The Path to 9/11

Ked and I watched the first couple of hours of ABC's The Path to 9/11 last night, the much-debated docudrama about the 8 1/2 years leading up to the day we all remember so well. Ked had to go to sleep at 10pm, so we recorded the rest of the film to watch later. As far as we got into it, it didn't seem nearly as controversial as the brouhaha surrounding the airing made it sound. I know some were very worried that the movie set out to make the Clinton administration look bad for not preventing the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, or the loss of Flight 93. My husband and I really didn't see any such intent in the movie. Maybe the really accusatory stuff comes farther into the program, but two hours in it seemed to simply tell the story. They put a disclaimer in LARGE TYPE, making it clear that they weren't telling every detail, but a summary of events. Here's exactly what it said:

DUE TO SUBJECT MATTER, VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

THE FOLLOWING MOVIE IS A DRAMATIZATION THAT IS DRAWN FROM A VARIETY OF SOURCES INCLUDING THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT AND OTHER PUBLISHED MATERIALS, AND FROM PERSONAL INTERVIEWS. THE MOVIE IS NOT A DOCUMENTARY.

FOR DRAMATIC AND NARRATIVE PURPOSES, THE MOVIE CONTAINS FICTIONALIZED SCENES, COMPOSITE AND REPRESENTATIVE CHARACTERS AND DIALOGUE, AS WELL AS TIME COMPRESSION.

It seems pretty clear to me that they were saying, "We think this is a true account, in spirit, but don't believe every word was spoken, or every scene played out the way we depict it." By the way, the quotation marks I used just now were not intended to imply that I was quoting the producers at Disney literally, merely that that's what I thought was the tone of their disclaimer. The producers also put it a quote from the 9/11 Commission report. It read:

The 9/11 Commission is an independant, bipartisan commission created by Congress in late 2002.

"Our aim has not been to assign individual blame. Our aim has been to provide the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11 and to identify lessons learned."

"In an event of this scale, touching so many issues and organizations, we are conscious of our limits."-9/11 Commission

One thing my husband and I both noticed was that while we didn't see, thus far, people in our government being made to look bad through the film, what we did notice were the people being made to look good--those people being the Muslims in the film who risked their lives, and the lives of their families to warn the American government of the dangers posed by terrorists, including the growing threat of Osama bin Laden. It was noble and brave and self-sacrificing.

We'll have to watch the rest to see how the people in power fare, whether the film is too harsh in casting blame. However, we all know that hindsight is 20/20. In the long run, it really doesn't matter who's to blame, as long as their actions weren't criminal. What's done is done. From what we saw in the movie, much of the problem in stopping the terrorists, and their attacks that led up to 9/11, was the layers of bureaucracy that had to be dug through to get anything done. In any bureaucracy, there are going to be oversights, and mistakes made, and even a certain amount of incompetence. As far as I know, incompetence is not a crime, although it should make us want to consider carefully who we elect into office in future. We also should trim that bureaucracy where we can. As far as the specific people who were in power, and their culpability, who knows whether anyone else, before 9/11, would have taken the threat any more seriously, or handled it better if they did. What does matter, and I hope the thing the movie is trying to get at, is that we learn from what has happened, that we don't underestimate the intelligence, or fervor, or capabilities of the fanatics who want to see us all dead, or converted to their belief system. What I drew from the first night of Path was a deep impression of how seriously we ought to be addressing the threat, and, again, as far as we watched it, it seemed fitting to commemorate the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with such a focused remembrance of how we got there.

A Beating Heart, Or A Reasonable Facsimile

I have been wanting to post about this ever since I first read about it four days ago at Futurismic. I'm finally getting a rest after several days of being hard at it in the back yard. What was once the equivalent of a mountain range of dirt, from our recent excavation, is now merely a rather noticeable hill. You think I'm exaggerating, but at one point the range was about five feet high, eight to ten feet deep, and about forty feet in total length. See--mountain range. We have been building raised beds to tuck the soil in, a twelve by twenty raised patio, and disbursing the rest to level out the yard. Boy howdy, am I tired, but happy to have been very productive. Now I'm feeling like I deserve a good long stretch in the merry, merry land of blogs (mine and all the others I've been missing for days.) All's right in my little world.

So what wonderful and amazing thing I have been waiting to get to for the last four days? Red Herring has news of an extra-cool medical breakthrough:

The first self-contained implanted artificial heart received U.S. government approval for patients who are all out of options and would otherwise die.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that Massachusetts-based Abiomed garnered the green light for their device that aims to prolong the life of those with advanced heart failure who are not eligible for a heart transplant and are unlikely to live more than a month without intervention.

Now someone whose heart is completely shot, but who can't get a regular transplant, for whatever reason (most likely that a donor heart simply isn't available, I would imagine), can opt for the artificial one. Well, let's say the folks with good insurance can opt for the artificial one. At $250,000 a pop, the price-tag is not for the faint of heart. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) Since the artificial heart is implanted, the flesh and blood organ that's on the fritz is actually removed from the patient. The mechanical heart is a two pound monster, with a battery that's tucked into the abdomen. The charging process involves a power transfer coil and the patient's skin. Don't ask me how. That part isn't really intuitive, for the non-medically or mechanically trained (or maybe just me), and the article doesn't go into detail.

There are a few other limitations to the technology, besides price, which I'm sure will improve with time. One issue is size. The substitute heart, as I said, weighs in at two whole pounds right now, and is too large to fit into the chest cavity of most women. According to Red Herring, "Abiomed said it is developing a replacement heart that is 30 percent smaller, but has yet to start clinical trials." I would expect that the trend toward smallness that is the hallmark of technology (think cell phones and Ipods), would have the same effect on the artificial heart. Once the thing has been around for a while, and undergone the inevitable technological shrinkage, it'll probably make the Grinch's tiny ticker look oversized.

Another limitation that should get better with time is battery life. Right now, the internal battery can buy the patient about an hour away from a plug-in, enough time to wander around the hospital lobby for a bit of people watching. If you cart around an external back-up, the heart'll go two hours. Admittedly, that doesn't sound like much, but from what I've been reading about nanofiber batteries, pretty soon they'll probably be able to implant a battery the size of a postage stamp that will run the heart for the next decade. Two, if the patient doesn't take up jogging.

The Red Herring article looks at the medical results to date for patients fitted with this mechanical pumper. Right now the count of the patients who have actually opted for the artificial heart over the failing real one stands at 14. Most have gained a few months of life that they would not otherwise have known. One patient lived another 17 months, which is substantial when you consider what a breakthrough this is. One of the artificial heart recipients was even able to be discharged and go home.

I know that this doesn't necessarily sound all that exciting. We'd love to see every patient all better, and able to live out a full, healthy life. Most of these patients bought themselves a few more months of dreary walls and hospital food. However, they also helped in the progress of medicine, and those people who follow after them, who someday receive the smaller, refined, long-battery-life versions of this technology will be truly blessed because the first patients were willing to take the chance that what they went through would be worth it. Even for those who only gain a few months, that time could be so important. 17 months could be everything to that father who wants to be there for his daughter's wedding, or the mom who has a little more wisdom to pass to her children before she passes on herself. That's the benefit to patients in the short term. Over time, as the technology improves, the outcomes for patients are going to get better and better. This is a wonderful breakthrough.

And The Meme Goes On

Kedley and I are still in manual labor mode. I'll post something of more substance when I get the chance. In the meantime, the partial release of a Senate Intelligence Committee report is making headlines with its claims that there was no Saddam connection to al Qaeda prior to the Iraq war. It is the ongoing "Bush lied" meme, being given another go-round by the media, this time using the Intelligence Committee report as its authority. Thomas Joscelyn, at The Weekly Standard, however, says the "new Senate report on Iraq and al Qaeda ignores everything which gets in the way of its conclusions." He cites other evidence and sources, and makes a pretty good case that the Committee didn't really do the job of fact-finding it claimed to do, and gave credence to sources it should have taken with a truckload of salt, or at the very least questioned more closely.

I've never bought the "Bush lied" mantra. I heard too many of his speeches in their entirety to believe that any one reason was the driving force behind our deposing of Saddam. Bush never claimed that Saddam was connected to 9/11, nor that Saddam and al Qaeda were working hand in hand, merely that there had been some contact between Saddam's regime and bin Laden's organization. There is no question that the two had some goals in common. However, neither WMD, or a Saddam link to al Qaeda were the exclusive reason for taking us to war. There were many, no matter whether some choose to forget that for political reasons, including the fact Saddam had defied the conditions of the cease-fire at the end of the first Gulf war for over a decade.

Another thing which contradicts the premise that the President took us to war under false pretenses is the number of Senators who supported the war in the first place, who did so on the same evidence used by Bush, but now find it politically inconvenient to stand on their decision. Too many of the war's current opponents switched sides when it became unpopular with their constituents. They are now trying to justify this switch by claiming their original information was faulty. Joscelyn casts doubt on their claims. As I said, I've never believed that Bush pulled a fast one on everybody just so he could get oil, or revenge, or whatever else his motives supposedly were. None of those motivations make sense to me, so maybe Joscelyn's preaching to the choir here, but read the Weekly Standard article anyway. It should at least confirm that there's more to the debate than what's in the report from the Senate Committee. The Saddam, al Qaeda link question is only one part of the "why we went to war" equation, but with every piece it's important that we get it right, and it's important that we consider all the evidence. Joscelyn doesn't think the Committee did.

