patrons or to the atmosphere of the busy streets will be arrested with those who sell stale or adulterated produce. Liquid-air refrigerators will keep great quantities of food fresh for long intervals.
Pretty much. Don't try selling anything past its sell by date. The idea that we would have refrigeration at home was clearly to wild to contemplate.
Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.
Wholly wrong. This is not a technological prediction but a social one involving a decision by society/government.
Prediction #17: How Children will be Taught. A university education will be free to every man and woman. Several great national universities will have been established. Children will study a simple English grammar adapted to simplified English, and not copied after the Latin. Time will be saved by grouping like studies. Poor students will be given free board, free clothing and free books if ambitious and actually unable to meet their school and college expenses. Medical inspectors regularly visiting the public schools will furnish poor children free eyeglasses, free dentistry and free medical attention of every kind. The very poor will, when necessary, get free rides to and from school and free lunches between sessions. In vacation time poor children will be taken on trips to various parts of the world. Etiquette and housekeeping will be important studies in the public schools.
All of this has been achieved. How much education has improved is a matter of debate.
Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a “hello girl”.
Very conservative. We not only have all of that but mobile phones, with cameras, & internet connections.
Prediction #19: Grand Opera will be telephoned to private homes, and will sound as harmonious as though enjoyed from a theatre box. Automatic instruments reproducing original airs exactly will bring the best music to the families of the untalented. Great musicians gathered in one enclosure in New York will, by manipulating electric keys, produce at the same time music from instruments arranged in theatres or halls in San Francisco or New Orleans, for instance. Thus will great bands and orchestras give long-distance concerts. In great cities there will be public opera-houses whose singers and musicians are paid from funds endowed by philanthropists and by the government. The piano will be capable of changing its tone from cheerful to sad. Many devises will add to the emotional effect of music.
All of that was achieved long ago with records & radio. Somewhat simpler than having "automatic instruments" replaying the notes at home.
Prediction #20: Coal will not be used for heating or cooking. It will be scarce, but not entirely exhausted. The earth’s hard coal will last until the year 2050 or 2100; its soft-coal mines until 2200 or 2300. Meanwhile both kinds of coal will have become more and more expensive. Man will have found electricity manufactured by waterpower to be much cheaper. Every river or creek with any suitable fall will be equipped with water-motors, turning dynamos, making electricity. Along the seacoast will be numerous reservoirs continually filled by waves and tides washing in. Out of these the water will be constantly falling over revolving wheels. All of our restless waters, fresh and salt, will thus be harnessed to do the work which Niagara is doing today: making electricity for heat, light and fuel.
We won't be hitting "peak coal" any time soon. We might have had to turn to these renewables if we had. As it is we are turning to renewables as a political token while nuclear power, which not unreasonably wasn't predicted, keeps the lights on.
Prediction #21: Hot and Cold Air from Spigots. Hot or cold air will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house as we now turn on hot or cold water from spigots to regulate the temperature of the bath. Central plants will supply this cool air and heat to city houses in the same way as now our gas or electricity is furnished. Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times. Homes will have no chimneys, because no smoke will be created within their walls.
This has been achieved with the interesting exception that air conditioning is done in house rather than from some central location. Basically it turned out easier to transport electricity than cool air.
Prediction #22: Store Purchases by Tube. Pneumatic tubes, instead of store wagons, will deliver packages and bundles. These tubes will collect, deliver and transport mail over certain distances, perhaps for hundreds of miles. They will at first connect with the private houses of the wealthy; then with all homes. Great business establishments will extend them to stations, similar to our branch post-offices of today, whence fast automobile vehicles will distribute purchases from house to house.
Partial. Internet mail order delivery sales are growing. The automated house delivery system, though probably not pneumatically, is feasible but would require enormous public infrastructure investment.
Prediction #23: Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today. They will purchase materials in tremendous wholesale quantities and sell the cooked foods at a price much lower than the cost of individual cooking. Food will be served hot or cold to private houses in pneumatic tubes or automobile wagons. The meal being over, the dishes used will be packed and returned to the cooking establishments where they will be washed. Such wholesale cookery will be done in electric laboratories rather than in kitchens. These laboratories will be equipped with electric stoves, and all sorts of electric devices, such as coffee-grinders, egg-beaters, stirrers, shakers, parers, meat-choppers, meat-saws, potato-mashers, lemon-squeezers, dish-washers, dish-dryers and the like. All such utensils will be washed in chemicals fatal to disease microbes. Having one’s own cook and purchasing one’s own food will be an extravagance.
Achieved but again by having all these devices at home rather than centrally.
Prediction #24: Vegetables Grown by Electricity. Winter will be turned into summer and night into day by the farmer. In cold weather he will place heat-conducting electric wires under the soil of his garden and thus warm his growing plants. He will also grow large gardens under glass. At night his vegetables will be bathed in powerful electric light, serving, like sunlight, to hasten their growth. Electric currents applied to the soil will make valuable plants grow larger and faster, and will kill troublesome weeds. Rays of colored light will hasten the growth of many plants. Electricity applied to garden seeds will make them sprout and develop unusually early.
