History

The Night Of Shattering Glass

It’s been almost seven decades since Kristallnacht. Today is the sixty-ninth anniversary. Hilda Pierce remembers:

In Paris, on Nov. 7, 1938, a 17-year-old boy, Herschel Grynszpan, distraught over the treatment of his German Jewish parents in Poland, shot and killed the German minor official Herr von Rath. That was the excuse for Kristallnacht two days later.

Thousands of people participated in this horrendous carnage, an organized massacre dictated by Berlin. Not just hoodlums, but ordinary middle-class men and women, neighbors, former friends, smashed windows, looted Jewish shops, burned synagogues, tortured and beat senseless thousands of Jews and the rest sent to concentration camps. In my Vienna, the bloodshed was even greater; hundreds of Jews committed suicide. There it happened on Nov. 9. Austrians had one great regret, that so much needless damage was inflicted on property.

Crystal Night was the beginning of the Holocaust. It sowed the seeds for the Second World War. Had Hitler been stopped at that time, the war and genocide might have been avoided. All these valuable people, Jews who had contributed so much to the world in science, art, music, mores and medicine, could have continued giving their invaluable gifts to mankind.

Sadly, though, many in modern Europe seem to have forgotten:

Take the much-abused term

Administrative

Networking Bleg

Can anyone imagine why, when I drag a wmv file over to my local drive from my file server, and play it from the local drive, the file transfer occurs quickly, and Windows Media Player plays it fine, but if I try to play it directly from the server, it runs like molasses?

Space

SBSP In Pop Mechanics

I finally just got around to reading the report that Colonel “Coyote” Smith (that’s Michael Valentine Smith–no kidding) and company came up with on Space Based Solar Power, and will be commenting on it, but I should note for now that the January issue of Popular Mechanics has this as its cover story. I haven’t read it yet, but may post some thoughts after I do.

On a related note, while a ten buck per ton carbon tax on coal probably would be good for the nuclear industry, as Randall Parker notes, it wouldn’t hurt SBSP, either.

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, not much to the Pop Mechanics piece. I think it’s quite an overstatement to say that powersats are “all the rage” at either the Pentagon or in private industry. I would think that something that was “all the rage” would be getting significant funding, and so far the amount that’s been appropriated to this recently is…zero. In fact, one of the significant things about the Pentagon report was that it was done with no DoD budget, entirely by volunteers, other than the Colonel’s time. It might be a useful model for future such studies that have trouble otherwise finding government champions, but it hardly justifies the notion that this is now a major priority, either within the five-sided building, or in the government in general.

As for the article itself, my only quibble is to note that the seventies studies were jointly by DoE and NASA, not just DoE. It’s been noted many times in the past (and Coyote’s report notes as well) that one of the reasons that this concept has had trouble getting acceptance and ownership within the government is that it’s had no natural home. DoE thinks it’s a space program, and NASA thinks it’s an energy program, and both agencies consider it to be outside their charters. I do like the idea of the establishment of a quango, perhaps using COMSAT as a model, to provide a government-blessed (and at least initially, funded) focus for this.

[Update a couple hours later]

I see from his comments that Monte Davis now has a blog, which I’ll be adding to the sidebar.

War Commentary

An Iwo Jima Moment?

If things continue to go well, this photo should win a Pulitzer.

But probably not in today’s media environment. After all, it goes against the narrative. And of course, we know how today’s media would have treated that moment.

[Late evening update]

“Wretchard” (aka Richard Fernandez) has related, and more articulate (as usual) thoughts.

[Update on Thursday afternoon]

Here’s some more good news:

A rare visit by a delegation representing Sunni tribes in the Province of Anbar to the predominantly Shiite Province of Qadissiya is yet another signal that Iraqis are keen to put an end to sectarian strife.

The Anbar delegation included major Sunni tribes who have formed a coalition and raised a tribal force to check Qaeda influence in their areas.

Sheikh Mohammed Shaalan said both Sunni and Shiite tribes in the two provinces have vowed to bring national reconciliation to success.

Shaalan, who spoke for the meeting, said a tribal delegation from Qadissiya would also travel to Anbar in the near future.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!