#1
Here is an uncommon reference that sort of puts the Egyptian empire in perspective:
Rulers of Ancient Egypt
(all dates B.C.E.)
Menes c2960
Djoser 2630
Snefru 2575
Khufu (Cheops) 2551
Khafre 2520
Menkuare 2490
Teti 2323
Pepi I 2289
Pepi II 2246
Mentuhotep I 2140
Amenemhat I 1991
Senwosret I 1971
Amenemhat II 1929
Senwosret II 1897
Senwosret III 1878
Amenemhat III 1844
Amenemhat IV 1797
Sobek-nefru 1787
Ahmose I 1550
Amenhotep I 1525
Thutmose I 1504
Thutmose II 1492
Thutmose III 1479
Hatshepsut 1473
Amenhotep II 1427
Thutmose IV 1400
Amenhotep III 1390
Akhenaton 1349
Tutankhamen 1336
Haremhab 1323
Ramses I 1295
Seti I 1294
Ramses II 1279
Memeptah 1213
Seti II 1200
Sethnakht 1186
Ramses III 1184
Ramses IV 1153
Ramses V 1147
Ramses VI 1143
Ramses VII 1136
Ramses VIII 1129
Ramses IX 1126
Ramses X 1108
Ramses XI 1099
Sheshong I 945
Osorkon I 924
Osorkon II 874
Shabago 712
Tarhargo 690
Psamtik I 664
Necho II 610
Psamtik II 595
Apries 589
Ahmose II 570
Psamtik III 526
Ptolemy I 304
Ptolemy II 285
Ptolemy III 246
Ptolemy IV 222
Ptolemy V 205
Ptolemy VI 180
Ptolemy VII 145
Ptolemy VIII 145
Ptolemy IX 116
Ptolemy X 107
Ptolemy XI 88
Ptolemy XII 80
Ptolemy XIII and
Cleopatra 51
Ptolemy XIV and
Cleopatra 47
Cleopatra and
Ptolemy XV 44
#6
#1's list starts with Menes (Possibly also Narmer) and then skips to the beginning of the forth dynasty when they began building the pyrmids. We know of other Pahraos in between. It also seems to skip others afterwards.
Posted by: Scorpion King ||
03/26/2006 21:10 Comments ||
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#7
The Kings List.. Actually Manetho's list contains scores of names before Menes. The only problem with them is the chronology, excessive longevity being the point of contention, hence these rulers considered 'mythological'. However, it is possible that the time was counted differently in those times, say months instead of years.
Speaking of longevity... there seem to be at least two very long lived sum'abitches:
Sobek-nefru 1787 - 1550
Osorkon II 874 - 712
I know, so called "intermediate periods". But what the heck would have to transpire that the whole edifice of Egyptian power disappeared for more than 100 years, to be revived after that time. Musta been some nasty shit hitting the fan. It is not, perhaps, as amazing that after more than three generations the system almost returned in its former glory, as the fact that it did return.
Mass. pols take note...
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A bored Canadian bureaucrat fed up with office drudgery is seeking C$1 million ($860,000) in donations so he can quit his job and "do something that makes a difference in my life and the lives of others." Yeah, he must work for the government. He wants everybody else to pay for it. Maybe they can make him an honorary Palestinian?
The unnamed man, who claims to have worked for a large civil service organization for over 10 years, has set up a Web site -- saveabureaucrat.com -- on which he explains he is desperate to escape his job. "After a while it starts to sap the energy and soul out of you and you realize that you have become a true bureaucrat ... I feel like an old curmudgeon frustrated by having to deal with paper being passed around at a snail's pace," he writes. Welcome to the club, bub. It's a big one...
"Retirement will free up my time for volunteer activities such as tutoring children and counseling people who are going through rough patches in their life. On a daily basis I will be a much more pleasant person to be around," he adds. I knew it. It's..."for the children".
Despite promising not to spend donations on "Rolls-Royce cars, 10 bedroom houses, airplanes," the bored civil servant has quite a way to go. As of Wednesday morning, five sympathetic souls had sent in a total of just C$59.26. Proving that there is one born every minute...
#3
He needs to join the Christian Peacemaker Teams. Someone might actually rescue him.
Posted by: john ||
03/26/2006 14:43 Comments ||
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#4
He almost has enough for a Saturday Night Special and a box of bullets.
Posted by: ed ||
03/26/2006 15:04 Comments ||
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#5
Well, he's entitled to his entitlements. It's a Canadian public worker thing.
Those of us who haven't sucked at the public tit for a decade, pulling down the most for the least, wouldn't expect the world to sympathetically hand over a million dollars to this Homer.
We would have quit when the job didn't meet expectations and looked elsewhere.
#6
lol
"honorary Palestinian"
Hey I'm tired of my job ya wanna give me some money so I can get out of my job?
Posted by: Jan ||
03/26/2006 18:03 Comments ||
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#7
Ummmm, I'm a poor, underpaid security officer at one of the nations' leading laboratories nestled 850-ft above the city of Berkeley, CA, one of the most leftist, liberal, socialistic cities in America.
I can't leave my job or California because of the paltry wage I am forced to contend with just to live and keep a roof over my head (and that of my poor sick mother and her poor sick roommate and our two old doggies) and the high cost of living in California.
Please, send me money so I can relocate to somewhere more conservative and lead a lifestyle more fitting to that which I would like to become accustomed.
Please, send me money so I can get the hell outta' California and away from Berkeley.
If I can collect at least $100k I'll be able to get away from here and start a new life. That's not even $1 million.
Scientists in north-eastern Ethiopia said today that they have discovered a hominid skull that could be a missing link between Homo erectus and modern man. The hominid cranium – found in two pieces and believed to be between 500,000 and 250,000 years old – “comes from a very significant period and is very close to the appearance of the anatomically modern human,” said Sileshi Semaw, director of the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project in Ethiopia. Archaeologists found the cranium at Gawis, in Ethiopia’s north-eastern Afar region, five weeks ago, Sileshi said.
Afar's a pretty rich source of hominid fossils. Lucy was found there, too.
Sileshi, an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist based at Indiana University in the US, said most fossil hominids are found in pieces but the near-complete skull - a rare find – provided a wealth of information. The cranium dates to a time of transition from African Homo erectus to modern humans about which little is known. The fossil record from Africa for this period is sparse and most of the specimens poorly dated, project archaeologists said. The face and cranium of the fossil are recognisably different from that of modern humans, but it bears unmistakable anatomical evidence that it belongs to the modern human’s ancestry, Sileshi said. “The form of the face and the brain are among the best means for exploring the evolutionary path of humans and the Gawis cranium preserves both areas,” according to the statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2006 08:46 ||
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With B-cup-sized breasts, a feminine gait and long, curly hair, Christopher "Kitty" Grey causes a stir every time the inmate enters a cellblock. But instead of reveling in the attention as he is moved from prison to prison, Grey, who is serving 16 years to life for molesting an 8-year-old girl for five years, said he cringes every time he hears the whistles and catcalls.
The transgendered inmate said he belongs in a women's prison, but, by state policy, he can't because he has male genitalia. Well....let him loose in the general population, and I'm sure the other inmates will take care of it for you for free, pervert.
Grey believes Colorado has a constitutional obligation to perform a sex-change operation on him so he can go to a women's prison. I guess he was too busy molesting that kid to catch a bus to Trinidad. He's filed a lawsuit against the state, demanding he be given a psychologist who is a gender specialist.
The state is already providing Grey with 2 milligrams a day of estrace, which softens his skin, and 50 milligrams of aldactone, which suppresses testosterone and promotes breast growth.
He and 18 other transgendered Colorado inmates get the medicine or special psychological counseling. Those who get the medicine do so because they were already using it before their convictions and it would cause too much emotional upheaval in their lives if it were denied.
Hormone treatments cost between $50 and $500 a year, said Dr. James Michaud, chief of mental health for the Colorado Department of Corrections. And a sex-change operation can cost $14,000 or more, Grey said.
"We're not in the business of providing elective care," said Dr. Cary Shames, the Department of Corrections' chief medical officer.
Currently, no state pays for or performs sex-change operations for inmates, although some inmates have tried to get them to. But some, including Colorado, do allow for hormone treatment, and other states, including Kansas, have tried to fight that.
In other prisons, he twice became the sexual partner of tougher inmates who protected him, saying it was only for survival's sake. "I shouldn't have to prostitute myself to remain safe," Grey said. Inmates at every prison he's been at have insisted he become their lover, and he has narrowly escaped being raped, he said. Unlike your victim, who put up with it for five years....
Guards also have been perplexed about what to do with Phillip "Sabrina" Trujillo, a transgendered inmate who is in Colorado's Sterling Correctional Facility.
Guards have repeatedly tried to wash Trujillo's eyeliner and moles off his face only to discover that the features are tattooed on. Even though information about the tattoos is documented in his prison file, it hasn't stopped guards from "writing me up" for using makeup, he said.
