Isle O'View, USA

It's often said that "no man is an island". I think every American is an islander. What's your isle o'view?

Ellis Island

Ellis Island sits in New York Harbor, on the New York-New Jersey state line. Between 1892 and 1954, over twelve million immigrants passed through the processing facility there. While there were other ways for people to enter the country, Ellis Island has come to symbolize all of the people who voluntarily emigrated to the USA.

My patrilineal great grandfather was a typical Ellisian (including the fact that he came to the US before Ellis Island began processing immigrants). When Wilhelm was proclaimed Kaiser of the new German Empire, his parents decided it was a good time to head for America. When he'd lapse back into the mother tongue, they would admonish him: "No, Karl. We live in America now; we speak English." They chose to be Americans, and jumped in with both feet. No Hyphenated-American status for them.

This is not to suggest that Ellisians as a group went to the extreme of forgetting their Old Country culture altogether; many ethnic enclaves formed, with restaurants serving traditional foods, and bi-lingual residents who still spoke the language they learned as children. But the mindset of the voluntary immigrant was such that American English would be their children's first language, so that they could succeed in the New Country.

Île de Gorée

Just off the coast of Senegal, Gorée was first colonized by Portugal in 1444, and was held at various times by the Dutch and British before becoming a French possession in 1667. It served as the mirror image of Ellis Island, holding African slaves awaiting shipment to the New World colonies of whatever European power held it at the time, from the 1500s until the early 1800s, when Napoleon finally abolished slavery in France.

Exact numbers of slaves that passed through Gorée are not known, especially during the periods when clandestine slave trade continued even though officially banned, but "25 to 30 million" has been a widely-accepted estimate. Many of the slaves shipped out of Gorée went to French holdings such as Haiti or Guiana, as well as the Louisiana territory that was later sold to the United States.

While other slave markets, such as Zanzibar, may have sent more Africans into bondage in European colonies than Gorée did, the latter has (largely because of media exposure, such as Bryant Gumbel's Today visit) come to symbolize the involuntary migration to the West.

A common attitude of the Goréean was most famously expressed by Malik X. Shabazz:

We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us.

Many of the descendants of African slaves resent being forced to "act white" by speaking Standard English, abiding by (formal or informal) dress codes, etc., and rebel against the majority culture. Some of them mock, or even physically menace, others who do well in school. Voluntary immigrants to the US, such as the Jamaicans whose ancestors were (involuntarily) drawn from the same West African gene pool, may have more Ellisian attitudes, and held up to ridicule (such as in the Hey, Mon! recurring sketch on In Living Color, which had a predominantly black cast and creative staff).

Turtle Island

Many Native American tribes named the continent on which they lived "Turtle Island" (not the English words, but their equivalent in their languages). They didn't get on a boat to join the new nations being developed here by European powers; their ancestors had been here for millenia, at least since the last ice age. Increasingly, these people found themselves overwhelmed by people speaking Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, or Dutch; today those are the first languages of nearly the entire population of both Americas and nearby islands. The legal systems of the Americas are drawn from those same European powers', as are the mixture of religious sects and other cultural influences.



The various European spheres of influence ebbed and flowed, with the Anglosphere gaining much territory previously held by others. The most obvious example is the United States itself. The Dutch lost their holdings here to the British before our revolution; Louisiana was held by Spain and France before it was purchased from the latter. Florida was ceded by Spain to the United States. The Southwestern United States, from Texas to California, was transferred from Mexico either directly or indirectly (Republic of Texas).



The attitude of many of the people in that area, who identify with the Spanish-speaking Mexican culture, appears deliberately constructed as an homage to Shabazz':

We didn't cross the border; the border crossed us.

Some residents of Hawai'i, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands (as well as the continental populations of Native Americans) consider themselves in the same situation, including those who have moved to other areas inside the United States.



Even many of the people who voluntarily cross that border from Mexico seem to identify more with the culture they've chosen to leave physically, than the one they're entering. "Bilingual" education efforts encourage this.

East Germany?

The Gorée and Turtle mindsets are fundamentally the same; people who feel that they have been coerced into membership, rather than joining of their own free will. Last century, one of the more extreme demonstrations of such coercion was performed in the post-WWII Soviet occupation zone of Germany, which became the "German Democratic Republic". While Communist cant has always pretended to liberate the working class from enslavement to the property-owning class, the reality was shown to be the opposite.



Since it wasn't geographically an island, people were leaving it in droves. In order to keep those workers in their alleged paradise, the government had to metaphorically turn it into one. They built walls, manned with snipers ordered to shoot anyone who approached in an attempt to escape. The physical walls were built only along East Germany's borders with West Germany and Austria; travel out of other Warsaw Pact nations was already highly restricted. After three decades of this arrangment, Hungary started allowing East Germans to travel into Austria. There they could hop a train for West Germany, where they were guaranteed citizenship under its constitution. The game was up: in a span of a few weeks, the East German government had agreed to reconstitute the Länder, and allow them to claim their reserved places in the Bundesrepublik.



In contrast, two walls that are often rhetorically conflated with the "Berlin Wall" serve the opposite purpose. The US border fence will keep illegal immigrants out. The Israeli security fence keeps Palestinian suicide bombers out; Israelis, whether Jew, Arab or Druze, and people in the US, have the right to leave.

Parris Island

Other than during World War II, everyone who joined the Marine Corps was a volunteer (some may have volunteered for the Corps after receiving a draft notice that would have sent them to the Army). Without disparaging the other branches of the armed forces, I think it's fair to say the Corps has earned a reputation as an elite force, to a significant extent as a result of its ability to take only the best of those who volunteer. Since 1972, there has been no conscription into any of our armed forces, but the Selective Service registration system remains in place in case there is a need for massive mobilization on the scale of WWII. The overwhelming consensus among military leaders is that the all-volunteer forces are vastly superior to conscripts. Every one of the men and women in the US armed forces today consciously chose to be there. And quite a few Ellisians who took the Oath of Citizenship also took an oath in becoming servicemen. I believe there's something to that....

I'll Land

Of course, most people live in the nation of their birth. The descendants of voluntary immigrants, as well as those who came to be in the US unwillingly, are equal in this respect. We all unconsciously choose to be Americans every day by default; simply by not moving elsewhere. The Dred Scot decision has been long repealed by the Emancipation Proclamation, Grant v. Lee at the Appomattox Court House, and the Thirteenth Amendment. No chains or armed overseers prevent emigration to those who choose it. There's a classic bumper sticker that tries to make the choice explicit: "America: love it or leave it". The nuanced leftist response is that such slogans are simplistic, to which I'll agree. Anything that can fit on a bumper sticker is probably over-simplified. Take "No blood for oil", or "Visualize World Peace". Please.

But individual choice is powerful. When people are free to choose their situation, they can't be oppressed; they can join a community where they're treated decently. The essence of the American Dream is that people have that liberty to find a better life (however they personally define "better", not some nanny-state politician's definition of what's best "for their own good").

I think that we need to perform triage on our population.

