I have nothing to say about yesterday’s atrocity in Israel but, as usual, Lileks does. The contrast technique of his prose is staggering.

Also, lots of good related discussion over at Charles Johnson’s site.

I have nothing to say about yesterday’s atrocity in Israel but, as usual, Lileks does. The contrast technique of his prose is staggering.

Also, lots of good related discussion over at Charles Johnson’s site.

Den Beste has a good piece debunking much of the press hysteria about “dirty bombs“.

Reader Randolph Addison writes:

Peter Jennings is in the Palestine/Israel region right now [on ABC radio] interviewing people and getting their feelings on the violence. Had I not heard this from his own mouth, I would have simply not believed the depths of moral relativity that exists in this man. To quote as closely as possible, he said, “…when I interview Israelis, it’s almost exactly like interviewing the Palestinians…no, wait, not exactly but very close to. They are both mired in distrust for the other side and feel as though they are entrenched in violence and cannot think of [this is the best part] an imaginative solution…” And he said some more about their distrust and similar feelings, etc.

Yes, because Palestinians who celebrate the death of babies are exactly like Israelis who just want to exist and will retaliate against Palestinian soldiers and militia infantry. I figure if I interview a rapist and his victims, I will get exactly the same interview from both sides. The rapist will say, “Gosh darnit, them there people were asking for it by being all damned snippy and haughty towards me after I cleaned their windows, looking all fancy…they’re just trying to rub their wealth in my face by hiring me.”

And the victims will have roughly the same story of, “…I just don’t see why I had to provoke him by acting as though I was better just because I go to work every day and make a good living. I should not have hired him to clean our windows because it just highlights in the financial disparity of our backwards capitalist system.” Yep.

I never liked Peter Jennings for his haughty more-pious-than-thou attitude on everything (even when he is clearly wrong and should know it). This took me over the edge. To draw moral equality between them is just…well, amazing.

One more reason that fewer and fewer watch network news.

Reader Randolph Addison writes:

Peter Jennings is in the Palestine/Israel region right now [on ABC radio] interviewing people and getting their feelings on the violence. Had I not heard this from his own mouth, I would have simply not believed the depths of moral relativity that exists in this man. To quote as closely as possible, he said, “…when I interview Israelis, it’s almost exactly like interviewing the Palestinians…no, wait, not exactly but very close to. They are both mired in distrust for the other side and feel as though they are entrenched in violence and cannot think of [this is the best part] an imaginative solution…” And he said some more about their distrust and similar feelings, etc.

Yes, because Palestinians who celebrate the death of babies are exactly like Israelis who just want to exist and will retaliate against Palestinian soldiers and militia infantry. I figure if I interview a rapist and his victims, I will get exactly the same interview from both sides. The rapist will say, “Gosh darnit, them there people were asking for it by being all damned snippy and haughty towards me after I cleaned their windows, looking all fancy…they’re just trying to rub their wealth in my face by hiring me.”

And the victims will have roughly the same story of, “…I just don’t see why I had to provoke him by acting as though I was better just because I go to work every day and make a good living. I should not have hired him to clean our windows because it just highlights in the financial disparity of our backwards capitalist system.” Yep.

I never liked Peter Jennings for his haughty more-pious-than-thou attitude on everything (even when he is clearly wrong and should know it). This took me over the edge. To draw moral equality between them is just…well, amazing.

One more reason that fewer and fewer watch network news.

Reader Randolph Addison writes:

Peter Jennings is in the Palestine/Israel region right now [on ABC radio] interviewing people and getting their feelings on the violence. Had I not heard this from his own mouth, I would have simply not believed the depths of moral relativity that exists in this man. To quote as closely as possible, he said, “…when I interview Israelis, it’s almost exactly like interviewing the Palestinians…no, wait, not exactly but very close to. They are both mired in distrust for the other side and feel as though they are entrenched in violence and cannot think of [this is the best part] an imaginative solution…” And he said some more about their distrust and similar feelings, etc.

Yes, because Palestinians who celebrate the death of babies are exactly like Israelis who just want to exist and will retaliate against Palestinian soldiers and militia infantry. I figure if I interview a rapist and his victims, I will get exactly the same interview from both sides. The rapist will say, “Gosh darnit, them there people were asking for it by being all damned snippy and haughty towards me after I cleaned their windows, looking all fancy…they’re just trying to rub their wealth in my face by hiring me.”

And the victims will have roughly the same story of, “…I just don’t see why I had to provoke him by acting as though I was better just because I go to work every day and make a good living. I should not have hired him to clean our windows because it just highlights in the financial disparity of our backwards capitalist system.” Yep.

I never liked Peter Jennings for his haughty more-pious-than-thou attitude on everything (even when he is clearly wrong and should know it). This took me over the edge. To draw moral equality between them is just…well, amazing.

One more reason that fewer and fewer watch network news.

It’s been brought to my attention that I (and anyone else who may be running my script) may be making the Blogspot problem worse with all the hits it gets from my status tests.