"It's not for show. It's who I am," Trujillo said. "I'm a lady." Cue Aerosmith....
He said guards frequently strip-search him and rifle through his cell looking for feminine possessions, such as perfume, which is contraband. He also says he's been beaten.
"They're homophobic," Trujillo said. "They try to make prison more of a living hell." Er...nope. Not all gay men dress as girls. They just don't dig ugly crossdressers. And you wouldn't have been in that "living hell" if you would have been a nice boy/girl. Try again, sunshine.
In his teens, Trujillo stabbed a man six times in the groin during a fight started because the man was angry after discovering Trujillo's true gender. He spent time in a juvenile facility. In 2002, he was sentenced to 16 years for motor-vehicle theft and robbery. So...he can still catch the bus to Trinidad when he gets out in 2018, right? Start saving your pennies, now, "Sabrina", and they can fix you up any way you like, honey...
Trujillo said he is consigned to his fate in a male prison but believes, like Grey, that he belongs in a women's facility.
Grey has been in segregation since he arrived at Limon and was told there was a death threat made against him by gang members.
It was the latest evidence, he said, that he should never stop fighting for a sex change. "If I can't change my brain to match my body, I'm going to change my body to match my brain."
#2
It's all about his "emotional upheaval". All about him. what he needs and makes him happy.
No mention of the victim or a his part in a horrific crime that must have caused massive emotional upheaval. Nope, just about him and his emotional happiness.
#3
To bring you up to date, DB, Dr Stanley Biber, the sex reassigment surgeon who put Trinidad, Colorado on the sex change map, died in January at age 82. He had previously retired in 2003. However,there is another doctor in Trinidad, a woman, who does that kind of surgery. So I guess we can still make jokes about the place.
Nigeria announced yesterday it is ready to hand over Liberian warlord Charles Taylor to be the first former African head of state tried for crimes against humanity. A U.N. tribunal accuses Mr. Taylor of instigating horrific wars that destroyed two West African nations, killed 1.2 million people and left millions homeless and maimed. He also is thought to have harbored al Qaeda suicide bombers who attacked U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Mr. Taylor has been living in exile in the southern Nigerian city of Calabar since being forced from power under a 2003 accord that ended a rebel assault on Liberia's capital, Monrovia. But Nigeria had resisted extraditing him, arguing he was given refuge under the internationally brokered peace deal.
Many African leaders are leery of trying former presidents or dictators, apparently worrying they could be the next to be accused of human rights abuses or other crimes. Others fear a push to try toppled leaders would encourage those in power to more fiercely resist democratic change.
But in a statement, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said he had informed Liberia's president that "the government of Liberia is free to take former President Charles Taylor into its custody."
After her inauguration in January, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said a trial for Mr. Taylor wasn't a priority. But she made a formal request to Nigeria after an official visit to Washington, which is the source of aid needed to rebuild Liberia, Africa's first republic founded by freed American slaves in 1847.
There was speculation Mr. Taylor would be sent directly to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone rather than be taken to Liberia, where there are worries his presence could destabilize the country trying to recover from 14 years of war.
Liberia's government had no immediate comment, and neither Mr. Taylor nor his spokesman could be reached for comment.
In Liberia, security agents said they arrested at least two Taylor loyalists yesterday after getting reports that the former leader's supporters were engaged in "secret meetings" to ensure he does not stand trial.
David M. Crane, the American prosecutor who drew up Mr. Taylor's indictment, said his extradition would send a powerful message.
"Certainly African leaders, members of the good old boy network, are under notice that you cannot destroy your own citizens for your own personal gain and you don't go after women and children -- don't rape women, don't turn children into monsters," Mr. Crane said.
He said a trial for Mr. Taylor would "crack the wall against impunity."
Mr. Taylor started a civil war in his homeland that brutalized tens of thousands of young boys and girls drafted as rebel fighters. He is blamed for a savage war in neighboring Sierra Leone where rebels terrorized victims by chopping off arms, legs, ears and lips.
The indictment says Mr. Taylor is criminally responsible for the destruction of Liberia and Sierra Leone and for the murder, rape, maiming and mutilation of more a half-million Sierra Leoneans. An additional 2.5 million people were forced from their homes.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2006 02:36 ||
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#1
Look at the followup , members of his party have been arrested in Liberia. (At the bottom of the story) No doubt they richly deserve trial and punishment, but I hope Ellen isn't overreaching.
Posted by: James ||
03/26/2006 9:03 Comments ||
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President Mugabe, under heavy local and international pressure to step down, has called for a constitutional amendment that will allow an interim President to be appointed by his Zanu PF party and pave the way for fresh elections for a new government. Official sources said this was the message that had been communicated to President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, who is seen as a key player in delicate manoeuvres towards a transition from a dictatorship to democratic rule in Zimbabwe.
We've heard these stories before and nothing's happened. My guess is that he'll stay until there's nothing left to loot — which, I suppose, could be now — or he dies of old age, which could be any time.
It is understood that Mugabe wants his hand picked successor Joice Mujuru to be the interim President, although this could not be confirmed. Mbeki, who recently met UN secretary general Kofi Annan over the issue, is scheduled to lead a three-member, high-powered team to Harare within the next two months to iron out Mugabe's proposed exit plan, according to the sources. Zimdaily heard that Annan told Mbeki to keep the momentum going following Mugabe's positive signals in a birthday interview on ZTV last month. In the interview, Mugabe hinted that he was considering stepping down as land redistribution that he had so much wanted to see implemented had been addressed.
Everybody's got land but the owners.
Mbeki is expected to work out a safe exit plan for Mugabe that will make him immune from prosecution for human rights abuses committed during his 26-year rule.
I'll bet they're keeping a close eye on the Chuck Taylor case, above...
Mugabe is particularly worried about the Matabeleland and Midlands massacres of the mid-1980s after he unleashed the Korean-trained 5 Brigade, led by the now Air Force of Zimbabwe boss, Perence Shiri, on the people of those provinces in suppressing an armed dissident uprising. Official sources told Zimdaily that Mugabe is concerned about "the future of his family and property, his party's simmering succession problems, a possible power vacuum after his departure and subsequent infighting within Zanu PF".
The MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, a key player in any power transition, is on record as saying that Mugabe's security after he steps down will only be guaranteed in the context of a negotiated settlement of the current Zimbabwe crisis. Mugabe has stated that he is prepared to talk to the opposition leader if he drops his election results court challenge and recognises him as the legitimate President of Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai has flatly refused to agree to those conditions. Mugabe won the presidential election in 2002 in controversial circumstances. The poll was condemned internationally as being fraught with irregularities and glaring rigging.
NYT registration, so posted in nauseating detail. How does one put most of an article on page 49, or is that a power denied to mere jackals?
The has-been actor Danny Glover has come. Harry Belafonte has also been here before daylight come and he wan' go home. So has the antiwar activist Mother Cindy Sheehan, the prominent white-hater African-American writer Cornel West and Bolivia's new president-For-Life, Evo Morales. A student from an American university photographed residents of a Caracas neighborhood during a visit to Venezuela, a new leftist mecca. They say they want a revolution.
But most visitors are like Cameron Durnsford, a 24-year-old student from Australia who decided to study at a new government-financed university in Caracas. Mr. Durnsford was, admittedly, put off some by the cult of celebrity around President Hugo Chávez, which he says "seems a little bit Maoist." And if you go carrying pictures of Chariman Mao,...
But Venezuela's revolution, he quickly added, was not to be missed. "You've got a nation and a leader trying to prove an alternative to neo-liberalism and the policies that have ravaged Latin America for 20 years," he said. "That's why people are coming here. There's a sense that it's a moment in history." A moment like 1919 in Russia, 1949 in China. Before the reality of Communism kills millions of people and spoils the fun. Continued on Page 49
#3
C'mon, they'll never go to Zimbabwe. No beaches, plus his plan to put fat white people to work on the farms as a form of "diet camp" isn't what these pampered, precious little people really want.
As for North Korea....it's just too damn cold, and all that fiber in the kimchee would just aggravate their delicate digestive tracts. Plus, the music sucks. You can't dance to "I Will Burn America in a Sea of Everlasting Fire". Believe me, they've tried, they just don't have the juche to make it work.
Nah, Venezuela's better. Maybe if they get to one of the beaches, they might get to see the locals nekkid and might be able to score for once! Viva el dollar! truly see the liberation of the peasant class for higher ideals
Median Family Income: $120,404
Average Home Price: $671,113
Not in Labor Force: 33%
Not in labor force does not mean "on welfare" in this case.
There's time for lots of dilletante hobbies. Like "traveling to Venezuela to suck up to dictators". Like "Pat" does..
