Thirty years ago

Thirty years ago I was an enlisted man in the U.S. Navy, serving on board the USS Long Beach (a nuclear guided missile cruiser). Along with many other U.S. Navy ships, the Long Beach was engaged in the effort to evacuate the remaining U.S. personnel. We also aided a large number of Vietnamese who were (or believed they were) in imminent danger of losing their lives to the North Vietnamese forces that were conquering the south.

The Navy has a decent brief official history of the event. It mentions my ship, but only in passing, as there were many dramatic events in those few days.

Those of us on the Long Beach at the time witnessed many things we never expected to. We had several ARVN helicopters crash land on our fantail (which could only hold one helicopter at a time). Working parties were quickly organized to push these helicopters over the side. We had small boats approaching us seeking to be picked up at all hours of the day and night, most of them extremely and dangerously overloaded. We witnessed hundreds of helicopters and small aircraft landing on the several carriers in the area, and many of them were also pushed over the side to make room for more.

There were heroes in those days; there was much tragedy in those days (completely outside the larger political/military context). Many people, mostly Vietnamese, died in accidents or because they missed any of the dozens of ships in the area. Some helicopters ran out of fuel as they waited to land on a ship; some of them crashed, some ditched and then passengers drowned, some crash-landed (including one on the Long Beach) and made it.

When the flow of people out to the ships stopped, the ships (including the Long Beach) were crowded with huge numbers of refugees. We were told at the time that there were more than 25,000, though I have no way to verify that. The refugees on the ships were brought to the Phillipines, to an island in Subic Bay that had theretofore been a recreation area for Navy personnel at (or visiting) the huge base there. I have heard many stories about the people on that island, including some directly from the people there; most are sad, some are tragic.

The experience is one that is still easy to recall, even after thirty years. I suppose this is because it was so shocking to me at the time. We had no expectation of this flood of refugees that came out to the ships. It's also one of the few times, sadly, that I was very impressed with our Navy's commanders. The local commanders, so far as I know completely on their own, quickly decided (as the first refugee aircraft started to be spotted on radar) to take on the humanitarian role of rescuing these people. It could have been much worse — if instead of this quick and sensible reaction they had behaved in the bureaucratic, cover-your-butt mode I was used to seeing, many more people would have needlessly perished...

Cuyamaca wildflowers

Debbie and I took a short hike in Cuyamaca State Park today, with the objective of spotting some wildflowers. We succeeded beyond our wildest expectations!

Click on the picture for a bigger view. Better yet, go see all the photos from the day's hiking!

Quote for the day

It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.

   Henry Ford

Spirit Panorama

The Spirit rover is high in the Columbia Hills, where it took this panorama. Click on the picture for a larger view.

Galaxy Evolution Explorer

Few people know about the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, a earth-orbit satellite launched on April 28th, 2003 by an air-dropped Pegasus rocket. It takes images in ultraviolet light, and its mission is to explore how galaxies evolve. The picture at right is of NGC 300, and it was made by combining an optical wavelength photo taken from Earth with the UV image taken by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer.

Click on the image at right for a full-sized view...

Colonoscopies

We're told that these are actual comments heard by physicians while performing colonoscopies:

1. "Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!"

2. "Find Amelia Earhart yet?"

3. "Can you hear me NOW?"

4. "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

5. "You know, in Arkansas, we're now legally married."

6. "Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?"

7. "You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out..."

8. "Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!"

9. "If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit!

10. "Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity."

11. "You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?"

12. "God, Now I know why I am not gay."

And the best one of all..

13. "Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?".

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Excuses, excuses

CareerBuilder.com recently conducted an "Out of the Office" survey that (amongst other things) surveyed the excuses people give when they played hooky from work. As their site says:

The 2004 CCH Unscheduled Absence Survey, conducted for CCH by Harris Interactive confirmed this trend. CCH found most employees who fail to show up for work, however, aren't physically ill, according to the survey. In fact, only 38 percent of unscheduled absences are due to personal illness, while 62 percent are for other reasons, including family issues (23 percent), personal needs (18 percent), stress (11 percent) and entitlement mentality (10 percent).

Here are some of the more unusual excuses given:

# I was sprayed by a skunk.

# I tripped over my dog and was knocked unconscious.

# My bus broke down and was held up by robbers.

# I was arrested as a result of mistaken identity.

# I forgot to come back to work after lunch.

# I couldn't find my shoes.

# I hurt myself bowling.

# I was spit on by a venomous snake.

# I totaled my wife's jeep in a collision with a cow.

# A hitman was looking for me.

# My curlers burned my hair and I had to go to the hairdresser.

# I eloped.

# My brain went to sleep and I couldn't wake it up.

# My cat unplugged my alarm clock.

# I had to be there for my husband's grand jury trial.

# I had to ship my grandmother's bones to India (note: she passed away 20 years before).

# I forgot what day of the week it was.

# Someone slipped drugs in my drink last night.

# A tree fell on my car.

# My monkey died.

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

The folks who found the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker have a site: www.ivorybill.org.

There are some photographs, a story, the press release below, and some video up there right now. The promise is that more will be forthcoming.

What a good-news science story! And it's fascinating how they managed to get such a large team to operate in secret, and got the Nature Conservancy to buy up land in secret at the same time. Great stuff! The official press release:

Long Thought Extinct, Ivory-billed WoodpeckerRediscovered in Big Woods of Arkansas
Multiple sightings, video footage show bird survives in vast forested areas

BRINKLEY, Arkansas — April 28, 2005 —

Long believed to be extinct, a magnificent bird – the ivory-billed woodpecker – has been rediscovered in the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas. More than 60 years after the last confirmed sighting of the species in the United States, a research team today announced that at least one male ivory-bill still survives in vast areas of bottomland swamp forest.

Published in the journal Science on its Science Express Web site (April 28, 2005), the findings include multiple sightings of the elusive woodpecker and frame-by-frame analyses of brief video footage. The evidence was gathered during an intensive year-long search in the Cache River and White River national wildlife refuges involving more than 50 experts and field biologists working together as part of the Big Woods Conservation Partnership, led by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology at Cornell University and The Nature Conservancy.

“The bird captured on video is clearly an ivory-billed woodpecker,” said John Fitzpatrick, the Science article’s lead author, and director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. “Amazingly, America may have another chance to protect the future of this spectacular bird and the awesome forests in which it lives.”

“It is a landmark rediscovery,” said Scott Simon, director of The Nature Conservancy’s Arkansas chapter. “Finding the ivory-bill in Arkansas validates decades of great conservation work and represents an incredible story of hope for the future.”

Joining the search team at a press conference in Washington DC, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton announced a Department of the Interior initiative to identify funds for recovery efforts. Through its cooperative conservation initiative, the Fish and Wildlife Service has a variety of grant and technical aid programs to support wildlife recovery.

“These programs are the heart and soul of the federal government’s commitment to cooperative conservation. They are perfectly tailored to recover this magnificent bird,” Secretary Norton said. “Across the Nation, these programs preserve millions of acres of habitat, improve riparian habitat along thousands of miles of streams and develop conservation plans for endangered species and their habitat.”

The largest woodpecker in North America, the ivory-billed woodpecker is known through lore as a bird of beauty and indomitable spirit. The species vanished after extensive clearing destroyed millions of acres of virgin forest throughout the South between the 1880s and mid-1940s.

Although the majestic bird has been sought for decades, until now there was no firm evidence that it still existed.

The rediscovery has galvanized efforts to save the Big Woods of Arkansas, 550,000 acres of bayous, bottomland forests and oxbow lakes. According to Simon, The Nature Conservancy has conserved 18,000 acres of critical habitat in the Big Woods, at the request of the partnership, since the search began. “It’s a very wild and beautiful place,” Simon said.The Search and the Evidence

While kayaking in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge on Feb. 11, 2004, Gene Sparling of Hot Springs, Ark., saw an unusually large, red-crested woodpecker fly toward him and land on a nearby tree. He noticed several field marks suggesting the bird was an ivory-billed woodpecker.

A week later, after learning of the sighting, Tim Gallagher, editor of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Living Bird magazine, and Bobby Harrison, associate professor at Oakwood College, Huntsville, Ala., interviewed Sparling. They were so convinced by his report that they traveled to Arkansas and then with Sparling to the bayou where he had seen the bird.

On Feb. 27, as Sparling paddled ahead, a large black-and-white woodpecker flew across the bayou less than 70 feet in front of Gallagher and Harrison, who simultaneously cried out: “Ivory-bill!” Minutes later, after the bird had disappeared into the forest, Gallagher and Harrison sat down to sketch independently what each had seen. Their field sketches, included in the Science article, show the characteristic patterns of white and black on the wings of the woodpecker.

