Another Reason the Polar Ice is Melting

The failure to report this as enthusiastically as Global Warming theories have been reported could be viewed with great suspicion. If your personal experience is that the weather was warmer in the 90's than now, and you learn there are active volcanoes beneath the melting ice, then you might have trouble believing the latest Global Warming theory

Volcanic eruptions reshape Arctic ocean floor: study - Yahoo! News:
"PARIS (AFP) - Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday.

The eruptions -- as big as the one that buried Pompei -- took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia.
. . .
What they saw was unmistakable evidence of explosive eruptions rather than the gradual secretion of lava bubbling up from Earth's mantle onto the ocean floor.

Previous research had concluded that this kind of so-called pyroclastic eruption could not happen at such depths due to the crushing pressure of the water.

"On land, explosive volcanic eruptions are nothing exceptional, although they present a major threat," said Vera Schlindwein, a geologist with Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Sea and Polar Research, which took part in the study.

But the new findings, published in Nature, showed that "large-scale pyroclastic activity is possible along even the deepest portions of the global mid-ocean ridge volcanic system."
. . .
Sohn and his colleagues gathered their data in July last year aboard the ice breaker Oden, using state-of-the-art instruments including a mutlibeam echo sounder, two autonomous underwater vehicles and a sub-ice camera designed for the mission.

Both sonar and visual images showed an ocean valley filled with flat-topped volcanos up to two kilometres (1.2 miles) wide and several hundred metres high."

Supreme Court Upholds 2nd Amendment Again

This is a good decision supporting individual liberty, but the closeness of the vote reminds me that elections have consequences.
Communities with strong gun control have high crime rates - based on those rates, they impose stricter controls on citizens and their guns.
Communities that allow or encourage gun ownership, and in particular, concealed carry, are rewarded with lower crime rates. From this we learn that criminals are smart enough to pick on unarmed victims.

ABC News: Supreme Court Says Americans Have Right to Own Guns:
"The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the District of Columbia cannot ban a citizen from keeping a handgun at home, throwing out one of the nation's strictest gun control laws.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, supports the right to own guns. Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that the Constitution protects an individual's right to keep and carry a gun. The decision will affect gun control laws across the country.

'We hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violated the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.'
. . .
Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito signed onto Scalia's opinion.

Justice John Paul Stevens, joined in opposition to the majority opinion by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Steven Breyer, the three other liberal members of the court, read his dissent from bench."

DCs requirement that guns be stored in inoperable condition makes as much sense as requiring that hammers be stored with the handles removed. If someone uses a gun irresponsibly, they should be prosecuted and punished, but making immediate use of an available gun impossible just provided criminals with more victims.

ABC News: Has the D.C. Gun Ban Prevented Bloodshed?:
"On Sept. 24, 1976, one of the toughest gun laws in the nation took effect in the District of Columbia, essentially outlawing the private ownership of new handguns in a city struggling with violence.
. . .
Since the ban was passed, more than 8,400 people have been murdered in the district, many killed by handguns. Nearly 80 percent of the 181 murders in 2007 were committed with guns.
. . .
To gun rights advocates, the numbers prove a different point: Violence continues unchecked despite the ban. And while criminals seem to be able to get guns with ease, law-abiding people are being denied the means to protect themselves, they say.
. . .
Homicides in the district did ebb over the next few years, largely following a national trend. In 1977, the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported robberies, assaults and homicides using handguns had fallen sharply in D.C. and concluded the ban was working. However, the results were challenged even by the city's police department, which said police tactics had contributed to the drop."

Nokia takes Symbian into Open Source

The Palm OS seems to be falling behind, and MS Windows Mobile phones can be pricey, so this is something US buyers should be looking into. Symbian has been widely used in Europe and has active support communities on the Internet.

Nokia to buy Symbian - Yahoo! News: "HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia (NOK1V.HE) will pay $410 million for the remaining shares in UK-based smartphone software maker Symbian and make its software royalty-free to boost phone sales and respond to new rivals such as Google (GOOG.O).

The world's biggest mobile phone maker said on Tuesday it would contribute Symbian's assets to a not-for-profit organization in which it would unite with leading handset makers, operators and chipmakers to create an open-source platform with wide appeal.

