An Islamist is poised to become President of Turkey-and the military may intervene to prevent that.  Protests are sweeping the streets of Istanbul and Ankara, and the Turkish Supreme Court may rule in this election.  Stay tuned; this story could become a major situation.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I think this sums things up nicely:

'I'm Tired' (hat tip Erika Holzer)

Sincerely,
Joe Repya,
Lieutenant Colonel, U. S. Army
101st Airborne Division

Thanks, Wil!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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HR1592 makes a hate crime punishable for an act against any protected class whether real or perceived!  How long before the Judicial Branch deconstructs the meaning of THAT?

I had to go to Australia to learn about this from our good friend Morris.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:47 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The Federalist Patriot reports that Saudi Arabia is going to forgive Iraq`s girthy debt:

The Washington Post reports that Saudi Arabia has agreed to write off 80 percent of the $15-billion-plus debt owed it by Iraq. Considering Iraq’s total debt is an eye-watering $380 billion, that’s a good start. Previously, Sunni-led Riyadh had been disinclined to forgive the debt of Shi’ite-majority Iraq. Lately, however, Saudi Arabia has begun to realize that as Iraq goes, so goes the region. The Saudis aren’t the only ones concerned about the region: Altogether, 52 countries including the U.S. have written off 80 to 100 percent of debt, according to Iraqi Finance Minister Bayan Jabr.

Why all the debt forgiveness? Try the lessons of history, for one. A major contributor to the genesis of the Persian Gulf War was Iraq’s inability to shed debt resulting from its war with Iran in the 80s. Creditor nations refused to relieve Iraq’s burden, and the ensuing economic misery left the nation primed to invade oil-rich Kuwait. If this analysis seems a little far-fetched, consider that the world has already traveled down this particular memory lane in much grander style, following World War I. The tremendous ``piling-on`` by the victors of the Great War gave rise to Hitler and set the stage for World War II. Of course, if there is anything the Middle East lacks, it certainly isn’t Hitler wannabees. Let’s just hope the world does indeed remember its painful lessons.

This could go a long way towards legitimatizing the Iraqi government, and cooling the Shia/Sunni antagonism.  This is a major step.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:10 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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(from the Federalist Patriot)

It looks like Dennis Kucinich has pulled the trigger:

Speaking of overzealous partisan hacks, presidential candidate and Rep. Dennis ``the Menace`` Kucinich (D-OH) has introduced articles of impeachment for Vice President Dick Cheney, much to the chagrin of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has long promised there would be no such articles. Kucinich wants Cheney impeached for plotting the war in Iraq and manipulating intelligence to that end. When asked why he did not target the President, Kucinich replied, ``If the same charges would relate to the president as related to the vice president, you would then have to go through the constitutional agony of impeaching two presidents consecutively.`` Now that’s principled leadership.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jack Kemp, the non-politician American Thinker contributer, passes this along:

http://www.taipanfinancialnews.com/transcripts/20070425smackdown.html

Curiously enough for a political culture that cherishes computer modeling for global warming-induced rises in ocean levels and can figure out the amount of CO2 absorbed by a tree not used to produce toilet paper, I have yet to see a single Democrat who has allowed him- or herself to be pinned down on what scenario they expect to develop in Iraq and the Middle East without an American military presence. Even my favorite Democrat friend has carefully avoided to even hint at an answer to my question of what can reasonably be expected to happen. I, in turn, am afraid to push for a reply: The answer I might get may be the political equivalent of a detachable dining sleeve on a pantsuit and involve the words "Madeline Albright" and "Listening Tour."

This, after all, is not a Peace movement, but really a No War movement. It reminds me of a bumper sticker popular with German pacifists in the mid-1980s. It featured a quote from Bertholt Brecht: "Stell Dir vor, es ist Krieg und keiner geht hin" -- ``Imagine there's a war and nobody shows up.``

The simplistic message: War can be avoided by simply ignoring it. But unfortunately, even Brecht -- who made his reputation based on his resistance to the repressive and murderous Nazi regime, to later throw in his lot with the repressive and murderous East German communists -- had a better grasp on the world than those who like to quote him. Because the quoted passage is not quite finished:

``Imagine there's a war and nobody shows up -- then war will come to you. Who stays home when the battle begins and lets others fight for his cause has to be cautious. Who hasn't shared in the fight will share the defeat. Not even those will avoid fight who want to avoid it. Because he will fight for the cause of the enemy, who doesn't fight for his own cause. Hey, Brecht said it, and he was a Socialist. So it must be true.