“When we finished our notes,” Gallagher said, “Bobby sat down on a log, put his face in his hands and began to sob, saying, ‘I saw an ivory-bill. I saw an ivory-bill.’” Gallagher said he was too choked with emotion to speak. “Just to think this bird made it into the 21st century gives me chills. It’s like a funeral shroud has been pulled back, giving us a glimpse of a living bird, rising Lazarus-like from the grave,” he said.

The sightings by Sparling, Gallagher and Harrison led to the formation of a search team, which later became the Big Woods Conservation Partnership. On April 5, 10 and 11, three different searchers sighted an ivory-bill in nearby areas. The views were fleeting, leaving little opportunity to take photographs.

David Luneau, associate professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said he thought the best chance to film the elusive bird would be to have a camcorder on at all times. On April 25, Luneau captured four seconds of video footage showing an ivory-billed woodpecker taking off from the trunk of a tree.

Frame-by-frame analyses show a bird perched on a tupelo trunk, with a distinctive white pattern on its back. During 1.2 seconds of flight, the video reveals 11 wing beats showing extensive white on the trailing edges of the wings and white on the back. Both of these features distinguish the ivory-billed woodpecker from the superficially similar, and much more common, pileated woodpecker.

On three occasions, members of the search team heard series of loud double-raps, possibly the ivory-billed woodpecker’s display drumming. On Feb. 14, 2005, Casey Taylor of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology heard the drumming for 30 minutes, then watched as an ivory-billed woodpecker, being mobbed by crows, flew into view.

In addition, autonomous recording units detected sounds, among thousands of hours of recordings, which resembled double-raps and possible calls of the ivory-bill – reminiscent of the sound of a tin horn. Researchers say ongoing analyses of the recordings have not yet enabled them to rule out other potential sound sources, such as the calls of blue jays, which are notorious mimics.

In all, during more than 7,000 hours of search time, experienced observers reported at least 15 sightings of the ivory-bill, seven of which were described in the Science article. Because only a single bird was observed at a time, researchers say they don’t yet know whether more than one inhabits the area.

So far, the search team has focused its efforts in approximately 16 of the 850 square miles in the bottomland forests of Arkansas. Fitzpatrick of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology said that the next step will be to broaden the search to assess whether breeding pairs exist and how many ivory-bills the region may support. To expand the area being monitored and minimize disturbance to the endangered woodpecker, the team will continue to use acoustic monitoring technologies as well as on-the-ground searching. Fitzpatrick said the team will also encourage others to search for the ivory-bill elsewhere in suitable habitats throughout the South.

Simon of The Nature Conservancy said that over the years, state and federal agencies, conservation organizations, hunters and landowners have aggressively worked to conserve and restore the bottomland hardwood and swamp ecosystem. “Now we know we must work even harder to conserve this critical habitat – not just for the ivory-billed woodpecker, but for the black bears, waterfowl and many other species of these unique woods,” he added.

The partnership’s 10-year goal is to restore 200,000 more acres of forest in the Big Woods. The effort will include conserving forest habitat, improving river water quality, and restoring the physical structure of the river channels, focusing in locations with maximum benefit in reconnecting forest patches and protecting river health.

“The ivory-bill tells us that we could actually bring this system back to that primeval forest here in the heartland of North America,” said Fitzpatrick, who is also a member of The Nature Conservancy’s board of governors. “That’s the kind of forest that I hope some generation of Americans and citizens of the world will get to come and visit.”

For more information about the search and the efforts to save the ivory-billed woodpecker and the Big Woods, visit www.ivorybill.org.

***

The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology is a nonprofit membership institution with the mission to interpret and conserve the Earth’s biological diversity though research, education, and citizen science focused on birds. From its headquarters at the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity in Ithaca, N.Y., the Lab leads international efforts in bird monitoring and conservation, and fosters the ability of enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels to make a difference.

The Nature Conservancy is a nonprofit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities representing the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy has been responsible for protecting more than 15 million acres in the United States and more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Since The Conservancy’s Arkansas office opened in 1982, it has worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission as well as private citizens, corporations, and foundations, to bring into conservation management more than 120,000 acres in the Arkansas delta.

The Big Woods Conservation Partnership includes the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, The Nature Conservancy, Oakwood College in Huntsville, Ala., Louisiana State University, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Birdman Productions, LLC, and Civic Enterprises, LLC.

Iraq Photos

Lance in Iraq is one of the blogs I read every day, mostly for the first-hand views of events in Iraq, and the perspective of a "boots on the ground" soldier. For the past few days, Lance has been posting a wonderful series of photos, like the one at right (which shows an Iraqi kid about to see the doctor, accompanied by his obviously amused sister). The preceding link just goes to the most recent post; click around his site to see the others...

Community of Democracies, cont'd

Robert Mayer at Publius Pundit chimes in with an excellent Community of Democracies roundup, doing his usual excellent job...

Quote for the day

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

   Sir Winston Churchill

Rain!

At right you can see my rain guage, showing the tiny amount of rain we got last Friday evening, and the almost 3/4" of rain we got today. We all thought the rainy season was over, and I'm partway through the annual post-rainy season mowing, brush-cutting, and weed-whacking...
Looks like I'll be starting over on that job...

Community of Democracies

Today's Wall Street Journal has a commentary piece that starts off this way:

We scoured the papers and searched the Internet but couldn't find many references yesterday to the fact that Condoleezza Rice was in Chile leading the U.S. delegation to the fledgling Community of Democracies. Perhaps that's because this story doesn't fit with the prevailing diplomatic narrative of a cowboy America that refuses to play nicely with other nations.

We'll even go out on a limb with this prediction: While most of the 120 or so countries represented in Santiago may not envisage it yet, this Community could one day overshadow Kofi Annan's dictator-friendly talk shop on New York's East River.

The United Nations was conceived as a place where tyrannies and democracies could and should sit together on equal terms. That may have made sense in the aftermath of World War II, when free countries were in the clear minority. But nowadays that increasingly outdated premise results in such spectacles as Libya chairing the U.N. Human Rights Commission. It's also a problem that Mr. Annan's proposed reforms — which feature enlargement of the Security Council — do little to address.

Now, all of this was a big surprise to me — I've never heard of the Community of Democracies, much less know about Condi's visit. A little googling led to this news story, but the WSJ is generally correct: there is very little coverage of this most interesting organization. I suspect their hopes are mostly fantasy just now, but...sometimes fantasies become reality. And I share their view of the attractiveness of this type of organization, with membership available only for democracies. As an American, I'd much rather see my tax dollars headed that way than to Kofi's U.N...

Rope-a-dope?

At first blush (and maybe at second blush as well) this idea seems like a really bad combination of useless and silly. But maybe I render judgment too quickly?

Almost 50 years after Saint's flight, Pavel Trivailo and a team of engineers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia are exploring the same basic principles to devise a more sophisticated air delivery system. They are working on an automated device that will allow them to pick up and put down loads - including people - with hardly a jolt. If their system is successful, it could speed up rescues at sea, make cargo or aid delivery far easier and help collect injured people from otherwise inaccessible regions of jungle or mountain.

You can read all about it at the New Scientist's site...

Epimetheus

Without much fanfare from the popular press, the Cassini probe is quietly continuing its remarkable scientific mission. The latest photographic tour de force is this photo of the moon Epimetheus, described below:

Epimetheus is irregularly shaped and dotted with soft-edged craters. The many large, softened craters on Epimetheus indicate a surface that is several billion years old. The moon shares an orbit with another of Saturn's small moons, Janus. The two dance in a planetary tango as they move in almost identical orbits, exchanging orbits every four years, instead of colliding. Both play a role in creating intricate waves in Saturn¿s rings; both have densities significantly lower than that of solid ice, suggesting they may be "rubble piles" held together by gravity. At 116 kilometers (72 miles) across, Epimetheus is slightly smaller than Janus at 181 kilometers (113 miles) across. Spectra of Epimetheus from the Cassini visual infrared mapping spectrometer indicate that the moon is mostly water ice.

Much more information at the official Cassini site. Click on the image for a full-sized view...

—

Extinct...or not extinct?

The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker hasn't been confirmably sighted for over 60 years, though questionable reports of sightings have trickled in all along. But now an organized expedition has sighted, filmed, documented and confirmed that the magnificent woodpecker is still with us. This is a rare piece of good news in the contemporary situation of species preservation. Hooray! A couple of news stories:

NPR

ABC

UPDATE:
GrrlScientist is all over this, with lots of great pointers including to a video sequence.

An Egyptian on Islam

One of the factors exacerbating the terrorism problem is that the majority of Muslims (or at least their organizations) refuse to condemn in any substantive way the actions of the terrorists — the vast majority of whom use Islam as the justification for their actions. This is complicity, plain and simple. And it isn't helping.

One could imagine a much different situation, in which Muslim leaders around the world roundly condemned terrorism in any form (including that employed against Israel). They could urge their flocks to work against terrorism by informing on the terrorists, by refraining from contributing, etc.

