It's All Too Beautiful

GilDodgen at Uncommon Descent has an interesting meditation triggered by a reading of Michael Denton's classic work titled Nature's Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe.

GilDodgen considers just one tiny aspect of the laws of physics, the physics of sound, and contemplates the amazing fact that the laws of physics are precisely suited to allowing us to experience music:

Isn't it also interesting that the physics of sound is just right to create scales, harmonies, consonance and dissonance, and that musical instruments can be made from common materials?

Music is based on the physics of sound - in particular, the overtone series which is produced when a string or column of air vibrates in integer multiples. The division of the octave into 12 semitones is not an accident or a matter of personal preference; this produces notes that coincide with the overtone series. This is the basis of melody and harmony, and why some sounds are dissonant and some sounds are consonant.

Imagine a world without music: no music accompanying the movies you watch, no music in your church services, no music on the radio or television, no violinists, no pianists, no guitarists, no singers, no songs - no music at all! Wouldn't your life be indescribably impoverished? Music is a totally abstract art form, but has tremendous power and meaning in our lives.

When I was in college I took a number of courses in music theory. I remember a chapter in a book about melody. All the technical elements of melodic composition were discussed but there was one final comment that struck me (I paraphrase): Most people associate "melody" with something that cannot be described, but they know it when they hear it, and there is no way to teach how to write a good melody. Each note seems to naturally flow from the preceding one.

The more we learn the more it becomes apparent that the universe was rigged for humans, from top to bottom, and in almost every way. Our universe is a very meaningful one.

Everything we learn about the world seems to confirm this assertion, which is why statements like that made by Steven Weinberg at the end of his book The First Three Minutes: "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless," appear more and more ludicrous with every new discovery.

RLC

Triple Rings

One of the many beautiful photos taken by the Hubble telescope is this one of a triple-ringed supernova:

How these rings were formed has long puzzled scientists, but it seems now that a pair of astronomers at Oxford may have figured it out. See this article at New Scientist for the details.

RLC

Fitzfonged

The trial of Lewis Libby has been a farce from the beginning. A man's life is being devastated by a fanatical prosecutor who evidently shares some of the same genes as Mike Nifong, the contemporary Torquemada who prosecuted (persecuted?)the Duke lacrosse players who were accused of rape.

For a quick overview of the case and an indictment of the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, we recommend Mona Charen's column on the subject. It's brief and tells you everything you need to know to bring you up to speed in case, like most people, you haven't been paying much attention.

Viewpoint likes the word being bandied about to describe what happens to people who fall afoul of prosecutors like Nifong and Fitzgerald who mistake themselves for Medieval inquisitors. Such hapless souls are said to have been Fitzfonged. We think it'll stick.

RLC

Scott's Oriole

I invite those of you who appreciate beauty in nature to check out this visitor to a backyard near Mechanicsburg, PA this past week. It was captured on film by photographer Bob Moul.

The bird is a Scott's oriole, a species indigenous to the American southwest which usually winters in Mexico and Central America. Indeed, the Mechanicsburg bird, which I had the pleasure of viewing on Thursday, is the first one ever recorded in the northeastern U.S.

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever" (John Keats).

RLC

Victory is Defeat, Success is Failure

Saner elements in the Democratic party seem to have prevailed over the Pelosi/Murtha wing, and the idea of slow-bleeding the troops in Iraq appears to have itself bled itself to death:

House Democrats have pulled back from efforts to link additional funding for the war to strict troop-readiness standards after the proposal came under withering fire from Republicans and from their party's own moderates. That strategy was championed by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and endorsed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

"If you strictly limit a commander's ability to rotate troops in and out of Iraq, that kind of inflexibility could put some missions and some troops at risk," said Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.), who personally lodged his concerns with Murtha.

The anti-war Democrats, however, are nothing if not determined to achieve failure in Iraq, and thus a couple of leading Democratic lights in the Senate, Joseph Biden and Carl Levin, are crafting legislation that would:

essentially overturn the 2002 resolution granting Mr. Bush the authority to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and limit the military to combating Al Qaeda in Iraq, keeping Iraq from becoming a haven for terrorists and training Iraqi forces. The proposal's goal, officials said, would be to allow combat forces not engaged in those duties to be removed from Iraq next year.

