Assassin

So to review most of my symptoms: a sore in my mouth; tingling around my neck, jaw, and face; tingling on my left arm; exhaustion; mental confusion. Occasional nausea.

We dismissed the tingling in the arm as psychosomatic. After all, a part-of-leaf dose couldn't produce that effect. I admit that I fretted anyway, thinking I'd managed to somehow ingest a dose of herbicide or pesticide.

Today my wife has that same sore in her mouth, tingling, exhaustion, mental confusion...

In other words, this is a coincidence: we're looking at a virus

They're stumped: nothing in a dose that small (a single leaf) should be toxic enough to cause problems; allergic reactions are usually hives; herbicides cause systemic reactions, not sores in the mouth. In fact it didn't sound much like poisoning to them at all. They say they usually ask a nursery for plant identification.

My spouse's theory is that some microscopic bug was on the leaf, unnoticed, and it bit me to cause my reaction.

I don't believe that I'm having a reaction to glycoalkaloid, as I'd expect from black nightshade, because I didn't experience burning and the leaf was not bitter.

So we're stumped. The sore is gone but I'm still not feeling well... symptom details elided.

If someone could identify this plant and tell me if it's poisonous, I'd be greatly obliged.

I decided I needed to clear the Weber-induced cobwebs out of my brain as I prepare at least three talks over the next couple of weeks. I'll start with Jack Vance and may include a dose of Niven, Heinlien, or Van Vogt.

The Killing Machine is Vance's 2nd novel in the saga of the Demon Princes (which is SF, not fantasy), is only 150 pages long, and contains more story, characterization, and enjoyment than Weber's last thousand-page opus.

And I'd appreciate it if Mr. Obama didn't trivialize my concerns about his plans to socialize health care as "clinging" to the past, as if I were a petulant two-year old unwilling to part with a favorite toy.

If you're a David Weber fan and you've been anxiously awaiting for details on how the model E, model E-1, and model G missiles differ from each other, then by all means read Storm from the Shadows. Everyone else should avoid this book.

Well, perhaps not everyone. This book demonstrates several pitfalls that new authors should avoid. Everyone in this book, as in previous books, speaks in exactly the same way and with the same turns of phrase. Superiors enjoy tormenting their subordinates as the subordinates wait for decisions regarding the propriety of their actions. Powerful good rulers like to refer to jokingly cast themselves as evil plotters. Contrast Weber's dialog to that in any book by Dorothy Sayers where each character has a different voice: polite, rude, abrupt, discursive, laconic, precise, fussy, and so on and so forth. Sayers's characters are real.

Even fans of the Honor Harrington series will find this book a hard read. This book continues Weber's attempt to breath new life into the series by introducing a new implausible background plot that supplants all previous information. And the newcomers are magicians: in previous books they had startling advantages in the biological sciences, but in this book they suddenly acquire new and unprecedented technology. The book ends, not with a conclusion, but with a cliffhanger; and Weber — who usually thinks nothing of prattling on for a dozen pages about the some picayune technical detail — carefully says nothing at all about the mysterious new technology in a failed effort to pique our interest.

All in all, I consider this book an antidote to anyone still suffering from Harrington addiction.

Always read the introduction or forward: you can save a lot of time that way.

When I selected Bombing Civilians by Tanaka and Young I expected to read a discussion of the history and moral issues regarding the bombing of civilians. These are not simple questions; US relations with Japan faltered in the late 1930's because of Japan's bombing of civilians in Shanghai, yet by the end of the war the US bombed civilians in Japan.

As I read the introduction I began to become uneasy, because the word choices indicated that the authors proceeded on the premise that bombing of civilians is always wrong (which may be true but is not obvious). But I put down the book when I came across some choice historical revisionism, namely that Japan would have surrendered even without the threat of further atomic bombs. That thesis is indefensible, and if I cannot trust the authors' presentation of history I can't trust the book's conclusions.

Sheva Brachot tonight at my house, thirty guests. They're starting to arrive; there's a pouring rainstorm outside...

EDITED: A number of guests will be late or not attend because of memorial service; someone died suddenly of a heart attack today.

Melanie Philips deconstructs Obama's speech, including his mistaken attribution of a Talmudic concept to Islam.

The Obama Administration is now investigating tech companies in Silicon Valley for anti-trust (a rumored agreement not to poach each other's employees).

I predict that the Obama Administration will find ways to continue to pressure tech companies — this will draw campaign contributions to the Democratic Party in an effort to mitigate the ill effects.

Just a quick note, since the news is so vary fragmented. The significant information buried in some press reports is that the airplane sent out an automated alarm that indicated pressurization problems, not just electrical problems. Loss of pressure may indicate structural damage, and pressure loss leads rapidly to loss of consciousness.

