She Blinded Me! With Science!
A few things, on a few different topics. Read on.
* * *
A few words about politics.
As I've mentioned before, I think that the Republicans have several extremely strong candidates. When I can get a letter written, I'm going to make a small donation to Senator McCain's campaign, but I would be comfortable with Senator McCain, Senator Thompson, Mayor Giuliani, Governor Romney, or Governor Huckabee as the nominee. I remain dismayed at what I see to be remarkably low quality in the Democrats who are running.
Governor Huckabee has released his first campaign video, and while it may be a bit too comical for its ultimate purpose, I think that it may have a positive effect by highlighting Governor Huckabee's credentials while showing his personality.
One of the criticisms of Senator Dole in 1996 was that he didn't show a sense of humor or much personality until after the election had concluded - appearing on Saturday Night Live and various other talk shows. As a result, we've seen a big shift since then, with many candidates from both parties appearing on late night talk shows in particular in order to show a more personal side to the electorate. I think this video could accomplish that early for Governor Huckabee. He appears to be running ahead in some polls, although the overall picture suggests that the race is still wide open.
One thing worth noting is the disproportionate amount of coverage Governor Romney is getting for being Mormon. Now, I think that Governor Romney's faith is an issue - I do. I'm about as much of an expert on Mormonism as one can be without actually being Mormon. I have issues, many issues with the Mormon faith, but the bottom line is that Governor Romney's values are of more import than his theology. Now, if the media wants to bring up Governor Romney's political positions, some of which have changed considerably, I think that's legitimate. I'm not one of those bloggers who spends every post railing against the evils of the mainstream media, but every time that the old media makes Governor Romeny's faith an issue, it demonstrates its inherent bias and lack of journalistic integrity. The mainstream news outlets can do better than this - they choose not to due to either bias or laziness, and it's not fair to Governor Romney.
As far as the race amongst the Democrats goes, Senator Clinton's lead appears to be eroding. Senator Obama is leading in Iowa polls, and if Senator Clinton doesn't finish first or a very close second in Iowa, she's going to have a difficult time attempting to recover. In the last couple of months, I've spoken with several staunchly left wing friends, all of them young women, who have said that electing Senator Clinton to the presidency would be completely unacceptable. I know that this evidence is anecdotal, but to me, it's indicative of the relative lack of overall support that Senator Clinton actually has. People have claimed that all democrats and all women are going to vote for her, but I've been saying for several years now that that's not the case.
Okay, look at it this way. Senator Clinton's supporters think that she'll receive support from all Democrats, and from the majority of women. However, they appear to ignore the fact that many feminists won't vote for her because of her reaction to President Clinton's affairs, and centrists and moderate women won't support her because she's pro-abortion (not pro-choice, pro-abortion), not to mention her weakness and inexperience on national security issues. The majority of men don't like her, at all, for any number of different reasons. She'll also lose a lot of the anti-war voters because she voted for the war, and now her answer to those questions is to somehow imply that President Bush tricked her or something. Further, Senator Clinton has a great deal of political and legal baggage, much of which is completely or largely unrelated to the considerable political baggage that President Clinton carries. A mere taste of this, and one that could very well come into play in a big way if Senator CLinton receives the nomination, can be seen below.
I still believe it's likely that Senator Clinton will receive the nomination, but she is in no way bulletproof, and if she does indeed get the nomination, I honestly believe that she'll have an uphill battle against any of the top five candidates, based on her level of experience alone. Honestly, can you imagine a debate between Senators Clinton and McCain (just for example) if things continue to improve in Iraq? Senator Clinton, a one and a half term senator with no other actual qualifications or job experience who voted for the Iraq War before she backtracked; versus Senator McCain, a decorated war hero with the better part of thirty years experience as a senator who supported the Iraq War straight through and recommended the surge when such a move was unpopular? Or against Governor Huckabee, a dynamic orator with no personal or political baggage and real experience running a state? Or Mayor Giuliani, a moderate conservative who has real experience not only in the justice department, but who cleaned up New York City?
I think it's going to continue to be an exciting race to watch, and I'm nowhere near as terrified of a democrat win as I was a few months ago. Now if President Bush could only get that dollar back up in value...