For Taipan Financial News dot com, I'm J. Christoph Amberger wishing you a peaceful week.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Wil Wirtanen is a regular reader of Birdblog and a really sharp guy. He was watching Joe Biden on Meet the Press and was dismayed by Biden`s suggestion that we can chart a ``middle course`` between victory and defeat there.  Riight! As Wil pointed out, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is an example of the middle course Biden was talking about; a simmering open-ended conflict with people dying for decades.

He also made this point:

Tim,

Using their definition of a civil war, wouldn’t sending our troops to Darfur be putting them in the middle of a civil war?

How right he is!  I picked up the ball:

TOO TRUE!!

Also, it means that Elliott Ness was impotent, because there was clearly a civil war in Chicago back then, or that the Whiskey Rebellion couldn`t be put down because it was a civil war. It means we should pull out of Chicago because of the civil war at the 1968 Democratic Convention, and should allow Kent State to become a free city. We must pull out of Kosovo immediately, since that was and is a civil war. Ditto Haiti. We should move out of the Korean Peninsula because that was a civil war, should turn Taiwan over to the Chinese, and should, in fact, withdraw from the entire Confederate States of America since we cannot involve ourselves in a civil war.

The fact is, there are forces attempting to make this a civil war, but that is not the chief aspects of this; it is a Jihad against ``foreign invaders`` and those who would cooperate with them (the Iraqi government and people supporting it.) 

But even if it is, so what?  Civil wars have been stopped by outside armies in the past.  India was in a constant state of civil war until the British imposed order.  Ditto much of Africa.  Spain put an end to the strife between Mayan cities, and the United States ended tribal warfare between North American Indian Tribes.  I`m not saying that the solution was optimal, I am pointing out that it is possible to do militarily.  The Democrats insist that it is not.

What is necessary is a firm hand, and THAT the Democrats will not allow us.  Where are the executions? Why haven`t the terrorists we have captured been hanged, or shot?  I realize the need to extract information, but once that is done (or not, given the ACLU approach to interrogation demanded by the Antenoran Party) Iraqis should see their tormentors terminated, and publicly.  We owe them that, in fact!  Yet we aren`t executing anyone, to show what good guys we are and how we mean them no harm!  You cannot win a war if you mean no harm; war is not about building schools and hospitals.  The enemy sees how soft we are, and exploits it.  They do not believe they have anything to fear if they are captured.

We should be executing them with pork-chops around their necks, then burying them in pigskin.  That way, by their own beliefs, the souls expecting 72 virgins and a mule will find themselves denied a martyr`s paradise.  People will quit blowing themselves up if they think they won`t get the reward promised them.  We`ve been making it too easy for them.

With enough troops, with an aggressive enough approach, we can capture the leaders, the foreign fighters, the stashes of weapons.  With no leadership or weapons the ``civil war`` will end.  It just takes an aggressive approach, then the Iraqi government can maintain order after we have disarmed and destroyed the enemy.  But the Iraqis will not be able to do that if we do not first disarm and destroy those who would overthrow the government by force and impose Sharia. We need to take a page from Sherman; ``war is hell`` and it will be over more quickly if they know it!

The American Civil War illustrates perfectly the bankruptcy of the Democrat`s vision; the war only ended when U.S. Grant was put in command.  Mrs. Lincoln called Grant a ``butcher`` yet he turned the war around, because he was relentless in his pursuit of the enemy.  If thos e who advocated then the policy that the Democrats advocate now-McClelland wanted to sit and wait on the Virginia border for the opportune time and was unwilling to actually fight-we would STILL be fighting!  That Lincoln wanted an aggressive approach, and found a general who would fight, meant victory for the Union.  Why that lesson is lost on today`s America is beyond me.

