A New Memorial is Dedicated Tomorrow

11. June 2007 · Comments Off on A New Memorial is Dedicated Tomorrow · Categories: A Href, General

On June 12, 2007, a new memorial will be dedicated in Washington, D.C. Almost 20 years have passed from concept to reality, 14 years since then-President Clinton signed a bill donating land.

The monument for the memorial is a replica of the “Goddess of Democracy” statue erected by the Chinese students at Tiananmen Square. The memorial is the Victims of Communism Memorial, dedicated to the over 100 million people who were killed in Communism’s wars, revolutions, and purges.

The idea for the project came to [Lee] Edwards – once an aide to Barry Goldwater and now a fellow at the Heritage Foundation – two months after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. “I was having Sunday brunch with my wife and one of my daughters,” he says. “We were concerned that people didn’t seem interested in discussing the crimes of Communism, and that a general amnesia was settling in everywhere.” On a paper napkin, he jotted down “memorial – victims of communism” and stuffed it into his pocket.

Originally planned along the lines of the Holocaust Museum, the lack of donations forced them to a smaller project. The monument will be in a small triangular park where Avenue G intersects New Jersey Avenue. When deciding upon an appropriate statue, they thought about trying to build a Gulag replica, the Berlin Wall, or a boat such as those used by those fleeing communist oppression. In the end, they decided on the Tiananmen Square statue as something that would be easily recognizable by many, and also stand as an indictment against China’s continuing commitment to Communist ideals (the Chinese government “expressed concerns … to Bush Administration officials,” but the design stands).

The sculptor, Thomas Marsh, agreed to work for free. “When I saw the courage of those students at Tiananmen Square, I made a vow that I would try to rebuild their statue,” he says. He produced a version that now stands in San Francisco’s Chinatown and has prepared castings of it for other sites. The version that will appear in the Victims of Communism Memorial is an armature, which means that it’s derived from his original but also contains unique qualities. “It’s the biggest of the bunch and the facial features look more like the one the students made,” says Marsh.

Representative Tom Lantos (D) will give the keynote address at the dedication. President G.W. Bush has been invited to speak.

h/t: Opinion Journal

Gulag Archipelego as Penal Reform

10. June 2007 · Comments Off on Gulag Archipelego as Penal Reform · Categories: General

Kate Brown writes that the Gulag wasn’t really intended to be a series of death camps

What were the Gulag planners thinking? Who would send hungry, unshod people to the Siberian Taiga without supplies, shelter and tools in the midst of a famine in order to build a brave new world? If this wasn’t sheer sadism, but really a utopian project, as Werth, I think rightly, asserts, who could imagine success?

But really, penal reform. A society struggling to find a place for it’s malcontents and others uprooted during the drive to collectivization. To save money on guards and prison staff – it was economics, yo. It just went off the rails, a bit. Stalin meant well, you see.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

The Retirement Ceremony

10. June 2007 · Comments Off on The Retirement Ceremony · Categories: Air Force

Now that Beautiful Wife, Gorgeous Daughter and Boyo are off on the road to our new home and the cleaning lady is working on the house, I have a few minutes to sit with Maximum Dawg and let you know about my retirement ceremony on Friday.

First of all, Gorgeous Daughter came to town and that was very cool.  My Mom and Sister couldn’t have cared less…until AFTER the ceremony of course when I called my Mom to let her know it went well and THEN she went off on how she didn’t know that it was that big a deal and I should have told her.  Sigh.  That’s how it works in my family.  It’s MY fault.  You think I’d have figured it out years ago, but of course…I didn’t.  It hurt for a few hours and then I just chalked it up as, “Mom’s in her 80s, she just didn’t get it and never would have no matter how much I explained it.”

On to the ceremony.  My family was escorted to their seats which went over HUGE with Boyo.  The Commander and I marched in, took our places and then one of my troops sang the National Anthem.  She’s small but she’s mighty, and she’s got a voice I never would have expected out of her.

My Commander then outlined my career and the rest of the folks that have worked for me and with me did a very cool thing.  They all dressed up in the different uniforms that I wore over the years and as the Commander went over the different parts, they stepped forward wearing the uniform I would have worn during that time period.  With the help of Beautiful Wife, they managed to all be wearing my name tags.

Then came the standard last medal, certificate of retirement from the Chief of Staff.  Certificate of Appreciation from The President, a very nice shadow box in the shape of a Master Sergeant Chevron with the flag folded at the top and my medals and patches in the lower half.

Then the folks that worked for me and with me did a very nice flag folding ceremony accompanied by a bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace.”  Awesome.

My Wife received her certificate of appreciation as well, along with the one of my troops reading the poem, “The Military Wife.”

Then it was my turn to talk and I presented Boyo with a Red Ryder BB Gun.  Yes, the same one from The Christmas Story.  Wife and Daughter received some Hawaiin Leis that I had ordered.  Wife was born on Oahu and she loved it there when we were stationed there.

Then I rambled something that I tried to make meaningful but basically messed up for about five minutes or so.  It’s okay.  There’s the speech you want to give, the speech you give, and the speech you wish you gave.

Then it was time to leave and a not well kept secret is I freaking HATE, LOATHE, DESPISE, The Air Force Song.  I’m sorry if that bugs anyone, but, “Off we go, into the wild blue yonder.” just seems the most insipid of all the services’ songs.

So…the bagpiper played “Scotland the Brave.”  We got the crowd clapping and stomping and off I marched to serve cake and punch.

Tomorrow I’ll have my last few appointments and then me and Max be following Beautiful Wife, Gorgeous Daughter, Boyo, Miko the Cat and Spirit the Cockatiel down I80 to our new lives.

It was a good send off.  I’ll remember that day for quite some time.  They did me right.

Absolutely the Very Last Word

09. June 2007 · Comments Off on Absolutely the Very Last Word · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, General Nonsense, sarcasm, Stupidity, That's Entertainment!