For those people who claim that America is a horrible police state... For those who think our nation is cruel beyond measure for not giving everyone within her borders "free" health care, as "every other country" does... For those who insist that their religion must be enforced by law upon others... For those who would prefer a government with the power to forbid expression of distasteful views... I would happily pay my share of the taxes to cover this Special One-Time Offer: Not only are you free to "leave it" in the sense of "free" that means "freedom", we'll make it "free" in the sense of "no cost (to you)" as well. The US government should pay for a first-class ticket to any country willing to accept a US citizen willing to sign away that citizenship. If you can't be an Ellisian here, be an Ellisian somewhere else. That will make you an engaged, productive citizen somewhere in the world, and the world needs as many of them as it can get. Consciously choose the country that you think best fits your values, and may you live a long, healthy, and prosperous life there.

For those who can't find a better country to live in, simply staying here is still an unconscious choice. We require something of our naturalized citizens other than achieving the age of 18 before they're allowed to vote; I can think of no reason why we shouldn't apply the same rules to those who are fortunate enough to claim US citizenship as their birthright. Before anyone may vote in any election for any government office under the United States, any individual state, territory, or district therein, they should have to raise their hand before witnesses, and take the same oath of citizenship as naturalized citizens. In English. And they should know what the words mean.

Those who won't take that oath aren't committing themselves to this country. I don't think they should be deported, nor taxed at a discriminatory rate, or otherwise have a different status in our legal system. But the minimum standard for participation in our government's decision making should be a bit more than having a pulse for 18 years.[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full post.]

Today in History: February 22

• 1632 Galileo publishes his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, about the heliocentric and Ptolemaic solar systems.
• 1732 George Washington born; leader of the Revolutionary Army, First President.
• 1857 German physicist Heinrich Hertz born; first to broadcast and receive radio waves.
• 1930 American singer Marni Nixon born; singing voice for numerous Hollywood films: Deborah Kerr in The King and I (1956), Natalie Wood as Maria in West Side Story (1961), Audrey Hepburn as Eliza in My Fair Lady (1964).
• 1946 Dr Selman Waksman announces the first antibiotic, streptomycin, effective for tuberculosis.
• 1958 United Arab Republic is created by Syria merging with Egypt; First modern attempt at a pan-Arab superstate; Syria seceded in 1961; Egypt dropped the UAR name in 1971.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Today in History: February 21

• 1804 First self-propelled steam locomotive makes its first run, in Wales, carrying some 20 tons of iron, wagons and men, from the Pen-y-Darren ironworks to Abercynon, a distance of 9.75 miles; designed by Richard Trevithick.
• 1836 French composer Léo Delibes born; wrote ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia (1876) and the opera Lakmé (1883).
• 1848 Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto; inaugurating the socialist assault on Liberty, now 160 years old.
• 1916 The Battle of Verdun begins; site chosen by German General Falkenhayn to destroy the French army through attrition; 61,000 French killed, 142,000 Germans killed.
• 1953 Francis Crick and James Watson discover the DNA molecule structure, and how it encodes genetic instructions, the double-helix and hydrogen-bonded base pairs of purines and pyrimidines.
• 1960 Cuban Marxist dictator Fidel Castro nationalizes all businesses in Cuba.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

The Coming Obamination!

Sure, "Change" is wonderful. But what actually *are* Sen. Obama's political views? What will we have to look forward to once he's elected?



Well, he's finally beginning to mention a few details recently, in economics.
For example, everyone under $50,000 per year... no taxes. (I wonder if you could get a chicken in every pot with that?)



Oh, and here's another theme. The rich are soaking the non-rich; that's apparently how they get rich according to Obama. While he definitely claims to favor free markets, he says that they are clearly broken. They will need to be fixed: by taxation and regulation.



But even though that's about it for details, I'm sure we all want to know the Obama nitty gritty in other political areas.



Fortunately, Project Vote Smart provides some answers to Sen. Obama's political positions. Unfortunately, Obama "repeatedly refused to provide any responses to citizens on the issues through the 2008 Political Courage Test when asked to do so by national leaders of the political parties, prominent members of the media, ..." As a result, Project Vote Smart has made available Obama's responses to the Illinois State Legislative Election 1998 National Political Awareness Test. Let's just have a look, shall we?



Racial/Sexual Discrimination?



So, should Illinois government agencies should take race and sex into account in giving out contracts? In choosing whom to employ? In university admissions? Obama scored a clean sweep; "Yes" to all of those.



Crime?



Should no parole be allowed for repeat violent felons? Not according to Obama. How about prosecuting juveniles (gang bangers, for example) as adults if they commit murder or other serious violent crimes? Nope, Obama didn't like it. Maybe criminals should be required to pay restitution to the crime victims? Well, apparently this doesn't look that good to Obama either.



Education?



Obama supports education. Just ask him; he'll tell you so. But he's dead set against vouchers for parents to send their kids to any good school (public, private, religious).



Environment?



Obama wants you to use cleaner burning fuels, and is willing to pass a law to make sure you do.



Campaign "Reform"?



Obama would love to pass laws to impose spending limits on campaigns. But it's okay because he's willing to give tax dollars to candidates to make up for preventing supporters from contributing. At least that way, he can control how much supporters can contribute.



Gun-Control?



What about favoring allowing citizens to carry concealed firearms? Nope, Obama doesn't trust law-abiding trained citizens. He's even willing to increase the currently onerous Illinois restrictions of the purchase and possession of firearms.



Are you familiar with auto-loaders? They're also called semi-automatic guns. They were invented in the 1800s. They work like this: one trigger pull, one shot fired. They don't work like machine guns, or like military assault rifles (which were invented in WWII), and they don't work like machine pistols -- for these, instead, you just hold down the trigger. What do auto-loaders include? Many hunting rifles and shotguns, target pistols, and nearly all police firearms.



Well, bad news, Obama wants to pass laws to eliminate "all forms of semi-automatic weapons".
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So, there you have it. This is what the coming Obamination will look like: grim.



(H/T to my daughter's razor wit for the title.)

Today in History: February 20

• 1844 Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann born; father (with Willard Gibbs) of statistical mechanics; the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
• 1872 American inventor Luther Crowell patents a machine to make his folding (brown) paper bag, today's world standard.
• 1931 American mathematician John Milnor born; 1962 Fields, for differential topology on 7-dimensional spheres.
• 1934 American physicist Ernest Lawrence patents the cyclotron, the first particle accelerator; 1939 Nobel.
• 1945 Actor Brion James born; Leon: "Wake up! Time to die!"

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Attention Silicon Gulch Space Cadets

Want to lose weight without losing mass? Has skydiving become, what's that word, boring? Well, Pete Diamandis has an answer for you. Surely, you remember Pete? He created the X-Prize foundation and the Rocket Racing League.



Well, his new company, Zero Gravity just finalized an agreement with NASA to help you out.

"Commercial, weightless flights will be offered this weekend at Moffett Field, Calif., under the terms of an agreement with the Zero Gravity Corp, Las Vegas. Although corporation officials said the first flight scheduled Saturday, Feb. 16 is already sold out, additional flights will be scheduled later this year."

"Passengers aboard the aircraft will experience for brief periods the same weightlessness that the space shuttle astronauts encounter while orbiting the Earth, as well as the same gravity conditions they would experience on the moon and on Mars."