Wars only actually end in victory and defeat.  There are very few examples otherwise. 

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:44 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The San Francisco Archdiocese is allowing a gay mass in the Church of the Holy Redeemer.

According to the Jesuit who will be performing the sacrilige:

However, Father Donal Godfrey, the U.S. Jesuit priest celebrating the Mass, said he was delighted the BBC was "exploring how gay people fit into the perspective of the Christian narrative".

"Being gay is not special," he said. "It's simply another gift from God who created us as rainbow people."

Uh, father, you should learn what the Church teaches; homosexual behavior is a SIN, a mortal sin, something that can lead to eternal damnation.  You are openly defying the Pope and his authority via the Apostolic Succession.  If you don`t choose to believe what your Church teaches, you are free to leave and found your own faith, but you are not a Catholic Priest.  Quit trying to trick people into believing that you are.

The Holy Father should excommunicate this guy, and should remove the Archbishop for failing to act here. 

Thanks, Dave!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:48 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Here is a  very interesting article by Peter Huber about the history of vaccinations and the public health, and the dangers of the current lack of concern about illness in City Journal.  (Thanks, David)

Also, you might want to check out Christopher Hitchens piece about the Barbary Pirates War. This gives an excellent view of America`s first war, and the response of Thomas Jefferson.

Hitchens makes mention of white slavery in this article:

In a way, I am glad that I did not have the initial benefit of all this research. My quest sent me to some less obvious secondary sources, in particular to Linda Colley’s excellent book Captives, which shows the reaction of the English and American publics to a slave trade of which they were victims rather than perpetrators. How many know that perhaps 1.5 million Europeans and Americans were enslaved in Islamic North Africa between 1530 and 1780? We dimly recall that Miguel de Cervantes was briefly in the galleys. But what of the people of the town of Baltimore in Ireland, all carried off by ``corsair`` raiders in a single night?

The North African Moslems were equal-opportunity slavers, and a great many white Europeans were enslaved by them. Of course, Europeans likewise enslaved other Europeans just as eagerly; there is plenty of blame to go around.  In particular, everyone seemed to pick on the Irish; Norsemen made slaves of them, North Africans, and the British. 

This informed much of Thomas Jefferson`s thinking, and was at least partly at the core of the American response to the ``corsairs``; Jefferson would have liked to end the slave trade by stopping it at it`s source. 

Be sure to read the entire article!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The United Nations has been of no help whatsoever in Iraq, has, in fact, hindered our progress there.  So what can we make of this statement by Sec. Gen. Ban Ki Moon?:

Second, we need to make serious efforts for progress in the Middle East. That entails work on several broad fronts. Iraq is the whole world's problem. I pledge my best efforts to help the Iraqi people in their quest for a more stable and prosperous Iraq. The UN role can assist in building an inclusive political process, helping to cultivate a regional environment supportive of a transition to stability, and pursuing reconstruction through the International Compact.

Does that mean that Moon will call for U.N. troops to assist the American forces in Iraq?  Does this mean a United Nations interdiction on weapons to the Iraqi terrorists?  Does it mean a get-tough policy with Iran?

No.  It means aiding refugees, many of whom have been chased out of Iraq by Coalition forces into Syria:

The number of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced has increased significantly over the past year. Their growing needs must be addressed. We also need to look at the situation in affected neighbouring States, especially Syria and Jordan.

So, the United Nations wants to help the Jihadists who have fled American guns.  No mention of ending the conflict by aiding the Coalition.  No mention of fighting the thugs who are at the heart of this mess.  No mention of sanctions against state-sponsors of the Mujihadeen fighting against the elected government of Iraq.  Aid to refugees is what he proposes; particularly in Syria. 

This despite their own report which says that the terrorists are committing ``crimes against humanity``:

Making no distinction between civilians and combatants, armed groups directly attack civilians through suicide bombings, abductions and extrajudicial executions. ``Such systematic or widespread attacks against a civilian population are tantamount to crimes against humanity and violate the laws of war,`` UNAMI says.