This is rich. Under the senators' proposal the American military will be limited to combat only against al Qaeda in Iraq. I wonder if the legislation will require the al Qaeda cadres to identify themselves to American troops so that our forces will know whether or not they can proceed to shoot them. I wonder, too, if august worthies like Joe "Obama's the cleanest black ever to run for president" Biden have considered that, in the unlikely event their legislation passes, al Qaeda will just change its name. What are our troops supposed to do then? I guess I'm too much of a worry wort. Surely Messers. Levin and Biden have it all figured out.

For the Democrats victory is defeat and success is failure. George Orwell must be smiling.

RLC

Fear Itself

Al Gore once famously accused President Bush of deceiving the American people by screaming these words: "He betrayed this country. He played on our fears."

Well, we are now well on our way to having a national panic attack over global warming due largely to the efforts of Mr. Gore and his documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Even small children are reportedly being frightened into sleeplessness by fears of global warming and world-wide catastrophe.

One wonders whether Mr. Gore would agree that An Inconvenient Truth plays on our fears. Probably not. Only Republicans do that.

RLC

Behind the Contretemps

You've probably heard about the dust-up between the Clinton camp and the Obama people over remarks made by Hollywood producer David Geffen at a fund-raiser for Obama. What hasn't been speculated upon much in the media is why Geffen has turned away from the Clintons, with whom he was once very close, and thrown his Hollywood heft behind Obama.

Here's why:

One of Geffen's causes was the release of Leonard Peltier, a Native-American convicted of murdering two FBI agents back in the 80's. Geffen believes Peltier is innocent and had urged President Clinton to pardon him, but Clinton declined. Geffen, though disappointed, accepted this decision. Then came the last days of the Clinton presidency and a flurry of pardons were issued, among them were these:

Marc Rich was indicted on tax evasion, commodities fraud and other charges in 1983 and fled to Switzerland. After Clinton pardoned him, a House committee probing Clinton's pardons sought testimony from Rich's ex-wife Denise, who had been a major contributor to Democratic causes - including Hillary's Senate campaign and the Clinton Presidential Library. Denise Rich invoked the Fifth Amendment.

Almon Glenn Braswell was pardoned of his mail fraud and perjury convictions after paying about $200,000 to Hillary's brother, Hugh Rodham, to represent his case for clemency. He later returned the payments, but he too invoked the Fifth Amendment during a Congressional hearing.

In 2000, Clinton had pardoned Vonna Jo Gregory, owner of the carnival company United Shows International, and her husband Edgar for a 1982 bank fraud conviction. After the pardon, the company gave Hillary's brother Anthony Rodham $107,000 in "loans" that he has never repaid.

On his last day in office, Clinton pardoned his old friend Susan McDougal, who had already completed her sentence for her role in the Whitewater scandal.

Clinton also pardoned his brother Roger on drug charges, and former Housing secretary Henry Cisneros, who was convicted of lying to the FBI about payments to a mistress.

Clinton slashed the prison sentences of four men convicted of stealing millions in federal grants. The men were from a community of Hasidic Jews in New Square, N.Y., which voted 1,400 to 12 in favor of Hillary Clinton in her first Senate race.

Clinton also commuted the sentences - over the objections of the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office - of 11 members of a Puerto Rican nationalist group that set off more than 100 bombs in the U.S. The large Puerto Rican community in New York City supports Democrats.

Geffen was apparently angered by the fact that a man he believed to be innocent of any crime was left unpardoned but this parade of corrupt and criminal cronies and others were released by the president. Especially galling was the pardon of Marc Rich whose beautiful wife apparently bought his release through political contributions of one sort or another. Geffen saw this as something of a betrayal by the Clintons and has consequently joined the swelling ranks of Democrats who've come to despise the Clintons for the cavalier way in which they use and discard people according to how useful they are to them.

It's beginning to look as though Hillary will have to fight hard for her party's nomination and, if she gets it, enthusiasm for her candidacy will be subdued among those Democrats who know her.

RLC

Unlocking the Mystery of Life

One of the finest videos on intelligent design is one titled Unlocking the Mystery of Life. It lays out some of the early history of the ID movement and addresses two major points of conflict with Darwinian naturalism: The origin of life and the origin of specified complexity. The theoretical stuff is interesting and the computer animations are breathtaking.

For a sample of the latter take a look at this clip which illustrates just a few of the processes involved in the cell's manufacture of proteins. It's nothing short of astounding.

