Via Instapundit, I found an article titled On Asteroid Defense and Constitutional Law. In in, the writer, Pejman Yousefzadeh, responds to a challenge from liberal writer Mark Kleiman for some “libertarian-leaning” person to explain why the doctrine of enumerated powers would not prevent the Federal Government from “shooting down an asteroid.”
Yousefzadeh leads off by [...]
Since my last posting, the oil bubble has indeed burst as predicted, falling nearly 1/3 from the high point. Even though this has dropped gasoline prices below $4/bbl, the public continues to favor domestic drilling.
Meanwhile, in the Presidential contest, Barack Obama picked Senator Joe Biden and McCain picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as their [...]
Because Fred Thompson is not running…yet.
With the announcement over the weekend that Senator Evan Bayh is dropping out of the 2008 Presidential race, I can now close the books on The Hager File. As I discussed in that post, I made a series of 8 predictions in 2004. The final result was 5 correct and 3 wrong. [...]
Glenn “Too Tall” Reynolds of Instapundit wrote in TCS today about prospects for Pebble-bed High Temperature Gas Reactors (HTGRs). I’m glad to see advanced nuclear reactors being discussed more and more these days. I researched reactors like the HTGR back in the late 1970’s, though I favored the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) for [...]
This is the first of what may or may not be series in which I, as a former Libertarian Party member, celebrate the liberating experience of joining the GOP and embracing my inner Republican. To illustrate what I mean, I offer the following email I circulated to friends earlier today:
The folks at PowerLine say [...]
I’ve upgraded from WordPress version 1.2 to WP v. 1.5.2. As of this writing, the look of the site is very different - I’ll be tweaking things to get to something I like so don’t be surprised if things change.
I haven’t posted in some time because version 1.2 couldn’t handle comment spam and, until [...]
To readers who may have wondered why my blogging output has declined so precipitously over the past several weeks, the answer is that I’ve been writing fiction. The term I’ve coined for the form or genre I’ve been writing in is “SimFic” - short for Simulation-based Fiction. In SimFic, characters are wholly the [...]
. . . because I participated in a telephone survey about knowledge/attitudes concerning energy, environment, and energy policy. As these kinds of surveys go it wasn’t too bad though I could have done a much better job. For example, there were a couple of questions that stated favorable information about energy companies and [...]
The Bloomington Herald-Times reports that State Senator Pat Miller has withdrawn the bill to prohibit the use of reproductive technologies by “unmarried” people (see Miller withdraws plan to limit reproductive options, paid subscription required). Quoting from the article:
According to the Associated Press, the bill defined assisted reproduction as causing pregnancy by means other than [...]
In Preemptive war against Iran, I stated that a nuclear Iran might be undeterrable. There are numerous instances of Iranian civilian and military leaders actually talking about winning a nuclear war, while celebrating the cult of religious martyrdom. These statements, along with other evidence that Islamic clerics – particularly those in charge of [...]
I miss sonic booms. When I was a teenager living in Houston, Texas in the 1960’s, sonic booms were a frequent occurrence. They were produced by supersonic B-58 Hustlers belonging to the Strategic Air Command knifing through the stratosphere on simulated bomb runs in which Houston substituted for targets in the USSR. [...]
My wife came across a news item in the Bloomington Herald Times a week or so ago about a diner in Martinsville that was resisting that town’s no-smoking ordinance. Bloomington and Monroe County successively rammed through ordinances essentially banning all indoor smoking in anything but private homes last year and apparently Martinsville followed suit [...]
On Power Line, I came across this essay by Paul Johnson entitled The Anti-Semitic Disease. Johnson observes that anti-Semitism is historically exceptional – though it would seem to be a form of racism it has a number of unique characteristics that render it essentially a distinct class unto itself. According to Johnson:
By contrast, [...]
Recent hiatus in postings was due to my purchase of new computer and subsequent hassles - some problems with Dell’s software bundle and one problem of my own creation. Now system is up and running so I’m back to blogging.
Via Jerry Pournelle’s website, there is an interesting series of posts about research done by Greg Cochrane et al. concerning Darwinian processes that may account for the higher-than-average intelligence seen in Ashkenazi Jews. (See High intelligence of Ashkenazi Jews may be result of their persecuted past and a link to a NYT article, Researchers [...]
Glenn “Too Tall” Reynolds says he is a Tiplerite by which he means he’s a follower of Frank Tipler. Sir, you follow a heresy! Please read on.
In the 1970’s, after reading Hawking’s work on the quantum mechanics of black holes, I came up with my own religion I called the “Church of God [...]
An article in June 1 issue of Jane’s Defense Weekly (paid subscription required) titled “Proliferation in Pyongyang” references S. Korean reports that the N. Korean missile fired into the Sea of Japan in early May was a KN-02 with a range of 100-120 km. The KN-02 is an upgraded version of Russian OTR-21 Tochka [...]
The latest news on the MCCSC Sex Survey is that it is being deferred until the fall semester. When in doubt, temporize.
On a related note, on O’Reilly this evening there was a news item about a couple of girls kicked out of school for wearing buttons that said, “I [heart] my vagina”. O’Reilly [...]
This post mortem of the Little-5 is a day late because Jim Kirkham, the Cutters’ “coach”, is also my co-worker and he took Monday off. I knew the Cutters finished 7th in the 33-team field and, ironically, had been involved in a crash. Beyond that, I had no details on the race so [...]