* * *
I originally posted the first paragraph of this section with Thursday's news post, but decided to pull it and post it here with a number of other archaeology/science-related articles that I've been saving up.
The European Space Agency is putting the finishing touches on the Jules Verne, their partner to the Russian Progress supply ships. The ESA craft will deliver supplies to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, images from Mars have located current and inactive probe landers - very cool, particularly finding the old Viking landers from the 1970's.
A cave sacred to the ancient Romans has been discovered beneath Rome's Palatine Hill (AP, BBC, Guardian) (see the final line of the above exchange between myself and Friar Dave) - very cool, and somewhat reminiscent of the 1999 discovery of Roman ships buried in Pisa, and the possible discoveries of Atlantis near Spain and near Cyprus. Also, in a story I didn't see until a while ago, excavations in Rome may have revealed the tomb of the Apostle Paul.
On an island off the coasts of Iraq and Kuwait, archaeologists are exploring an outpost used by Alexander the Greek. In Turkey, a massive statue of Emperor Hadrian, the legendary Roman leader, has been discovered. Another great discovery is that of a viking long boat in England, found - where else? - underneath a pub!
Back in April, scientists announced the discovery of a mineral remarkably similar to literary and film descriptions of Kryptonite.
Back in September, the AP reported on a project aimed at archiving the world's dying languages. Throughout history, there have been many, many languages that have gone extinct, and I think that's very unfortunate; although these languages don't necessarily retain much utility (hence their decline), any effort to retain as much of the sum total of human knowledge as possible is a good thing in my book. Meanwhile, the Brits have developed a method that will allow scientists to read otherwise unreadable ancient documents.
* * *
Here's another recent conversation with the Crypto King, who recently moved with his wife and kids (Geki-K and Chick Magnet) out to the West Coast.
* * *
A few defense/security related stories; after all, that's my bread and butter, right?
There's been a lot of buzz since early September regarding the Israeli air strike on a building in the Syrian desert. Nobody seems to want to talk about it - the Syrians have claimed it was an empty, unused building, the Israeli government has scarcely acknowledged that the raid happened. Evidence suggests that the "vacant building" was tied to undeclared Syrian nuclear activity; one expert believes that it was a Syrian nuclear bomb factory.
I think I'm going to end up writing an article about this subject, but I'll mention it here briefly. Reminiscent of this article that I posted a few months ago, Military.com also has an article about the new Air Force utility uniform. Apparently the uniforms do a poor job of helping Airmen in desert climates expel heat, and Airmen have taken to removing the internal map pockets in order to mitigate the heat retention inherent in these added layers of material. In addition, the "digital tiger stripe" pattern, while sort of cool, is reminiscent of the ACU color pattern used by the Army. This is really frustrating because our guys deserve the best possible uniforms and equipment that we can give them. The color schemes of the ACU and ABU uniforms, while possibly effective as camouflage in some areas, have no utility for camouflage in the desert - they don't, that's just the way it is. Also, the vast, grand majority of Air Force personnel don't need internal map pockets in their uniforms - these map pockets could be easily incorporated into specialized versions used by the Air Force Special Operations community. Meanwhile, the Marines continue to be happy with the MARPAT utility uniforms. Go figure.
There are more questions as to the situation in Afghanistan; one report claims that the Taliban have a permanent presence in fifty-four percent of Afghanistan. NATO continues to debate the level of effort and tactics to be used in Afghanistan (1, 2). In one barely-believable story, NATO allies appear to be squabbling amongst each other over Germany's inability to conduct night operations; Germany is one of many NATO nations that have severely restricted their troops' ability to so much as entire hostile areas, leaving the lion's share of heavy combat in Afghanistan to the Brits, the Canadians, the Dutch, and the Americans. (For the record, I believe that Germany's very presence in Afghanistan is a big step in the right direction, as I noted in this article.) Meanwhile, American forces are making contingency plans for supplying forces in Afghanistan in the event that the situation in Pakistan deteriorates further; elsewhere, the new Japanese Prime Minister has vowed to resume Japan's Afghan naval fueling mission.
