Satellite Shootdown

Last night the U.S. Navy shot down an errant spy satellite about the size of a bus which threatened to dump toxic fuel in inhabited areas as it plummeted to earth. It also contained classified technology which the U.S. does not want to fall into the hands of people like the Chinese who have had difficulty obtaining American military technology secrets since the Clinton administration left office.

The shootdown is an impressive feat. The satellite and the kill vehicle collided at a combined speed of 22,000 mph about 130 miles above Earth's surface at 10:50 p.m. EST.

Hot Air has video.

No doubt this success has chagrined those around the world who would like to threaten us with nuclear missiles and also those here in the U.S. who have been for decades deriding the hope that we would one day be able to shoot down ICBMs with missiles. Hitting the satellite is not as difficult as hitting a missile but the fact that we were able to do it at all means we're well on the way to silencing those who say that ballistic missile defense is technologically out of reach.

RLC

Long Life

There's a lot of information in this NYT story, but the key graphs are these:

Living past 90, and living well, may be more than a matter of good genes and good luck. Five behaviors in elderly men are associated not only with living into extreme old age, a new study has found, but also with good health and independent functioning.

The behaviors are abstaining from smoking, weight management, blood pressure control, regular exercise and avoiding diabetes. The study reports that all are significantly correlated with healthy survival after 90.

While it is hardly astonishing that choices like not smoking are associated with longer life, it is significant that these behaviors in the early elderly years - all of them modifiable - so strongly predict survival into extreme old age.

Details can be found at the link. If only science could come up with an easy and painless way to do all of this.

RLC

Fourteen Challenges

This is strange. A BBC article lists fourteen challenges facing humanity in the next several decades, but omits the one challenge that must be met in order for any of the others to have a chance of being realized. Here are the fourteen:

• Make solar energy affordable
• Provide energy from fusion
• Develop carbon sequestration
• Manage the nitrogen cycle
• Provide access to clean water
• Reverse engineer the brain
• Prevent nuclear terror
• Secure cyberspace
• Enhance virtual reality
• Improve urban infrastructure
• Advance health informatics
• Engineer better medicines
• Advance personalised learning
• Explore natural frontiers

Some of these don't strike me as particularly urgent (e.g. advancing personalized learning), but in any event, none of them will be possible at all unless the West neutralizes the menace posed by radical Islam. Islamic imperialism is the paramount threat to the Western world and it needs to be defeated in each of three domains: the military battlefield, cyberspace, and the realm of ideas. If this challenge is not met, and it doesn't seem as if we're even addressing the third domain, none of the others in the list is going to matter much.

It's curious that this paramount and crucial challenge would be omitted from consideration by the contributors to the BBC's list. Perhaps the reason is that were it included it would be seen as at least a partial affirmation of the worldview of George W. Bush and that would be unacceptable company for sophisticated people to place themselves in.

RLC

Religion of Peace

The Danish cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, responsible for this cartoon was targeted for death by Danish Muslims.

Police have made five arrests in the case. No doubt Islamists around the world will be apoplectic that the Danish police prevented the execution of the infidel cartoonist.

These kinds of people know deep down that they cannot prevail in a contest of ideas so they resort to intimidation, fear, and terror to protect their religion. Maybe someday a light will go off in their head, and they'll realize that if their beliefs by themselves have no persuasive power then perhaps there's something terribly wrong with their beliefs.

Or maybe the light will never go off. After all, Muslims have been living like this since the 7th century, why should we think they'll change now?

RLC

No Pride

Hillary's campaign has been trying to make a mountain out of a molehill by accusing Obama of using words plagiarized from Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick in his speeches. The charge, in my opinion, simply reveals the level of desperation of the Clinton campaign.