Hillary's "Gun Summit"

Hillary needed votes in Wisconsin. So, at a rally near Green Bay
at St. Norbert College she spoke about more regulations: on food
safety, and more importantly on private gun ownership. She said
the following in response to a question about the recent massacre
at Northern Illinois University.

“I believe we really should have a summit where
everybody comes together on all sides of this issue"

“Let’s figure out how we can be consistent with the Second
Amendment, which I wholeheartedly support, and do more to keep
people safe"

“I think we can do that, but it’s going to require us all to
maybe give a little..."

So, what does Hillary think "a little" is? And how do you think
she'll apply it to private gun ownership in order to stop
massacres in gun-free zones?



The last time she was "in office", her husband (with the help of
a Democrat-controlled Congress) banned thousands of ordinary
rifles that looked evil. Not the assault rifles the military
use, just ordinary rifles. But to make them sound evil, they
were called "assault weapons".



It's already a given that that 10 year ban, which expired 3 years
ago, will be coming back when either Hillary or Obama get
elected. But if she can ban these ordinary auto-loading rifles,
why wouldn't the solution to the gun-free zone massacre problem
mandate a ban of auto-loading handguns? I can't think of a
reason, why it wouldn't. After all, you could probably still buy
a revolver, so it would be "consistent with the Second
Amendment".

Today in History: February 19

• 1473 Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus born; heliocentric theory.
• 1626 Italian physician Francesco Redi born; disproved spontaneous generation of maggots in rotting meat.
• 1807 Former Vice President Aaron Burr is arrested for treason, in Alabama; acquitted.
• 1859 Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius born; 1903 Nobel, for his theory of electrolytes.
• 1942 FDR signs Executive Order 9066 which led to internment camps for Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast; some Italian- and German-Americans were also interned.
• 1945 30,000 Marines land on Iwo Jima; 20,703 Japanese and 6,825 Marines killed in action; more than a fourth of all Marines WWII Medals of Honor.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Sabrina Aero

What do you get when a 14 year old girl combines a Rolls Royce engine with parts from Continental and Superior? In one case, a Sabrina O-200A


For more of the story, check the 4 youtube links. There are a lot of teenagers out there that talk big. This is one who backs it up.

Social Darwinism

Researchers at Stanford University have done a study they claim proves that evolution not only can weed out unsuccessful genes, but also can operate on societies to weed out unsuccessful memes:

Deborah S. Rogers, a research fellow at Stanford, said their findings demonstrate that "some cultural choices work while others clearly do not."



"Unfortunately, people have learned how to avoid natural selection in the short term through unsustainable approaches such as inequity and excess consumption. But this is not going to work in the long term," she said. "We need to begin aligning our culture with the powerful forces of nature and natural selection instead of against them."

The intellectual leap between those two paragraphs could not be further. Time and again, the countries that allow "inequity and excess consumption" greatly outperform those that repress them by force. The free market works. I'm afraid that Ms. Rogers comes to the table without the proper scientific attitude. Reality simply is; the job of science is to observe it, not try to prove the biases of the researcher.



I guess I should just be happy that "Social Darwinism" is no longer assumed to be evil.

Today in History: February 18

• 1677 French astronomer Jacques Cassini born; proved stars move.
• 1745 Italian physicist Alessandro Volta born; invented the electric battery; the "volt".
• 1838 Austrian physicist Ernst Mach born; Mach 1.
• 1871 English metallurgist Harry Brearley born; invented stainless steel.
• 1901 English engineer Hubert Boot patents the vacuum cleaner.
• 1913 English chemist Frederick Soddy coins the term "isotope"; 1921 Nobel.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Calif. (NRA) Political Issues

The California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA) is the key NRA organization in California. The keynote speaker at this year's annual CRPA Members Banquet, held yesterday in Irvine, was General Chuck Yeager, USAF retired. He's the man who broke the sound barrier, in the Bell X-1.



Before Gen. Yeager gave his reminiscences talk, he mentioned the recent shootings in gun-free school zones. He thought it was outrageous that a bad guy could wander around a campus randomly picking targets because in a gun-free zone, no law-abiding citizen had the means to stop him. Yeager's definitely in favor of concealed carry on campus.



Sorry, but I'm not going to talk much about what Gen. Yeager said. Instead, I'm going to give you a glimpse into the political outlook at the dinner. Now, to be fair, while the CRPA is a hunting organization, it did mention concealed carry by law-abiding citizens in a positive light several times. But this wasn't what caught my attention.



The two main CRPA speakers at this annual awards Banquet, held yesterday in Irvine, were Tom Thomas, CRPA President, and John Fields, CRPA Executive Director.



Early on there was a theme of honoring veterans as heroes. The speaker had the veterans in the audience stand, and the banquet hall applauded long and loudly. Then, one of these two CRPA executives (I don't remember which one) extended this theme of honoring heroes by mentioning other people. All the way to calling CRPA staff members heroes. My thought? That was a very nice way to water down the heroes theme. I guess we're all heroes now. The result is captured nicely by this paraphrase, "And when everybody's a hero, nobody is."



Of course, the CRPA claims it does a tremendous job. They mentioned that the Katrina-inspired anti-confiscation law passed in California. But they didn't mention that the nation's first cartridge microstamping bill passed as well. Microstamping, if it remains law, will kill the gun industry in the state. And, of course, that is its intent. They didn't mention any problems they might have had, or how they failed to overcome those problems. As far as I could tell last night, the CRPA didn't know about the microstamping law getting passed.



The first award honoree was a Dept of Fish and Game (DFG) warden. He is also DFG's legislative liaison, which may have been why he was there. I'm sure he's a nice guy. But, I noticed that he had two main concerns. One was reptile poaching. I thought that this was interesting given that California isn't home to a lot of large reptiles. The other concern was the large amount of guns DFG had successfully confiscated this last year. This struck me as fascinating: that a guy from DFG would get up in front of an audience of gun-lovers and praise his agency's confiscation of guns.



Awards were also given to a couple members of our legislature, one each to a CA Senator and an Assemblyman. One of the two legislative awardees mentioned that the DFG wardens are grossly underpaid for the risks they undertake, and that there are just too few of them -- they are spread too thinly. Oddly, he also mentioned that as the audience is sure to know every year the hunting license fees go up. Now, maybe it's just me, but putting one and one together, one has to wonder where the money is going? New buildings? Management salaries? "Borrowed" to pay for the state's fiscal "crisis"?



Well, maybe the problem is that DEFG spends a huge amount of their budget in funding wacko environmental studies, such as the program to find out if the deer in California really use the highway underpasses that were built, at great expense, for them to use. Perhaps, the audience isn't expected to know about such budget uses. All in all, I wouldn't give these politicians high marks for intelligence. But maybe that's their view of their audience.



By the way, DEFG, isn't a typo. It refers to the Dept of (Environment,) Fish and Game. It makes sense. Just go to their web site. The DEFG is always on the lookout for more Environmental Scientists. Of course, if you're accepted, you'll have to "conduct extremely complex and difficult scientific investigations and studies", and eventually, you'll have to "develop courses of action". And the pay is good, too. In fact, to become a Senior Environmental Scientist at DEFG, you just need a B.S. in a field related to Environmental Science and a couple years time served at DEFG. Don't all apply at once.