Instead we have a situation where the Islamic organizations are actively engaged — directly or indirectly — in the promotion of terrorism. And very, very few Islamic or Arabic voices are raised against terrorism

All of this context makes Sandmonkey's rantings all the more to be cherished:

Stop repeating that Islam is a word that comes from peace, and that the only problem Islam has is the misconceptions of the ignorant west. You know it’s not true. Islam means submission, and while the west has its wrong misconceptions about it, it still has its share of problems, whether in the sharia, the people practicing it or in the Islamic culture as it is known today. It’s time to stop pointing fingers, stop making excuses, or point to other religions and cultures and say “They do it too!” or “Look at the problems they are having, is that any better?” The fact that there are other people doing wrong things doesn’t excuse the wrong things you do. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. Break Time is over people. We have serious problems and we need serious people to solve them in the Islamic world. And yes, I am talking to you!

Right on, Sandmonkey!
Read the whole thing, and leave him a nice comment, won't you?

M51

Astronomy Picture of the Day does it again!

Follow the handle of the Big Dipper away from the dipper's bowl, until you get to the handle's last bright star. Then, just slide your telescope a little south and west and you might find this stunning pair of interacting galaxies, the 51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog. Perhaps the original spiral nebula, the large galaxy with well defined spiral structure is also cataloged as NGC 5194. Its spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy (right), NGC 5195. The pair are about 31 million light-years distant and officially lie within the boundaries of the small constellation Canes Venatici. Though M51 looks faint and fuzzy in small, earthbound telescopes, this sharpest ever picture of M51 was made in January 2005 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Quote for the day

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.

   John Kenneth Galbraith

Amazing undersea photos

I've always been fascinated by the photos (usually seen in National Geographic, or someplace like that) of the strange creatures of the deep. Now they've been collected in one place, at exploretheabyss.com. Check it out!

A tip o' the hat to TigerHawk for pointing this out. And I agree with him completely about Subzero Blue...

Holding their feet to the fire

Every year around this time, local conservative talk show host (and recovering politician and recovering lawyer) Roger Hedgecock leads a trip to Washington, DC with a group of "citizen lobbyists". He calls these trips the "Hold their feet to the fire" trips; the goal is to get in the face of our elected representatives on a focused issue. This year the issue is "Secure the border first!"

I've been following this year's trip, as in past years, by listening to Rogers show (on KOGO AM 600 here in San Diego). I just discovered that there is coverage on the web, complete with pictures like the one at right.

This year, Roger is doing something different: he's built from the successful experience of the Gray Davis recall/Schwarzenegger election to network with 18 other conservative radio talk show hosts. They are all their together, along with over 400 citizen lobbyists. Today is the last broadcast of this year's trip, at 3pm Pacific time (you can listen on the Internet from Roger's site, linked above).

A tip o' the hat to Michelle Malkin's Immigration Blog for the pointer to news in my own backyard!

Two perspectives on Iraq

Yesterday I received this email from one of my friends in Estonia:

Tom - I did not get it! Two official reports (incl just released from CIA) already filled from the states officials, (from the same organizations that previously said vice versa) - there were NO nuclear weapons, chemicals etc in Iraq... There were no connections with Laden either...

As I recall "you" (as republican) almost pushed Bill away just for spot on a blue dress... BTW, how many people was killed due to this spot?

Here - whole country is ruined, zounds of civilians are killed, about 2K American solders are in graves (not counting our two Estonian troops)... For what? just saying - we are sorry, but we lied - there were no weapons there...

Oh sorry, yes - now it is a democratic country... Just curious - when new victims count - due to new democracy - will over count the previous one - the victims from Saddam Regime, what will you say?

The first thing that struck me, as I read this, is just how similar the perspective (and arguments) expressed are to those of the Michael Moore liberals here in the U.S. I'll take this as an instance proof that our world is a very small place, indeed!

My friend and I could hardly be further apart on these issues; as I have said to him on several occasions, it's as if we get our "facts" from two entirely different sources that somehow look at the same events and arrive at opposite conclusions. He sees a lie on WMD; I see an honest (if stupid!) mistake made by virtually every intelligence agency on the planet, including countries such as Russia, Germany, France, Iran, and China that were on the opposite side of the Iraq issue from the U.S. He sees the war in Iraq as having been justified solely on the basis of Saddam's WMD; I see the WMD issue as just one of several justifications each of which were enough in and of themselves. He sees the casualties of the war as approaching or exceeding the human cost of Saddam; I see Saddam's reign as orders of magnitude more evil and more costly of human life than the Iraq war. He sees little value in the fact that Iraq is now a democracy and not a dictatorship; I rejoice in that change, rejoice in the new freedom of the Iraqi people, and I see America's part in enabling that new freedom as evidence of America's greatness. He finds a way to compare Bush's leadership on Iraq with Clinton's weasely behavior; I can't hold them in my brain at the same time.

Just as I cannot imagine that the Michael Moore liberals and I will find common ground in our politics, I suspect my Estonian friend and I will forever disagree on these issues. He and I have not discussed the continuing impacts of the "Bush doctrine" in the Middle East, but I suspect his perceptions will be in line with those of the left-wing liberals here in the U.S.: that the wonderful events in Lebanon are (a) not really so wonderful, and (b) not related in any way to the Iraq war and other pressures being placed by the Bush administration on Syria. Also that the recently announced Egyptian elections, or the recently held Saudi elections would have happened anyway, maybe even sooner if Bush wasn't President. And in any event they're not actually helping anything there; the old dictatorships were actually pretty good. Fortunately (from my perspective, at least) there is an interesting segment of the liberal community in the U.S. that is waking up and saying "Whoa, here, wait a second...these policies of G.W. Bush might actually be working!" And not only in the U.S., as witness the recent round of laudatory editorials in the European press.

Now contrast this perspective with that of an actual Iraqi — President Jalal Talabani. You'll recall that after the January elections the elected representatives worked for weeks to put together a coalition. In the process, they selected Mr. Talabani (a Kurd) as President. The group of Iraqis who were seen by the world as being supported by the U.S. (Mr. Alawi's crowd) were distinct losers in the election. Mr. Chalabi — actively and overtly opposed by the U.S. State Department and the CIA — captured a very respectable portion of the vote. And the openly declared enemy of the U.S., the coalition, and the entire idea of a secular Iraq (al Sadr) was resoundingly defeated. From any rational perspective one must consider Mr. Talabani as genuinely representative of Iraq, and in no way an American toady. Here's what he had to say yesterday in an open letter to Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair:

Dear Mr Blair:

I CANNOT begin to explain my emotions, after over five decades of personally fighting for and promoting democracy and human rights, to witness a nation take its first steps towards a dream.

Now the democratically-elected parliament has honoured me, a Kurd, with the post of Presidency. This is a symbol of the promise, integration and unity of the new Iraq.

Let nobody mislead you, the Iraq that we inherited in April 2003, following the British and American-led liberation, was a tragedy.

The Ba’athist criminals had starved the country of an infrastructure and the people of their freedom.

Apart from the Kurdish safe haven, Iraq was a playground for thugs and a prison for the innocent.

Saddam’s war against the Iraqi people was on-going; we have evidence which demonstrates that the regime was executing its challengers until the last days of its rule.

It was that war, lasting almost forty years, which was the true war of Iraq.

We have all heard of the genocide, gassing, ethnic cleansing, mass murder and the environmental vandalism of the territory of Iraq’s historic Marsh Arabs.

We understand that there is no turning the clock back. Instead, we press ahead with democratisation and justice.

Unfortunately, Saddam’s former henchmen and religious extremist associates have chosen to fight their losing battle, which in turn has made post-liberation Iraq less stable than we would have wished.

Yet true Iraqis have largely shunned the terrorists, and their cowardly acts are increasingly becoming limited and confined to certain areas.

Millions of brave Iraqis defy terrorism and reject dictatorship every day, without fuss, and certainly without attention from the television cameras.

We undertake to rebuild a shattered country scarred by decades of tyranny. With unwavering resolve we support plurality, egalitarianism, and the political process.

Building a democratic federal Iraq is a difficult, and slow, but rewarding process.

Those who doubt the swiftness of transition must keep in mind that a state such as Iraq is a cultural, ethnic and linguistic mosaic that was only ever held together by brute force, thus, political speed can kill.

Nevertheless, January saw Iraq’s first free and open general election, leading to the first democratically-elected government of our desolate history.

Yet our struggle for a better, emancipated Iraq is only due to the consistent and unwavering support of Prime Minister Blair, the British people, and the coalition of the willing.

For many Iraqis, the positive role that Britain has played is a welcome change.

From our colonial master, Britain has become our democratic guardian.

In 1991 I saw at first hand how Prime Minister John Major, fresh from the liberation of Kuwait, bravely led the way in implementing a safe-haven for Iraqi Kurdistan.