On Paris Hilton. Really. I promise. I also promise you won’t stop laughing.

Art Appreciation

09. June 2007 · Comments Off on Art Appreciation · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, General Nonsense, World

This has nothing much to do with the topic at hand, but I would like a t-shirt that says “As a matter of fact I am not a $#@!ing tourist, I live here!”… but Blondie says that would be rather too hostile. And what brought that on? Oh, just the experience of going downtown late yesterday morning, intending to partake in the multicultural delights of the Texas Folklife Festival, which we had heard was starting on Friday.

Which it was… but not until Friday afternoon at 5:00 PM. So we decided to prowl the little art galleries and shops in La Villita, instead. It’s a collection of very old houses, nearly the oldest in San Antonio, most of which were restored over the last thirty or forty years or so; electricity and plumbing being added to them with considerable difficulty. A good few have very low doorways, and very thick walls, and once were heated (if at all) with tiny fireplaces. The neighborhood is adjacent to the River Walk, and the Alamo… even if the shops and galleries offer merchandise that is a couple of cuts above the usual tourist tat, it remains that nearly everyone wandering through is in fact most usually…from out of town.

And since it was Friday, and there weren’t too many people wandering around, most of the vendors were a little bored and very friendly, well disposed to be helpful; really this part of the world is a very friendly place. If you are antisocial, you’d have to beat them off with a stick, but about the first thing anyone asked was “So, where are you folks from?” I just got tired of growling “From here!” by the fourth or fifth time; hence, the wish for the tee-shirt.

Blondie bought a silver and garnet ring from a small jewelry and art gallery, and admired a bronze cat statuette, one of an issue of fifty, by an artist who lives in Kerrville; she might very well go back and buy it next month. I fell in love with some paintings by another local artist, who does lovely impressionalist Texas landscapes: great sweeps of meadow, or gently rolling hills… but above them the even bigger clouds, piling up in a clear blue sky. It looked like what I saw out of the car windows on last week’s road-trip, so there was no surprise when the gallery manager said the artist lives in Victoria and paints the countryside thereabouts. Oh, yeah… when I’m a rich and famous writer, I want a couple of those!

I couldn’t afford anything at all yesterday, so I had to get my amusement out of describing my ideal piece of Texas kitsch art: it’s a big-ass painting of a field of bluebonnets, with some longhorn cows, standing knee-deep in them. In the background is a windmill, and a tumbledown old barn with the Texas lone-star flag painted on the roof, and the clouds in the sky form the silhouette of the Alamo! Maybe even on black velvet, too! I’d have it somewhere where I could see people’s faces when they looked at it, and know that if they looked absolutely horrified, then they did know something about art. Alas, irony was taking a vacation somewhere away from La Villita yesterday; most of the people I described this vision to said that it sounded rather nice… and did I want to commission an artist, since all they had in stock along that line were painting of bluebonnets only.

My parents had a painting that performed the same function for them; separating those who really knew something about painting from those who just thought they did. It was a painting that had been done as part of a TV show set design; we actually spotted it, once, on an old rerun of a Perry Mason mystery, in the studio of an artist who was the corpse du-jour, about twenty years after a friend of my parents had given it to them.

It was an oceanscape, in blues and blue-greens; the moon over the ocean, with a pier on one side and some rocks along the other, only the rocks were sort of cubist and blocky, and the pier was vaguely impressionalist, and the water in between kind of blah; anyway the colors were pretty and matched Mom’s dining room décor at the time and for years afterwards. Mom and Dad used it as sort of a gauge of taste. Anyone who admired it extravagantly got points of manners but none for artistic taste. Anyone who sort of winced and looked away obviously knew it was a piece of dreck as art, but was too well brought up to say so. Mom and Dad rather relished anyone who had the nerve to come right out and ask what in heck it was hanging on the wall for: one very dear friend cemented their high estimation of his artistic taste by finally asking if he could sit on the other side of the dinner table so he wouldn’t have to look at it.

Summer is here, it’s hot and the clouds are piling up. Some day, with luck, I’ll walk into that one gallery and buy one of the landscape cloud paintings.

Not just cow farmers, progressive cow farmers

09. June 2007 · Comments Off on Not just cow farmers, progressive cow farmers · Categories: General

Buckethead has worked his way around to my home place in his ‘alternative state motto ‘ series.

  • We gave D&D to the world, please don’t hate us
  • We had a thin guy who lived here, but he was eaten
  • The Seasonal Affective Disorder State
  • Pinko commie, but in a nice Swedish way, not a bloodthirsty Russian way
  • Out drinking your state since 1848
  • Fargo’s in North Dakota, jackass
  • Gateway to Michigan’s Fantabulous Upper Peninsula
  • Stay Just a Little Bit Longer! Does that sound needy? Be honest.

More Perfidy goodness here.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

That Was Very Cool

08. June 2007 · Comments Off on That Was Very Cool · Categories: Air Force

The other IMers in the group got together and did a very cool thing during my retirement ceremony.  They dressed in the various uniform combinations that I’ve worn over the past 23 years and while the Commander described the various parts of my career, they stepped forward.  All of them managed to have my name tag on the uniforms.  And where they found old A1C and SrA stripes, I just don’t know.

I still have to outprocess on Monday and then after that, I’ll put away the uniforms and disappear West on I80 and then branch off on I84, into the sunset.

I feel like a ton of bricks has been lifted off of me.

And We’re Off!

08. June 2007 · Comments Off on And We’re Off! · Categories: Air Force

You remember that time at the amusement park when you ate a hot dog and a pizza and a corn dog and cotton candy and finished off with a snow cone and then you thought the next indicated thing was to get on the Tilt-A-Whirl?

Yeah, that’s kind of how the few hours before your retirement ceremony feels like.

Just like that.