Personal note: Here I was intending to just pop up the link and a short paragraph to tell y'all what it was about. This whole blogging thing takes on a life of its own. I just can't seem to stop myself from letting those darned opinions loose, even when I have other pressing work to do. Okay, this time I really am heading out to work. I'm going now. This is me going. I've almost torn myself away. Come on Kat, a little self-control!! Bye.

Gas Price Conspiracy

Those evil oil barons are conspiring to lower prices. I don't know how they're managing it, but it's evil I tell you. Pure evil. Actually, I do know how they're doing it. The end of summer, among other things, means less demand. Less demand means lower prices; just like more demand means higher prices. The law of supply and demand in action, as Pejman Yousefzadeh points out at TCS Daily. You can bet another major hurricane would bump 'em up again, but, if that happens, will the weather and reduced supply get the blame? No. Then it will be wicked price gougers who are forcing us to pay through the nose. In the meantime, I don't see many headlines declaring in big, bold letters how beneficent they're being at Chevron and ARCO as the prices come down. One nice side effect of the price tumble--less money lining the pockets of tyrannical regimes with oil reserves. Still, I wish those oil companies would stop being evil. There's just something un-American about lowering prices when supply warrants it. Evil. Pure Evil.

Challenging Path

I don't have the time this morning to do justice to the whole Path to 9/11 brouhaha that has Democratic Senators sending letters to Disney requesting them to pull the docudrama set to air on ABC this Sunday and Monday nights. Democrats are up in arms because, apparently, the mini-series doesn't paint the Clinton administration in a particularly favorable light regarding the way they dealt with the terrorist threat. With the November election looming large, in which they hope to regain power in Congress, it's pretty obvious why they don't want anything airing that might cast doubt on Democratic terrorist-fighting capabilities.

I must refrain from telling all the details, and my many and varied opinions on the subject, but boy do I have them. However, to really delve into it at this point would keep the dirt mountain in my back yard from shrinking, and it really needs to shrink before Portland starts the annual rain ritual that keeps our corner of the world so green. A mud mountain is definitely worse than a dirt mountain. Anyway, since this morning sees me somewhat booked, but I think this topic is one that deserves a little notice, I will send you to Scrappleface. Not only does Scott Ott bring you the very finest in political satire, but also, if you follow the links he has peppered throughout his short burst of wit, you will get something pretty close to the whole story of what is stirring up this particular tempest, as well as where it's headed--i.e. who's caving to Democratic pressure and changing things to suit them. Hint: Disney-owned ABC, and Scholastic (a publishing company for children's educational material.) Enjoy, and tell me your many and varied opinions, if you feel like it. I can live vicariously.

Update: Hugh Hewitt has seen the film, thinks it's an important and powerful piece of work, and has an interesting take on the controversy. Some have compared this Path situation to the one where CBS pulled a movie about the Reagans in November of 2003. The movie, apparently, did not portray the Reagans in a favorable light. Among other things, Hewitt looks at whether the comparison holds water. One thing I would point out about the Reagan comparison is that a lot of the same people who were crying "censorship" when CBS voluntarily yanked the movie in 2003 are calling for the mini-series to be axed. A little consistency would help their case, or at least lessen the impression of partisanship. (via Michelle Malkin)

I Can't Find The Patient, Doctor; I know She's Gotta Be In There Somewhere

Egyptian blogger Big Pharaoh has an example of Western "sensitivity to Muslims" run amok (in the doing things not to offend them sense, not the being allergic to them sense.) A couple of British hospitals are offering a burka-style gown for their patients who really want to preserve their modesty. BP says, "No Freakin Way!', and comments that they don't even have this kind of hospital gown in Egypt. He thinks Britain is going way too far, and not doing Muslims any favors. Check it out. He's got a picture of the gown. It actually looks really comfortable......okay, not even close.

When Satire Gets Angry

Here's how to take a simple little compliment (for a politician no less), and turn it into a rant against Harvard, Boston, The State Department's visa standards, and the U.N., and do it all in only five short paragraphs. Sarah K went on a tear at IMAO. It was impressive. IMAO is one of my favorite places for satire. They do know how to take things to their ridiculous extremes (occasionally they take them a little farther than makes me comfortable), but sometimes it's really hard to take things any farther than they already go in real life. Sometimes reality is too far gone to parody or satirize. I don't know if this counts as satire, but I sure sympathize with the sentiments.

Live Long And Prosper

There's an excellent piece at TCS Daily, by Donald J. Boudreaux, who is Chair of the Economics Department at George Mason University. He gives us a clear look at the growing prosperity in the Western World, and how good we've had it ever since the industrial revolution. Lest we think that those of us who don't inhabit the upper tax brackets here in the States are not prosperous, because we compare ourselves to the Joneses (or the Rockefellers), he gives us a rundown of all the ways even poorer Americans out-rich our predecessors. I think most of us know we have it better than many of our contemporaries in poorer countries as well. Even people I know who struggle to pay the bills each month still have a place to live, a telephone, TV, DVD player, microwave, etc., so clearly, compared to eras when even the very rich didn't have indoor plumbing, we're doing pretty well.

Boudreaux comments that many think that the key to our well-heeled lives lies in technology. I find we definitely tend to measure our prosperity in terms of technology, as with the list above, so I guess I do tend to link the two. He says this is an error, and that what makes us, and others around the world, prosper beyond anything history has ever known is the impetus of free markets, which enable those technological advances. He draws from the example of modern-day countries in which people still use wooden carts to take goods to market, live in dirt huts, and die young, from causes ranging from Malaria to starvation, despite the fact that the technology exists which could change these situations. What the people lack in the countries where these conditions exist is economic freedom. Boudreaux's article isn't too long, nor is it in confusing economist-speak, but it does having some interesting facts and figures. Have a look.

Look, The Moon Is Full

I got the latest space-related tidbits from SpaceWeather.com this morning. It seems the Pluto lovers of the world are still up in arms that their favorite planet has been demoted to "dwarf" status. Some people just refuse to accept the new level of planet snobbery in the solar system, and the debate rages on. If you are among those still reeling from the notion that our neighborhood only has eight planets, Space Weather has a petition, with a place for comments, where you can add your two cents. Three even, if you're so inclined.

Another astronomical item of note is our very own satellite. Tonight's a full Moon, and it will be bigger and brighter than any other full Moon of 2006. Here's what Space Weather had to say about the why and wherefore:

What makes it big? Answer: The Moon's lopsided orbit. One side of the Moon's orbit is 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other side. The two sides are called, respectively, perigee, from Greek, meaning "close to Earth," and apogee, meaning "far from Earth." Tonight's Moon is at perigee.

In further action, eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia will get the chance to see a partial lunar eclipse this evening, and there's some exciting sunspot activity for people who have the right telescope and filters to stare at our ball of fire in the sky. There's a nifty little animation of the lunar show if you follow the link at Space Weather. There's also a chart with recent near miss asteroid information, if you like to think of impending doom scenarios.

Well, I think that catches us up on Space Weather info. I'm out to work on our giant mountain of dirt in the back yard. I'll be in again when I need a rest, and I'll see what's going on in the world. I'll let you know if I find anything interesting.

The Perils Of Property Rights

Matt Labash, at The Weekly Standard has an eminent domain tale that reads like the Perils of Pauline, the silent film serial which had its theater debut in 1914. Wikipedia says:

The very popular silent Perils of Pauline was a cliffhanger serial shown in weekly installments featuring Pearl White as the title character, a perpetual damsel in distress. She was menaced by assorted villains, including pirates and Native Americans. At the end of each installment she was generally placed in a situation that looked sure to result in her imminent death. The start of the next episode showed how she was rescued or otherwise escaped the danger, only to face fresh peril again.

In an article titled "This Land Is Whose Land?," Labash tells the story of the Halpers, and their fight to keep the farm that had been owned by their family since 1922. It's a long, involved story, with cliffhangers and villains galore, and I'm sorry to tell you up front, does not have a happy ending, unless you like the idea of the town of Piscataway, New Jersey taking the operating family farm under pretext of saving it from developers.

Now, I have to say, that even if the Halpers were planning to sell to developers, it was their land, and I think they should have the right to dispose of it as they see fit, as long as they weren't breaking any laws. Let the city deny permits to the people who plan to put up condos, or strip malls, if it wants to, and can do it legally, but to take the Halpers' land on the chance they might sell seems disingenuous at best. If the family did decide to sell, why couldn't the city bid on it like other interested buyers? That would assure fair market value for the sale. However, that wasn't how the town went about the business (of course, it never is how towns do these things), and the pretext they used doesn't really hold up to scrutiny.

Labash clarifies some of the problems with the town's position. One of the primary problems with the city's claimed desire to save the property from imminent development is that the family had already refused numerous lucrative offers from developers, because they wanted to keep farming their land, and keep farming it they did, right up until they were evicted. Another is that the city had no objection to the numerous other farms sold and developed in the area, just the Halpers'. Yet another difficulty, less to do with the town's motives than its methods, is that the town, as towns are wont to do, offered substantially less than the property's value, giving the Halpers no incentive to cooperate with its scheme to "rescue" the land.

