Rusted Sky

May it be a good one for you and yours...

J.

I figure it's time to let folks know some of my policies..

If you start a comment with "I'm sure you're going to delete this..." you're 90% of the way to getting it sent to the ol' bit bucket in the sky. If you can't be bothered to use proper capitalization, that doesn't help your case - it indicates to me a lack of the most elementary self-disicpline that will most likely show in your thought processes in your comments. It's not an automatic killer, but it doesn't help your cause. And, by the way, neither does going off on four or five different tangents in the same comment, and if you recycle talking points that've already been debunked along with the rest of the things I've listed, you can be pretty sure your comment will never see the light of day.

BTW, comments on how Bush was AWOL aren't going to cut it. He wasn't. I did 13 years as a Personnel Specialist in the AF Reserve, I've looked over what's been published and haven't seen any holes in his attendance that didn't get accounted for later. (I'll refer you to the posts where I went through things step by step if you like, but really - the man's in office, he's not going to run again, he's not going to get booted out of office no matter how much you wet-dream about it, so deal with it. Come up with someone other than a Kerry or Gore clone and you might have a chance in 2008, IF the Democrats get serious about the WoT - which they've shown no signs of at all.) Bush isn't going to run again, you're not going to convince me he was AWOL, it's all irrelevant at this point. So, save yourself the effort on that, okay?

Same thing with Bush 'stealing' the elections. The NYTimes, among others, spent a lot of time going over the Florida ballots in 2001. In the end, Gore wouldn't have won. Or Kerry. And we'll not talk about the vast majority of absentee military ballots that got invalidated by squads of Democratic lawyers who were looking for every possible reason to disqualify them, okay?

Now, this might look like I'm trying to stifle dissent here. Oddly, I've got no problems with disagreement - but it needs to be fact-based and verifiable, not knee-jerk opinion. Reasoned RATIONAL disagreement, to the point and concise, I love to see. I might learn something from you, you might learn something from me, a conversation could well be enjoyable for both of us. SCREAMING AT ME THROUGHOUT HALF YOUR POST is right out. If you can't be bothered to unlock your caps, I'll admire your passion while dumping your comment. Also, being polite is perhaps not heard of in your circle of friends - but I'd appreciate it here.

By the way, there's two things that will put your comment into the 'junk' section, from which I'll very likely salvage it if it has merit. That's putting the word 'info', and/or three periods in a row into your post. The spam filters catch those, and I've got to dig them out of the p0rn, p0ker, cheap 0ffice s0ftware and enhancements spam - which for some reason is LOADED with crap like that. So if you post and it gets routed to the hold bin, be patient - I poke through and empty things out at least daily.

Finally, don't assume I'm stupid because I don't agree with your take on something. I've watched politics unfold for 30 years, and paid at least SOME attention to what's been going on. I examine my attitudes and opinions pretty frequently, and I try to examine ALL sides of an issue. I'm usually not a single-issue voter, and am liberal on some things and conservative on others. There's quite a bit I don't care about. I am also not interested arguing about binary moral equivalency - for an example if you point out to me that we sold weapons to Iraq in the '80s, I'll point you to this chart and ask if, by any chance, you think that Russia, China and France bear the same responsibility for Saddam, more responsibility or less. Sayng we're MORE responsible won't cut it - because the only person, country, or agency responsible for the actions of Saddam for the last 25 years is Saddam himself. All others aided and abetted him - and in this case it sure looks like China, France and Russia were doing a hell of a lot of aiding and abetting. Plus - if we did create Saddam - doesn't it fall to the US to clean him up? What's been done is history now, and arguing about whether we should have or shouldn't have done this or done that is a waste of your time and mine.

Re the wiretaps - I've got no problems with them doing large-scale data mining. There's been legislative oversight of it, and it's consitutional, from what I've seen from a lot of legal opinion on the web. If you're in your senior year of high school and your civics teacher disagrees, and thus YOU disagree - well, yay for you and your teacher. I'll trust the opinion of folks who have a lot more experience and knowledge of this stuff than I do over yours, and over the NYTimes or LA Times.

Re the leaking of classified, secret, top secret, or compartmentalized information to the press by the CIA - the leaks need to be stopped, and stopped in NO uncertain or tentative fashion. There was considerable outrage about the 'outing' of Valerie Plame - when apparently her husband had outed her years ago. Yet there's little to no outrage about outing classified programs. Which hurt the country more? Find the leak, publiclize the leaker, and charge the leaker and the reporter with espionage. Give them the Ames and Pollard treatment.

Lastly, consider this blog private property - I'm under no obligation to let you spew whatever you want if you're looking for a place to exercise your evil twin that you normally keep hidden. If you intentionally break the rules, your post will not be kept. If you can't disagree politely, or agree politely, you can take it elsewhere.

And that's about it. Let's run things down again.

0. NEVER preface your comment with "You'll probably delete this, but..." You'll probably be right.
1. Write so I can read it. It's for my good and yours.
2. DON'T SHOUT!
3. Don't recycle debunked talking points.
4. Disagreement's fine. I like disagreement. Stay focused, factual, reasoned, and polite.
5. Keep 'info' and '...' out of your comments, or be prepared to wait a bit to get them approved.
6. Don't be a jerk when you post.

That should do it. I'm going to hit the sack. Goodnight, all!

J.

Not much support of it in the military.

Military Times Polls - Politics

10) Should the U.S. start drafting women into the military?

Yes, permanently 9%
Yes, temporarily 10%
No 76%
No opinion/no answer 5%

11) Should the U.S. start drafting men into the military?

Yes, permanently 15%
Yes, temporarily 13%
No 68%
No opinion/no answer

12) If a draft were reinstated, what impact do you think it would have on the military?

It would have no impact 3%
Discipline would be harder to maintain 57%
The quality of service members would fall 67%
Civilian support for the military would rise 10%
The military would benefit from a broader range of people serving 21%

Military Times Polls - Morale

19) The civilian leadership of the Department of Defense has my best interests at heart.

Strongly agree 5%
Agree 35%
Disagree 33%
Strongly disagree 17%
No opinion/no answer 10%

20) President George W. Bush has my best interests at heart.

Strongly agree 19%
Agree 39%
Disagree 18%
Strongly disagree 11%
No opinion/no answer 12%

21) The senior military leadership has my best interests at heart.

Strongly agree 16%
Agree 48%
Disagree 20%
Strongly disagree 8%
No opinion/no answer 7%

22) Congress has my best interests at heart.