Slightly Accelerating Waltz

08. June 2007 · Comments Off on Slightly Accelerating Waltz · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Home Front, Veteran's Affairs, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

Kind of a scrambled week, overall: Saw William off to California after his long visit. T’was ever thus, just as I get accustomed to him being here, he is off again. Blondie started her summer term of classes, and my part-time employer is off and away most days showing properties… so I spent most of this week chained to a hot computer, metaphorically speaking, writing away. I’m well launched into the second book of the “Adelsverein” saga, or “Barsetshire with Cypress Trees”. Four chapters drafted, covering the lead-up to the Civil War, which here in Texas turned out to be more than usually interesting. Especially as not everyone bought enthusiastically into the noble gallantry of the Confederacy. I had a notion to stage a family wedding at the same time as the secession crisis came to a head in Texas, which will allow me to do a sort of “Duchess of Richmond’s Ball on the Eve of Waterloo” set-piece, all swirling crinoline and gallant men being called away to rejoin their militia units, while the women bravely wave their lacy handkerchiefs… oh, yeah. 19th century drama by the cart-load. Margaret Mitchell, eat your heart out!

The anticipation of writing this almost makes up for receiving another regretful rejection letter; this from the agency that wanted to review the first fifty pages of volume one , a detailed synopsis, a copy of my original query letter, a copy of their reply, etc…(and I think they wanted a small sample of belly-button lint. That would have been in the very small print at the bottom.). Their letter thanks me for sharing, and says that the story just doesn’t send them into the transports of excitement and enthusiasm that are necessary for them to take it on, blah-blah-blah, wishing me luck with another agent blah-blah-blah. I have enough of these letters in the last year to see the pattern forming; it’s one of the polite ways to say ‘no, thanks and while your book may or may not suck the paint off a Buick fender there’s a hundred like it on my desk every day and I can only pick one by some whimsical and mysterious process of personal taste and cross my fingers that you don’t get a deal somewhere else and I’ll look like a chump for having given a pass on a best-seller in case you save the damn letter’.

As you can see, I’ve gone lurking among some of the book publishing blogs lately… reconnoitering the territory, so to speak. What is really amusing is that the publishing and lit-agent bloggers insist that while there are piles of dreadful slush for them to wade through, in search of the potential pearls… those pearls do stand out! They gleam with a holy light, and the publishing world is just aching to discover them, and it’s not that hard to do! (Blow loud raspberry here.) I’d put more credence into that… if the so-called pearls thus discovered didn’t actually suck so badly themselves. If that’s the immediately obvious good stuff in the slush pile, the bad stuff must be so bad it’s toxic. Like Love Canal, Chernobyl or Michael Bay movie toxic.

Oh, well, hope still for me, anyway: another agent asked for the whole manuscript of “Adelsverein”. I am assured that the secret is to grab them in the first chapter; what could be more grabbing than a leading character escaping a massacre, I ask you?

In the meantime, while I await word from that agent, and any of the other agencies and publishers I have applied to, I am doing reviews for Blogger News Network… for the exposure (and to score free books and CDs!) and for a local monthly magazine of quite stupendous glossiness: also for the exposure and for what they pay, which is a tidy little sum. Not a fortune, but an amount well worth the time. I have proposed a handful of other article ideas for upcoming issues to the editor. I’ll hear which ones she would like me to pursue for publication towards the end of the month. I seem to be viewed with favor though being totally professional and ego-free as regards editing and rewriting on request. The essay on Hot Wells that I posted this week was the stuff that didn’t make it into the final draft. Blog material is not magazine materiel, but nothing goes to waste, as far as I am concerned. And one of my book reviews is actually now posted on the author’s website, along with a couple of reviews from the major media outlets; something to feel a little flattered about, even if it is for a book that is not yet published in the US.

Stay tuned… I am still taking donations, towards doing “Truckee’s Trail” in the fall, as a POD, and marketing it myself.

Sixth of June 1944

06. June 2007 · Comments Off on Sixth of June 1944 · Categories: General, History, War, World

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have
striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The
hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.
In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on
other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war
machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of
Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well
equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of
1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats,
in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their
strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home
Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions
of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.
The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to
Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in
battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!

Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great
and noble undertaking.

SIGNED: Dwight D. Eisenhower

(link to more, including a pic of document)

The Ghost of South Presa Street

06. June 2007 · Comments Off on The Ghost of South Presa Street · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, World

On a mild spring day, my daughter and I walk on a narrow trail, trampled out between tall grass and wildflowers grown knee-high, waist-high, shoulder-high. A light breeze ruffles the flowers, around which orbit a fair of butterflies. We are on a quest, looking for the past, and exploring the ruins of the old Hot Wells resort, a sort of architectural sleeping beauty. There is no crystal coffin protecting this place, just a prosaic chain-link fence… but the place exudes quiet enchantment nonetheless. A feeling of serenity wraps around us; nothing threatens us. It is quiet, restful… even soothing.

Hot Wells today lies in a clearing among a grove of trees, across the railroad tracks, between South Presa and the San Antonio River. Someone casually driving by might think the ruins are of a factory, or a mill… but they would be judging by what the neighborhood nearby is now, little knowing that once there was a long elegant promenade, which terminated in a circular carriageway in front of the bathhouse and the hotel, a carriageway ornamented with a planting of flowerbeds, hedges and footpaths on either side. Little is left of that glory now, only the ragged stand of palms and some pomegranate shrubs grown lank and wild, far back in the scrub trees. The central ruins seem to float in a rippling green sea, a wrecked ship of buff-colored brick.