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So, I just thought I'd bring you up to speed on what's happening in California on the 2nd Amendment front. The good news is that we are still allowed to own guns, at least for the moment. And maybe, in a crisis, they won't be confiscated.

The Father-Daughter talk

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.



One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, 'How is your friend Audrey doing?' She replied, 'Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a
2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.'

Her wise father asked his daughter,

'Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0? That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.'

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, 'That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!'

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, 'Welcome to the Republican party.'

If anyone has a better explanation of the difference between Republican and Democrat I'm all ears.

[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full post.]

Today in History: February 17

• 1600 Philosopher Giordano Bruno burned at the stake for heresy, in Rome, by the Vatican.
• 1801 Jefferson and Aaron Burr tie for president; House elects Jefferson P. and Burr V.P.
• 1856 American photographer Frederic Ives born; invented half-tone printing.
• 1864 H. L. Hunley: first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS Housatonic.
• 1888 German-American scientist Otto Stern born; 1943 Nobel for the 1922 Stern-Gerlach Experiment (Gerlach, a Nazi, lost).
• 1936 The Phantom's debut, the world's first comics superhero.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Connections: 106

style="margin-right:10px" src="http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TZEBIPrXeu4/default.jpg" title="Click on the image to play">Episode 6 of the original Connections.
(Click on the image to play — it will open in a separate window/tab)

Episode 1 | href="http://www.e3gazette.com/2008/01/connections-102.html">2 | href="http://www.e3gazette.com/2008/01/connections-103.html">3 | href="http://www.e3gazette.com/2008/02/connections-104.html">4 | href="http://www.e3gazette.com/2008/02/connections-105.html">5

Today in History: February 16

• 1771 Charles Messier presents his original list of 45 astronomical objects to French Academy.
• 1937 DuPont chemist Wallace Carothers patents nylon.
• 1956 Britain abolishes the death penalty.
• 1972 The Netherlands releases the Breda Three from prison, Germans responsible for the murder of 120,000 Jews.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Five Minutes of Waterboarding

[Don sent this into the tipline]



Did you know... that we spent less than 5 minutes (total!) waterboarding (all 3) terrorist detainees? Jonah Goldberg on waterboarding:

Yet none of these interrogations were the result of a "rogue" CIA or the mad whims of a "torture presidency." The relevant Democratic congressional leadership for intelligence — including current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, and former Sen. Bob Graham — were briefed on CIA operations more than once. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," Porter Goss, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee from 1997 to 2004 before becoming CIA director, told the Washington Post. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement."

As the Blogfather says, read the whole thing.

Cackle, Homeschooling?

Just because the gov't is giving out "free" schooling doesn't mean that you break the law if you don't "go along quietly". Instead, you can thank them for offering you that moldy bread and homeschool instead.



So, why would you do that? Two reasons: socialization and education. If you've kept up with current events, then you already know that private schooled kids have better tempers and more maturity than gov't (so-called public) schoolers; and that goes double for homeschoolers. They are the best-behaved and articulate students you're likely to find. They play well with kids their own age, or kids that are older, or kids that are younger. And when they're with adults, they behave like adults.



So, if you're thinking about taking up your local gov't on that offer of moldy bread, we homeschoolers just want you to know that we're worried about how your kids will ever get properly socialized. We don't see how spending hours hiding from the playground bullies, that gov't teachers claim is a "rite of passage", is all that conducive to growing up to be a calm and collected reasonable adult. (Oh, yours is the bully? Never mind.) As the Education Experts say, nothing teaches kids to learn to act like mature adults than to hang out with other kids their exact same age (for 12 years) -- just like in real life. Tee hee.



By the way, given the American separation of church and state, it turns out that you can homeschool even if you don't want to be religious about it. Most homeschooled families aren't doing it for religious reasons.



But what if you're not a credentialed teacher? How can you do a good enough job teaching? Well, there are three answers to this. The first is that you probably won't need techniques to corral 30 kids at a time. (I'm addressing only the small families -- under 20 kids. Heh.)


Secondly, you probably remember your two to four hours of hands-on driving instruction before you were put behind the wheel and sent to the store to get groceries. Teaching is about that difficult. And that's about what credentialed teachers know. You don't need lesson plans. You don't need curricula. You probably don't want those really bad textbooks that keep getting mandated by your state's bored [sic] of education. It turns out that if you're interested in the subject, then your kids likely will be too. The hardest part will be asking them to explain things to you rather than you lecturing things to them. If you talk, they might be listening. If they talk, you know what they've learned. Avoiding being over-burdening on them is the most difficult thing to learn. Kids naturally want to learn -- just maybe not what you want them to learn at the moment. (I'll get to math/science in a moment.)


Thirdly, if you'd really like a shock, it turns out that kids that are left to their own devices (with a lot of books and such lying around) will automatically learn on their own. You could act just like a credentialed 30-kid corraller, and just watch that they don't set the house on fire. This style of homeschooling is actually called "unschooling". There are books about it. It also works well, but it's very frightening at first.


What about testing? Well, some states want you to do more than what's done in gov't schools, and some states want less. But since different kids learn at different rates, you shouldn't be concerned about it. Focus on what they need, and if Johnny needs an extra year to learn something, that's fine. At least he'll be well-adjusted while doing it. And if Jill learns twice as fast, then she won't be bored out of her mind sitting in a class with squalling immature kids who just happen to be her same age.


Everyone (except that San Diego school teacher) can read and write -- so that's easy to teach. But what if you aren't that good at math or science? Well, you could brush up on it and stay a chapter ahead of your kids -- it's only through 12th grade after all, and you can spread it out over several years. Alternatively, you could have your kids read and then explain how it all works so that you'll finally get it. However, one common way that makes parents feel good is to join a group of homeschooling families, and have one of the parents who *is* good at the subject teach kids from the group. Homeschooler parents are typically very friendly, helpful, and well-behaved -- like their kids.


But how will the kids get into college? Fortunately, college's aren't altogether dumb. They are aware that homeschoolers are smarter, better trained, more well-behaved, and better motivated to learn. You just write up a school transcript, standard "course" names, think up some useful grades (hint, does your child know the material? Then it's an "A"), and check for merit scholarships.


I've left this last part last because it's the most difficult to face for many parents.

What if you both work for a living to make ends meet? One of you can't quit your job just to teach your kids. Besides, the gov't school is already "paid for". Good question. If you'd really like to get away from gov't schooling, but feel you can't, what you can do is have your kids perform their "homework" during the day while supervised (i.e., corralled) by the aunt, grandmother, or day-care sitter. Then the "lecture" portion of their learning can take place once you get home. Of course, this is an extra burden on you.
[Click on the title above, or date stamp below, to see the full post.]


Well they're your kids. What are you willing to give up so that they get a great education?

Why Gun-Free Zones?

Another guy off his meds massacred 5 people at college. A bunch of others were wounded.



The people concerned about gun violence claim the problem is guns. But I'm not so sure.



He didn't try to shoot up a police station.


He didn't try to shoot up a military base.


He didn't try to shoot up a gun store.


He didn't try to shoot up a gun show.


He didn't try to shoot up a shooting range.


