SpaceX will launch again

SpaceX, a commercial space launch company will be trying another launch from Kwajalein Island today. Their first attempt some months ago failed, so I wish them luck.

The properties of Moon dust

This is interesting. The University of Tennessee and NASA are looking into the properties of Moon dust. The respiratory problems are one thing. Apollo 17's Jack Schmitt reported hay-fever-like symptoms when he breathed some in after changing out of his space suit. You've got very fine dust, and I'd bet a lot of the problem is the lack of weather on the Moon. There's a lot of glassy material in it, and you get sharp edges that aren't getting weathered down the way sand does here. Furthermore, as the article shows, Moon dust has a Swiss-cheese appearance, and these vesicles increase its surface area. Inhaling this kind of dust can be dangerous because the lungs will form scar tissue to cover the particle, and this scar tissue blocks the oxygen exchange. The more surface area it has, the more of the lung tissue it's in contact with. Bigger problem.

Now, what really got my attention was the physical properties of the dust itself. There's an iron content to it, so it's magnetic. On the health side, this could be used to create a magnetic filter.

But there's a more impressive property!

"I discovered that if you put lunar soil in your microwave oven, next to your tea, it will melt at 1,200C before your tea boils - which is a magical thing," he said.

This property is almost entirely due to a coupling effect between the microwaves and the nano-phase iron in the dust.

Now, that's interesting! This doesn't mean, by the way, that your microwave oven would get water up to 1,200 C—it would boil at 100 C. It means that there's a special property of the dust that will absorb the energy in microwaves very readily, so it raises its temperature more quickly than water will.

In practice, this could mean using microwaves to make glass pavement out of the dust. In principle, it's an easy task. Fire microwaves at the surface, and you'd get a glassy layer. The engineering would probably require more work—you'd want to level off the surface and make layers that would hold up the weight you need to support. But it's doable.

I'm happy to see the University of Tennessee working on this. They've got their Space Science Institute around Tullahoma, but I think this work is going on in Knoxville, the main campus.

Playing catch-up

I've been kind of spotty in posting, lately. I think a well-run blog should be regular or fairly predictable in posting, which makes it easier on the readers. Well, today's catch-up day for this week.

New Horizons reaches Jupiter

The New Horizons space probe, on its way to the planet Pluto, has recently swung past Jupiter. It returned some wonderful B/W photos of Jupiter and its moons. Here's a link to an impressive one of Io, with a volcanic eruption going on. Io is the most geologically active body in the solar system, with a lot of erupting sulphur volcanos. Their plumes reach well out above the moon's low gravity, making an umbrella shape as they fall gently back to the surface. You can clearly make out one in this photo.

Hillary's back onto the VRWC; Bush fires eight US Attorneys

Hillary Clinton has trotted out her dead horse, the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. This one is a little different from the old one. This was a case of Republican party employees in New Hampshire trying to mess up the Democrats' get-out-the-vote calls at the last election. They got convicted, thankfully. This sort of thing can't be tolerated from either side.

But perhaps we ought to think about Mrs. Clinton's previous conspiracy theory. She's pulling at straws to make any connection here with Republican opposition to Whitewater and her associated scandals—it was just a rhetorical trick when she used the VRWC term. But her cohorts, like the state Democratic Party Chairman, Kathy Sullivan, seem to be trying to make a real connection:

"People think we're paranoid when we talk about the vast, right-wing conspiracy, but there is a real connection of these groups - the same names keep popping up," Sullivan said.

Really? Was Richard Mellon Scaife funding these two guys? Did Ken Starr poke his head up? Yes, I do think you're paranoid, if you believe that Mrs. Clinton's original claim of a VRWC has anything to do with this.

But she probably doesn't. It's just a way of rousing up the Left.

But let's do make a connection with the events of this week. As you may know, President Bush fired eight U.S. Attorneys, which is his prerogative. Their performance was cited. Now, the Democrats have shouted, "Politics!" and launched a Congressional investigation of some kind. The eight who were fired were Democrats or appointed by Clinton. The performance issues apparently relate to their failure to investigate election fraud cases from the 2006 elections. There were a number of local cases of stolen ballots, voting by the dead and departed, improper voter registration practices, and so on. Some of these were in close elections, and yet these eight did little or nothing to follow up on such illegal acts allegedly done by their fellow Democrats.

Yes, there's apparently politics involved—these U.S. Attorneys appear to have been letting their political allegiances get in the way of their duties. Bush has every right to fire them, and while a President can abuse powers he legally has, this isn't a case of it.


Now, how does this connect to Mrs. Clinton? Do you remember the scandal that broke out around the U.S. Attorneys at the beginning of Mr. Clinton's first term? He fired them all. All 93! While he can do that, it was certainly unprecedented, and it left a number of active cases hanging. Shouldn't the damage to Justice have bothered Mr. Clinton? Well, there's one case in particular that Mr. Clinton was only too happy to see disrupted: Whitewater.