A couple other stories: there's some level of disagreement as to how many F-22 fighters the Air Force needs. This is a tough sell for me, because the United States military is getting much more mileage out of aircraft designed for close air support, like the A-10 Thunderbolt II, the AV-8B Harrier, and the AC-130 Spectre. As far as the immediate need for squadron upon squadron of F-22 Raptor aircraft, I honestly don't see it. However, we continue to face the looming juggernaut of the People's Liberation Army - which is not to say that we're going to go to war with China, but then again, we never techncally went to war with the Soviet Union, either. Given that establishing air superiority will be essential in any conflict with China (or other nations like Iran, although it's likely that their stock of disintegrating F-14's wouldn't survive the initial hours of an air war). The Iraq War, and the efforts to combat the IED menace, have proven that while research and development can be ramped up, there's still a time curve that must occur - things don't happen overnight. So, like I said, this one's a tough sell, because as far as current and projected operations are concerned, the Air Force would do well to acquire more aircraft optimized for close air support. That tends to be a mission that most of the core leaders in the Air Force look down upon, focusing instead on air superiority and technologically sophisticated fighter aircraft. However, it's not out of the question that the Air Force could require a large inventory of F-22 aircraft within the foreseeable future. This is one to watch in the future.
Just because it's related, it's worth noting that there are rumblings that the F-22 might be sold to Japan (link), and apparently South Korea may be interested as well, although a State Department statement from July indicates that this may be a red herring; here's another link. Now, I realize those links are old, but I've seen another link within the last few days, so maybe the ban was lifted? I don't have a solid answer on that one.
Speaking of air power, there appears to be Congressional dissent on arms sales to Saudi Arabia. According to the Congressional statements:
And finally, there's an interesting article from the Guardian about one soldier's book about Chechnya. The article's worth a read if you have any interest in Russian affairs and military history.
* * *
I've been thinking a lot about my faith lately; I'm not sure quite what inspired it, but I've been listening to studies by Steve Gregg and sermons by Ashley Day lately, and researching to see whether or not there are any monastaries within driving distance that offer retreat opportunities. I've also been researching Episcopal churches in the area - somehow, I figure that an Episcopal church in a heavy military area is likely more orthodox than the denomination as a whole. For some reason, this all reminded me of a poem that Friar Dave wrote last year, that I'll reproduce here without his permission (knowing full well that he'll have no problem with it).
* * *
That should do it for today. Tomorrow I'll present the November 2007 edition of Stuff Fly Wants, which will be forwarded to my parents in abbreviated form as a Christmas wish list since they're not really onboard with the "Fly doesn't celebrate Christmas" concept. On Wednesday or Thursday, I hope to have either one of two articles started, which will mirror the article for this Sunday's submission for my parallel writing endeavour. This week's article will either be on the extent and legitimacy of the "Axis of Evil", or on giving our soldiers better uniforms.
Also, I realized after I posted the article last week that I referenced the picture of the cross being restored to St. John's Church in Baghdad without actually posting the picture. I don't want to go through the hassle of contacting someone about permission to use the image (since my the folks I write for already did that for the actual article), so I'll link to Michael Yon's article that displays the picture. Go check it out - it's really worth seeing, every bit as iconic as those pictures of the Iraqis with the purple fingertips from early '05.
Alright, folks, your decadent four day weekend is over (save for Mighty Mo, who worked on Friday just like I did). Have a great day - at work - and stay tuned for more throughout the week.
A few words about politics.
As I've mentioned before, I think that the Republicans have several extremely strong candidates. When I can get a letter written, I'm going to make a small donation to Senator McCain's campaign, but I would be comfortable with Senator McCain, Senator Thompson, Mayor Giuliani, Governor Romney, or Governor Huckabee as the nominee. I remain dismayed at what I see to be remarkably low quality in the Democrats who are running.
Governor Huckabee has released his first campaign video, and while it may be a bit too comical for its ultimate purpose, I think that it may have a positive effect by highlighting Governor Huckabee's credentials while showing his personality.