If they want to hit Obama for something legitimate, however, they could do well to chastise his wife Michelle for her fatuous remark yesterday that for the first time in her adult life she's proud of her country. It's hard to believe that any intelligent person not warped by left-wing bitterness could seriously make this remark, but it does tell us a lot about the Obamas and the left in general. Notice that when she utters this comment people applaud her. It's pretty depressing:

Obama
by krs601

Mrs. Obama has been an adult for almost thirty years. During that time the U.S. has brought an end to the cold war, catalyzed the fall of the Berlin wall, rescued Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo from genocide, led the world in delivering aid to the victims of the Christmas tsunami in Indonesia two years ago (as well as many lesser disasters), worked persistently to maintain peace in Israel and Palestine, done more to help the world's poor in Africa than any nation in history, liberated 25 million Muslims from the terror of the Taliban in Afghanistan, undertaken to build Iraq into a modern nation and a haven from Islamic extremism, improved the lot of many of the poor in the Western hemisphere through free trade agreements with our southern neighbors, continued to provide more opportunity for African-Americans than any country in the world (Mrs. Obama has herself graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law school), and probably lots else that I can't think of at the moment.

Perhaps the Obamas don't take any pride in these national accomplishments, perhaps the only thing that makes them proud is that they have a shot at political power, but the rest of us surely can be proud of what this country has achieved, and we can show it by rejecting at the ballot box those like the Obamas who hold those accomplishments in contempt.

Here's some advice for the media: At the next opportunity somebody please ask Senator Obama if he feels as his wife does or if he disagrees with the implication of her remark that there's nothing about the America of the last twenty five years of which to be proud.

HT: Michelle Malkin

RLC

At Last

After 50 years of murderous, oppressive rule, 81 year-old Fidel Castro is finally relinquishing power in Cuba. His brother Raul, 76, is taking over, but he will probably not last more than a couple of years so maybe the long-suffering people of Cuba can finally catch a glimpse of shore after their long ordeal at sea.

During the course of his dictatorship Castro executed tens of thousands of political opponents and tortured and imprisoned thousands more. It's ironic that our "progressive" media have given him a pass on these crimes, but have been apoplectic over our imprisonment of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. There are thousands of prisoners in Cuba who would give anything to be transferred to that American facility, which they would doubtless regard as a tropical paradise compared to their current accomodations, but the plight of these wretched people is not something the liberal media troubles itself over. It makes one wonder about the sincerity of their concern for human rights.

To get an idea of what life has been like for political opponents of Castro read Jeff Jacoby's Boston Globe essay on Oscar Biscet or, if you have time, read Armando Valladares' horrifying account of his suffering in Castro's prisons in Against All Hope.

RLC

Curious Vote

The Senate voted last Wednesday to ban waterboarding as a means of interrogation of detainees in the war on terror. The vote was 51 to 45 and went pretty much along party lines, but the strange thing is that one of the chief opponents of waterboarding voted against the ban. Senator John McCain, perhaps feeling the heat from conservatives, voted against the position he has held for decades. Very curious. His sidekick Senator Lindsey Graham did not vote. Nor did Senators Clinton or Obama.

Our thoughts on the subject of torture can be found by using our search function. Just type the word "torture" in the text box or click on "The NAE on Torture" in the Hall of Fame on the left side of this page.

RLC

The New Cigarette

Another study has shown a link between cell-phone use and health problems:

An Israeli scientist, Dr. Siegal Sadetzki, has found a link between cell phone usage and the development of tumors. Dr. Sadetzki, a physician, epidemiologist and lecturer at Tel Aviv University, published the results of a study recently in the American Journal of Epidemiology, in which she and her colleagues found that heavy cell phone users were subject to a higher risk of benign and malignant tumors of the salivary gland.

Those who used a cell phone heavily on the side of the head where the tumor developed were found to have an increased risk of about 50% for developing a tumor of the main salivary gland (parotid), compared to those who did not use cell phones.

The rest of the article can be read at the link. Are cell-phones the new cigarette - an addictive pleasure that'll wind up shortening your life? I'm hoping that restaurants will soon have cell-free sections just like they have smoke-free areas. I know I'll sound like a curmudgeon, but it's an annoyance when someone across the room carries on a phone conversation at an amplitude ten decibels higher than were they talking to the person sitting across the table from them. I think I'd almost rather be assaulted by cigarette smoke.