A few ranges of wall go as far as their original three stories. Some walls support a cob-web fragile roof over what had been changing rooms. Everywhere in the crumbling walls there are regularly-spaced openings for windows and doors. Faded flecks of aqua paint still adhere to the otherwise weathered grey wood. Mats of dark green vines shroud some walls, as if trying to pull them down to ground level. Trees of a good size grow up through what were once interiors; a prickly-pear cactus perches on top of a high wall, above a narrow interior courtyard

And yet, if you close your eyes, sit quietly and hold your breath in this place, one can almost hear the sound of ragtime music floating on the air from a nearby bandstand under the trees, or a wind-up Victrola paying in a high-ceiling room behind a deep verandah. Gravel crunches under the narrow tires of tinny little sedans and open touring cars, sweeping up to the front of the sprawling grand hotel, and a train-whistle blows, from the spur where a wealthy magnate has his private parlor car waiting. The past is just barely out of reach here at Hot Wells, the sounds of it just beyond our hearing, in this twenty-first century.
More »

Pirates

03. June 2007 · Comments Off on Pirates · Categories: General

There is a scene in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean – At World’s End’ where Elizabeth delivers an epic speech;

“You all listen to me! LISTEN! The other ships will still be looking to us, the Black Pearl to lead, and what will they see? Frightened bilgerats aboard a derelict ship? No, they will see free men and freedom! And the enemy will see the flash of our canons and they will hear the ringing of our swords and they will know what we can do! With the sweat of our brow and the strength of our backs and the courage in our hearts! Gentlemen, Hoist the Colours”

Note to movie makers – women can deliver epic speech, and do a good job at it. But they cannot do it bellowing like drill instructors; it comes out sounding shrill. Shrill is non-epic. This is effective epic speech and how it should be delivered;

My loving people,

We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and We do assure you in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean time, my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.

The movie? Not so bad. It is a long movie and it’s not epic cinema but it’s worth the money.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

The New Aristocracy

03. June 2007 · Comments Off on The New Aristocracy · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Politics, Rant, World

For a people that with a great deal of fanfare and self congratulation threw over a monarch and the accompanying aristocracy over two centuries ago, Americans have displayed an avid interest in the doings of such parties, and a dismaying tendency to genuflect before a patent of nobility and a decorative coat of arms, no matter how dubious. Mark Twain sent up this tendency very aptly, with the Duke and the Dauphin, at a time when fabulously but newly wealthy American families were busy marrying off their spare daughters to impoverished European aristocrats. As a small ‘d’ democrat, and amateur historian who is more often amused by ancestor-worship, I wondered why they would bother: forking over tons of cash for the privilege of being condescended to by the descendents of successful mercenary soldiers, social-climbing whores of both sexes and businessmen whose initial successes were made centuries previous just seemed like a pretty bad trade. But this sort of social game is at least consensual; and the families involved at least got their houses fixed up, or built new ones, and presumably injected a little hybrid vigor into their gene pool. Whatever floats the boat – or the familial pretensions, and it gave good materiel to the likes of Twain, Edith Wharton and Henry James.

The domestic variety of aristo-worship has been around nearly as long in our dear old republic. Or at least since the early days of mass communications, and a voracious and fairly literate readership, many of whom were interested in whatever celebrity tidbits a newspaper editor chose to throw in their direction. No, newspapers in the 19th century were not all the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, or portentous deliberations about this or that great political matter. Quite a lot of the newsprint pages were taken up with pretty much the same fleeting concerns as the newspapers today: horrific crime, dreadful accidents, bad weather, scandalous doings among people who were supposed to have known better, and the doings (scandalous and otherwise) of celebrities. Yes, indeed, Lilly Langtry and Lola Montez, and Sarah Bernhardt (among others) were followed just as avidly by 19th century fandom as Paris Hilton is today, although none of them seem to have been quite as witlessly air-headed, and Lola Montez might have been just as rotten an actress. None of them showed off their whoo-whoo in public anyway, although in private might have been another matter. No, an interest in the doings of silly and aimless celebrities is no more a hazard than an interest in the doings of silly and aimless aristocrats. Such interest meets some kind of human need, sells a great many magazines, and provides amusement to people standing in supermarket checkout lines reading the tab headlines.

I can’t be quite so indifferent and amused by the third sort of American aristocrat, even though one particular clan has a tiresome propensity to overlap with the celebrity class as far as the tabloid covers are concerned. I refer to the Kennedys, of John F. and his ilk, and all their various descendents; they are the most colorful but not the first and least of our political dynasties. Such a family as that of John Adams, the Rooseveldts, the Bushes and Gores and all the rest of them where generation after generation gravitated into elected office or public office have served the nation well – but still, the whole notion of political dynasties in America gives me the heebie-jeebies. It’s one step away from a hereditary aristocracy and a bad precedent, operating on the assumption that a recognizable name constitutes entitlement to political office. This bothered me during the 2000 election; frankly I couldn’t see much to choose between either one of the candidates. But these political families have been around for a while, and on balance they’ve probably done us more good service than otherwise.

In one of Lois McMaster Bujould’s Vorkosigan books one of her characters remarks that an egalitarian has no trouble living in an aristocratic society – as long as they can be one of the aristocrats. It’s coming to me that we have become well-stocked around here lately with supposed egalitarians who nonetheless display an unseemly eagerness to secure themselves a high perch from which to lay down the rules for others. This would-be aristocracy runs the whole gamut from well-paid entertainers and journalists, active and retired politicians, to tenured academics and busybodies of every stripe and variety. They all have certain things in common; their personal lives are secure and comfortable, if not downright lavish – but they spent a lot of time in public venues of late urging the rest of us to eschew certain things which they themselves seem to have no intention of giving up.

These Marie Antoniette ‘Let them eat cake’ moments seem to be happening with more frequency. Cheryl Crow’s TP rationing, John Edwards humongous house, lavish travel arrangements and princely fees to make a speech about poverty, the high cost of Prius cars and other “green” accoutrements, intellectuals falling all over themselves rationalizing so-called national leaders like Hugo Chavez, and pricing the working class out of the labor market with docile work-gangs of illegal immigrants. Oh, it goes on and on, and I wonder sometimes in dark moments if such people are like the old Soviet revolutionaries, who overthrew the czar, and then lived in no less privilege and comfort, all the while giving lip service to the ideals of equality. I wonder if in their innermost hearts our would-be aristos wish to demoralize, impoverish and destroy the bumptious, unruly and independent middle class, the rock of any enduring republic. It is almost as if they would prefer a new and docile serf class, who would vote in easily controlled blocs as long as the bread and circuses kept coming – and never talk back to their betters. Who of course, know what is in their best interests. Lately, every time I hear someone sneer at flyover country, or the middle and working class, their taste and preferences in anything, I hear the ghost of Marie Antoniette, and I wonder anew about our new aristocrats.

