It seems that there IS an area on which nearly everyone in the world agrees…. if you believe the UN, anyway.
The “Goldstone report” by the UN on the recent Israel/Hamas conflict is out.
Predictably, it condemns Israel more or less unconditionally, while using relatively tepid, conditional language to describe Hamas’ role in the run-up to it, and during it.
Just a reminder: Israel is always a bigger target for UN “human rights” activists than any other nation, including North Korea, China, the Sudan, etc. There is more unanimity on the “evil Israel” at the UN than there is on any other issue.
Astronomers are saying they’ve found an “earthlike” planet about 500 light years from earth. It is, however, very, very hot.
So close that its surface temperature is more than 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit, too toasty to sustain life. It circles its star in just 20 hours, zipping around at 466,000 mph. By comparison, Mercury, the planet nearest our sun, completes its solar orbit in 88 days.
What can it mean to call this planet “earthlike”? I dunno… but the astronomer who said it’s just “a bit” too close to its star is the very master of understatement. The surface temperature is somewhere between the melting point and the boiling point of *iron*. It’s hotter than the inside of a jet engine, so much so that any engine reaching such temperatures would probably just melt.
I do think, however, that we probably have scriptural mentions of this planet. Dante appears to have made the same observations.
Celebration that we’ve finally found an “earthlike” planet might be a touch premature.
Indian authorities have detained a UAE military transport aircraft after it was found to be carrying weapons and explosives without declaring them, the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) reported on Monday.
Why would the UAE be shipping arms to China, when the UAE does not manufacture much of any military hardware to speak of, while China is a gigantic exporter of same?
Speculations:
1) There are some things China doesn’t make, but wants from the West, which seems happy to sell them to the UAE, and the UAE doesn’t mind re-selling them to China. 2) China is planning some operations it wants to carry out with Western weapons…. to maintain deniability? 3) The weapons weren’t even going to make it to China, that was just the name on the manifest, and were in fact headed for someplace else… like maybe Al Qaeda or the Taliban, or? In this case, it probably wouldn’t be the UAE goverment, just someone using UAE as a transhipment point.
There is something behind the curtain here, that’s for sure.
As I’ve written elsewhere, God is the Being who exists alone in His category… whatever that might be. We know a little. We are tempted to say that God is infinitely present, powerful, intelligent, and good. These ideas are more Greek than anything, because they were in love with philosophical absolutes. But using those categories can deceive us if we are incautious, because it allows us to pretend that we know more than we do. In His initial communication with humans, God seems not to have tried to “name” Himself, or describe Himself, or apply adjectives to Himself in an attempt to make Himself known to His people. He said, “I am who I am,” or, “I will be who I will be,” or, “I am that I am,” depending on whose translation you believe. He made Himself known by His deeds more than by His self-description, though there isn’t necessarily a rigid line between the two. Start reading from Genesis 1, and notice how long it is before God applies adjectives to Himself.
Hugh Hewitt reports on the Ten for Tark campaign, that may get Senator Reid’s attention that he is in great political peril if he allows Obamacare to pass through the Senate.
the campaign [is] to send a message [to] the Senate Majority Leader that Obamacare has got to be shelved. I hope some of my colleagues on the radio dial pick up on the effort to send a very loud message to Senator Reid. Nothing gets an incumbent’s attention like a check to his opponent, and thousands and thousands of checks to Tark should hopefully see Senator Reid talking with his colleagues about the political peril that Obamacare creates for all of them, even those who can look forward to excellent funding support from unions and teachers.
Go to the link above. It has a link where you can donate $10 to Danny Tarkanian (thus, Ten for Tark), who is the challenger to Harry Reid in the 2010 election.
Anyone can afford this. And the message to Reid is simple: there’s lots more where this came from, and if you let this Obamacare mess pass through the Senate (and he DOES have the power to stop it), then you can expect to lose your seat in the Senate. Period.
BTW: this is not unrealistic. Polls are showing that Reid is already trailing in the 2010 election, by quite a lot for an incumbent with a relatively unknown challenger. So this is a time when the judicious application of pressure may actually produce a result. Reid is vulnerable, and he knows he is, and that may be enough to get him to see reason in the matter, however he chooses to present it to the press and his Democrat friends. This wouldn’t work against a politician in a secure seat, but this time, Reid is vulnerable, just like Daschle and Foley when they were in leadership roles in Congress.
After you make your $10 donation on Tarkanian’s site, send the receipt, along with a polite note, to Senator Reid, explaining your position briefly and clearly. Be nice. But be clear that you plan to give more to Tarkanian if Reid doesn’t kill the Obamacare legislation.
forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.
Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck’s decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. Genius is not required to recognize that in Afghanistan, when means now, before more American valor, such as Allen’s, is squandered.
Read the whole thing. I’m not sure what American military leaders would say about Will’s perspective… but it is interesting that it comes from the “center right.”