The case went through the court system with many a Perils of Paulinesque twist and turn, including, by Labash's account, some of the famed government corruption for which New Jersey has gained notoriety, even to the point of not-so-veiled death threats. The situation cannot be laid entirely at the door of New Jersey corruption, however, since the battle for property rights took a devastating blow with the much-lamented Kelo decision of 2005, in which the Supreme Court voted 5-4 that eminent domain extended beyond the traditionally accepted standard.

The Court ruled that a community could not only take property (supposedly properly compensated) for such things as schools and roads, as was previously considered acceptable, but that a town could force the transfer of privately held land from one owner to another private owner, if the community would benefit economically from the sale--a much broader interpretation of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. In other words, if a town will get more tax revenues from having a shopping mall where your house is, it can force you to sell to a private developer. Of course, you need not fear that individuals might be acting out of personal greed. I'm sure bribery and hidden private investments never muddy the political waters. All city councils act in absolute purity. (Okay, sarcastic moment over.) Summing up--the ruling pretty much leaves the limits to government's ability to manipulate property rights in tatters.

The whole legal wrangle with Piscataway and the Halpers started well before the Kelo decision; it's been in the courts for years, but Kelo gives the town much more firm footing from which to make its grab. So, Piscataway has the power to claim eminent domain, and purporting to fear that the Halpers will one day sell their property, the town confiscates it, for far less than the property is worth. The Halpers rack up massive legal bills, and still lose the farm that's been in their family for over eighty years. The town can now do whatever it wants with the land, including sell it to the same developers that they fretted would buy it in the first place. According to Labash, all of the locals he talked to think this outcome is likely. The Halpers, meanwhile, are literally homeless.

The Halpers' story is just one of many Perils being played out across the country. Kelo has made a mess of property rights. Personally, I don't think this decision can stand for the long haul. Interesting thing about it, the decision actually managed to bridge the gap between right and left in American politics. When the decision came down, there was an outcry from the full spectrum of political positions. Many legal scholars think it's bad law, and hopefully the issue will be returning to a Supreme Court that's seen what a mess its decision has wrought (certainly not what the Framers of the Constitution intended), or at least to a Supreme Court that no longer has all five of the same Justices who made the decision confirming that Piscataway had the right to take the Halpers' farm. Haven't some of those Justices earned a nice long retirement? I think many homeowners would happily pay their taxes, knowing that they were helping the people who brought you Kelo not to be on the bench.

Soccer

Hey, here's one for you combination political junkies and soccer fans. (You know who you are.) Ilya Shapiro, at TCS Daily, looks at an Israeli soccer club that's providing mentoring for kids of all stripes in Israel: "Jews, Arabs, Bedouins, and Druze." Shapiro says the non-profit project combines mentoring, tutoring, soccer training, and interaction with professional athletes:

The goal is to leverage the club's professional achievements and youthful love of sport to transform the lives of the underprivileged and promote understanding among different ethnic, religious, and socio-economic groups. Sports are thus a means of developing healthy young citizens, able and motivated to become contributing members of society.

From having watched the World Cup for the first time this year, and seeing how engaged the world at large is in soccer, I think this is a great idea, and from Shapiro's account, it's being very effective at helping underprivileged youth overcome their disadvantages (16,000 of them--girls too.) Go Team!!

Truce

I know I've been a bit out of the loop the last few days, what with the Fair and all, but just because I let my reading slip is no reason for major events to occur in my absence. I can't believe I missed this--Pakistan has ceded territory to the Taliban? There is now an "Islamic Emirate of Waziristan," recognized in a Taliban/Pakistani truce? Bill Roggio, writing at The Fourth Rail, describes the results of the agreement:

The Pakistani government has ceded a region the size of New Jersey, with a population of about 800,000 to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan is not the end of the Taliban's expansion, however. An intelligence source indicates similar negotiations between the Taliban and the Pakistani government are being held in the agencies of Khyber, Tank, Dera Ishmal Khan and Bajaur. The jihadi dreams of al-Qaeda's safe havens in western Pakistan have become a reality. And the gains made by the Coalition in Afghanistan have now officially been wiped away with the peace agreement in the newly established Islamic Emirate of Waziristan.

Read Roggio's post for more details, including the terms of the truce, which don't seem to favor Pakistan, and, some sources indicate, include a safe haven for Osama bin Laden. I'd love to put a positive spin on this one, but I may need some help getting there. Any suggestions? I'm looking for the U.S. reaction to the news, and will report back if I come up with anything. You do the same, okay?

Hat tip: Instapundit

Update III: I moved this update up, because it answers a pertinent question from the previous paragraph. According to Forbes.com, posted today, Pakistan has denied that the truce will provide bin Laden with safe haven:

"Pakistan is committed to its policy on the war on terror, and Osama caught anywhere in Pakistan would be brought to justice," the country's top army spokesman, Gen. Shaukat Sultan, told The Associated Press.

Of course, the key phrase here is "caught anywhere in Pakistan." The catching part has been a problem.

Update: According to this report, from Jonathan S. Landay at McClatchy Newspapers, the truce went ahead with U.S. approval, although Landay, like Roggio, says that what the truce did was free up Taliban fighters in Pakistan to go join the battle against U.S., NATO, and Afghan forces in Afghanistan, now that the militants are not busy fighting the Pakistani army. Despite how this looks, though, I have to believe that if the U.S. encouraged the truce, there has to be more information that we don't know. Why would the U.S. back something so totally against its interests?

Update II: This report, from Yahoo!News India, sees the agreement as a good thing, and says that the truce carries a Taliban agreement that local tribesmen will stay put and stop fighting--and not head into Afghanistan:

No local tribesman would be allowed to enter Afghanistan to attack US-led coalition forces stationed in Afghanistan under the agreement signed on Saturday by pro-Taliban militants with the Pakistan government to ensure 'permanent peace' in the volatile northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border, The News International reported from Miramshah in Waziristan, quoting intelligence officials.

Under the agreement, which is likely to be unveiled by the government next week, militant will halt all attacks on government officials and security forces, and the army 'will not carry out operations against them,' said an area intelligence official on condition of anonymity, the newspaper reported.

'This is a good development because the Taliban have promised to stay away from militancy,' said the official. 'The Taliban have also agreed to distance themselves from foreign militants' hiding in the area, he added.

I note that it's local tribesmen that are prohibited from crossing the border, but with the number of foreign Taliban fighters in Pakistan, which I understand to be quite high, I'm not sure that this restriction is very meaningful, and I'm very sure that this portion of the truce will be hard to enforce anyway. Militant Islam does have a habit of talking out of both sides of its mouth.

A Nano-Factory In Every Home

Sioux Lady, who knows my affection for all things nano, left a comment sending me to this fun and fascinating animation, about future advances in nanotechnology, in which a household appliance builds products, molecule by molecule. The animation showed the general workings of how your own personal "nano-factory" could build you a laptop, or other desirable worldly goods, right there in the comfort of your own home. Need a new dress for this evening's outing? How about a skillet to replace the one that keeps burning dinner? Heck, how about dinner itself? (The video didn't mention these items; I just like to take an idea and run with it.) It did mention the laptop, however, so we're talking here about pretty sophisticated product manufacture, and I assume one would have to plug in some sort of design schematic from which the mini nano-factory would work. It would start at the molecular level, and using a nano-conveyor belt system, would assembly-line the structures up to larger and larger combinations, until finally assembling the whole, with (I'm quoting the video, here) no waste products other than warm air, and water.

Now, I am an optimist, and can see potential for global transformation in something as mundane as a slipper, if you give me a good reason, but I have to admit, this goes into my "highly probably too good to be true" file. Something for practically nothing, with no bad side effects? Dream, dream, dream. On the other hand, there are so many impossible things in the world: space shuttles, television, the human body, heck, carrots, that I can't categorically dismiss this as impossible, and boy, wouldn't it be a world changer if it ever came to be? Can you imagine shipping a few thousand--or a few hundred thousand, since ultimately they could manufacture themselves-- of these babies to poverty-stricken locations around the globe? Once we got past the inevitable confiscation by corrupt and tyrannical regimes, overcome entirely by the machines' self-manufactured ubiquity, there would be no going back. Governments would no longer be able to imprison their people in poverty and ignorance. World transformation would ensue. Okay, I let the optimist out of the box, and now there's no holding her back. Anyway, despite her over-abundant enthusiasm, it is still fun to speculate. Check out the video; let it manufacture a few speculations of your own.

Peekaboo Moons

The new space photos are up!! The new space photos are up!! MSNBC put out its photos from the month of August. As usual, just click on "see the slide show." There's a true color view of a Martian landscape, a close encounter of two galaxies, the remains of an exploded star, the Witch Head and Orion Nebulas, a spacewalk, and other cool and interesting pics. I think my favorite is the one they titled Peekaboo moons--one of Saturn's moons eclipsed by another, all cut through the middle by Saturn's rings. Fun, fun, fun.

