Administrative

In LA

I just got in on an early morning flight.

I have to say that I really like Delta, at least that flight. Leaves Florida at 7 AM and gets me in to LA at 9 AM, non-stop (the American non-stop leaves at 9:15 and gets in at 11). Comfortable, not too packed (empty seat next to my window) with DirecTV on the seat back, which allowed me to follow the war on Fox and CNN.

Too bad I’m an elite flyer with American.

Probably not much blogging–I’ve got a lot of work to do over the next couple days, then I’m driving to Vegas tomorrow night or early Friday morning for the conference. Maybe some live blogging from there, though, wireless permitting.

War Commentary

No New Thing Under The Sun

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Mark Steyn discusses the shocking truth–that George Bush didn’t invent war:

Lawrence Keeley calculates that 87 per cent of primitive societies were at war more than once per year, and some 65 per cent of them were fighting continuously. “Had the same casualty rate been suffered by the population of the twentieth century,” writes Wade, “its war deaths would have totaled two billion people.” Two billion! In other words, we’re the aberration: after 50,000 years of continuous human slaughter, you, me, Bush, Cheney, Blair, Harper, Rummy, Condi, we’re the nancy-boy peacenik crowd. “The common impression that primitive peoples, by comparison, were peaceful and their occasional fighting of no serious consequence is incorrect. Warfare between pre-state societies was incessant, merciless, and conducted with the general purpose, often achieved, of annihilating the opponent.”

…One swallow doesn’t make a summer, of course, but I wonder sometimes if we’re not heading toward a long night of re-primitivization. In his shrewd book Civilization And Its Enemies, Lee Harris writes:

“Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious foe. . . . That, before 9/11, was what had happened to us. The very concept of the enemy had been banished from our moral and political vocabulary.”

For many, it still apparently is.

Political Commentary

Clueless

If the Democrats were smart, they’d listen to Evan Baye (Birch’s son):

In his speech, Bayh said the party has focused most of its attention on the needs of lower-income Americans, but it also must address issues that matter to people on the next rung up the economic ladder.

“Without an agenda that speaks directly to the middle class and all who aspire to it, we will no longer be the party of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Clinton. And we will not be a majority party,” Bayh said, invoking the names of former Democratic presidents.

But they aren’t, so they won’t.

Popular Culture

Fight To The Finish

My webmaster, Bill Simon, is coach of a Chinese dragon-boat team, based in Long Beach, CA. He sends link to a video of a close race in Vancouver last month:

Here is the 500M race for the medals in the Comp C division of the 2006 Vancouver (ALCAN) Dragon Boat festival that was held on June 18, 2006. Now you can actually see how close this race was.

LARD (Los Angeles Racing Dragons, our local rivals) came in first (in the lane 4th from the top). We, the Los Angeles Killer Guppies, (in the 3rd lane from the top) came in about 3/4 boat behind them–and that put us in 9th place! We were separated by less than 2.5 second! Our time was 2:09.

I know how intense this was for us on the boat. But now I know what the crowd experienced. This is the closest Dragon Boat race I’ve ever seen. Awesome! Congrats to LARD! But just wait till next year…

This is my kind of multiculturalism.

Political Commentary

Could The Blogosphere Propel Newt To Victory?

I once asked if Bill Clinton could have been elected in a world in which the blogosphere existed. I think the answer may have been “no.” In fact, I suspect that it would have shredded the Sixty Minutes puff piece that Don Hewitt credited with saving his candidacy in a similar manner that it did the Dan Rather hit piece in 2004.

A similar question is whether or not it would be sufficient to overcome the MSM bias against Newt Gingrich.

He’s said very little thus far that I’d disagree with. He seems to be more straight talking than even John McCain, and there’s been a lot of implicit criticism from him of Bush on the war, which I think is badly needed, since most of that commodity has been provided by the brainless left, to date, and there is in fact much to criticize (in terms of the fact that he’s been wobbly against the enemy, to the point of continuing to fear to name it).

If he runs, I don’t think that the media will be able to get away with all the misleading hit pieces that they ran against him when he became Speaker in 1994. At the least, there will be an honest debate about his positions, instead of simple demonizing.

And of course, if elected, it’s impossible to imagine a president more pro-space, and pro-free-enterprise-space, than Newt.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!