He didn't even try to shoot up a donut shop.



So, what is it that makes gun-free zones so attractive?
That's a real stumper.

Today in History: February 15

• 1564 Italian mathematician Galileo Galilei born; father of telescopic astronomy.
• 1723 John Witherspoon born; signed Declaration of Independence.
• 1725 Abraham Clark born; signed Declaration of Independence.
• 1809 American inventor Cyrus McCormick born; invented first practical reaper.
• 1884 American engineer A. C. Gilbert born; created the Erector Set toy.
• 1942 English Singapore Falls, 80,000 soldiers surrender; Sook Ching massacre starts, Japanese murder ~50,000 Singaporan Chinese.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

No Excuse For Self-Defense?

There are people in America that think the Founders were ignorant and dangerous. They're the ones who think that free speech is vital, but only when they use it. If you use it, it's called "hate speech".



They are also the ones that think there is no excuse for self-defense. Just give the criminal whatever he demands. They think the Founders were crazy, and the 2nd Amendment is for the retarded. They don't trust you with a gun, any kind of gun; and (as in England) if you fight back then you're the bigger criminal; and soon they won't trust you with a kitchen carving knife.



Janet Reno is one of them. Remember her? Clinton's Attorney General. She's filed a "friend of the court" amicus petition in the 2nd Amendment Supreme Court case (D.C. v Heller). She has buddies, too. Lots of them.



They are the guns-only-for-government crowd. They include the American Bar Association. These lawyers don't trust trained law-abiding citizens with a gun. Then there are the University professors -- a bunch of history and linguistics profs; and some criminal justice profs. Then there is the American Academy of Pediatrics. These child doctors doesn't trust you either.



All these groups, and more, are claiming that the 2nd Amendment doesn't mean what it means, and that the government has the right to "infringe" on your right to "keep and bear arms" -- to the extent of keeping you from having a working gun for your own personal inside-the-home self-defense.



You want to know the details? You can find out here. This is a website linking the filed documents in the D.C. v Heller case. D.C. is the "Petitioner". Heller is the good guy, I mean the "Respondent".



Fortunately, Heller has some good company as well. For example, check out the "Retired Military Officers" amicus brief.



Know your enemies. Know your friends.

Something From Nothing

So, the boys (and probably some girls) at the CERN lab in Geneva are worried about the unclean vacuum. They're building a new particle accelerator. Why? Because it's going to accelerate really heavy atoms to really high energies. Their new toy is called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).



And why are they worried? Well, because then need to economize on tremendous amounts of electricity. So, they build their electro-magnets out of superconductors that take a lot less electricity. But to be superconducting, they need to be super-cooled. But the electro-magnets need to be right up next to the beam of particles (those heavy lead atoms) so the beam can be easily (and cheaply) controlled. The beams are in their own tube, or pipe, so that all the air can be gotten out of the beam's way -- a vacuum. The magnets keep the beam centered in the pipe so that beam atoms don't accidentally collide with the pipe walls.



So, what's the problem? Nothing. Nasty nothing. The nasty nothing that is a vacuum.



See, when the beam particle energies get high enough, sometimes a beam particle will reach into that vacuum like it was a closet and pull out a pair of brand new particles (an oppositely charged particle/anti-particle pair, usually an electron-positron pair). This is a well-tested effect of what's called the quantum vacuum energy, first predicted by Georges Lemaître in 1934. Usually, such a brand new pair of particles will annihilate themselves without any release of energy -- effectively going home, back into that vacuum closet.



Now here's the nasty part. In a beam environment like the LHC, the boys worried that when a new pair was pulled out of the closet the positron would immediately fly off (and not be much of a problem, it's too light). But the electron would glom onto one of the beam particles. That would change the particle's charge. That would change the particle's direction, and it too would fly off -- hitting the beam pipe. And with a heavy particle, that would cause the pipe to heat up a tiny amount. So, what's nasty? The number of beam particles that this would happen to. The amount of heating. If there is a bit too much, then the super-cooled superconductors no worky. And the plan is to have them at 1.9 K -- super-cold.



To figure out how much heating (or whether they were just screwy wrong), the boys at LHC took a trip to visit the boys at the Brookhaven Lab on Long Island where the fairly new Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC, "Rick") lives. The RHIC beam isn't as powerful as CERN's LHC will be. They found the heating -- a minuscule amount. But that was with a beam of middling weight copper atoms.



The bad news is that the vacuum closet's propensity to open up scales as the seventh power of Z (i.e., Z times Z times Z times Z times Z times Z times Z), the number of protons in the nucleus. Copper's Z is 29. Lead's Z is 82. That means about a 1,500 times bigger effect. The vacuum closet also opens easier with higher energies. LHC will be running about 100 times higher energy beams than RHIC. So the boys expect over 100,000 times more heating than seen at RHIC.



What does it all mean? The LHC boys will have to add extra cooling, because of something from nothing.[Ed.: Click on the title to see the full post]

Today in History: February 14

• 1869 Scottish physicist C.T.R. Wilson born; 1927 Nobel (with Arthur Compton) for the Wilson cloud chamber, for studying nuclear particles.
• 1894 Comedian Jack Benny born; supporter of racial equality, "Well!".
• 1989 Iranian leader Khomeini issues fatwa authorizing the murder of Salman Rushdie, for writing The Satanic Verses.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Medved: Talk Radio Dead

Under the title "SOUTH CAROLINA'S BIG LOSER: TALK RADIO", talk radio's Michael Medved wrote a Townhall piece that relegates Talk Radio to the ash heap of political influence.

The big loser in South Carolina was, in fact, talk radio: a medium that has unmistakably collapsed in terms of impact, influence and credibility because of its hysterical and one-dimensional involvement in the GOP nomination fight.

For more than a month, the leading conservative talkers in the country have broadcast identical messages in an effort to demonize Mike Huckabee and John McCain. If you’ve tuned in at all to Rush, Sean, Savage, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, and two dozen others you’ve heard a consistent drum beat of hostility toward Mac and Huck.

Medved backs up his estimate of Talk Radio's demise with SC exit poll data.

Among “Very Conservative” voters, however, Huckabee won handily (with 41%). Again, the Huck-and-Mac duo, representing talk radio’s two designated villains, swept 60% of the “Very Conservative” voters in very conservative South Carolina while Mitt and Fred combined for only 38% (22% for Thompson, 16% for Romney).

And with those details, Medved reiterates his conclusion, Talk Radio is dead, dead, dead.

In other words, even among the most right wing segment of the South Carolina electorate, talk radio failed – and failed miserably – in efforts to destroy and discredit Huckabee and McCain.

Well, okay, at the very end, he ameliorates his prognosis a bit.

In other words, the talk radio jihad against Mac and Huck hasn’t destroyed or even visibly damaged those candidates. But it has damaged, and may help destroy, talk radio.

The Obamathon Is On!

Will the Obamathon save America? That's the trillion dollar question.



America is a very sick place (please, no laughing in the bleachers). To help cure America, Barack Obama has been collecting pledges. The Obamathon is on! Nothing's certain but with a full nine month pregnancy ahead we think he'll be able to deliver a beautiful bouncing trillion dollars in pledges.