The Growth Of Peace

Ronald Bailey, at Opinion Journal, has a really interesting piece on a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for, are you ready for this?--improvements in wheat. Honest. Norman Borlaug is an agricultural innovator, who helped forestall the massive starvation once predicted for billions of the world's teaming masses. The Nobel Committee decided that not starving was as good an incentive toward peace as any that year, and growing more productive grain helped with the whole not starving thing. Mind you, Borlaug improved grain production a lot. I can see the Committee's point. A full belly does tend to make people a little more satisfied with their lot in life. At 92, Borlaug is still working to improve world food supplies. He's also on board with one of my favorite topics of exploration, biotech. He's for more research, and less regulation, just what we like here at the Meow.

Hat tip: Instapundit

A Day At The Fair

This morning I'm going to do something I rarely do. I'm going to write a purely personal blog post. If you're not interested in the goings-on in the week of a middle-aged city gal, now is the time to bail. As of this moment, I have nothing political, cultural, or scientific to pass along (although I'm very sure that won't last.) I've been too busy to get in my reading quota for the last few days. Boy, have I been busy. We've had family come to town for hiking trips and dinners out. That was the fun part of busy. The rest gets a bit more tedious. Those of you who have been following the church painting project will send some sympathy our way when you read that my husband and I spent another thrilling couple of days in the bucket of the lift, painting away for hours on end. Sunday, we started after the morning service, and painted till it was too dark to see anymore. Too dark to see happens around 8:30 this time of year in Portland. That's a long time up in the bucket. (We got almost all the trim finished, which is good, because the rented lift gets returned today.) There's been other stuff filling up our time, as well, but I think you've probably had enough Kat's schedule details by now. I know I have.

Yesterday, of course was Labor day, which is a day we traditionally labor. We often use the day off to work on some project or other, however, this year we broke with tradition, in order to fulfill another annual tradition--one of the very few traditions my husband and I have, actually. We went to the Oregon State Fair. The Oregon Fair is huge. There are displays and competitions for just about everything imaginable, except maybe space-walking and deep-sea diving. We try to go every year, although not usually on Labor day, which is the last day of the fair, and tends to be crowded. However, we ran out of time this year, and we had to mesh our schedule together with the schedule of the friends who went with us. We often go alone, but this year we invited some friends who have kids. Seeing everything with kids just adds a whole different dimension to the fun.

This year, because we were with the small fry, we eschewed some of the standard lures that Fair time usually holds for those of us who live in Meowville. We went with things that would please the kids, and this shifted our focus a bit. Some things, though, are universally pleasing. We always see the animals, of course, and this year was no different. However, since it was the last day, many of the critters had headed off to greener pastures already. They had won their ribbons and gone home. Even so, there were still a few stragglers hanging around waiting to be adored, so the kids got to pet llamas and goats, and a really big emu. Goats are so very adorable and friendly. Long-haired, short-haired, pygmy, you name it, they're cute and cuddly in a smelly, barnyard sort of way. A few of my favorite goats were still around. I don't know what they are called but they have these giant pink udders that make them look as though they are straddling a tailless pig. You just can't beat a pig-straddling goat for sheer entertainment value. There were a few giant pigs suckling truly adorable piglets, too. What city kid could want more? The children were amply amused.

The rest of the day passed with great enjoyment. We all baked under the hot sun, sweat literally rolling down our backs, while darling little dogs stood on one paw, and jumped over obstacles. A magician amazed us by re-materializing a shredded playing card and squirting the perspiring crowd with the occasional shower. The crowd was grateful, I think. The kids got to glide down a giant slide and fly in a rocket ship. The two men and small boy in our little party got to climb all over large farm equipment. They climbed over large farm equipment several times during the course of the day. No one could have been happier. Except my husband. He would have been happier if I had actually gone along with him BUYING one of those beautiful pieces of machinery. It was the only disappointment to the day. He is not going to fill up my new shop with a track hoe. It's just not going to happen. We diverted him with the other thing that is dear to every man's heart--food. We all ate terribly healthy fair food, like corn-dogs, caramel corn, and chocolate-dipped cheesecake. And Shave Ice. Every day at the fair needs Shave Ice.

The highlight of the Fair this year for me was definitely the demolition derby. First, it was indoors, and therefor cool. By this point we were all grateful for cool. That wasn't what made the demolition derby the highlight of the day, though. I had forgotten how fun they were. I remember my Dad taking us often, when I was small, to the stock car races. It was a long, loud ordeal for me, although I was happy to go, since it got us out of whatever yard-work needed doing at home. I suffered my way through the diversion, sometimes bored, but glad to be on a family outing. Sometimes, though, at the end of the day, there was the all-too-brief explosion of fun that came from ten or so cars all ramming each other into oblivion. It was glorious. Now, I never was a violent child, but there was just something so exciting about the crunch of metal and the plumes of smoke as beat-up old junkers tried to be the last car standing. Yesterday, we each picked "our car" for the heats. I chose the worst car both times. My husband, on the other hand, chose both the winners. He actually had reasons for his choices, like how sturdy the model was. I just thought mine looked cool. I think his method works better than mine.

It was funny, watching the derby as an adult was every bit as fun, but it did have its grown up, socially conscious moments, like when one of our friends leaned over and mentioned how these cars were all in good running order, and most would be perfectly satisfactory family cars in third world countries. People would be grateful to have such a treasure. Here, we take our wealth so for granted that we demolish them for ten minutes entertainment. Then we award a trophy and a prize. The prize in this case was seventy-five dollars. Seventy-five dollars to destroy a not-quite-perfectly-good, but running, car. The losers get nothing but a heap of shredded metal. How sad. The pang of conscience was short lived, however. Even with that brief flash of social consciousness to mar the moment, it was still a ball.

So we amused ourselves throughout the hot, late-summer day, and Ked and I fully plan to go back again next year. We didn't see horses strutting, pulling stagecoaches, or jumping rail fences this year. We didn't see the photography exhibits, nor the flower displays. We didn't see the giant vegetables, nor the 4H fashion show, no glass blowing, or juggling. There's so much to do when the fair rolls around again. Every year is different, and that's what brings us back, over and over. We enjoyed seeing it this year through the eyes of our friends, and especially their children. The look on a small boy's face as he's making his rocket ship soar higher into the air is, all by itself, worth the long drive, and parking in outer Mongolia, the crowds, the ridiculous prices for bad-for-you food, and the sore feet. By the end of the day, we were all footsore and content, just as such days are meant to end. The only thing missing was the giant blow-up orange octopus that no one ever knows what to do with when they get it home. Oh well, there's always next year.

Be Careful What You Say

Wow, Mark Steyn of the Chicago Sun-Times has some difficult and profound words for the West, and Western media. Most of you probably know that a few weeks ago, two FOX News Channel journalists were captured in Gaza, and held prisoner for two weeks. The ransom demand was the release of all Muslim prisoners in the U.S., which, needless to say, didn't happen. What did happen was that the two journalists publicly (as in, they were videotaped for later broadcast) converted to Islam, garnering their own release.

Many journalists and pundits hailed the conversion as a common-sense move by the journalists to free themselves--just a practical step, or even a clever sham, that anyone would take to ensure their own safety. Steyn's perspective is different, and he examines what the effect on the Islamist mind is when the message we in the West send continually conveys weakness:

It doesn't matter how "understandable" Centanni and Wiig's actions are to us, what the target audience understands is quite different: that there is nothing we're willing to die for. And, to the Islamist mind, a society with nothing to die for is already dead.

Read the rest, if you have the time. It's an important reminder that what we intend to say, and what others hear, are not always the same thing--and that what we do is part of what we say. Not all Muslims are looking for the West to fall, but those who are waging this jihad are looking to exploit any weakness. Their message is consistent: Convert, or die. We need to make sure that our words and actions are sending a consistent message, too, and that the message isn't, "We surrender."

Hat tip: Instapundit

The International Double Standard

I am continually frustrated by the international double standard that judges Israel more harshly than pretty much anybody else. This double standard rears its ugly head among national governments, world bodies such as the United Nations, as well as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), which are supposedly looking for human rights violations from whatever quarter they arise, but don't quite manage to see the ones against Israel as easily as violations by Israel. For some reason, it's easier to establish war crimes and human rights violations if Israel is the perpetrator than if they are committed by any other nation or group. Joshua Muravchik, at The Weekly Standard, examines this same inconsistency in the case of one such NGO, Human Rights Watch. The evidence of bias that Muravchik draws out is damning, in my opinion. He discusses how that bias leads Human Rights Watch into conflict with its own reason for being, as (from the HRW website) an organization "dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world." If HRW is dedicated to protecting human rights, the question that then begs an answer is whether Israel has the basic human right of self-defense.

Muravchik examines HRW's response to the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah/Lebanon. According to Muravchik, Human Rights Watch determined that Israel was in the wrong in the conflict, by reason of having targeted civilians. He points out that, while it's true that civilians did die in Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, which locates its operations in civilian areas, HRW has little basis for this accusation that it was intentional on the part of the Israelis, especially since Israel dropped fliers to warn civilians of impending attacks. The Israeli Defense Force sacrificed tactical advantage to give Lebanese civilians the chance to leave targeted areas before bombing began, clearly indicating they did not desire to kill innocents, but that was HRW's conclusion all the same:

The decision by Human Rights Watch to treat Israel as the main culprit in this war also entailed a studied refusal to make basic moral and legal distinctions. The group did not differentiate between Hezbollah's action in initiating the conflict and Israel's reaction in self-defense, nor between Hezbollah's openly announced and quite deliberate targeting of civilians and Israel's alleged indiscriminate firing that caused civilian casualties despite Israel's appeals to Lebanese civilians to evacuate areas it intended to bombard.