Partly this fails by not realising that the amount of power in sunlight is orders of magnitude more than most electricity. This could be done & indeed is done for cannabis, but isn't economic for more traditional crops. Artificial heating of greenhouses is sometimes economic.
Prediction #25: Oranges will grow in Philadelphia. Fast-flying refrigerators on land and sea will bring delicious fruits from the tropics and southern temperate zone within a few days. The farmers of South America, South Africa, Australia and the South Sea Islands, whose seasons are directly opposite to ours, will thus supply us in winter with fresh summer foods, which cannot be grown here. Scientist will have discovered how to raise here many fruits now confined to much hotter or colder climates. Delicious oranges will be grown in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Cantaloupes and other summer fruits will be of such a hardy nature that they can be stored through the winter as potatoes are now.
This is done faster, better & cheaper by airfreight.
Prediction #26: Strawberries as large as apples will be eaten by our great great grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. One will suffice for the fruit course of each person. Strawberries and cranberries will be grown upon tall bushes. Cranberries, gooseberries and currants will be as large as oranges. One cantaloupe will supply an entire family. Melons, cherries, grapes, plums, apples, pears, peaches and all berries will be seedless. Figs will be cultivated over the entire United States.
As in answers 12 & 25
Prediction #27: Few drugs will be swallowed or taken into the stomach unless needed for the direct treatment of that organ itself. Drugs needed by the lungs, for instance, will be applied directly to those organs through the skin and flesh. They will be carried with the electric current applied without pain to the outside skin of the body. Microscopes will lay bare the vital organs, through the living flesh, of men and animals. The living body will to all medical purposes be transparent. Not only will it be possible for a physician to actually see a living, throbbing heart inside the chest, but he will be able to magnify and photograph any part of it. This work will be done with rays of invisible light.
Medical science has far surpassed this. CAT scans are incresingly used rather than the X-rays mentioned because they are safer.
Prediction #28: There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated. The horse will have become practically extinct. A few of high breed will be kept by the rich for racing, hunting and exercise. The automobile will have driven out the horse. Cattle and sheep will have no horns. They will be unable to run faster than the fattened hog of today. A century ago the wild hog could outrun a horse. Food animals will be bred to expend practically all of their life energy in producing meat, milk, wool and other by-products. Horns, bones, muscles and lungs will have been neglected.
We still have some wild animals but only because they are very small or because we have used the law to protect them. Cows have now been bred to produce far more milk than in 1900.
Prediction #29: To England in Two Days. Fast electric ships, crossing the ocean at more than a mile a minute, will go from New York to Liverpool in two days. The bodies of these ships will be built above the waves. They will be supported upon runners, somewhat like those of the sleigh. These runners will be very buoyant. Upon their under sides will be apertures expelling jets of air. In this way a film of air will be kept between them and the water’s surface. This film, together with the small surface of the runners, will reduce friction against the waves to the smallest possible degree. Propellers turned by electricity will screw themselves through both the water beneath and the air above. Ships with cabins artificially cooled will be entirely fireproof. In storm they will dive below the water and there await fair weather.
This is describing hovercraft & hydrofoils. This could all be done but international air transport does it faster.
In many ways this article was remarkably prescient. The misses are as interesting as the hits. Aircraft, except in a very limited form, & nuclear power are both missing. This matches best scientific opinion of the time. They consistently expected more mass activities & less in the home. Reality has repeatedly exceeded expectations & in those cases where it hasn't it isn't because of technology but because social infrastructure failed or even because government prevented it.
On that basis 2100 will either be better than we imagine with scientific breakthroughs which go against current theory (anti-gravity, FTL drives, aging reversal?) or an overly regulated bureaucracy actively preventing progress while providing celebrity gossip. Both trends are evident but one must overwhelm the other.
Friday, March 06, 2009
LILY ALLEN - AND THEY SAY NOBODY WRITES POETRY ANY MORE
I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don't care about clever I don’t care about funny
I want loads of clothes and fuckloads of diamonds
I heard people die while they are trying to find them
I'll take my clothes off and it will be shameless
'Cuz everyone knows that's how you get famous
I'll look at the sun and I'll look in the mirror
I'm on the right track yeah I'm on to a winner
I don't know what’s right and what's real anymore
I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore
When we think it will all become clear
'Cuz I'm being taken over by The Fear
Life's about film stars and less about mothers
It's all about fast cars and passing each other
But it doesn't matter cause I’m packing plastic
and that's what makes my life so fucking fantastic
And I am a weapon of massive consumption
and its not my fault it's how I'm programmed to function
I'll look at the sun and I'll look in the mirror
I'm on the right track yeah I'm on to a winner
I don't know what's right and what's real anymore
I don't know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When we think it will all become clear
'Cuz I’m being taken over by The Fear
Forget about guns and forget ammunition
Cause I'm killing them all on my own little mission
Now I'm not a saint but I'm not a sinner
Now everything's cool as long as I'm getting thinner
I don't know what's right and what's real anymore
I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore
When we think it will all become clear
'Cause I'm being taken over by fear
---------------------
Dissecting it verse by verse like an English teacher
1) People do indeed die getting diamonds & I love the "heard people" cause we are so divorced from what really goes on unless we get told about it.