One of the criticisms of Senator Dole in 1996 was that he didn't show a sense of humor or much personality until after the election had concluded - appearing on Saturday Night Live and various other talk shows. As a result, we've seen a big shift since then, with many candidates from both parties appearing on late night talk shows in particular in order to show a more personal side to the electorate. I think this video could accomplish that early for Governor Huckabee. He appears to be running ahead in some polls, although the overall picture suggests that the race is still wide open.
One thing worth noting is the disproportionate amount of coverage Governor Romney is getting for being Mormon. Now, I think that Governor Romney's faith is an issue - I do. I'm about as much of an expert on Mormonism as one can be without actually being Mormon. I have issues, many issues with the Mormon faith, but the bottom line is that Governor Romney's values are of more import than his theology. Now, if the media wants to bring up Governor Romney's political positions, some of which have changed considerably, I think that's legitimate. I'm not one of those bloggers who spends every post railing against the evils of the mainstream media, but every time that the old media makes Governor Romeny's faith an issue, it demonstrates its inherent bias and lack of journalistic integrity. The mainstream news outlets can do better than this - they choose not to due to either bias or laziness, and it's not fair to Governor Romney.
As far as the race amongst the Democrats goes, Senator Clinton's lead appears to be eroding. Senator Obama is leading in Iowa polls, and if Senator Clinton doesn't finish first or a very close second in Iowa, she's going to have a difficult time attempting to recover. In the last couple of months, I've spoken with several staunchly left wing friends, all of them young women, who have said that electing Senator Clinton to the presidency would be completely unacceptable. I know that this evidence is anecdotal, but to me, it's indicative of the relative lack of overall support that Senator Clinton actually has. People have claimed that all democrats and all women are going to vote for her, but I've been saying for several years now that that's not the case.
Okay, look at it this way. Senator Clinton's supporters think that she'll receive support from all Democrats, and from the majority of women. However, they appear to ignore the fact that many feminists won't vote for her because of her reaction to President Clinton's affairs, and centrists and moderate women won't support her because she's pro-abortion (not pro-choice, pro-abortion), not to mention her weakness and inexperience on national security issues. The majority of men don't like her, at all, for any number of different reasons. She'll also lose a lot of the anti-war voters because she voted for the war, and now her answer to those questions is to somehow imply that President Bush tricked her or something. Further, Senator Clinton has a great deal of political and legal baggage, much of which is completely or largely unrelated to the considerable political baggage that President Clinton carries. A mere taste of this, and one that could very well come into play in a big way if Senator CLinton receives the nomination, can be seen below.
I still believe it's likely that Senator Clinton will receive the nomination, but she is in no way bulletproof, and if she does indeed get the nomination, I honestly believe that she'll have an uphill battle against any of the top five candidates, based on her level of experience alone. Honestly, can you imagine a debate between Senators Clinton and McCain (just for example) if things continue to improve in Iraq? Senator Clinton, a one and a half term senator with no other actual qualifications or job experience who voted for the Iraq War before she backtracked; versus Senator McCain, a decorated war hero with the better part of thirty years experience as a senator who supported the Iraq War straight through and recommended the surge when such a move was unpopular? Or against Governor Huckabee, a dynamic orator with no personal or political baggage and real experience running a state? Or Mayor Giuliani, a moderate conservative who has real experience not only in the justice department, but who cleaned up New York City?
I think it's going to continue to be an exciting race to watch, and I'm nowhere near as terrified of a democrat win as I was a few months ago. Now if President Bush could only get that dollar back up in value...
I originally posted the first paragraph of this section with Thursday's news post, but decided to pull it and post it here with a number of other archaeology/science-related articles that I've been saving up.
The European Space Agency is putting the finishing touches on the Jules Verne, their partner to the Russian Progress supply ships. The ESA craft will deliver supplies to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, images from Mars have located current and inactive probe landers - very cool, particularly finding the old Viking landers from the 1970's.
A cave sacred to the ancient Romans has been discovered beneath Rome's Palatine Hill (AP, BBC, Guardian) (see the final line of the above exchange between myself and Friar Dave) - very cool, and somewhat reminiscent of the 1999 discovery of Roman ships buried in Pisa, and the possible discoveries of Atlantis near Spain and near Cyprus. Also, in a story I didn't see until a while ago, excavations in Rome may have revealed the tomb of the Apostle Paul.