RLC

Re: Endocrine Disruptors

A couple of weeks ago we did a post on some research involving the chemical BPA found in plastic bottles. The studies showed that BPA leaches out of the plastic when exposed to high temperatures and that it can interfere with the endocrine system of test animals. The implications for humans are, of course, important since these bottles are used to contain all sorts of liquids that people consume.

A reader who works for a company that makes these plastics has written in response to the post and her very well-informed thoughts are posted on our Feedback page.

RLC

The Three Worst

Yesterday we posted a piece on the ten best presidents in American history. Ari Kauffman at The American Thinker opines on who he thinks are the three worst. Hint: Two of them served since 1960.

RLC

Chauncey Obama

Bob Gorrell comments on the politics of saying nothing with Barackian panache:

RLC

More on Muggy's Demise

The assassination in Damascus of the mass murderer Imad Mughniyeh (even his name is ugly) continues to ramify. DEBKAfile reports on a number of developments including a theory being put forth in the West that the hit was really a charade:

An intriguing conspiracy theory emanating unexpectedly from Western sources was suggested by the veteran CNN correspondent Jim Clancy. In his view, Mughniyeh, the consummate master of deception, may still be alive. Others took the theory further and suggested his death may have been fabricated to provide Iran, Syria and Hizballah with a strong casus belli to attack Israel without further delay, and so repeat the Arabs' Yom Kippur success 35 years ago in catching Israel unawares.

Others say Mughniyeh was indeed killed and that whoever did it did more damage than has been heretofore reported:

Not only was Mughniyeh killed by the bomb planted in his car but also some of his bodyguards and senior Hizballah operatives. Syria's secret services have fallen down completely in guarding Iranian officials and officers resident or visiting their capital.

There's much more at the link.

RLC

Presidents' Day Ten Best

On this Presidents' Day we feature a Harris poll of Americans which produced a ranking of the top ten presidents in American history. The list has some surprises. Seven of the ten are understandable, I suppose, but John Kennedy at #4, and Bill Clinton at #6 are hard to justify. What did either man do to rate so high? Kennedy served for less than three years, pretty much punted on civil rights, got us into Vietnam, and betrayed the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs.

It's true that he got the Soviets to remove their missiles from Cuba, but only by removing ours from Turkey. In other words, the Soviets actually won the showdown over the "Cuban Missile Crisis". It's hard to think of any accomplishments JFK may have had to offset these liabilities unless one counts managing to carry on an affair with Marilyn Monroe as an achievement worthy of placing him among America's greatest presidents.

Bill Clinton's rank is equally hard to fathom. His only accomplishment as president was to surf along on the crest of an economic boom that was really the result of Reagan's tax policy. He did sign welfare reform, but this was a GOP initiative, not his. Meanwhile, his laxity toward world terrorism, his refusal to support our soldiers in Mogudishu, and his reluctance to enforce the 1991 cease-fire agreement with Saddam Hussein set the stage for 9/11. Clinton served two terms, but will be remembered primarily for his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky and an administration that limped from one crisis of their own making to another, squandering the opportunity history offered him to achieve genuine greatness.

The third surprise is that George Bush is ranked #10. I'm surprised he made the list at all, given the popular perception of the man as an utter failure, but, as I've argued before on Viewpoint (Do a search for the phrase "50 million people" to find some of our previous posts), I think he deserves to be ranked even higher, certainly above Clinton and JFK. His administration has been filled with achievements of historical significance.

He has, for example, secured the liberation of 50 million people from oppression in Afghanistan and Iraq, induced several terrorist states to give up, or at least suspend, their plans to develop nuclear weapons, successfully (so far) prevented another terrorist attack on our soil, presided over an economic recovery in very difficult circumstances (inheriting a recession, 9/11, and several very costly natural disasters), and has appointed two extremely competent jurists to the Supreme Court.

He has also done more to relieve the suffering of the poor in Africa than any president in history and has done more to put minorities and women in positions of power than any president before him. He has accomplished all this despite constant, vicious calumnies from his political opponents without ever returning their fire in kind. He has shown far more grace, virtue and class than have the carping, vitriolic, ankle-biters who, out of sheer hatred, attack every move he has made.