2) Sun & Mirror are 2 British tabloid newspapers, better known for celebrity gossip & pictures of semi-clothed women than news.
3) "Meant to feel" - the media tell us how we are meant to feel about Yugoslavs, or Israelis or Russians or today's Mujahadden by showing pictures of refugee children & what we are meant to think about the KLA & Croatian Nazis & NATO & Georgians & Mujahadden back when they were fighting the Soviets or indeed killing Serbs by not showing pictures of the children they killed.
4) No explanation needed.
5) Exactly what Gordon Brown is saying when he tells us he is cutting interest rates to stimulate spending because we need more spending to get out of recession. We have a society built on consumption. No attempt to create anything or invest in the future. That's not how society programmes us to function or indeed is programmed itself.
6) & 8) "When we think it will all become clear" but we aren't encouraged to think just to feel - and that goes all the way up;
"At one point an unnamed minister, expressing concerns over the runway, said: "I realise the point I am making is irrational."
There was then, sources said, an "audible thump" as Lord Mandelson, an enthusiastic supporter of the project, banged his head on the polished wood of the large, oval table.
7) "as long as I'm getting thinner". Even the apparent winners of our self destructive society are self harming. The satire is slightly spoiled by the fact that she had to get thinner to sell records.
Perhaps I should write something less about how we could make society far wealthier, which I think I have fully proven, & on what goals, as a society we should have.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
2 OTHER "SOCIAL WORKER" ABUSE CASES
Calls for an independent inquiry into the placement of a teenager who raped and abused the children of the family he went to live with have been made.
The 19-year-old admitted rape and sexual abuse at Cardiff Crown Court while on a placement scheme for adults run by Vale of Glamorgan council.
The family did not know he had a record of sexual behaviour with children.
But the "Social Work" Dept did. They knew perfectly well that this guy was likely to assault/rape children he was left with & they decided to help him. They could have sent him to couple without children, at the very least they could have warned them not to leave their own children alone with them (though I grant the parents would then most likely have refused to take the bastard(. We should not be talking about yet another enquiry designed to report long after the media have lost interest. We should be talking about everybody in line of command for making this decision arrested as accessories, before the fact to rape.
These creatures just don't care. Granted neither did the 18 year old but at least he isn't paid to do so.
I'd rather see Sir Fred Goodwin keep his pension that anybody in line of command in Vale of Glamorgan Council. In fact if the precedent of all the another abuse or fraudulent "satanic abuse" stories are followed their will be many promises it will never happen again & they call keep not only pensions but jobs.
--------------------
And on the other case
The extent of the information which social work services and child-protection agencies held about both Cunningham and Boyd, and their care of Brandon, is expected to be the central focus of an independent inquiry into the tragedy, which is to be headed by Peter Wilson, the former chief constable of Fife Constabulary.
Brandon died at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee on 16 March last year after Cunningham struck him so hard he ruptured his intestines, leaving the boy to die in agony. Doctors identified at least 40 injuries on his body. Mr Baird has confirmed a case conference to discuss Brandon's welfare was due to take place on 18 March. One option could have been to remove the boy from his home.
...Cunningham, who moved in with Boyd 18 days before Brandon's death, was convicted of culpable homicide. He is due to be sentenced on 31 March.
Heather Boyd: "I was a good mum. I still am"
The mother of Brandon Muir last night insisted his death was not her fault.
Heather Boyd described herself as a "good mum" and said she would never have left her son with former boyfriend Robert Cunningham – who was convicted of killing the 23-month-old earlier this week – if she had known what he was like with children.
Brandon died from a ruptured intestine after being assaulted by Cunningham, 23, at the Dundee flat he shared with Miss Boyd. Cunningham was cleared of the child's murder, but a jury at the High Court in Glasgow found him guilty of the lesser charge of culpable homicide.
Miss Boyd, 23, was originally charged with her son's culpable homicide by failing to get him medical help, but was acquitted after the judge ruled there was no case to answer.
...A post-mortem examination on Brandon revealed up to 40 injuries including bruises, scratches and four fractured ribs. An investigation into the circumstances leading to his death had been commissioned by the Dundee Children and Young Persons Protection Committee.
Time & again they are being murdered by their mother's new boyfriend.