Battlestar Galactica Will End After Next Season

01. June 2007 · Comments Off on Battlestar Galactica Will End After Next Season · Categories: That's Entertainment!

By Nellie Andreeva Fri Jun 1, 4:27 AM ET

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – The upcoming fourth season of Sci Fi Channel’s “Battlestar Galactica” will be its final one after all.

More at SciFi.com.

Part of me understands. You can’t just have them bopping around space forever, but dammit, every time there’s a decent SciFi show on, they kill it.

At least they get a chance to wrap up the storyline over an entire season vs trying to shut it down with a 2 hour movie –cough–FARSCAPE–cough–.

Carnival of Space

31. May 2007 · Comments Off on Carnival of Space · Categories: General

The Fifth Carnival of Space is up at ‘Why Homeshool’.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Texas Road Trip

30. May 2007 · Comments Off on Texas Road Trip · Categories: Ain't That America?, Domestic, General, Local, World

This has been most unusual spring in South Texas… it has not gotten really hot, except for a day or so at a time, before reverting to mild days and cool nights more typical of early spring. And it has rained… a lot. Holy Rubber Waders, Batman, it has rained so much that the wildflowers have lingered and lingered, well past the time when they have usually withered and died back into the grass, which is usually looking pretty crispy by this time as well. But no, as of this week there are still acres of scarlet and dark gold Mexican hat, purple thistles along the roadside, and masses of little yellow daisies. And everything is still green… so lush it looks variously like England (according to William) or North Carolina (according to Blondie.)

William was originally going to go down to Corpus Christi to visit an old friend, but he lost the address, and we couldn’t locate a current telephone number… so I thought it would be at least interesting to go down to the coast anyway. I rather wanted to see the site of Indianola, and the citadel at Goliad. Blondie was on spring break, and I had the day free, so what the hell. And the Lesser Weevil had never seen the ocean… or any body of water much bigger than one of the seasonal creeks at McAllister Park.

It was a beautiful morning, we had a cooler full of water, bottled tea and energy drinks, Weevil had peed her bladder dry, and so we set out early in Blondie’s Montero sport. My idea, the early start, and Weevil at least was enthusiastic. Blondie and William, being late night-owls and late sleepers were somewhat less enthused. My idea, also to take the secondary roads… well, there was no more direct way to get there, anyway. So, two-lane road, sometimes with a median, slow-down to go through towns that sometimes aren’t more than a hiccup of three houses and a post-office… but no traffic light. A stop sign, maybe. A mixture of houses, set back from the road out in the country closer to it in the hamlets, everything from an ornate wedding-cake of a mansion on a hill near Karnes City (it was a multi-million dollar house, on the market for years) all the way down the scale to houses that appeared suspiciously to be double-wide trailers battened onto a concrete slab and tarted up a little, and everything in between, from little craftsman-style bungalows to modern McMansions in two tones of brick

But in between was the countryside, green and rolling and beautiful. The hills go on for quite a way south of San Antonio, gentler but still recognizably rolling, but all of a sudden just south of Goliad and Victoria… the land abruptly becomes as flat as a pancake, and there are no more oak trees, and nothing to block the sight of the horizon in any direction. The clouds skated over in long lines; it all looked as big as Texas is always advertised to be. The road was elevated and many houses were on stilts, for an excellent reason; apparently there’s nothing to stop a storm surge coming in from the Gulf for a good few miles.

There was nothing left of Indianola but a monument and some markers, a scattering of holiday homes and pavilions by the water-edge. We induced Weevil to venture into the water, and watched a loaded barge move up towards Port Lavaca, and that was about it as far as amusements by the seaside went.

We couldn’t even find a place to eat, in Port Lavaca where we could sit outside with the dog, so we settled for a Whataburger in Cuero… That would have made somewhat more of a point to the trip, having something by the coast, but we just kind of planned on stopping wherever our fancy and chance took us. For some cruel reason, thought, there was nothing of the sort on any of the coast roads we took: no quaint smoky BBQ places where you eat off paper plates and clean up with a roll of paper towels, no funky sea-food restaurants complete with mooching seagulls. Blondie will be extremely annoyed if we find out we missed such a place by half a block or something stupid like that.

Now, Quero is a decent little town, with many beautifully kept old houses…it looks at least alive, which is more than can be said for Nixon or Smiley. Nixon looked like a sad, half-shuttered place, and if you sneezed as you drove into Smiley, you missed it entirely.
Karnes City and Goliad were lively enough, and the citadel was most interesting… of all the places where the Texas War for Independence were fought, it’s the one that still appears most like it did in 1836. Frankly, most people are a little disheartened about the Alamo; all that is left of it is the chapel and part of the barracks, but the Citadel la Bahia has a complete circuit of walls and buildings; much easier to visualize how it would have looked when Fannin’s men were marched away.

To me it was worthwhile, though; a chance to see that part of Texas looking more impossibly beautiful than I had ever thought it could be. Now I know why the early settlers were so taken with it, but I warn anyone who will come and hope to see the same, next year at this time: this year was an anomaly… it will not look this good again for about another fifteen years.

I Kind of Admire Cindy Sheehan

30. May 2007 · Comments Off on I Kind of Admire Cindy Sheehan · Categories: Politics

Didn’t expect that out of me did ya? 

Let me explain…no…too long…let me sum up.  I don’t agree with her views.  I find her snuggling up to Chavez just plain disturbing.

What I admire is that when she was attacked by the right, she stuck to her beliefs.  Then, when she went after the left and was attacked by the same people who wanted her nominated for sainthood, she still stuck to her beliefs.