Strongly agree 2%
Agree 29%
Disagree 40%
Strongly disagree 17%
No opinion/no answer 11%

J.

LILEKS (James) the bleat

It’s been an unremarkable week, except for the fact that there’s so much FAMILY about; all my wife’s siblings and the attendant hordes of kids are here for the holidays, and I’m not accustomed to such things. I like it, though. Always someone to talk to, always something to talk about. One of the non-family houseguests was a Marine who was heading back to Iraq in two days. Impressive fellow; smart, articulate, knowledgeable about matters arcane & practical, confident. You know: a soldier. (I am convinced that the previous two sentences produce automatic eyerolling in some people, so deep is their conviction that soldiers are big icky mean stupid brutes.) To say that the officer believed there was a disparity between Iraq as he saw it and the Iraq the papers reporter would be an understatement along the lines of “Pravda was frequently slow to report crop failures.”

J.

I seem to be hitting a lot of articles that just stump me for a title any more.

OpinionJournal - Extra

Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands--probably--just as in Istanbul there's still a building called St. Sophia's Cathedral. But it's not a cathedral; it's merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West.

One obstacle to doing that is that, in the typical election campaign in your advanced industrial democracy, the political platforms of at least one party in the United States and pretty much all parties in the rest of the West are largely about what one would call the secondary impulses of society--government health care, government day care (which Canada's thinking of introducing), government paternity leave (which Britain's just introduced). We've prioritized the secondary impulse over the primary ones: national defense, family, faith and, most basic of all, reproductive activity--"Go forth and multiply," because if you don't you won't be able to afford all those secondary-impulse issues, like cradle-to-grave welfare.

Americans sometimes don't understand how far gone most of the rest of the developed world is down this path: In the Canadian and most Continental cabinets, the defense ministry is somewhere an ambitious politician passes through on his way up to important jobs like the health department. I don't think Don Rumsfeld would regard it as a promotion if he were moved to Health and Human Services.

....

The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birthrate to sustain it. Post-Christian hyperrationalism is, in the objective sense, a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a 21st-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could increase their numbers only by conversion. The problem is that secondary-impulse societies mistake their weaknesses for strengths--or, at any rate, virtues--and that's why they're proving so feeble at dealing with a primal force like Islam.

The world is changing dramatically right now, and hysterical experts twitter about a hypothetical decrease in the Antarctic krill that might conceivably possibly happen so far down the road there are unlikely to be any Italian or Japanese enviro-worriers left alive to be devastated by it.

In a globalized economy, the environmentalists want us to worry about First World capitalism imposing its ways on bucolic, pastoral, primitive Third World backwaters. Yet, insofar as "globalization" is a threat, the real danger is precisely the opposite--that the peculiarities of the backwaters can leap instantly to the First World. Pigs are valued assets and sleep in the living room in rural China--and next thing you know an unknown respiratory disease is killing people in Toronto, just because someone got on a plane. That's the way to look at Islamism: We fret about McDonald's and Disney, but the big globalization success story is the way the Saudis have taken what was 80 years ago a severe but obscure and unimportant strain of Islam practiced by Bedouins of no fixed abode and successfully exported it to the heart of Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Manchester, Buffalo . . .

What's the better bet? A globalization that exports cheeseburgers and pop songs or a globalization that exports the fiercest aspects of its culture? When it comes to forecasting the future, the birthrate is the nearest thing to hard numbers. If only a million babies are born in 2006, it's hard to have two million adults enter the workforce in 2026 (or 2033, or 2037, or whenever they get around to finishing their Anger Management and Queer Studies degrees). And the hard data on babies around the Western world is that they're running out a lot faster than the oil is. "Replacement" fertility rate--i.e., the number you need for merely a stable population, not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller--is 2.1 babies per woman. Some countries are well above that: the global fertility leader, Somalia, is 6.91, Niger 6.83, Afghanistan 6.78, Yemen 6.75. Notice what those nations have in common?

Scroll way down to the bottom of the Hot One Hundred top breeders and you'll eventually find the United States, hovering just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada's fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate. That's to say, Spain's population is halving every generation. By 2050, Italy's population will have fallen by 22%, Bulgaria's by 36%, Estonia's by 52%. In America, demographic trends suggest that the blue states ought to apply for honorary membership of the EU: In the 2004 election, John Kerry won the 16 with the lowest birthrates; George W. Bush took 25 of the 26 states with the highest. By 2050, there will be 100 million fewer Europeans, 100 million more Americans--and mostly red-state Americans.

And I'm struck by the last line in the above link...

From the point of view of the 14th century, however, the most significant result is that the nobility and secular leaders were busy fighting each other at a time when the people of Westerm Europe desperately needed leadership.

I wonder if the 20th and early 21st centuries are going to be remembered as a Golden Age, as a Dark Age envelopes the globe?

J.

Making Light: Fckng Ralph Nader, fckng Public Citizen

What'd they do? Drove a drug for narcolepsy and ADHD off the market. But it's for the good of the pee-pul, after all, so if it really screws up a lot of folks I guess it's okay.

And after reading the story and comments - I agree with their views. Nader needs to retire, badly.

J.

The sad scenario in West Virginia seems damn near like a replay of New Orleans, and Rather's 'Fake but Accurate' ANG memo. I understand their urge to get the scoop - but the folks doing the reporting aren't exactly falling all over themselves to get information that's accurate and correct, much less complete.

And it's a bit disheartening that after HOW many episodes of shoddy reporting and inaccurate journalism - indeed, outright fabrications of stuff that's seemingly designed to keep people glued to the story - we're STILL expected to swallow what they give us without any question? Actually, the question I've got right now is "Who's more stupid - the public for believing this, or the reporters for believing they can keep getting away with this indefinitely?

The Anchoress ? Emotionalism: bad fuel for the press

Journalism used to run on facts. It wasn’t enough to have a rumor, you had to nail it down; it wasn’t enough to suspect something - if you suspected it, you expended the shoe leather to prove it. Now, unfortunately, beginning at least with Mary Mapes’ odd idea that the standard of journalism precludes proving one’s charge (it is now enough that the charge is made, and the accused must prove a negative), but particularly since Hurricane Katrina, mainstream journalism has decided it doesn’t need to run on facts; emotionalism is the new fuel on which the press is running, and it is a bad, bad gas - it sputters and sprays and belches out errors all over the airways, all through the ink barrels, and once the errors are out there, they become either (in a best-case scenario) tough narratives to reclaim or (in the cruelest case) weapons of devastation and destruction.

