More Junkmail from Bob!

Sunday, March 30, 2003
Important Stuff.



A Prime Breakthrough

A guy named Dan and a guy named Yalcim made a breakthrough in prime number theory. I didn't go through it all to understand the details, but they've gotten a giant step closer to proving the existence of an infinite number of twin primes -- prime numbers separated by 2 such as 5, 7 and 41, 43. Apparently they've broken down a theoretical barrier that has been around for 80 years.

Here are some details

      http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5483833.htm

      http://aimath.org/goldston_tech/

      http://www.math.sjsu.edu/~goldston/

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Camp David

What's it like at Camp David? I'm pretty sure it goes something like this:

Rice: Listen up! There's a reporter coming, so everybody look sharp and clean up your language!!

Reporter: President Bush, is the war lasting longer than you expected?

Bush: Saddam is evil. He has killed thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of his own people with nerve gas. He's an evil man and we know the outcome of this war.

Reporter: President Bush, you have requested almost $75,000,000,000 for the war effort, yet little more than $60,000,000,000 is earmarked for the war, and most of that will be spent at the discretion of Mr. Rumsfeld. Where will the extra $15 billion go, and do you consider this a sound fiscal policy?

Bush: Saddam is a terrible man. He leads a brutally repressive regime and he must be disarmed, no matter how long it takes. No matter how long it takes. No matter how long it takes.

Reporter: President Bush, some of the U.S. marines are down to one meal per day, and are short on fuel, ammunition, and water. Even worse, one of our own reporters is getting only one meal per day. They say they are taking a 4-6 day pause for resupply. Is this true?

Bush: We know the outcome of this battle. The Iraqi regime will be disarmed. The Iraqi regime will be removed from power. Iraq will be free.

Reporter: Mr. Rumsfeld, a few months ago you were quoted as saying this war may last only six days, and certainly weeks rather than months. Also, you were quoted saying that Hussein's government is nothing but a house of cards. Do you still stand by these statements?

Rumsfeld: Don't be ridiculous. Saddam Hussein is an evil man. He has gassed thousands of his own people. He is unquestionably hiding all kinds of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. We know this because we haven't found any yet.

Reporter: Mr. Rumsfeld, U.S. army officers have reported from Iraq saying they need more people, the fighting is worse than anticipated, and they are meeting much more resistance than expected from irregular forces. What is your reaction to these reports?

Rumsfeld: Hodges and Wallace are a couple of whiners. We are on track and on schedule. Saddam is evil. He gasses his own people. He must be disarmed. It is a brutally repressive regime.

Reporter: President Chirac, some people in your country suggest you should prohibit the U.S. military from flying over France. Do you see this as a possibility?

Chirac: Saddam is evil, but Bush is the axis of stupid. I am a diplomat.

Reporter: President Chirac, some Americans believe that France owes the U.S. a debt of gratitude for World War II, and should participate in the fight against Iraq. How do you respond to this?

Chirac: The U.S. only got into World War II after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. I don't think France had anything to do with it. Besides, if it weren't for Lafayette, you Americans would be speaking English today.

Kim: Hey, what about me! If you guys don't quit ignoring me I'm gonna launch a missile into the ocean!

Bush: Get those things perfected and we'll buy them from you. Our cruise missiles keep landing in the Saudi desert, and I'll be darned if I can figure out why.

Franks: Maybe we should start filling them up with fuel before we launch them.

Rumsfeld: Shutup. If I want your opinion I'll give it to you.

Bush:  OK, OK, enough of the small talk. Get rid of the reporter and let's play poker. Someone tell those guys in Iraq to lay low and don't bother me for a few hours.

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Pause Button

Once I was flying an airplane near Phoenix and the controller told me to hold my position. I looked all over the panel twice, but there was no pause button. That's a major flaw with airplanes, in my opinion. The controller followed up my silence with an order to fly in circles. That was much easier.

There's a war going on in Iraq. Some of the U.S. army is near Baghdad, and they're pausing a few days for to rest, resupply, and fix broken stuff. Several of the generals and colonels there have said this, and it certainly seems like a good idea.

But U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald has denied more than once that there is any pause in the operation. I can't figure out whether he's clueless or lying. According to Bob Woodward's "Bush at War," Rumsfeld told some blatant untruths during the attack in Afghanistan, and Woodward backed it up.

It makes me wonder, if Rumsfeld would lie just to paint a pretty picture of the war, do you think he'd lie to cover up something he or an associate (maybe someone named Perle, for example) did wrong? It also makes me wonder why he says the U.S. troops are not pausing before their attack on Baghdad. Does he think I'm as dumb as I look?