What sickens me more than her anti-war views are the personal attacks the woman has had to endure from both sides of the political spectrum.  They’ve both found something they can agree on, once she began holding both sides’ feet to the fire, both sides have taken to calling her “attention whore.”

To make things clear, a woman who’s anti war and who’s lost her son to that war and who did her best to end that war so other mothers don’t have to feel the pain of losing a child is now an attention whore. 

Because you know, peace is just such a silly thing for anyone to work for.  The Democrats want to just end the war by pulling out, but they won’t cut funding to it.  The Republicans want to end the war by winning it but don’t seem to be doing anything to actually achieve that goal.

But some Mom who lost her kid in the war is the whore.

I guess I’m just getting more cynical…how exactly does that make sense?

Cross-Posted at Faster Than The World.

Today’s fun new game – educate the blogger

30. May 2007 · Comments Off on Today’s fun new game – educate the blogger · Categories: General

Specifically, educate me on the pros and cons of buying a foreclosed property. What should I be leary of? The property in question looks good on the real estate site, but only has one picture. The description raises no red flags (I stay away from places that say “sold as-is” or “no disclosure”).

I’m doing a drive-by this weekend, to make sure of the neighborhood, etc, but nothing beats seeing the whole thing and getting it inspected. I just don’t want to do that yet, until I’m closer to being sure that this is the one.

Lots of y’all are way more knowledgeable than me in this area – please share your hard-learned wisdom.

UPDATE: 2 June: Thanks everyone for your input. Please don’t stop. 🙂

I drove around the various neighborhoods today, and eliminated most of my possibilities. Then I stumbled across a FSBO property that is darn close to perfect. My two biggest issues with it are (1) the listing states lot size as approx 1.25 acres, and county tax rolls state lot size as .9 acres. Which do I believe? (2) It’s not fenced, so I’ll need to figure out how much fencing I can afford, so my hounds will have a secure place to run.

Google wants to know everything about you

30. May 2007 · Comments Off on Google wants to know everything about you · Categories: General

Or

I, for one, welcome our new bithead overlords.

Eric Schmidt said

“The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’?”

How? Gathering personal data from everywhere. Which is not hard – most of us leave tracks all over the infosphere*, most of it just sitting there. Do you know how to encrypt email? What about using onion routing to mask your IP address? And for the love of God if you use onion routing do you know that some programs leak data to DNS servers to establish the onion route?

If the infosphere were a forest most of us are loud rubes from the city, gawking and tromping all over the place, being loud and scaring off game for a country mile. Bird watchers and fishermen are wincing as we come tromping by, wishing you’d just get back in your Winnebago and go away. It was nice before you showed up and it will be nicer once you leave.

But .. Google. Personal data in the hands of the unscrupulous is double-plus un-good.

After all, here we have a corporation whose executive are not publicly elected, whose activities are not subject to any form of public oversight, and who chose – not reluctantly, but enthusiastically and without the slightest complaint – to comply with censorship in China. To be honest, I’d probably trust the government more with the kind of information that Google wants to amass under the flimsy excuse of helping me find information and services I know how to find perfectly well already, thank you.

As an aside – where you stand on this depends on how you feel about government. Which in turn might depend on how recently you’ve been goosed by it. But I digress.

I don’t want to get too deeply into this but it’s worth noting that while we don’t elect executives in Google neither do we elect the executives in our government. We elect the guys who are in charge who in turn hire the guys who are running things. We elect the CEO. Get a layer or two down and the guys who actually run the government are pretty much just like the guys who run Google.

That’s not where I was going with this.

Transparent Society

David Brin speculated that cameras would soon be everywhere, would be networked and capture our public moments. Getting down to the bedrock issue here, we get down to a who watches the watcher problem. We have two ways of living in this future;

* The cops (The Man, John Law) monitor the cameras. Recordings are kept by them, for their use.

or

* There is no Monitor Central. The feed from the cameras is tossed into the ether for anyone to view.

I’m paraphrasing this badly – Brin is a writer and he does a much better job of this. Go read the article if you have not already done so.

Where we’re at is that this is not a deal you can stop. The cameras are coming. Our only choice is to have a society where the cameras are controlled by John Law or by no one at all. It’s that stark.

Here is the problem, and where Brin’s lovely thought experiment fails; cameras are mounted, paid for and installed not by a bunch of grubby hackers but by the Laws. Would your average bureaucrat just hand over data?

I won’t hold my breath.

Where I’m Going With This

You probably saw this coming a mile away. Is the man collecting data on you? If we are tromping through the infosphere like tourists from the city then our tracks in a thousand government databases are fossilized footprints. You’re known about a thousand different ways from Sunday.

Integration of all these databases will happen. Call it empire building or ‘but the people paid for this data they have a right to good data’** or a well-intentioned effort to thwart the pressing crisis of the day … it will be slow and expensive but it will happen.

Google is plowing forward with the same plans – but with a million sources of data that are not controlled by the State.  They’re doing it better and faster.

What Google – and a thousand scruffy hackers who want to be the next Google – are up to can be seen not as evil or even bad but an effort to build a public feed of data. Transparent Society Version 2.0.

Intentioned or not this is an effort to construct a better place to live than the one we’ll get if we do nothing.***

On the one side is that massive data integration by the State – and if you think you’ll see much data from that, you’ll be waiting a long time. On the flip side all the other data, just put out there for people to use. The State’s default mode is to hide everything, Google’s is to put it out there for everyone to use.

I know which society I’d prefer to live in.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

*I use this not in the way that a learned policy wonk would so he can up his fee for a speaking gig but in a mock-ironic sense. In fact assume that all consultant and wonk talk above is used in this sense.

** Hat-tip to Ellen Ullman.

*** Or not.

Daily Brief readers, I thank you for you indulgence. This is not your normal mil-blog deal and if you’re read this far you’re a champ and I appreciate it. That or you are wondering if I have lost my mind and you were reading this in the same sense that some people watch NASCAR i.e. for the car crashes.