The U.S. Attorney looking into the Clintons' Whitewater scandal (I think it was W. Hickman Ewing, Jr., but I haven't been able to look this up) was fired with the rest, of course. It is widely thought by those of us on the Right that the blanket firing was a cover for getting rid of him and disrupting or stopping the investigation.

Now that was cause for scandal. But firing eight who weren't zealous in the pursuit of their duties? Come on.

More on the D.C. gun decision

I should have figured: Instapundit is filled with useful commentary on that gun decision today. I hadn't realized the context of the case--the court actually struck down the District's gun ban! That ban has been the butt of criticism from us gun rights supporters for decades, and we've long pointed to it as an example of a law that's clearly unconstitutional. Nice to see the court agreeing!

And here's more from the Volokh Conspiracy. Keep updating Volokh and Instapundit throughout the day; I'm sure they'll both be keeping tabs on this.

A welcome Second Amendment decision

Over at The Corner, K-Lo has posted a D.C. Circuit Court decision regarding the right to keep and bear arms. In part,

To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment
protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right
existed prior to the formation of the new government under the
Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for
activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being
understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the
depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from
abroad).

[...]

Despite the importance of the Second
Amendment’s civic purpose, however, the activities it protects
are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s
enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or
intermittent enrollment in the militia.

Wow! "Resistance to...the depredations of a tyrannical government" and "not limited to militia service"! Amen, brothers!

Common sense on the supposed "Jesus tomb"

Opinion Journal has sensible commentary on James Cameron's documentary on the supposed tomb of Jesus. The writer is a professor of New Testament at Asbury in Kentucky, and he explains the background with a professor's care.

Interestingly, he mentions that the fourth-century church historian, Eusebius, "saw the tomb and the standing inscribed slab in front of it." Interesting. I wouldn't guarantee that Eusebius saw the correct tomb (300 years later), of course, but he was certainly a lot closer in time to the events than we are today. So does Eusebius describe the location? How long were pilgrimages made to this tomb? Is it still known today? I know that the cave traditionally thought to have been Jesus' birthplace has remained publicly known. So if the traditionally-recognized tomb hasn't, why not?

UPDATE: Oh, right. I keep forgetting that the practice in those days was to erect a church on top of any such important historical site. So yes, the traditionally-recognized site of the tomb is now underneath (or within) the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, originally built in 330.

I went looking for pictures of the tomb itself. Hmmm...turns out that not only was the church destroyed several times, but the Egyptian caliph al Hakim cut the tomb itself down to the bedrock in 1009 to destroy it also. Nothing left of the original tomb, now, whosever it was.

"Chinese" Gordon identified another tomb as a possibilty--the "Garden Tomb." Not much in the way of historical links, but a pretty site to visit. And I'd bet that Gordon's site is more realistic than the ornately-carved ossuaries Cameron is touting.

Charles Krauthammer on the Moon

Or, well, he's talking about the moon, rather.

I was excited to read his article. He lays out the case for sending a manned mission to the moon, in simple, elegant terms. I think his opinions on this matter correspond very closely with mine. Which is a relief, because I've often found myself arguing with the same two sets of people that he answers: the anti-space travel luddites, and the space science purists.

In daily life, you find the occasional luddite, who thinks there's no point going up into space. This is often justified by the clause, "...while there are so many problems to fix here on earth." Right. Not objecting to space exploration, mind you. We'll just fix everything on the earth first, and up we go!

I used to argue back to these people some mealy-mouthed excuse that the space program has had great engineering spin-offs, like velcro! Sigh. It doesn't even convince me. (And yes, I know velcro was around long before Apollo--I'm kidding, here.)

The second group, I find more often than not sitting in astrophysics offices at NASA and research universities. There is an antagonism I don't understand between many astrophysicists and the manned spaceflight program. Somehow, these astronomers think that if you can get more data per dollar with robots, than any manned flights are stealing your research money. Van Allen, discoverer of the Van Allen radiation belts, provided my discovery that this attitude exists at all. I read some magazine article about him, claiming he was a long-time opponent of manned spaceflight. Apparently, he thought everything should be done with robots. I was absolutely stunned, because I'd never heard of anyone in the field thinking that way before.

I've come across several others in my research work, even to some degree at NASA itself. These are people who think any of the Federal budget devoted to the economically inefficient manned program is theft from their research budget.

My answer to both is that manned spaceflight advances science. Not just engineering, but hard research data. It's not only robots who can do that. Men are far more flexible and adaptable than robots. Think how many robots we've crashed into the Martian permafrost over the last four decades. Often, it was a technically simple failure that might have been easily fixed by a guy with a wrench. Can't do that with a robot. And it's not efficient to keep pock-marking Mars' face with little robot-sized craters, either. Furthermore, if we're going to look for traces of Martian life, we're ultimately going to want a guy with a shovel and a microscope out there, looking for fossils. It's going to be a painfully slow process to do the same thing with these robots.