Yet they are more than happy to allow this to continue to punish America for going over their heads.  The best way to help refugees from the war is to bring it to a decisive end, yet our friends in the U.N. are happy to watch it smolder and to allow it to metastasize. They can then tut-tut in their cocktail parties, enjoying their fine lives in New York and smirk at the troubles we are having defending their sorry behinds.  If they were faithful to the purposes set they claim to believe in they would offer us some help in our task; after all, we went into Iraq to uphold THEIR own resolutions.  Military aid will end this thing.

It`s high time we boot the U.N. off of our soil; let them move to Brussels if they want.  We pay the lion`s share of dues to support this anti-American, corrupt institution which never sides with us in anything.  Why pay to insult and thwart ourselves?  It reminds me of the Seinfeld soup-nazi; we are paying to be mistreated! 

If the world wants to continue funding this corrupt outfit, that is their business, but it`s time America withdraw.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:29 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Charles Krauthammer analyzes the mixed legacy of Boris Yeltsin:

How Yeltsin brought down the Soviet Union
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, April 27, 2007

Charles Krauthammer

It`s well known that revolutionaries often do not govern, or at least not for long.  Samuel Adams was swept aside after the American Revolution.  So were Robespierre, Alexander Kerensky, etc. after their respective successes.  That Yeltsin was able to rule Russia for the time he did is a testament to his abilities, and a reproof of the Communist system which had slaughtered anybody with ability who could have led Russia into post-Marxism.  Yeltsin was the best man for the job in a sea of mediocre candidates; he was not suited to the work which follows revolution.  That is often the way of things; the skills needed to lead in opposition aren`t those needed to lead in majority. If you don`t believe that, just look at the Republican Congress!  They never did take charge, even after the 12 years they were in power.  Pelosi and Reid are in a similar circumstance today, with all of their initiatives being aimed at opposing Bush instead of leading the debate.  It`s hard to be both a dissident and a statesman.

We shouldn`t be too hard on Boris; Russia was virtually ungovernable without the secret police and the gulag to enforce the law.  Russians had no experience with either Democracy or Capitalism, and it should have been predictable that those who had ruled would be best positioned to return as robber-barons and racketeers.  Yeltsin could have imposed his will as Putin is now doing, but chose to not do so in the hopes that his country could slog through the pit and emerge all the better for it.  Unfortunately, there wasn`t enough time and no one to fill his vodka-stained shoes, and now the old tyrrants have returned. 

At least, they are constrained by the memory of Yeltsin`s era; they cannot act with impunity as they did in the old Soviet days.  Time will tell as to where they are heading.

I just hope that a better Yeltsin comes along; someone with the virtues but not the faults.  I fear Russia is dying and Putin and his cronies are not the men who can save it.  The people need freedom, need hope, need a spiritual awakening, and a KGB master turned plutocrat is not the one to offer these things. Salvation will only come for the Russians when they hear the call of the permanent things.  Marxist materialism is still at the core of Russia`s problems.  Putin and his cadre believe that material prosperity and the pride of power are the keys to national health and greatness.  Fools!  They are a guilded cage for the populace!  A prison, no matter how elegant, is still a prison. 

The people need a renewal of their Christianity, need a sense of hope for a free tomorrow.  Life without purpose is just existence, and that is what plagues the Russian people (and the American people these days).  They need a reason for Russia to exist.  The Conquest of Asia had traditionally been their national purpose, just as the conquest of the West had been America`s.  Both our nations no longer have this and Russia adopted the spiritual dead-end of Marxism, while America assumed the mantle of world leadership and protected the world from said Marxism.  Now these are gone, and both of our countries are enterprises in search of a cause. The war against terrorism has had mixed results in capturing the hearts of Americans, but we still believe in a number of things which keep us going.  But Russia?  Capitalism alone is not the answer, and Putin and company have a foreign policy based on Realpolitik and power-things which will NOT give a nation a sense of purpose. (What has Realpolitik done for Europe?)  Russia, more than any other nation, could find her purpose as the shield against Islam.  A renewal of Christianity in Russia and an aggressive effort against the rising tide of Islamic extremism-a crusade, if you will-could bring hope back to the children of Rus and renew their land.  Geographically, they are on the front lines for this battle. 

