Mankind makes it to the Moon

 Fifteen years ago, I noted that only men had ever been to the moon. I didn't say it in that post, but it was obvious to me that whenever men did return to the moon, it was inevitable that there would be a woman along; failure to tick off that box would be an unimaginable offense to the gods of sexual equality. 
And sure enough, the Artemis mission this year to the far side of the moon included a woman. What's interesting is that taking a woman along required a private bathroom facility, and the need to build a spaceship big enough to accommodate that did delay this milestone mission by several decades. 

A review of Contact, an alleged work of science fiction: Part One

I recently had the opportunity to view Contact, a movie that was released over two decades ago—almost the amount of time it would take for a transmission of it to reach the Vega system. I was struck from very early on in the production by the similarities between it and Isaac Asimov's famous story, Nightfall. I have written several posts reviewing that story, which are available here. I suggest reading them now, for background, before going any further. 

Now, I'll start out by saying that although I was aware of the movie when it came out, and that it was discussed in the Christian Media at the time, I've had no thoughts about it whatsoever for the past twenty plus years, so I trust that everything I say here will be uninfluenced by any other reviews. As I review Contact, I'll continue to allude to my earlier observations on this topic, which remain very relevant. Inasmuch as it's a long movie, I'll probably do this review in several installments. But, to begin at the very beginning:

The movie opens with the iconic roar of the MGM lion, framed by the Latin motto, Ars Gratia Artis--Art for Art's Sake. Not a single frame of the actual movie has yet been shown, but already we are being set up to believe that what follows is just pure entertainment--science fiction. But is it? Might there also be a deeper agenda, Art for the Sake of Persuasion? 

We then move into the opening sequence, which is a juxtaposition of animated video and archived audio. The animation is a zoom-out that begins with a satellite view of Cape Canaveral, tracking westward as the sun overtakes it from the east. Meanwhile the audio track is a montage of news broadcasts interrupted by brief bursts of contemporary music, working backward from the present day as the camera recedes from Earth, both tracks accelerating: the animation rapidly passes the Moon, Mars, the Asteroid Belt, Ceres, and Jupiter—already moving much faster than the speed of light—as the audio track has already reached a quarter century before present, to the Watergate Scandal of President Nixon, then immediately on to M.L. King's March on Washington. By the time Jupiter and its moons recede into the background we can hear an announcement of the assassination of President Kennedy. Then, as Saturn fades into the distance, we race through another two decades, passing through the McCarthy Era all the way to the beginning of the American involvement in World War Two. What is being hinted at is that news broadcasts are traveling into space at the speed of light, with the very earliest broadcasts leading the way into the rest of the galaxy. A bit of a stronger hint comes after the disappearance of Saturn, as the sun itself blinks out and we see a rapidly receding series of stars and galaxies as the audio takes us back through the Thirties to the earliest days of Radio. Then the audio itself gradually fades to background static, as we continue to back our way through a dusty nebula and into intergalactic space, where total silence reigns. Other galaxies zoom by with increasing rapidity, until the screen becomes a total blur which resolves into the left eyeball of our protagonist, the young Ellie Arroway. Meanwhile, the audio picks back up again as background static, resolving into the signal of a ham radio she is operating, with her voice now in real time, attempting to make contact with “anyone out there.” Thus the stage is set for a lifetime of hovering over a radio, seeking not only a signal from another rational being, but, most importantly, the opportunity for interaction therewith. And we see her determination as she scans the dials in search of a response, getting encouragement from her father to keep trying—then, when she finally lands a station out of Pensacola, he congratulates her for achieving the “farthest one yet.”

Okay, at this point in the actual screen-acting, we already move from the realm of science to science fiction, because that's just not how the propagation of ham radio waves works. One does not start out pulling in nearby signals, then progressively move to the outer limits on the country, then farther out into the hemisphere, and finally, with “a big enough antenna,” to the other side of the world. The propagation of radio waves on the frequencies of the amateur bands is such that one is actually more likely to land a station a thousand miles away, than an hundred. But, not to let the facts of science get in the way of a good story, the scriptwriters expect us to believe that Ellie will start small, and keep progressing until she is at the point of asking radio operators on the other side of the Universe to “come back.” 

But that's not Ellie's only goal: in the very next scene we see her asking her father, with growing excitement, how far out it is possible to hear: California? Alaska? China? The Moon? Jupiter? Saturn? Suddenly she grows reflective, and asks her dad the question only a ten year old could ask: Could we talk to Mom?