"So, what's the catch?", you ask. Well, for the Obamathon, the catch is that Obama is the one doing the pledging, and he is pledging your money. Not to worry, though. If you get a steady paycheck, it'll all come out automatically. A small price to pay for curing America.



Wow! Those crazy people over at the GOP have helpfully provided "thermometer" services to this year's Obamathon. Check out their cool graphic: "Barack Obama's Spend-O-Meter". As of this writing, he's at $850,350,000,000. Another $149,650,000,001 and he'll be over the top.

Pres-Race Glance: February 13

Dem:

Delegates Needed 2,208

1270 Obama
1231 Clinton

GOP:

Delegates Needed 1,259

804 McCain
285 Romney (dropped out)
240 Huckabee
 14 Paul

(From Real Clear Politics)

Reactionaries Reject Red Roses

I don't even know where to begin with this one:

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's religious police have banned red roses ahead of Valentine's Day, forcing couples in the conservative Muslim nation to think of new ways to show their love.

Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: "conservative" doesn't mean the same thing in Saudi Arabia as it does here.

Today in History: February 13

• 1766 English political economist Thomas Malthus born; established the geometric Malthusian population growth model.
• 1805 German mathematician Peter Dirichlet born; trigonometric convergence; invented the modern definition of a function, in 1837.
• 1910 American phycist William Shockley born; 1956 Nobel (with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain) for the transistor.
• 1912 American physicist Robert Millikan began his Oil Drop experiment, measuring the charge of an electron; 1923 Nobel.
• 1946 Demonstration of world's first electronic digital computer, ENIAC, by John Mauchly and Presper Eckert; included 17,468 vacuum tubes.
• 1974 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1970 literature Nobel, is exiled from the Soviet Union.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Today in History: February 12

• 1809 Charles Darwin born; coined "Natural Selection", "Survival of the Fittest"; wrote On the Origin of Species, and The Descent of Man.
• 1809 Abraham Lincoln born; saved the Union, freed the slaves.
• 1873 American paleontologist Barnum Brown born; discovered the first Tyrannosaurus rex fossil, in 1902.
• 1918 American physicist Julian Schwinger born; 1965 Nobel (with Richard Feynman and Shin-Itiro Tomonaga) for Quantum Electro-Dynamics (QED).
• 1924 George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue premieres, with Paul Whiteman's Orchestra in New York City.
• 1941 German-American biochemist Ernst Chain and Australian pharmacologist Howard Florey perform first human penicillin test; they shared the 1945 Nobel.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Today in History: February 11

• 1839 American mathematician/physicist/chemist Willard Gibbs; father of chemical thermodynamics and physical chemistry; invented vector analysis.
• 1847 American inventor Thomas Edison born; municipal electric power; practical electric light bulb; the phonograph; practical X-ray machine.
• 1898 Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard born; Martian; father of the Atom Bomb, discovered the chain reaction.
• 1915 American mathematician Richard Hamming born; Manhattan Project; invented error-detecting codes and correcting codes; head of Bell Labs computing research.
• 1922 Frederick Banting and Charles Best publish cure for diabetes, insulin.
• 1939 Lise Meitner and Otto Fritsch publish first paper on nuclear fission, in Nature.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Today in History: February 10

• 1785 French physicist Claude-Louis Navier born; the Navier-Stokes equations govern fluid and air flow.
• 1893 American actor Jimmy Durante born; the Schnozzola.
• 1902 American phycist Walter Brattain born; 1956 Nobel (with John Bardeen and William Shockley) for the transistor.
• 1967 The 25th Amendment ratified; presidential succession.
• 1996 IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeats world chess champion Garry Kasparov.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Connections: 105

Episode 5 of the original Connections.
(Click on the image to play — it will open in a separate
window/tab)

Episode 1 | 2 | 3| 4

Today in History: February 9

• 1911 William Darby born; formed and led Darby's Rangers, forerunners of the U.S. Army Rangers; posthumously awarded the rank of Brigadier General.
• 1928 American artist Frank Frazetta born; the most emulated science fiction artist in the world.
• 1950 Sen. Joe McCarthy gives his Wheeling (Lincoln Day) speech; claims to have a list of 57 communists in the State Department; on January 25, Alger Hiss, a senior level State Dept official, had been convicted as a Soviet spy.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Neighbors

To Whom It May Concern,



So, you say that you won't be voting for your party's nominee come this November. You know, I understand your wanting to punish Sen. McCain for the things he's done that you don't like. Lord knows, he's done a few doozies.



What I don't understand is why you want to deliberately punish the rest of the people who, through no more fault than yours, find themselves with a choice between Senators McCain and either Hillary or Obama. Just like you, during the primaries, these people voted for candidates other than McCain because they wanted the best candidate they could get. That makes them your neighbors, whether you realize it or not. They may be a minority in your party, but their your party neighbors.



And now they'll be voting for McCain because he is the best candidate they can get; the best candidate of their party that actually has a chance to win. But you're angry with McCain, with some of the things he's done. So you won't help your neighbors.



Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sorry because I believe that neighbors stick together; they help one another. Sure, it's your vote. But it's a selfish attitude, and one that can, and likely will, spill over into other parts of your life. It's more than just taking your ball and going home. It's pissing in the soup that others want to eat.



However, if that's what you do, I may not like it but I'll tolerate it. I don't like that kind of behavior, but I guess it's the best I can get from you at the moment. I hope you eventually learn to become more neighborly. I believe in helping my neighbors, even if it involves some of my own pain. I hope someday you'll believe in that, too.

McCain, Hillary, Obama: All Alike

I don't like what I've seen of Sen. John McCain over the last 4 years. He seems, to me, to be pompous and wear his ego on his sleeve. I don't like it. I prefer quiet dignity every time.



I've heard some pundits and bloggers during the campaign season declare that there is no difference between McCain and the Democrat candidates. This has been said in a variety of ways. I can think of a lot of things I think Sen. McCain has done that I don't like, but "no difference"? Really?



So, I thought I'd take a quick peek to see if the people that care believe this same thing. The question: Is there no appreciable difference between the three remaining candidates?



First, I checked with the standard conservative ratings source, The American Conservative Union (ACA). The ACU has a page devoted to how they rate congress, but it doesn't explain the details. Anyway, this is what the ACU had to say.

ACU Ratings:
 9% lifetime, 12% '05,  8% '06 -- Sen. Hillary Clinton
83% lifetime, 80% '05, 65% '06 -- Sen. John McCain
 8% lifetime,  8% '05,  8% '06 -- Sen. Barack Obama

Next, I checked with the standard liberal ratings source, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). The ADA says that each year it picks 20 key pieces of liberal legislation and scores the congressman on whether they voted for it. This is what the ADA had to say. (Apologies, but I didn't find a "lifetime" ratings page.)

ADA Rating:
95% '06, 100% '05 -- Sen. Hillary Clinton
15% '06,  10% '05 -- Sen. John McCain
95% '06, 100% '05 -- Sen. Barack Obama

Finally, to get a liberal lobbyist point of view, I checked with the folks at Electoral Vote. They have a page where they merge the ratings of 8 well-funded liberal groups: ACLU, ADA, CDF, LCV, NAACP, NARAL, PTA, SEIU. I call them the "8Lib" ratings. This is the 8Lib viewpoint as compiled by Electoral Vote, compiled from (mostly) 2005 data.