Most remarkably, Human Rights Watch did not take note of the contrasting goals of the combatants. Hezbollah's declared aim, in the words of its "spiritual" leader, Sheikh Fadlallah, is to "obliterate" Israel, while Israel's goal boiled down to not being obliterated. Human Rights Watch justifies this self-imposed moral blindness on the grounds that its touchstone is law, not morality. But why, then, was it deafeningly silent on the overriding legal issue that the conflict presented--namely, genocide?

Muravchik then goes on to discuss the international legal standards for what constitutes genocide, and what the responsibilities for signatories to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide are. By the conditions of this Convention, every country with their John Hancock on that treaty should be defending Israel, or any other nation, or people, for that matter, when they are threatened with genocide. Now, I realise that Hezbollah is not really in the position, at this point, where they can achieve the goal of "obliterating" Israel as they desire. However, I don't think there's a clause in the Convention that excuses signatories from the duty they signed up for, if the group planning the elimination of another is not really capable of carrying out the threat--yet. I add the word yet, because, as most of us know, the nuclear capabilities that Iran is pursuing "for peaceful purposes" could very likely find Hezbollah accessing bigger "toys" than that organization has previously been able to acquire, and then it would be an entirely different situation.

Muravchik clarifies Hezbollah's position:

And if such casuistic arguments needed further refutation, there is the eloquent testimony of Hezbollah's anti-personnel missiles fired at Israeli civilians. As Hezbollah's Sheikh Fadlallah puts it: "There are no innocent Jews in Palestine." Nor is that all. Hezbollah's strongman, Hassan Nasrallah, has affirmed that Hezbollah's target is not only the Jews of Palestine. "If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide," he declared in 2002, according to a report in Lebanon's Daily Star, the accuracy of which is not disputed.

He continues:

As it happened, nearly half of the civilians slaughtered by Hezbollah's missiles in the recent conflagration were not Jews, but Israeli Arabs. This prompted Nasrallah to issue a personal appeal to Arabs to evacuate Haifa so that only Jews would be killed. In sum, from whichever angle you examine it, whether to obliterate Israel or to kill Jews, Hezbollah is an operation whose purpose is genocide. For this reason, disarming Hezbollah should not fall to Israel alone. It is the legal obligation of every one of the 137 state parties to the Genocide Convention.

None of this, however, drew the attention of Human Rights Watch or diverted it from its main mission of attacking Israel. It is a mission that predates the recent crisis.

What follows in Muravchik's article is a very long look at the history of Human Rights Watch as an organization, and an examination of how it developed its particular slant on the world. It's worth your time, although it's quite lengthy and I will not try to summarize it here. From my perspective, it's fascinating to see where such biases as the pervading world opinion against Israel come from. There are a lot of different sources of prejudice in the world, but I find it especially interesting to see how a group whose entire focus is human rights and fairness comes to conclusions that seem so contrary to its general outlook.

I really don't want to cast aspersions on everything that Human Rights Watch does. The general work they have taken upon themselves is important. We do need watchdogs in this troubled world, but we need watchdogs that see clearly and bark at every threat, not just some of them. Usually, I try my darnedest to be fair-minded and not make assumptions about people's motives, but I have to admit that this is a situation that really frosts me. I see Israel condemned regularly, for acts of self-preservation, while those who attack her, Hezbollah in this specific case, are given as close to a pass as can be given, without ignoring altogether the thousands of missiles they have shot indiscriminately into Israel, for the clearly stated purpose that they want Israel to be no more, destroyed, eliminated. I grant you that it is perfectly reasonable to question whether all of Israel's actions are justifiable. By all means evaluate the legitimacy of her targets within the context of self-defense. I'm not suggesting the Israel be given a pass more than anyone else, but please at least distinguish between self-defense and attempted genocide--for both Israel and Hezbollah. Hezbollah has an openly declared policy of genocide against Jews and Israelis. Israel dropped leaflets before bombing runs in Lebanon to warn civilians to get out of harm's way. The two are not morally equivalent.

Nanotubes And The Inkjet Printer

My abiding love for carbon nanotubes only deepens with time. Every new advance impresses me more with the unlimited capacity that these tiny building blocks seem to have to turn our world into a science fiction adventure. I would like to live in a science fiction adventure--one of the nice ones, like Star Trek TNG, or Stargate SG 1, but without the built-in bad guys. My life has enough problems without adding in Romulans, Borg, or evil alien symbiotes. Cloaking devices, food replicators, and transporters, on the other hand, could be awfully useful. Anyway, I've got another nanotech breakthrough to report, so let's get to it.

One question I'm sure we've all got nagging at us regularly is, "What would take nanotech one step closer to ubiquity?" Answer: An easier method of fabricating nanotech devices, of course! Science Daily has a report from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which says that a group of scientists at Rensselaer (with campuses in Troy N.Y., as well as Hartford, Conn.), along with other researchers working in Finland, have come up with a new way to make nanotube electronic devices. How, you ask? (I'm so glad you did ask, otherwise this post would have to be a lot shorter. Very anticlimactic.) They suspended carbon nanotubes in a water solution, filled an ink cartridge with them, plugged it into a commercial inkjet printer, and viola--instant nano printing press. The nanotubes are printed on the paper, just like ink, except they are such excellent electrical conductors, that the result is basically printed nanocircuits.

So, what does this mean in real life terms? The article at Science Daily quotes "...Robert Vajtai, a researcher with the Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute":

"Printed carbon nanotube structures could be useful in many ways," Vajtai said. "Some potential applications based on their electrical conductivity include flexible electronics for displays, antennas, and batteries that can be integrated into paper or cloth." Printing electronics on cloth could allow people to actually "wear" the battery for their laptop computer or the entire electronic system for their cell phone, according to Vajtai.

That sci fi enough for you? But wait, there's more. How would you like a newspaper that you keep from day to day? Now, you're not going to keep it because you really like that article from May of 2002, but because every day the words change, thanks to the conductive nano-ink. Same paper, new articles. (Don't ask me how it works; it's all part of the nanotech miracle.) Cool, huh? Of course, they better come out with something a little sturdier than standard newsprint, don't you think? (It also wouldn't hurt if they could get the journalism part a little more up to snuff, if you ask me.) Needless to say, we would all miss the other functions that newspapers serve. Birdcages will still need lining. Fish will still need wrapping, and moving might never be as easy again without something on hand that's convenient for wrapping breakables. However, I'm sure the moving part will stop being a problem once they invent that transporter. We'll eliminate the need to wrap things at all. We'll just beam them to their new location.

There are myriad advantages to this inkjet method of producing conductive surfaces:

The approach is simple, versatile, and inexpensive, which makes it superior to other methods for producing conductive surfaces, according to Vajtai. "A great advantage of our process is that the printed patterns do not require curing, which is known to be a limiting factor for conventional conductive ink applications," he said. "And since our ink is a simple water-based dispersion of nanotubes, it is environmentally friendly and easy to handle and store."

According to the article, while it's already cheap, this method will be getting cheaper as carbon nanotubes become more widely used, and thus more widely manufactured. As the article states, this nano-ink is environmentally friendly, which is always a plus with electronics, and not easy to come by, as our recent forays into Greenpeace rankings for electronics manufacturers demonstrated. Another thing that should keep the cost down is that most of the components used in printing with the nano-ink are standard off-the-shelf items: printer, cartridges, and even the paper and plastic used as the printing surface. The only specialty item are the water-soluble nanotubes. The scientists at Rensselaer made their own, but it looks like future entrepreneurs will be able to skip this step. You know how it works in free markets. Where there's a demand, there's usually a supply.

So, if you're going to be wearing your cell phone, or laptop battery as a piece of clothing, you'll want to have multiple fashion options, right? Not everyone looks good in basic black. Well, right now the fashion-friendly scientists at Rensselaer are working on chemical modifications so that their nano-ink can come in a variety of colors. Isn't that thoughtful of them? Colored nano-ink could have so many uses. Pretty soon, I'm sure I'll be writing in the Meow about some new trend in nano-art--a field not yet invented to my knowledge, but sure to be coming to a future near you. It will produce wonders of incredible usefulness and functionality, combined with a rare beauty, all because scientists found a way to make nano-ink in lots of pretty colors. What that nano-art will be I can't even imagine right now. I can't, but you can bet someone else will.

The whole flexible electronics idea makes me wonder if someday we'll be able to roll up the TV, and the laptop, and tuck them in our luggage when we're heading out on vacation, say to a remote cabin in the mountains. We won't have to worry about a power supply way out in the wilderness. We'll be wearing it.

Hat tip: Futurismic

The Hummer: Environmental Champion?

I wrote earlier this week about the "green" score of various electronics manufacturers, from an article which I read at the Greenpeace website. I acknowledged at the time that I was surprised by the results of the Greenpeace rankings. I expected Apple to be more environmentally responsible, and Dell less so. I put my error down to an unreasonable preconception, with no real basis in evidence, or even common sense. It was just my own mental slant. Well, a reader left a comment at that post which has led me to another surprising article, and contradicted another preconception that, before this, I would have told you was based very solidly in the world of evidence, common sense and rationality, and that I was completely unbiased in that assessment. I had a hard time believing what I read.