There are good evolutionary reasons for this - lions regularly kill the cubs of their mates for which they are the father because it increases the chance of the lioness conceiving & nurturing new cubs.
That is not how human beings behave since we have brains but clearly the thugs involved here are not motivated in any way by human intellect merely their basest urges.
The way to solve it is to end the theory that, whatever the circumstances, the mother should have custody. Allow the father or grandparents on either side to go to court & quickly get custody. Obama was brought up by his grandparents. Jack Nicholson was too - indeed he didn't know until adulthood that his older sister was his real mother. Neither grew up disfunctional.
The problem is that "social workers" need some kids to "care" for otherwise they would have to work for a living, so they insist on keeping the kids in danger
The 19-year-old admitted rape and sexual abuse at Cardiff Crown Court while on a placement scheme for adults run by Vale of Glamorgan council.
The family did not know he had a record of sexual behaviour with children.
But the "Social Work" Dept did. They knew perfectly well that this guy was likely to assault/rape children he was left with & they decided to help him. They could have sent him to couple without children, at the very least they could have warned them not to leave their own children alone with them (though I grant the parents would then most likely have refused to take the bastard(. We should not be talking about yet another enquiry designed to report long after the media have lost interest. We should be talking about everybody in line of command for making this decision arrested as accessories, before the fact to rape.
These creatures just don't care. Granted neither did the 18 year old but at least he isn't paid to do so.
I'd rather see Sir Fred Goodwin keep his pension that anybody in line of command in Vale of Glamorgan Council. In fact if the precedent of all the another abuse or fraudulent "satanic abuse" stories are followed their will be many promises it will never happen again & they call keep not only pensions but jobs.
--------------------
And on the other case
The extent of the information which social work services and child-protection agencies held about both Cunningham and Boyd, and their care of Brandon, is expected to be the central focus of an independent inquiry into the tragedy, which is to be headed by Peter Wilson, the former chief constable of Fife Constabulary.
Brandon died at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee on 16 March last year after Cunningham struck him so hard he ruptured his intestines, leaving the boy to die in agony. Doctors identified at least 40 injuries on his body. Mr Baird has confirmed a case conference to discuss Brandon's welfare was due to take place on 18 March. One option could have been to remove the boy from his home.
...Cunningham, who moved in with Boyd 18 days before Brandon's death, was convicted of culpable homicide. He is due to be sentenced on 31 March.
Heather Boyd: "I was a good mum. I still am"
The mother of Brandon Muir last night insisted his death was not her fault.
Heather Boyd described herself as a "good mum" and said she would never have left her son with former boyfriend Robert Cunningham – who was convicted of killing the 23-month-old earlier this week – if she had known what he was like with children.
Brandon died from a ruptured intestine after being assaulted by Cunningham, 23, at the Dundee flat he shared with Miss Boyd. Cunningham was cleared of the child's murder, but a jury at the High Court in Glasgow found him guilty of the lesser charge of culpable homicide.
Miss Boyd, 23, was originally charged with her son's culpable homicide by failing to get him medical help, but was acquitted after the judge ruled there was no case to answer.
...A post-mortem examination on Brandon revealed up to 40 injuries including bruises, scratches and four fractured ribs. An investigation into the circumstances leading to his death had been commissioned by the Dundee Children and Young Persons Protection Committee.
Time & again they are being murdered by their mother's new boyfriend.
There are good evolutionary reasons for this - lions regularly kill the cubs of their mates for which they are the father because it increases the chance of the lioness conceiving & nurturing new cubs.
That is not how human beings behave since we have brains but clearly the thugs involved here are not motivated in any way by human intellect merely their basest urges.
The way to solve it is to end the theory that, whatever the circumstances, the mother should have custody. Allow the father or grandparents on either side to go to court & quickly get custody. Obama was brought up by his grandparents. Jack Nicholson was too - indeed he didn't know until adulthood that his older sister was his real mother. Neither grew up disfunctional.
The problem is that "social workers" need some kids to "care" for otherwise they would have to work for a living, so they insist on keeping the kids in danger
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
SERBIAN PRESIDENT INNOCENT OF WAR CRIMES - BRITISH CABINET SUPPRESS RECORD ON IRAQ WAR
This is an unpublished letter sent to almost every national Scottish, British or in a shortened version US newspaper. Well guess how surprising, not to say statistically improbable, it is that none of them published it. Well neither surprising nor statistically improbable if the truth is being censored but very much so if any of these countries actually have a free press.
I believe that I am the first to suggest that fear of future prosecution may be the reason, or a reason, for the decision not to publish cabinet minutes on the discussion leading to the Iraq war but it certainly fits the known facts.
-------------------------
Dear Editor,
One explanation fitting Jack Straw's decision that the public should not know of the Cabinet's discussions preceding the Iraq war is that politicians everywhere are becoming more concerned that they may, in future, be held to account for apparent war crimes.