For 12 years, heroic RAF pilots, with the support of neighbouring Turkey, flew in Kurdish skies to prevent Saddam from completing the anti-Kurdish genocide that he had started in 1987.

We were finally able to start rebuilding the 4,500 villages destroyed by Saddam’s regime and to begin the process of nurturing civil society and democracy.

And now thanks to Prime Minister Blair’s courageous and principled decisions, we can recreate this throughout Iraq.

Of course the liberation of Iraq has been controversial, as all wars should be.

Sadly in this case, war was not the “best” option, it was the only option.

Under Saddam, war was never controversial, never discussed, simply ordered and executed by him and his thugs.

Iraqis sometimes wonder in amazement what the debate abroad is about. Why do people continue to ask why no WMD was found?

The truth is that Saddam had, in the past, used chemical and biological weapons against his own people, and we believed he would do so again.

Of course Saddam himself was, in the view of those who opposed him, Iraq’s most dangerous WMD.

Instead of continually focusing on the negative, the British, who will soon commemorate the 60th anniversary of VE day, should know that in the eyes of the majority of Iraqis, it was you who brought us our own victory day.

Britain should be proud that the liberation of Iraq has in our eyes been one of your finest hours.

History will judge Prime Minister Blair as a champion against tyranny. Of that I have no doubt.

We are not reticent about expressing our great thanks to the British people and paying homage to tragic British losses.

Every Iraqi family, in fact, has lost a loved one because of Saddam. Every Iraqi understands the pain of conflict, the grief that accompanies war.

We honour those who sacrificed their lives for our liberation. We are determined out of respect to create a tolerant and democratic Iraq, an Iraq for all the Iraqi people.

It will take time and much patience, but I can assure you it will be worth while, not only for Iraq, but for the whole of the Middle East.

yours sincerely
President Talabani

Here's a genuine Iraqi perspective on the same issues that my Estonian friend and I debate. But his perspective is vastly different than either of ours: he speaks as one who has actually lived through all these events, not just witnessed them from afar. He, his family and friends, and his people all suffered tremendously under Saddam, paid a terrible price to help wrest their freedom from him, and now are the beneficiaries of Saddam's absence. So of course his perspective is different.

But from my perspective, it is this kind of story, repeated (quite literally) millions of times that is the real justification for the war in Iraq. And that is the real difference between my perspective and that of my Estonian friend...for he clearly does not see that justification at all.

Quote for the day

Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.

   Ralph Waldo Emerson

Green lasers

We bought a bright green laser a few months ago after reading that dogs (and some cats!) will chase them even more readily than the older red laser we already had. The new laser proved to be a great toy for the pets, exactly as advertised — just shine that green dot anywhere on the floor and watch your furry friends have a ball chasing it.

However, when reading an article about air safety, I discovered that there was an entirely different use for these things — you can use it to point out features in the sky. Instead of pointing with your finger vaguely in the direction of Orion's belt, you can point it out directly with the laser. I tried this on a recent evening, and it works stunningly well. I also tried our older red laser, and it worked, but not nearly so well. I'm not sure if that's due to the power difference (the green one is four times more powerful) or something abou the wavelength, or both differences combined. But whatever the underlying physics, the fact is that with the green 500mw laser, you can point out features in the heavens as easily and as precisely as you can point to items on a printed page...

But read the article I linked to above to find out some reasons to be careful with them!

Good News Chrenkoff

And today he's got another one on Iraq...

Don't miss it!

Iraqi perspective

Iraq the Model is one of my favorite Iraqi blogs, not the least of which is because Omar (the blogger) has a talent for expressing his feelings effectively in English. In a rant today, Omar lays into the nay-sayers who deny that Iraqis are better off without Saddam and after the war. An excerpt:

There are actually a million stories I can tell to make a comparison between pre and post-Saddam Iraq and to show how dramatically life has improved since April 2003 and the list doesn't necessarily start from the security which is much better off now than under Saddam who murdered 3 million Iraqis during his reign; a figure that dwarfs any post-liberation body count or my salary as a dentist which increased by a hundred folds and doesn't end by the huge change in the Iraqi army that changed from a tool of repression for both, the conscripted soldiers and the civilian population to a security preserving tool that young Iraqis volunteer to join.

Technology and communications had their share too; we moved from a country where your e mail needs two weeks to pass through the filters of the Mukhabarat to a country where people like me can publish their thought to the entire world by a click!

And as our author of honor here is British I'd like to add that before April 2003, being caught while listening to the anti-war BBC radio could throw the listener in jail for indefinite time.

Anyway, if I wanted to talk about every single positive change, I should probably write a book about it as a blog post can't hold all that information.

By European and American standards, Iraq could be considered hell on earth and I agree; life is difficult here, really difficult for many Iraqis and it would be almost impossible for a European or an American but the question here is this: is it more difficult now than under Saddam?The answer is NO.

But please read the whole thing!

Supporting the troops

From DefenseLink.mil, this very nice story (By Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USA,American Forces Press Service):

WASHINGTON, April 24, 2005 – Servicemembers all over the world, especially those in Iraq and Afghanistan, got a big show of support from the country music capital of the world April 23 when Grand Ole Opry faithful stood with posters and shouted on the count of three before television cameras: “America Supports You!”

The special broadcast was part of the Defense Department’s “America Supports You,” campaign, which aims to showcase and communicate American support to the men and women of the armed forces.

The Grand Ole Opry Live program, which this week was hosted by country music legend Dolly Parton, was aired live on the Defense Department’s American Forces Television.

The program is fed to 177 stations throughout the world, including a live feed to Baghdad that aired about 4 a.m. local time.

Welcoming the overseas audience, Parton yelled out in her familiar country voice, “Goooood morning Baghdad!”

“I don’t know what they are doing up that time of morning,” Parton chided the audience. “I guess working.”

Performers at the live show, which included Parton, The Grascals, Hanna-McEuen and Jo Dee Messina, dedicated songs to servicemembers. And in the audience, Parton welcomed a surprise special guest on stage, the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry family, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

After thanking Parton, the other artists and country music lovers from around the world for supporting the military, the secretary presented a special message to troops watching the program overseas and those listening here at home.

“I’d like to say to each of them, volunteers all, ‘Thank you so much for your service to the country. And thank you to your families and your loved ones as well because they too sacrifice, and we appreciate them,’” he said.

“And each of the men and women in uniform needs to know that the great sweep of history is from freedom, and they are on freedom’s side. They are on that side, and it’s the right side,” he said. “So God bless them, and God bless their families, and God bless this wonderful country of ours.”

On stage, Parton also reminded the secretary that May is Military Appreciation Month at the Opry. During May, she said, servicemembers and their families will be given free admission to the Opry Live show.

“Come see us in the month of May and you can get in free. We love free don’t we,” she said.

Parton told the audience that she was happy to host the show in partnership with the Defense Department’s America Supports You campaign “to show our wonderful soldiers all over the world how much we appreciate and support them.”

Arab Parallel Universe

At Rantings of a Sandmonkey, there is a wonderfully funny post about how Arabs view the world. The thesis is that the Arabs are operating not in the "real" universe, but in a parallel universe (the Arab Parallel Universe, or APU), where all the same events happen but the reality, causes and reasons are different. The APU has 7 rules:

1) Arabs never make mistakes, and they rarely lose wars.
2) The Zionists and the Americans are always to blame for everything that is wrong in the APU.
3) If there is any credit at all that can be contributed to Arabs in any way, they will take it.
4) Good leadership is inversely related to how US-friendly a leader is!
5) Any media that is not the official state-owned media is filled with Zionist, Jewish, American, Christian, imperialist, anti-arab influences and they LIE ALL THE TIME!
6) There is really no need for elections in the APU, because Presidents and rulers are presidents and rulers for life.
7) The only viable alternative candidate to the current leader or president is this current leader or president’s son.

But read the whole post — Sandmonkey is a budding Arab Steyn...

Eagle nebula

...from the Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that interior gas contracts gravitationally to form stars. At each pillars' end, the intense radiation of bright young stars causes low density material to boil away, leaving stellar nurseries of dense EGGs exposed. The Eagle Nebula, associated with the open star cluster M16, lies about 7000 light years away.

Quote for the day

Fortune favours the bold.

   Virgil

Infrared Moon

The Astronomy Picture of the Day brings us this view of our moon:

In September of 1996, the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite had a spectacular view of a total lunar eclipse from Earth orbit. SPIRIT III, an on board infrared telescope, was used to repeatedly image the moon during the eclipse. Above is one of the images taken during the 70 minute totality, the Moon completely immersed in the Earth's shadow. Infrared light has wavelengths longer than visible light - humans can not see it but feel it as heat. So, the bright spots correspond to the warm areas on the lunar surface, and dark areas are cooler. The brightest spot below and left of center is the crater Tycho, while the dark region at the upper right is the Mare Crisium. Of course, this Sunday's lunar eclipse will not be a total, or even a partial one. Instead, the Moon will glide through the subtle outer portion of the Earth's shadow in a penumbral eclipse of the Moon.