Would you believe, on it's face, that a gas-guzzling Hummer would consume less energy over the course of its life than a gas/electric hybrid Toyota Prius? I didn't think so. The Hummer is huge. The Hummer is heavy. The Hummer gets something like three gallons to the mile, right? (Well, maybe that last is a bit hyperbolic.) The Prius, on the other hand, is small. It is lightweight. It will drive cross country and back again several times before you have to refill the thimble-sized gas tank. (Slight hyperbole here, but in my own defense, I didn't say which country. Perhaps it was Monaco.) Any reasonable person would conclude that the Prius has the Hummer beat in a big way for energy consumption and its resultant pollution.

Not so, according to Shikha Dalmia at Reason.org. She compares the two vehicles in total energy consumption, cradle to grave you might say, drawing on a two year study by auto analyst and President of CNW Marketing Research, Art Spinella, which examined what he calls "Dust to Dust" data, including, among other things, the energy it takes to design and produce them, the energy they require to operate, and the energy it takes to dispose of them. Dalmia says how "fancy" a car is really affects its total energy cost. In this case fancy doesn't seem to mean how many cup holders it has. She points out several factors that gain the Hummer ground in the head to head competition with the Prius.

One such factor is vehicle life. The Hummer is designed to last three times longer than the Prius. That's three times less vehicle production, thus less energy (and pollution) used in manufacture, materials, and disposal. Sophistication plays a role. The Hummer's engine is much simpler than its hybrid competitor, as it doesn't combine gas and electric systems. Not being as complex, "it takes much less time and energy to manufacture." Materials also shift the balance toward the Hummer. Made of steel, which costs less and is easier to make than the specialty light-weight materials that compose the Prius, its production is not nearly as complex and costly. The same materials also give the Hummer the advantage in disposal. This manufacture and disposal all requires energy, and creates pollution, thus driving up the true cost of both vehicles, but less so with the Hummer, thereby giving it the real energy edge.

Dalmia says this comparison doesn't just hold up with the Prius, but with other small hybrids as well:

For instance, the dust-to-dust energy cost of the bunny-sized Honda Civic hybrid is $3.238 per mile. This is quite a bit more than the $1.949 per mile that the elephantine Hummer costs. The energy cots of SUVs such as the Tahoe, Escalade, and Navigator are similarly far less than the Civic hybrid.

All of the factors I've listed above affect the total energy consumption of the vehicles, but Dalmia lists one final factor as having the most impact:

But the biggest reason why a Hummer's energy use is so low is that it shares many components with other vehicles and therefore its design and development energy costs are spread across many cars.

It is not possible to do this with a specialty product like hybrid. All in all, Spinella insists, the energy costs of disposing a Hummer are 60 percent less than an average hybrid's and its design and development costs are 80 percent less.

This is where I believe hybrid buyers who have purchased their vehicles because they want to save energy and do something for the environment can take heart. Dalmia's article, and Spinella's study, examine environmental and energy costs as they stand now, but I couldn't help but draw some different conclusions from the one's that Dalmia determined. She proposes "...a catchy slogan for the next Save the Earth campaign: Have you hugged a Hummer today?" However, the thing that struck me as I read the piece (besides the obvious shock that a Hummer could in any way be better for the environment than a Prius) was that some of these costs were based on the economies of scale principle.

Part of what makes the hybrids cost more, economically and environmentally, than their exclusively gas-driven counterparts is that they are, in fact, still specialty items. Part of the Hummer's advantage comes from the fact it uses long-employed systems, technologies, and materials. Hybrids don't benefit from the economy that comes from sharing many components with other vehicles at this point, because there aren't that many vehicles yet which work on the same principles. They will be better able to spread the energy costs for design and development out across many cars when there are more cars in this category. As light-weight alloys become more common, they will be able to take advantage of refined production techniques, and larger-scale manufacture to bring the total cost for them to a more competitive level. Also, as these materials become more common, human ingenuity should figure out better ways to dispose of and recycle them, thus reducing that cost as well.

It sounds to me, too, like hybrids could use some of those new-fangled nanotube-based ultracapacitors we were talking about a couple of weeks ago here at the Meow. Taking some of the chemical processes out of the battery energy storage for hybrid vehicles might help shift the balance again a little more toward the hybrid's favor. Since this study took into account the total environmental and energy cost, including disposal, not having environmentally damaging chemical batteries on the "we have to get rid of this now" list when the car finally kicks the bucket (seat) would help. Working on car longevity would be in the best interests of hybrid auto makers as well, at least if their motives for producing hybrids in the first place really are centered around environmental responsibility. One assumes, however, that some of these improvements will happen as the industry matures. One hopes, anyway.

Dalmia's article goes more in depth into exactly how the environmental and energy costs are calculated. I drew my own conclusions from her report, as I'm sure will you. I came away surprised, but not despairing for the hybrid industry. My husband and have two vehicles, an SUV and a smaller economy car, and neither of them are hybrids. They both do the job we need them to do, and I can't say I feel guilty about either of them. Although, if they come up with an affordable hybrid SUV that can tow our travel trailer, I will be happy to consider one in the future, contributing to that economy of scale thing that I already mentioned. All in all, I'd say SUV drivers and hybrid drivers both can come away from this study feeling relatively self-satisfied. SUV drivers can say that their car is better for the environment than the Prius and its hybrid companions. Hybrid drivers can say they are on the forefront of change, and paying the costs now for future benefit. Both can be happy with their choice on some level, which is convenient, since most people are going to do what they want to anyway--at least if my husband and I are any example.

p.s. Thanks Danny.

A Paint Snob's Lament

Well, I spent the day up in the bucket of the lift again, painting trim on our church. Eight hours of trim painting. Eight. I think the building has been growing. I'm sure there are more windows now than when we started this project. However, it might just be that I'm seeing double from fatigue. It's still nice to be making progress, though. The project is getting to that stage where you can really see what it'll look like when it's all done. It's going to be beautiful, and I don't just think so because I was on the committee that chose the colors--although that does help.

Color is very important to me. In fact, I'd say I'm a bit of a color snob. My friends and family would probably phrase it a little less delicately. My husband calls me the paint police of Portland, which isn't really fair. I'd call myself more of a color consultant--who wishes she had more actual power. It's not that I'm uncomfortable with most people's choices, but some people have no business being allowed to make their own paint decisions. I think there is a genetic flaw, or maybe it's a disease, that causes some homeowners to neglect consideration for their neighbors when "decorating" the outside of their houses. This condition is rare, but I find that it does cause some people to violate the Meow paint codes.

Their offenses fall into several legal categories. The first is Class A misdemeanor paint. It's really just a little problem. It's when the body color for the house is good, but the trim was chosen while the culprit was recovering from minor surgery, and is still on heavy pain meds. A Class C felony involves the trim being fine, but the main body color is just plain bad. Perhaps the person's dog has just died, and they aren't really ready to make important decisions yet. Class B felony, of course, should be obvious. Both the trim color and the main color are bad, and one must assume the person who chose them is going through a divorce, or something equally traumatic. The final category is the one for which I can find no excuse, no mitigating circumstance which could justify the lapse in judgment. Class A felony paint involves obvious intent to cause psychological damage. Class A felony paint makes me conjure up words like "flogging" and "retribution."

I had never, until recently, believed that a case of Class A felony paint could be the result of but one color, and the trim color at that. I had always, innocently, thought that it required a particularly egregious combination of offensive hues to incite me to laying that awful charge at the door of any of my fellow human beings, but I was wrong. I was dreadfully wrong. About a week ago, after a long day of painting at the church, I came home to see that my neighbor across the street and two doors down had also been painting. I remember, in the stupor of my exhaustion, thinking as I saw him painting in the dim evening light, "Wow, I hope that's just primer," and then letting my tired mind slip away from the reality of the situation.

When I woke in the morning, it was with nary a thought of the horror that waited just outside my door. As the morning wore on, it finally dawned on me to again peruse the neighbor's handiwork. I may never look out the front window again. Even my husband, whom I have trained well, but who has not yet reached my level of paint snobbery, actually jumped (I am not making this up) when he saw the color that the man across the street had chosen to inflict upon his neighbors. All the trim on his nice, neutral, beige-ish house--columns, doors, fascia, eaves--is now bright, neon, Halloween ORANGE.

My doctor has prescribed sedatives to get me through this trial. We figure I will only be on them for seven or eight years. The neighbor's just got to choose another color by then, doesn't he? Or move. Maybe he'll move so someone with better taste can move into the house and rescue it. (The following is to be read in a whimper.) Please.