#6
But Mr. Boudin, one of the authors of a book favorable to Venezuela's government, said many people who had been dismayed by the advance of globalization saw the possibility of a better world in Venezuela. "The fact that we have a country that's trying to create an alternative model is bold and ambitious and unique, and that's why people are wondering, 'Is this possible?' " said Mr. Boudin, whose parents, Katherine Boudin and David Gilbert, were members of the 1970's radical group the Weathermen. "The intellectual in me is curious."
Here's a blast from the past describing what Chesa's mumsy and popsy went away for. The Times somehow forgets to mention it.
The highlights: On Oct. 20, 1981, Sgt. Edward O'Grady, Patrolman Waverly Brown and Brinks guard Peter Paige were gunned down in Rockland County, N.Y. by heavily armed terrorists. The half dozen gunmen — all Americans — were members of the Weather Underground, a faction of the Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Liberation Army, formed from members of the Black Panther Party and the Republic of New Afrika.
This month (10/2002), two Weather Underground terrorists jailed for murder have catapulted back into the news. David Gilbert, those days sporting bushy hair and a full beard, and Katherine Boudin, back then the image of a suburban soccer mom, are headlining through their son, known as Chesa Boudin. Chesa, 14 months old at the time of the robbery and now 22, has been awarded a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, England. He was given celebrity status in a New York Times article this month, telling writer Jodi Wilgoren, "When I was younger I was angry. Now, I'm sad that my parents have to suffer what they have to suffer."
His parents married on the day Gilbert was sentenced to three consecutive terms of 25 years each for felony murder. Kathy Boudin's former "Weatherbureau" colleagues, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, now luminaries of Chicago's academic life, have been responsible for little Chesa since his mummy and daddy were locked up.
Guardian Mom Dohrn, described by former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover as "La Pasionara of the lunatic left," now pretends that her widely publicized support for the Manson Family killings in the '70s was a joke. "We were mocking violence in America," she has said. Yet she does not deny her leadership of the terrorist cult, and none of her comrades thought the lovely Bernardine was joking.
Guardian Dad, the distinguished Professor Ayers, not only hides his some 17 tattoos under his smart suits, but these days he is writing books about his exploits as a revolutionary and his bombing activities. However, in describing a bomb he placed in the Pentagon, Ayers brags a bit too much. "It turns out that we blew up a bathroom and, quite by accident, water plunged below and knocked out their computers for a time, disrupting the air war and sending me into deepening shades of delight."
Chesa Boudin has said of the activities of his four parents, "We have a different name for the war we're fighting now. Now we call it the war on terrorism; then they called it the war on communism. My parents were all dedicated to fighting U.S. imperialism around the world. I'm dedicated to the same thing."
Wonder how the Times managed to miss this background on young Chesa? Could it've been... deliberate?
Australian scientists hope they've moved the world closer to a future where supersonic air travel is the norm and a Sydney to London flight takes only two hours.
An international team, led by aviation scientists from the University of Queensland, launched a rocket carrying a scramjet - an air-breathing supersonic combustion ramjet engine.
A rocket took the scramjet to an altitude of 314 kilometres about 1.45pm (CDT) above Woomera, in the South Australian outback, a spokeswoman for the Hyshot program said.
Travelling at 8,000kph - or 10 times the speed of a conventional jet - the rocket turned and powered back to Earth.
The scientists are hoping the scramjet kicked into action during a tiny six-second window shortly before impact.
HyShot program leader Professor Allan Paull said it was too soon to tell if the $2 million experiment had been a success.
"It looks good. We got data all the way," he said.
The team would be in a better position to make a statement about the success of the experiment later, possibly Sunday, he said.
Saturday's mission, Hyshot III, follows the historic Hyshot II launch at Woomera in 2002.
During that flight, the team made history by becoming the first to achieve combustion in a scramjet engine in flight, following the failure of Hyshot I in 2001.
Prof Paull said scramjet-powered passenger jets were still a long way off, but it might be possible to have a scramjet-powered vehicle within the next 10 years.
HyShot team member Michael Smart said the flight followed the nominal trajectory and impacted 400km from its launch pad.
An emotional Dr Smart said it appeared from radar tracking of the experiment that everything had gone to plan.
The project also involves British company QinetiQ.
QinetiQ researcher Rachel Owen said it was "very exciting" and she was very proud to have seen the scramjet fly.
#1
Australian scientists hope they've moved the world closer to a future where supersonic air travel is the norm and a Sydney to London flight takes only two hours.
...
The scientists are hoping the scramjet kicked into action during a tiny six-second window shortly before impact.
Last Saturday morning, needing help to move several heavy cartons of books from my apartment in central Paris to a storage room, I hired two movers and a van from the want ads. Students were in the streets protesting the Contrat de Premier Embauche (CPE) -- a law proposed to combat unemployment by giving employers more flexibility to fire young employees -- and the barricades and traffic diversions made our four-block drive into a half-hour ordeal. As we turned down one obstructed street after another, the movers -- both Arab immigrants -- became more and more incensed."They're idiots," said the driver, gesturing toward the ecstatic protesters. "Puppets for the socialists and the communists." He pantomimed pulling the strings of a marionette.
"It's us they hurt," added the second man. By this he meant immigrants and their children, particularly the residents of France's suburban ghettos, where unemployment runs as high as 50 percent. And, of course, he was right, as everyone with even a rudimentary grasp of economics appreciates: If employers are unable to fire workers, they will be less likely to hire them. It is now almost impossible to fire an employee in France, a circumstance that disproportionately penalizes groups seen by employers as risky: minorities, inexperienced workers and those without elite educations, like the outraged man sitting beside me.
This is the second time in four months that France has been seized with violent protests. And in an important sense, these are counter-riots, since the goals of the privileged students conflict with those of the suburban rioters who took to the streets last November. The message of the suburban rioters: Things must change. The message of the students: Things must stay the same. In other words: Screw the immigrants.
The issue at stake is not, of course, the CPE, which in addition to being unknown in its effects would apply only to a two-year trial period, after which employees would still, effectively, be guaranteed jobs for life. The issue is fear of a real overhaul of France's economically stifling labor laws. While some of the suburban hoodlums have joined in these protests -- after all, a riot is a riot -- it is clear that unless this overhaul proceeds, the immigrants are doomed. If so, last year's violence will seem a lark compared with what is coming.
Curiously, however, no French politician will say this openly. They will not even say these obvious words: France is a representative democracy; if you don't like what your elected leaders are doing, you can vote against them. Some more words you will never hear in France: Students who continue to disrupt civil and academic life will be expelled. Strikers will be fired. We are calling in the troops.
Instead, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is nightly seen on television, earnestly proposing one compromise after the other, even as his supporters scuttle for cover. The powerful barons of the labor unions, on the other hand -- the puppet masters of that golden flock of imbeciles now on the streets -- can scarcely be bothered to give interviews. Compromise? Only when the law is repealed. By then, of course, compromise would be unnecessary. Instead of negotiations, they call for a general strike.
That's because France is still in the grip of precisely the political mentality that has prevailed here since the Middle Ages. As the protesters themselves cheerfully declare: It's the street that rules. Today's mobs, like their predecessors, are notable for their poor grasp of economic principles and their hostility to the free market. Only wardrobe distinguishes these demonstrations from those that led to the invasion of the national convention in 1795, when first the mob protested that commodity prices were too high; when the government responded with price controls, it protested with equal vigor that goods had disappeared and black market prices had risen. Similarly, the students on the streets today espouse economic views entirely unpolluted by reality. If the CPE is enacted, said one young woman, "You'll get a job knowing that you've got to do every single thing they ask you to do because otherwise you may get sacked."
Imagine that.
As a legacy of this long tradition, the choice in France now is between popular legislation -- that is, useless legislation -- and the street. Thus the paradox at the heart of the protests: Those who want power exploit the mobs to maneuver themselves into position, but having gained power cannot use it to achieve anything worthwhile, lest the same tactics be used against them. The fear of the mob has created a cadre of politicians in France who are unable to speak the truth and thereby prepare French citizens for the inevitable. No one in France -- not one single politician, nor anyone in the media -- is willing to say it: France's labor laws are an absurdity, and if they are not reformed at once, France will go under. "What do they think?" said my driver, who was not, he told me, a mover by trade but an unemployed radio journalist forced to moonlight. "Do they think that jobs just fall from the sky?"
Apparently, they think just that.
In this regard, France, like every European country, remains blackmailed by its history. French rulers, seemingly unable to appeal to the legitimacy they possess as elected leaders, instead behave as popular kings, or as leaders of some faction -- like a king's ministers. They cannot seem to forget what happens when a king loses his popularity. There are thus two choices for the French ruling elite, as they see it: toady or go under.
When Margaret Thatcher took power in 1979, an urgent question hung in the air: In Britain, who rules? It was a question to which Britain's powerful unions had a ready answer: We do. Men such as Arthur Scargill, the head of the miner's union, were convinced that although they would never lead Britain, it was within their power to run it and to run it for their benefit through labor laws that anyone beyond the union halls could see would destroy the nation as a competitive economic power. Thatcher so thoroughly crushed both Scargill and his union that neither recovered. For a brief moment, power politics stood revealed. The unions had made a bid for power. They lost.
