Arthur C. Clarke is mostly known as the “2001 A Space Odyssey” author but he was much more. One of my high school term papers was taken from his book “Interplanetary Flight.” In it, he was the first in semi-popular literature to discuss such things as escape velocity, orbital velocity and the concept of a geostationary satellite orbit. Interestingly enough, I cannot find reference to that book in his Wikipedia entry and Amazon.com had a later publication date than I remember. Maybe there was a second edition. Anyway, he was a great mind and we are better for his having lived.
Archive for March, 2008
Arthur C. Clarke is dead
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008Was the Airbus tanker deal a good one ?
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008Here is a contrary opinion from someone in the manufacturing business. I don’t know the answer. It was an Airbus plane that lost its vertical stabilizer over New York a month after 9/11, six years ago. The cause of that crash is still being debated but Airbus design was one aspect. There have been other examples of Airbus questions but Boeing has had its issues too. One example was the Japan Airlines 747 that suffered a catastrophic pressure bulkhead failure resulting in loss of the vertical stabilizer, just as in the Airbus crash. That airplane had previously been damaged in a hard landing and that may have contributed to the failure. The NTSB concluded that improper repairs by Boeing seven years before was the cause of that aircraft loss with 520 people.
We will eventually learn if this was a good deal for the Air Force. A previous Boeing scandal over a proposed lease of 767 tankers turned out to be a disaster with both Air Force and Boeing people going to jail and John McCain furious at both. Boeing was not going to get this contract.
The CIA has outlived its usefulness
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008I have been unhappy with the CIA for some time. This article from 2005 explains the reasons better than I can. The issue is raised once again because Michael Scheuer, the CIA’s former bin Laden hunter, has another book coming out. Anyone who wants to know where this began and why we are here, should read anything they can find from Lawrence Wright. Scheuer is a waste of time but understanding why might help to see why we were so unprepared.
The story of Iraq starts to come out
Monday, March 17th, 2008I have previously posted my questions about why Jay Garner, the retired Army general who had done such a good job with the Kurds prior to the invasion of Iraq, was dismissed so quickly after being assigned the same job in post invasion Iraq. I still don’t know that story but I think it involves a State Department takeover of planning. Now we know that Viceroy Paul Bremer did not even consult Bush before he disbanded the Iraqi Army. That now seems to have been a major blunder. I’d still like to now what happened with Garner.
Very good advice for McCain
Monday, March 17th, 2008This David Frum column summarizes a lot of my own thinking about Bush. He has missed opportunities, failed to explain his policies and allowed his enemies to define him. McCain must break free. Frum overstates the decline of the conservative base but they are demoralized by the debasement of the currency and the loss of initiative by the president.
Obama and black liberation theology
Monday, March 17th, 2008UPDATE: Whites, including Democrats
are turned off by Wright’s sermons but blacks are not.
Most voters, 56%, said Wright’s comments made them less likely to vote for Obama. That figure includes 44% of Democrats. Just 11% of voters say they are more likely to vote for Obama because of Wright’s comments.
However, blacks don’t respond the same way.
However, among African-Americans, 29% said Wright’s comments made them more likely to support Obama. Just 18% said the opposite while 50% said Wright’s comments would have no impact.
Hmmm…
The sermons of Obama’s minister, Reverend Wright, have upended the Democratic primary contest and exposed the ugly undercurrent of racism in the Democratic Party. I have previously linked to another column by Spengler on Obama’s mother’s philosophy. Now Spengler explains the black liberation theology that motivates Jeremiah Wright and which seems so odd to most white Christians.
James Cone, an academic black liberationist that Wright cites as an authority says:
Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants.
Here is the source of some of Wright’s rhetoric about the “white Romans” killing the “black Christ.” This has nothing to do with either Christianity or history. This sort of thing:
Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.
will not sound familiar to other Christians as having anything to do with religion, the Bible or Christianity.
It is also interesting in view of the level of black anti-Semitism that I first saw with my own nursemaid in the 1940s and which has continued with Jesse Jackson’s “Hymietown” remark. Maybe this all comes together in some steamy stew of self righteousness and sense of victimhood. It is now out into the Mainstream Media and Obama will have a hell of a time explaining it.
Socialism coming to a city near you
Sunday, March 16th, 2008George Will today, recounts a story about subsidized development in Phoenix as though it was a new thing. Apparently, Mission Viejo, California, where I live, is well ahead of Arizona in imaginative ways to spend taxpayer money. Mission Viejo has a shopping mall somewhat similar to the one in the Phoenix story. It was remodeled about ten years ago and the city agreed to subsidize the parking structure with city guaranteed bonds. This was controversial but the City Council at that time was dominated by a small group that was cozy with developers.
All this is due to the unhealthy attachment of small cities to sales tax revenue. Many years ago, cities were funded by property taxes. In California, the voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978 that froze property taxes by freezing assessment increases and by limiting the tax rate to 1 1/4 percent of assessed value. This action, which is often blamed for the reliance on sales tax revenue, did not occur in Arizona so it cannot be blamed for Phoenix’s subsidy of the shopping mall. In fact, 20 years ago, Arizona did not have a sales tax.
What we see is the compulsive need for any government entity to spend money. Why would anyone sit on a city council merely to preside over a stable budget and fiscal responsibility ? Instead we see council members naming new public buildings after themselves. We finally got an ordinance barring the practice for sitting officials but it took a hotly contested election to do so. We see council members doing favors for friends who just happen to contribute to their campaign funds. Sometimes they overrule their own planning commission to do favors for friends from church or other social groups. That happened here a few years ago after weeks of work and public hearings by the planning commission. All for naught. It doesn’t make the newspapers, at least the real story doesn’t, so the stories cannot be linked here.
If this where new public officials learn their politics, no wonder the country is in the shape it is.
Vietnam II
Saturday, March 15th, 2008UPDATE: The good guys are watching and recording all that went on. This account will eventually lead to debunking although the account suggests there was little other than weeping and complaining. No real atrocities were described.
The left cannot give up its childish illusions and and so they have returned to their past with this exercise in lying propaganda. This will be debunked but the solemn coverage here shows how badly they want to go back.
Of course, John Kerry cannot escape his record of complicity in the previous “Winter Soldier” media circus. That was thoroughly debunked but it took years to track down all the phony soldiers and their lies. By that time, the story was part of the history of the war.
I wonder if the debunking will be any more effective. The public perception of the war has changed and the left hasn’t yet noticed.
Of course, they and their media friends have no interest in this report showing how Saddam’s connections to al Qeada were discounted by anti-Bush leaks and dishonest reporting. Nobody cares anymore.
The evolution of Iran
Friday, March 14th, 2008The recent election in Iran is part of what an Iranian scholar calls a creeping coup d’Etat. The Revolutionary Guards are taking over as Iran becomes a military dictatorship. This might even be an improvement if these men are more rational then the clergy who seem to yearn for martyrdom. Whatever it is, it is not democracy.
Maybe this is evidence of sanity. Kissinger said at Davos, “the Iranian government has to decide if they are a cause or a state.”
UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt interviewed Robin Wright on her new book about the middle east, an interview worth reading. I may get the book, as well. It sounds powerful.
The Spitzer story
Thursday, March 13th, 2008Spitzer is a thoroughly nasty person from everything I have read about him. This story sounds about right and I wonder which of the “difficult clients” he resembled. I’ve never been rich enough to be one of her customers.