Memorial Day

28. May 2007 · Comments Off on Memorial Day · Categories: General

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Let’s not forget why we have this day off, ok? Take a moment today, in the midst of your fun, and remember those who’ve given everything they had so that we might live in freedom.

Thanks 🙂

Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet….

27. May 2007 · Comments Off on Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet…. · Categories: General, Good God, GWOT, Iraq, Media Matters Not, War

The mainstream media is hunting torturers… but only if it’s Americans doing the torturing. If Al Qaeda’s torture manuel just happens to be found, just lying around?

Quick, do another story about Abu Ghraib, or Guantanamo… something, quick!

I found this link to the manuel, as posted on “The Smoking Gun” yesterday through The Belmont Club. I thought I’d rather wait twenty-four hours, before posting it here. Please be warned, it is really nasty. But it puts the whole question of torture of the detainees at Guantanamo rather in a different light.

For Memorial Day-

27. May 2007 · Comments Off on For Memorial Day- · Categories: Domestic, General, History, War, World

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Just because…

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Just seemed to be especially relevent, this Memorial Day.

Dangerous Book For Boys

26. May 2007 · Comments Off on Dangerous Book For Boys · Categories: General

Last night was payday and the boys get to pick up a new book. Older Monkey is twelve; he was dithering over two books – a new addition to a young-adult series he’s been reading or this: Dangerous Book For Boys. He opted for the latter and I am quite pleased by his purchase.

Topics in DBFB? Famous Battles. Invisible ink. Latin phrases every boy should know. How to make a trip wire. How to make an electro-magnet. The Declaration of Independence. How to play poker. Girls. Girls?

You may already have noticed that girls are quite different from you. By this, we do not mean the physical differences, more the fact that they remain unimpressed by your mastery of a game involving wizards, or your understanding of Morse code. some will be impressed, of course, but as a general rule, girls do not get quite as excited by the use of urine as a secret ink as boys do.

Which is, sadly, true. I would have avoided a whole lotta marital strife if I’d learned this sooner than I did.

It reads like the Boy Scout Manual would if the editors had gotten their way and included the really good bits as well as the stuff BSA requires. Older Monkey spent an hour this evening making a tripwire using two AA batteries, wire salvaged from two dead fans and a light bulb. Of note is that he started using the directions and then strayed off using his own design. Which doesn’t quite work and led to learning how to troubleshoot electrical circuits and … more fundamentally .. learning troubleshooting techniques and stuff like .. logic.

Highly recommended.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

Weekly Update

25. May 2007 · Comments Off on Weekly Update · Categories: Critters, Domestic, General, That's Entertainment!, Working In A Salt Mine..., World

Ok, so this is one of those sort of weeks… although I did get a dividend check from the auto insurance company; a paltry sum but actually very welcome nonetheless, and another agent sent the usual SASE reply saying she is intrigued and can I send her the Whole Entire Manuscript, Please…getting a print of all 336 pages and mailing it will still happen in something less than toot-suite time, and probably cost the whole of the dividend check! Well, things happen for a purpose, I guess.

William is here, a week before I was really expecting and ready for him, missing his flight last night… which I only found out about after I had been waiting at the airport for an hour, this after putting in three hours putting together some brochures for the current occasional employer, the worlds tallest ADHD child. So, out of bed at four AM, doing four circuits of the airport pick-up area; honestly, if I weren’t so fond of him and if it hadn’t been so long since he was here last, I would have just told him to get his ass into a taxi at the airport and I’d have breakfast ready by the time he got to the house.

And I have to re-write the Hot Wells article, it just didn’t suit the editor… but I think I have racked up bonus points for being agreeable about re-writing I was complimented on being completely professional about the criticism… which inclines me to think that a lot of the other writers must be… I don’t know; high maintenance? Prima Donna? Temperamental, even? Eh… if you are paying me enough for bespoke word-smithing, temperament is something I can’t afford to indulge in.

I was worried about Spike the Shi-tzu, AKA the Poop Factory for a couple of days, too. Plenty of input… no observable output. Given that every disgusting thing she comes across goes straight into her mouth, I was afraid it was only a matter of time until she ingested something that would expensively obstruct the old alimentary canal. Not to worry, though. The evidence of normal digestive function was fresh on the doormat last night. The smell of it would have gagged a buzzard, though. (What does that little wretch eat? And do I really want to know?)

I am sure that Spike was the one who dragged Williams boxer-shorts out into the living room around mid morning and left them on the sofa. Blondie to me; “Jeeze, Mom, can you consider that I live here too?” She only rolled her eyes when I said Spike must have dragged them in. From the pile of laundry that William carelessly left on the floor.

Wrote up a book review, over at BNN… is anyone reading me at all this week, or is it just my imagination?

Carnival of Space #4

24. May 2007 · Comments Off on Carnival of Space #4 · Categories: General

Carnival of Space #4 is up. And there was much rejoicing.

The good folks there were kind enough to link to this entry at The Daily Brief.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

The Long Hot Summer of 1860

22. May 2007 · Comments Off on The Long Hot Summer of 1860 · Categories: Ain't That America?, General, History, Media Matters Not, Old West, Politics, Technology

The summer of 1860 culminated a decade of increasingly bitter polarization among the citizens of the still-United States over the question of slavery, or as the common polite euphemism had it; “our peculiar institution”. At a period within living memory of older citizens, slavery once appeared as if it were something that would wither away as it became less and less profitable, and more and more disapproved of by practically everyone. But the invention of the cotton gin, to process cotton fiber mechanically made large-scale agricultural production profitable, relighting the fire under a moribund industry. The possibility of permitting the institution of chattel slavery in the newly-acquired territories in the West during the 1840s turned the heat up to a simmer. It came to a full rolling boil after California was admitted as a free state in 1850… but at a cost of stiffening the Fugitive Slave Laws. And as a prominent senator, Jesse Hart Benton lamented subsequently, the matter of slavery popped up everywhere, as ubiquitous as the biblical plague of frogs. Attitudes hardened on both sides, and within a space of a few years advocates for slavery and abolitionists alike had all the encouragement they needed to readily believe the worst of each other.