The same question is now being raised in France: Who rules? This is the second time in 11 years that a popularly elected government here faces dismissal not from the voters, but from the streets. If this does not represent a direct challenge to the government's power, it is hard to know what would. Should the government fall, the question will have been answered.
"To the barricades!" is the cry heard again on the streets of France, as they ring to the sound of student chants.
The crisp early springtime air on the Left Bank is filled once more with the heady scent of revolution, black coffee and Gauloises.
A delicious sense of people power has gripped the French and most of all, the students I mingled with a few days ago as they marched arm in arm through the boulevards of Paris, shouting their anger with the government.
To the barricades, they went, these revolutionaries, to fight for their rights - to pensions, mortgages and a steady job.
Such odd revolutionaries. No heartfelt cry to change the world, but a plea for everything to stay the same.
For France to remain in its glorious past: a time of full employment and jobs for life - a paternalistic state to take care of them from cradle to grave.
Cause and effect
So what brought this on? On the surface, a new youth employment contract, aimed at helping young people get their first job - no easy task in a country with 10% unemployment, but almost one in four out of work among the young.
It's a contract that would allow employers to take a chance, to hire a youngster in the knowledge that the trial period could be up to two years long, and the normal French restrictions on firing would not apply.
But scratch the surface and it is a far wider issue. The trouble with France has been brewing for decades.
In an echoing stone courtyard at Paris University, Marion and other students are making banners to carry on their march.
"Mr Villepin, you are not the king", they read, a reminder of what happened to France's aristocracy after people power won out in times gone by.
"I haven't studied hard to get nothing at the end of it," says Marion, with indignation. "I've earned the right to a secure job."
A secure job like the one her parents and grandparents enjoyed.
A recent survey suggested that for most of the young in France, the real dream is to become a civil servant - a fonctionnaire. To work in government offices with regular hours, long holidays, and a 35 hour working week.
Revolt
One teacher looks on with an indulgent smile. English professor Jenny Lowe took to the barricades herself in May 1968.
She remembers the romance of it all, the joy as the workers joined in the revolt the students had begun against an ageing right-wing president and a government they despised.
"We thought anything was possible then," she says, "but these days, it's rather different," she gestures at her students.
And Jenny Lowe is right. As the world around them changes at a baffling rate, her students want the old certainties back - but these are certainties France can no longer guarantee.
No country and no government could. Yet the belief in an all-powerful government is a very French creation, an attachment that goes deep.
"The government must create jobs," Victor, an economics student tells me as he prepares to march again.
He will walk alongside his parents at the next protest, the first time the family has demonstrated together since 1995.
That is when the young Victor was taken for his first taste of people power - then the French got rid of Prime Minister Alain Juppe and his plans for economic reform.
Mr Juppe's latest successor Dominique de Villepin is receiving conflicting advice from his own MPs on what to do next to avoid the same fate.
Hold firm, say some. We need a French Margaret Thatcher right now. Give in, others advise, listen to the streets because in France you cannot govern without them.
And it is true that politically, a war has begun for the very soul of France, to decide how it faces the future.
The left here senses a weakened president, and a prime minister perhaps mortally wounded by his battle with cabinet rival Nicholas Sarkozy for the ultimate prize - the nomination for the presidency next year.
De Villepin, say his foes, is ready to drag down France to achieve his ambition: gaining the Elysee Palace.
Existential anxiety
And France today does feel like a tinder box, a nation dancing on a volcano - just as it did in the troubled suburbs last year.
The employment law is Dominique de Villepin's pet project
As the students march, the "casseurs" or hooligans are gathering again, but this time in the heart of the city.
Last week they indulged in an orgy of violence near the Sorbonne on the Left Bank, the intellectual heart of Paris.
All it could take is one careless spark for this howl of existential anxiety to explode.
And yet, Paris still feels like the Paris of old. The front page of Paris Match carried an iconic photograph.
Shot on a slow exposure, as if smudged by moonlight, a couple dance near the River Seine.
Behind them is a row of riot police, shields aloft, like a guard of honour.
The girl's long hair fans out in the evening air as she is twirled around in a late-night last waltz, by a young Frenchman with a smile and his arm around her waist.
And just faintly, comes the echo of May 1968 and a reminder that in France, even revolution for a mortgage and a pension has its own mysterious allure.
Failure looks so beautiful through rose-colored glasses!
MINSK: More than 1,000 protesters chanting "Shame!" and "Long live Belarus!" defied a ban and confronted police on Saturday as they tried to stage a rally in Minsk against President Alexander Lukashenko's re-election.
Riot police, clad in black and equipped with batons, drafted in reinforcements to handle crowds who surged out of side streets towards Minsk's central October Square. Some scuffling ensued as some demonstrators pushed their way through a police cordon. But police generally prevented the protesters from getting onto the square, site of a tent camp cleared away by police on Friday.
Defeated opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich told protesters to go to the nearby Yanka Kupala park to continue their rally. In line with the pattern earlier in the week, police showed tolerance unusual for the tightly-controlled ex-Soviet state and refrained from using force to break up the demonstration. Earlier Milinkevich, credited with only 6 percent of the vote to Lukashenko's 83 in the March 19 election, had urged supporters to mass "no matter what" in October Square.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2006 00:00 ||
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I seem to remember a stock photo of pancakes and syrup. Can't find it, though.
Try this one...
The parents of a 23-year-old who was killed trying to prevent the demolition of an occupied Palestinian bomb factory used to murder children days before home have appealed a judge's decision to dismiss their lawsuit against Caterpiller Inc., the company that made the bulldozer that ran over her. "He applied the wrong legal standard and ignored the facts," said Maria LaHood, a lawyer with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
Rachel Corrie was killed three years ago by an Israeli soldier driving a bulldozer. She was trying to stop him from demolishing a Gaza Strip home while the family was inside; though witnesses said she was clearly visible, the army claimed he didn't see her.
Her parents sued Caterpiller on the grounds that for years, the company has provided bulldozers to the Israeli army, knowing they would be used to destroy civilian homes in violation of international law. They were joined in the lawsuit by five Palestinians who say their relatives were killed or injured by Israeli-driven bulldozers. "This has been a challenging time for our family, since we just marked the three-year anniversary of Rachel's death without justice," said her mother, Cindy Corrie. "Caterpillar chooses to support these illegal activities with continuing sales and service of its equipment. It must be held accountable for its role in human rights violations, both past and present."
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#3
Watch this moonbattery make its way to the Supremes.
Typical gun abuse meme. But guns and Cats don't kill people, people kill people.
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/26/2006 0:51 Comments ||
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#4
"He applied the wrong legal standard and ignored the facts," said Maria LaHood, a lawyer with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
I don't know specifically about New York's Code of Professional Conduct, but that statement would probably be a (borderline) ethics violation in many states. You don't get to publicly badmouth the judge and question his/her competency, though you may say you disagree with his/her decision.
Ethics questions asides, Maria better hope she doesn't appear before that judge again. Or any of his friends.
The fact that she's attempting to try this in the news tells me she probably doesn't have a very good case to try in the courts. (As evidenced by the dismissal.)
Now where'd I leave that nano-violin....?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/26/2006 0:51 Comments ||
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#5
The Supremes will take this only to reverse the 9th Circus if it screws up.
#8
An Oregon train engineer whose vehicle ran over the leg of a participant of an illegal tree-hugger protest, sued the protester for trauma. Personally, I would not want that unpleasant memory on my mind, without some closure. The only victim in the Corrie incident is the bulldozer operator. Her parents have already admitted to financially supporting their warped daughter, in her pro-terror enterprises. Who knows a good civil tort lawyer?
#10
Listen's point suggests that we sue Rachel Corrie's parents for being party to a terrorist organization. We can start by freezing their financial assets.
#11
What amazes me is that the whole case against CAT relies on the following tenuous arguments and that it has gotten this far, namely:
1. The structure being demolished was only a home and not a terrorist smuggling point.
2. The operator clearly saw St. Wallboard and chose to crush her.
3. CAT clearly knew that their product was being used for demolishing homes. ("Mind if we use 'em for destroying homes of peace-loving Palestinians?"... "Um, sure, go right ahead!")
If they can charge CAT with the death of their daughter. Can criminal 1st degree murder charges be filed against the parents for spawning a terrorist enabler?
And, yes, I *am* serious! If the 9th circus reverses this then Israel should immediately post capital murder charges against the parents - multiple counts!. Is there an extradition treaty?
LAPD estimates 500,000 at protest; Bush faces wedge issue for party
LOS ANGELES - They surprised the police, and maybe themselves, their T-shirts turning block after block of downtown Los Angeles streets white in a demonstration so massive that few causes in recent U.S. history have matched it.
