Unarius Revisited

About a year and a half ago, I wrote about the Unarius organization — our local “space cadets”. The photo at right is of Ruth Norman, aka “Uriel", who led the Unarians for many years. That post prompted quite a few emailed questions, the majority of which asked me if this was a spoof (it is not). At the time I wrote it, there was little information available on the web. Since then, much more information has become available. And in my never-ending quest to satisfy my reader’s curiousity, I give you:

A new Wikipedia article about Unarius, written from a credulous perspective.

Three YouTube videos, here, here, and here. You know you want to hear the Unarian choir singing “Spaceship Earth” — not to mention Uriel, er, explaining, um, stuff.

And these two blog posts (here and here) are chock-a-block full of photos that are well worth perusing…

One of the most frightening things about living in Lawson Valley is that these folks own land here. For their spaceport. I’m not kidding.

Friedman Speaks On

Milton Friedman died late last year (November 16th), at age 94. He was an economist extraordinaire and the “intellectual father” of present-day Estonia’s economic miracle. He was active in his profession right to the very end. In today’s Wall Street Journal, an email interview ($) with Mr. Friedman appears. The entire thing is quite interesting, but this particular question and answer leapt off the page:

WSJ: What is the biggest risk to the world economy: America’s deficits? Energy insecurity? Environment? Terrorism? None of the above?

Friedman: Islamofascism, with terrorism as its weapon.

Somehow in all the thinking I’ve done about the “Islamofascist” threat, the economic threat never jumped out at me. But it does make sense — look at the incredible economic impact that 9/11 had. And consider the impact of, say, the closing of the Straits of Hormuz, or the closing of Saudi Arabia’s oil fields, or, for that matter, a dirty bomb in (say) Washington D.C.

There are days when that last thought seems almost attractive, though…