Ah, now the subject of Religion intrudes, because young Ellie is asking an existential question, one immeasurably beyond the reach of the technology that so fascinates her. Science she knows, geography and astronomy she is beginning to understand, but of the Eternal State, she is much the innocent child, asking questions far beyond her ken. Here her father fails her—being unable to give her the answer she wants—because he, like her, only believes in Science, and Science has no answers to any of the deeper questions of life. And here the movie reveals its main argument. Having, at the behest of her father, dismissed the possibility of making contact beyond the grave, Ellie turns to the next best thing: making contact beyond the Solar System. And here we stop to consider the implications.

”Hey Dad, do you think there's people on other planets?” she asks, again in all innocence. “I don't know Sparks, but it seems like if it's just us, that would be an awful waste of space.” And is precisely here that the movie lands on its main theme: this phrase will be repeated at crucial points in the plot, to drive the message home that somewhere, on a cosmic scale, there is a sense that it would be wrong for Earth to be the only populated planet. This doctrine is never proven, nor is there ever even seen any need to prove it. Ellie simply accepts it on faith, and goes on to make it the guiding belief in her life's work, which is to search for, and find, signs of intelligence in outer space. She will run into many obstacles in that quest—the entire plot of the movie consists of her overcoming them, one after the other—but she will never be shaken in her core belief that there MUST be someone else out there—and an unstated corollary to that belief is that they MUST be so immeasurably greater than humankind, both in intelligence and technology, that they will be able to bridge the unbridgeable gulf between us, and make meaningful contact. It only remains for us to let them know we are here, and to devotedly await their response.

Do you see where this is headed? One thing this movie does, and does well, is to demonstrate that humankind is incorrigibly religious: everyone is forced by their very nature to believe in a higher order of beings, ones whose powers and understanding are beyond our comprehension. And the movie will go on to demonstrate our absolute impossibility of approaching these beings using our own abilities, or of comprehending them using our own understanding. Atheistic Science is turned on its head, and shown to be just another religion after all. 

I think that's enough for the first installment; we are now fully seven minutes into a two-and-a-half-hour movie, and in the next scene we will see Ellie instantly transition to Dr. Arroway the astronomer, having finally achieved the ultimate in her muttered ten-year-old goal of "get[ting] a bigger antenna."

How many metres in a cubit? The answer may astound you.

Dear Readers,
I know it's only been a day since I edited my last post (if you haven't read it yet, I highly advise it), but I just have to share what I learned today about the Egyptian cubit. If you watch the relevant minute of the referenced video, you will see that the most ancient Egyptian cubit is a function of the ratio of pi and phi in metres, out to four or five digits (.52356) over the precise 230,366½-millimetre width of each of the Great Pyramid's four sides.
This would indicate that the most ancient Egyptians were aware of the relationship of geometry to base ten out to five digits--a metre is the distance from the equator to the pole, divided by ten thousand--as well as the irrational numbers of higher mathematics. As later generations of Egyptians lost this knowledge, it stands to reason that their cubits became less and less precise--ranging as much as a centimetre off the ancient standard (and even more so by the time we get to the TNIV).
If the Egyptians at the dawn of history were capable of manipulating such abstract numbers to such precision, it lends credence to the idea that the numbers in Genesis chapter five--even more ancient--are the result of equally complex calculations. Note that in each of the nine generations enumerated, the age at which the son was begotten always ends in zero, two, five, or seven--as do the lifespans of the first seven generations. This is regardless of whether one follows the Hebrew, Greek, or Samaritan numbers. And as it turns out, two and five are among the factors of phi squared; it appears that some complicated mathematical formula was at work in producing ages that always ended in one of these two factors of phi squared, or the sum of them. And it appears that we are only now finally coming to the point in our understanding of ancient mathematics to be able to transcribe these numbers into something more useful to our purposes, which is establishing the time span between Creation and the Flood.

Added on August 19:
This video shows a tablet from ancient Babylon now understood to contain formulas of higher mathematics used to construct triangles from an entirely different perspective than has been used for the past 2500 years. Clearly Ancient Man was much more intelligent than materialist paradigm has been willing to accept. Perhaps more on that, in a later post.

Thinking about the future

Looking at an examination of the implications of Moore's Law, in which the map becomes the territory, we see that it is a human tendency to achieve exactly what has been expected, until the free market comes into play--than progress can actually be accelerated. In the absence of the free market, progress slows back down at once.

The very idea of having a government Department of Innovation is thus pseudoscientific.