Symbian's software is used in two-thirds of smartphones -- handsets with computer-like capabilities -- but new platforms such as Google's Android and Apple's (AAPL.O) iPhone could challenge its dominance.
. . .
The other members of the new Symbian Foundation are Sony Ericsson (6752.T), Motorola (MOT.N), NTT DoCoMo (9437.T), AT&T (T.N), LG Electronics (066570.KS), Samsung (005930.KS), STMicroelectronics (STM.PA), Texas Instruments (TXN.N) and Vodafone (VOD.L).

Nokia will contribute Symbian and its S60 software assets to the not-for-profit foundation, while other members will put in their UIQ and MOAP software to create a new joint Symbian platform in 2009.
. . .
Kai Oistamo, head of Nokia's devices business, told Reuters: "It offers us an opportunity to innovate faster on a bigger, united, more widely accepted platform ... It also enables us to deliver new products, we believe, faster to the market."

Oistamo said he expected the first phones using the open source code to be unveiled shortly after the closing of the transaction, while phones using a completely new platform would reach consumers within the next two years."

McCain proposes $300M prize for new auto battery

Electric cars have been made & marketed for over 100 years. Most of us don't drive them because gasoline engines have been far more practical. This "x-prize" approach targets the biggest obstacle to electric cars being a mainstream choice - the battery.

McCain proposes $300M prize for new auto battery - Yahoo! News: "The Arizona senator proposed a $300 million prize for whoever can develop a better automobile battery, and $5,000 tax credits for consumers who buy new zero-emission vehicles. The latest proposal is in addition to his support for overturning the federal ban on offshore oil drilling.

'In the quest for alternatives to oil, our government has thrown around enough money subsidizing special interests and excusing failure. From now on, we will encourage heroic efforts in engineering, and we will reward the greatest success,' McCain said in a speech at Fresno State University.
. . .
The $300 million battery bounty amounts to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country. He said such a device should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have "the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

McCain said he could envision foreign automakers such as Honda and Toyota being eligible for the prize, since the Japanese companies have large manufacturing plants in the United States.

As for how he would come up with the prize money, the senator said: "I could pay for it by canceling three pork-barrel projects that are unnecessary and unwanted.""

The First Private Solar-Hydrogen House

Early adopters always pay the most, but these prices are sure to fall. It is important to note that this works in part because the hydrogen isn't being transported anywhere. Hydrogen escapes from storage tanks & pipes more easily than any other product, making much of the existing infrastructure unsuitable for conversion to hydrogen use. Making hydrogen where it is used may be the most practical approach.

Insulation is still the cheapest way to save energy in your home, but once you've gone as far you're willing to insulate, solar hot water, photovoltaic panels, and perhaps even hydrogen are potential alternatives.

Inside the Solar-Hydrogen House: No More Power Bills--Ever: Scientific American: "'The ability to make your own fuel is priceless,' says the man known as 'Mr. Gadget' to his friends. He boasts a collection of hydrogen-powered and electric vehicles, including a hydrogen-run lawn mower and car (the Sable, which he redesigned and named the 'Genesis') as well as an electric racing boat, and even an electric motorcycle. 'All the technology is off-the-shelf. All I'm doing is putting them together.'
. . .
The Strizki's personalized home-energy system consists of 56 solar panels on his garage roof, and housed inside is a small electrolyzer (a device, about the size of a washing machine, that uses electricity to break down water into its component hydrogen and oxygen). There are 100 batteries for nighttime power needs along the garage's inside wall; just outside are ten propane tanks (leftovers from the 1970s that are capable of storing 19,000 cubic feet, or 538 cubic meters, of hydrogen) as well as a Plug Power fuel cell stack (an electrochemical device that mixes hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity and water) and a hydrogen refueling kit for the car.

On a typical summer day, the solar panels drink in and convert sunlight to about 90 kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to Strizki. He consumes about 10 kilowatt-hours daily to run the family's appliances, including a 50-inch plasma television, along with his three computers and stereo equipment, among other modern conveniences.

The remaining 80 kilowatt-hours recharge the batteries—which provide electricity for the house at night—and power the electrolyzer, which splits the molecules of purified tap water into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen is vented and the hydrogen goes into the tanks where it is stored for use in the cold, dark winter months. From November to March or so Strizki runs the stored hydrogen through the fuel cell stacks outside his garage or in his car to power his entire house—and the only waste product is water, which can be pumped right back into the system.
. . .
vented hydrogen speeds at 45 miles (72 kilometers) per hour through the atmosphere on its way off the planet—one of only two gases, the other being helium, that escapes into space entirely because it is lighter than air. In fact, Strizki's quarter-inch thick propane tanks weigh less when filled with hydrogen than when depleted.