Putin`s ambition is to monopolize energy, to make Russia the world`s energy broker.  This idea is based on Russian oil, Russian nuclear technology, Russia`s hydroelectric resources, gas, etc.  This could all be turned to the good to undercut the Islamic World`s revenue, if Putin were to see the usefullness of a Crusade to save Christendom.  They also have the military muscle and intel to partner with us in the war if they so chose.  But Putin holds America a grudge and will not help us, and his nation may die as a result.  There is so much good Russia could accomplish, but the path they are on is squandering their opportunities.  They would rather die out as a nation than follow a path of reconcilliation.

Yeltsin did his part; it`s now up to the Russian people to save themselves. 

Thanks, David!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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We have some Global Warming news; we learn that Canada is fibbing about reduced greenhouse gas emissions while the E.U. isn`t bothering to reduce emissions despite claiming to do so.

Why does this surprise anyone?  Nobody had any intentions of seriously reducing emissions to begin with; this is just a Potemkin Village designed to fool the public and to hamstring the United States economy.
This is political theatre on a global scale, nothing more.

We would be fools to fall for this. 

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This from Junk Science:

AFRICA: 'Extreme Water Events' Predicted" -

* NAS Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, page 7:  As just mentioned, a doubling of the concentration of carbon dioxide (from the pre-Industrial value of 280 parts per million) in the global atmosphere causes a forcing of 4 W/m2. The central value of the climate sensitivity to this change is a global average temperature increase of 3°C (5.4°F), but with a range from 1.5°C to 4.5°C (2.7 to 8.1°F) (based on climate system models: see section 4). The central value of 3°C is an amplification by a factor of 2.5 over the direct effect of 1.2°C (2.2°F).

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As far as St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke is concerned, singer Cheryl Crow has stepped in it, and it`s going to take more than one square to wipe off!

The Archbishop has resigned his seat from the board of the Cardinal Glennon Children`s Medical Center Foundation over a dispute about bringing the unhygenic entertainer to the Bob Costas Cancer Center Fundraiser because of her support for abortion and her active advocacy for Amendment 2, the bill which enshrined human cloning in the Missouri Constitution.

Archbishop Burke learned that Miss Crow had starred in a pro-Amendment 2 commercial, and he objected vehemently to her appearance at the Catholic hospital`s fundraiser.  The board overruled him, so he resigned his seat. 

It`s high time Catholic leaders started standing up for the principles of the Church.  Catholic Dogma teaches that these embryos are people, and that harvesting them is mass murder; if that is what the Church teaches that is what Catholics must believe-or they can leave. The Bishop has a moral duty as pastor of the Archdiocese to uphold Catholic dogma at Catholic institutions. The board had no right to invite someone who has openly flipped the bird to the Church.  If Miss Crow wants to support stem-cell research, she has every right to do so as an American citizen, but she must be prepared to pay the price.  Catholics do not have to patronize her concerts, or invite her to their fundraisers.  The Archbishop has made it plain that he cannot tolerate such a thing.

Of course, the Post-Dispatch tries to muddy the waters in this article; they attempt to compare Crow`s spokesmanship for Amendment 2 with Tim McGraw`s song about a couple deciding on an abortion, or John Mellenkamp`s anti-war stance as somehow being equivelant.  They are not; McGraw simply deals with the issue of abortion without advocating for it, and there is nothing morally wrong with opposing war.  This is different because Miss Crow acted directly as spokesman for something which the Church has banned. 

There is another point to be made here; the Archbishop is required to distribute the Body and Blood of Christ, as well as handle many blessed objects.  He will, of course, be forced to shake the hand of Miss Crow should she offer it.  Now, we all know where that hand has been, and the one square policy of Miss Crow bespeaks bad hygene.  The Chinese used to use a pot of water to tidy up after their morning rituals, and they always used their left hands, which they kept behind their backs when greeting people.  It is doubtful Miss Crow follows Chinese custom, and it is even more doubtful that Miss Crow has much success keeping it all on her single square.  Should the Archbishop allow his hands to be defiled by this unclean woman?  I wouldn`t want to receive Communion from the hand which had clasped the hand which had passed through the valley of the shadow of death. It is unclean!