J.

Wow. Someone actually read Risen's book, and has some thoughts on it and on the possible processes. Knowledge is power.

The Volokh Conspiracy - Data-Mining, FISA, and the NSA Surveillance Program:

J.

BREITBART.COM - Artist Binds Feet in Desert, Loses Key

Um, yeah. Okay...

J.

When you look at the history of our country, and you look at the Presidents involved, you'll note a couple of things if you're at all perceptive.

Presidential power is controlled by Congress and the Senate, and by the Courts. They don't agree with what's going on, and it doesn't get done. The President can cajole, persuade, and even (it's suspected) bribe and blackmail - but it takes all three branches of government to get stuff done.

The second thing you'll note is that Presidents who don't do much while in office aren't fondly remembered, if they're remembered at all. Warren G. Harding, for example, is pretty notable for his sex scandals and corruption in the White House (Hmmm, remind you of anyone recent?) but he didn't do much of anything legislative-wise. Nixon will be remembered for decades - like him or loathe him, you can't argue he sat in the Oval Office and did nothing.

History looks favorably on Presidents who attempt great things. Washington, Lincoln, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan, GWBush... They took (and have taken) bold steps while in office to deal with problems their administrations ran into.

In my memory, the following Presidents hunkered down and let the problems wash over them, responding minimally (if at all) to events and situations they needed to take action on. Johnson, Ford, Carter, GHWBush and Clinton all were faced with problems during their time in office - and failed to respond appropriately in many circumstances. In fact, it almost seems for some personality types that once they've climbed to the top of the heap (so to speak) they get into office and stop trying.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. After Johnson, we needed a president that would deal with the Vietnam War. Johnson wasn't it - he had too many troubles both domestically and abroad, and didn't deal with them terribly well. He DID come up with the 'Great Society' programs... but it's arguable that those had the hoped-for effect 40 years down the line. But at the point of Johnson's departure, the Vietnam scenario was cast - all Nixon could do was try to control things as it all fell apart for various reasons. (We won't go into those here.) After Nixon's problems, Ford had the choice of trying to be bold and decisive, or mark time off the calender until the next election. Carter got in, and then Disco took off. (I don't necessarily conflate the two, but it seems suspicous to me.) Carter tried a number of things, managed to get peace accords brokered between Israel and Egypt and got China to open up - but really didn't get much else accomplished when a recession hit, an energy crisis hit, and inflation soared. Again, I blame Disco for the last three. Carter was a good man, in a damn tough job, and I don't think he handled a lot of it terribly well, especially the economic, foriegn policy, and energy issues of the time. (The invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR and the Iranian hostage crisis are examples of that.)

Reagan did a lot in office, including a lot of stuff that got him roundly condemned by the Democrats and the media. 25 years later, his record doesn't look all that bad. GHWBush, however, more coasted than anything else. The collapse of the USSR and how well we did in GW1will be the memorable things from his term - and both those were much more Reagan's doing with the military buildup than anything he did on his watch. (However, he trusted the military to do the things needed to win Gulf War 1, which was more than Johnson did for Viet Nam.)

Clinton got in because folks wanted a change (and also, I think, because Perot got enough of the vote from disaffected Republicans) and that's what they got. However, his drawdown of the military wasn't seen as a terribly swift move. He did, however, keep his fingers out of economic issues, mostly, contributing to the boom of the '90s... and the ending recession when a lot of tech bubbles went bust. (It's hard to know what he could have done to prevent that, BTW.)

Now we've got Bush in. Perhaps in 20 years we'll be able to get a better perspective of the whole deal. But there's one thing that, in retrospect, seems clear to me.

A President has a lot of power. How he chooses to use that power is always going to be questioned by the other side. There's a lot of things that could or should be done, but few Presidents are willing to expend the political capital they have to do the things they need as they're needed. (Carter, when the energy crisis hit under his watch, could have (and probably should have) pushed for nuclear power - but the events at 3-Mile Island made that a political faux pas.) One of the things that we look for (and hope for) in a President is leadership. But being the leader sometimes requires you to make unpopular choices. The threat of action from the other side when they dislike the choices made will alway be a damper on the decision-making process.

Currently, Sen. Boxer is looking to file impeachment charges against Bush. This doesn't strike me as a timely, politcally responsible or terribly sensible move, but if she (and by extension the Democratic Party) do try this, I would expect that any future Presidents would be wary (if not downright reluctant) to attempt anything that might be considered the least bit risky or controversial politically, lest it draw mutterings about impeachement.

Think of it as the political equivalent of a bulldozer, or a wrecking ball - or the knife of a surgeon. I'm not saying impeachment should never be an option - but it has to be used very, very carefully and only where really appropriate. Otherwise, you risk destroying something you might really need later on.

J.

Okay, this could be... (checks calendar, hmmm, nowhere near April 1st...) really something, if true.

Scotsman.com News - Sci-Tech - Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip

AN EXTRAORDINARY "hyperspace" engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions is being investigated by the United States government.

The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today's New Scientist magazine.

However, you can look at the paper yourself here. I get to about the top of page 2, and then it's over my head. I surface briefly around the middle of page 10.

Thoughts, anyone? Or should we be getting ready to start Starfleet?

J.

BREITBART.COM - Jobless Claims Plunge to Five-Year Low

The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in more than five years last week, providing strong evidence that the labor market is shaking off the effects of a string of devastating hurricanes.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for unemployment benefits dropped by 35,000 to 291,000, the smallest number since Sept. 23, 2000, when the economy was in the concluding months of the longest economic expansion in history.

The decline of 35,000 claims was much better than Wall Street had been expecting and bolstered the belief that the labor market is on the mend after a rough period in the fall when Gulf Coast hurricanes caused the loss of more than 600,000 jobs over a period of four months.

Guess we'll see, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

J.

Gang terrorizes train in France?-?World?-?The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

PARIS -- A gang of more than 20 youths -- thought to be North African immigrants -- terrorized hundreds of train passengers in a rampage of violence, robbery and sexual assault on New Year's Day, French officials said yesterday.

The five-hour-long criminal frenzy was "totally unacceptable," French President Jacques Chirac told reporters. "Those guilty will be found and punished, as they deserve."

The gang of between 20 and 30 youths boarded the train, heading from Nice on the French Riviera to Lyon, in eastern France, early on Jan. 1, as it carried 600 passengers home from New Year's Eve partying overnight.