8Lib Rating:
95% -- Sen. Hillary Clinton
17% -- Sen. John McCain
98% -- Sen. Barack Obama

As you can see, the "no difference" pundits may not be the best judges of reality. You may not like Sen. McCain, but at least he's different.[Ed.: To see the full post, click on the title above, or the timestamp below.]

Today in History: February 8

• 1700 Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli born; Bernoulli's Principle for aerodynamics.
• 1828 French writer Jules Verne born; father of Science Fiction: wrote Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).
• 1834 Russian chemist Dmitry Mendeleev born; developed the Periodic Table; predicted several unknown Elements.
• 1904 Japan's surprise attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur, Manchuria, starts the Russo-Japanese War.
• 1906 American physicist Chester Carlson born; invented xerography in 1938, used by all laser printers.
• 1910 Boy Scouts of America founded; Be Prepared.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

McCain

Bill and I have had a spirited discussion over the past few day, in a form that could only exist in a post-analog world. It's skipped from email, to comments on other people's blogs, to phone calls and finally - for the moment - to here.

Bill has taken the position that McCain 1) really isn't all that bad, because really his policy positions aren't all that different from Bush's and 2) he's the only choice we have, so we'd better support him.

I've responded 1) are you kidding me, he's awful and 2) you may be right, but I'm getting a passport to some other country that speaks English and takes cash, so we have somewhere to run when the cities start burning.

I think it comes down to an old political aphorism, variously attributed to politicians ranging from Disraeli to Lyndon Johnson - "He's a son of a bitch - but he's OUR son of a bitch."

The problem is, I'm not at all sure that McCain IS our son of a bitch.

I can understand - and even applaud - him hewing to principle over party. He's stood firm against earmarks for years, opposing the GOP leadership as he did so. That was the right thing for him to do. I can understand him doing so even when he's utterly wrong. He was corrupt and got caught when he took money from Charles Keating. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was contrite, and that's why he wanted to "get the big special interests out of campaigns" and authored McCain-Feingold. I'll even go so far as to accept - for the sake of argument - that he genuinely believes that the de-industrialization of America will save the planet from a catastrophic 1 degree temperature increase, that would raise the oceans by inches and make Greenland green again - even if it means a 25% unemployment rate and hyperinflation. I can see someone thinking that that's a good trade off, even though I disagree.

But. (and there's always a but)

In 2004, why did he stand with John Kerry, against his party, his President and his fellow former POWs, calling them liars? Calling John "Jenjis Kahn" Kerry a hero, when REAL heroes were denouncing Kerry? What was in it for him - or for principle, or country, or humanity?

In Feb. 2005, why did he tell Tim Russert "I am sure that Senator Clinton would make a good president. I happen to be a Republican and would support, obviously, a Republican nominee, but I have no doubt that Senator Clinton would make a good president."

What was in it for him? What principle was he supporting? What good did it do the nation, or the world?

By then he knew that both he and Clinton would be running for President. Why would ANYONE running for office give that to their opponent?

There are a couple of possibilities.

John Sidney McCain III may be stupid. Not Chimpy McBushitler stupid, Bush graduated from Yale and has an MBA from Harvard, as Bill has said. Only a moron would think Bush is stupid.

McCain went to Anapolis. Most of the time we'd assume that just getting INTO Anapolis shows some strong native intelligence. But McCain was a legacy. His grandfather, John McCain I, was a 4 star Admiral, in charge of all carrier forces in the Pacific in WW2. His father, John McCain Jr, was a decorated Captain when young McCain entered the Academy, and made admiral in 1958, the year McCain graduated. Later, McCain Jr (the dad) made it all the way to the top, and became a four-star admiral and was made Commander in Chief, US Naval Forces, Europe.

McCain graduated 894th out of 899. It took him 2 1/2 years to get through flight training at Pensacola. Even though he'd show great heroism in his captivity in Vietnam - he was never promoted beyond Captain - 4 ranks below his father and grandfather.

The Navy knows him well. What do they know that we don't know?

There's another possibility. He may be insane.

He has demonstrated a tremendous capacity for self destruction throughout his life. While he says - reasonably - that he went to Anapolis because he wanted to prove himself to his family, his low standing seems to have been purposeful. He got more than 100 demerits each year, mostly for petty and intentional infractions like unshined shoes. One of the Navy airplanes he damaged actually hit power lines. He volunteered to fly bombing missions over heavily defended North Vietnamese targets. When he was returned to the US, he destroyed his marriage with a series of affairs.

In the Senate he's alienated fellow Republicans, calling them corrupt, racist traitors - even the ones who've agreed with him. He's alienated the party base, publicly flirting with changing parties. It's one thing to think about it privately. It's another to drop hints to the press.

Why does a man go out of his way to make enemies out of friends?

In his autobiography, he intimates that both his father and grandfather both drank heavily. Is he - like Bill Clinton - the adult child of alcoholics, about to drag us through 8 years of his unresolved, self destructive anger and shame?

We live in perilous times. The mullahs in Iran believe that Hillary is just a woman, and incapable of opposing them. They believe that Obama is a Muslim, and that as soon as they rid the world of the Jews that control America, he will help bring the western world under their control. I don't think they're right on either count but I don't want to see them have to prove themselves.

I think America's enemies view McCain the same way they viewed Reagan - as a man who will not hesitate to kill them.

The problem is - I'm not sure McCain hates them any more than he hates us, or himself.

[Ed.: This is long -- the full post is visible when you click on the title, but not on the front page.]

Disenfranchised!

Via Svin.

This is a story of political arrogance at it's worst. It is the untold story of how an anointed few have disenfranchised 99.9% of West Virginia's Republican Primary voters. In the past, this state's Republican primary contest was held in the spring and was open to all registered Republican voters. The balloting was typically preceded by weeks of mailings, phone calls, canvassings and the blossoming of the seasonal campaign signs in front yards and along the highway. I have been a registered Republican in this state since September 2001. I have voted in every election including primaries and local levy referendums. One would expect that when election procedures are to be radically altered, the electoral base would be notified...

But Noooooo!

Today in History: February 7

• 1795 The 11th Amendment is ratified; federal courts cannot hear a suit by a citizen against a state.
• 1812 English writer Charles Dickens born; wrote A Christmas Carol (Scrooge), The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities.
• 1812 The New Madrid Earthquake in Missouri; 7.9 magnitude, town destroyed, lakes drained, felt in Boston.
• 1877 English mathematician G. H. Hardy born; mentor to Ramanujan.
• 1883 Scottish-American mathematician Eric Temple Bell born; wrote Men of Mathematics.
• 1885 American writer Sinclair Lewis born; 1930 Nobel Prize; wrote Babbitt, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, Dodsworth, It Can't Happen Here.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Pres-Race Glance: February 6

Dem:

Delegates Needed 2,208

781 Clinton (up 379)
552 Obama (up 334)

Next up: LA, NE, WA on 2/9.



GOP:

Delegates Needed 1,259

531 McCain (up 351)
210 Romney (up 123)
151 Huckabee (up 122)
 11 Paul (up 3)

Next up: KS, LA, WA on 2/9.