Of course, hydrogen is a highly flammable gas, but its quick escape eases Strizki's fears that it might ignite or explode. It "disperses faster than any other gas," he notes. "Hydrogen won't sit around waiting for a flame."

The final piece of Strizki's energy solution is dubbed "Genesis," his $3-million aluminum Mercury Sable, one of 10 that carmaker Ford produced in the 1990s to test how well the lighter metal would fare in crash tests. Ford gave Strizki the special model to drive in the Tour de Sol solar car race in New Jersey in 2000. Strizki installed a 104-horsepower electric engine (compared with a Toyota Prius's 44-horsepower motor) that can reach speeds of 140 miles (225 kilometers) per hour. Pop the hood and next to the electric engine sit two fuel cell stacks that convert hydrogen and oxygen into water and electricity, propelling the electric engine forward smoothly and quickly.

The car never competed because it was not ready in time, but the unique vehicle does hold the world record for farthest travel on a single charge: 401.5 miles (646.2 kilometers), a distance which Strizki drove in December 2001."

Britons doubt cause of climate change

Finally, some good news from England - perhaps their government controlled education is as effective as any other government program :-)

Poll: most Britons doubt cause of climate change | Environment | The Observer:
"The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.

The results have shocked campaigners who hoped that doubts would have been silenced by a report last year by more than 2,500 scientists for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found a 90 per cent chance that humans were the main cause of climate change and warned that drastic action was needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The findings come just before the release of the government's long-awaited renewable energy strategy, which aims to cut the UK's greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over the next 12 years.
. . .
There is growing concern that an economic depression and rising fuel and food prices are denting public interest in environmental issues. Some environmentalists blame the public's doubts on last year's Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, and on recent books, including one by Lord Lawson, the former Chancellor, that question the consensus on climate change.

However Professor Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, said politicians and campaigners were to blame for over-simplifying the problem by only publicising evidence to support the case. 'Things that we do know - like humans do cause climate change - are being put in doubt,' said Lomborg. 'If you're saying, "We're not going to tell you the whole truth, but we're going to ask you to pay up a lot of money," people are going to be unsure.'
. . .
More than half of those polled did not have confidence in international or British political leaders to tackle climate change, but only just over a quarter think it's too late to stop it. Two thirds want the government to do more but nearly as many said they were cynical about government policies such as green taxes, which they see as 'stealth' taxes."

It isn't Oil OR Alternatives, it is Both

For 27 years drilling has been prohibited in proven US oil reserves off of our coasts. In addition in the Rocky Mountain West, we have an enormous amount of energy in oil-shale that can be profitably extracted at current prices.

Our cost for fuel has doubled in less than 3 years, indicating something is out of balance. At current costs, there is a lot of demand (and a lot of profit available) for alternative energy sources, but we can't displace the oil (or carbon) economy overnight. It will take time for alternative energy (even Nuclear) to take it's place.

If we're to avoid doubling fuel costs again in the next 5 years, we need to start using the oil, oil-shale, and coal we have here already. We burn these fuels more cleanly than any other country on the planet, and by insisting on a clean environment, we've developed technologies & expertise we can sell all over the world.

At these prices, the motivation exists, we just need to knock some sense into our politician's heads.

FOXNews.com - McCain Scores With Offshore Drilling Proposal - Opinion:
"John McCain has drawn first blood in the political debate following Barack Obama's victory in the primaries. His call yesterday for offshore oil drilling — and Bush's decision to press the issue in Congress - puts the Democrats in the position of advocating the wear-your-sweater policies that made Jimmy Carter unpopular.

With gas prices nearing $5, all of the previous shibboleths need to be discarded. Where once voters in swing states like Florida opposed offshore drilling, the high gas prices are prompting them to reconsider. McCain's argument that even hurricane Katrina did not cause any oil spills from the offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico certainly will go far to allay the fears of the average voter.
. . .
The Saudis have made a fatal mistake in not forcing down the price of oil. We could have gone for decades as their hostage, letting their control over our oil supplies choke us while enriching them. But they got greedy and let the price skyrocket. The sudden shock which has sent America reeling is just the stimulus we need for a massive movement away from imported oil and toward new types of cars.