Whether or not the U.S. troops pause to regroup is not important. Who cares? There are competent people in Iraq making those decisions. What could be more important is why the U.S. Secretary of Defense goes out of his way to distort what's happening in Iraq. Has the propaganda campaign spilled over into the U.S.? Doesn't the press care any more when a politician distorts the truth?

      http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2470050

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Truth in Politics

Bush mentioned in his State of the Union address, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The U.S. turned over the incriminating documents to the International Atomic Energy Agency, who figured out right away that they were fakes, and poor quality fakes.

For example, on one of the documents the signature of Niger President Tandja Mamadou was not even close to authentic, and there was a reference to the 1965 Niger Constitution even though it had been replaced by the 1999 Niger Constitution. Another letter was signed by the foreign minister of Niger. However, the foreign minister who supposedly signed the letter had left his job 10 years earlier, and the letter was on some kind of military letterhead.

The CIA said, "We didn't do it. We make good forgeries." Bush said, "Yeah, maybe those are fake, but we have other evidence we can't disclose." CNN said, "We can't be bothered with this stuff. There's a war on!"

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9011-2003Mar22

      http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/international/worldspecial/23CIA.html

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War News

News coverage is really interesting lately. The U.S. war news at CNN is almost like U.S. propaganda. They quote the U.S. party line and very little else. The war news at the English Al-Jazeera site is in Arabic, and it's offline pretty often. I'm pretty sure it's Iraqi propaganda, although I can't read it. The BBC is a little more objective, but the best war news I've been able to find is here:

      http://www.theonion.com/onion3911/index.html

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Report Your Local Squirrel

Terrorists are everywhere! If you see anything unusual, report it to any of dozens of toll-free numbers around the country, ranging from the FBI to Customs to the Coast Guard to the Ohio Department of Homeland Security. Yesterday I saw a dog chasing a squirrel. It was very unusual because this stupid squirrel ran back and forth between trees 5 or 6 times before he finally climbed one to get away. Being the patriot that I am, I started to report this unusual activity. But I decided that instead of being terrorized, the squirrel was just teasing the dog, so I forgot about it.

In Washington DC, a guy named Courtland was walking around near the Jefferson Memorial. He saw something unusual, a "five-foot-tall metal box that was hooked up to an electrical outlet and equipped with a high-tech antenna and chrome-dome receptor." So he asked some National Park employees about it. They didn't know what it was. But a few minutes later, a couple of U.S. Park Police officers came up and said, "We hear you've been asking curious questions." They had guns.

Things went downhill from there. I thought this story was really funny.

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16791-2003Mar23.html

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Don't mess with Texas!

Texas politician John Carter wants to make it a felony to download copyrighted music on the internet. I'm not sure how he intends to house millions of college students in the Texas prison system.

      http://wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,58081,00.html

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Iraq Maps

Here are some high-res maps of Iraq.

Iraq Wall Map:
     

Baghdad:
     

SE Turkey, Syria, and Northern Iraq:
     

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Designed for Microsoft

Office Depot is throwing out all hardware and software that is not certified to be "Designed for Windows XP." It will sure give Microsoft a lot of control over the future of software development if this catches on with the other major chains.


      http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8472

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Money Talks

Bush requested $74.7 billion to pay for the war with Iraq. Actually, about $12 billion of that is for miscellaneous expenses, kind of like the one-time charges in corporate income statements that occur regularly. When he testified to Congress about this money, Secretary of Defense Donald implied that he'd be back asking for more money. Specifically, he said, "It is conceivable that there will be needs that will not be met, and we would have to come back and discuss those matters."

       http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/25/international/worldspecial/25PREX.html

More than a quarter of the $12.1 billion "extra" dollars is going into Homeland Security, although they've already received a LOT of money. That organization seems to lack some organization. Beginning April Fools Day, the Department of Homeland Security is planning to lay off about 3000 passenger screeners at airports around the country. They said they have too many of them because of the lack of air traffic. They are cutting the number from 54,000 to 51,000 people.

That seems like a lot of people to me. I guess it seemed like a lot of people to Congress too, because Congress limited the TSA to 45,000 full-time screeners. Undeterred by mere congressional limits, the TSA hired an extra 9,000 people as temporary employees, and put most of them on 5-year contracts. Now they're already laying off these temporary 5-year people. I would assume that they get to pay some big severance money to break the 5-year contracts.

