One of the rare things that will make me visit my Senator

Let me introduce you to Section 304 of the "Cap and Trade" bill (Waxman-Markey).

This will be the law that forces you to make your home much, much more energy efficient. Wait--did you think you owned your house? That how you lived in it was your business? That the kinds of appliances and the windows and the furnace and whatnot were all matters for you, a free man, to decide?

Hah, hah, hah...silly person! No, you, my friend, are a ward of the state and unable to live your own life. Here, let us decide these things for you.

What the heck?!

As far as I can tell from this story, a private pool in Philadelphia just kicked out a day camp that had its black children swimming there (which it had permission to do). The club even seems to have given this as the reason.

Outrageous. Hopefully there's another explanation, but this is really surprising.

Using distributed computer processing to work out primordial life

Interesting article from Space.com on using distributed computing (like SETI@home and Einstein@home) applied to biology. The idea is to simulate the conditions and constituents of Earth's early oceans and see if you can get simple cells evolving from pre-biotic material.

The headline is entirely wrong, though: there's no toy model of the "universe" being simulated, but rather a toy model of an ocean. But to the writer's credit, the head of the project did use just that phrase, himself.

It's a really interesting project. As the designer notes, though, chemical reactions run faster than the computers can simulate them at the moment. So the simulation would run more slowly than a real-lab experiment. On the other hand, you've got the ability to control details in a way that you don't in a lab, and some day, the processors will be much faster.

Univ. Chicago to allow mixed-sex dorm roomates

What could possibly go wrong?

Update on Honduras

Good summary of the events so far in Honduras. It seems that two pro-Zelaya protestors were killed in clashes at the airport yesterday. Those police have got to restrain themselves: they're on a thread as far as foreign opinion goes, and maintaining a light hand on the population is necessary to hold on to any chance of legitimacy in the eyes of other governments.

Of course, I can't understand why the rest of the world, America first and foremost, has sided with Zelaya, who was trying to make himself into a strongman. It seems so clear that the Honduran government is in the right on this--that they followed the law and preserved their constitution--that I'm eager to find any reason we have for taking Zelaya's side. If I could try to see it from the State Department's point of view, I could at least analyze what their reasoning is. But no matter how much I read, the only thing I can come up with is that it was the army that carried out the orders to depose Zelaya. That's it. And so, in the State Department's phrase book, this has become a "military coup," despite the fact that the entire rest of the government (except the executive branch) acted together, and the army simply carried out a warrant from the supreme court.

The army is not in command of the government. Zelaya was the president, not "the government," in the odd wording of our administration (saying Zelaya "is" the government we recognize), and the entire rest of the government remains intact. I really, really, really don't get this. As Mary Anastasia O'Grady (who has the coolest name, by the way) writes in the Wall Street Journal, "Reason has gone AWOL in places like Turtle Bay and Foggy Bottom."

Code among Jefferson's papers solved

It's not a code Thomas Jefferson created (and he did make some), but rather one a friend sent to him in a letter. It's lain unsolved from 1801 until now. Robert Patterson, math professor at U. Penn and a friend of Jefferson's, sent it to him as a challenge, while they were discussing code and cipher techniques. Jefferson didn't solve it and was clearly impressed.

Now another mathematician, Dr. Lawren Smithline of the Institute for Defense Analyses, has cracked the code. Check out the WSJ article on the story for the details of how Patterson enciphered his message. Really impressive. And you'll enjoy Patterson's humor in what the message actually says.

Octavio Sanchez on why it wasn't a "coup" in Honduras

Octavio Sanchez, a lawyer and former Honduran government official, explains the Honduran constitution to the rest of us and points out why the congress didn't just impeach Zelaya:

According to Article 239: "No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform [emphasis added], as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years."

Notice that the article speaks about intent and that it also says "immediately" – as in "instant," as in "no trial required," as in "no impeachment needed."

[...]

He was detained and taken to Costa Rica. Why? Congress needed time to convene and remove him from office. With him inside the country that would have been impossible. This decision was taken by the 123 (of the 128) members of Congress present that day.

The actions taken in Honduras last week make sense in the light of this explanation. I wondered at first (just to play devil's advocate) whether his statement "of the 128 members of Congress present that day" left any room for force used to keep some pro-Zelaya legislators away, but no: The Honduran congress has 128 members. So 123 congressmen voted on this.