But she [must] have washed her hands, right?  Well, another holy cause of enviromentalists is water conservation; I suspect that such a loyal champion of conservation would be so wasteful as to throw away perfectly good water-and add chemicals to the septic system-for such a trivial purpose.  I`m not willing to take that wager, and neither is our Bishop.

I`m just glad I don`t have to travel with that woman.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:26 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Wil Wirtanen sends this eye-opener about the criminal justice system:

The 'Innocence' Myth
By MORRIS B. HOFFMAN
April 26, 2007; Page A19

Mr. Hoffman is a Colorado district court judge and an adjunct professor of law at the University of Colorado. This article was adapted from a forthcoming issue of the Chicago-Kent Law Review.

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These are exciting times!  Scientists have discovered a potentially Earthlike planet orbiting Gliese 581, a puny red dwarf star about 20 light years away, and the champaign is flowing as scientists and media lackeys wax poetic over the possibilities. 

Until recently, we have only been able to find larger planets, mostly by the wobble they produce on their parent stars. Improvements in this technique have enabled them to discover Gliese 581c (the current name of said world-sounds like the IRS had a hand in there somewhere!) and scientists have surmised the rest based on theoretical models.  Of course, we have not been able to falsify those models, so they may be (in fact, probably are, as is common) drastically wrong on some or all points.  Still, it`s exciting to find something that everyone thought should exist but had yet to discover.

It is believed that C is about half again as massive as the Earth, and is either composed of rocky material (like Earth) or water ice (If water ice it will be much larger). It is in the liquid water band, that region where water can be a liquid. It should be pointed out that Venus, the Moon, and Mars are also in the liquid water band for Sol, but only Earth has any water in that form.  There are other questions about this; does it have an atmosphere?  How thick?  It could be like Venus, hot and dense, or like Mars, thin as Al Gore`s sanity.  This planet huddles much closer to it`s primary, and may be tidally locked, showing the same face to Gliese 581 just as the Moon does to Earth, or the Galilean satellites (Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, Io) do to Jupiter.
This would present unique weather patterns, as hot air would roar into the cold darkside regions and cold air would move to fill the vacuum.  Constant, incessant jetstream! That is, if proximity to the star would allow the atmosphere to remain.  Red dwarf stars tend to be much older than their johnnie-come-lately yellow cousins, and eons of magnetic storms and the like may strip the atmosphere away.  There will be no way of finding this out for a long, long time.

Is there life on such a world?  Maybe.  Most red dwarf suns are flare stars; they shoot off huge solar flares on occasion, and the proximity to the star means occasional exposure to massive doses of radiation.  If C is tidally locked, life could possibly survive on the dark side, or in the borderland, the twilight zone.  Although life may be adapted to higher doses of radiation, one would think that it would still be too much for any sort of DNA to handle without breaking down on the day side.  A magnetic field might help (and would distribute charged particles around to the darkside, so it might not.)

We won`t be going there any time soon.  I`ve written before a perspective piece which illustrates the vast distances involved, and we have very few means at our disposal to send even a robot probe at this point. 

The only space drive I know of that is within our current capabilities to cross these distances is the Orion.  Invented during the 1950`s, the Orion was intended for use on a manned mission to Mars, reducing travel time from years to about a month.  It employs atomic bombs, chucking them under a pusher plate at the rate of 1 per second.  A thick shock absorber keeps the payload or occupants from being squished unpleasantly under the atomic heel, and radiation from the drive isn`t such a concern since you are moving away from it.  An atom bomb going off under your posterior will get you moving! 

For interstellar flight, you would need two stages; one to accelerate you to about a tenth of lightspeed, and one to decelerate you at the target star.  The massive number of bombs required to do this makes it completely impractical, and we would still have to wait centuries for our probe to reach it`s destination.

A better way to travel would be with a light sail.  Light exerts pressure, and the light falling on an acre of ground can amount to several tons.  A piece of thin foil-miles in area, of course-can be pushed by sunlight.  Use electromagnets to act as a keel with the solar wind, and you can tack into the sun!  Acceleration is small but constant.  Unfortunately, between stars you don`t have much sunlight.