In 2005 an Airbus plane suffered total power loss in the cockpit: no lights, no primary of backup instruments, and most importantly no control over the aircraft; the crew managed to restart power after ninety seconds.

While it's impossible to say what happened, not all electrical power was lost to the aircraft, but they also had pressurization problem. To my mind this indicates one or more catastrophic events that resulted in: loss of electrical power, the inability of the air crew to make a mayday call, the inability of the crew to control the aircraft, and a simultaneous pressurization emergency. This sounds remarkably like an explosion, impact, or major structural failure.

EDIT: From the NYT:

Hans Weber, head of the Tecop aviation consulting firm in San Diego, offered a hypothesis about the episode, based on his knowledge of severe losses of altitude by two Qantas jets last year.

The new Airbus 330 was a “fly-by-wire” plane, in which signals to move the flaps are sent through electric wires to small motors in the wings rather than through cables or hydraulic tubing. Fly-by-wire systems can automatically conduct maneuvers to prevent an impending crash, but some Airbus jets will not allow a pilot to override the self-protection mechanism.

On both Qantas flights, the planes’ inertia sensors sent faulty information into the flight computers, making them take emergency measures to correct problems that did not exist, sending the planes into sudden dives.

If the inertia sensor told a computer that a plane was stalling, forcing it to drop the nose and dive to pick up airspeed, and there was simultaneously a severe downdraft in the storm turbulence, “that would be hard to recover from,” Mr. Weber said

I can hear certain science fiction authors screaming...

Just a quick note, since the news is so vary fragmented. The significant information buried in some press reports is that the airplane sent out an automated alarm that indicated pressurization problems, not just electrical problems. Loss of pressure may indicate structural damage, and pressure loss leads rapidly to loss of consciousness.

In 2005 an Airbus plane suffered total power loss in the cockpit: no lights, no primary of backup instruments, and most importantly no control over the aircraft; the crew managed to restart power after ninety seconds.

While it's impossible to say what happened, not all electrical power was lost to the aircraft, but they also had pressurization problem. To my mind this indicates one or more catastrophic events that resulted in: loss of electrical power, the inability of the air crew to make a mayday call, the inability of the crew to control the aircraft, and a simultaneous pressurization emergency. This sounds remarkably like an explosion, impact, or major structural failure.

Anyone who thinks that government ownership of GM and Chrysler will have a happy outcome should read this article by Romania's former car czar.

Personally, I'm reminded of Barbra Tuchman's The March of Folly. President Obama's seizure of Chrysler and GM runs entirely contrary to the evidence of history; this is folly in its more pristine form.

It's the 21st of May, and nearly 2:30 PM; that is, time for a drink of Scotch in commemoration of Montrose.

( The details )
Join me if you will.

Another funny media agenda item: the bomb plot against the Jews in New York — the men arrested had planted their bombs under parked cars and at a synagogue — were prison converts to Islam. Not a word in the CNN story I linked to above about the accuseds' race or religion, and apparently other news outlets have decided to conceal this important information.

I'd like to point out something funny. The Democratic Party in Congress has rebelled against Mr. Obama's terrorism policy; but the press continues to interview Republicans instead.

For example, on Sunday's "Meet the Press" the ACLU debated someone from the Republican Party about Mr. Obama's policy on trials for terrorists; the White House was conspicuously absent from the debate. Today, with 60-odd Democrats voting against Mr. Obama's plan to close the prison at Gitmo, the only person I heard interviewed on the radio was — you guessed it — a Republican.

Of course I understand the media's political objectives, but I still find it funny.

As I sit here working hard to avoid thinking about a magazine article due on Friday, I've just opened the mail. The US Census Bureau wrote to ask about my small business.

When the regular census rolls around I'm willing to answer just one question on the form ("how many people live at your address?"). This form, however, has no questions that I'm willing to answer, so I can't decide if I should bother filling in the date and returning it or just throwing it away.

I'll see if I can post a photo, but yesterday I was hit by a laser weapons platform from orbit shortly after I took off my helmet. Just a glancing blow, but the top of my head is red, as well as my nose, although if you look carefully at the the photo you can see where I was wearing my protective goggles.



The cover story, by the way, is that I was sunburned while driving home from Minneapolis. Good enough for everyone else, but regular readers of this blog won't be fooled.

Those of us with business email get spam related to our work as well as the usual letters from bankers in Nigeria.

There's no question that my wife's work-related spam is far, far better than any I receive. Today's quite excellent subject line: "40% Off Simulated Intestines."

(And for the curious: she has simulated ears, eyes, heads, people, and other stuff, but no need for simulated intestines. At the moment.)

There's a 15% chance that I will flee Chicago on Sunday, possibly at 2 AM, and drive to Minneapolis. I hope there's someone to play with if I do that.