On an island off the coasts of Iraq and Kuwait, archaeologists are exploring an outpost used by Alexander the Greek. In Turkey, a massive statue of Emperor Hadrian, the legendary Roman leader, has been discovered. Another great discovery is that of a viking long boat in England, found - where else? - underneath a pub!
Back in April, scientists announced the discovery of a mineral remarkably similar to literary and film descriptions of Kryptonite.
Back in September, the AP reported on a project aimed at archiving the world's dying languages. Throughout history, there have been many, many languages that have gone extinct, and I think that's very unfortunate; although these languages don't necessarily retain much utility (hence their decline), any effort to retain as much of the sum total of human knowledge as possible is a good thing in my book. Meanwhile, the Brits have developed a method that will allow scientists to read otherwise unreadable ancient documents.
Here's another recent conversation with the Crypto King, who recently moved with his wife and kids (Geki-K and Chick Magnet) out to the West Coast.
Crypto King: and since we don't have beds, we've bought some sleeping mats at ikea and we're all sleeping together on them.Brilliant!
The Fly: Japanese style, mats on the floor.
Crypto King: pretty much, only there's not enough that we get one each.
The Fly: Fair point.
The Fly: What is it, you and [your wife] on one, and the boys on one?
Crypto King: it's like tetris.
A few defense/security related stories; after all, that's my bread and butter, right?
There's been a lot of buzz since early September regarding the Israeli air strike on a building in the Syrian desert. Nobody seems to want to talk about it - the Syrians have claimed it was an empty, unused building, the Israeli government has scarcely acknowledged that the raid happened. Evidence suggests that the "vacant building" was tied to undeclared Syrian nuclear activity; one expert believes that it was a Syrian nuclear bomb factory.
I think I'm going to end up writing an article about this subject, but I'll mention it here briefly. Reminiscent of this article that I posted a few months ago, Military.com also has an article about the new Air Force utility uniform. Apparently the uniforms do a poor job of helping Airmen in desert climates expel heat, and Airmen have taken to removing the internal map pockets in order to mitigate the heat retention inherent in these added layers of material. In addition, the "digital tiger stripe" pattern, while sort of cool, is reminiscent of the ACU color pattern used by the Army. This is really frustrating because our guys deserve the best possible uniforms and equipment that we can give them. The color schemes of the ACU and ABU uniforms, while possibly effective as camouflage in some areas, have no utility for camouflage in the desert - they don't, that's just the way it is. Also, the vast, grand majority of Air Force personnel don't need internal map pockets in their uniforms - these map pockets could be easily incorporated into specialized versions used by the Air Force Special Operations community. Meanwhile, the Marines continue to be happy with the MARPAT utility uniforms. Go figure.
There are more questions as to the situation in Afghanistan; one report claims that the Taliban have a permanent presence in fifty-four percent of Afghanistan. NATO continues to debate the level of effort and tactics to be used in Afghanistan (1, 2). In one barely-believable story, NATO allies appear to be squabbling amongst each other over Germany's inability to conduct night operations; Germany is one of many NATO nations that have severely restricted their troops' ability to so much as entire hostile areas, leaving the lion's share of heavy combat in Afghanistan to the Brits, the Canadians, the Dutch, and the Americans. (For the record, I believe that Germany's very presence in Afghanistan is a big step in the right direction, as I noted in this article.) Meanwhile, American forces are making contingency plans for supplying forces in Afghanistan in the event that the situation in Pakistan deteriorates further; elsewhere, the new Japanese Prime Minister has vowed to resume Japan's Afghan naval fueling mission.