While there are some things that can be done to the script to mitigate some of the problems, I’m going to take it down for now, and am asking any others who may have done something similar to it to do the same. I’d also like to initiate a discussion about whether a) such a thing is a good thing to have (as several have told me) and b) if so, what the best way is to achieve it without exacerbating it.

[Update at 9:27AM PST]

Carey Gage comments:

Since you started your status check, I’ve been coming here, checking both your content and blogger’s status before going to any blogspot sites. I think your idea was a good one, if only in terms of convenience.

But having ten blogs hitting on blogspot to check its status once every minute will undoubtedly aggravate his traffic problem and is also much more than is needed. One non-Blogspot site, checking once every five or ten minutes would be a convenience and would not add excessively to Blogspot’s traffic.

Which one? You thought of it, you implemented it. I think you should do it to the exclusion of everyone else. If that gets you extra hits, well and good (if you want them). Can you handle the extra traffic generated by being a blogspot “gateway” without incurring the same traffic problems as he does?

Well, getting hits for the sake of hits was not necessarily the goal. I really did it for my own use, and for the use of my regular readers. I suspect that if people are coming just to see Blogspot status, they’re not necessarily hanging around to read anything else. If that’s the case, then it would make more sense to set up a separate page just for that (with a separate link to the blog), to minimize my own bandwidth.

Once every five minutes is twice as much as once every ten. It’s a matter of how much data resolution we want to get. Just going from twice a minute to once would reduce the load by half.

Other thoughts?

Can anyone remember the last time an Arab nation (or for that matter, an Islamic nation) won a war unassisted?

Leonard David has an article in today’s Space.com on the rapidly-approaching feasibility of a space elevator. Apparently, rapid advances in the manufacturing of buckey-tube-based materials of unprecedented tensile strength are making this a viable near-term technology, which in turn makes it possible to build a tower to the heavens.

The basic concept is that if you place a satellite in geostationary orbit (where most communications satellites reside) it will, by definition, remain at a single point over the earth’s surface (at the equator). Drop a cable all the way down thousands of miles to that point, and tether it (just as suspension bridges often start as a single cable across a gorge). Now beef up the structure, and put the center of mass of the system beyond geostationary altitude, which puts it into tension.

Build elevators into the structure, and you have a means of getting into space for the costs of the energy alone (plus, of course the amortization and maintenance costs for the elevator). This is just a few dollars per pound, which is orders of magnitudes less than the current methods of using rockets.

That would make a space vacation possible for almost anyone who can now afford a trip to Hawaii. It would also make space a much more practical location for the storage of nuclear waste and the construction of solar power satellites that might eventually render nuclear plants unnecessary.

Unfortunately, as was brought home most dramatically last September 11, it would also make the most visible and monumental target possible for a terrorist.

The potential energy in such a structure would be unimaginable (though not incalculable). If it were somehow released from its equatorial mooring (in addition to the tremendous loss of capability and loss of life of whoever was on it), it might whipsaw around the local landscape like a python on meth, potentially causing tremendous damage on the ground before finally drifting out into space (where it would become a major navigational hazard for orbiting satellites, facilities, and even tourist hotels). It’s possible (though unlikely) that it could even ultimately strike the Moon. It would make the events of last September look like a Sunday-school picnic.

This is, of course, not an argument against doing it. But it does add some additional requirements for its construction that might not have been considered prior to the WTC attack. For instance, the structure near the base should probably be capable of withstanding a small nuclear detonation, if possible. It should certainly be capable of withstanding a collision with any existing aircraft (including supersonic). Security in the area should be strict (at least as far as explosive devices go), with a large keep-out zone on the ground and in the air.

I might be using this as the basis for the Fox News column tomorrow, so I’d appreciate any other thoughts that people have on the subject.

[Update at 5PM]

OK, having given it a little more thought, it seems to me that the problem with the article was that it didn’t mention any of the problems. It was gung ho about how the technology to do this is almost here, which means to me that we now have to give some serious thought to the real showstoppers.

I see two serious issues, either or both of which are likely to keep this from happening for a long time, and perhaps forever.

First, if a structure is towering from the equator to a third of the way to the Moon, no objects can safely orbit the earth at any altitude below that. No GPS, no remote sensing satellites, no space stations, nada. The only satellites that can safely orbit are the geostationary comsats. The reason for this is that all other orbits will eventually intersect the structure, resulting in a spectacular collision, unless they are managed carefully, and they can’t be managed that carefully–such an accident is inevitable.

The second problem is the one that I mentioned above, and it’s potentially much worse. If it breaks off in space, while the part above the break will go flying off into an elliptical orbit, or perhaps out into the solar system, the part below will come crashing down to earth. Much of it won’t burn up, because it won’t have much velocity.

So, as technically neat as skyhooks are, I have trouble seeing any political conditions under which such a risky project, requiring the total obsolescence of our existing orbital infrastructure, to fly. We are going to have to continue to work at creating new markets that can drive down cost of the launch rocket-based space transports, because I think we’ll be stuck with them for a long time.

Of all sources, the Guardian informs us that the US is moving its Gulf HQ from Saudi Arabia to Qatar.

My only question is, what took them so long?