Only three -- two 19-year-old Moroccans and a minor, all living in France -- were arrested. Both men were being held for robbery and one also was facing charges of sexual assault. The minor was to be judged separately.
Three others -- a man and two boys -- were arrested briefly in Marseille but were released despite reports they were carrying a knife, a screwdriver and a small amount of hashish.

Police in Nice, meanwhile, said they had escorted the group of drunken youths and put them on the train Sunday to ensure they did not cause trouble in the city.

Police said they thought the gang was part of a bigger group of 100 youths from the Marseille area who had gone to Nice and nearby seaside resorts for New Year's Eve, taking advantage of a special $1 New Year's Day train fare.

News of the violence shocked France, which still was reeling from three weeks of rioting that flared in impoverished suburbs across the country in late October and early November last year.

Hopefully.

5 hours to get police to a train car. Man, that'd make you feel downright secure, wouldn't it?

J.

Okay, I'm getting confused here. You've got Democrats who supervised (or were briefed) for three, four years on this program, every six weeks. And not a one of them called for the program to be terminated. Only two letters (according to this post) have even been produced expressing reservations, and one of those supposedly endorsed the White House view that the only authorization needed was the President's.

It seems like the program was operated under some pretty stringent rules and conditions, and those conditions weren't violated. Call me dim and stupid, but I'm really not seeing the harm here.

Captain's Quarters - Buyer's Remorse

The Times report has been specific about the kinds of communications captured and shared by the NSA under the program, reporting that the communications involved at least one end being outside the United States and involving people who have been linked to al-Qaeda or other recognized terrorist organizations by another source. Once that information came through, NSA has shared the data with other intelligence and law-enforcement agencies such as the DIA and the FBI -- just like the 9/11 Commission and Congressional reviews of 9/11 scolded the intelligence services for not doing prior to the devastating attacks. Not one of the people who have been briefed on this program for the last four years has reported or suggested even once that the program deviated from those very limited parameters, and even the Times reported that the NSA sought warrants on anything else.

J.

And it's kind of interesting.

Sago Mine safety record not spotless, but new owners showed improvement

Four times in the last six months, federal inspectors raised concerns about an accumulation of "combustible" materials at the Sago coal mine in West Virginia and asked the owner specifically to clean up any coal dust, an explosive powder that is highly susceptible to spontaneous combustion when dispersed.

A closer look at the owner's safety record shows that International Coal Group's operation of the Sago mine was not spotless. But if anything, ICG improved safety performance in the last quarter of 2005 after acquiring the mine from Anker West Virginia Mining Co. last year.

"It appears under the new leadership there has been a significant improvement to the safety, at least it appears so," said Larry Grayson, chair of the mining and nuclear engineering department at the University of Missouri-Rolla.

a title="NPR : Mining Accident Raises Broader Safety Questions" href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5125860">NPR : Mining Accident Raises Broader Safety Questions

We read about mining disasters in far-flung places like China. And many of us think, 'Oh, that couldn't happen here.' Have things really improved much in the United States in recent years?
In fact, mining safety in the U.S. has improved dramatically since passage of the Mining Safety and Health Act of 1977. (In that year, 272 miners died on the job, versus just 56 in 2003.)
Trouble is, no matter how many safety measures we introduce into the workplace, the dangers are recreated every 24 hours. You're basically building a new workplace with every new place you explore: new roof problems, new support systems, new sources of methane gas. It's not like a factory where you can identify a safety problem, rope it off and fix it. Miners have to be a lot more vigilant than other workers.

UPDATE:

MSHA Mine Violations

The mine ID # is 4608791, do a search on that and it'll pull up a page where you can get info on inspections and violations.

As far as the violations go, what you want to do is look in the STANDARD column, make a note of any suffixes like (a)(1) or(e)(3), and click the link to the relevant reg. For example, the first one - 77.1110 - links to the following problem.

Firefighting equipment shall be continuously maintained in a usable and operative condition. Fire extinguishers shall be examined at least once every 6 months and the date of such examination shall be recorded on a permanent tag attached to the extinguisher.

(b) Travelways and platforms or other means of access to areas where persons are required to travel or work, shall be kept clear of all extraneous material and other stumbling or slipping hazards.

Other safeguards adequate, in the judgment of an authorized representative of the Secretary, to minimize hazards with respect to transportation of men and materials shall be provided.

J.

Don't like the looks of this...

A Daily Briefing on Iran: Iran's "Let's Roll" Beginning?

Back in 1991/1992 three nuclear weapon devices the Mullahs had obtained from Kazakhstan were verified on ground in Iran and intelligence further estimates that Iran has totally between eight to 12 nuclear devices from the Soviet era.

The press leaks pointed to Iran possibly not proceeding with negotiations, reassuring internal supporters and preparing to confront the West. The final decision to disdain the European meeting was apparently made with the sudden incapacitation of Israel's Ariel Sharon.

Concurrently, Iran has suddenly moved a significant number of tanks toward its southern border near Basra, Iraq; has started repositioning naval assets and intercepts show military communications have become very atypical.

Is Iran expecting an attack now that the more pragmatic Sharon is out of the picture or has U.S and Coalition information leaked to them of an impending strike to put an end to nuclear weapons falling into the hands of someone like Ahmadi-Nejad. The new regime in Iran has certainly tried to provoke the USA and Israel beyond the point of endurance.

That's worrisome.

J.

If you're looking for a little industrial history on a chilly Friday...

INDUSTRIAL ADVANCES

Nineteenth-century Americans heated their homes with wood or coal, used kerosene lanterns or candles for illumination, and traveled by rail- road, steamboat, horse, or mule. The dawn of the 20th century brought fundamental change. Entrepreneurs wedded scientific knowledge and business savvy, extracting metals, minerals, and motor fuels from natural resources to advance industry and revolutionize our nation's way of life.

J.

Science's 10 Most Beautiful Experiments

Neat stuff!

enjoy!

J.

You decide.

Even Before Alito Hearings, the Verdicts Are In

Briefly, Kennedy rewrote the outcome of the 1964 election. "This nominee was influenced by the Goldwater presidency," he said. "The Goldwater battles of those times were the battles against the civil rights laws." Only then did Kennedy acknowledge that "Judge Alito at that time was 14 years old."

Okay, a verbal faux pas. But...but... GOLDWATER? Sheesh. You'd think Ted Kennedy would have remembered.

J.

