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Friday, August 05, 2005

A GOOD MAN DIES

Steven Vincent was murdered in Iraq earlier this week. He was a free-lance reporter who lived on a shoestring in order to maintain his independence. He hadn’t the resources for fortified hotels, bullet-proof vests, or bodyguards. The evil that stalks the streets of Iraq finally caught up with him last Tuesday. It’s quite possible that his murder was precipitated by the publication of his last Op-Ed in which he reported that the police force of Basra is being infiltrated by unregenerate Islamists, under the noses of the British military, who seem to be taking the same view of extremist Islam that the authorities back home in London do.

Fearing to appear like colonial occupiers, they (the Brits) avoid any hint of ideological indoctrination: in my time with them, not once did I see an instructor explain such basics of democracy as the politically neutral role of the police in a civil society. Nor did I see anyone question the alarming number of religious posters on the walls of Basran police stations. When I asked British troops if the security sector reform strategy included measures to encourage cadets to identify with the national government rather than their neighborhood mosque, I received polite shrugs: not our job, mate.

The results are apparent. At the city’s university, for example, self-appointed monitors patrol the campuses, ensuring that women’s attire and makeup are properly Islamic. “I’d like to throw them off the grounds, but who will do it?” a university administrator asked me. “Most of our police belong to the same religious parties as the monitors.”

....Meanwhile, the British stand above the growing turmoil, refusing to challenge the Islamists’ claim on the hearts and minds of police officers. This detachment angers many Basrans. “The British know what’s happening but they are asleep, pretending they can simply establish security and leave behind democracy,” said the police lieutenant who had told me of the assassinations. “Before such a government takes root here, we must experience a transformation of our minds.”

Say a prayer Steven Vincent’s family and friends….and for Iraq.

Posted by Earl on 08/05 at 11:19 AM
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MAJOR NEW ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIND IN JERUSALEM

Many Christians may not be aware that most scholars now discount the Bible story about David and Solomon’s kingdom.

The discovery is likely to be a new salvo in a major dispute in biblical archaeology: whether the kingdom of David was of some historical magnitude, or whether the kings were more like small tribal chieftains, reigning over another dusty hilltop.

But, earlier this year EILAT MAZAR began to dig in East Jerusalem - choosing the spot based on the Biblical text and her own deductions. Now,

An Israeli archaeologist says she has uncovered in East Jerusalem what may be the fabled palace of the biblical King David.

Of course, since her views on the Bible are so contrary to the reigning orthodoxy, it’s necessary to put her work in perspective.

Her work has been sponsored by a conservative Israeli research institute and financed by an American Jewish investment banker who would like to prove that Jerusalem was indeed the capital of the Jewish kingdom described in the Bible.

I’m always (somewhat bitterly) amused that it’s only the Bible-believers who are subject to these sorts of revelations about their funding sources…..as if other groups providing funds for archaeology (and other things) don’t have a point of view they’d like to support. Be that as it may, this is a really exciting find.

The building can be reasonably dated by the pottery found above and below it. Ms. Mazar found on the bedrock a large floor of crushed limestone, indicating a large public space. The floor and fill above it contain pottery from Iron Age I of the 12th to 11th centuries B.C., just before David conquered Jerusalem.

Above that, Ms. Mazar found the foundations for this monumental building, with large boulders for walls that are about 2 yards thick and extend at least 30 yards. In one corner was pottery of Iron Age II, the 10th to 9th centuries, roughly the time of the united kingdom.

READ the whole thing (Hat-Tip: KLo at the Corner)

UPDATE: I’m not the only one to notice the double standard. HERE is someone else complaining about it.

UPDATE 2: Here’s the response of a colleague who has considerable experience in the area: both academically and geographically: “Undoubtedly this will add fuel to the “crisis” and debate over the tenth century. Unfortunately, the article leaves me with a lot of questions as popular reports like this always do. One thing stood out. Without a floor this building will be very difficult if not impossible to date. Let’s hope for more data as the work continues.”

Posted by Earl on 08/05 at 11:01 AM
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I HAVE ENORMOUS ADMIRATION FOR PEOPLE WHO MAINTAIN PERSPECTIVE

And today’s nominee for the “Perspective Person of the Year” (I made up the category just now) is TOMIKO MORIMOTO WEST

“I never, never, never hated the Americans,” said West, who now lives near Poughkeepsie and is married to a former G.I.

Why is this remarkable? Because Tomiko lived in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped. WHAT an opportunity for “perspective”!

West, now 73 and a retired Vassar College lecturer, believes the atomic bomb that robbed her of her family and her innocence saved countless lives - Japanese and American.

“If it was not for the atomic bomb, we [Japanese] were in such a mental state, we would have fought until the last person,” said West, who was taught as a little girl how to fight with a sharpened bamboo stick in the event of an invasion.

READ the whole thing (Hat Tip: the Corner)

Posted by Earl on 08/05 at 10:41 AM
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Wednesday, August 03, 2005

I LOVE CATS—THOUGH NOT THE INDOOR TYPE

However, it certainly paid off in this case.

Posted by Earl on 08/03 at 12:55 PM
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AT NASA, ECO-FREAKISM TRUMPS SAFETY

I know it’s hard to believe, and this is science, so there’s no proof…...but the evidence is definitely there.

But the root cause for both the disintegration of the shuttle Columbia due to thermal tiles damaged by chunks of insulating foam falling off the large external fuel tank, the earlier loss of Challenger, and the repetition of the foam problem with Discovery, may be the decision imposed on NASA to use parts and materials that were more environmentally friendly.