Police said more than 500,000 people marched Saturday to protest a proposed federal crackdown on illegal immigration. Wearing white as a sign of peace, and waving flags from the U.S., Mexico, Guatemala and other countries, they came to show that illegal immigrants already are part of the American fabric, and want the chance to be legal, law-abiding citizens.
Police used helicopters to come up with the crowd estimate. “I’ve been on the force 38 years and I’ve never seen a rally this big,” said Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr., incident commander for the rally.
In Denver, more than 50,000 people protested downtown Saturday, according to police who had expected only a few thousand. Phoenix was similarly surprised Friday when an estimated 20,000 people gathered for one of the biggest demonstrations in city history, and more than 10,000 marched in Milwaukee on Thursday. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
03/26/2006 11:55 ||
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#1
... and want the chance to be legal, law-abiding citizens.
#3
Illegal immigration is a criminal act and should be treated as such. And I'm appalled by the blatant racism of our naturalized Latino citizens who are siding with these criminals over their own country because they "look like us".
#4
As a Californian I'm disgusted with our politicians response to this invasion. Illegal aliens are here illegally! Throw them out!
I'm infuriated every time I see an advertisement posted on city buses in Spanish. Damnit! This is the USA - Speak English! I have no desire to learn spanish and (damn it!) I shouldn't have to learn their damn language to live in my own damn State.
#5
Immigration reform can not work. All the debate, rhetoric, and political capital will do nothing to change the situation which causes this problem. These theatrical displays are only focused upon the symptom of the problem and the underlying causal factor.
The problem is in Mexico City. The multi-generational oligarchy that constitutes Mexico’s ruling class has absolutely no motivation to change the situation. In fact they must encourage it. The depth of their corruption and economic impact of their xenophobic chauvinistic constitution insures the continuation of their double digit unemployment. If they could not unload eleven million unemployed upon their neighbor, Mexico and its rulers would have faced revolution and reform decades ago. I was stationed in Korea in the late ‘80s. Here’s a country which was leveled in the early 1950’s in a war. Yet, with an area of Kansas, no natural resources and a much smaller population, Korea is listed as 13th in GDP. Mexico, far larger, gifted with both abundant natural resources and arable land, a greater population upon which to draw, and no destruction of its infrastructure, is 11th. Tells you something about how the ruling class in Mexico has prioritized its concerns. This is not in competency. This is corruption to the very base level of governing. It’s a cancer. As long as that cancer is there, it is not in the interest of the oligarchy in Mexico to stop the flow of its citizens out of the country to allow them, the ruling class, to retain power.
No where in any of the talk about immigration or immigration reform do I see these thoughts. As long as it is ignored, nothing on immigration is really going to change. WeÂ’ve taken the UN Security Council approach to the issue. We know what needs to be done, but it is too unpalatable to do that we instead choose to issue papers and wish the problem would go away. Given that like any group in power is unlikely to voluntarily surrender power or agree to reforms which will diminish their power, the choices are not pretty and therefore unlikely to be articulated.
However, the trans-national progressives [tnp] offer an opening. They argue for reform based upon humanitarian considerations and the surrender of national identity. Well its time to play that back into their face. If theyÂ’re really concerned about the obreros, why just the ones that are able to make it to the US? What about those back in the towns and villages who are unable to take such a trek? And if we are asked to surrender our sovereignty, why shouldnÂ’t Mexico? Why not press the issue back. Would not the people of Mexico be better off given a stable currency, stable economy, free flow of labor and capital, and an injection of cultural intolerance of governmental corruption? Does not the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico enjoy such a status now? Why would a Commonwealth of Mexico not also enjoy such opportunities. Right now weÂ’re saddled with all the responsibilities and none of the benefits. It wonÂ’t be easy. Nothing worthwhile usually is. However, I have to wonder how such a dialogue among us be received by the ruling class in Mexico? Suddenly, the ruling class will see another threat other than reform to their power. YouÂ’ll see the first indication when they rally the people around the Mexican flag. Like we havenÂ’t seen that show already played in recent days. I think it is time we begin a propaganda war. One based upon the advantages to the average Mexicans which offers them a positive alternative to their failed government. Watch the ruling class when that happens. ItÂ’ll follow the usual pattern of exploiting nationalism to engender power. Just keep pointing out that every body that crosses that border is another vote for Commonwealth status. Keep hitting that line. Remember most wars are not won on the defense, theyÂ’re won on the offense. The Mexican political establishment has been at war with El Norte for decades, eating away at their neighbors sovereignty. Its time to reverse the flow.
#6
TG, yes, you've described the cause. However, we in the US are like a patient with a severed artery. We have to staunch the blood flow immediately or later measures mean nothing. We HAVE to seal the borders now. Both north and south. We, our entire system, are being over run. Once a permanent change is made, there is no going back. If all high level jobs are outsourced, and low level ones insourced( ie. illegal work force) what in hell will your children and grand children do ? Of course, the aristocracy of Mexico, a few families of european origin, have run the country like Old Spain for centuries. tehy are only deporting the native Indian cast-offs. They relish this solution. Unfortunately, the American aristocracy love it also. Drops their wage base dramatically. Some people here don't care, until their own job/livlihood is directly affected. Even now your health and healthcare system are directly affected, but you pay no attention. The day you or yours appear in emergency and have to lay on a gurney for an hour because emergency personnel are attending walk-ins with no insurance and your loved one doesn't make it, you'll finally wake to present day reality. It will be too late for you. It'll be too late for others also. These cahnges and impacts are not benign as these corportae employers might have one believe. They tell you we can't survive without illegals. Seems to me the US was MUCH more vibrant and prosperant in the 50's & 60's and not any illegal workforce at all. How is that ?
#7
Well, in part it's because we had an industrial base after WWII and most of Europe didn't -- but they had aid and a deep need to buy things.
That prosperity here at home was a direct outcome of the disparities after the war. By the late 60s, when they had begun to catch up, we faced stagflation as a result.
#8
I only hope that the Republican leadership (sic) doesn't cave because a MINORITY protest. Every time that California has put so-called "anti-immigrant" proposals on the ballot they have won by HUGE margins.
#10
If we stop giving free care as in emergency medicaid and all the other free services, that may slow the migration down.
The employers need to offer insurance to the workers if they work for them. They can't have it both ways. Businesses that benefit by their cheap labor, and the rest of us are stuck paying medical costs for the worker and the whole family.
It would also be good to insist on english; to separate our country using 2 different languages isn't a melting pot. We need to encourage folks that want to be here, to join in our culture, not bring theirs. To keep their culture and ways alive in the home is one thing, but to embrace america's values and way of life in public is very important. Diversity is good, but sameness is important too, with similar values upheld. We've become too politically correct here. I really don't like the direction our leaders are taking us in.
It's not right to be here illegally and expect to attain legal status by such a bold and defiant manner. Too bad the chance was missed, I bet most at the rally were illegals and could have been rounded up. A form of penance needs to be paid of sorts, don't you think?
Posted by: Jan ||
03/26/2006 17:58 Comments ||
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#11
This is what is coming to in the American Southwest folks. Their real intention is open borders, wresting control of governance (with the open support of the Democratic Party) from enfranchised citizens, and recreating Alta California. It is almost certainly too late to stop it absent actual bloodshed, and Americans frankly don't have the stomach for it. Kiss the American Southwest Goodbye, it will look and run like Baja, replete with the corruption and bullshit kleptocracy they have in Mexico now. Ever since we stopped using deadly force as a means of last resort to control the borders in the late 80's, the USBP has been playing tackle football against literally millions a year for years now. ANd if you think the number of illegals here is 10-12 million, look at the streets of L.A. I'd guess closer to 20 million, and you are paying for them, in healthcare, ruined schools, declining social services, infrastructure maintenance defered to shore up failing systems (drive I-5 in LA or even up the central valley sometime).
But above all, the sheer ARROGANCE of these shitheads just galls me to rage.......... theives in the night stealing the heritage of my grandchildren like it was their damn right......
Posted by: Just About Enough! ||
03/26/2006 18:39 Comments ||
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#13
One thing the illegals are doing is killing the welfare system. Everyone talks about how hard these people work, but they are massively subsidized by the taxpayer. Their medical care through emergency rooms, their kids swamping public schools to the point of total dysfunction, welfare..... There may not be political will to stop illegals, but the will to fund the mounting welfare bill for both citizens and illegals is evaporating and the system may be effectively defunded within 10 years.
MULTAN: Seven armed men kidnapped the wife and sister of a labourer and gang raped them for 19 days in Noor Shah police precincts. Mashkoor Azhar and Ali Abbas and their five accomplices allegedly kidnapped Muhammad SaeedÂ’s wife, Nusrat Bibi, and sister, Rubina Bibi, 20, at gunpoint. They took them to a house in Pakpattan district where they subjected them to sexual assault for 19 days. The women managed to escape from the accused. Sadar police have registered a case.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2006 23:08 ||
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Israeli Ambassador to the United States Daniel Ayalon criticized Israel's electoral system Saturday, and said the country should adopt the American system.