I think those people have too much money to waste and too little common sense.

      http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Transportation-Security.html

Congress appropriated $580 million for the Coast Guard, now under the umbrella of Homeland Security, for increased port security. Instead of port security, two thirds of the money is being spent on the Iraq war, according to the Wall Street Journal. But don't worry -- the Wall Street Journal says that Democrats will press for more money.

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Delta's Leo

Delta Airlines hasn't been doing so well financially, so they doubled Delta Boss Leo's pay package to more than $13 million last year. It seems the government isn't the only one short on common sense. Delta lost $1,270,000,000 in 2002.

      http://nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-airlines-delta-pay.html

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Coalescent

I hear a lot about "the coalition" on the news lately. That's the group of nations fighting Iraq. When a U.S. news organization discusses U.S. troops, they usually call it coalition troops. British troops are called British troops. The BBC isn't so circumspect. They call the U.S. troops Americans instead of coalitions.

There are supposed to be 40+countries in "the coalition." I was wondering if all these countries got together and signed an agreement on the subject of Iraq or defense or toasters or something. I couldn't find anything, so I though maybe all these countries have chipped in to help pay for the war. It turns out I was wrong about that too

Some of the $12.1 billion "leftover cash" from the $74.7 billion Congress is allocating for the war is being used to pay countries to be part of the "coalition of the willing." The payment comes in the form of foreign aid of one type or another. For example, Turkey gets a cool billion. Slovenia was slated to get $4.5 million as a partner in the war against Iraq.

You might ask what Slovenia is doing in the war with Iraq. Slovenia might even ask what Slovenia is doing in the war with Iraq. In fact, Slovenia DID ask. They want nothing to do with the war or the coalition, and they don't even want the $4.5 million dollars.

Slovenia Prime Minister Anton Rop said "When we asked for an explanation, the State Department told us we were named in the document by mistake." Slovenia might be forced to take the $4.5 million dollars, however. They were still listed in the budget on Friday.

The Solomon Islands asked to opt out of the "coalition," but they're still listed as a member. Angola was out for a while, but now they're back in. I wonder if France and Germany are listed as coalition members because they allow U.S. military planes to use their airspace.

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39962-2003Mar27.html

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Some Non-Prime Numbers

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the budget deficit will be $287 billion in 2003 and $338 billion 2004, taking into account the new tax-cut proposals. The $75 billion being spent in Iraq is not included here, bringing the total to $352 billion for 2003, at least until Rumsfeld goes back to Congress for more money. The $74.7 billion is based on a 1-month war.

This means the U.S. government is borrowing that much money this year. That's about $60 billion more than the record budget deficit of 1992.

These numbers don't include a lot of "off-the-books" items like social security and a bunch of other stuff, as John Chandler pointed out, but they should be reasonably consistent with each other. Someday I might wade through all that and make a guess at the real deficit.

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Chicago is Important Too

There have been some temporary flight restrictions around New York and Washington lately. Chicago Mayor Daley felt left out and wanted one for Chicago. The FAA and Dept. of Homeland Security told him to forget it, there was no need, and they would not implement any new flight restrictions for Chicago unless there was specific, credible intelligence of a terrorist threat. They lied. Daley went around the FAA, who is supposed to regulate airplanes, and convinced the Department of Homeland Security that he knows more than the FBI and that they should limit flights over Chicago. Homeland Security ordered the TSA who ordered the FAA to implement a new flight restriction for Chicago last week, "until further notice." Daley said this would deter hostile acts. I don't see how this restriction could do anything to prevent any kind of terrorism. But then, Mayor Daley is obviously a terrorist expert.

Here is the easy-to-read restriction, perfect for out-of-town pilots.


Incidentally, this new restricted area does not apply to airliners. Most of the new restricted areas do not apply to airliners. For example, airliners can land at Washington DC and small private planes cannot. Did everybody forget that it was not small planes that crashed into the Pentagon and World Trade Towers? Even if a small plane crashed into the Pentagon tomorrow, it would barely make a dent.

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Pictures of Today!

Here's a picture of my mom in the 7th grade, along with the other kids in her school.

     

A pickup and a minivan in the Colorado snow week before last.

A creek...
      

... with ducks.
        

Trees


Deep snow even for snow shoes.
  

Snow Monkeys


An F15...


...and an F22:

There are more and higher-resolution air force pictures here:

      http://www.af.mil/photos/

A satellite photo of the Great Sand Dunes National Monument in Colorado.


And finally, a satellite photo of the Island of Bora Bora:

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