The political will for major change in our energy policy is now here and those, like Obama, who don't get it need to rethink their positions. To quote FDR, “this great nation calls for action and action now” on the energy issue. What has been a back-burner problem now has moved onto center stage and McCain has put himself in the forefront.
. . .
Of course, the high price of gas makes it inevitable that the US will lead the world in fighting climate change. With $5 gas, Americans will switch en masse to cars that burn less gasoline. Already we have cut our oil consumption by 500,000 barrels a day in the past year (about a 3% cut). The move away from oil will be exponential from here on out, dooming radical Islam and reversing climate change at the same time. But while we are getting new cars, we need more oil and McCain has flanked Obama on this issue."

Supreme Court Lets Illegal Aliens renege on Deals

Not hugely reported even in Arizona, this decision might result in unintended consequences - why continue to offer such deals and their attendant privileges if they're merely going to used to extend the deportation process?

Supreme Court Ruling Lets Voluntary-Departure Aliens Back Out of their Deal | NumbersUSA:
". . . the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that deportable illegal aliens can back out of their agreement to voluntarily depart the country and get another opportunity to make the case to immigration officials that they should be allowed to adjust their status.

The case (Dada v. Mukasey) involved a visa overstayer whose case to remain in the country had been denied. Existing law allows individuals who are judged deportable to continue to fight deportation or to voluntarily depart within 60 days. This voluntary departure deal, which Dada agreed to, allows the person to: avoid detention pending involuntary deportation; select his own country of destination; leave according to his own schedule (within the prescribed period); and avoid restrictions on readmission that accompany involuntary departure.
. . .
Justice Scalia in his dissenting opinion chastised the majority for constructing options not allowed in current law. He stated “In the final analysis, the Court’s entire approach to interpreting the statutory scheme can be summed up in this sentence from its opinion: ‘Allowing aliens to with-draw from their voluntary departure agreements establishes a greater probability that their motions to reopen will be considered.’ That is true enough. What does not appear from the Court’s opinion, however, is the source of the Court’s authority to increase that probability in flat contradiction to the text of the statute. Just as the Government can (absent some other statutory restriction) relieve criminal defendants of their plea agreements for one reason or another, the Government may well be able to let aliens who have agreed to depart the country voluntarily repudiate their agreements. This Court lacks such authority, and nothing in the statute remotely dictates the result that today’s judgment decrees."

Iran Withdraws $75 Billion from Europe

Is our State Department really this incompetent, or are they playing a different game? You can't announce the intent to freeze assets to the world press and not expect those involved to take action. Makes me wonder what we learned about Iran's true friends by watching where the money went ...

Iran Withdraws $75 Billion from Europe: Report Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English):
"Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear ambitions, an Iranian weekly said.
Western powers are warning the Islamic Republic of more punitive measures if it rejects an incentives offer and presses on with sensitive nuclear work, but the world's fourth-largest oil exporter is showing no sign of backing down."

E.U. to Add To Sanctions Against Iran, Brown Says - washingtonpost.com:
"LONDON, June 16 -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced plans Monday for new European sanctions against Iranian banking, oil and natural gas interests, signaling a growing willingness by Western allies to join President Bush in punishing Tehran for its nuclear enrichment program.

With Bush by his side at 10 Downing Street, Brown said Britain and the other members of the European Union had agreed to freeze the assets of Bank Melli, Iran's largest bank, and would consider separate sanctions targeting Iran's oil and natural gas industry. E.U. ministers are to take formal action as early as Tuesday, officials said.

Brown's announcement, which followed meetings with Bush, was aimed at ratcheting up pressure on the Islamic republic to curtail its nuclear activities and allow more extensive international inspections.

"We will take any necessary actions so that Iran is aware of the choice it has to make: to start to play its part as a full and respected member of the international community or face further isolation," Brown said.
. . .
European action against Bank Melli would come on top of restrictions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department against Melli and other state-owned Iranian financial institutions this year. From 2002 to 2006, Bank Melli sent $100 million to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other organizations that the United States has designated as terrorist groups, according to Treasury officials.