Finally, my biggest personal reason is just the sheer glory of manned exploration. Krauthammer ends with this one, as well. We've sent men to explore nearly the entire surface of the earth, excepting the ocean floor. This is the extension of Columbus, Magellan, and Lewis and Clark into space. Don't leave that for a remote-controlled car. Send a man out there to put his foot in the dirt!

Poetic Fisking

...of Fisk's latest anti-British propaganda at Tim Blair's site:
Comment #23--

Half a truth, half a truth,
Half a truth onward,
There in the valley of Death
Strode the Fisk blunderer.
‘Forward, the Lightweight Brigade!
Type for Talibs’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Strode the Fisk blunderer.

Followed immediately by #24:

"If you’re wounded and left on Afghanistans plains
And the women come out to cut up your remains
First shoot Robert Fisk, and then blow out your brains
And go to your God like a soldier”.

As a fan of both Tennyson and Kipling, I've got to enjoy these!

3 Moslem countries to allow Israeli overflights to Iran

Ha'aretz is reporting that Qatar, Oman, and the U.A.E. would not object to Israeli flights over their territory to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities. You know it's a serious issue if Moslem countries are allowing the Israelis to go through their airspace!

Hmmm...of course, the countries which would actually be useful would be Jordan and Iraq...

Buzz Aldrin talks about property rights in space

Here's an interesting post over at the Volokh Conspiracy. Buzz Aldrin (from Apollo 11) is discussing the application of private property rights on the Moon. The discussion goes beyond superficial speculation and into how this would promote development of space commerce.

The most likely scenario for private property in my mind has the US establishing the lunar base and then turning over to a private company to run.

What there would be in the year 3,000

This is a person wondering what there would be in the year 3000.

Maybe they would live underwater, they just came out with a waterproof cellphone.

and maybe plants would grow super fast and snow would be able to be dry and room temperature.


[This is the little one, guest-blogging today. She just heard this song on the Disney Channel. --ed]

What would you do with a crazy astronaut in space?

If an astronaut on a long-duration space flight goes nuts and tries to kill everybody else, how would you deal with him? Never fear, NASA's on the case and is already thinking of a solution. Like so many other aspects of life, this one can be solved with duct tape:

It turns out NASA has a detailed set of written procedures for dealing with a suicidal or psychotic astronaut in space. The documents, obtained this week by The Associated Press, say the astronaut's crewmates should bind his wrists and ankles with duct tape, tie him down with a bungee cord and inject him with tranquilizers if necessary.

I love the fact that this is part of official NASA policy. My field of work actually includes plans for tying somebody up with duct tape! (Well, I'm an astronomer, but hey, it's all space-related.)

Ooh, wait--it gets better!

"Talk with the patient while you are restraining him," the instructions say. "Explain what you are doing, and that you are using a restraint to ensure that he is safe."
The instructions do not spell out what happens after that.

What a line to put after that quote.

"'NASA has determined that there is no need for weapons at the space station,' Hartsfield said."

Dang!

Washington's Birthday

Happy Washington's Birthday!

None of this "observed" changing-of-the-date-to-Monday nonsense. None of this fallacious "Presidents' Day" silliness. And no, around here, we do not celebrate the birthday of the man who invaded our state.

So today, remember our first president, the Father of our Country, and the Man Who Would Not Be King.

The FAA revokes its collectivist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment

(Via Instapundit) Interesting, and yet, weird. The FAA had issued a regulation against astronauts carrying weapons on board spacecraft. To back this up, they claimed that the Second Amendment is only a vague, collective right. (What--you've got the right to join the National Guard?! Or, the state has the right to bear arms?)

They've now changed the wording of the regulation to remove the collective interpretation of the Amendment. They've kept the regulation, but they're justifying it differently. Well, it's a start, anyway.

The existence of the regulation itself is weird, though. They're apparently worried about the hijacking of commercial, suborbital spacecraft. Maybe they're getting ready for regular commercial manned spaceflight (I hate that "human spaceflight" phrase--"manned" is a better and more natural term, free of the PC clunkiness). At the moment, I think this kind of security issue ought to be up to the company. They're not taking people from off the street, you know.

The Lincoln Memorial and the National Park Service

Groan. Groan on both sides, honestly.

The National Park Service's website is politicising the Lincoln Memorial? Kind of inevitable, isn't it? Well, the particular way in which they're doing it is truly a problem. They're applying some kind of postmodernism to the building itself:

One of the interesting things about monuments and memorials is that they often say more about the generation that built them as they do about the person or period they were originally intended to commemorate.