Coincidentally the NATO funded Yugoslav War crimes "court" has found Serbian President Milan Milutinovic innocent of war crimes purely because in a long trial no actual evidence could be produced against him. Only 3 years ago, as his blood test showing the presence of Rifampicine proves, when they were equally unable, in 4 1/2 years of "trial" to produce any evidence against Milosevic, persons unknown poisoned him in his cell.
This concern for future justice may also explain why, though our government made public the Attorney General's advice on the legality of the Iraq War they have refused to make public advice on the legality of whether the apparently even more dubious bombing of Yugoslavia was lawful or criminal. It was, after all, aimed 80% at civilians far from Kosovo in a democratic country whose territorial integrity we have, under the Helsinki Treaty, guaranteed to uphold & to support a KLA which even the Foreign Secretary had previously admitted was committing genocide. Indeed the government have refused even to say whether they ever bothered to seek such advice which must raise suspicions that they already knew it was criminal.
In any case the history of Kosovo under our occupation - numerous massacres of civilians such as the 210 murdered in the Dragodan Massacre a few hundred yards from the British military HQ; the ethnic cleansing of 350,000; the kidnap of 10s of thousands of schoolgirls (& boys) & their sale to western brothels: the kidnap & dissection of at least 1,300 Serb teens & their sale, in bits, to our hospitals - all carried out by the KLA helpfully signed up as our "police" by NATO proves that almost every senior British politician would indeed by far more vulnerable than any Serb if called before a court they hadn't paid for. It is unfortunate & almost inexplicable that these atrocities, some of them at least matching any act of Hitler have gone essentially unreported by our media.
Meanwhile many innocent people, like the popular moderate Bosnian Moslem politician Fikret Abdic, whose only "crimes" were to support the survival of a multicultural state & to oppose the press gangs of al Quaeda, who were then our convenient allies in dismembering the country & were shipping home boxes of human heads to Saudi, languishes in jail.
If we are ever to have a safe & peaceful world we all desperately need the sort of international courts Mr Straw & co so fear.
Sincerely
Neil Craig
References
Rifampicine in Milosevic's blood test http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NOR20060601&articleId=2542
Response to FoI request on he government's legal advice on whether the war was legal http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2005/04/was-war-against-yugoslavia-legal.html
Foreign Secretary's statement to Parliament that the KLA, not the Yugoslavs were engaged inn genocide http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199899/cmhansrd/vo990118/debtext/90118-06.htm
Our atrocities in Kosovo http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/search?q=dragodan & http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/ips040108.htm
Fikret Abdic http://www.antiwar.com/justin/pf/p-j072001.html
---------------------------
Where there is something contentious i normally put in references proving what I say - this seems reasonable since otherwise I would be asking them to publish something without knowing its accuracy (though looking at any letters page you will see they often do). It also means that none of these newspapers can ever claim that their failure to report the facts was because they didn't know them.
I believe that I am the first to suggest that fear of future prosecution may be the reason, or a reason, for the decision not to publish cabinet minutes on the discussion leading to the Iraq war but it certainly fits the known facts.
-------------------------
Dear Editor,
One explanation fitting Jack Straw's decision that the public should not know of the Cabinet's discussions preceding the Iraq war is that politicians everywhere are becoming more concerned that they may, in future, be held to account for apparent war crimes.
Coincidentally the NATO funded Yugoslav War crimes "court" has found Serbian President Milan Milutinovic innocent of war crimes purely because in a long trial no actual evidence could be produced against him. Only 3 years ago, as his blood test showing the presence of Rifampicine proves, when they were equally unable, in 4 1/2 years of "trial" to produce any evidence against Milosevic, persons unknown poisoned him in his cell.
This concern for future justice may also explain why, though our government made public the Attorney General's advice on the legality of the Iraq War they have refused to make public advice on the legality of whether the apparently even more dubious bombing of Yugoslavia was lawful or criminal. It was, after all, aimed 80% at civilians far from Kosovo in a democratic country whose territorial integrity we have, under the Helsinki Treaty, guaranteed to uphold & to support a KLA which even the Foreign Secretary had previously admitted was committing genocide. Indeed the government have refused even to say whether they ever bothered to seek such advice which must raise suspicions that they already knew it was criminal.
In any case the history of Kosovo under our occupation - numerous massacres of civilians such as the 210 murdered in the Dragodan Massacre a few hundred yards from the British military HQ; the ethnic cleansing of 350,000; the kidnap of 10s of thousands of schoolgirls (& boys) & their sale to western brothels: the kidnap & dissection of at least 1,300 Serb teens & their sale, in bits, to our hospitals - all carried out by the KLA helpfully signed up as our "police" by NATO proves that almost every senior British politician would indeed by far more vulnerable than any Serb if called before a court they hadn't paid for. It is unfortunate & almost inexplicable that these atrocities, some of them at least matching any act of Hitler have gone essentially unreported by our media.