Turns out we were never at the brink of war with Iran, after all

Taking a break from my coverage of the Indiana Revival, I return to a topic which I covered heavily a few years ago: Iran's impending production of nuclear weapons, and the likelihood that Israel would attack to forestall it. This scenario made it into Joel Rosenburg's thriller The Tehran Initiative. But it turns out to have been largely based on Israeli misinformation: Netanyahu knew that Iran wasn't that close to having The Bomb.

 According to Spy Cables – a cache of hundreds of leaked secret intelligence papers from all over the world, published by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit in collaboration with the Guardian newspaper – at the time of Netanyahu's statement, Israel's intelligence service concluded that Iran was "not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons," estimating that Iran had 100 kilograms of uranium enriched to a level of 20 percent.

It's a bit ironic, that the Telecommunications Revolution which has made it all the easier for the government to spy upon its citizens, has also made it a lot easier for citizens to spy upon their government.

And thus the History books continue to be rewritten, with yet another version of the story.

UPDATE MAY 2015
Something happened to the cookie settings on my computer, and Google won't let me comment again. This is in response to Marko:
Thanks for joining in. I don't dispute that Al Jazeera has an agenda--but so does every  news outlet. You have to listen to both sides to know what either is being less than truthful about.

Where is Malaysian Airlines Flight 370?

In two earlier posts, I analysed the demise of Air France Flight 447. For the last few days the posts have been getting a lot of traffic, so I updated them with reference to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. Since we are now in the fifth day of this saga--long enough to have been told that many of the preliminary reports were wrong--I'll take a stab at analysing this disaster. I'm sure there will be several updates, which we shall add as information is received.

First of all, once thing is absolutely certain: The 227 passengers on board (minus the hijackers themselves) were kidnapped at 1:40 am on Saturday, March 8. That wasn't obvious at the time, but it should have been obvious by the time Malaysian Airlines declared the plane missing, an hour after it was to have entered the approach pattern to land in Beijing.

Here's what happened in the first hour of the planes' flight--the only hour we know anything about:

At 12:41 am Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, pilot of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 9M-MRO, received clearance to take off from the control tower at Kuala Lampur International Airport. The plane continued to climb out under the control of Departure Control, and set course for Waypoint IGARI, at 6° 56' 12N 103° 35' 6E in the Gulf of Thailand. National Air Traffic Control Centre assistant director Siti Sarah Lebai Abu guided the flight until turning it over to the National Air Traffic Control of Vietnam.

It was at that moment that Siti claims to have noticed that Flight 370's transponder blinked out. This should have been a cause for alarm: jet aircraft are required to keep their transponders on at all times, and transponder failure constitutes an in-flight emergency. But no alarm was raised. Vietnam's NATC never heard from flight 370. One hour into its flight, it was already missing at sea.

And at that point our knowledge of Flight 370 ends, five days in. There are scattered reports that a plane was picked up on radar in the Indian Ocean, clear on the other side of Malaysia. Or that one was heard as it passed over the eastern coast. Or that cell phones of passengers continued to ring hours after it would have run out of fuel. But none of this tells us where 9M-MRO went, or where it is now. With the fuel on board, it could have flown as far as Pakistan--or into the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The last time a plane left its flight course and went dark on the radar screens was September 11, 2001, when it happened to four different planes, all at about the same time. So we can't say that this has never happened before. What we can say is that every time this has happened, it was the result of a hijacking.

Legislators laze, pilots perish

It is with great sadness that I read of this plane crash in Oregon today. Apparently one of the wings just fell off, causing the plane to fall out of the sky, killing both occupants. This sort of thing never happened twenty or thirty years ago, when small planes were manufactured by companies like Cessna, Piper, and Taylor. These mass-produced planes were simple to fly and incredibly airworthy. But none of these companies are in business today. Why? Every time a plane crashed due to pilot error, the manufacturer was held liable for the damages. Small plane manufacturers were sued out of existence. The result was fairly predictable--since the demand for small aircraft continues unabated, pilots have to fly their own homemade planes--a situation that has set general aviation back 100 years. Homemade planes were notorious for crashing then--and they are now. The blood of these pilots is on the hands of America's legislators, who sat on their hands while general aviation was being sued out of existence.

What? Time for another Iran update already?

Yes, as things heat up toward the end I expect to report every significant piece of news. This one isn't so much news, as speculative editorial, but look at the source--it's not an Obama Administration leak nor an Israeli press interview, but someone currently on the "outside" who ought to know what he's talking about:

F. Michael Maloof, staff writer for WND and G2Bulletin, is a former senior security policy analyst in the office of the secretary of defense.