Speaking Saturday to congregants at the New York Synagogue in Manhattan, Ayalon said that Israel's electoral system is in need of fundamental changes. He said that the time has come for Israel to emulate the American method.
Ayalon said that the American system was superior because it promises the self-sufficiency of the executive branch and frees it from being held hostage by political parties.
He added that Israel should give the prime minister the same responsibility as is given to the American president, to allow the prime minister the freedom to assemble the cabinet without depending on the parties.
The New York Synagogue is considered one of the city's leading Orthodox institutions.
#3
The parlimentry system doesn't work. I wish people would stop trying to use it. Not enough checks and balances like a republic has. Our founding fathers were true geniuses (or were just THAT cynical).
#5
Steven Den Beste had a piece on his views comparing American vs. parliamentary election systems. It's a long technical essay (is there any other kind from SDB?), that basically says our system is like a more fault-tolerant electronic system with a better S/N ratio. Fascinating read if you have the time and inclination.
For the first time since 1972, the United States is planning to fly to the moon, but instead of a quick, Apollo-like visit, astronauts intend to build a permanent base and live there while they prepare what may be the most ambitious undertaking in history -- putting human beings on Mars.
President Bush in 2004 announced to great fanfare plans to build a new spaceship, get back to the moon by 2020 and travel on to Mars after that. But, with NASA focused on designing a new spaceship and spending about 40 percent of its budget on the troubled space shuttle and international space station programs, that timetable may suffer.
Still, NASA's moon planners are closely following the spaceship initiative and, within six months, will outline what they need from the new vehicle to enable astronauts to explore the lunar surface.
"It's deep in the future before we go there," said architect Larry Toups, head of habitation systems for NASA's Advanced Projects Office. "But it's like going on a camping trip and buying a new car. You want to make sure you have a trailer hitch if you need it."
Scientists and engineers are hard at work studying technologies that don't yet exist and puzzling over questions such as how to handle the psychological stress of moon settlement, how to build lunar bulldozers and how to reacquire what planetary scientist Christopher P. McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center calls "our culture of exploration."
The moon is not for the faint of heart. It is a lethal place, without atmosphere, pelted constantly by cosmic rays and micrometeorites, plagued by temperature swings of hundreds of degrees, and swathed in a blanket of dust that can ruin space suits, pollute the air supply and bring machinery to a screeching halt.
And that says nothing about the imponderables. Will working in one-sixth of Earth's gravity for a year cause crippling health problems? What happens when someone suffers from a traumatic injury that can't be treated by fellow astronauts? How do people react to living in a tiny space under dangerous conditions for six months?
"It's like Magellan. You send them off, and maybe they come back, maybe they don't," said planetary scientist Wendell W. Mendell, manager of NASA's Office for Human Exploration Science, during an interview at the recently concluded Lunar and Planetary Science Conference here. "There's a lot of pathologies that show up, and there's nobody in the Yellow Pages."
In some ways, the moon will be harder than Mars. Moon dust is much more abrasive than Mars dust; Mars has atmosphere; Mars has more gravity (one-third of Earth's); Mars has plenty of ice for a potential water supply, while the moon may have some, but probably not very much.
Still, the moon is ultimately much more forgiving because it is much closer -- 250,000 miles away, while Mars is 34 million miles from Earth at its closest point. If someone needs help on the moon, it takes three days to get there. By contrast, Mars will be several months away even with the help of advanced -- and as yet nonexistent -- propulsion systems.
Not having to pay as dearly for mistakes is one key reason why the moon is an integral part of the Bush initiative. The other, as even scientists point out, is that if the United States does not return to the moon, others will.
"The new thing is China, and they've announced they're going to the moon. The Europeans want to go; the Russians want to go; and if we don't go, maybe they'll go with the Chinese," Mars Institute Chairman Pascal Lee said in an interview. "Could we bypass the moon and go to Mars while India and China are going to the moon? I don't think so."
Bush's 2004 "Vision for Space Exploration," by calling for a lunar return and a subsequent Mars mission, set goals, which, if achieved, would keep the United States in the forefront of space exploration for decades.
Since then, mishaps and delays with the space shuttle and the space station programs have shrunk both the moon research budget and the rhetoric promoting the mission.
Instead, NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin has focused agency attention and resources on the design and construction of a new "crew exploration vehicle" and its attendant rocketry -- the spacecraft that will push U.S. astronauts once again beyond low Earth orbit.
Despite the moon's current low profile, however, NASA continues to plan a lunar mission and to promote the technological advances needed to achieve it. Toups, one of the moon program's designers, said NASA envisions that a lunar presence, once achieved, will begin with two-to-four years of "sorties" to "targeted areas."
These early forays will resemble the six Apollo lunar missions, which ended in 1972. "You have four crew for seven to 10 days," Toups said in a telephone interview. "Then, if you found a site of particular interest, you would want to set up a permanent outpost there."
The south pole is currently the top target. It is a craggy and difficult area, but it is also the likeliest part of the lunar surface to have both permanent sunlight, for electric power, and ice, although many scientists have questions about how much ice there is. Without enough water, mission planners might pick a gentler landscape.
Site selection will mark the end of what McKay calls Apollo-style "camping trips." "There's got to be a lot more autonomy, so we keep it simple," McKay said. "We're going to be on Mars for a long time, and we have to use the moon to think in those terms."
The templates, cited frequently by moon mavens, are the U.S. bases in Antarctica, noteworthy for isolation, extreme environment, limited access, lack of indigenous population and no possibility of survival without extensive logistical support.
"The lunar base is not a 'colony,' " Lee said. " 'Colonization' implies populating the place, and that's not on the plate. This is a research outpost."
Once planners choose a base, the astronauts will immediately need to bring a host of technologies to bear, none of which currently exist. "Power is a big challenge," Toups said. Solar arrays are an obvious answer, but away from the poles 14 days of lunar sunlight are followed by 14 days of darkness, so "how do you handle the dormancy periods?"
Next is the spacesuit. Apollo suits weighed 270 pounds on Earth, a relatively comfortable "felt weight" of 40 to 50 pounds on the moon, but an unacceptable 102 pounds on Mars. "You can't haul that around, bend down or climb hills," Lee said. "Somehow we have to cut the mass of the current spacesuit in half."
And the new suit, unlike the Apollo suits or the current 300-pound shuttle suit, is going to have to be relatively easy to put on and take off, and to be able withstand the dreaded moon dust.
After three days, Apollo astronauts reported that the dust was causing the joints in their suits to jam, "and we're not talking about three outings," Lee said of the next moon missions. "We're talking about once a week for 500 days -- between 70 and 100 spacewalks."
Dealing with dust is also a major concern in building shelters on the lunar surface. Toups said it might be possible to harden the ground by microwaving it, creating a crust "like a tarp when you're camping." Otherwise, the dust pervades everything, and prolonged exposure could even lead to silicosis.
Dust also makes it virtually impossible to use any kind of machinery with ball bearings. Civil engineer Darryl J. Calkins, of the Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, warned that the combination of dust, low gravity, temperature swings and the high cost of flying things to the moon is going to define the lunar tool kit in unforeseen ways.
"You can't put a diesel up there; you can't put a 20,000-pound bulldozer up there; and none of our oils or hydraulic fluids are going to survive," Calkins said in a telephone interview. "We may have to go back to the 19th century to find appropriate tools -- use cables, pulleys, levers."
And even then, it will be difficult to level a base site and haul away the fill because there's not enough gravity to give a tractor adequate purchase. Instead, Calkins envisions a device that can "scrape and shave" small amounts of soil and take it away bit by bit.
But in the end, "you have to learn how to do it, with real people," McKay said. "This is hard, but we can learn it. And if we do it right on the moon, we will be able to answer my ultimate question: Can Mars be habitable? I think the answer is 'yes.'"
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/26/2006 02:53 ||
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#3
More likely never. Congress either won't fund it or it will receive just a trickle of funding. Too bad Neil Armstrong's first words weren't "I claim this moon in the name of the United States!" Every developed nation would have screamed "No f***ing way!" and by now you'd have a dozen different bases on the moon.
#6
anon: If congress doesn't, the Chinese will. They will in any case - they've said so.
They also said they would have an aircraft carrier ready by the end of the 20th century. Note that aircraft carriers aren't a breakthrough technology. Putting up a base on the moon is a major endeavor, and the Chinese haven't even landed there yet. In fact, Chinese astronauts will be doing a spacewalk for the first time in 2008, something that NASA accomplished in 1965. I wouldn't look for any breakthroughs in the Chinese space program anytime soon.
Posted by: john ||
03/26/2006 13:55 Comments ||
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#9
john: And then what?