...

Perhaps it should come as little surprise that the predominately white, classically minded and university educated, upper-middle class generation of architects and engineers that built the Lincoln Memorial would stress the theme of National Unity over that of Social Justice.

Ugh. So the Yankees get damned right along with us Southerners. Not that I really mind the hoisting on one's own petard aspect of this, but it doesn't advance Southern interests to have this nonsense propagated by the Federal government.

But then, Schaefer's National Review Online article has to make snide comments about Jefferson Davis in the process, so I'm not predisposed to take sides in this thing. Let the conservative Yankees fight the liberal Yankees. If they can't be courteous to us Southerners, I'm not getting involved.

Proof of Intelligent Design?

The existence of the Hebrew language.

I didn't take Greek, although I read just a little of the Greek textbook on my own, and it seemed a lot more complicated than Latin. Hebrew's vocabulary was a lot of work for me to memorize, but I did fairly well with it, and some of its quirks have still stayed with me, so maybe I did "get it."

I've read that among seminarians, who'd be expected to learn both Hebrew and Greek, you find that you're either a Greek person or a Hebrew person. Not an Old Testament/New Testament split, but the feel of the language. Greek has remarkably complicated verb structures, with all kinds of nuanced meanings and moods. It's a philosopher's language. Hebrew expresses things more directly, and instead of creating new compound words, it uses metaphors.

I don't know that I'm necessarily that way, myself, but I think I did get the feel of Hebrew.

Continuing the trend on "Lost"

Last week's episode of "Lost" was weird and interesting for a number of reasons. Without giving away spoilers yet, let me say first that we now have the Scotsman's full name: Desmond David Hume.

David Hume. John Locke. Rousseau. Edmund Burke.

Heh, heh, heh! I love it--they've been including the leading political philosophers of the Enlightenment in the cast of the show. I picked up on this early, when a leading character was named John Locke (perhaps my favorite Enlightenment philosopher, outside of Thomas Jefferson), and he was clearly the one advocating the individuals to achieve their best, use the situation to make a fresh start and create civilization out of the state of nature they found themselves in. Then there was the wildwoman in the jungle, Rousseau, who was clearly state-of-nature-girl incarnate. The near-opposite of Locke.

The guys over at The Corner picked up on an Edmund Burke character introduced two episodes back. I missed the name when I watched it, but apparently he was an unsavory character. Shame--the real Burke seems to have been a good and humane guy. And he's considered by many to be the father of English and American-style conservatism. Doesn't seem like "Lost" made any allusions to Burke beyond the name.

Now, on to Hume, which is just tickling me pink:

***SPOILER ALERT***

OK, now you've been warned. The last episode centers on Hume, our Scotsman friend who sacrificed himself in the hatch to save Locke and the others, at the end of the last season. He's since woken up, stark naked, in the jungle, apparently blown out by the explosion that destroyed the hatch but presumably saved the world from the poorly-understood electromagnetic quirkiness going on there.

Ever since he's been back among the living, he's gotten these glimpses of the immediate future. Enough to save people from drowning or set up a lightning rod before the bolt hits. We find out why in this episode. It turns out that when he blew the hatch, he woke up back in civilization, a few years(?) earlier, in his old life. He gets to relive it, but he's occasionally conscious that it's all happened before. He's got vague memories of things that happened, just before they do (again). So he tries to change some of them, without avail.

All of his attempts to change his life, to improve things for himself and others, or for that matter to apparently see the future--all of these come from the fact that he's lived the exact same things before.

Now, here they've done a clever little twist on the actual David Hume's philosophy: Hume was the founder of skepticism as a philosophy. Not "I'm a skeptic--I don't believe in anything," but the idea that "all knowledge is based on experience." He didn't believe that there were natural laws out there to be discovered. You could drop musket balls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa all day, measuring their fall times, and finding remarkable consitency. You might think that if you do it exactly the same way again, it will fall at the same rate again (to within measurement errors). Why do you think so? Because you see the trend you've established. There appears to be a law of nature that you're uncovering, and you can...deduce (? I always get deduction and induction mixed up) from it to predict what will happen in other situations.

But Hume thought that you could not make that claim. You can't predict for certain what will happen. Why? Because you don't know anything beyond what you've already experienced. Just because the musket ball fell a certain way a thousand times, you can't say it will do it again the 1,001st time. Maybe it will fall sideways!

So what's the connection with our "Lost" Scotsman? This Hume's knowledge is also based on experience, with the twist that he knows the immediate future because he's reliving it.

Very spooky and interesting.

Rome and Canterbury to unite?

Riiiiiight... And the Anglican laymen are going to wake up one morning and be told by their bishops that they're all "Anglican-Rite" Catholics now? And that they must all believe the Roman Catholic catechism? It doesn't work that way in Protestant churches.