The provision of several unchangeable parts of the constitution is interesting. I think ours only has one--that no amendment could reduce the number of senators a state has. But what's more interesting is the enforcement for this is just about self-acting. It did require the Supreme Court to issue a writ to enforce it, but the result is one with no provision for a trial: if a president suggests amending the constitution to allow himself to stay in office, he's out immediately!

The reasoning for the exile makes sense, although I don't know if it was necessary. But then, I'm not a Honduran. I imagine they can run their government on their own terms.

The Obama Doctrine

Joshua Muravchik has a masterful article at the Wall Street Journal analyzing the Obama Doctrine in foreign policy, such that there is. It's an eye-opener. Obama and his administration are apparently downplaying the promotion of democracy and, to some extent, human rights. These are at the expense of laudable (but, in my mind, secondary) issues that promote a livable, civil society, once you've actually got liberty and democracy.

What was surprising was to see the quotations in which Obama or Sec. State Clinton actually denigrate or minimize democracy. It's long, but check out the whole thing.

What?!!?

Rush Limbaugh is talking about the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill the House passed last week. He has said that hidden within it is a nationwide home energy-efficiency standard for new buildings. One, that's unconstitutional. The Federal government can't legislate how you build your house, although your state can. Second, according to Rush, it is based on California's standards. That's to be expected, but those must be pretty stringent, considering the state's politics. That's an "ouch" in practical terms. Third, and here's where I want to check that Rush has his information straight, he thinks it would regulate the sale of inefficient homes in some way. Specifically, he said it would prohibit their sale, unless you upgraded the efficiency, although he said it was how he understood it, so he's not quite as sure as on the previous points.

What?! That's going to really, really come down hard. If this is true, I'm fighting it.

More on Honduras vs. Iran

Hillary Clinton, speaking about the Iranian elections:

Obviously, they have a huge credibility gap with their own people as to the election process...And I don't think that's going to disappear by any finding of a limited review of a relatively-small number of ballots. But clearly, these internal matters are for Iranians themselves to address. And we hope that they will be given the opportunity to do so in a peaceful way that respects the right of expression. And it has been my position and that of our administration that we support the fundamental values of peoples' voices being heard, their votes being counted. And we'll have to see how this unfolds.

(Emphasis mine)

Compare with her statements on Honduras' kicking out of its president--a process done through constitutional channels, and intended to stop him from becoming a strong-man:

The action taken against Honduran President Mel Zelaya violates the precepts of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and thus should be condemned by all. We call on all parties in Honduras to respect the constitutional order and the rule of law, to reaffirm their democratic vocation, and to commit themselves to resolve political disputes peacefully and through dialogue. Honduras must embrace the very principles of democracy we reaffirmed at the OAS meeting it hosted less than one month ago.

(Emphasis mine)

Notice a difference in tone between how our administration treats an oppressive, anti-American, terrorist-supporting, vote-rigging (we believe) theocracy on the one hand, and a democracy that's going through legal means to preserve its democracy, on the other? Hmph.

The idea of political class privilege

If constituents threaten to vote against their representative because of that representative's votes in the legislature, that's "terrorism" and shouldn't be allowed (or, if it's free speech, "it's extremely unfair").

Thus sayeth the Speaker of the California Assembly, Karen Bass. Wow, talk about your stereotype of a self-serving politician

Comparing Iran and Honduras

How does Obama treat these two situations? Legal Insurrection says, "We speak softly to our enemies, but use a big stick against our friends."

Cap and Trade passes the House--but there's no correct copy of the bill!

This just makes me angry. Not only could the lawmakers voting on the awful cap-and-trade bill last night not possibly have read the whole document in the time given, but there is no complete copy of the bill in existence! The 300+ page additions (to the 1000+ page bill itself) that were slipped in at 3:00 AM Friday aren't even simple additions. They're instructions for revising the rest of the bill. Filled with things like,

"Page 15, beginning line 8, strike paragraph (11)..."

Absolutely spitting mad. That's what I am. Deceitful, good-for-nothing centralizers of power at the expense of liberty and the Constitution...and they can't even know what they're voting on....