Okay, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I will send you on to the thing which I was planning to write about when I started this post. I probably shouldn't have foisted all this pain onto you, but the analyst that I am now seeing to cope with the turmoil of emotions caused by this felony paint situation says that it is good for me to let things out. Anyway, I was asked recently how I feel about political satire. I like satire. Satire helps us deals with the ridiculous, frustrating, and uncontrollable things in life, like felony paint and politicians. Perhaps this is why I responded so well to the piece that I now recommend for your satirical amusement, at TCS Daily, by Bill Smith. I will warn you ahead of time--it pokes fun at the common Democratic stance on the war on Terrorism, by exploring what key Democratic politicians would be saying if Democrats of today treated national security the same way that Democrats of old did. I must confess, that when I first read it, I didn't catch that it was satire, and it rocked my world a bit, but the meds I'm on for that other problem really helped, and once I figured out that it was, indeed, satire, I simply relaxed into it and enjoyed it for what it was. I hope you do the same. (Actually, the fact I didn't know it was satirical at first might have been why I enjoyed it so much, so perhaps I shouldn't have told you, but, oh well. The damage is done already, so try to enjoy it the best you can. Please don't take offense if your politics are the ones currently being satirized. I've taken swipes at the other side too. If it really upsets you, I recommend sedatives. They really help when taken in moderation. Only three or four at a time, and I can almost forget what's just outside my window. Almost.)

The News In The News

With all the scrutiny on the media lately, triggered by the recent exposure of altered news photos and inaccurate captioning, there continue to be new issues brought to light. Examples of questionable ethics are pretty easy to find these days. I don't think that we can automatically assume that there are suddenly more offenses to journalistic integrity than there used to be, but there certainly are a lot more people actively looking for them, especially in the ultra-vigilant world of the blogosphere. I came across a blog post today that I thought was worth bringing to your attention. It doesn't expose any great fakery, or staging, and Photoshop is nowhere in the picture. It doesn't reveal blatant misrepresentation of facts, nor does it place journalists in bed with terrorist organizations. All it does is offer a comparison.

It compares a speech, as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said it, to the way that the Associated Press reported it. The speech and the AP report differ greatly in tone. I don't think the AP misquotes Secretary Rumsfeld exactly, and I don't think that's what the author of the post at Q and O blog, McQ, is saying either. What the AP does is sum up what he said in such a way as to shade it to the black and white, taking out the nuance and historical context that Rumsfeld used to convey a broader message than the article conveyed.

I realise that news reports have to condense things for space and the convenience of their readers, otherwise they could just put in the whole written speech, or play the whole video, but within the realities of those space and time limits, it should be the goal of any media outlet to retain the essence of what was said. The article paints Rumsfeld's speech as accusatory and confrontational. Read it for yourself and see whether you agree with their interpretation. (Of note is the fact that after the post at Q and O came out--a couple of days ago--the AP changed some of the article's content, adjusting it in those areas that McQ specifically examined. Looks like they found some of his arguments persuasive.)

Global Warming

An inconvenient scientist? (via Instapundit)

From Sea To Shining Sea

Hey, here's startling new evidence that some people in the oil industry are not bent on the destruction of the world. Sometimes those evil oil industry exploration types, when they're not engaged in corrupt and destructive practices like making a profit and encouraging our dependence on petroleum, can actually be useful for providing alternatives to fossil fuels. (Note for those of you who don't read the Meow often: I am being facetious here. I do not really think making a profit by providing energy to the world through legal means is evil, although I do think alternative sources of energy are necessary and good.) Physorg.com is looking at an MIT project that takes advantage of off-shore deep-sea oil-drilling expertise (I have now almost used up my hyphen quota for the day) to develop big, powerful, non-coastal-view-ruining wind-farms (quota now definitely exceeded), using floating oil drilling platforms as their model. Excerpt:

Paul D. Sclavounos, a professor of mechanical engineering and naval architecture, has spent decades designing and analyzing large floating structures for deep-sea oil and gas exploration. Observing the wind-farm controversies, he thought, "Wait a minute. Why can't we simply take those windmills and put them on floaters and move them farther offshore, where there's plenty of space and lots of wind?"

As with many things in life that are useful or necessary, a lot of folks see the benefit of wind-farms for producing power, but oftentimes people also don't want to look at them. Hundreds of giant turbines spinning in the wind may generate a good deal of electricity, but they don't do much to enhance a view. (They've been having to work out methods to keep them from killing birds, too, but that's a different post altogether.) People who may be all for alternative power, still aren't clamouring to have a whole lot of windmills blocking their view of the ocean. Apparently, up till now off-shore wind-farms have been anchored in relatively shallow water, and have been placed fairly close in to shore (because of the whole anchoring part of the equation.)

Well, three cheers for inventive scientists. They're figuring out ways to make this floating wind-farm thing work, and it looks like the floating systems will be bigger, cheaper and produce more power than other wind-farms currently churning out the wattage. The other really cool thing is that the floating system will be flexible. Each turbine will be tethered to a larger group, with individual windmills that can be detached and moved where they are most needed. I can't imagine that this would be done to compensate for every heat wave, or cold snap, but I could see this being very useful for situations where energy usage changed because of population shifts, and availability of alternatives and the like. I was asking the other day when we were going to see the really big developments that would change the energy landscape. Maybe I should have been considering things that would change the energy sea-scape as well.

Hat tip: Futurismic

Genius, Or Exceptionally Hard Worker?

There's a fascinating article at Scientific American, by Philip E. Ross, that looks closely at the question of whether expertise in any given area is more a matter of aptitude, or application. Are virtuoso musicians, and championship athletes, and chess masters just naturally more gifted than the rest of us, or are they really more motivated instead? The quick and dirty answer according to SA is the latter. Ross delves into the world of chess to illustrate how masters think so much more effectively than the average player, and boils it down, essentially, to the notion that the greats are accessing more stored information at any given time, but that they are retrieving it in essentially the same way as the rest of us, in chunks. He says we can all access between 5 and 9 chunks of information at a time. For example, a chunk of information can range from a single letter, for those just learning their alphabet, to a whole poem, or story, including how it fits into a cultural context, for those who have mastered a certain knowledge of literature and culture. A novice musician might know a few notes of a song, which for them is a chunk, while a virtuoso pianist might hold a concerto in a single mental chunk of information. According to this theory, those we think of as really gifted may not hold any more natural ability than you or I. Their chunks simply hold more information than ours, because they've applied themselves to acquiring the knowledge, either through inherent interest, or some other motivation.

Ross goes on to explain how this has led to younger chess prodigies over the last century, because now there are better "training methods" and computer programs to aid in learning. They are building larger chunks into their mental storage at younger ages. He says the same thing applies to athletes, who train more effectively now, and thus achieve things it took previous generations much longer to master. He also says that early success can increase motivation and application, which leads to more success, which leads to more motivation, and the cycle continues. He applies this principle to kids in school today, and draws the conclusion that, with the proper motivation, there's no reason any kid can't learn anything. He uses an example of a school where they started paying kids money if they did well on tests, with encouraging results.

I wish someone had found a way to motivate me more when I was in school. (Maybe money would have helped.) I often regret how much of the time, before college, I skated by with doing just enough to get the grade I wanted (I think most kids can read a teacher and figure out how much it's going to take to get the A, or whatever they'll settle for, and don't do much beyond that), while very seldom applying as much effort as I was capable of investing. I put pressure on myself, but it was for grades, not for knowledge. Occasionally, though, a subject would come along that was sufficient motivation in itself, something that compelled me, out of interest, to put in that extra effort. Those, generally, fit the profile of the examples that Ross uses above. I had interest, which led to application, which led to success, which led to more interest. In college, of course, I was much more able to choose my own area of study, so things shifted a bit, but some of the same general rules applied. So far, I can see my way fairly clear to agreeing with what Ross explains.

Where I'm stumbling just a bit is in the other people I see around me who are particularly good at any specific thing. I'll use my husband as an example. He can pick up just about any instrument, and in what I (and most sane people) consider an astonishingly short amount of time, become at least adequately proficient at it. Call it hyper-accelerated application if you want to, but most of us would just call it gifting. He understands music in a way that I never will. I grant you, how quickly he progresses does depend on application, but that is only when gauged against himself--if his progress is gauged against mine, I don't care how hard I'm working, there is no comparison. He does have a larger knowledge base than I do musically, and these are the chunks that he's retrieving and applying to the next musical learning situation, so I suppose the theory Ross presents holds, but that's just not how it feels in real time. The truth is, he has always had the same gifting, despite having very little formal musical training through his early years. He was singing three part harmony with his brother and sister when he was eight. This, however, is where Ross would say that my own misgivings about this theory can be answered. Even when my husband was not receiving formal training, when he was just a child, music interested him, and thus he applied himself to sing that harmony part to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" when the rest of us were singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in rather halting and off-key melody. He wanted to learn it, and so he did.

I do believe that God wires people with certain giftings, but does he do it by instilling in them more natural interest, or more natural ability? According to this article in SA, it would be interest. Ross spends much more time on the scientific explanation of all this, and I don't have those chunks so readily at my own disposal, so I'll let him tell you more, if you're motivated to acquire that knowledge, but I certainly found what he had to say interesting. I would love to believe that what he says is true. I have always tended to believe that I wasn't interested in things I have no aptitude for, but if what Ross says is true, I really simply lack application for things which don't interest me. Now, if I can figure out some way to get interested in those things which haven't been my strengths over the years, maybe I can see some improvement, which will lead to more motivation, which will lead to more success, which will lead to more interest and effort, and so on. My biggest problem then is going to be finding time to do all these new things I will suddenly find myself so competent to do, now that I'm interested, like playing an instrument to make my husband happy. I'm not sure how that's going to work--I spend too much time on this blog to leave room for learning to play the tuba.