To a post at "The Adventures of Chester" called "Sinking Feeling". (and if you're wondering who "Chester" is, you can check out the mini-bio here, and it would seem like the gent is smarter than the average bear when it comes to intelligence analysis and historical comparisions. So when he gets a bit concerned about something, there's a good bet (IMHO) that there's actually a problem AND it'd be wise to start thinking about a solution.

He writes as an update to this post...

UPDATE: Many assume that Iran would not overtly use terror or the deterrent effects of its new nukes to its own gain in the immediate future, thinking instead that things would settle into a "cold war" of sorts.

This represents a best-case and is foolhardy for planning purposes. As usual in strategy, Iran's advantage rests in its ability to exploit seams; at the moment there is quite a transitional seam in Israeli politics and therefore policy. If there were plans on the drawing board for an Israeli strike, they are being shelved for sure. We are about to encounter another seam via the US election as well, wherein the entire Congress temporarily becomes entranced by domestic concerns and local politics.

If Iran declares itself a nuclear power, the institutions, systems, policies and governments of the region and the world will not just snap into a new paradigm of a "cold war" with Iran, though in the longer term, that is certainly probable. Instead, from the moment Iran makes the announcement, or detonates a bomb, a new seam begins between the old policy regimes and the new. And there lies Iran's advantage. Much hay can be made while the capitals of the west are engaged in debate on a response.

I'm calling it like I see it.

The comments are cogent and insightful, and one really caught my eye. It was just a bit about Bush meeting with former Secretaries of Defense and State. Did a bit of searching, and found...

In bid to get varied opinions, Bush meets with old guard - The Boston Globe

WASHINGTON -- President Bush met with a dozen former secretaries of state and defense yesterday, including those who have openly criticized his Iraq policy, in what he described as an effort to solicit divergent opinions on the war.

The White House's first invitation to members of the old guard, ranging from two Vietnam-era Pentagon chiefs to the war Cabinets of Bush's father and Bill Clinton, marked a rare instance of the president seeking input on national security matters from people outside his tight-knit inner circle.

The participants, representing much of the US foreign policy and military hierarchy of the past 40 years, urged Bush to be more frank with the American public and as one put it, told him ''some things he did not like."

Why now? BTW, Secretary Rice cut short her visit overseas.

J.

Doesn't look like it.

Saddam's Terror Training Camps

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

After all, you gotta have priorities.

J.

Over at Power Line: 72 Hours: Who Could Ask For More? they give an overview of the requirements and steps for approval of survelliance under FISA.

Now, I'm not much of sa stranger to governmental paperwork, having spent 13 years doing that work in the Reserves. THIS stuff, however, makes the military stuff I was doing look like a 2nd grade homework sheet. And that didn't make much sense to me, until I hit the following line.

"It takes days, sometimes weeks, to get the application for FISA together," says one source. "It's not so much that the court doesn't grant them quickly, it's that it takes a long time to get to the court. Even after the Patriot Act, it's still a very cumbersome process. It is not built for speed, it is not built to be efficient. It is built with an eye to keeping [investigators] in check."

During my time in doing paperwork, the emphaisis was on getting everything perfect. Punctuation, phrasing, paperwork, everything had to be just so. Why so? Well, let's be honest - in a peacetime military the problem is finding enough stuff to keep the troops occupied, no matter what their specialty is/was. Not much to do? Make the emphasis on doing it to perfection. And in administrative fields, that perfection means it's gonna take a long time. Two spaces after each bullet point sort of perfection, and if you miss, the form must be done over. The point is to keep the skill set fresh, but keep you busy.

But what do you do in times of conflict? You get the job done. You odn't worry that every I is crossed and every T is dotted, and that the form is filled out in 12 pt. Times New Roman at 1.5 line spacing. You concentrate on the important stuff, like funding cites and correct nomenclature and you don't worry about the small shit. It's supposed to be typed? If it's hand-written and legible, that's good enough.

Unfortunately, legal systems and procedures are massively dependent on the small shit. Thus you have an 11 step process with numerous substeps, all requiring a LOT of coordination. And if one step gets missed or delayed...

Poof. You've missed the deadline. Care to guess what happens?

At that point, there is a forfeiture: the surveillance is to be terminated immediately, and information gained from the surveillance during that key 72 hour period cannot be used for any purpose--not even communicated to federal anti-terror employees--without a certification that it "indicates a threat of death or serious bodily harm to any person."

As a paperwork system, that doesn't cut it. Unless, of course, the idea is to NOT authorize surveillance - in which case it seems to be very well designed.

J.

And I've got a question for you. Go and read the link, then come back and unfold the fold for the question..

Michael Yon : Online Magazine: Call for Volunteers: Frontline Forum

Not to belittle the problem, but the cost of consumer goods now is such that it may be time to revise the definition of poverty and the income level that defines it.

MSN Money - Extra: Poverty now comes with a color TV

Still, by almost all measures, the data show rising well-being for all of society. And while the wealth gap may not be narrowing, the rich-poor gap in lifestyles has narrowed substantially since 1992 when measured in many of these tangible items.

"In terms of the items people have ... it amazes me the number of people who are at or near the poverty line that have color TVs, cable, washer, dryer, microwave," says Michael Cosgrove, an economist at the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas. That's not to ignore the hardships of poverty, he adds, "but the conveniences they have are in fact pretty good."

And check this out for a companion piece... MSN Money - 9 ways to look rich but live cheap

Happy Monday to ya!

J.

The only question is - which direction will global warming go?

iNinjas Vs. Pirates

(The increase in world temperatures has a direct correlation with the lack of pirates. Choose your side - the fate of the world hangs in the balance.)

J.

Go for a short cappuchino at Starbucks...

Starbucks Economics - Solving the mystery of the elusive "short" cappuccino. By Tim?Harford

Here's a little secret that Starbucks doesn't want you to know: They will serve you a better, stronger cappuccino if you want one, and they will charge you less for it. Ask for it in any Starbucks and the barista will comply without batting an eye. The puzzle is to work out why.

The drink in question is the elusive "short cappuccino"—at 8 ounces, a third smaller than the smallest size on the official menu, the "tall," and dwarfed by what Starbucks calls the "customer-preferred" size, the "Venti," which weighs in at 20 ounces and more than 200 calories before you add the sugar.

I'll have a short cappucino...

J.

One of the things that I've realized, as I've seen time pass, is that it's darn hard to be an expert in everything that'll cross your path. However, I've got a fairly wide range of interests, and read a considerable amount. So, over the last 20, 30 years or so, I've found myself picking up a fair bit of information on the following subjects.