Texas was not immune to all this, of course. Of the populated western states at the time, Texas was closer in sympathy to the South in the matter of slavery. Most settlers who come from the United States had come from where it had been permitted, and many had brought their human property with them, or felt no particular objection to the institution itself. In point of fact, slaves were never particularly numerous: the largest number held by a single Texas slave-owner on the eve of the Civil War numbered around 300, and this instance was very much a singular exception; most owned far fewer. Only a portion of the state was favorable to the sort of mass-agricultural production that depended upon a slave workforce. In truth while there were few abolitionists, there were many whose enthusiasm for the practice of chattel slavery was particularly restrained especially in those parts of North Texas, which had been settled from northern states and around the Hill Country and San Antonio, similarly settled by Germans and other Europeans.

One of the subtle and tragic side-effects that the hardening of attitudes had on the South was to intensify the “closing-in” of attitudes and culture towards contrary opinions. As disapproval of slavery heightened in the North and in Europe, Southern partisans became increasingly defensive, less inclined to brook any kind of criticism of the south and its institutions, peculiar or otherwise. By degrees the South became inimical to outsiders bearing the contrary ideas that progress is made of. Those who were aware of the simple fact that ideas, money, innovation, and new immigrants were pouring into the Northern states at rates far outstripping those into the South tended to brood resentfully about it, and cling to their traditions ever more tightly. Always touchy about points of honor and insult, some kind of nadir was reached in 1854 on the floor of the US Senate when a Southern Senator, Preston Brooks of South Carolina caned Charles Sumner following a fiercely abolitionist speech by the latter. Senator Brooks was presented with all sorts of fancy canes to commemorate the occasion, while Senator Sumner was months recovering from the brutal beating.

And even more than criticism, Southerners feared a slave insurrection, and any whisper of such met with a hard and brutal reaction. John Brown’s abortive 1859 raid on the Federal armory at Harper’s Ferry sealed the conviction into the minds of Southerners that the abolitionists wished for exactly that.

When mysterious fires razed half of downtown Denton, parts of Waxahatchie, a large chunk of the center of Dallas, and a grocery store in Pilot Point during the hottest summer in local memory, it took no great leap of imagination for anti-abolitionists to place blame for mysterious fires squarely on the usual suspects and their vile plots. Residents were especially jumpy in Dallas, where two Methodist preachers had been publicly flogged and thrown out of town the previous year. The editor of the local Dallas newspaper, one Charles Pryor wrote to the editors of newspapers across the state, (including the editor of the Austin Gazette who was chairman of the state Democratic Party) claiming “It was determined by certain abolitionist preachers, who were expelled from the country last year, to devastate, with fire and assassination, the whole of Northern Texas, and when it was reduced to a helpless condition, a general revolt of slaves, aided by the white men of the North in our midst, was to come off on the day of election in August.”

The panic was on, then, all across Texas: Committees of Public Safety were formed, as so-called abolitionist plotters were sought high, low, and behind every privy and under every bed, and lynched on the slightest suspicion. Conservative estimates place the number of dead, both black and white as at least thirty and possibly up to a hundred, while the newspapers breathlessly poured fuel on the fires… metaphorically speaking, of course… by expounding on the cruel depredations the abolitionists had planned for the helpless citizens of Texas. When the presidential election campaign began in late summer, Southern-rights extremists seamlessly laid the blame for the so-called plot on the nominee and political party favored by the Northern Free-States; Republican Abraham Lincoln. Texas seceded in the wake of his election, the way to the Confederacy smoothed by rumor, panic and editorial pages.

It turns out that the fires were most likely caused by the spontaneous ignition of boxes of new patent phosphorous matches, which had just then gone on the market, and the usually hot summer. But speculation and conspiracy theories are always more attractive than prosaic explanations for unsettling and mysterious events… and were so then as now.

More here on the Texas Troubles

Space Solar Power at 3 Quarks Daily

22. May 2007 · Comments Off on Space Solar Power at 3 Quarks Daily · Categories: General

A link to Taylor Dinerman’s article ‘Space solar power: why do we need it and what do we need to get it?‘ at ‘The Space Review‘ was linked to at 3 Quarks Daily.

Which is all kinds of cool and put a little sunshine in my day. 3 Quarks is a blog where S. Abbas Raza writes

my guest authors and editors and I hope to present interesting items from around the web on a daily basis, in the areas of science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and anything else we deem inherently fascinating.

I’d gotten the impression over the past month that while the site is interesting, mundane stuff like ‘the future’ was not within their scope. Glad to see that the topic on on Mr. Raza’s radar.

And space solar power itself? That we need it is one of those ‘well duh’ things …

Professor Nocera makes it clear that neither conservation nor wind, nuclear, hydro, or biomass energy sources are going to be able, even when taken together, to fill the demand for energy that any reasonable standard of living will require. China and India alone will need more energy than is produced today by the entire planet. Coal, oil, and gas could provide some of the answer but environmental and security reasons tend to rule out those alternatives. Even if one is skeptical of the whole anthropomorphic global warming theory, there are good reasons to want to minimize the use of oil and natural gas and to tread carefully when it comes to using coal as a primary energy source.

So his solution is to go for solar energy in a big way.

One problem. Solar power is not always convenient to obtain. For another we could really use the ground that would be occupied by solar arrays for other stuff. Houses, yes, but also reclaimed wilderness. Would you rather see a hundred thousand acres of restored prairie or the same space covered by solar collection arrays? Thought so. But only 62 miles away is nearly limitless room and sunshine undiluted by an inconvenient atmosphere.

Cross posted to Space For Commerce.

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