 Okay, so the gist of his speculation is that evidence points to, on one hand, a sudden "Middle Eastern"  concern about hardening military infrastructure against an Electromagnetic Pulse attack; on the other hand, some cryptic hints from Israel that Iran is entering a "zone of immunity" from military attack.

Given that we were told years ago that Iran would "soon" have both an operational nuclear program and immunity to it being attacked, it's likely that this is a reference to the ability of Israel to shut down Iran's electrical grid. I wrote about this last November, when the weapon of choice was thought to be a drone that would harmlessly shut down power temporarily. Now the thinking is that a high-altitude nuclear explosion would not just shut down the grid, but permanently disable every piece of electronic equipment within 250 miles of Isfahan--preventing a launch order from being able to get through.

Whatever the case, I can't imagine that any attack scenario would be without one or the other element.

New computer virus hits Iran?

This may be true, or may be a hoax. We shall see.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Iran's nuclear facilities have suffered a cyber attack that shut down computers and played music from the rock band AC/DC, the F-Secure Security Labs website says.
A new worm targeted Iran's nuclear program, closing down the "automation network" at the Natanz and Fordo facilities, the Internet security site reported, citing an email it said was sent by a scientist inside Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.
Mikko Hypponen, chief security officer at F-Secure Security Labs and the person involved in the correspondence, said he received three emails on July 22 from an individual with an aeoi.org.ir e-mail address, receiving replies after he responded. After researching the person's name on the Internet, Hypponen said he found "plenty of nuclear science papers and articles published by someone with this name."

The Persio-American War: Yet another report on not much to report

Now that June is half over and nothing much is happening, I thought I'd weigh in on the Iran war issue. DEBKA keeps telling us two things: One, that the Iranian government continues to stop short of launching a full-fledged weapons development program--although they have enriched enough uranium by now (up to 27%, far above the 3-4% needed for fuel grade) that when they do, it will be more like six to eight weapons being developed simultaneously; second, that it is primarily heavy pressure from President Obama that has held them back as Iran continues to pass the various milestones on its way to launching a weapons program.

Now, to its embarrassment, the Obama administration has admitted its role in the Stuxnet virus. Just how close this secretive account is to the truth we can't be sure, but since Israel all along has been hinting at its role, we now know our suspicions to be more or less correct.

Given that the US and Israel have been working together on the cyberwarfare front, it's clear that they have a united agenda in physically taking out Iran's nuclear capability, and any assault on that front will be a joint effort.

One last note: the success of Stuxnet on the one hand, and targeted assassinations on the other, show that the Israeli/American axis has an incredible intelligence reach. When an Iranian nuclear scientist sneezes, they know whether or not it's because he has a cold. It's unlikely, especially given the wide success of Flame, that there is any development in the Iranian nuclear program which the axis doesn't know in enough detail to guide the deadline for moving this war from the virtual to the actual.

And by the way: determining just when Flame intel started to pour into Ft. Meade should be pretty easy: just look for a big uptick in enrollment at the Basic Farsi programs of the Defense Foreign Language Institute.

Presidential candidates on Iran

First, from a speech Senator Santorum gave more than five years ago:

You said you would have voted for the war, but now you say you would vote against it.

You said we weren’t misled, but now you say that we were lied to. You are sleepwalking into a nightmare.

It’s time to wake up.

From everything I can see, Mr. Casey is unready, unqualified for the high office he seeks at a time when our survival as a free people is at stake. He is one of many Americans sleepwalking in this nightmare. These horrors no longer shock us as they did on 9/11. They have become part of the background noise of our world. Some even blame our own leaders rather than the savages who do the killing. But I believe that Pennsylvanians are awakening to this threat, and can send a message to the nation and our enemies. It’s time to stop dreaming and start acting.

We have to bring the fight to our enemies, and that means we have to do a lot more than respond to their attacks in Iraq. We must go after the regimes that recruit, pay, train and arm terrorists. I am not-NOT-talking about sending more American troops onto foreign battlefields, or even dropping precision bombs from safe altitudes. I am talking about political and economic warfare, to bring down the terror regimes in Tehran and Damascus.

The best way to do that is to support their own people, most of whom are eager for freedom. That is why I drafted legislation that commits America to support freedom in Iran. A free Iran will be our friend, not an implacable enemy. We know that is true, because public opinion polls taken by the regime itself show that more than seventy percent of Iranians want to choose their own system of government and elect their own leaders. And we know it is true because the Iranian regime is frantically trying to isolate the Iranian people from contact with the free world. Satellite dishes are torn down, dissidents are arrested, tortured and executed. High speed internet is banned. Surviving vestiges of a free press are shut down.