Consider the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. Now compare with the Roman Catholic catechism. See any conflicts between these two?

Predictably, the newspaper thinks the marriage of priests is the big deal to get over. That's trivial. Compare the Anglican

Articles VI (Of the sufficiency of the scriptures for salvation),

XI (Of the justification of man),

XIV (Of works of supererogation),

XIX (Of the church),

XXII (Of purgatory),

XXV (Of the sacraments),

XXVIII (Of the Lord's supper),

XXX (Of both kinds),

XXXI (Of the one oblation of Christ finished upon the cross), and

XXXII (Of the marriage of priests).

I wouldn't say such a unity is something to be desired, either. Better to work together as Christians, without trying to force a combined hierarchy on the laymen, and compromise on our beliefs.

Archbishop Cranmer has reluctantly been prodded into commenting on this. He agrees that it's better to tolerate each other as separate denominations: Let us just agree to differ, and let our mutually manifest tolerance be light in an increasingly intolerant world.

Amen.

Quasar picture of the day

B-1 over Baghdad

Pajamas Media is reporting (with a photo!) the appearance of a B-1 bomber patrolling Baghdad's skies in daylight. This has apparently not happened since 2003, so it's something new.

I hope this is part of The Surge, which would mean it's already started, regardless of what the Congress wants. Sadr and his minions have apparently fled to Iran to avoid getting JDAMed. The Surge is having good effects, even before the troops arrive. We've got a great opportunity, here. We need to press our advantage while the enemy is scared.

If the Democrats and weak-willed Republicans kill this, I'll be very upset. If we have a chance for victory and they steal it from us... [grumble]

Edwards' "Anti-Catholic" Bloggers

I've read a good bit about John Edwards' blogger fiasco. (Check this entry and several others at Confederate Yankee.) But I'm a little confused by the near-universal description of these two as "anti-Catholic." For Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, that makes some sense. But I haven't seen much evidence of it for Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare's Sister.

The Catholic League's press release only attributes to McEwan one offhand reference to the Pope. But there, she was simply listing the Pope as one among prominent Christian leaders:

‘some of Christianity’s most prominent leaders—including the Pope—regularly speak out against gay tolerance.’

So I think "anti-Catholic" isn't a proper term for her. "Anti-Christian" or "anti-religious" would be better.

Really, this would be a better term for Marcotte, too. She does cast particular aspersions on Roman Catholics, but she has rather disgusting things to say about all of us Christians.

Our new look

I've made the switch to New (Google-) Blogger today, so I'll be interested to hear of any problems you have in seeing the page. So far, it seems to be working OK. Soon, I'm going to see about putting our own image in the header. Something appropriately space related, I expect.

I will say, as uneasy as a Google takeover makes me, they have added some snazzy new options for us bloggers. And we have some interoperability with a few of the Google tools. I haven't tried those out, yet, but I'll experiment.

Mookie Flees to Iran!

(via Glenn Reynolds) Wow--I didn't see that coming. I'm happy, though. Think it has anything to do with The Surge? Hmmm...

"He is scared he will get a JDAM [bomb] dropped on his house." Yes, well, that does have a way of concentrating the mind.

I do wish that we'd managed to simply arrest the guy a long time ago, though. The whole trouble with this trouble-maker started when we tried to arrest him as an accessory to murder, I think. Then he started rousing a rabble against us to try to distract us from getting him.

Captain Ed comments, "Well, so much for the whole 72 virgins thing and the radical Islamist desire to die in martyrdom." I noticed that with respect to, say, Yassir Arafat, too. These guys play up the glory of self-martyrdom, but why don't they want to share in that glory, themselves? [Yes, this is a rhetorical question. Give me some credit.--ed]

So The Surge hasn't even been done yet, but it's had its first success. Reminds me of my dad's comments on Reagan's SDI plans. It wasn't ever implemented, and yet it succeeded in fatally crippling the whole Soviet Union.

Polish town proposes statue of Reagan to replace Soviet monument

Katowice, in southwestern Poland, has a monument in their "Freedom Square" to the Soviets, for driving out the Nazis in 1945. But now the town has been presented a proposal to replace the Soviet monument with a statue of President Reagan, the defeater of Communism. The proponents would also rename the square "Ronald Reagan Freedom Square."

It's not clear this will go forward. The spokesman for city hall, Waldemar Bojarun, says the town council will consider the proposal, but that it would cost $168,000, and the city has other needs, as well. Nevertheless, Bojarun said that he has "enormous respect" for Reagan.

Well, I'd love to see it happen. I wish the proponents well. It'd be nice to see similar respect paid in the United States...