RLC

Bribe Me Later

For those too young to remember the Abscam scandal that resulted in six Democrats and one Republican going to jail, Ann Coulter offers a quick summary. Her purpose, of course, is to highlight the venality of a young congressman named John Murtha, who was caught on tape discussing bribes with an undercover FBI agent.

This is the man who is leading the Democrats, and our nation, up Surrender Hill. It's ironic that the Democrats would feature a congressman with one of the most questionable ethical reputations in Washington as a key leader in what they purport to be a kind of moral quest, the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

Read Coulter's piece to learn a little bit about the kind of man it is who is scheming to deny the president the ability to reinforce the troops in Iraq.

RLC

Evil America

Randall Hoven at The American Thinker offers a salutary, and fairly brief, history lesson for those who wonder about the claim that the United States is a dangerous, perhaps evil, force on the world stage. Hoven shows that such a claim can only be made by those who either have no idea what has transpired around the world in the last seventy years or who are being deliberately dishonest.

Students who sit in classrooms where this meme is regularly trotted out by leftist instructors will especially benefit from reading the piece.

RLC

Why We Must Win

This is yet another illustration of why we must win the war against Islamo-fascism. If we lose heart, as some already have, what happened to Zilla Usman will eventually happen to women throughout the West.

Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Punjab province and an ally of President Pervez Musharraf, was killed as she was about to deliver a speech to dozens of party activists, by a "fanatic", who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said.

Usman, 35, was wearing the shalwar kameez worn by many professional women in Pakistan, but did not cover her head.

The attack happened in Gujranwala, 120 miles southeast of Islamabad, where the minister's office is based. As Usman, 35, stepped out of her car - where she was greeted by her co-workers throwing rose petals - the attacker pulled out a pistol and fired a single shot at close range, hitting her in the head. She was airlifted to hospital in the provincial capital Lahore, but died soon afterwards.

The gunman, Mohammad Sarwar, was overpowered by the minister's driver and arrested by police. A stone mason in his mid 40s, he is not thought to belong to any radical group but is known for his fanaticism. He was previously held in 2002 in connection with the killing and mutilation of four prostitutes, but was never convicted due to lack of evidence.

Sarwar appeared relaxed and calm when he told a television channel that he had carried out God's order to kill women who sinned. "I have no regrets. I just obeyed Allah's commandment," he said, adding that Islam did not allow women to hold positions of leadership. "I will kill all those women who do not follow the right path, if I am freed again," he said.

"He is basically a fanatic," Raja Basharat, the Punjab Law Minister, said. "He is against the involvement of women in politics and government affairs." A police statement added: "He considers it contrary to the teachings of Allah for a woman to become a minister or a ruler. That's why he committed this action."

"He killed her because she was not observing the Islamic code of dress. She was also campaigning for emancipation of women," said Nazir Ahmad, a local officer.

Usman, a married mother of two sons, joined the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League after being elected in 2002. A strong supporter of the President's policy of "enlightened moderation" - designed to tackle extremism - she was appointed to her current post in December last year according to her government biography.

A culture which gives a slap on the wrist to rapists, which turns a blind eye to "honor" killings, which punishes children by driving automobiles over their arms,

which hangs teenagers for being homosexual,

and which produces people who believe they're doing God's will by killing women who don't "know their place", is not just retrograde and dysfunctional. It's diseased.

Yet it is just such a culture as this which the Islamo-fascists wish to impose on the whole world, and they are prepared to use whatever means necessary to do it.

RLC

Deep Impact

As if we didn't have enough to worry about:

An asteroid may come uncomfortably close to Earth in 2036 and the United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission to deflect it, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists said on Saturday.

Although the odds of an impact by this particular asteroid are low, a recent congressional mandate for NASA to upgrade its tracking of near-Earth asteroids is expected to uncover hundreds, if not thousands of threatening space rocks in the near future, former astronaut Rusty Schweickart said.

If you like to worry about things you can do nothing about you can read the rest of the article here.

RLC

Pro/Con

This month's edition of First Things has a very interesting pair of essays by Joseph Bottum and Michael Novak, both of whom are conservative Republicans (I'm surmising), on the competency of George W. Bush. Bottum takes the view that W. is in over his head, Novak is much more lenient in his judgment.