Those are the actions of a regime that fears its people, and knows that the desire for freedom can destroy the Islamic fascist tyranny. A free Iran will change the world, because it will deprive the terrorists of their single greatest source of support, and isolate the likes of Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong ‘il. Why is a free Iran and Iraq so essential? Because the United States nor any western country will be able on its own to defeat radical Islamic fascism. We must create an environment where moderate Islam – whether Sunni or Shi’ia or any other strain – combats and suppresses its radical elements. I believe the best way to accomplish this is through democratic self rule.

Senator Santorum may be right on the existential threat posed by Iran, but he's wrong about the solution; Iran already has democratic self rule. They deposed their Shah to get the democratic self rule that they now enjoy, and they voted to keep it in the last election.

It doesn't appear that either the current or any potential President are actually aware both of the danger America and Israel are in, and of any effective solution. The generals, however, are nonetheless putting the military option into action.

This from yesterday's The Daily Beast:

Israel also likely would exploit a vulnerability that U.S. officials detected two years ago in Iran's big-city electric grids, which are not “air-gapped”—meaning they are connected to the Internet and therefore vulnerable to a Stuxnet-style cyberattack—officials say. A highly secretive research lab attached to the U.S. joint staff and combatant commands, known as the Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC), discovered the weakness in Iran’s electrical grid in 2009, according to one retired senior military intelligence officer. This source also said the Israelis have the capability to bring a denial-of-service attack to nodes of Iran’s command and control system that rely on the Internet. Tony Decarbo, the executive officer for JWAC, declined comment for this story. The likely delivery method for the electronic elements of this attack would be an unmanned aerial vehicle the size of a jumbo[sic] jet. An earlier version of the bird was called the Heron, the latest version is known as the Eitan. According to the Israeli press, the Eitan can fly for 20 straight hours and carry a payload of one ton. Another version of the drone, however, can fly up to 45 straight hours, according to U.S. and Israeli officials. Unmanned drones have been an integral part of U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, gathering intelligence and firing missiles at suspected insurgents. But Israel's fleet has been specially fitted for electronic warfare, according to officials.

From Governor Romney:
During the CBS/National Journal debate, he said, “It is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon….If all else fails, if after all of the work we’ve done, there’s nothing else we could do besides take military action. Then of course you take military action.” He called for “crippling economic sanctions” against Iran and supported using covert action and supporting the dissidents in Iran who oppose the current regime. He also stated unequivocally, “One thing you can know — and that is if we reelect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if we elect Mitt Romney, if you’d like me as the next president, they will not have a nuclear weapon.”

Romney doesn't seem to realise that "when all else fails" is when an Iranian nuclear device blows up over Isreal. Military action at that point will be rather futile. All of the efforts he supports are already at work, but they've only slowed, not stopped, Iran's nuclear progress. And deciding to take military action is, according to the Constitution, the job of Congress. Yet none of the former or present Congressmen presently running for election--or re-election--to the presidency have ever sponsored a declaration of war.

Finally, this from Representative Bachmann:

“With a President Bachmann, I can assure you, there would be no option in my cabinet that would be off the table,” the Congresswoman said on November 8. “I would use every possible military option there is to stop Iran from using a nuclear weapon.”

The problem with this sort of talk is that it is just that--talk. Imagine Hitler telling Germany that he "would use every possible military option there is to stop America from using a nuclear weapon.” Well, he did, and in the end none of them did a bit of good.  The only thing that kept Germany from getting nuked was that they had something the Japanese lacked--a willingness to give up when they knew the war was over. Japan's insistence on defending their ground to the last man was a direct cause of America's choice to use weapons of mass destruction to force them to submit.

It's already too late to stop Iran from using a nuclear weapon. The only option now is to stop them from getting one, and that option is a decidedly military one, and one that, if it is to do any good, will have to be taken off the table and put into action--soon.

Countdown to Armageddon in Iran

Well, it's been a while since I last reported on the impending Persio-American War. There have been several new developments to show that this war, while considerably postponed, is not going away. Remember, the rumblings of World War Two began at least two years before the commencement of actual hostilities. Once Mussolini got away with invading Ethiopia, and Tojo with invading Manchuria, and Hitler with militarising the Rhine, a global war was inevitable--it just wasn't yet immanent.