But, how do we KNOW that Columbia went down because of the new foam….? We don’t KNOW, of course, but it’s a really good bet!

In 1997, during the 87th space shuttle mission, similar tile damage occurred during launch. NASA’s Greg Katnik stated in his December 1997 review of the problems of STS-87: “During the STS-87 mission, there was a change made on the external tank. Because of NASA’s goal to use environmentally friendly products, a new method of ‘foaming’ the external tank had been used for this mission and the STS-86 mission.”....Hannes Hacker, an aerospace engineer and former flight controller at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, states: “The risk of a piece of debris falling off and causing significant damage to the shuttle’s thermal protection system was 10 times greater with the new material than the old material.”

But, if that was known, why didn’t they go back to the old foam? There’s no way to know for certain, but examining the reason for the original decision isn’t reassuring.

NASA was just responding to pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency to stop using Freon, a fluorocarbon that greenies claim damages the ozone layer, in the manufacture of its thermal-insulating foam. But the politically correct foam was known to be less sticky and more brittle under extreme temperatures….Indeed, NASA found in 1997 after the first launch with the politically correct substitute that the Freon-free foam had destroyed nearly 11 times as many of the shuttle’s ceramic tiles as had the foam containing Freon.

And it’s not just the foam! Earlier experience with disaster apparently didn’t penetrate the “green fog” surrounding the decision-makers at NASA:

Similarly, the explosion of the Challenger after hot gasses burned through an O-ring joint on one of the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters came after NASA was encouraged to use a new type of putty to protect the O-rings — one that didn’t contain particles of environmentally unfriendly asbestos….NASA was forced to obtain a more environmentally friendly putty from a New Jersey company, but almost immediately problems were noted. A July 23, 1985, memo by budget analyst Richard Cook warned about new burn-through problems with the O-rings.

Again, we don’t KNOW that it was the new putty, but the evidence surely points that way:

“Engineers have not yet determined the cause of the problem,” Cook wrote. “Candidates include the use of a new type of putty.” Six months later the Challenger blew up, killing its crew, as hot exhaust gases burned through the brittle asbestos-free O-ring putty.

Malcolm Ross, who studied asbestos as a research scientist for 41 years at the U.S. Geological Survey, noted that, about the same time, the Air Force had two launch failures with its Titan 34-D rockets after 50 straight launch successes before substituting for the asbestos-based putty.

Two shuttles, plus more than a dozen of our finest citizens—apparently sacrificed at the altar of environmental correctness

This makes a wonderful argument for private space exploration. Any corporation operating in the U.S. would have been slapped with a culpable negligence suit by the families of the dead astronauts in these situations, and I cannot imagine a jury that wouldn’t have voted a large award! But, you can’t sue the government—and the decision-makers know that, at least subconsciously.

No, I cannot imagine anyone allowing themselves to actually say it, even in their heads…..“Gee, since we started using this new foam, pieces are just falling like snowflakes during launch…..and we lost our shuttle and its crew—maybe…...NAH! the environmental wackos would murder us in the press! Let’s just take the risk—after all, *I* won’t be up there!”

On the other hand, what WAS going through their minds when they sent the most recent shuttle up with the same foam that had already killed the crew of the Challenger, and is known to distintegrate 10X faster than the old stuff?

Posted by Earl on 08/03 at 12:07 PM
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GLO-BULL WARMING IN CALIFORNIA’S CENTRAL VALLEY

COWS, not CARS? That’s the word from California’s San Joaquin Valley, where 2.5 million dairy cows live, and a 15% increase is expected in the next several years. The air is dirty down there:

The San Joaquin Valley, Houston and Los Angeles have the three worst air-pollution problems in America. Their relative rank varies from year to year depending in part on weather conditions. Over the last six years, however, the San Joaquin Valley has violated the federal limit on ozone smog over an eight-hour period more than any other region. That “eight-hour standard” is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s main barometer for the severity of smog.

And cows are certainly “emitters”

Every year, the average dairy cow produces 19.3 pounds of gases, called volatile organic compounds, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District said. Those gases react with other pollutants to form ground-level ozone, or smog.

Of course, this is “science”, so there is no unanimity to be found:

“Science is supposed to guide this regulation, not fairy dust,” said Michael Marsh, chief executive officer of Western United Dairymen, a lobbying group that said it was considering a lawsuit to block regulations based on the new finding. “It’s impossible to capture emissions that scientists can’t even detect.”

Air-quality regulators defended their estimate as a conservative one based on the best available research. But it was criticized by some scientists — including one whose work was used by the district to arrive at the figure.

“If you closed all the dairies in California tomorrow, you would not see much of an impact on ozone formation,” said the scientist, Frank Mitloehner of UC Davis, who was hired by air-quality officials to study cow emissions and now contends his findings were misconstrued.

“We really don’t have the science to back this number up,” he said.

So what IS driving this move against the agriculture industry? You may have guessed it:

“We need immediate regulation now. We know the pollutants are coming off these dairies,” said Tom Frantz, a native of Shafter, Calif., who heads a group called the Assn. of Irritated Residents. He says that he developed asthma in the last five years as factory dairy farms moved into the region. “Ag hasn’t been regulated in the past, but times are changing. Our lungs will not become an agricultural subsidy.”

Having watched as people moved to the “wine country” in Napa County, only to immediately begin complaining about the noisy frost-protection machines in springtime, or the agricultural chemicals being used, or the pickers working by aritifical light into the early morning hours, I’m a bit skeptical of those who choose to live in an agricutural area, but who wish that agricultural inconveniences wouldn’t occur in their own back yard. READ the whole thing….

Posted by Earl on 08/03 at 11:38 AM
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