What they don't explain is why features like Tycho are warm, nor (in a brief Google search) could I find any reference that did. During an eclipse, it can't be solar reflectivity. My best guess is that the bright infrared areas are places where higher-than-average amounts of solar radiation is absorbed, thus warming the rocks. During an eclipse, these places would appear "hot" (or bright) in infrared...

Quote for the day

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on it's shoes.

   Mark Twain

An Iraqi perspective

Ali of Free Iraqi — always an interesting read — has a fascinating new post. In it he develops a theory about how Iraqi (and Arab in general) perceptions are formed. He notes that Arabs tend not to ask questions, but to defer instead to authority, whereas Americans ask lots of questions. He then uses this obeservation to infer how Iraqi perceptions have developed. An excerpt:

After Saddam was toppled most Iraqis took a sigh of relief, "Now finally someone sane is going to run things here". They did think of America as a sane power totally replacing a mad one, at least for a while. I say they were relieved not just because they got rid of Saddam, as that meant incridible joy not relief. But It's been also a relief because it was scary to think that your fate is in the hands of an insane man while you can't do anything and you're not even used to such a huge responsibility.

But the Americans did not want to replace Saddam. They did not want to run things the way they wanted without sharing the responsibility with the people, even if they thought their management could fix things and even if this was for a transitional phace.An iron evil fist was gone but it was not replaced by an "iron good fist" as many Iraqis wished, and things collapsed in a place that has been ruled with extreme force for decades when people were given freedom.

This is one of the main reasons why many Iraqis were and still are disappointed with America. No, these Iraqis do not hate America as most like to think, they're just disappointed with her for not fitting the image they had in their minds; the just tyrant that should've taken full responsibility for some time until they could find their own just tyrant who would make their life much better without forcing them to share a burden and a responsibility they never thought it was among their duties as citizens.

Read the whole thing, not only for the perspective on Iraqis, but also for the window into how Americans look to some other cultures...

A bad day

A remarkable story — a tribute, really — from Villainous Company, about an attack on a Marine base in Iraq. An excerpt:

From atop his lookout post on the Iraqi-Syria border that day, Corporal Joshua Butler must have wondered briefly if he'd been transported to Hell.

A white dump truck came careening towards him, bursting through a raft of wired-together abandoned vehicles. But that was only the beginning of what most people would call a bad day:

Butler, 21 and an Altoona, Pa., native, fired through the windshield of the first suicide bomber as he rammed a white dump truck through a barrier of abandoned vehicles the Marines had improvised. Barreling toward the camp's wall, the truck veered off at the last moment under volleys of Butler's gunfire."I shot 20 or 30 rounds before he detonated," he says. Knocked down by that blast, with bricks and sandbags collapsing on top of him, Butler struggled to his feet only to hear a large diesel engine roar amid the clatter of gunfire. It was a red fire engine, carrying a second suicide bomber and passenger. Butler says both were wearing black turbans and robes, often worn by religious martyrs.

Amid the chaos of that first bomb blast, supported by gunfire from an estimated 30 dismounted insurgents, the fire engine passed largely undetected on a small road that leads from town directly past the camp wall, according a Marine report.

"I couldn't see him at first because of the smoke. It was extremely thick from the first explosion," Butler says. When the fire engine cleared the smoke, it was much closer than the dump truck had been.

As the driver accelerated past the "Welcome to Iraq" sign inside the camp's perimeter, Butler says he fired 100 rounds into the vehicle. The Marines later discovered the vehicle was equipped with 3-inch, blast-proof glass and the passengers were wearing Kevlar vests under their robes.

...and a tip 'o the hat for Michelle Malkin, for the pointer...

Quote for the day

A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is one who hopes they are.

   Senator Chauncey Depew}

Quote for the day

Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

   Eleanor Roosevelt

State Mottos

These were too good to pass up:

Alabama: Hell Yes, We Have Electricity.
Alaska: 11,623 Eskimos Can't Be Wrong!
Arizona: But It's A Dry Heat.
Arkansas: Literacy Ain't Everything.
California: By 30, Our Women Have More Plastic Than Your Honda.
Colorado: If You Don't Ski, Don't Bother.
Connecticut: Like Massachusetts, Only The Kennedy's Don't Own It Yet.
Delaware: We Really Do Like The Chemicals In Our Water.
Florida: Ask Us About Our Grandkids And Our Voting Skills.
Georgia: We Put The Fun In Fundamentalist Extremism.
Hawaii: Haka Tiki Mou Sha'ami Leeki Toru (Death To Mainland Scum, Leave Your Money)
Idaho: More Than Just Potatoes...Well, Okay, We're Not, But The Potatoes Sure Are Real Good
Illinois: Please, Don't Pronounce the "S"
Indiana: 2 Billion Years Tidal Wave Free
Iowa: We Do Amazing Things With Corn
Kansas: First Of The Rectangle States
Kentucky: Five Million People; Fifteen Last Names
Louisiana: We're Not ALL Drunk Cajun Wackos, But That's Our Tourism Campaign.
Maine: We're Really Cold, But We Have Cheap Lobster
Maryland: If You Can Dream It, We Can Tax It
Massachusetts: Our Taxes Are Lower Than Sweden's And Our Senators Are More Corrupt!
Michigan: First Line Of Defense From The Canadians
Minnesota: 10,000 Lakes...And 10,000,000,000,000 Mosquitoes
Mississippi: Come And Feel Better About Your Own State
Missouri: Your Federal Flood Relief Tax Dollars At Work
Montana: Land Of The Big Sky, The Unabomber, Right-wing Crazies, and Honest Elections!
Nebraska: Ask About Our State Motto Contest
Nevada: Hookers and Poker!
New Hampshire: Go Away And Leave Us Alone
New Jersey: You Want A ##$%##! Motto? I Got Yer ##$%##! Motto -- Right here!
New Mexico: Lizards Make Excellent Pets
New York: You Have The Right To Remain Silent, You Have The Right To An Attorney...And No Right To Self Defense!
North Carolina: Tobacco Is A Vegetable
North Dakota: We Really Are One Of The 50 States!
Ohio: At Least We're Not Michigan
Oklahoma: Like The Play, But No Singing
Oregon: Spotted Owl...It's What's For Dinner
Pennsylvania: Cook With Coal
Rhode Island: We're Not REALLY An Island
South Carolina: Remember The Civil War? Well, We Didn't Actually Surrender Yet
South Dakota: Closer Than North Dakota
Tennessee: Home of the Al Gore Invention Museum.
Texas: Se Hablo Ingles
Utah: Our Jesus Is Better Than Your Jesus
Vermont: Ay, Yep
Virginia: Who Says Government Stiffs And Slackjaw Yokels Don't Mix?
Washington: Our Governor can out-fraud your Governor!
West Virginia: One Big Happy Family...Really!
Wisconsin: Come Cut Cheese!
Wyoming: Where Men Are Men... And The Sheep Are Scared
Washington, DC: The Work-Free Drug Place!

Rover trouble

New Scientist magazine is reporting that the Opportunity rover (on Mars) has lost the ability to steer its right-front wheel, one of six. This is more of a nuisance than a real problem, though it will make fine maneuvering more challenging. The rover has new software designed explicitly to deal with this situation, uploaded a few weeks ago in anticipation of some of the moving parts wearing out.

Both rovers are continuing to do good science, 16 months after landing (and 13 months beyond the "warranty" date!).

Pope reaction

It's only been a day since the election of Cardinal Ratzinger to become the next pope — Pope Benedict XVI. I'm about as non-Catholic as one can possibly get, but the reaction of (mostly) the Catholic world to Ratzinger's election has proved unexpectedly interesting to me. And the reasons have nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

The reaction tends to be highly polarized — people are either thrilled or they see Ratzinger as something approaching the harbinger of the apocalypse. The latter reaction is the one that I find interesting, because of its basis. For the most part, the people who are objecting to Ratzinger's elevation do so because they object to his orthodoxy. In other words, they are unhappy because the newly elected pope is committed to retaining the church's long-standing moral standards and resulting policies.

These people who are so appalled at the selection of Ratzinger remind me very much of political liberals in the sense that they do not seem to believe there are any moral absolutes. For example, many of the appalled Catholics would like to see the church change its stance on contraception — even though, quite clearly, doing so would violate one of the church's most clear-cut moral standards: the sanctity of human life. For the church to change its stance, it would first have to acknowledge that its definition of what is moral could change over time. And the appalled Catholics are ok with that. Similarly, the political liberals in the U.S. are perfectly ok with the courts "re-interpreting" the Constitution to fit whatever the belief-of-the-day is.