But if we would build a gigantic laser cannon and fire this at the sail, we can accelerate it to the midpoint between stars.  Seperate the ``booster sail`` and it will reflect laser light back on a deceleration sail, and you can thus slow down to enter the Gleise system.  Of course, if the laser failed, the crew is SOL...

The enormous committment in time and energy is staggering to accomplish this, and isn`t going to happen in the forseeable future.  We are just going to have to be content with traditional astronomy. 

In fact, physics may make it impossible for people to go to the stars at all; the time required, even at a good fraction of lightspeed, means either we use some sort of suspended animation-something that may not be possible-or a multi-generational ship.  An MG ship would have to be a self-contained world, and thus huge.  It may not be possible to move such a thing fast enough to avoid spending hundreds of thousands of years traveling.  Sooner or later such a space colony will run out of something! 

No, we are most assuredly putting the horse before the cart when we gaze off into the red dwarf sunset.  Plenty to do here in our own solar system to keep us busy for millenia to come.

Still, it`s interesting to learn that there may be other places we may some day visit, if only in our dreams!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Liberals, in their wonderful, tolerant manner, have once again attacked the American Thinker website, and shut it down.  Contributor Jack Kemp (not the politician) had some hot news which he asked to be published right away, so here is the e-mail he sent (by the way, I love that title!):

``I attended the NY Times Annual Meeting today in NY after having purchased one share. I wanted you all to read my "raw" article before editing. As is, American Thinker is down as I write at 1:52 am Eastern Time, so there may be delays in a publication. Mr. Lifson has indicated he was interested in publishing this from the shorter summary I sent him from a Kinko's one hour after leaving the meeting. As I state, the security was non-existant as I walked in unchallenged. I can't get into my dentist's building in Rockefeller Center for a scheduled appointment without showing my i.d. and them checking me on a list. The Time's choice of a theater for their meeting was as much to charm themselves as any possibly critical shareholders.
 
In the story, the man who commented about the Times not giving Israel fair coverage in the recent Lebanon War prefaced his remarks by saying that he appreciated the Time's writing about the false weapons of mass destruction claims in Iraq. With that type of intro, Pinch Sulzberger knew he could ignore this "friar" (Israeli, from the original German word for suitor or obsequious person) with impunity.
 
The lady crank activist, who was quite entertaining at times, even to Pinch, asked Pinch Sulzberger what was the exact street number of the new NY Times building, the one he praised and said would open in June. He did not know the answer ! But he knew the street's location in Manhattan.``
 
Jack
 

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- After 42% of New York Times Co.'s voting public shareholders withheld votes for the company's Class A directors, Morgan Stanley Investment Management on Tuesday called the results "a clear mandate for meaningful change" at the newspaper publisher. Morgan Stanley, which last year began a drive, led by portfolio manager Hassan Elmasry, to persuade New York Times to get rid of its dual-class stock structure. At last year's annual meeting, 30% of the voting public shareholders withheld votes for Class A directors. Morgan Stanley pointed out that this year's vote "is an emphatic call for accountability." Morgan Stanley executives said they've met with New York Times management and recommended ways it could improve its governance, management, and capital allocation. The investment firm said it's "disappointed" that New York Times has yet to agree with its suggestions.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 04:02 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I know many of you have already seen this, but I thought it bears repeating.

Thanks to David from Ultima Thule:

The making of a mass murderer-- In english class
By Mary Grabar
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Mary Grabar graduated from the University of Georgia with a Ph.D. in English and currently teaches at a university in Atlanta.

To put it tritely, Cho was seduced by the Dark Side.  His grasp of reality, weakened by a life lived in the shadows of moral relativism, intellectual vaccuity, and a culture of death, was really not that far from the norm on college campuses, and such a person could easily tumble.  Too bad he was not taught the great classics!  Dante would have done well by him. Too bad his courses didn`t emphasize Walter Scott!  Had he been taught to honor heroism, decency, courage in the face of adversity, he may have been an entirely different man.  Instead, his view was clouded by a pop-culture of mass murder and looking cool in videos, and his avante` guard act of massacre theatre could only appeal to someone raised in a spiritual wasteland.  It is unfortunate that this kid wasn`t sent to trade school; most college campuses these days are a broad road to Hell. He was too weak, too spiritually empty to resist.