UPDATE: I'm going to breathe more just to emit more CO₂ for spite.

Evidence of ancient Martian lakes

The University of Colorado's Di Achille has announced the discovery of a dry lake shore on Mars, found with the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. "Shalbatana Lake," as they're calling it, was down in a deep valley and about the size and depth of Lake Champlain. Funny thing, though--this lake seems to have formed when Mars was already cold and dry. The warm, wet period astronomers have been establishing was already gone by this time. Interesting.

How to turn Congress into a rubber stamp

Propose that an independent advisory commission propose laws and have the Congress simply vote up-or-down on them. That's what the Obama administration wants Congress to do with some changes to Medicare. Have the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission write the bills and require Congress to vote on them as-is. Of course, even that wouldn't require Congress to approve; they could still vote them down. But it would put Congress on a footing more like the President's veto power.

It would be nice to see this discussed in terms of Fascist political theory--how do you organize government in that system? Where does the real power lie?

Lamar Alexander's proposal on GM ownership

Put the stock certificates in individual taxpayers' names. Interesting. Get it out of the hands of the government and back into private hands. It's certainly better than what's going on now, anyway.

Homosexual marriage vs. the kinship system

This is a thought-provoking article by Sam Schulman on how homosexual marriage would clash with the kinship system. This is not exactly where I come down on the issue; my objection is primarily moral and only secondarily social, while his is mostly social. And I am not entirely sure about the primacy of the kinship system, which he seems to place as the root justification for marriage. Nevertheless, my disagreements are essentially matters of degree, rather than of kind.

Schulman is a master writer and knows how to write a sophisticated and meaningful sentence, without being obscure. This whole article is a joy to read, and on substance, he raises issues I hadn't thought about. It could easily be an article for First Things. I'm going to keep an eye out for his essays in the future.

Did Obama's team make Chrysler shut dealerships of GOP donors?

Lots of blogging being done about this. The dealers who've been closed are overwhelmingly GOP donors.

But one basic statistic that must be found is the percentage of GOP donors among the dealers remaining open. For instance, what if Chrysler car dealers in general tend to be GOP donors? Then having a high percentage of Republicans among those that are closed would be what we'd expect, all other things being equal.

If, on the other hand, the dealers that remain open show a significantly lower percentage of GOP donors, then we ought to start being suspicious. Even at that point, there might be non-political reasons for the discrepancy. Perhaps there's a correlation between dealers that perform poorly and dealers that donate to the GOP. The neighborhoods could have a different economy that affects both, for instance. Though if that were the case, then it would make a nice retort to the "rich Republican" stereotype.

Anyway, thus far, I haven't seen anyone do a look at the control sample, and we ought to withhold judgement until then.

North Koreans apparently conduct nuclear test

To quote Gomer Pyle, Surprise, surprise, surprise! Actually, the surprise for me is that Russia has called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting.

Damn Yankees

Trying to break the tradition of Presidents sending wreathes to the Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. It's a tradition I was unaware of, although as a member of the D.C. camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, I have taken part in several activities there. I just don't remember a wreath from the President. Southern Senators, Congressmen, etc., yes.

Interesting that they say President Bush changed the tradition from sending the wreath on Jefferson Davis' birthday to (Yankee) Memorial Day. Yankee Memorial Day is different from Confederate Memorial Day. Offhand, I don't recall the exact dates, but I think Confederate Memorial Day as we celebrated it there was on Davis' birthday. We don't have any services on Yankee Memorial Day.

British Parliament scandal: a sentence I wouldn't see in the American version

The British Parliament is going through an expense-account scandal this week. Members of Parliament have been claiming all kinds of things as reimbursable expenses (especially house-related items) , and the public is getting absolutely outraged. Some MP's are claiming that these are within the rules, but if so, the rules themselves are a scandal. Sounds like the House banking scandal back about '92 that helped usher in the Republican majority.

But here's one sentence that I wouldn't expect to find in an American version: "Mr Hogg was forced to stand down by David Cameron, the party leader, after it emerged that he had 'claimed' for the cost of having his moat cleaned because it was listed on the bills for his estate."