Auto repair (enough to know what I can do easily, and what I need to leave to an expert), aerodynamics, hydraulics, pneumatics, electricity, house wiring, telephone systems, operating systems from CP/M to DOS to Windows, administrative procedures (AF related), retail sales, networking protocols, wireless router setup in less than optimal environments, woodworking, shooting, handloading, plumbing, tiling, drywall repair, nutrition, princples of nuclear weapons and ICBMs, missile maintenace (rusty), C-130 flight engineer, cooking, cleaning, laundry, land and air navigation with GPS and compass and inertial positioning systems, geodetic surveying (very rusty), child care and education, air conditionin principles and maintenance, first aid, fire extinguisher use, decorating, yard care, creative writing, computer repair and maintenance...

And in doing so, I've gotten to a point where I'm pretty comfortable asking when I don't know a particular answer, and can figure out what I need to ask when I need to find something out. Google's been a big help there (helped me find a diagram of a Prussick knot to demonstrate to the little guy, for example) and I can usually zero in on the info I need pretty quickly. But if I can't figure something out, I'll try to ask folks who know. And you'll notice that "Law and Legal Analysis" aren't exactly prominent in that listing above.

So, since there seems to be some question about whether Bush overstepped the limits of FISA, I figured I'd go ahead and ask folks who I considered to be experts - the folks over at PowerLine Blog.

On 1/9/06, Jerry (jerry.l@xxxxx.com> wrote:

> Hello! I'd like to compliment you on your analysis of the NSA flap,
> but there's one thing that I've been trying to figure out, and I
> really am afraid I can't come to a definitive conclusion looking at
> the information I've been able to find.

> Was what the NSA doing against the law?

> Or could what they've been doing be determined to be within the letter
> of the law?

> Thanks for any clarification you can provide on this. When you're not
> an expert in the field, it's sure hard to understand!

But one of them was kind enough to reply.

No, it was not illegal.

You'll notice that this horribly vital and important issue seems to have dropped off the front page of the various major news services. It may well be because there's no story, or it could be because it failed to elicit the desired reaction from the public. Scanning MSNBC, FOX, CNN and ABC News, I only spotted one story and that was dated the 5th.

I didn't check the NYTimes - didn't figure it was worth looking, and I don't trust their analysis on this - they don't exactly strike me as unbiased and capable of evaluating this honestly. (And one of their own has a financial stake in it - if this isn't a scandal the book won't sell.)

So, that kind of covers it. Unless something new comes up, I'm thinking this is a dead issue. The media tried to make a scandal out of something that was apparently legal. When they failed to demonstrate the illegality of it or generate sufficient public outrage, it's time to go on to the next thing.

It's ALITO time! Let the festivities begin!!

J.

Politics over tribalism - could it be working?

IRAQ THE MODEL

The Sunni ignore Zarqawi and support Talabani's run for office.

Two developments took most of the interest in Iraq’s political scene today. The first is the latest audio tape of Zaqrqawi in which he urged the Iraqi Sunni parties especially the Islamic Party to abandon the political process and go back to the “right path”.

The Islamic Party didn’t need much time to voice their rejection for Zarqawi’s message and his ideology that recognizes only violence as a way to reach goals.

The 2nd man in the Islamic Party Ayad al-Samarra’i stressed that the Party has no intention to abandon the political process. Salih al-Mutlaq is another Sunni politician who apparently feels that Zarqawi was addressing him as well. Al-Mutlaq has also condemned violence again today and stressed that “ending violence is the key to stability in Iraq”.

What matters most about such immediate firm reactions to Zarqawi’s call is that they show that the gap between foreign terrorists like Zarqawi and Sunni Arabs in Iraq is growing wider by the day and perhaps the Sunni politicians’ decision to join Allawi and let him lead their alliance will contribute to pushing them to a more reasonable, moderate attitude rather than the relatively extreme attitude they adopted for a long time.

The second important development in Iraq today was the Kurdish decision to nominate Jalal Talabani for presidency after a period of hesitation.

Actually what is more interesting in this topic is the reactions of the Shia and Sunni parties to Talbani’s nomination. While the Kurds persistently want more powers for the new president “be it Talabani or someone else” according to Kurdish politician AbdulKhaliq Zangana, Shia and Sunni had their own ideas;

The UIA said again that extending the authorities of the president is unlikely; Adnan al-Bayati from the UIA explained their rejection of the idea of extended authorities for the president by saying that changes such as this one cannot be made by a political decision…”they require amending the constitution” al-Bayati said.

The largest Sunni bloc, the Accord Front is obviously pleased with nominating Talabani and is supportive of giving the president more powers, as Adnan al-Dulaimi expressed today. The Sunni and Kurds seem to be getting along better lately and yesterday’s meeting between the Accord Front and the Kurdish alliance has apparently succeeded in approximating their points of view.

J.

Just what the overall view of Al Quaeda is in Iraq, Saudi and the like? Or what their possibilities are?

Check out Current Affairs - The View From Al Qaeda

Roughly? Sucks to be them...

J.

Ancient ‘bog men’ make fashion statement - Science - MSNBC.com

LONDON - The 2,300-year-old remains of two men discovered in an Irish bog have revealed a couple of surprises — one used hair gel and the other stood 6-foot-6 (2 meters), the tallest Iron Age body discovered.
“He would have been a giant ... the other man was quite short, about 5 foot, 2 inches,” or 158 centimeters, said Ned Kelly, head of antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland.
“The shorter man appeared to attempt to give himself greater stature by a rather curious headdress which was a bit like a Mohican-style with the hair gel, which was a resin imported from France,” Kelly told BBC radio.

And it looks like a double murder. I blame Fritz Lieber.

J.

Help out at Stardust@Home , and find a grain of dust!

We are seeking volunteers to help us to search for these tiny samples of matter from the galaxy. Volunteers are critical to the success of this project. Please help us find the first samples of contemporary Stardust ever collected.

J.

Faces from the Front: American Marines in Iraq - NY Times' Armor Amour takes a look at the armor flap that Sen. Clinton's starting up again.

But here's the sad truth about personal armor - if you're completely safe, you're going to be essentially immobile. There are ALWAYS tradeoffs whenever you're looking at the load the soldier's got to carry. In the Civil war there were breastplates available that would stop a round - but they were too heavy and uncomfortable to be practical. They didn't catch on.