Treasury has also moved to cut off another major Iranian bank, Bank Saderat, from the international financial system.

The United States has had numerous other measures in force against Iran since shortly after the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979."

NewsDaily: Iran withdraws $75 billion from Europe: report:
"Iran is making windfall gains from record global oil prices and said in April its foreign exchange reserves stood at more than $80 billion.

Iran's foreign reserves figure has been climbing steadily. Some analysts say that, alongside rising oil revenues, Iran has been helped by its decision to shift away from the U.S. dollar into other currencies as the dollar has weakened.
Iran has made the shift as Washington has tried to isolate the Islamic state, including imposing sanctions on Iranian banks. That has pushed many Western banks to scrap dollar dealings with Iran or even end business completely."

$75 - 80 Billion could buy a lot of parts for weapons systems - let's hope something intelligent is going on behind closed doors.

Who's reading your posts?

Stuff you post for friends can be viewed by anyone - including the authorities. For most of us this doesn't represent a problem, but the best rule is still "Never type anything on a keyboard you wouldn't want to see on tomorrow's front page".

The most comprehensive police database: Facebook | iGeneration | ZDNet.com:
" ... recently, police forces and constabularies around the globe have been using Facebook as a new social medium to “connect” with its younger population; it seems to be the most popular way to communicate for ordinary folks, why can’t the police use it too? Some questions came to light regarding the police presence on Facebook, especially with some of the applications created to enable users to feel more updated with local policing news in their areas - or so it seems.

By adding certain applications, you’re opening yourself up to be viewed by police officers on the other end of the line."

Officer Rot in the USAF

I found this by following a link on Jerry Pournelle's site. Hopefully the changes in the Air Force recently begun by Secretary Gates will begin to turn these problems around.

Seraphic Secret: Officer Rot in the Unites States Air Force:
". . .
The plague of peacetime bureaucracy has set in, and it's set in hard. “Officer rot” is what Robert dubbed it, and I can't think of a better term to describe the disease. Officers are advanced in a system that awards those who clog the service's pipes with new and excessive regulations. Simplicity and speed are downplayed in favor of safer methodologies.
. . .
Smart people realize that accidents are a statistical certainty.

The Air Force does not.

Now that's a very specific example of a larger problem. And the problem is this: Air Force careerists have made risk aversion their number one priority. 'Who dares, wins' has gone the way of the Dodo. Airman and their officers are forced to memorize the Six Steps of Operational Risk Management and are expected to apply to every decision they make, so that risk may be avoided at all cost. Not unnecessary risk, mind-you. Risk. Period.

Risk aversion, as many thinking types know, is a horrible trait in an officer and a leader. World War II was marked by an innovation in military thinking never seen before in the US Military—except when Confederates Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were engineering innovative ways to kill Union soldiers.
. . .
When I think of officer rot, I think about Air Force careerists trying to get rid of the A-10 Warthog—arguably the greatest close air support platform ever—in favor of a fast-moving Joint Strike Fighter.

They are so caught up in the wars of old, may God help us if the Chinese make good on their threats to reunify with Taiwan, or if Putin brings back the Russian Empire, or if Kim Jong Il decides he wants a bungalow in Seoul.

I'm an Air Force man and I'm telling it to you as plain as I can. We're screwed. Donezo. Kaput.

Pity, as the USAF would be our front line against any of those scenarios.
. . .
as Marshall said, “The chariot, the longbow, the airplane... all wars in history have been decided by the man standing on the smoking battlefield with a sword in hand.”

Just so. The Air Force exists to support the infantry.

Careerist Air Force officers have it in their head that the infantry supports the Air Force. If you can think of a better way to describe that than rot, I'm all ears."

Emphasis added

The End Of England?

It is not political correctness to abandon diverse communities to become enclaves of a religion intent on destroying every aspect of our culture - it is suicide:

"IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- The End Of England?:
British media are reporting that Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham, American evangelical ministers who've been living in Great Britain for years, were told by a police community support officer to 'stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham.'

Cunningham said the officer told him and Abraham in February that they 'were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station.'
. . .
this is another disturbing example of a great nation ceding its culture because its elites are too invested in political correctness. They're so intent on establishing themselves as models of tolerance and moral defenders of diversity that they're willing to be cowed by the radical elements of Islam that are eating away at their civilization.