Today in History: February 6

• 1886 German chemist Clement Winkler discovers the element germanium, called eka-silicon by Dmitry Mendeleyev in his 1871 prediction.
• 1895 American pitcher & fielder Babe Ruth born; greatest player of America's National Pastime.
• 1911 Ronald Reagan born; Eureka College student president, B.A. Economics, lifeguard, radio announcer, WWII Lieutenant, film actor, California governor, 40th President.
• 1927 American physicist Gerard O'Neill; invented particle accelerators with colliding-beams, doubling their energy; advocate of space colonization, wrote "The High Frontier".

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Some Pretty Math Visualizations

For the geometrically or mathematically inclined, you might find this web site interesting.

(Warning: while it has much which is interesting, a few political statements there are ill-informed.)

Today in History: February 5

• 1631 Puritan Roger Williams arrives in Boston from England; founder of the Separation of Church and State; founded Providence town and Rhode Island.
• 1725 Patriot James Otis born; leader of the Stamp Act Congress (1765); championed against no-warrant no-knock police entry; coined "No Taxation without Representation".
• 1840 Scottish inventor John Dunlop born; patented the pneumatic (air-filled) tire.
• 1840 American inventor Hiram Maxim born; patented hundreds of inventions, including the Maxim machine gun.
• 1914 English biophysicist Alan Hodgkin born; 1963 Nobel (with Andrew Huxley & John Eccles) discovering ionic chemical nerve cell excitation mechanism.
• 1962 Planetary "alignment"; the naked-eye planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn seen inside a 17 degree cone of view from Earth; they do so every 57 years inside a 25 degree cone or better. (The Moon is half a degree wide.)

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Sherlock is Real, Not Churchill

And who should know better than the British about their own
people -- er, legends? Well, apparently not they, themselves.
Here are a few of the results from a UKTV poll.



What percent of the British public think that these made-up characters are real?

• 65% King Arthur


• 58% Sherlock Holmes


• 51% Robin Hood


• 47% Eleanor Rigby

What percent of the British public think that these real people are fictional?

• 47% Richard the Lionheart


• 23% Winston Churchill


• 23% Florence Nightingale

Drew Carey Project: "Living Large"

Drew Carey explodes the MainScream-Media-driven myth of the middle class being "squeezed":

Today in History: February 4

• 362 Roman Emperor Julian promulgates his Tolerance Edict; equal rights to all the religions.
• 1703 The real Forty-Seven Ronin, except the messenger Terasaka Kichiemon, commit ritual suicide (AKA Chūshingura).
• 1789 First Electoral College unanimously elects George Washington first President.
• 1875 German physicist Ludwig Prandtl born; father of aerodynamics.
• 1915 Joseph Goldberger's clinical study to find the cause of Pellagra (blotchy skin, ennui, insanity, and death) begins; results usher in the concept of vitamins.
• 1941 American Roy Plunkett patents Teflon.

Yesterday | Tomorrow

"Don't Teach Children Patriotism" in the UK?

I stumbled across this indication of the demise of Britain.

Patriotism should be avoided in school lessons because British history is “morally ambiguous”, a leading educational body recommends.

Our Blogfather (or someone using his name and writing style) stopped by to put in his opinion on the subject...

Brutality and carnage have been a part of history since the first cells divided. Great Britain, more than any other nation, brought civility, decency, a genius for organization and a committment to fairness to a world without any of these things.

These transcendental values were manifested from the slime by a self-confident and fundamentally decent people whose philosophical, linguistic and commercial children are, almost alone, the shining success stories of the world. Where there is freedom, prosperity, security and law, there you will find the English language.

To throw that heritage away will be the only crime Britain needs to feel guilty of.

Personally, I find it another example of what Evan Sayet explained about the leftist mindset. Apparently, Britain can't be allowed patriotism, because it didn't end slavery, racial discord, poverty and all disease, ushering in a new Age of Perfection, the very moment James VI of Scotland ascended the English throne to unite all of Britain under one ruler. Or something like that. I suspect that even had that been done, the leftists could still manage to move the goalposts to point out any remaining imperfections, which of course would be exactly the same as the Holocaust, "honor killings", and other ills promulgated by other nations.

Connections: 104

Episode 4 of the original Connections.
(Click on the image to play — it will open in a separate window/tab)

Episode 1 | 2 | 3

Today in History: February 3

• 1468 German inventor Johannes Gutenberg dies; father of modern books, magazines and newspapers; invented movable type and the printing press.
• 1787 Shays' Rebellion (for tax relief) ends; key members captured in Petersham, Massachusetts; amnesty granted the following year; Jefferson writes "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing".
• 1870 The Fifteenth Amendment is ratified; one's race, or prior slavery, can't preclude voting rights.
• 1894 American painter Norman Rockwell born; illustrated everyday American life.
• 1913 The Sixteenth Amendment is ratified; Federal income tax.

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Today in History: February 2

• 1046 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records "no man alive...could remember so severe a winter"; start of the Little Ice Age which lasted until 1850.
• 1653 New York (as New Amsterdam) is incorporated.
• 1709 Alexander Selkirk is rescued from a desert island shipwreck; inspires book "Robinson Crusoe".
• 1795 French Directoire offers a prize of 12,000 francs for a method of preserving food and transporting it to its armies; Nicolas Appert won it in 1810 by inventing jar canning.
• 1933 Adolf Hitler disbands the Reichstag (parliament) 3 days after being appointed Chancellor; sets new elections for 6 March.
• 1980 NBC Nightly News breaks Abscam; FBI sting convicts U.S. Senator Harrison A. Williams (D-NJ), and U.S. Representatives John Jenrette (D-SC), Richard Kelly (R-FL), Raymond Lederer (D-PA), Michael "Ozzie" Myers (D-PA), and Frank Thompson (D-NJ).

Yesterday | Tomorrow

Why the 2nd Amendment?

Quote by Theodore Haas, a survivor of the Dachau death camp:

There is no doubt in my mind that millions of lives could have been saved if the people had not been "brainwashed" about gun ownership and they had been well armed. Hitler's thugs and goons were not very brave when confronted by a gun.

On the other hand, not to worry. The Founding Fathers were smart. It can't happen here, in America.



But the reason it can't is that there are still too many trained law-abiding citizens who have not been "brainwashed" about gun ownership. Join the crowd; get trained.

Today in History: February 1

• 1838 Swedish-American inventor John Ericsson patents the screw propellor, for ships.
• 1905 Italian-American physicist Emilio Segrè born; Nobel 1959 (with Owen Chamberlain) for discoverying the antiproton; discovered (by making) the 43rd element, Technetium, and the 85th element Astatine.
• 1908 Hungarian-American filmmaker George Pál born; Heinlein's Destination Moon (1950), When Worlds Collide (1951), and H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (1953) and The Time Machine (1960).
• 1911 First use of fingerprints as evidence; convicts murderer in Illinois.
• 1944 Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty discover DNA as the hereditary agent in a virus; founding molecular genetics.
• 1959 Texas Instruments patents the integrated circuit; ushering in computer chips.

Yesterday | Tomorrow