Miss a meeting with your kid's teacher...and become a criminal

That's the proposal by a Republican legislator in Texas. (Link via The Corner)

Even though this doesn't have much chance of passing, it offends me and my whole idea of the role of government. Put yourself back in the days of our Founding Fathers. Think of the concept of government that they held. Read the documents like the Declaration of Independence that explain why government exists.

[...] they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men [...]

Yes, we're occasionally going to need a few others, but when considering a new law, our government needs to step back from the problem at hand for a moment and consider the law in the light of the purpose of government itself. Go back to the basics each time, and ask yourself, "Is this what we're supposed to be doing?" It's when they get the idea, "We can pass any law we feel like" that this becomes a problem.

Jonah Goldberg on that Biden quote

Here's his take on Biden's line that Obama is "articulate." I pretty much agree with how he puts it.

By the way, I've gotten to hear Alan Keyes speak, back when he was running for the Republican nomination in '96 (actually, just after he dropped out). My dad had heard of him and said how impressive a speaker he was, and Dad was right. I thought his speech was fairly good, though not amazing, but when he got to the Q & A...wow! The man can reason his way clearly though anything you throw at him. He's terrific at that. And so I'll second Goldberg's description of him as "articulate."

New York ban on crossing street while...

...talking on the phone, listening to your iPod, typing on your Blackberry, etc. (Link via Drudge) Yes, it's dangerous to walk out in front of traffic while not paying attention. And like riding in a car without using your seatbelt, I wouldn't ever consider doing any of this. But it's not the state's job to protect us from our own risky behavior. We're free men, not wards of the state, and legislators need to realize this fact.

That astronaut thing

I'm going to avoid much commenting on that astronaut who was apparently trying to kidnap the other lady over a love triangle with another astronaut. But it does make me think of the debates people have already had over long-term space flights (like to Mars) and crew behavior. Do you fly married couples? Single-sex crews? Yikes--imagine this bunch had gone up together!

I'll leave the final comments to Instapundit.

P.S: Laura Ingraham is groaning about all of the news coverage this has been getting. I haven't been watching the evening or cable news this week, so I don't know. But are they doing the round-the-clock deal with this? Geez.

Chavez gets to rule by decree

So now it's official: the Venezuelan legislature has passed a law allowing Hugo Chavez to rule by decree for the next 18 months. The legislature is filled only with Chavez supporters, as the opposition has boycotted the elections because of fraud allegations. So now that he can rule by the stroke of the pen, can we finally call him "dictator"? How is this any different from the powers of a dictator? Let's see if the word makes its way into the press.

"Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool."

Mrs. Clinton vs. Hugo Chavez

I was listening to Rush the other day, as he talked about Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, threatening to "nationalize" various industries. And then Mrs. Clinton, who said she wanted to take the profits of the oil companies and put them into alternative energy development. Rush laughingly refused to say they had the same attitude, because Mrs. Clinton just wanted to take the profits, while Chavez wanted the whole company.

I'd say, Mrs. Clinton wants the golden egg, while Chavez wants the goose! (Of course, both the goose and her eggs belong to somebody else...)

Hubble's Main Camera Down (Again); Astronomers Get Object Lesson in Irony

Here's the official statement. This is the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which also went down a little while back, but that was just temporary. This time, we're hearing it might be a lot more serious. Well, the previous problem was with the camera's electronics, and they just switched over to its back-up electronics. Now that we're on the back-ups, there aren't any more electronics to switch to, to solve this problem.

The irony is that it happened the day after our observing proposals were due for the year. Guess which camera my group wanted to use?

It's not a total loss, though. The Space Telescope Science Institute (which operates the Hubble) is extending our proposal deadline and letting us rework them. And the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), which used to be the primary camera, is still up and running. Everybody's going to be clamoring to get time on it, of course, but at least the science can get done.

Of course, we've got a servicing mission scheduled for around May 2008. Two new instruments are flying (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and Wide Field Camera 3), and they'll do gyroscope repairs, among other things. But I'm hearing pessimistic opinions as to whether we'd be able to fix the Advanced Camera then.

Michael Yon on al Sadr

(Via Instapundit) Michael Yon e-mails OP-FOR blog from Iraq. He thinks we're currently losing in Iraq, but that it is winnable, and General Petraeus is just the man to win it. (By the way, I love how Classical-Latin "Petraeus" sounds.) Furthermore, he thinks that we'll need to kill Muqtata (sp?) al-Sadr, head of the most problematic Shiite militia, the so-called "Mahdi Army." Recall, also, that it was a guy calling himself The Mahdi--a prophesied Moslem messiah--in the Sudan 120 years ago who caused such trouble for Egypt and Britain...and got Chinese Gordon killed.

Does anyone else recall that the first trouble with Sadr happened when we tried to deliver an arrest warrant against him as an accessory to murder? He started up a big fight to direct attention away from his criminal behavior. And has gotten a lot more people killed as a result. This is war, and he's part of the enemy.

