He would have been a hundred years old today. Also, it’s the 29th anniversary of the announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative. “Wouldn’t it be better to save lives than to avenge them?”
[Update a couple minutes later]
Related to last item: Japan prepares missile defense in anticipation of North Korean launch.
[Update a few minutes later]
Back to von Braun: a blog post from Roger Launius.
Heading for a polar “orbit”? Well, if so, at least it won’t overfly Japan.
Is it on the way?
More thoughts from Barry Rubin: Obama’s policies make it inevitable.
Oh, goody. Is China on the verge of another one? Because, you know, the last one worked out so well.
[Noon update]
This seems like it might be related: Japan is getting worried about China.
[Bumped]
The administration has been played (again) by North Korea. I doubt that it is a satellite launch, but it’s actually a lot easier to launch a satellite than to deliver a warhead (which is what they really want to learn how to do).
[Update mid afternoon]
A missile launch would be “a deal breaker for the administration.” Yeah, right.
Rowan Williams is no longer going to be Archbishop of Canterbury. In his honor, I offer up an Iowahawk classic.
…by making Joe Biden president. No, really.
[Update a while later]
You couldn’t make this up: The non-embarrassment that is Joe Biden.
So what is the message Christians should take from this? That it’s time for them to start threatening to behead people?
A leftist Irish film maker discovers the truth about Israel:
He talked slowly about his time in Gaza. He spoke about 20 Arab teenagers filled with ecstasy tablets and sent running towards the base he’d patrolled. Each strapped with a bomb and carrying a hand-held detonator.
The pills in their bloodstream meant they felt no pain. Only a headshot would take them down.
Conversations like this are normal in Tel Aviv. I began to experience the sense of isolation Israelis feel. An isolation that began in the ghettos of Europe and ended in Auschwitz.
Israel is a refuge — but a refuge under siege, a refuge where rockets rain death from the skies. And as I made the effort to empathise, to look at the world through their eyes. I began a new intellectual journey. One that would not be welcome back home.
The problem began when I resolved to come back with a film that showed both sides of the coin. Actually there are many more than two. Which is why my film is called Forty Shades of Grey. But only one side was wanted back in Dublin. My peers expected me to come back with an attack on Israel. No grey areas were acceptable.
An Irish artist is supposed to sign boycotts, wear a PLO scarf, and remonstrate loudly about The Occupation. But it’s not just artists who are supposed to hate Israel. Being anti-Israel is supposed to be part of our Irish identity, the same way we are supposed to resent the English.
But hating Israel is not part of my personal national identity. Neither is hating the English. I hold an Irish passport, but nowhere upon this document does it say I am a republican, or a Palestinian.
Oh, that’s just crazy talk. Crazy fascist.
…will likely end within weeks:
Obama’s speech was notable for a number of reasons. First, this was the first speech on an Israel related theme that Obama has given since the 2008 campaign in which he did not pick a fight with Israel. And it is due to the absence of open hostility in his address that Obama’s supporters are touting it as a pro-Israel speech.
While he didn’t pick a fight with Israel on Sunday, his speech did mark a clear attempt to undermine Israel’s strategic position in a fundamental – indeed existential – way. As many commentators have noted in recent weeks, Israel and the US have different red lines for the Iranian nuclear program. These divergent red lines owe to the fact that the US has more options for attacking Iran’s nuclear installations than Israel.
From Israel’s perspective, Iran’s nuclear program will reportedly become unstoppable as soon as the Iranians move a sufficient quantity of enriched uranium and/or centrifuges to the Fordow nuclear installation by Qom. Since Israel reportedly lacks the ability to destroy the facility, Israel’s timeline for attacking Iran will likely end within weeks. The US reportedly has the capacity to successfully bomb Fordow and so its timeline for attacking Iran is longer than Israel’s.
The reason this is important is because it tells us the true nature of Obama’s demand that Israel give more time for sanctions and diplomacy to work. When one recognizes Israel’s short timeline for attacking, one realizes that when Obama demands that Israel give several more months for sanctions to work, what he is actually demanding is for Israel to place its survival in his hands. Again, once Iran’s nuclear project is immune from an Israeli strike Obama will effectively hold the key to Israel’s survival. Israel will be completely at his mercy.
Which is just where he wants all of us.