Few presidents have accomplished even a fraction of what George Bush has achieved, especially in the face of such relentless and withering opposition, and surely his predecessor did not. I'm not a historian, but given what he has achieved, I believe he deserves to be ranked in the top three on the Harris list. I also believe that a couple of decades from now fair-minded historians who don't have an ideological axe to grind will put him there.

RLC

Governor Barkley

Charles Barkley, the former NBA star, tells CNN's Wolf Blitzer that he's pro-choice, pro-gay marriage and that he's running for governor of Alabama in 2014. Good luck. I'm sure those will be very popular positions among the Alabaman electorate.

Mr. Barkley also calls Christians hypocrites for opposing abortion and gay marriage. The word conservative, he attests, makes him sick in his tummy. After all, Christians, according to Mr. Barkley, aren't supposed to judge others.

fake christians
by luvnews

Well, this is as wrong-headed an opinion as it is widespread. Set aside that Mr. Barkley is doing to Christians and conservatives exactly what he condemns them for doing, he's just wrong about Christians violating their creed when they pass judgment on the moral conduct of others. In fact, Christians are among the few groups of people who have any basis at all for making moral judgments.

If people do wrong why is it wrong to point that out? Indeed, it's a sign of a morally vigorous society that it's people recognize the difference between right and wrong, and it's a symptom of moral decrepitude if they cannot.

There's nothing wrong with making moral judgments. What is wrong is to make those judgments without knowing or caring about the relevant facts. That's judgmentalism and that's what Christians are proscribed from doing, but there's no reason to think that opposition to abortion or gay marriage is due to an ignorance of the critical facts.

To say that because someone is a Christian they shouldn't assess the conduct of others is absurd. It would mean that Christians could never condemn the holocaust or slavery or child abuse or anything else. Christians might be mistaken in their opposition to abortion and gay marriage, but Barkley doesn't offer any reason for thinking that they are. He only suggests that they're hypocrites for doing so, and he leaves us with the impression that his definition of a hypocrite is someone who disagrees with him.

It seems that Barkley is not himself a Christian, I don't know, but if that is so, I wonder on what grounds he bases his own belief that judging other people's behavior is wrong. If he's not a theist of some sort then his own judgments are rooted in nothing other than his subjective likes and dislikes. A non-theist, as we have pointed out at this site on numerous occasions, has no grounds whatsoever for saying that anything anyone does is wrong in a moral sense. So when Barkley criticizes Christians and conservatives all he's saying is that they make him sick because they don't hold the same views he does, which is a pretty silly position.

In a world without God there is no moral right and wrong. There are only things one likes and things one doesn't. There are things which work and things which don't. Whatever one has the power to do one can do and nothing one does is "wrong."

It is only the theist, or in the context of the present discussion, the Christian, who has any moral constraints placed upon his will and his power. Those constraints are placed there by God who desires not that we refrain from judging but that we always judge with justice and compassion. There are no such constraints acting in the lives of those who do not believe that they're obligated to God or anything else. For them, if they were consistent, the only ethic would be might makes right.

But consistency is probably not something Charles Barkley worries himself about very much. Nor can he afford to. He aspires, after all, to be a politician.

RLC

Saving Conservatism

Joe Carter is doing a series of posts on how to save the conservative movement in America, and he says a lot of good stuff. The first of the four posts on the topic can be read here and the others can be found here, here,and here.

If you're interested in politics, and especially if you incline toward conservative politics, you'll find Carter's suggestions very interesting.

RLC

Just Not Serious

Last night at midnight the Protect America Act expired. The PAA enabled us to maintain surveillance of terrorists in foreign countries who were using our communications networks. A 2 to 1 bipartisan consensus in the Senate agreed that it was crucial to our national security that it be renewed and voted to do so last week. President Bush thought it so important that he yielded on a number of points that Democrat senators insisted on in order to get their votes. All that was left was for the House of Representatives to follow suit. Our national security depended upon it.

What the security of your children and mine were subordinated to, however, were Nancy Pelosi's vacation plans. Ms Pelosi refused to bring the bill to the floor where it would have passed overwhelmingly. Instead she adjourned the House for a week's vacation.