Will Iran get away with developing a nuclear weapon? It might yet, but at this point it still doesn't look like it. Consider:

1. The Stuxnet Virus was a qualified success, causing Iran to replace an entire 6-cascade network of 984 Siemens-controlled uranium centrifuges at Natanz. More evidence has come out, first of all implicating Israel in the testing of the virus, and secondly indicating that the project is still ongoing. Both American and Israeli officials have all but admitted to involvement in hatching the virus; apparently one designed the delivery package, and another the payload. Stuxnet itself has pretty much played out as a threat to Iran's nuclear program, but even this was anticipated: the virus has encoded within itself instructions to self-destruct on June 24, 2012. That sunset provision alone is almost certain evidence of an American hand behind the design of the virus.

2. Duqu is the name of a new virus, evidently designed by the same team that brought us Stuxnet. The scary thing about Duqu is that is capabilities have not yet been identified, but its very existence shows that the Cyber Warfare Command is still seeking to engage targets.

3. The  International Atomic Energy Agency disclosed on Tuesday, Nov. 1, that a spinning factory built in the northeastern Syrian town of Hasaka in 2003 was in fact an enriched uranium site. DEBKAfile's intelligence sources report that Syria procured the enriched uranium and equipment for the plant in early March 2003 from Iraq when its ruler Saddam Hussein decided to dispose of the bulk of his nuclear plant and weapons of mass destruction by spiriting them out to Syria, then his closest ally.

4.  The International Atomic Agency in Vienna is due to publish next Tuesday, November 8, a more revealing report than ever before on the advances the Islamic Republic has made toward producing a nuclear weapon.

5. On Wednesday, November 2, Israel carried out a successful test launch of a new intercontinental ballistic missile, Jericho 3, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead 7,000 kilometers; the IDF released photographs of Israeli Air Force squadron leaders on Italian air base runways reporting to the media on joint exercises in long-range maneuvers carried out with the Italian air force "and other NATO nations" to familiarize the IAF with NATO military tactics.

Putting all this together, it seems that the US, along with select NATO nations, are on board with Israel to keep Iran from going nuclear. At this point is appears to be all bark and no bite, in hopes that Iran will get the hint and back down. Alas, the Islamic Republic will do no such thing, and it looks like we are headed for an inevitable confrontation that will entail "suicide by cop" of the Persian throne.

Arrest me once, shame on you--the continuing saga of Timo Miller

Note: for earlier stories on this topic, search on the label 'agents'.

Well, I don't have any further updates on this story, just some comments.

It is clear from reading the FBI's affidavit that the prosecution's main evidence in this trial is going to come from Timothy Miller himself. The Judge will no doubt rule that the evidence admissible, however, due to the fact that Timo voluntarily provided it--in the form of private emails he sent his friends and associates during the time he was helping Lisa Miller and her daughter Isabella move to Nicaragua. This information was, at the time he sent it, liable to interception by the FBI--although it's apparent that they didn't begin tapping his emails until later. If Timo ends up doing time for his crime, it will largely be his own fault, for leaving such a vivid electronic trail from the scene of the crime directly to his own front door.

But, should that come about, the prosecution's victory will be bittersweet. After all, it isn't really Timo they want, but Lisa. And it's not even Lisa, but her daughter, that the FBI was originally tasked with kidnapping. "I am looking forward to having my daughter home safe with me very soon," said Janet Jenkins in a statement released by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, her legal counsel. If she thinks that turning the screws on Timothy Miller will have anything to do with that, she can think again. Her ex-stepdaughter is already home safe--but with her real mother, and intends to keep it that way.

Arresting Timo when they did basically killed the goose that was laying the electronic golden eggs. Timo will sit through a long trial, maybe serve some time, and then go back home, while Isabella marches on toward eventual majority forever outside the clutches of her wicked stepmother. For, thanks to Timo's sudden arrest, it is now obvious to everyone involved that if you want to keep a fugitive hidden, you don't use your regular email account to broadcast the process into cyberspace! Wherever Lisa and Isabella went after fleeing Jinotega, their presence there is under an electronic blackout, and will continue to be so until the statute of limitations has expired.

The Mennonites in Nicaragua were babes in the woods when it came to carrying out their criminal activities undercover. And it is costing them--some more than others. But they're learning from this--and we can be sure that other innocents are learning from their experience.

Finally, I think Timo's lawyer has a definite case that even the black-and-white evidence that will be put before the jury does not sufficiently implicate Timothy David Miller in "Aiding in the removing of a child from the United States, and retaining a child (who has been in the United States) outside of the United States with intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights."