If I were Catholic, I would be firmly amongst those who were thrilled by Ratzinger's elevation. My reasoning would be that the church represents, more than anything else, a moral framework that I subscribe to — and Ratzinger is a defender of that framework. And I suspect that my political conservatism is grounded in similar patterns of thinking — identification of a political framework that I subscribe to, and a desire to defend that against erosion.

ScrappleFace nails this issue perfectly. And John Hinderaker, in a current Weekly Standard column, makes the point somewhat more seriously:

The left makes no secret of its intentions where the Constitution is concerned. It wants to change it, in ways that have nothing to do with what the document actually says. It wants the Constitution to enshrine its own policy preferences--thus freeing it from the tiresome necessity of winning elections. And how will the Constitution be changed? Through a constitutional convention, or a vote of two-thirds of the state legislatures? Of course not. The whole problem, from the liberal perspective, is that they can't get democratically elected bodies to enact their agenda. As one of the Yale conference participants said: "We don't have much choice other than to believe deeply in the courts--where else do we turn?" The new, improved Constitution will come about through judicial re-interpretation. It only awaits, perhaps, the election of the next Democratic president.

Quote for the day

If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part.

   Richard Feynman

Fuelbreak

I had no idea, yet this fuelbreak is quite close to our home — basically just over Gaskill Peak. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the Carveacre area, this little community is just east of Loveland Resevoir and just northeast of Gaskill Peak (which forms the eastern wall of Lawson Valley).

The Forest Service's description:

Using mechanical treatments and prescribed fire, the Forest Service is creating a defensible zone on National Forest System lands around the community. On private lands, the Carveacre FSC is reducing the fire hazard by mastication, hand clearing and chipping. The Carveacre FSC has also prepared a detailed community protection plan that includes evacuation routes, safety zones and emergency notification phone trees. The Carveacre FSC has been awarded community protection grants over the last two years.

The Carveacre community defense zone is a key project linking the Japatul and Horsethief Fuelbreaks. These fuelbreaks provide a strategic line of defense for the communities of Carveacre, Lawson Valley, Alpine and Japatul Valley.

Quote for the day

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

   Sir Winston Churchill

Quote for the day

He who would live must fight, he who will not fight in this world where eternal struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist.

   Unknown

Coulter Time

Matt Drudge is reporting that Ann Coulter will be on the cover of Time magazine:

Ann Coulter epitomizes the way politics is now discussed on the airwaves, where opinions must come violently fast and cause as much friction as possible, TIME’s John Cloud claims in this week’s cover story.

No one, right or left, delivers the required apothegmatic commentary on the world with as much glee or effectiveness as Coulter, Cloud writes (on newsstands Monday, April 18).

It is almost impossible to watch her and not be sluiced into rage or elation, depending on your views. As a congressional staff member 10 years ago, Coulter used to help write the nation’s laws.

Now she is far more powerful: she helps set the nation’s tone. TIME’s Cloud had unprecedented access to Coulter.

He goes more than 6,000 words.

And he appears to come away liking her.

"On TV or in person, you can trust that Coulter will speak from her heart. The officialdom of punditry, so full of phonies and dullards, would suffer without her humor and fire. Which is not to say you don't want to shut her up occasionally," Cloud notes.

Well, how about that. A prominent conservative not embroiled in controversy on the cover of Time. Way to go, Ann!

In the year 2029

Ozone created by electric cars now killing millions in the seventh largest country in the world, Mexifornia formally known as California.

Spotted Owl plague threatens northwestern United States crops and livestock.

Baby conceived naturally...scientists stumped.

Couple petitions court to reinstate heterosexual marriage.

Last remaining Fundamentalist Muslim dies in the American Territory of the Middle East (formerly known as Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and Lebanon.

Iran still closed off; physicists estimate it will take at least 10 more years before radioactivity decreases to safe levels.

France pleads for global help after being over taken by Jamaica.

Castro finally dies at age 112; Cuban cigars can now be imported legally, but President Chelsea Clinton has banned all smoking.

George Z. Bush says he will run for President in 2036.

Postal Service raises price of first class stamp to $17.89 and reduces mail delivery to Wednesdays only.

85-year, $75.8 billion study: Diet and Exercise are the keys to weight loss.

Average weight of Americans drops to 250 lbs.

Japanese scientists have created a camera with such a fast shutter speed, they now can photograph a woman with her mouth shut.

Massachusetts executes last remaining conservative.

Supreme Court rules punishment of criminals violates their civil rights.

Average height of NBA players now nine feet, seven inches.

New federal law requires that all nail clippers, screwdrivers, fly swatters and rolled-up newspapers must be registered by January 2036.

Congress authorizes direct deposit of formerly illegal political contributions to campaign accounts.

IRS sets lowest tax rate at 75 percent.

Florida voters still don't know how to use a voting machine.

Who's rich now?

This is from Michael Jennings, at Christian Aid. Tip of the hat to Samizdata for the quote:

This "trade and cheap labour for manufacturing is the rich world exploiting the poor" argument is not precisely new to my ears. When I was a kid in the 1970s I heard the same thing about how we were taking advantage of poor world sweatshops. The only thing that has changed since then is the location of the sweatshops. In those days people talked about Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, those kinds of places. And what do these places have in common? Well, today they are the rich world. Ten years ago we started seeing "Made in China" on our cheap imports. A lot of this stuff then came from Shenzhen, just over the border from Hong Kong. Well, today Shenzhen is for practical purposes a developed world city. The manufacturing has now moved inland. The process is getting faster, and the more of the world is rich, then it gets faster still for the rest.

Those annoying liberals

Rob Koons of Right Reason has analyzed emails and posts by liberals to come up with the ten things he really hates about liberals:

1. Liberals invariably charge their critics with the straw man fallacy, no matter how tight the fit between the criticism and the words and deeds of real liberals.

2. Liberals are quick to distance themselves from their wacko spokesman (Michael Moore, Ward Churchill) whenever these spokesman are attacked by the right, but liberals will never initiate such criticism, holding fast to the maxim of pas d’enemi à gauche.

3. Liberals love to play hard-ball politics, until they get beaned themselves.

4. Liberals complain incessantly that conservatives don't know or understand them yet have never spent more than five minutes listening to conservatives or reading their works.

5. Liberals are apt to label conservatives hateful, confusing vigorous rebuttal of liberal thought with personal attacks on liberals themselves.

6. Liberals make extremely intemperate remarks, while holding conservatives to a standard of politeness so stringent as to make Emily Post squirm with anxiety.

7. Liberals never bother to check their facts, since they know that only ignoramuses disagree with them.

8. Liberals are boring, since all they ever have to say is "yada, yada, yada, yada,..." [Sorry, I stopped listening after the second 'yada'.]

9. Liberals object vehemently to any attempt by conservatives to make generalizations about liberals, no matter how apt the generalization might be.

10. Liberals have absolutely no sense of humor. They never laugh -- they only smirk.

Planetary Nebula

Courtesy of Astronomy Picture of the Day: the Hubble photograph of the planetary nebula NGC 6751.

Click for a larger view.

Quote for the day

Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.

   Thomas Paine

Free Iraq: the poem

Ali and his Free Iraqi blog are always interesting reading. But he's outdone himself with a poem on the second anniversary of the liberation of Iraq. The last two verses:

I see with my own eyes this other "they"
And I call them simply, Americans.
What are they paying me?
Oh, you couldn't afford that!
Saddam couldn't afford it.
Sadr cannot afford it.
"They" think any of these can?
Could their "they" even try!?

Two years and some are still
Trapped in the past
And some cannot withstand the moment
And want to arrive without struggle to a better future
While others just enjoy what is already better now
And work to meet the future, bettered with them.
Two years and they ask Should I be grateful?
Am I?
Do I even need to answer that!?
YES, and to the last breath!

Read the whole thing, even if you (like I) are not a big poetry fan.

How to talk to a liberal

Chrenkoff gives us a lesson in debating liberals.

Those were the days

At the Neurotic Iraqi Wife blog today has a special rant. I call it "special" for how it puts the lie to the conventional liberal mindset that the Iraqi people do not support the toppling of Saddam and the presence of the coalition forces in their country. Our neurotic Iraqi wife is not the only such voice, of course — but I thought this particular post was especially credible and evocative. The heart:

...but Im just angry and pissed off at the moment.It boggles my mind when people still wander whether getting rid of Saddam was worth it. It angers me more when I hear "Human Right" activists complain about the way insurgents are being treated on TV. Give me a F****** break will you!!!! Where were your voices when Saddam and his men took people in the middle of the night from their homes, from their beds, and tortured them??? Where were your voices when bodies were cut up and thrown infront of houses for their families to claim???Where were your voices when his sons raped and murdered girls???

Tell me where were your voices when unborn children were buried in the earth. Thousands upon thousands just disappeared. Where were your voices when the massacre of Halabcha took place, or the massacre of the March uprising in the South???