Options on Iran

John Derbyshire has a pessimistic post on The Corner today about our options in Iran. He's citing Amir Taheri in the NY Post. Short of nuking them, the conclusion is apparently that we can't do anything that will destroy their nuclear capability without leaving them looking like heroes to the Moslem world.

Yeah, I've been afraid of this, too. But I do see one good long-term option: get the Iranian people to overthrow the mullahs. The Iranians are basically favorable towards us, and it's possible that democracy there would result in a government that didn't want the Bomb. Now, the mullahs are portraying the nuclear program as a matter of national pride, so it's not a given that the people don't want it. But just like in Iraq, a change of government is the only long-term solution. I doubt we've got the manpower or the willpower to accomplish this ourselves.

But the Iranian people are better positioned. Can they do it? Will they do it? There's not much time...

One more thing: with this week's reports of dissention within the Iranian government, is there some hope of internal weakness?

More on Iran

(via Drudge) The Telegraph has a story out today claiming that the Iranians are getting North Korean assistance in preparing a nuclear bomb test. If they go for a low-yield weapon of half a kiloton, they might possibly be ready in 12 months.

The story relies on an anonymous "senior European defence official," and a lot of the specific claims aren't specifically sourced. But I'm still worried.

SOTU: Iran

He's brought up the Iranian nuclear program. Good. That ought to be front and center on people's minds, these days. Over at YNET news, there's a disturbing report that the Iranian president has assured the Syrian foreign minister that the US and Israel will soon be destroyed. Wonderful, wonderful.

For goodness' sake, people--he's telling us what they're going to do. Wake up!

SOTU: Various

Ho-hum on a number of domestic issues. Health care (where is that in the Constitution, I'd like to know?!), maybe a few other things graciously lost in the static. But now he's promoting his Iraq war and rebuilding plans, which is smart. Take the offensive on this, both to the enemy and to the domestic opponents. He's laying out the case for spreading liberty and keeping the fight abroad.

"Whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure." Amen, brother!

Speaking of "liberty," some unholy instinct caused me to tune into XM radio's "XM Public Radio" channel--their NPR show selection--this week, and I came across Bob Edwards interviewing Chris Hedges (sp?), about his book, "American Fascists," I believe. I'd read Jonah Goldberg's discussion of this, but that hadn't prepared me for just how much of a fringe conspiracy theorist this man appears to be. He's seeing legions of black-shirted mercenaries already patrolling the streets, paid for by "evangelical" churches. (No, no--he really said this!) And though these "dominionists" (I didn't get who they are, exactly--I mean, names of leaders?) are a tiny fraction of the population, they apparently control the Republican party and specifically the Executive Branch.

He can prove it, too! His "evangelical" speech-writer inserts code-words into the President's speeches (oh, goody--we get to play with codes!). For instance (this is chiling--be prepared!), the President ended a speech that called for new troops to Iraq, with something about "liberty." Not "God bless America," but something about liberty. Spooky! Well, you see, most of you normal people hear "liberty" and think "liberty." Not these radical religious conservatives. No, sir! They hear "liberty," and they think of the liberty that only comes from submission to Jesus! (Submit! Submit! The power of Christ compels you!) So, this way, the President could slip them a message that the theocracy is coming soon, without the poor heathen getting the hint. Heh, heh...sneaky of him.

What a nut.

SOTU: Immigration "Reform"

Hmmm... Temporary worker program, again. Couldn't hear (static) if he'd push border control, along with it.

SOTU: Reform Earmarks

Advocated putting Congressional budget earmarks in "the light of day." Good for him--it'll take Congressional action, since it's in their rules, but he can threaten vetos. And just mentioning it in the SOTU gives the issue more of a push.

SOTU: Don't Raise Taxes

Got rousing applause for saying we can balance the budget w/o raising taxes. An emotional-sounding bunch of cheers. Can't tell if there were boos included in that from the left-hand side of the House.

Live blogging the State of the Union Address

I'll be posting some live comments tonight (what--like I ever do this from beyond the grave? And yet...the phrase stands.) on the State of the Union. I don't have TV right now, just a staticky AM station, so I'm missing a little, but I'll try. I'm listening to Tammy Bruce, sitting in for Laura Ingraham. Nice opening comment--"Nancy Pelosi is smiling...she is showing some facial movement!"

Presidential Candidates' Second Amendment Records

Dave Kopel has a post on the Volokh Conspiracy classifying Presidential candidates by their Second Amendment records. It's useful and illuminating. I hadn't known that Democrat Bill Richardson ranked relatively high on 2nd Amend. support--unique among the Democrats running. It did not surprise me that Rudy Giuliani ranked in the lowest category, and this is one thing that could keep me from voting for him, despite his good law-and-order record and leadership during a crisis. Mitt Romney's fairly low ranking did come as a surprise, because though I'd not heard anything about this particular issue before, I'd gotten the impression he was an all-around conservative. Apparently, though, he's flipped on some issues.