Meanwhile many innocent people, like the popular moderate Bosnian Moslem politician Fikret Abdic, whose only "crimes" were to support the survival of a multicultural state & to oppose the press gangs of al Quaeda, who were then our convenient allies in dismembering the country & were shipping home boxes of human heads to Saudi, languishes in jail.
If we are ever to have a safe & peaceful world we all desperately need the sort of international courts Mr Straw & co so fear.
Sincerely
Neil Craig
References
Rifampicine in Milosevic's blood test http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NOR20060601&articleId=2542
Response to FoI request on he government's legal advice on whether the war was legal http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2005/04/was-war-against-yugoslavia-legal.html
Foreign Secretary's statement to Parliament that the KLA, not the Yugoslavs were engaged inn genocide http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199899/cmhansrd/vo990118/debtext/90118-06.htm
Our atrocities in Kosovo http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/search?q=dragodan & http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/ips040108.htm
Fikret Abdic http://www.antiwar.com/justin/pf/p-j072001.html
---------------------------
Where there is something contentious i normally put in references proving what I say - this seems reasonable since otherwise I would be asking them to publish something without knowing its accuracy (though looking at any letters page you will see they often do). It also means that none of these newspapers can ever claim that their failure to report the facts was because they didn't know them.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
BBC YET AGAIN GIVING FREE ADVERTISING TO THE ECO-FASCIST WARMING LIARS
Another BBC Morning Show phone in; another eco fascist on air. This time it was a representative of Plane Stupid whose members had just attacked Aberdeen Airport.
Naturally he was brought on with no attempt to have a balancing guest saying they were lying eco-fascist thugs (or even that they were merely wrong). However the majority of callers gave him a considerably rougher ride than Graham did. I was one & having some objection to being called a liar without right of reply have pasted this on the BBC blog:
This morning I rang in & said that when I was young the "environmentalist" movement had opposed Concorde on the grounds that it would produce the global ice age they were then threatening us with. I also said that the globe is not warming but that it is currently cooling, because of the lack of sunspots. Both the "Plane Stupid" representative & Graham said that this was untrue though I pointed out the obvious fact that we have just experienced the coldest winter weather for decades. Well:
"But figures from the respected US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that almost all the “lost” ice has come back.
Ice levels which had shrunk from 13million sq km in January 2007 to just four million in October, are almost back to their original levels.
Figures show that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than is usual for the time of year."http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/35266/Global-warming-It-s-the-coldest-winter-in-decades
& earlier
"The first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday. The whole year will almost certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average. […] The global mean temperature to end-July was 0.28 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, the UK-based Met Office Hadley Centre for climate change research said on Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008 the coolest since 2000."http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4613
So clearly I am owed an on air correction.
I also said that the BBC had spent an enormous amount of time pushing this & seemed to have people claiming it on nearly every day while not letting people putting the opposing view speak. Graham said that i was on. Seconds later he cut me off. Since the BBC have put on 10s of thousands of hours of alarmist lies I do not regard 30 seconds on a phone in by me balances it & indeed the BBC (Newsnight) are on record as saying that they do not treat the warming scam with "due scepticism & balance".
At the end I asked the researcher on the line if there was any possibility the Morning Show would ever allow impartiality by allowing anybody, even anybody not involved in such criminal activities, an equal amount of airtime but he replied that he just worked there.
Having put stuff up on that blog before & seen it not published I will be intrigued to see whether this goes up - the link will show. As for the BBC admitting on air that I was telling the truth & that we have had a colder 18 months - well I think that is about as likely as them giving one hour to sceptics for every 1,000 given to support eco-fascist alarmists.
UPDATE Strangely enough they not only censored my comment(which makes it 3 out of 3)but for inexplicable reasons I am blocked from further comments there.
Elsewhere, a bay after it was reported elsewhere the BBC have reported the cooling.
Naturally he was brought on with no attempt to have a balancing guest saying they were lying eco-fascist thugs (or even that they were merely wrong). However the majority of callers gave him a considerably rougher ride than Graham did. I was one & having some objection to being called a liar without right of reply have pasted this on the BBC blog:
This morning I rang in & said that when I was young the "environmentalist" movement had opposed Concorde on the grounds that it would produce the global ice age they were then threatening us with. I also said that the globe is not warming but that it is currently cooling, because of the lack of sunspots. Both the "Plane Stupid" representative & Graham said that this was untrue though I pointed out the obvious fact that we have just experienced the coldest winter weather for decades. Well:
"But figures from the respected US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that almost all the “lost” ice has come back.
Ice levels which had shrunk from 13million sq km in January 2007 to just four million in October, are almost back to their original levels.