As a result there are gaping holes as of midnight last night in our ability to monitor the machinations of those who wish to perpetrate another 9/11. Ms Pelosi demonstrates yet again why it is imperative that Democrats not be entrusted with our national security. They're just not serious about it. Indeed, the Democrats spent hours of the people's time this week harrasing former administration officials over a matter that nobody but the zealots at Moveon.org cares about (the firing of Department of Justice attorneys) and hounding a major league baseball pitcher over allegations that he used steroids, but to enhance the safety of our children the House leadership could not find a few extra minutes to take a crucial vote before running out to begin their tax-payer funded vacations.

Andrew McCarthy explains this abrogation of responsibility at NRO.

One important point that McCarthy doesn't mention is that:

[O]ne of the signal virtues of the PAA is the fact that it provides liability protection to private companies, like telecoms, who cooperate with the government and aid surveillance efforts. Companies like AT&T already face multibillion dollar lawsuits from leftist activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who charge that the companies broke the law by assisting government efforts to prevent terrorist attack. With the expiration of the PAA, these companies will lose their legal protections. In the current litigious climate, it is more than likely that they will simply stop aiding the government in its intelligence work....[T]he most likely consequence of the PAA's lapse is that, starting this Saturday, the country will be more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

How do these people keep getting elected to public office?

RLC

Police Brutality

You've no doubt by now caught wind of the firestorm of outrage sweeping the nation over the story out of Florida of an unbelievable act of police brutality and racism. Apparently a white male police officer grabbed the wheelchair of a black female quadriplegic, dumped her out of the chair onto the floor, and then frisked her while she lay helpless on the lineoleum. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are reportedly enroute to Florida to lead massive protest demonstrations against the insidious racism underlying this atrocity and others like it.

You haven't heard about any of this, you say? Well, here's the video:

Oops. I got the races and genders mixed up. I guess maybe that's why you haven't heard anything from Jesse and Al.

RLC

How to Destroy America

Several years ago former Colorado governor Richard Lamm gave a speech on his plan to destroy America. It's worth revisiting today. He begins this way:

I have a secret plan to destroy America. If you believe, as many do, that America is too smug, too white bread, too self-satisfied, too rich, let's destroy America. It is not that hard to do. History shows that nations are more fragile than their citizens think. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and they all fall, and that "an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide." Here is my plan:

1. We must first make America a bilingual-bicultural country. History shows, in my opinion, that no nation can survive the tension, conflict and antagonism of two competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. One scholar, Seymour Martin Lipset, put it this way: "The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension and tragedy. Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with its Basques, Bretons and Corsicans."

2. I would then invent "multiculturalism" and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal: that there are no cultural differences that are important. I would declare it an article of faith that the black and Hispanic dropout rate is only due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out-of-bounds.

There are eight points altogether. You can read the rest of them at Michelle's.

RLC

The Conscious Mind

David Chalmers, one of the foremost researchers on the nature of consciousness, writes in his book, The Conscious Mind, that:

"Consciousness is a surprising feature of our universe. Our grounds for belief in consciousness derive solely from our experience of it. Even if we know every last detail about the physics of the universe-the configuration, causation, and evolution among all the fields and particles in the spatial temporal manifold-that information would not lead us to postulate the existence of conscious experience. My knowledge of consciousness in the first instance comes from my own case, not from any external observation. It is my first-person experience of consciousness that forces the problem on me." (pp. 101,102)

What Chalmers is saying is that the materialist view that everything that exists can be reduced to matter and energy still leaves consciousness unexplained. No matter how far we reduce the processes of the brain to their constituent chemicals and reactions we can find nothing that accounts for self-awareness or sensations like greenness. Nor can we begin to explain how a feeling like guilt, or a belief, or an intention could be described in terms of chemical processes occuring in neurons.

Consciousness seems to be sui generis, unique. There's nothing else like it in the universe, and what it is and how it could have evolved are complete mysteries.

RLC

The Other War

For those readers interested in how progress in Afghanistan stands at the moment an essay in The New York Post by Ann Marlowe provides an excellent overview.

The short version is that things are much better than many media reports would have us believe, but that should come as no surprise.

RLC