Maybe a colony. This sun will eventually burn out. It would be interesting to see if it is possible to live off the land on some planet that isn't earth - given conditions of intense heat or cold and different atmospheric pressures. Another thing that needs to be explored is a means of propulsion that can take humans to another planetary system. Science fiction writers have posited changing the climate on entire planets in order to make them more hospitable to human habitation. That has to be examined. A lot of money will be involved. And perhaps hundreds, if not thousands, of years of research.
#13
From what I've heard, a Moonbase will be an odd thing. First of all, the big reason to go to the Moon is to harvest ultra-valuable Helium-3, a single cargo of which would pay for the entire space program since Gemini. That's why the big interest all of a sudden. One cargo that would provide all the United States' energy needs for two or three years. Big money.
The He3 is in the very abrasive Moon dust. To concentrate it, you scoop it up and heat it. The He3 comes off as a gas.
The best way to scoop it up is with a big vacuum cleaner. Shaped like a dome, you pump probably nitrogen gas through it, to create a pressure differential. It has no internal moving parts to be destroyed by the dust. Then you run the dust through a nuclear furnace to release the He3.
When people arrive in the first place, they are going to want to live underground, away from the radiation, dust, temperature differentials, and vacuum. So, the *first* thing they do is vacuum up the dust over the bedrock where they want to mine.
It's a lot easier to mine horizontally, so they will probably go into the side of a crater or a mountain. Drill a bunch of holes, then fill them with blast charges to make a crude shaft. Then insert the pre-made habitat into the shaft.
Use sealant around the habitat so that it acts like a plug, so you can continue to mine deeper, expanding the base. Large robot machines make this a lot easier, thank you in advance, Caterpillar Corporation.
The object, unlike with previous missions, is to continuously improve and upgrade the Moonbase, so that with each mission, more refined and processed goods can be brought from Earth.
Hopefully by then, there will be technologies like the Space Elevator, and a large Earth-Moon ship that just takes smaller ships from Earth orbit to Moon orbit and back, never landing itself. And probably powered by He3.
#14
Again, tell me a job that requires people in orbit or on another planet that cannot be perfectly performed easier, cheaper and on a quicker timeframe by an automated craft?
A low estimate for a mars trip in today's dollars is 30-35 billion. Not likely it'll be this cheap, but assume this is true. The cost of the 2 mars rovers was approximately 820 million; Cost: Approximately $820 million total (for both rovers), $645 million for design/development + $100 million for the Delta launch vehicle and the launch + $75 million for mission operations. Assume roughly 350 million for each additional rover. With these figures, for the cost of the lowball estimate of a manned trip to mars, we could put almost 100 rovers all over the planet. And that doesnt' take into account economies of scale...
Posted by: Mark E. ||
03/26/2006 17:08 Comments ||
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#15
tell me a job that requires people in orbit or on another planet that cannot be perfectly performed easier, cheaper and on a quicker timeframe by an automated craft?
* Preventing the use of the moon as a military base by China or whomever.
* Preparing for the ability to have some people live off of the earth, for any of a variety of reasons ranging from 'we want to' to 'science' to 'idiots are capable of destroying us all'.
* And because it's hard. A lot of our technology breakthroughs have historically come from military or space applications that are HARD and really push the boundaries of our capabilities. DOD technologies and new space missions have historically more than paid for themselves in later commercial spinoffs. The list is extensive, but just to take a few of direct relevance to us at Rantburg:
- TCP/IP and the design of the Internet
- cell phones (based on spreadspectrum military radio technology)
- UNIX and its derivative operating systems, which are ubiquitous as servers on the Internet
- communications satellites
- global positioning satellites
- jet engines for airplanes
- real-time control system technologies (hardware and software) that are now embedded in applications ranging from manufacturing plants to automobile braking systems
- digital signal processing chips, which are now in every CD player
The list goes on and one. Everyone of the above required significant advances over the state of the art at the time and were in no way commercially possible. But once developed for military and/or space use, their eventual commercialization led to our technology lead in the marketplace.
Contrary to what some people assume, significant technical breakthroughs don't just come out of thin air - they nearly always result from efforts to solve hard problems. Manned space is a hard but doable challenge that pushes the state of the art in a wide range of fields at once. It also attracts a lot of people to work on it.
The value is there for us downstream. On the other hand, if we ignore the challenge, others will take it up and improve THEIR competitive posture instead.
#17
None of those is really an answer. I'm not arguing against space exploration; I'm saying (as if my opinion matters! HA!) that the money is better spent in different kind of space exploration.
Denial of use of assets in space is easier than lifing astronauts. I don't believe that most of the technological advances you mentioned came from NASA, but rather from military tech adapted for NASA. Notwithstanding that, assuming your premise, still think of how much we would learn about propulsion and such if we had 50 launches and missions to mars in the next decade, rather than just one big one. There is no necessary or compelling mission to be done on Mars that can't be done by robots for 1/100 the cost. So send 100 more and think of what you'd discover.
As far as establishing a colony to ensure the redundency of humankind, I don't really think that such a colony could be self sustaining in any real way. We can't even make a biodome here tha works. More likely it would one day simply go silent; we would return to find a design flaw and a bunch of dead astronauts. Another Roanoke colony, with no croatan to go to... I don't see the advantage of manned missions specifically given the current economics of humans in space and current lifing costs, except for PR purposes.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
03/26/2006 18:41 Comments ||
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#18
Re #13: As I understand it, helium-3 is only useful for fusion reactors, and we haven't made those work with hydrogen yet after 60 years of research.
#19
Darrell: That's because there are only miniscule amounts of He3 on Earth. With the right fuel, fusion becomes a lot easier.
Mark E: I partially agree with you, in that many of the "hard work" and "repetitive task" aspects of creating a Moonbase and mining He3 would be far more efficient if done with robots, instead of people.
Even if they only tunneled an inch a day, you'd still have a 30 foot long tunnel after a year.
The best bet would be to have a large, heavy, slow landing craft, with a small nuclear reactor for power, and several robots to do different tasks. Even the craft that landed them could be cannibalized for any number of specialized purposes, especially structural reinforcing for the tunnels and pressure doors for the entrance. Designed from the bottom up for dual use.
Another robot would be for dust abatement and collection. The more dust that is removed from the Moonbase area, the less damage by the dust.
Another robot could be used as an "ice miner", capable of digging verticle shafts to get to underground ice, and digging another verticle shaft in the tunnel, much wider but shallower, for use as a lined cistern. Digging "outside" would be easier, as the surface covering the ice might be just "regolith", crumbled rock that could possibly just be scraped away.
A manned expedition would be easier by several factors if they arrived on the Moon to have a safe, oxygenated tunnel with several thousand gallons of water.
Robots would be designed for multiple purposes, and be reprogrammable from Earth or on location, even "transformable" into equipment the astronauts would use after their primary mission was over.
Doing things like building a runway, so spaceships could land like the space shuttle instead of VTOL, and, of all things, making brick out of Lunar dust, water and sealer, under high compression.
The nuclear reactor over used to obtain He3 could also be used to make glass-a very functional material.
All of this means that most of the work would be done on the Earth prior to sending the robots up. And, all lessons learned could be re-used when we did much the same on Mars, long before the people got there.
#20
But why? It would end up being another ISS; the astronauts can't even keep up with the repair work....which is convenient as there are no science or other kinds of missions for them to perform anyway. Its real mission happened way back under Reagan when it was announced; PR and friendly international relations. Not worth the billions spent, that's for sure. Imagine that times a million. And with the substantial chance of loss. Imagine the space program after a possible catastrophic loss. Or, perhaps even worse, imagine the space program 5 years after man returns from mars....with no science breakthrough and no one has gone back to the colony because it costs x billion dollars for each visitor, in order for the human to do....what? I mean for the human to do what that a robot couldn't do for 1/1000th of the cost? And it has to be something worth doing or investigating in the first place. It's the same reason we havent gone to the moon again: there isn't anything there we want or need. We went to the moon to A) beat the Soviet Union, and B) to get eyes on the rocks on the moon to figure out the origin of the earth and moon. At the time, robotics wouldn't have worked to get the particular rocks we wanted to see, nor would it have worked as PR. But now, with "better, faster, cheaper" and the privatization of the design process, there is no need to have all our chickens in one basket. Full committment to the manned mars mission basically eliminates any other use for the space program.
I think it's similar to the ending of use of the x-15 inquiry into flight to orbit technology. We are on our way to some real discoveries, but instead we are gonna try and do it all right now without the real basic work yet done. If the x-15 program had developed further and technology obstacles were overcome (big ifs)instead of larger ground based rocketry, flight to orbit would be much cheaper now. If we keep up with better faster cheaper, we'll have the solar system explored, and costs of payloads cheaper as well. What we don't need is an expensive white elephant. Sometimes even the bullet to kill those things can be prohibititively expensive.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
03/26/2006 22:36 Comments ||
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Tens of thousands of Thais rallied in Bangkok yesterday, begging their king to intervene in a last-ditch effort to force Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from office. "Thaksin, get out!" the protesters chanted as a band played protest songs and nearly 5,000 police officers stood guard. Police said they feared "troublemakers" would try to hijack the event.