Already the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has said that "Shariah law is inevitable" in the United Kingdom, and menacing no-go areas in Muslim neighborhoods where non-Muslims should fear to tread have cropped up.

Maybe Williams has given up. But one Anglican bishop, a brave soul who happens to have a Muslim name, has not. Pakistan-born Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, has made it clear that England has to fight for its cultural life and cannot yield to Islamic extremists who he says are taking advantage of the moral vacuum left by a nation that has largely abandoned Christianity in the wake of the 1960s cultural revolution.

As Archbishop Williams was busy surrendering his nation and his faith earlier this year, Nazir-Ali dared to publicly refer to the no-go areas in Muslim neighborhoods and blame them on government multicultural policies that create divisiveness. For that, this courageous clergyman has received death threats.

England would do well to listen to Nazir-Ali, tune out Williams and resist giving in to the impulses of opinion shapers who have opted for moral cowardice. If not, there will be no England, no Great Britain, left.

As it is, England has become a revolving door of migration, the rotation of which is putting a new face on an old nation. Britons are leaving in large numbers and are being replaced in larger numbers by outsiders.

While many of the foreigners relocating in Britain are skilled workers who are necessary to the health of the economy, the country is experiencing a brain drain, the worst in 50 years, the media say. The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development says no other nation is losing qualified people so fast.
. . .
England isn't the only country where the culture is disappearing. Growing Muslim populations across Europe and a tendency for Europeans to roll over for their invaders rather than insist that they assimilate have raised legitimate fears that we are watching the formation of Eurabia.

All over the Continent, policymakers are giving in to Muslim demands for special protection under the law while trembling in fear they might offend Islamists. Our fear is that if the trend isn't reversed, the U.S. will yet again have to rescue Europe from itself."

The last time I visited my grandmother in England, she was still working to further spread the Christian message in the third world. Perhaps it is time for England's missionaries to come home and spread the message of Christ in their own agnostic communities.

The previous brain-drain was also government caused. After WW-II, England used centralized planning on the order of the largest socialist states - resulting inevitably in stupid policies that caused smart people to leave for greener pastures - this is how my parents came to bring me & my siblings to America.

Telling us the truth - NOT the media's objective

The vast majority of today's media has an agenda - getting a "progressive" government elected. That isn't what we're paying them for. Instead of giving us the straight & clear news we expect, they're taking every opportunity available to panic us into following their lead and worshiping at the the liberal altar.

If you remember the late 70's, you remember the double-digit mortgage rates and all the fun we had trying earn enough to pay them while waiting in gas lines. Jimmie Carter's "progressive" policies gave us double-digit inflation, the Iran hostage crisis, and eventually Ronald Reagan.

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- The Economy Isn't Hopeless; It's The Press:
"One look at statistics — from GDP growth to the unemployment rate — and it's obvious this isn't the worst economic time in U.S. history. But it might be the worst journalistically.

The major media give us only two degrees of economic news — close to 'apocalyptic' and worse. They are so outlandishly negative that coverage of the Bear Stearns buyout was vastly worse than reporting of the 1929 stock market crash.
. . .
The difference between how the media handled a crisis in 1929 and 2008 was astounding. Network news was four times more negative about the Bear Stearns buyout than major newspapers were about the 1929 crash, which many historians link to the beginning of the Depression.
. . .
The mere mention of the term "depression" evokes images of food lines, Dust Bowl refugees and bank failures. A recent USAToday.com report showed that the majority of Americans thought a new "depression" was likely.

"Asked if the nation could slip into a depression lasting several years, 59% said it was likely, and 79% said they were worried about it," explained the story.

No wonder. Reporters like CBS's Julie Chen warned viewers about the "growing economic meltdown" in a March 17, 2008, story. ABC's Bianna Golodryga used similar language the very next morning. "Some say the economy is like a house of cards," she told "Good Morning America" viewers.

Bear Stearns' collapse, while making some investors justifiably skittish, was nowhere near the marketwide cataclysm of 1929. In the six days that ended the roar of the '20s, Wall Street lost about 30% of its value.

Cut to 2008, when the unemployment rate is one-fifth of what it was at the height of the Depression. We've yet to see even one quarter of negative GDP growth. Why then was the Bear Stearns coverage worse than news reports from the 1929 crash?