Figures show that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than is usual for the time of year."http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/35266/Global-warming-It-s-the-coldest-winter-in-decades
& earlier
"The first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday. The whole year will almost certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average. […] The global mean temperature to end-July was 0.28 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, the UK-based Met Office Hadley Centre for climate change research said on Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008 the coolest since 2000."http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4613
So clearly I am owed an on air correction.
I also said that the BBC had spent an enormous amount of time pushing this & seemed to have people claiming it on nearly every day while not letting people putting the opposing view speak. Graham said that i was on. Seconds later he cut me off. Since the BBC have put on 10s of thousands of hours of alarmist lies I do not regard 30 seconds on a phone in by me balances it & indeed the BBC (Newsnight) are on record as saying that they do not treat the warming scam with "due scepticism & balance".
At the end I asked the researcher on the line if there was any possibility the Morning Show would ever allow impartiality by allowing anybody, even anybody not involved in such criminal activities, an equal amount of airtime but he replied that he just worked there.
Having put stuff up on that blog before & seen it not published I will be intrigued to see whether this goes up - the link will show. As for the BBC admitting on air that I was telling the truth & that we have had a colder 18 months - well I think that is about as likely as them giving one hour to sceptics for every 1,000 given to support eco-fascist alarmists.
UPDATE Strangely enough they not only censored my comment(which makes it 3 out of 3)but for inexplicable reasons I am blocked from further comments there.
Elsewhere, a bay after it was reported elsewhere the BBC have reported the cooling.
Monday, March 02, 2009
RESPONSE TO SATURDAY'S OBSELETE MILITARY POST
I sent a link to Saturday's post to a couple of British political sites & to Jerry Pournelle. I have previously mentioned when he responded to something I sent & regard his site as an absolutely vital read to anybody who wants to improve the world, or indeed come close to understanding it, in a non-Luddite way. Ke was also the guy that persiaded Reagan to support SDI. I am reposting what he says:
THEL & HULC
An article on why the aircraft carriers we are building will be as obsolete as battleships when they come into service & a couple of military technologies we could put the money into instead. http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/02/obselete-military.html
Neil Craig
Well worth reading(ok my emphasis :-) The future composition of the fleet depends in large part on what missions it must accomplish. Before we do that we need to answer hard questions about what are our responsibilities, and where. For example, do we still have an interest in Taiwan, or is it time to give notice that the treaty with Taiwan will run out? The US Navy has always been involved in freedom of the seas and free passage for all nations; we certainly will continue that, but what does that take?
Does it require great carrier groups to carry out the foreign policy of a wealthy republic> How far must we be able to project power? Would it be more cost effective to develop nuclear power plants or nuclear powered warships? These are the hard questions, and I am not sure anyone is asking them.
Unlike standing armies, a solid Navy has never been considered a political problem for the republic: the questions are effectiveness and costs vs. benefits and missions.
One of the hard questions is the survivability of present design warships in different levels of warfare. But just as different missions require different kinds of army, different levels of warfare require different kinds of Navy. Piracy suppression missions are not best carried out by large carrier groups. Protection of the coasts against a nuclear-armed invader is an entirely different mission from protection of American interests in a Banana Republic or the Middle East. To what extent will be be involved in "humanitarian" missions, and is regime change of a horrible dictatorship that devours its own people but is no threat to the people of the US an appropriate mission for the United States? We can all agree that disaster mitigation is a good thing, but how large a Navy should we maintain for the entirely predictable disasters that will take place in volcanic/earthquake typhoon regions? And so forth.
We need a new strategic survey on the future of sea warfare; a Strategy of Technology that looks into survivability and effectiveness in different combat environments and levels of warfare. I do not know how much of this is being done, but I don't see many results.
==
The following message is relevant to the new fleet design as well as relevant to a previous discussion.
Continuing the discussion on the future of air power (Begins http://www.jerrypournelle.com/
mail/2009/Q1/mail558.html#air1 and Continues http://www.jerrypournelle.com/
mail/2009/Q1/mail558.html#air2
Col. Couvillon's remarks
Jerry,
As usual Col. Couvillon is right on. We all know it takes a decade or more from initial specs to production for most any weapons system. So, by the time a weapon is in production, the electronics are completely outdated. Now imagine the kind of fire control software that could be written to run on a current generation laptop from you local store, add-in remote controlled flying electronics from your local RC hobby store, an IED, and a light flying platform of some kind (think big RC plane or a Cessna). Now recall that most of this is built cheaply and in very large quantities in China.
Phil
I'm not aware of any Linux R/C software, as everything I found in a foray into R/C airchines (to carry expedient amateur radio repeaters to serve wilderness firefighters, where hams now use helium balloons to loft an antenna) was Windows-based. Now, milspec killware is rarely FOSS (Free Open Source Software) but the Greater Chinese Chamber of Commerce and People's Army is firmly Open Sourced, as who knows what's in Windows, donated by the NSA, these days?