Aiding he did. Retaining he did. But the law is clear that for these actions to be criminal, criminal intent must be shown, and the only intent evident in Timo's many intercepted emails is one of giving shelter to widows and orphans. He must be shown to have been aware of Janet Jenkin's legal rights as a wicked stepmother, and to have had the intent that his actions in keeping Isabella in Nicaragua would deprive her of those legal rights.  As a lifelong resident of Central America, he can hardly be expected to have kept up on the bewildering proliferation of lawful parental rights in the United States of late.

I have one more piece of advice for Timo: I suggest that he demand a Spanish translator for all further court proceedings. It will drive the point home that he was, as it were, snatched from a foreign country for this trial, for deeds done entirely on foreign soil. The FBI agents who arrested him were dispatched while the plane in which he landed was still in international airspace. His American citizenship was purely incidental to the alleged crime. This despite the affadavit's claim that his crime was committed "in the District of Vermont."

Think about it, folks. To the global enforcers of family law, Vermont isn't a state--it's a Federal District.

One giant leap--for gender sensitivity?

It's been forty-two years since Humanity went to the Moon. When the first person stepped off the Eagle onto the Sea of Tranquility, they said, "That's one small step for [a] human, one giant leap for Humankind."

Or at least, that's how it would read in the NNIV.

But the stubborn fact remains, only Men have ever been to the moon. And they went as representatives of "All Mankind."

Why you WILL need off-grid capability

President Obama admits it--China has hacked into the nation's power grid and can turn it off at will.

You'd better have an alternate source of power, because sooner of later you WILL need to use it.

Standing by for the REAL Y2K.

Four hundred thousand litres of wheat: The NIV and Luke 16:7

Iver Larson writes in the Better Bibles Blog (apparently misquoting the actual figures):

I have seen an NIV that was obviously changed from imperial to metric with a quick search and replace, and any numeric references that didn’t have the unit afterwards were not converted. This turns the parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16 into something quite different:
“How much do you owe my master?” “3 kilolitres of wheat” “Well, take your bill and write 400″.

Consulting an imperial NIV showed that it was actually meant to go from 800 gallons to 400 gallons, which made some amount of sense.
I’d also add that we here at least would rarely use kilolitres in ordinary speech, and would probably say 3,000 litres of wheat (if we even measured wheat in litres). You may well use 3,000 and 1,500 in preference to 3 and 1.5 anyway.

Air France finds both of Flight 447's Black Boxes

http://whitemail.blogspot.com/2010/12/flight-447-conclusion.html
In related news, the Navy Seals find Osama bin Laden--and promptly bury him at sea. But will he stay buried? Obviously, no corner of the earth, sky, or sea is now safe from the prying eyes of anyone with enough time and money to spend looking.

I should add, before everyone forgets, that when this news first broke late in the evening of May 1, 2011, it was announced that Osama had been killed a week earlier, by a bomb, and had just now finally been identified. This was all a lie. He'd been killed that day, by a bullet, and they knew who he was when they shot him.

And of course, he was buried in full accordance with Islamic custom, which--ironically enough--requires burial within 24 hours. Since his native land refused to accept his remains, it was appropriate that he was laid to rest midway between the lands of his birth and his death, in the Arabian Sea of the Indian ocean.

Some random thoughts on Osama, while he's still in the news . . .
According to the FBI, Osama's complexion was "olive." Interestingly enough, Zeituni is a common Arabic name, and means "olivey."
According to the FBI, Osama's nationality is "Saudi Arabian." This is not a nationality, it is a political affiliation. It would be like saying my nationality is "Republican American."
His nationality is actually Yemeni.

If men were still on the moon

This is a copy of the letter that was prepared for President Nixon to read to the nation in the event that the Apollo 11 astronauts couldn't get off the moon. Note that they are still alive, but beyond hope of rescue.

As I think about it, I wonder if this letter really ever would have been read. At least I doubt that it was part of an automatic plan to be put in place in the event that the Lunar Module couldn't take off. In life, it seems, there seldom are automatic plans. Instead there are "options still on the table." Reading this letter was probably never more than one of several different options on the table.

It's really amazing, fifty years into manned space flight, that no astronaut has ever died outside the earth's atmosphere; none have ever been abandoned in space.

Had the Apollo 11 astronauts died on the moon, I expect that one of the subsequent Lunar Missions would have been tasked with retrieving their bodies. But, unless man does indeed return to the moon, we'll never again be faced with that possibility.