Your reports didnt save them, and now you come and say that its against human rights for those criminals to be shown on TV??? My God!!! Dont give me text book words, and talk about principles. Do these "suicide" bombers have principles by killing hundreds of innocent people inorder to get a few hundred dollars??? Are these the principles we want to teach the new Iraqi generation????

Indeed.

Galaxy...

The Astronomy Picture of thd Day: galaxy RCW 79, in a false-color infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The "bubble" at about 7 o'clock in the picture, with some yellowish stars within, is a "stellar nursery" full of "baby stars".

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Quote for the day

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

   Douglas Adams

Pop vs. Soda

My first thought on reading about this study was "More of our tax dollars at work!"

But then when I started reading about it, I got intrigued. Especially with the map at right (click for a larger view). Of course I was immediately curious about what the "other" responses were. They're all listed; my favorite was "bellywasher" !

Read the whole study (it's very short) to learn more than you ever wanted to know on the topic...

Great Power Deprivation Syndrome

Chrenkoff, as usual, has an interesting and thought-provoking post on the younger generation of Russians yearning for the days when Russia was a super-power:

For over seven decades - most of the twentieth century - the Soviet Union was variously respected, feared, hated and admired around the world. She was an integral part of the international system; what Moscow thought and did really mattered. Contrast it with the sorry state today: Russia is still beset by a myriad of problems like she was under communism but without any grandiose consolations: instead she's either ridiculed or ignored by the outside world. No one looks to Russia for inspiration and hardly anyone fears her. It doesn't matter anymore what Kremlin thinks about the liberation of Iraq or some other issue of international importance; the former satellites, meanwhile, peel away one by one, choosing a different, Westernized future.

The young generation, of course, has no personal memories of the "good old days", but they know that it did not used to be like it is today. It's humiliating, because no one likes to be a part of the losing team.

As many of you know, I work with engineering teams in Tallinn, Estonia and in St. Petersburg, Russia. Almost all of the folks I work with are ethnic Russians. Some are old enough to remember Soviet times personally, but many are not. Of those who will talk to me freely about such things, the St. Petersburg Russians overwhelmingly have opinions and mindsets much as Chrenkoff describes: they are patriotic, a bit in denial about the current state of Russia (which, to be fair to them, may simply be a reflection of the fact that in general they haven't had much exposure to the world outside Russia)), they support Putin, and they are bitter about the imbalance of power between Russia and the world, most especially the U.S.

For some reason this is a less predominant attitude amongst the ethnic Russians I know in Estonia. Some of the Russians I know there, especially the younger ones, have much different mindsets. Even more especially, the Russian Jews I know who are from Estonia have much more pro-Western, pro-U.S. positions. I'm not at all sure why this is so; it may just be more and longer exposure to the West has 'corrupted' them (as some of my Russian friends would have it)...

Right in our own backyard

Stumbled across this page just this morning, and what a pleasant surprise. Tastier even, for some reason, for the fact that it came from a local paper. Can't get much different than the San Diego Union-Tribute! Hat's off to these fine reporters and photographers.

Whatever you do, don't miss the audio slideshow on the page above. Simply outstanding!

A taste of the article:

It was their day.

At the polling stations — mostly schools that the Marines had rebuilt and painted bright green and blue against the city's dingy beige — volunteer Iraqi election workers guided voters through paces most had only dreamed about.

"This is a new birth for Iraqis," said Najaf resident Kasim Kadum Saagban, 45, after workers helped him and his wife vote in the bullet-ridden Medina section of the Old City.

Just a few blocks away stood the revered Imam Ali Mosque, which was the epicenter of a fierce battle between Marines and local militia just six months before. In the interlude, the Marines and locals had joined hands to start rebuilding damaged quarters of the city, paid thousands of residents injured in the fighting, and were holding together a fragile working peace that allowed the elections to happen without bloodshed.

With his forearm taut and sure, Saaban proudly held up his finger, stained with purple ink, in a pose that has become synonymous with the election.

"Iraq is changed forever," he said, eyes wide and voice shaking with intensity.

But despite such euphoria and confidence, Najaf's rise from a city mired in violence to an emerging beacon of peace could still be as fragile as a house of cards.

"If we're not careful," warned Col. Anthony Haslam, the Marines' top commander, "it can all go away, just like that."

'America doesn't get to see this side'

In Najaf, where the Marines seemed to have more friends than enemies, the calm on election day and stability in the days that followed signaled a victory of sorts. The 2,200 Camp Pendleton Marines stationed in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf could say they were leaving Najaf better than they found it.

After two other assignments covering the Marines in Iraq — first during the 2003 invasion two years ago and then again during the first siege of Fallujah last spring — no experience was as surprising as our third and most recent trip to Najaf and its surrounding region, where the American effort seemed to be working.

Arriving in Najaf in mid-January, North County Times photographer Hayne Palmour and I found a city marked more by peace, cooperation and bustling reconstruction than by war.

While a bloody, pivotal battle in August left parts of the city in ruins and many residents maimed or killed, the Marines' legacy in Najaf also included dozens of new schools, a functioning local government, and enough local police that the governor generally asked the American troops to stay out of sight.

"It's funny that America doesn't get to see this side," said one young Marine lieutenant when a group of Iraqi men waved and cheered at his patrol of Marine Humvees passing a cafe along the banks of the jade-colored Euphrates River.

The progress in Najaf could be an anomaly, one that will be difficult or impossible to duplicate in other regions of the country. Or it could be a good example of what could happen in Iraq when the enemy fades, and when peace presents a new set of challenges and opportunities.

As the power base for the Shiite coalition that will dominate the new government and write Iraq's next constitution and as a relative success story for the U.S. occupation, all eyes are on Najaf to see if the peaceful gains the Marines and local residents made there will hold.

"That's key terrain down there," Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. general in Baghdad, told the Army commanders who replaced the Marines there in February.

"Don't lose it," he said.

Smoked meat lasts longer

The question isn't actually about cannibalism, it's about moral absolutes vs. the notion that any behavior that causes no harm to others is ok. This moral issue was raised by the recent case in Germany of a man who advertised on the Internet for someone who wanted to be eaten, and had a victim volunteer.

Moral question: is cannibalism wrong if it is the desire of both the eater and the eaten?

Roger Kimball of Armavirumque answers:

So, was Herr Meiwes within his rights when he made a meal of his new friend? If Mill was right that "the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection," then I think we have to pass Herr Meiwes the salt and pepper and wish him bon appetit.

But was Mill right? In this latitudinarian age it is tantamount to heresy to suggest otherwise, but I believe that the sorry spectacle of Meiwes sautéing bits of Herr Brandes shows that, yes, Mill's "one very simple principle" was not merely simplistic but wrong, indeed preposterous.

It is not without irony that Mill's libertarian doctrine, which demands that we free ourselves from prejudice and convention, should have become enshrined as the dominant moral prejudice of the age. It is simply taken for granted these days that one "has a right" to do whatever one wants so long as one doesn't harm others.

Read the whole thing; it's a bit of a long slog for a blog post, but worth it for the thought-provoking questions. I don't have any certainty myself on this question. The problem I keep bumping into this that if you concede there are moral absolutes ("moral facts", as Mr. Kimball puts them), then someone has to decide what those moral absolutes are. And every attempt I know of to set moral absolutes has resulted in disaster of one kind or another. And yet, as Mr. Kimball illustrates, there are many reasons to be uncomfortable about a world without moral absolutes. Tough one...

Earthquake!

...and we are mightily puzzled, as according to all the best information we have available, there are no faults anywhere near us!

The map at right (click on it for a larger view) shows the location of the epicenter (the large red square). This is about 2 miles, as the crow flies, from our home. Kinda close!

I was away from home on a business trip, so I didn't get to experience this myself. Debi said it woke her right up, and she knew what it was immediately — there was more sound than shaking, as often is the case. Our animals reacted in various ways; the most surprising was Halala, our most serene and unflappable cat — he was terrified into hiding out somewhere that Debi couldn't find him. She thought he must have escaped, and was calling him from outside. At some point he just sauntered in, apparently calmed down...

When we bought our home out here in the chapparal, some seven years ago, we did our homework with respect to faults and probable earthquakes. We've lived in San Diego County for over thirty years, and not had a really bad earthquake in all that time — but we thought it would be a good idea to play it safe and NOT locate on top of a fault. The fault maps I found then, and the updated ones that I located this morning, all show NO FAULTS for a 15 mile radius around us. So...we wonder...what the heck caused this earthquake? Some new fault that nobody knew about?

Now they tell us!