When we see Linux R/C software leaking through the Great Firewall of China, that should be a Red Flag that someone's designing remote control swarmcraft.
And, why an AED? The Greater Chinese Chamber of Commerce and People's Army can copy a late WW-II device, the cluster munition, very well. Israel's been on the receiving end of their Type 90 MZD submunition http://www.hrw.org/legacy/english/docs/
2006/10/18/global14408.htm (delivered when Hezbollah is not too busy killing fellow Muslims http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2007/0409terrorism_saab.aspx ), the GCCCPA declines to sign a treaty against submunitions http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/landmark-cluster-bomb-treaty-signed-oslo-20081203
and their most recent white paper http://politicalminefields.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/chinas-landmines-and-cluster-munitions-policy/ also avoids criticizing submunitions.
-- 73s and best regards from John Bartley
UPDATE
Ther military may not be scaling lasers up to stop ICBMs but the market is scaling them down to get flies ;-)
THEL & HULC
An article on why the aircraft carriers we are building will be as obsolete as battleships when they come into service & a couple of military technologies we could put the money into instead. http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2009/02/obselete-military.html
Neil Craig
Well worth reading(ok my emphasis :-) The future composition of the fleet depends in large part on what missions it must accomplish. Before we do that we need to answer hard questions about what are our responsibilities, and where. For example, do we still have an interest in Taiwan, or is it time to give notice that the treaty with Taiwan will run out? The US Navy has always been involved in freedom of the seas and free passage for all nations; we certainly will continue that, but what does that take?
Does it require great carrier groups to carry out the foreign policy of a wealthy republic> How far must we be able to project power? Would it be more cost effective to develop nuclear power plants or nuclear powered warships? These are the hard questions, and I am not sure anyone is asking them.
Unlike standing armies, a solid Navy has never been considered a political problem for the republic: the questions are effectiveness and costs vs. benefits and missions.
One of the hard questions is the survivability of present design warships in different levels of warfare. But just as different missions require different kinds of army, different levels of warfare require different kinds of Navy. Piracy suppression missions are not best carried out by large carrier groups. Protection of the coasts against a nuclear-armed invader is an entirely different mission from protection of American interests in a Banana Republic or the Middle East. To what extent will be be involved in "humanitarian" missions, and is regime change of a horrible dictatorship that devours its own people but is no threat to the people of the US an appropriate mission for the United States? We can all agree that disaster mitigation is a good thing, but how large a Navy should we maintain for the entirely predictable disasters that will take place in volcanic/earthquake typhoon regions? And so forth.
We need a new strategic survey on the future of sea warfare; a Strategy of Technology that looks into survivability and effectiveness in different combat environments and levels of warfare. I do not know how much of this is being done, but I don't see many results.
==
The following message is relevant to the new fleet design as well as relevant to a previous discussion.
Continuing the discussion on the future of air power (Begins http://www.jerrypournelle.com/
mail/2009/Q1/mail558.html#air1 and Continues http://www.jerrypournelle.com/
mail/2009/Q1/mail558.html#air2
Col. Couvillon's remarks
Jerry,
As usual Col. Couvillon is right on. We all know it takes a decade or more from initial specs to production for most any weapons system. So, by the time a weapon is in production, the electronics are completely outdated. Now imagine the kind of fire control software that could be written to run on a current generation laptop from you local store, add-in remote controlled flying electronics from your local RC hobby store, an IED, and a light flying platform of some kind (think big RC plane or a Cessna). Now recall that most of this is built cheaply and in very large quantities in China.
Phil
I'm not aware of any Linux R/C software, as everything I found in a foray into R/C airchines (to carry expedient amateur radio repeaters to serve wilderness firefighters, where hams now use helium balloons to loft an antenna) was Windows-based. Now, milspec killware is rarely FOSS (Free Open Source Software) but the Greater Chinese Chamber of Commerce and People's Army is firmly Open Sourced, as who knows what's in Windows, donated by the NSA, these days?
When we see Linux R/C software leaking through the Great Firewall of China, that should be a Red Flag that someone's designing remote control swarmcraft.
And, why an AED? The Greater Chinese Chamber of Commerce and People's Army can copy a late WW-II device, the cluster munition, very well. Israel's been on the receiving end of their Type 90 MZD submunition http://www.hrw.org/legacy/english/docs/
2006/10/18/global14408.htm (delivered when Hezbollah is not too busy killing fellow Muslims http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2007/0409terrorism_saab.aspx ), the GCCCPA declines to sign a treaty against submunitions http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/landmark-cluster-bomb-treaty-signed-oslo-20081203
and their most recent white paper http://politicalminefields.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/chinas-landmines-and-cluster-munitions-policy/ also avoids criticizing submunitions.
-- 73s and best regards from John Bartley
UPDATE
Ther military may not be scaling lasers up to stop ICBMs but the market is scaling them down to get flies ;-)