The average soldier in WW2 carried between 40 and 60 lbs of gear. On assaults like Normandy, that would be easily doubled. And the only armor they had was their helmets. (Ref here.)

Now, how much does the armor the folks are currently wearing (which would have been undreamed of in WW2 or Korea, and even as recent as GW1) weigh? At least (according to this article) about 30 lbs (not including all the extras like groin skirts, kneepads and the like) - and by the time they add in all their gear, you're looking at 80 to 90 lbs. This is for operational, mobile foot soldiers.

Go to a backpacking store, get their most comfortable pack on, and have them load it up with 80 or 90 lbs of weight. (Most backpacking texts will tell you to load only about a quarter of your body weight.) Then put on a Kevlar helmet and go for a run. On a very hot day. Wearing a poncho.

I'd probably make it a quarter-mile (at a slow walk) before I started rummaging around trying to find something to pitch, if I didn't drop it all.

Does the stuff work? Hell, yes. But you hit a point of diminishing returns above a certain weight. Think of a turtle as opposed to a cheetah. Which is the more effective predator?

I'm thinking it's time to just provide the armor, and let the soldier decide what's the best for the mission. There will never be perfect armor, until we can get force field technology they can wear on their belts - and I think that's a ways off.

Until then, the quest for 'perfection' in protection ignores that what's available right now is very, very good indeed, yet heavy enough that between the protection and the weight the soldiers consider it a mixed blessing.

J.

There's a reason I don't do puzzles.

The 41 Clue Solution

This is an excellent reason in and of itself.

J.

The Space Review: Low-cost access to orbit: Space Marines to the Rescue!

After spending more than $1.3 billion of both federal and Lockheed Martin money on the X-33, which was sold as the first step towards a shuttle replacement, the whole idea of reusable launch vehicles (RLVs) seems pretty discredited. Today, both NASA and the Defense Department have given up on the hope that an RLV can be built anytime soon. Radically lowering the cost of access to space is now said to be just a pipe dream. Inside the US government, the belief reigns that a single stage to orbit (SSTO) or a two stage to orbit (TSTO) RLV that would reduce launch costs to less than several hundred dollars per kilogram to low Earth orbit (LEO) would be impossible to build within a reasonable time frame or budget.

The United States Marines are not, and have never been, “reasonable,” and with good reason.

So, when they ran into cost overruns and had problems molding the tanks... that was it.

The DC-X, however, cost a hell of a lot less and actually flew. If it hadn't been for a failed landing leg actuator that caused it to tip and crash (and it's kind of odd that NASA and the BMDO didn't spend the comparitively little money needed to fix that and continue with tests, come to think of it...) the history of SSTO might well have been different. History of the program here.

The final paragraph in the linked history is as follows:

Almost a decade ago, we were within a good hard stone’s throw of achieving SSTO with reductions in turnaround time and payload cost-per-pound that promised to revolutionize the business of moving stuff from Down Here to Up There. I hate to impinge upon the reputations of the great people we saw pushing the DC-X project there in the desert, but it seems clear now that it’s not in the economic interests of the aerospace industry to destroy their current business models of expensive complicated space launch by undermining their own monopoly. I suspect it will require an outsider with nothing to lose to upset the house of cards and deal a new hand.

But the Marines have a tradition of getting things done. If they think they need 2-hour access world-wide, I sure wouldn't bet against them getting the technology to do the job. And just think of FedEx offering 4-hour worldwide delivery... (Hey, it takes time to get the packages to and from the spaceport!)

Would there be a market for it?

J.

Guess we'll see.

Sci Fi Wire -- The News Service of the Sci Fi Channel

Serenity Might Fly Again?

Loni Peristere, visual-effects supervisor for the SF movie Serenity, told SCI FI Wire that there's hope for future flights of the cast and crew of the movie, which just came out on DVD. Director Joss Whedon—who also created the canceled Fox TV show Firefly, on which the movie is based—expected that the movie might draw the low numbers it did in its theatrical release, Peristere said in an interview. But he added that the movie's sales on DVD, which came out on Dec. 20, are running neck-and-neck with the hit comedy Wedding Crashers, which bodes well for a possible Serenity sequel.

J.

Lord, wouldn't Dr. Seuss love this?

Taiwan breeds fluorescent green pig - Science - MSNBC.com

TAIPEI, Taiwan - Taiwan, home to the world’s first transgenic glowing fish, has successfully bred fluorescent green pigs that researchers hope will boost the island’s stem cell research, a professor said on Thursday.

J.

Looks like trees generate methane.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Plants revealed as methane source

Scientists in Germany have discovered that ordinary plants produce significant amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas which helps trap the sun's energy in the atmosphere.

The findings, reported in the journal Nature, have been described as "startling", and may force a rethink of the role played by forests in holding back the pace of global warming.

And the BBC News Website has learned that the research, based on observations in the laboratory, appears to be corroborated by unpublished observations of methane levels in the Brazilian Amazon.
Until now, it had been thought that natural sources of methane were mainly limited to environments where bacteria acted on vegetation in conditions of low oxygen levels, such as in swamps and rice paddies.

Time to pave the Amazon basin!

J.

The FBI has a new way of tracking terrorists.

They are now able to see every click you make on the Internet. Privacy advocates say this is bad, but the FBI says you will never even notice and it won't affect the common man at all.

Click here for a demo of this new technology.

I see you, you see me
Watch you blowin’ the lines when you’re making a scene
Oh girl, you’ve got to know
What my head overlooks
The senses will show to my heart
When it’s watching for lies
You can’t escape my
Private eyes
They’re watching you
They see your every move
Private eyes
They’re watching you
Private eyes
They’re watching you watching you watching you watching you

You play with words you play with love
You can twist it around baby that ain’t enough
Cause girl I’m gonna know
If you’re letting me in or letting me go
Don’t lie when you’re hurting inside
’cause you can’t escape my
Private eyes
They’re watching you
They see your every move
Private eyes
They’re watching you
Private eyes
They’re watching you watching you watching you watching you

Why you try to put up a front for me
I’m a spy but on your side you see
Slip on, into any disguise
I’ll still know you
Look into my private eyes

J.

You've really helped us out with your kind warning!

ABC News: Surge in Sale of Disposable Cell Phones May Have Terror Link

Jan. 12, 2006 — Federal agents have launched an investigation into a surge in the purchase of large quantities of disposable cell phones by individuals from the Middle East and Pakistan, ABC News has learned.