But we haven`t learned a thing from this, and the left will continue to teach kids that they are an accidental product of chemical reactions in a meaningless universe.  They will continue to teach nihilism, spiritual violence, the despair of irreversible entropic decay on Man and the Universe, that life is a matter of convenience for the living.  If there is no purpose, no meaning to life, then Cho`s act was the most creative thing he could do for it gained him momentary fame.  He, like so many whom the left recruits through intellectual pandering, was the Cho-sen one; the anointed visionary, the intellectual whose vision exceeds those of the mortals around him. By right of this vision, of this superiority, he must impose his memory on the world via the weak and vain who really aren`t important in the grand scheme of things. In a world where nothing really matters there is only memory, and Cho will be remembered.  That lesson will not be lost on others.

So don`t be surprised at the next, more spectacular killing spree.  We were just lucky Cho wasn`t a chemistry major; he could have killed far more than a couple of dozen with some of the nasty things that could be created by a determined person. 

As long as we continue to allow the left to dominate the education of our youths, to keep the factories of death and spiritual darkness cranking out soulless monsters of modernity, we should expect this to continue.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As I have been pointing out, Russia is resembling the Gambino Crime Family more all the time.  I lay a lot of blame on Putin, but Boris Yeltsin caused much of the trouble, as this piece clearly illustrates:

IN MEMORIAM

The emancipation of Russia and its descent back into authoritarianism are both part of Yeltsin's legacy. Fate put him at the head of a movement that did great good--but he proved incapable of guaranteeing his country a better future. In the end, his life is a sober illustration of the necessity of uprooting the communist inheritance in Russia, and of how deep that legacy runs.
Mr. Satter is affiliated with the Hoover Institution and the Johns Hopkins University. His latest book is "Darkness at Dawn: the Rise of the Russian Criminal State" (Yale, 2003).

This is absolutely true; I, being a college grad with a second major in Russian (or nearly so, being shy only a class on the philosophy of Marxism/Leninism) was in high demand for about a week after my graduation (1987).  Everyone kept saying ``come back in 6 months when the situation has settled down``.  I am still waiting for that to occur; the high expectations that business had for a lucrative Russian market never materialized.  The bright promise that the dissolution of the Soviet Union hinted at never bore fruit, and Russia has continued to stagnate in a nationalist/corporatist system of rule by cronyism.  Today it resembles more a Mafiosa system than a Westernized Free Enterprise. 

{I was going to go back and get that last class (which was suspended because the teacher was on sabbatical); I would then have had a double major with history, a certificate in Russian Scientific Translation (which I have), and a certificate in Eastern Area Studies (which also required the philosophy class).  I never bothered, because it became obvious that it wasn`t going to have a material impact on my employment.  Now my years of studying Russian have all been for nought; such is life.}

Yeltsin was, I think, a good man, but his love of the bottle was his-and Russia`s-undoing.  Corruption flourished under Yeltsin like mushrooms in a cellar while he did nothing.  The transformation of Russia from an oppressed province into a nation was going to be difficult, and required a sober, intelligent leader.  Unfortunately, Yeltsin proved the rule that it is easier to rebel than to govern, and his rule offered little leadership once the Reds were removed.

It breaks my heart to think of the opportunity missed.

Spaseba to David from Ultima Thule[/a]

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 06:14 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Mike at The Return of Scipio has an outstanding piece about freedom, republicanism, and the Virginia Tech shootings.

He states;

But now an irony intrudes: Even if a people have become too delicate to willingly turn over their own blood for freedom, their blood will still be required of them unwillingly.

The same thing is true at home. We remain free inside our borders only because we are willing to pay the cost in blood. Or we can choose servitude and unwillingly pay the cost in blood. But blood it will be.

This is a terrific analysis; don`t miss it!

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