Three hours into the rally, a crowd of about 30,000 had gathered near Thaksin's office in Government House. Many wore yellow headbands that said "Save The Nation." Organisers anticipated the protest would exceed several others that have drawn up to 100,000 people. Thaksin's foes have been demonstrating almost daily for two weeks. They say he is corrupt and has abused his powers.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Mmm! Thaksin called an election and its what happens at the ballot box that matters. All these protest smack of people who know they will loose at the ballot box and Thaksin will win.
[The] Foreign Ministry on Sunday summoned United Arab Emirates (UAE) charge d'affaires in absence of the ambassador to inform him of Iran's protest to the UAE government over seizure of an Iranian launcher boat. Director of Social Affairs Department of the Foreign Ministry voiced Iran's protest to the UAE government over seizure of the boat four months ago and beating of the crew on board.
He called for an immediate release of Iranian nationals under arrest in the UAE and sought compensation for the moral and material damages caused by such a conduct. He said that the boat had developed technical fault before being seized by UAE.
The charge d'affaires said that he would convey the protest to Abu Dhabi and would do his best to resolve the case as quickly as possible.
PORTLAND, Ore., March 25 (UPI) -- Oregon is testing the idea of collecting highway funds through a tax on miles driven, rather than gasoline consumed.
Eighty percent of Oregon's highway money comes from its 24-cents-per-gallon gas tax. If the state promotes reducing gasoline consumption and consumers tend to buy the fuel-efficient vehicles, including hybrids, highway revenues would take a hit, The New York Times reported. So they don't really want people to drive less or buy fuel-efficient cars, unless they can still get their baksheesh.
The test program uses a global positioning system to track miles driven, using a black box to calculate how many miles are clocked in-state, out of state and during rush hour. If the citizens of Oregon accept this shit, they deserve it. As far as I'm concerned, it's none of the state's fucking business where and how far I drive.
The experiment is designed to increase state revenue for road maintenance without raising gasoline taxes, but critics say collecting GPS records poses new privacy issues.
"The existence of such a database, which would, for the first time in history, allow for the creation of detailed daily itineraries of every driver, raises obvious privacy concerns," said David L. Sobel, general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil liberties group in Washington.
What are these commie-wannabes going to do about people driving in from out of state - meet them at the border with a gps? Is there something in the water out there that makes them fucking nuts? Pfui.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/26/2006 18:09 ||
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#1
Why do I think that whoever suggested this gets his or her panties in a twist over NSA spying on calls to bin Laden?
#3
What's next-- forced implantation of RFID chips at birth? Tattooed numbers on forearms? Sheesh...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/26/2006 21:30 Comments ||
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#4
Since it depends on the GPS tracking and since that's an unwarranted invasion of privacy this will be struck down so fast it will be a joy to watch their heads spinning from the impact.
There are certainly a LOT of RFSP in the Oregon legislature.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/26/2006 21:50 Comments ||
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#6
The test is to see if the system works and if confidentiallity is protected. The mileage calculations can be hidden behind a secure wall (with keys if law enforcement requires it) so that no one actually knows who went where when. The State will only know the total number of miles driven; how many miles were driven during 6-9 am, how many between 4-7 pm, etc.
SAN FRANCISCO - A Christian youth rally that drew more than 25,000 people to AT&T Park this weekend met resistance from city leaders and some residents, who questioned the rally's agenda in this largely intolerant, liberal, gay-friendly metropolis.
The two-day rally, called "Battle Cry for a Generation," was intended to guide young people away from a popular culture that organizers say glamorizes drugs, violence and sex. Except those and flowers in the hair are the things that attract young people to San Francisco.
Ron Luce, whose Texas-based Teen Mania organization put on the event, said it hopefully would inspire a "reverse rebellion" against corrupting influences such as MTV and the online meeting hub, MySpace.com.
The rally, which also will visit Detroit and Philadelphia, featured religious rockers, speakers and the debut of what Luce called a Christian alternative to MySpace.com - at advance ticket prices of $55 and walk-up prices of $199. How's they miss Seattle and Boston?
"This is more than a spiritual war," said Luce, 44, a Concord native and a President Bush appointee to a federal anti-drug abuse commission. "It's a culture war."I wonder if Luce posts here.
City leaders prepared for the battle earlier this week, when the Gay Taliban Board of Supervisors passed a resolution condemning the "act of provocation" by an "anti-gay," "anti-choice" organization that aimed to "negatively influence the politics of America's most tolerant and progressive city."
Luce said it was the first time one of his events has been officially condemned.
Both sides clashed Friday outside City Hall, where Luce led a pre-Battle Cry gathering of teenagers waving triangular red flags flown from long, medieval-looking poles that went with the event's military metaphors. I hope they had sharp pointy tips.
"Are you ready to go to battle for your generation?" he asked, to which the crowd roared "yes!"
A Battle Cry invitation had made plain the symbolism of gathering at "the very City Hall steps where several months ago, gay marriages were celebrated for all the world to see." Besides which it's a great open plaza with easy access for media trucks and cameras.
Barricades separated Luce's crowd with counterprotesters about 6 feet away who said the Friday and Saturday event amounted to a "fascist mega-pep rally."
Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, told counterprotesters that while the Gay Pride Parade such fundamentalists may be small in number, "they're loud, they're obnoxious, they're disgusting and they should get out of San Francisco."
The resistance didn't discourage Luce, who said he plans to return to San Francisco next year to chart the progress of his youth movement. Best free advertising I ever got.
Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, told counterprotesters that while the Gay Pride Parade such fundamentalists may be small in number, "they're loud, they're obnoxious, they're disgusting and they should get out of San Francisco."
NB: If one of us said that about ActUP, Stonewall, or other gay identity groups, we'd be committing a "hate crime".
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/26/2006 11:58 Comments ||
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#4
"negatively influence the politics of America's most tolerant and progressive city."
Hmmmmmmmm. Might wanna reword that. Maybe put in the exclusions to the "tolerance and progressive" thing. Just so everybody knows where you stand...
Next time bring Big Giant Puppets instead of long, medieval-looking poles. That'll confuse them. Long, midieval poles have another conotation there...
#5
The rally, which also will visit Detroit and Philadelphia, featured religious rockers, speakers and the debut of what Luce called a Christian alternative to MySpace.com - at advance ticket prices of $55 and walk-up prices of $199.
What the **** is Luce talking about?
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
03/26/2006 13:20 Comments ||
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#6
Lots of sexual predators hang out in MySpace.com. We've had a couple young girls in our area be enticed into meeting up with a few of them in real life after chatting online via that site.
What Luce wants in place of it I don't know, although I could guess: an online place to meet up that is monitored sufficiently to keep things a bit more wholesome.
#7
This could as well have been a silent rally. The SF loons have given us a very good understanding of how screwed up they are.
My last visit to the Mission District is unforgettable. Streets where curbs are filled with passed out drunks, empty bottles in brown paper bags everywhere.
One particular drunk was passed out underneath a store sign. The store's name is Decadence.
Posted by: Captain America ||
03/26/2006 14:49 Comments ||
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#9
I wonder if these city leaders realize that they live in a city by the name of San Francisco, in a state whose capital is Sacramento, with other cities such as San Diego, Los Angeles, and also Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, and look, there's even San Rafael.
Notice a pattern? Hint: Franciscans.
Posted by: Rafael ||
03/26/2006 15:41 Comments ||
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#10
Does anyone still watch MTV since they stopped playing music videos? I certainly hope that the VH1 Classic still does that, because VH1 is now the "I Love the '80s" channel.
I guess I'm looking forward to "ala carte" cable, at least if I can get more channels that I want.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Nigeria announced yesterday it is ready to hand over Liberian warlord Charles Taylor to be the first former African head of state tried for crimes against humanity. A U.N. tribunal accuses Mr. Taylor of instigating horrific wars that destroyed two West African nations, killed 1.2 million people and left millions homeless and maimed. He also is thought to have harbored al Qaeda suicide bombers who attacked U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
President Mugabe, under heavy local and international pressure to step down, has called for a constitutional amendment that will allow an interim President to be appointed by his Zanu PF party and pave the way for fresh elections for a new government. Official sources said this was the message that had been communicated to President 
In the interview, Mugabe hinted that he was considering stepping down as land redistribution that he had so much wanted to see implemented had been addressed. 
The MDC leader, 
MINSK: More than 1,000 protesters chanting "Shame!" and "Long live Belarus!" defied a ban and confronted police on Saturday as they tried to stage a rally in Minsk against President Alexander Lukashenko's re-election. 
Tens of thousands of Thais rallied in Bangkok yesterday, begging their king to intervene in a last-ditch effort to force Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from office. "Thaksin, get out!" the protesters chanted as a band played protest songs and nearly 5,000 police officers stood guard. Police said they feared "troublemakers" would try to hijack the event.