I wish...

that Turner Classic Movies wouldn't ruin the channel with this disgusting pandering to ethnic grievances. They're running grossly heavy-handed interviews with hispanic actors about hispanics in film. It's non-stop whining and complaining about the roles hispanics get or got in movies. Please, please, PLEASE stop! Come on--you've got a respectable reputation, but you're ruining your image. Plus, it's just cringe-inducing to watch. Yeugh.

...and they're away!

Congratulations and deep thanks to the STS-125 crew for such a great mission.

Atlantis is "go" for release!

Hubble release in 15 minutes

The astronauts are preparing to release the Hubble Space Telescope in just 15 minutes! As I see the screens now, they've got it detached from the docking ring and are holding it with the Canada Arm.

All has gone well in this final servicing mission, and we can only pray our telescope holds up for several more years.

Good line from the space walk

"I'm ready for a hot shower and a good meal."

--John Grunsfeld, on finishing up his EVA for today.

(The other astronaut laughed and replied, "We'll...uh...see what we can do.") Actually, they do have halfway decent facilities on board, and the food's improved a lot since the '60s. No more freeze-dried meals.

Hubble Servicing Mission 4

I'm watching John Grunsfeld (whom I've met a few times) do some repair work on the Hubble right now. It's funny how an ordinary thing like operating an electric screwdriver can become so exciting when you see it done in space.

I was sad to have the camera I used for my grad school work (WFPC2) finally be removed after 15 years of service. I feel like holding a memorial service for it.

Egypt's pig cull

Unsurprisingly, it's exacerbating religious tensions. The oppressed minority Coptic Christians are the only ones raising pigs, of course. So even if Egypt's Moslems weren't intending to take an anti-Christian measure, it has been felt that way. Of course, there's no reason to cull pigs anywhere because of the swine flu--it's already made the jump to people, and the person-to-person transmission is what is causing the problem now.

I'm not sure about the reporter's description of relations between Christians and Moslems in Egypt as "usually harmonious." Actually, that may be true, but there's a lot of tension there, and it doesn't take too much to make strife bubble up.

SRB SEP

Solid Rocket Boosters have separated successfully

STS-125

T-2 minutes

Watching the last shuttle mission to the Hubble

T-7 minutes and counting! I can't wait to see the new instruments (COS and WFC3) installed. My old camera, WFPC2, is being retired, though...

Fiscal discipline? Riiiight.

So spendthrift California, having gotten themselves into a nice mess with their budget, actually decides to do something that might help, namely cut some salaries. And the Obama administration tells the state to raise those salaries back or lose its "stimulus" package. Would you be surprised to find out that the employees (home healthcare workers) were in a union? Would you be shocked to learn they were in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)? Would you be aghast to be reminded that SEIU was a really, really influential group with Obama's campaign?

Nah, didn't think so.

P.S: The blatant loss of any pretense of principle is really what gets me, though. Telling a nearly-bankrupt state to spend more, or else?

Best line on Arlen Specter

Mark Hemingway at NRO's Corner:

I read that he was switching parties, but I was disappointed to learn he's still a Democrat.

Pithy.

Roots of Italian Fascism

An older (1980s) article; worth reading now that I've read Jonah Goldberg's book. It brings up the differences between fascism and naziism, which I'd never known before reading Liberal Fascism.

Protestors turn on CNN's hack reporter at the Chicago Tea Party

Wow. Very worth watching. I found myself wishing I'd been able to say that to her, myself.

Texas governor reminds everybody that secession is a right

Not saying any of us need to go this far, but it is a right, after all. Amen, brother!

Totalitarian architecture

Nazi design: Impressive and intimidating. They stripped out the decoration from classical architecture and scaled it up, massively. It does have the intended effect of making you feel the power of the state and its domination.

Soviet architecture was its cousin. Here one architect gives it a gothic twist. (I note his imitation of Monet's studies of Note Dame in varied lighting.)

Both of these have some connection to these other early 20th century designs from around the world. Not that I'd want to live in any places like these, but the Metropolis movie set was pretty impressive. Still, they all dwarfed the human scale. Man was essentially a cog in the machine in some of these visions.

Strange but interesting...

...musical scores and notation.