President Talabani

From today's WSJ, this commentary from the recently appointed President Jalal Talabani. Remember, as you read this, that this man is a Kurd whose people was stomped on by Saddam. Remember that his political ascendancy was opposed by our CIA (who didn't consider him the "right kind" of opposition to Saddam). Remember that he's been widely dismissed by the liberal press as the illiterate, unqualified lackey of G. W. Bush and Karl Rove. Then remember that his party was freely elected to about 1/3 of the parlimentary seats, and that the Iraqis in negotiations purely amongst themselves chose Talabani as their president. I think this commentary demonstrates some of the reasons they did that:

Through their democratically elected representatives, the people of Iraq have entrusted me with the office of the presidency of the republic. After 50 years of political struggle against discrimination and dictatorship, this is a grand honor and a humbling moment. As we look ahead to a new Iraq based on tolerance and equality, federalism and unity, democracy and freedom, we remember those whose sacrifice made this possible -- Iraqis, Americans, Britons, Poles, Italians, Czechs and so many others from around the world.

As president of Iraq, I shall strive to represent the diversity of a country that has too often in the past denied difference. I shall stand for freedom of thought and expression in a place where it has been trampled and penalized. I will work with the prime minister to ensure that our government's finances are transparent and that our citizens have access to government records; above all, I shall pursue the politics of reconciliation in opposition to the politics of hatred and incitement.

My door will always be open to those who genuinely renounce violence and seek peaceful accommodation into our nascent democracy. That is why I proposed, in my first speech as head of state, an amnesty for those who have been led astray by terrorism.

But while the new Iraq is open to all, there must be no underestimating our determination to vanquish terrorism. Conciliation is not capitulation, nor is compromise to be deemed equivalent to imbalanced concession. Rather, it is through conciliation and compromise that we are building a fair Iraq, a just state for all its peoples. Democracies, unlike dictatorships, are forgiving and generous, but they cannot survive unless they fight. And fight we shall.

The choice of peace or war lies not with the Iraqis who ignored terrorism and intimidation to vote in their millions, the Iraqis to whom I am accountable. No, that decision lies with the terrorist minority that despises freedom and spurns every offered opportunity to enter the political process. The attacks on election officials, the suicide bombings of voters, and the cowardly attacks on brave Iraqis waiting in line to join our fledgling security forces are not the tactics of "resistance" or "freedom fighters" but of murderers and criminals.

Nor are the terrorists by any stretch of the imagination the repressed or the disadvantaged. They chose violence despite consistent exhortations to contribute to the new Iraq. They are, for the most part, representatives of the old regime, Baathists who gorged themselves on their compatriots' riches. They are not the dispossessed of the earth but those who have been deprived of their palaces.

Slaying terrorism, and the extremist nationalism and perversion of religion that breeds it, will require our greatest effort, both as Iraqis and as new members of the alliance of democracies. We will again and again ask and work with our neighbors to assist us by controlling their borders, intercepting the transmission of funds to the terrorists and by handing over Baathist fugitives. We, in turn, will work with our neighbors to ensure that Iraq is never again a haven for terrorists. All such foreign-armed groups in Iraq must be neutralized and rendered harmless in a manner that is just and legal. Iraqis, the victims of the vilest stratagems and subterfuges, will not fight a "dirty war."

Our commitment to human rights, primarily of the individual, but also of our diverse ethnic and religious heritage for which we suffered, must be absolute. The justice of our cause must be reflected in the manner in which we rectify the crimes of the past.

The rehabilitation of Basra, the refloating of the ancient marshes of southern Iraq, the return of the ethnically cleansed to Kirkuk, the renaissance of the holy cities as centers of learning and piety, all these are acts of justice. They must be accompanied by the trials of the major Baathist criminals. Justice for the major perpetrators cannot be separated from the vindication of the rights of the individual victim.

Nor is justice independent of constitutionalism. Here the progress in Iraq has been remarkable, in place of the provisional Baathist constitution of 1970 we now have the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), a progressive liberal interim constitution. The TAL represents the highest achievement of the new Iraq. The result of intense argument between the legitimate representatives of all of Iraq's communities, the TAL embodies the virtues of compromise. By sensibly sharing power under the TAL we all acquire more rights and security than if we were to each selfishly pursue our maximal objectives.

The TAL governs all politics in Iraq until the adoption of a final constitution. There can be no government, no elections, and no politics of any kind outside of the framework of the TAL. Any attempt to circumvent the TAL would not only be illegal, and an affront to the rule of the law, but an implicit rejection of the justice of the liberation of Iraq from the outlaw Baathist regime.

For all the talk of Iraq as a "model" for the Middle East, we know that there are unique factors at play in building our federal, multi-ethnic democracy. Indeed, we do not seek to export our political ideas or experiences, a practice that has too often led to instability in the Middle East. Rather, we ask that the uniqueness of the Iraqi experience be recognized and our newly restored sovereignty respected. We will not allow the naysayers (who predict disaster awaiting us around every corner) and their companions in despondency, the apologists for despotism, to distract us with their uninformed comment from our vision of a democratic and equitable society: The rectification of past crimes and the binding up of the many wounds inflicted upon us by the Baathist regime -- these are matters for Iraqis alone.

We seek foreign assistance to help us develop our security forces and to partner with us as we try to further sustainable economic growth in our shattered country. We hope that the United Nations will live up to its ideals. The assistance provided by the U.N. during the recent elections was invaluable and an important step toward the return of this organization to Iraq. A continued and consistent U.N. engagement, which bolsters the new Iraq, will convince Iraqis to put aside their qualms about an organization that many of them identify with the previous Baathist regime.

A greater international role is important to lift some of the burden from the shoulders of the United States. Our gratitude to the American people is immense and we should never be embarrassed to express it. Time and again the U.S. has given the world its most precious resource in the cause of freedom, the lives of its most talented and courageous young men and women.

Now, the time has come for the rest of the world to recognize that a federal, democratic Iraq that can defend itself against terrorism is a goal worthy of broad international support. The victory of the new Iraq will be the triumph of freedom over hate, of decency over intolerance. Who would not want to share in such a worthy campaign?

No noose for Saddam?

The London News-Telegraph reports:

Saddam Hussein could avoid the gallows under a secret proposal by insurgent leaders that Iraq's new administration is "seriously considering", a senior government source said yesterday.

A reprieve is understood to be among the central demands of Sunni nationalists and former members of Saddam's Ba'ath party who have reportedly begun negotiations with the government amid the backdrop of a bloody insurgency which claimed 30 lives during the weekend.

Officials say they are looking for a way of joining the political process after January's election, which was boycotted by most of the once-powerful Sunni minority.

"We are trying to reach out to the insurgents," the source said. "We don't expect them to stop fighting unconditionally. Sending Saddam to prison for the rest of his life is not a huge price for us to pay, but it will save them a lot of face."

I do not support the death penalty, but like President Talabani, I could make an exception for evil of Saddam's magnitude. But this sort of a deal, if it's genuine (that is, if the "insurgency" would actually lay down arms), seems like a major win-win proposition. Hundreds or thousands of needless murders would be avoided; without the Iraqi participants, the "insurgency" would nearly disappear. Sparing Saddam's life isn't necessarily a bad thing in the absolute — but if the sparing of the monster's life could bring about peace, that's a very tasty outcome...

A tip 'o the hat to Captain's Quarters for the pointer...

Iraq good news

Arthur Chrenkoff is one of the blogosphere's gems. From his perch in Australia, he manages to round up scads of those "good news" stories that the MSM somehow manages to miss (that was sarcasm, in case you didn't catch it). Though it's long, this 25th roundup is a must read, and don't forget to follow at least some of the multitude of links he provides. Here's just a tiny taste:

And helping doesn't stop when the troops go home:

"When Joseph Yorski was serving a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq, he noticed Iraqi police had little protection compared to his peers in the New Britain Police Department. Upon his return, the officer decided to help fellow law enforcement officials by spearheading a movement to outfit Iraqi police with old, surplus equipment instead of following regular procedure, which calls to destroy it.

"Yorski, a member of the 143rd Military Police Company and an 11-year veteran of the Police Department, oversees property. He said he took matters into his own hands when asked by acting Chief William Gagliardi to destroy surplus police equipment, which ranges from riot gear to reflective vests.

"Teaming up with America Supporting Americans -- a nonprofit organization that encourages law enforcement agencies and individuals to donate used police equipment -- Yorski collected an extensive amount of gear that will be shipped to Baghdad."

The allies are also doing their bit. Here's the contribution from the 400-strong Slovak contingent: "According to a Defence Ministry spokesperson during the 19 months it has been operating in Iraq, Slovakia's sapper unit has deactivated, by hand, mines over an area of 140,000 square metres, this equates to about 28 football fields. Plus, a much larger area has been demined using the help of specially-designed equipment. They have found and deactivated some tens of thousands of munitions and grenades."

A company of soldiers from Azerbeijan, together with US Marines, is providing constant protection for Haditha Dam, one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in Iraq, which provides electricity for a third of the country. And here's the story of the El Salvadorean contingent, representing the only Latin American country with troops in Iraq.

Thanks, Arthur — you've no idea how much we appreciate this...