A couple other stories: there's some level of disagreement as to how many F-22 fighters the Air Force needs. This is a tough sell for me, because the United States military is getting much more mileage out of aircraft designed for close air support, like the A-10 Thunderbolt II, the AV-8B Harrier, and the AC-130 Spectre. As far as the immediate need for squadron upon squadron of F-22 Raptor aircraft, I honestly don't see it. However, we continue to face the looming juggernaut of the People's Liberation Army - which is not to say that we're going to go to war with China, but then again, we never techncally went to war with the Soviet Union, either. Given that establishing air superiority will be essential in any conflict with China (or other nations like Iran, although it's likely that their stock of disintegrating F-14's wouldn't survive the initial hours of an air war). The Iraq War, and the efforts to combat the IED menace, have proven that while research and development can be ramped up, there's still a time curve that must occur - things don't happen overnight. So, like I said, this one's a tough sell, because as far as current and projected operations are concerned, the Air Force would do well to acquire more aircraft optimized for close air support. That tends to be a mission that most of the core leaders in the Air Force look down upon, focusing instead on air superiority and technologically sophisticated fighter aircraft. However, it's not out of the question that the Air Force could require a large inventory of F-22 aircraft within the foreseeable future. This is one to watch in the future.
Just because it's related, it's worth noting that there are rumblings that the F-22 might be sold to Japan (link), and apparently South Korea may be interested as well, although a State Department statement from July indicates that this may be a red herring; here's another link. Now, I realize those links are old, but I've seen another link within the last few days, so maybe the ban was lifted? I don't have a solid answer on that one.
Speaking of air power, there appears to be Congressional dissent on arms sales to Saudi Arabia. According to the Congressional statements:
A coalition of 188 members of the House of Representatives warned that if the technology fell into the "wrong hands" it could harm US forces in the Middle East and threaten Israel.I'm not quite sure whose hands these Congressmen think that the JDAM technology is going to fall into - it's not as if al Qaeda has an Air Force, though I suppose they could be worried about the technology being acquired by various Arab allies of the Saudis. Again, I think this is sort of a red herring - after all, the Saudis are flying one of the biggest fleets of F-15 Eagles in the world.
"Any sale of JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) technology to Saudi Arabia must come with guarantees backed by strict conditions notified to Congress followed by regular reporting."
And finally, there's an interesting article from the Guardian about one soldier's book about Chechnya. The article's worth a read if you have any interest in Russian affairs and military history.
I've been thinking a lot about my faith lately; I'm not sure quite what inspired it, but I've been listening to studies by Steve Gregg and sermons by Ashley Day lately, and researching to see whether or not there are any monastaries within driving distance that offer retreat opportunities. I've also been researching Episcopal churches in the area - somehow, I figure that an Episcopal church in a heavy military area is likely more orthodox than the denomination as a whole. For some reason, this all reminded me of a poem that Friar Dave wrote last year, that I'll reproduce here without his permission (knowing full well that he'll have no problem with it).
The Twelve in Us AllIn case you didn't catch it, it's a poem about the Twelve Disciples. Sort of poignant, I guess - at least, it stuck out for me.
I sold my country in a greedy hour,
I fought my brother for a seat of power.
I fell asleep when you called my name,
I thought our causes were the same.
I relied on fish and bread,
I believed that you were dead.
Still a stranger you sought me out,
I would drown with all my doubts.
I am simply James the Less,
I am simply Thaddaeus.
I would take your life for coin,
If we yet remained unjoined.
That should do it for today. Tomorrow I'll present the November 2007 edition of Stuff Fly Wants, which will be forwarded to my parents in abbreviated form as a Christmas wish list since they're not really onboard with the "Fly doesn't celebrate Christmas" concept. On Wednesday or Thursday, I hope to have either one of two articles started, which will mirror the article for this Sunday's submission for my parallel writing endeavour. This week's article will either be on the extent and legitimacy of the "Axis of Evil", or on giving our soldiers better uniforms.
Also, I realized after I posted the article last week that I referenced the picture of the cross being restored to St. John's Church in Baghdad without actually posting the picture. I don't want to go through the hassle of contacting someone about permission to use the image (since my the folks I write for already did that for the actual article), so I'll link to Michael Yon's article that displays the picture. Go check it out - it's really worth seeing, every bit as iconic as those pictures of the Iraqis with the purple fingertips from early '05.
Alright, folks, your decadent four day weekend is over (save for Mighty Mo, who worked on Friday just like I did). Have a great day - at work - and stay tuned for more throughout the week.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home