Hat tip: Sioux Lady

The Birthplace Of Islamic Terrorism

At National Review Online--A former Soviet general discusses, from personal experience, how terrorism overtook the Middle East:

Today’s international terrorism was conceived at the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the KGB, in the aftermath of the1967 Six-Day War in the Middle East. I witnessed its birth in my other life, as a Communist general. Israel humiliated Egypt and Syria, whose bellicose governments were being run by Soviet razvedka (Russian for “foreign intelligence”) advisers, whereupon the Kremlin decided to arm Israel’s enemy neighbors, the Palestinians, and draw them into a terrorist war against Israel.

According to NRO, "Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa is the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc." Check out the rest. It's quite a read.

Hat tip: Smash

Hot Air Rises

There are so many "new and exciting" approaches to alternative energy being bandied about, and so few that we are yet seeing really transform the power landscape, that sometimes I wonder how much of the buzz is just hype, and when we are going to see some tangible advances. When does all this potential get realised in some way that announces, "Okay, now we're turning the corner. Now we're not just theorizing--we're producing?" So many hopeful energy solutions (can an energy solution be hopeful?)--nuclear, ethanol, hydrogen fuel cells, wind, solar, geothermal, ocean-current-based hydro power systems, etcetera, etcetera, hold promise, but there are no notable world-altering breakthroughs to this point. There are innumerable reasons to continue the alternative power quest, from environmental to socio-political. It's good that there are so many options to explore, and that there are lots of different companies, with lots of different scientists, searching down lots of different roads, for the Holy Grail of energy alternatives. The more people who go out hunting, the more likely it is that someone will come back with the prize--or lots of different prizes. Wouldn't it be great if someday we're faced with choices, all of which are sustainable, green and affordable? Sometimes someday seem just around the corner, and sometimes someday feels very far away, like when you're a kid waiting for your birthday.

I remember reading a year or so ago about plans for a breakthrough new solar tower on the horizon for one of the open, sunny, very hot places in Australia. The concept was based on the fact that hot air rises. The design incorporates a giant tower surrounded by a huge (from what I read, about two miles across) glass covered solar collecting field, using black rock, or some other naturally heat absorbing material to store heat through the day and gradually release it by night. The concept is that all this heat would cause the air drawn into the field to rise along the gradually inclining glass cover toward the tower, where it would then be sucked up through the over quarter mile tall structure, providing the impetus to turn giant turbines that surround it. So, it's a sort of solar-wind combo, taking advantage of a very simple scientific truth that we all learn in grade school: heat rises. Sounds promising, yes? It could be a perfect fit. If there's anyplace in the world that seems adaptable to solar power, it's Australia. Lots of wide open spaces. Lots of sun. Lots of risk-taking frontier types to back the project. That was a year ago, though; what's happened since then?

Well, CNN Money.com has an update on where things stand now. Todd Woody, assistant managing editor of Business 2.0, writes about a 24,000 acre ranch where the solar-wind plan is going forward. He says, "...Melbourne renewable-energy company EnviroMission, aims to break ground here early next year on the world's first commercial "solar tower" power station." This commercial power station could do more than just keep a few cars on the road, or heat a home or two. This power source could provide enough energy to run 100,000 homes, without producing pollution or greenhouse gases. Hurray!! Maybe that world-changing energy breakthrough isn't that far away. What's the thing that's holding things up for now? Money, of course. Although the station will cost very little to operate, it's going to cost a lot to build, and getting that much money together takes time. Things look hopeful, however, and there are potential investors lining up from as far away as China. The Chinese investor, "Xiang Jiang Industrial, a Shanghai developer and construction company" is looking to start building solar towers in China as well. That would also be a reasonable development, since China's energy needs are growing as fast as her ever- expanding economy.

I'm always interested in where the things I've read about in the past are setting here in the present. This one looks as though it might be sitting pretty, or at least be advancing significantly closer to the time when the dreamers can say, "Now we're not just theorizing--we're producing." I'm going to keep my eye on this one, and hope it's not just full of hot air.

Hat tip: Futurismic

Computing The Green

There's an interesting little blurb at the Greenpeace website that ranks electronics manufacturers based on their "Green" quotient. Considerations such as chemicals used in production and whether the company in question takes back its own product for recycling were the criteria used to calculate the score. The results actually surprised me. I don't know why, since I have no real basis for my preconceptions, but for some reason I expected Apple to perform better on the green scale than Dell. I guess you can't judge a Notebook by its cover.

Hat tip: Futurismic

Nuclear Woes

Here's a sobering examination of the potential fallout from nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, starting when Iran gets the bomb it is so earnestly pursuing. What happens if multiple terrorist harboring states all have nukes? Stanley Kurtz, at National Review Online, discusses the possibilities brought out in an article by Stephen Peter Rosen:

A key to deterrence during the Cold War was our ability to know who had hit whom. With a small number of geographically separated nuclear states, and with the big opponents training satellites and specialized advance-guard radar emplacements on each other, it was relatively easy to know where a missile had come from. But what if a nuclear missile is launched at the United States from somewhere in a fully nuclearized Middle East, in the middle of a war in which, say, Saudi Arabia and Iran are already lobbing conventional missiles at one another? Would we know who had attacked us? Could we actually drop a retaliatory nuclear bomb on someone without being absolutely certain? And as Rosen asks, What if the nuclear blow was delivered against us by an airplane or a cruise missile? It might be almost impossible to trace the attack back to its source with certainty, especially in the midst of an ongoing conventional conflict.

We’re familiar with the horror scenario of a Muslim state passing a nuclear bomb to terrorists for use against an American city. But imagine the same scenario in a multi-polar Muslim nuclear world. With several Muslim countries in possession of the bomb, it would be extremely difficult to trace the state source of a nuclear terror strike. In fact, this very difficulty would encourage states (or ill-controlled elements within nuclear states — like Pakistan’s intelligence services or Iran’s Revolutionary Guards) to pass nukes to terrorists. The tougher it is to trace the source of a weapon, the easier it is to give the weapon away. In short, nuclear proliferation to multiple Muslim states greatly increases the chances of a nuclear terror strike.

He continues:

Deep mutual suspicion between an expansionist, apocalyptic, Shiite Iran, secular Turkey, and the Sunni Saudis and Egyptians (not to mention Israel) is likely to fuel a dangerous multi-pronged nuclear arms race. Larger arsenals mean more chance of a weapon being slipped to terrorists. The collapse of the world’s non-proliferation regime also raises the chances that nuclearization will spread to Asian powers like Taiwan and Japan.

Kurtz speculates at what the future holds, including imperative star wars missile defense systems, fallout shelters, and the demise of the dovish element in American politics (which Kurtz claims cannot survive Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.) We'd better not take our eyes off Iran. They're the ones earnestly seeking nuclear technology, which they claim is for energy purposes only, but who in their right mind actually is actually buying that bill of goods? As the inimitable Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit would say, read the whole thing.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Update: David Weigel, posting at Andrew Sullivan, is rebutting Kurtz's argument, but not very convincingly. It's more of a dismissal really, than a rebuttal, but here it is, for what it's worth.

As Enemies Become Friends

If you remember your World War II history, even just the smattering of it that I have managed to glean over the years, you know that after the U.S. war with Japan was called to a halt, there were some rather severe military restrictions placed on the Empire of the Sun, and incorporated into the Japanese constitution, written at the time the war ended. George Will, writing at Townhall.com, looks at the history of that constitutional prohibition, and how that plays out in the world today. These limits were pretty close to "Thou shalt not have a military"--not quite that extreme, but close enough to require some creative constitutional interpretation over time so that the Japanese could maintain a "defense force." The Japanese are very creative people (which is also why we buy so many Japanese products.) Japan has a substantial military budget.

The post WWII restrictions were designed to prevent further Japanese aggression (they did start the scuffle after all), and at the time the U.S. was pretty determined that these limits be imposed to end Japanese Imperialism. However, a lot has changed in the last sixty years, or so. America is no longer clamouring for such tight controls on the island nation. In one of the twists and turns of the ever unpredictable currents of history, Japan has become a strong American ally, an extreme rarity in East Asia. It's an encouraging example of an enemy, religiously married to the idea of their own superiority and destiny of world domination, relinquishing their ambitions of conquest and becoming our staunch friend. Let us hope it's a scenario that is oft repeated. Okay let me rephrase that. I really don't want any more enemies bent on world domination, but I'd like to see the ones we've got change their goals and become our friends. I realise that it looks pretty impossible right now, but who would have thought in the forties that Japan would turn out to be such a good ally?

Living in a dangerous neighborhood, our ally has some very unsavory characters breathing down her neck. The "beloved" dictator of North Korea is fond of tossing missiles in Japan's general direction, and China is a longtime adversary, and a considerable military threat. The U.S. also could stand to have a little of Japan's muscle in the various places we are currently engaged around the world, the Middle East being a prime example. As our friendship with Japan has grown over the years, our posture toward her military has undergone a similar change in direction. Their own attitude toward it has been undergoing some adjustment as well. Still pacifist (their loss in the Second World War carried some deep lessons), the Japanese are nonetheless aware of the dangerous and changing nature of the world around them. They, as much as anyone in the world, know how advances in technology can shift the balance of power and make fearsome opponents out of what once were mere nuisances. George Will is making the case that Japan's constitutional prohibition against maintaining a military could soon be history, and a decent argument that it should. It's an interesting read.