Network news shows have been delivering overly negative reports since 2003. This was standard operating procedure, just more horrific than usual. In 2006, 17 network stories drew comparisons with the Great Depression, from U.S. savings rates to climate change.
. . .
The Business & Media Institute analyzed two much-discussed weeks in America's stock market history — the crash in 1929 and the week of the Bear Stearns collapse in 2008. BMI compared stories in the 1929 Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post with daily reports on ABC, CBS and NBC in 2008.

It was easy to find good news amid the market chaos in 1929. Even in the Times, the most downbeat outlet studied from that era, positive stories still outnumbered negative ones by nearly a 3-to-1 ratio. The Times reported that "there was no denying the increased optimism with which leaders of the financial district viewed the situation."

The modern news media had no such "confidence" in the markets. ABC found a dark cloud for every silver lining, saying: "And everywhere you look, it's bad news." On network news, that statement was accurate."

We have unemployment rates near historic lows.

We're easily paying for the luxury of cleaning our environment to a level never seen by any industrialized society.

We have freedom of movement and expression that sets the standard for the Western World, and is being emulated increasingly around the world.

Most people living in the US enjoy a lifestyle that is the envy of much of the world - so much so that people literally die trying to get here and share it.

Take a moment away from your tough day digging sewers (or whatever you do) and try to look around for positive things. Lots of them can be seen if you try. Then go cancel your newspaper subscription ...

Liberal solutions are invariably big-government solutions - name a big government organization that works anywhere near as efficiently as a private charity or business.

When conservatives aren't drunk on the power to spend our money, they work to reduce the power & influence of government in our lives, reducing the size & cost of government. In the long run, this is better for our grandchildren than our current policies. Don't let today's media convince you to trade tomorrow's prosperity for their "progressive" agenda.

Space based kinetic strategic weapons

For quite some time, science fiction writers have speculated that folks living in space (usually on the moon) could control Earth because of the threat that it would be trivially easy for them to drop "rocks" on cities, causing enormous destruction. A variation on this theme explains why dominance in space is important to our freedom and way of life. Weapons of this nature have their problems, but they are probably much harder to detect & defeat than conventional missiles. By the time you see the glowing dot coming at you, it is probably too late to block it or leave the area.

Rods from God | Popular Science:
"A pair of satellites orbiting several hundred miles above the Earth would serve as a weapons system. One functions as the targeting and communications platform while the other carries numerous tungsten rods—up to 20 feet in length and a foot in diameter—that it can drop on targets with less than 15 minutes’ notice. When instructed from the ground, the targeting satellite commands its partner to drop one of its darts. The guided rods enter the atmosphere, protected by a thermal coating, traveling at 36,000 feet per second—comparable to the speed of a meteor. The result: complete devastation of the target, even if it’s buried deep underground.
. . .
The concept of kinetic-energy weapons has been around ever since the RAND Corporation proposed placing rods on the tips of ICBMs in the 1950s; the satellite twist was popularized by sci-fi writer Jerry Pournelle. Though the Pentagon won’t say how far along the research is, or even confirm that any efforts are underway, the concept persists. The “U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan,” published by the Air Force in November 2003, references “hypervelocity rod bundles” in its outline of future space-based weapons . . .

Launching heavy tungsten rods into space will require substantially cheaper rocket technology than we have today. But there are numerous other obstacles to making such a system work. Pike, of GlobalSecurity.org, argues that the rods’ speed would be so high that they would vaporize on impact, before the rods could penetrate the surface. Furthermore, the “absentee ratio”—the fact that orbiting satellites circle the Earth every 100 minutes and so at any given time might be far from the desired target—would be prohibitive. A better solution, Pike argues, is to pursue the original concept: Place the rods atop intercontinental ballistic missiles, which would slow down enough during the downward part of their trajectory to avoid vaporizing on impact. ICBMs would also be less expensive and, since they’re stationed on Earth, would take less time to reach their targets."

The designers of these weapons understand these arguments - it would be interesting to hear their counters to them. Certainly multiple satellites can reduce the absentee ratio, and possibly small boosters could be used to place the rods where needed. NASA has learned a lot about slowing vehicles on reentry - some of this knowledge might be transferable at a reasonable cost. at the very least, it keeps our enemies busy designing counter-measures rather than offensive weapons.