Some of it's just art, using musical notes for abstract decoration. But I'm more interested in those that are innovative uses of notation that actually mean something as music--Sylvano Bussotti's "Pour Clavier" (1961) or John Stead's "Play II" for harpsichord and synthesizer (although I'm not sure if it's really writing music). There's also "World Beat Music," which cleverly uses actual notation to draw a map of the world. Pretty neat, but I wonder if it actually sounds pretty. In college, we performed the world premier of a piece called "Pyramids." The conductor's score drew out a pyramid at one point. It didn't sound like much.

An amazing mechanical pocket calculator

The Curta pocket calculator, designed from within a German concentration camp, of all things. Absolutely amazing device, with about all the details you'd want, here. And yet, more here. And here's an online simulator.

The UN's blogger front on piracy

The "UN Dispatch" bloggers are such tools. Of course, that blog is funded at least in part by the UN Foundation, so what else would I expect?

Origins of modern liberalism

Fred Siegel writing in Telos about how modern liberalism evolved historically. Very scholarly; lots of things I wasn't familiar with, and Siegel seems to have a deep understanding of the evolution of political thought and movements.

Roundup of pirate discussion

Here's a set of links to various articles on the ongoing pirate problem. A lot of Americans were probably unaware of the extent of worldwide piracy until this past week, because this is apparently the first time in over two centuries (can that really be true?!) that pirates have attacked an American-flagged ship. But it's been a real danger for quite some time. I remember an old National Geographic article from about the 1950s on piracy in the South China Sea, and a decade ago, I first found out how bad the problem still was there, and that it was even coming back in the Caribbean.

So here are links to several articles I've read or planned to read recently:
Strategypage on why the pirates are immune from attack.


Fabius Maximus on why we don't hang pirates any more. I don't think I agree with his apparent stand (that we shouldn't treat piracy as a capital crime or as a problem beyond the normal criminal code), but he's worth reading.


The Weekly Standard's Seth Cropsey on why we need to hit the pirates' land bases.
Cropsey, again, on Obama and the pirate problem.

Pirates killed; American captain freed

Good.

Fairy-tale cottages in Los Angeles

Wow.

The proper way to deal with pirates

Bret Stephens wrote about the legal issues for the Wall Street Journal last year. I'm coming to this from the "hang 'em" school of thought. Honestly: we absolutely should execute pirates, and only a tough and public campaign against them will make much headway against the current scourge.

SCOTUS justices participate in Shakespearean mock trial

Twelfth Night goes judicial. I'm glad these guys get the chance to do a few things like this; I bet it was fun for them, too. The comment by Breyer is, perhaps, illuminating. Good retort by Alito.

Chinese & Russian spies probing our electricity grid

Well, I'm glad these are being caught. Of course, we don't know what other intrusions we don't know about. They're leaving behind sabotage programs to be activated in case of war, it seems.

Administration refusing repayment of TARP money?

Here might be why. Force the banks to keep the government's money, and the government keeps control of the bank.

Theology, Quantum Mechanics, and Chaos Theory

Well, that's neat. I've been developing some thoughts for a while now about taking chaos theory and quantum mechanics and applying them together to some theological questions. In particular, can God act directly in the world without violating His own rules of physics? I have no problem with this happening, and I assume that most miracles are a suspension of the laws of physics. But could God work within these laws to get a result that wasn't already set from the beginning of time? And thus, in a way that we wouldn't be able to detect or observe any breakdown in natural laws. Being a theistic evolutionist, this would work out nicely in having a divinely-directed natural selection, without the need for a suspension of "normal" evolution in any places, like Intelligent Design looks for.

My basic idea here is that the Heisenberg uncertainty relations between position and momentum, or between energy and time, and so on, give us small error bars on these variables. And in nonlinear systems (described by chaos theory) like much of the world is made of, small uncertainties grow into very large ones in a short time.

I've got to go now, but let me post these links to some related thinking that's been done in both science and religion:

Open theism and physics (I'm not convinced by Open Theism, but it's worth reading.)

Quantum Mechanics and the chaotic orbit of Hyperion (Really fascinating--I'd never heard of this before.)

The paper cited by the Discover article in the above link.

"Did Koh Bork Gonzales?"

This is, interestingly, a grammatically-correct sentence. Diagram away!