Al Gore comes in with a nearly-perfect pro-gun record until 1989, after which he's demonstrated a nearly-perfect anti-gun record. No surprise there. We Tennesseeans have been talking about his various liberal epiphanies for a while, now. The emotional anti-tobacco speech he gave at the 1992(?) Democratic National Convention is a good example. His sister's death from lung cancer supposedly steeled him to oppose tobacco, and yet, my dad still has a copy of Sen. Gore's letter to us (and to all Tennessee farmers), declaring his support for tobacco subsidies (I think it was a subsidy--we never grew the stuff, so I forget)...after his sister's death supposedly changed him. Naked political opportunism, whichever way you look at it.

The Next Holocaust

This is not a unique or original opinion, but it astounds me that so much of the world is treating the Iranian nuclear problem as something to worry about later, if ever. The Iranian leadership has been quite clear in their plans for Israel. Sure, any individual threat might could be dismissed as a vague wish, something they wouldn't be carrying out themselves. But taken together, it's clear that the Iranian government really does want to eradicate Israel themselves. And once they've got nuclear weapons, they get to choose the day and time. As President Bush said of another dangerous Middle Eastern country, we can't wait until the threat is imminent.

I wonder if there are the naive in this country who believe the Iranian protests that they only want cheap nuclear power, not weapons. I'd suspect that any such folks do not extend the benefit of the doubt to statements by our American government. They'd put themselves up as hardened cynics in that case. But our enemies? Have to take them at their word.

I've actually known people like this--people who, back in college or high school, were more willing to take Soviet statements at face value than our own government's. If pressed, they could change into a moral equivalence stance--both governments are untrustworthy, and we can't trust the US claim that the Soviets are untrustworthy. Or something like this.

In this light, read "This Holocaust Will Be Different", by the Jerusalem Post's Benny Morris. If you needed any convincing.

Not a bad ending...

...to a busy week. My research team has got an observing proposal that made the cut, and (whenever it gets scheduled) we'll be trying out some new adaptive optics technology. Besides that, I've responded to the referee's report on what I hope will a major paper, I've started writing a new one, and a friend gave me some old lab equipment, (which the wife will definitely not let me keep at home). And on top of all of this, we've got snow!

Commentary starts a blog

Commentary magazine has started a blog, "Contentions." It's a group blog, which I think makes for some of the best variety. And if you aren't familiar with the magazine, pick up a copy or check them out online. They've got some of the best and most in-depth foreign-affairs articles, and they do well in religion and philosophy, as well.

Happy Lee Day!

Happy Robert E. Lee Day! Not only is today his birthday, and therefore a Day of Special Observance in Tennessee and in other Confederate states, but today is his 200th birthday. Be sure to wear gray!

P.S: Don't forget Stonewall Jackson Day, coming up this weekend...

Scottish and English independence?

Iain Dale has been covering the rising support amongst the English for a separate parliament within the United Kingdom, on a par with the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. In fact, he's among the leaders of the movement, from what I can gather. This is interesting, especially since it was England that did the conquering of Wales and Scotland. The "British" parliament is what used to be the English parliament, and the push in Wales and Scotland for their own parliaments is a result of chafing under foreign dominion.

The devolution that has progressed under Blair's government has gotten the English wanting a measure of self-rule, too. But what's new (to me) in this article is that there's rising support for outright independence. About half of Scottish and English respondents to the poll wanted to end the union between their countries.

And the Scottish support for outright independence is higher than the support for the devolution that has let them have a separate parliament within Great Britain. That's interesting. It suggests to me that getting a taste of slight self-rule can make you unsatisfied with anything less than the real thing.

More on Venezuela

One thing to add to my previous post: Chavez's announcements caused a precipitous drop in his country's stock markets. The price of oil (maybe the only thing that had been letting him get away with his behavior until now) had already hit an 18-month low. Will the decline in both stocks and oil prevent him from carrying out his plans? I'm no economist, but I suspect not. I have a fear that he might use it as a justification for nationalizing those companies and centralizing the economy. After all, if the free market can't be trusted to keep money in the economy, he'll say, the state must do it. And the state, it is he.

Venezuela turns towards communism

Read this saddening post by Fausta. (via Instapundit) This isn't a surprise; many observers have been shouting that this was exactly where Hugo Chavez has been heading for years. Now he's made it explicit. He said Venezuela would become socialist, and he referred to himself as a "communist" (I'm putting that in lower-case intentionally). He wants to "nationalize" (that is, "steal") certain businesses, shut down the opposition press, and rule at least in part by decree.

Will the Left in our country keep brown nosing him?