The phones — which do not require purchasers to sign a contract or have a credit card — have many legitimate uses, and are popular with people who have bad credit or for use as emergency phones tucked away in glove compartments or tackle boxes. But since they can be difficult or impossible to track, law enforcement officials say the phones are widely used by criminal gangs and terrorists.

...

"The application of prepaid phones for nefarious reasons, is really widespread. For example, the terrorists in Madrid used prepaid phones to detonate the bombs in the subway trains that killed more than 200 people," said Roger Entner, a communications consultant.

150 Phones in One Sale, 60 Phones in Another

The FBI is closely monitoring the potentially dangerous development, which came to light following recent large-quantity purchases in California and Texas, officials confirmed.

In one New Year's Eve transaction at a Target store in Hemet, Calif., 150 disposable tracfones were purchased. Suspicious store employees notified police, who called in the FBI, law enforcement sources said.

In an earlier incident, at a Wal-mart store in Midland, Texas, on December 18, six individuals attempted to buy about 60 of the phones until store clerks became suspicious and notified the police. A Wal-mart spokesperson confirmed the incident.

You've done us a great favor, so we'll do you one also.

We'll kill you last.

Love,
Al Quaeda, et al

Thanks, NYTimes. I'm sure it was just coincidence, that sudden spike in cell phone sales two weeks after you published the story. Because nobody in the ME ever reads western media, do they?

J.

JustOneMinute: Red On Red (Ongoing)

There is indeed civil war brewing in Iraq. Just not between who'd you expect.

The question will be, who gets the beer?

J.

ABC News: Pakistani Military Sources Say Zawahiri May Be Dead

Jan. 13, 2006 — Today, according to Pakistani military sources, U.S. aircraft attacked a compound known to be frequented by high-level al Qaeda operatives. Pakistani officials tell ABC News that al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, may have been among them.

U.S. intelligence for the last few days indicated that Zawahiri might have been in the location or about to arrive, although there is still no confirmation from U.S. officials that he was among the victims.

And that's when they'll get you.

Update: Now the story is that he may NOT have been there. Time will tell. If we don't hear anything new from him - then he's likely joined OBL and the worms will be singing his praises.

J.

Jyllands Posten Muhammed Cartoons

Or not. I see worse in the local paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

J.

In the South, they say "There's something not quite right about that boy." It seems to me like that fits for Ahmadinejad, and Doc Sanity takes a closer look at his actions and statements. What she finds is damn disturbing.

Dr. Sanity: BELIEVE IT

In my career as a psychiatrist I have encountered many psychotic individuals with religious delusions. One study suggests that those patients with religious delusions are suffering from a particularly virulent form of schizophrenia, where the potential for self-harm or harm to others is significantly increased. The study concluded that "religious delusions are commonly found in schizophrenia and that by comparison with other patients who have schizophrenia, those patients with religious delusions appear to be more severely ill."

Such delusions may even occur in people who were never religious prior to their illness. And in the sickest individuals, they may be combined with delusions of grandeur, where the person believes they are some figure of religious and historical import. I, myself, have personally met Jesus Christ (several times), St. Theresa, the Pope, Lucifer, and a variety of other assorted religious icons.

At least, that was what they told me at the time.

Those raised in a predominantly Christian culture had delusions of a Christian nature. But I have also seen Hindus, Buddhists, and American Indians with religious delusions that took on the form of their own culture's predominant religion. Interestingly, the one person I saw who had been a committed atheist prior to becoming psychotic, thought he was the "Devil" and the "King of Evil" when his brain strayed from reality.

Which brings me to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad latest rantings...

It may be odd to think so, but I believe that Chernobyl was possibly the real turning point of the Cold War, the straw that broke the Bear's back if you will. Yes, you could go to war with nukes. But the results wouldn't be tolerable.

Ahmadinejad, as I've mentioned elsewhere, doesn't seem to be terribly bound by a concern for his people. This makes him VERY hard to deal with. (It's very difficult to deal with someone who's nuts - the frames of reference do NOT coincide.) IF he believes he's destined to take the world into war to hasten the coming of the 12th Imam, then he'll see little reason to avoid a nuclear war, and might even go out of his way to make sure it happens.

And he's sure not going out of the way to ingratiate himself.

The Observer | World | West is in dark ages, says Iran's President

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardline President of Iran, launched an angry tirade against the West yesterday, accusing it of a 'dark ages' mentality and threatening retaliation unless it recognised his country's nuclear ambitions.
In a blistering assault, Ahmadinejad repeated the Islamic regime's position that it would press ahead with a nuclear programme despite threats by the European Union and United States to refer Iran to the UN Security Council, where it could face possible sanctions. He added that Iran was a 'civilised nation' that did not need such weapons. Iran insists its nuclear programme is a wholly peaceful attempt to generate electricity.

I'm still hoping, but it's looking a lot less likely now than two years back. If the President of Iran's indeed looking forward to a fight and willing to provoke it by nuking Israel in order to hasten the return of the 12th Imam, I'd think preemptive action would be eminently appropriate. Even unilateral preemptive action. German's against action right now - but then, they stand to lose a lot of trade with Iran....

I'm not seeing a way to a good outcome from this. Only a lot of bad ones - some less worse than others, but not what I'd call 'good'.

J.

New technology boosts hard drive capacity - Tech News & Reviews - MSNBC.com

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Seagate Technology LLC has started shipping a notebook PC hard drive that overcomes an obstacle many feared would be a major roadblock to the further expansion of disk capacity — and the overall growth of the storage industry.

The new approach that aligns bits of data vertically rather than horizontally enables Seagate — and other drive vendors — to further boost the density of drives without increasing the risk of scrambling data.

In the next three to five years, the new technology is expected to increase maximum drive capacities five fold, Hall said.

Of course, by then Windows 2010 would likely take a terabyte on it's own...

Still - it's amazing how far we've come in such a short time. And this doesn't take into account other storage technologies in development.

J.

And a couple of dozen others follow. I was having problems with a Error 500 internal system error. That error seemed to be associated with a corrupt entry in my database. So, I figured I'd go ahead and move things up to MySQL, and then everything went to pieces. BUT, judging by where the database ended it's backup (losing about two weeks of entries - got them in HTML, but it'll take a bit to get them in) I can establish pretty well where the bad entry is.

Not that it does me much good at THIS point. (Snarl.)

Anyway - it's been fun. This is back up, running, and I'm going to let this marinate for a while. More tweaking tomorrow - I'll try to get things back the way they were. I'm going to bed.

J.