National ID: now and later

I was recently reading from a dystopian novel that got a lot of bad reviews due to the shallowness of the story line. I generally notice a lot of defects in fiction books, which is only one reason why I don't recommend them. At any rate, one defect not mentioned was the idea that in some future Big Brother state, a person could stay off the government's radar by living in a rural location. Ha.

I'll give a brief glimpse of my view of the future when I am an old man, sometime in the middle of this century.

Every adult will have a cell phone. But it won't just be a simple cell phone, it will be a computer registered to and usable by only one person. Everyone will have a Facebook account, and only one; it will be linked to the person's ID Number (formerly known as Social Security Number). There will be no such a thing as anonymous web surfing (except for geeks and/or Party Members with an incognito override password); everything anyone does online will be subject to instant recall for investigation, coercion, or prosecution. Logging on will be automatic; one's palm will be scanned to ensure identity as soon as the phone is picked up.

It will no longer be necessary to give your Social Security number over the phone, or to enter a credit card number for a purchase. This information will be part of your login. If your phone is stolen, it won't be able to be used without your unique palm print. There will be no pay phones or private land lines, making it virtually impossible to make an anonymous phone call. All remaining phones will have a finger scanning device that must be activated to make a call, facilitating Caller ID on the other end.

Physical credit cards won't be necessary; at checkout, you'll have your fingerprint scanned and your designated account will be debited the correct amount. Library cards likewise.

As you can see, it won't be possible to 'hide' from Big Brother by living in a remote location. All stores will be linked to the National ID, so it won't be possible to buy or sell without one. Nor will it be possible to have Gainful Employment, or even to receive payment for goods or services rendered. Or to own property, or to drive, or to take public transport. Or to pass through any checkpoint. Or to vote. Without a National ID, even the most basic medical care will be unobtainable. Not having an ID will require the utmost in reclusivity: such a person will be subject to arrest at any time for vagrancy, and anyone whose finger scan comes up blank will be immediately suspected of terrorism.

I started thinking about this recently when I decided to test the theory that it's impossible to be paid by bank draft. Having in hand a draft made out to my order by a share draft account holder at a credit union, I headed into the local branch to be paid. The building was indistinguishable from a bank, even down to its designation as a "banking location" on the front door. I went up to a teller and presented the share draft. She asked for my account number, explaining that no one can collect on any of their drafts without an account number at their credit union (or one of the credit unions in their joint association). If I could prove that I had no such account, I would have to provide 2 pieces of ID and would be assigned a "guest account" through which to process my payment. But since it's impossible to have 2 forms of ID without a National Identification Number, the teller was admitting that it is now impossible to do business without one. And there is now no difference whatsoever in banking at a bank, versus banking at any other financial institution under the national thumb of the Patriot Act.

As of yet, it is not a crime to be without a National ID Number. But there's no need to make it one. Without having the number to serve as a gateway into the entire financial system, it is increasingly impossible to legally participate in society.

How Jessup became Jesus in four simple steps

Well, I'm back at the keyboard again after a couple weeks off. I've had some things in mind to write about--primarily the latest advances toward universal identification--but for now I'll dash off a quick complaint about the poor editorial practices that pass for professional book publishing.

I was looking over the #3 NYT Best Seller (Fiction) and noticed a glaring *electrotypographical error. The name "Jessup" had been replaced with "Jesus." Now, given that the context was an ex-convict being pictured enjoying a surf in the ocean, it should have been obvious to any proofreader what happened. I'll reconstruct it here, using the power of Conjectural Emendation.

1. The author, typing his original draft, missed one letter, resulting in "Jesup." This is a common scribal error known as haplography, in which a textual feature, that should have been doubled, wasn't.

2. Spell Check, being familiar with the name "Jesus," but not with "Jesup," suggested the change.

3. Someone, probably a copy editor at the world famous publishing house, had left his or her brain at home that day and allowed Spell Check the privilege of doing the job for him or her.

4. All subsequent checkers imagined that in a story about a man named "Jessup" getting his picture taken and published, a picture of "Jesus" on a surfboard made perfect sense.

I don't have very high hopes that this will be changed in the paperback edition. If it does eventually get corrected, this will just go to show that by no means is the earliest copy necessarily the best one.

I remember writing earlier on how Spell Check changed 'grafitte' to 'graphite', but that post seems to have been lost in the mists of cyberspace.

*electrotypographical error (I term I just coined): An error in a text most likely to have been perpetuated when the text was composed and/or edited electronically; commonly a situation in which a computer program suggested an alternate spelling to an incorrectly spelled word, resulting in an even worse mistake, which was not subsequently corrected before publication.