FT is offering the article for free here, and it's well worth a read whether one is a supporter or a foe of the president.

RLC

ATP Synthase

In yet another tribute to the skill displayed by blind mechanistic processes in constructing what anyone but a Darwinian true-believer would recognize as an engineered machine, Telic Thoughts offers a simulation of the operation of the enzyme that synthesizes ATP in the body's cells.

RLC

If It Should Come to War

The BBC reports on the American plan of attack should Iran persist in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Here's part of the BBC story:

It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres. The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.

The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions. But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran.

That list includes Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr are also on the target list, the sources say.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.

Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran.

Long range B2 stealth bombers would drop so-called "bunker-busting" bombs in an effort to penetrate the Natanz site, which is buried some 25m (27 yards) underground.

The BBC's Tehran correspondent Frances Harrison says the news that there are now two possible triggers for an attack is a concern to Iranians.

It should be of concern to everyone. One of the interesting things about these plans is that they have been somehow made available to the BBC at the same time that the Bush administration is adamant in its denials that any attack on Iran is being planned. We appear to be playing mind games with the Iranians. Let's hope it works.

RLC

The Blasphemy Challenge

Something called the "Rational Response Squad" is soliciting people, mostly young people, to make a commitment to condemn themselves to eternal damnation by videotaping themselves denying the existence of the Holy Spirit.

Set aside the callowness of the project and the dubious theology that underlies their interpretation of blaspheming the Holy Spirit and explore for a moment the psychology of what these kids are doing. They are proclaiming that they don't believe that God exists, but for what purpose? Someone may believe that space aliens don't exist but most people would hardly bother to send in videos to You Tube declaring the fact. If one doesn't believe that God exists why go to the trouble of videotaping an affirmation of one's doubt? What is it about denying the existence of something that is a source of such pride in the denier?

For some of these kids, moreover, it seems that they're not so much denying God's existence but rather banishing the God they suspect exists from any role in their lives. In other words, it's not an intellectual or philosophical position they're voicing, but an act of defiance or rebellion against the concept of God that they've come to hold. In the very act of denying God's existence they seem to be admitting that they know He's there, but that they resent that He is.

If this is a correct interpretation of what at least some of these kids are doing, then, for all of their pretense at intellectual sophistication, they're making themselves look silly. It's foolish, after all, to deny the existence of what deep down you know to be real. It's foolish to despise what deep down you believe to be the source of all that's good and right in the world. In their attempt to be "rational" they make themselves irrational. In their attempt to be "cool" they make themselves dumb. It's very sad.

RLC

Supporting the Troops

Michael Ramirez sums up what the Democrats in congress mean when they say that they "support the troops":

RLC

They Mean No Harm

We're expecting Softball's Chris Matthews to feature this news report when next he blasts the Bush administration for allegedly hyping intelligence that points to Iran as the source of weapons being used in Iraq to kill Americans:

(2007-02-12) - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today confirmed U.S. allegations that high-ranking Iranian officials provide Shiite militias in Iraq with armor-piercing explosives, however, Iran's president said the devices are for peaceful purposes only.

"No one can deny the right of the Iranian people to develop technology that improves our lives," said Mr. Ahmadinejad. "Although we cannot control how our Iraqi customers use our products, we make these armor-piercing devices to generate energy."

The Iranian leader noted that the devices are "especially useful for bringing light to confined dark places, like the inside of an Abrams tank or Humvee, as well as for providing a plentiful source of instant heat."

Unconfirmed reports coming out of Washington indicate that Ahmadinejad's claims were well-received by congressional Democrats who considered them to be perfectly plausible.

RLC

Bird Brains

Go to Telic Thoughts and watch the video of a crow trying to get food out of a container with a wire. The bird can't manage it so it bends the wire into a hook. It's astonishing.

TT also links to a fascinating article at Neurophilosophy on how birds navigate. There are evidently at least two separate mechanisms employed, one for measuring the strength of the earth's magnetic field and one for assessing its direction. These mechanisms are incredibly "engineered" and certainly suggest intelligent input. But maybe not. Maybe they arose by blind forces acting by trial and error over millions of years, just like your computer might have if nobody had ever designed one.

RLC

Worst Country in the World

According to this report Britain is the worst place in the developed world for a child to grow up. Perhaps it's because of all that evangelical religion afflicting England.

RLC