Weird

Got Milk?

Thinking back over the years, I can think of some, in fact many women of which this would be a suitable condition of co-working with them. But not all of them, no, not all.

Just in case you thought that some tenets of Islam weren’t wacky enough. I should note though, that the story indicates that it’s a controversial issue, even within Islam.

[Via tracker of all weird things Islamic]

[Update a minutes later]

Only semi-related, but LGF also has the story on the effects of Nancy’s excellent Damascus adventure on Syrian dissidents. Hint: it ain’t pretty:

Mr. al-Bunni is a slight, nervous-looking man, a tireless polymath who, aside from his work defending scores of political prisoners, has helped to found a center offering training in human rights, and has drafted a new constitution for Syria. Last year, he invited a handful of foreign reporters to his home to show them his proposed new constitution, and waved his hands excitedly as he outlined his ideas about what a democratic transition in Syria might look like, how potential power-sharing arguments among Syria

War Commentary

A Sensible Democrat

It’s not just Joe Lieberman any more. Bob Kerrey:

American liberals need to face these truths: The demand for self-government was and remains strong in Iraq despite all our mistakes and the violent efforts of al Qaeda, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias to disrupt it. Al Qaeda in particular has targeted for abduction and murder those who are essential to a functioning democracy: school teachers, aid workers, private contractors working to rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure, police officers and anyone who cooperates with the Iraqi government. Much of Iraq’s middle class has fled the country in fear.

With these facts on the scales, what does your conscience tell you to do? If the answer is nothing, that it is not our responsibility or that this is all about oil, then no wonder today we Democrats are not trusted with the reins of power. American lawmakers who are watching public opinion tell them to move away from Iraq as quickly as possible should remember this: Concessions will not work with either al Qaeda or other foreign fighters who will not rest until they have killed or driven into exile the last remaining Iraqi who favors democracy.

The key question for Congress is whether or not Iraq has become the primary battleground against the same radical Islamists who declared war on the U.S. in the 1990s and who have carried out a series of terrorist operations including 9/11. The answer is emphatically “yes.”

This does not mean that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11; he was not. Nor does it mean that the war to overthrow him was justified–though I believe it was. It only means that a unilateral withdrawal from Iraq would hand Osama bin Laden a substantial psychological victory.

My only dispute with that it that I remain unconvinced that bin Laden is still alive. But his movement certainly lives on, and it would remain a victory for it.

Economics

Unintended Consequences

I’ve never been very thrilled with the idea of converting food to fuel. This article explains why:

President Bush has set a target of replacing 15 percent of domestic gasoline use with biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) during the next 10 years, which would require almost a fivefold increase in mandatory biofuel use, to about 35 billion gallons. With current technology, almost all of this biofuel would have to come from corn because there is no feasible alternative. However, achieving the 15 percent goal would require the entire current US corn crop, which represents a whopping 40 percent of the world’s corn supply. This would do more than create mere market distortions; the irresistible pressure to divert corn from food to fuel would create unprecedented turmoil.

Thus, it is no surprise that the price of corn has doubled in the past year

Space

Artificial Lunar Lakes

Here’s a cool idea:

Angel, a leading astronomer at the University of Arizona, is proposing an enormous liquid-mirror telescope on the moon that could be hundreds of times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope.

Using a rotating dish of reflective liquid as its primary mirror, Angel’s telescope would the largest ever built, and would permit astronomers to study the oldest and most distant objects in the universe, including the very first stars.

One thing I don’t get, though. How would you point it? It doesn’t seem like it could be angled up very much out of local horizontal without both messing up the surface shape and requiring higher spin rates. That means that it’s only going to point at the area of the sky corresponding to the current local vertical at the lunar location (presumably they’d want to be on the far side to avoid light interference from the earth). And even then it would take a month to see the whole sky on a swathe, with no ability to go back and take a second look until twenty-eight days later. But if you had a bunch of them scattered all over the far side, you could have a pretty flexible system. This also means you’d have to have data relay satellites, either a constellation in lunar orbits, or a halo around L-2, if you’re going to be able to do earth-based astronomy with it.

As the article notes, this would probably require hand assembly to a large degree, which could provide a lot of motivation for lunar bases and lunar construction workers, and potentially even affordable, as long as you don’t let NASA get involved. It’s the kind of project that demands a lunar infrastructure, for communications as noted above, and habitats. It would be a great way (and perhaps incentive) to industrialize the moon. NSF should tender some bids, and see what the private sector comes up with.

[Via John Hood]

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