Remember our discussion ...

... about corrupt governments and poverty? The same is true of terrorism and plain violence. Governments of thieves and nations whose governance has been destroyed by warring factions funded by groups with no good in mind are the prime source of most of today's international crises. This CNS report discusses "kleptocracy"--the rule of thieves. I'm reminded of St. Augustine's remark about human governments always tending to be collections of robbers.

Scary stuff.

I was able to read Robert Preston's The Demon in the Freezer over the Thanksgiving holiday. It reads fast, but is very serious in its presentation of an analysis of the anthrax assaults of 2001 and the possibility of an even more dangerous attack using the smallpox virus. I recall it in the light of this article in today's Fox News. Bioweapons are far easier to build, according to the experts, than nuclear/radiation devices. The warning has been delivered to the new administration in very clear terms by an expert panel.

A more detailed examination can be found here, at the Washington Post.

UPDATE 12/3/08: More on the National Security Commission's report on CNS News today.

New President, new perceptions.

A new column at "America in the World" suggests that the new regime in America will be more "environment-friendly" than the outgoing administration. This perception, in turn, may give the US a "world-friendly" outlook which stands to be reciprocated by the Europeans and others. But--given the economic conditions, there simply will not be a lot of attention paid to big enviro initiatives for the foreseeable future. We'll see, however.

Oh, and one more thing...

Here's the reflection from last week, per request.

Article link: http://www.primitivism.com/facets-myth.htm

If that should happen not to work, just google the title and author: "The Myth of Progress" by Kirkpatrick Sale.

Here's the question: Comment on the article in the light of his quoting of Herbert Read, "Only a people serving an apprenticeship to nature can be trusted with machines; only such people will so contrive and control those machines that their products are an enhancement of biological needs, and not a denial of them."

Don't stare at the sun!

The pictures on the boston.com website that SciGuy linked to yesterday are just amazing. You might ponder these for a little while, and the time would be well-spent. We don't spend enough time appreciating the aesthetic impact and value of nature--especially the parts of the cosmos, "macro" and "micro"--that we have access to in our time uniquely.

That Chesterton Quote

From Orthodoxy: "Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father."

Ike's damages--and the future

Eric Berger has some interesting analysis of absolute and relative costs here:

http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2008/09/post_53.html


In addition, there is one regional issue that will demand to be addressed once a state of normalcy is restored, and that's the massive loss of power. It's true that Ike was a once-in-a-generation storm, but it seems to me that some measures can be taken to ameliorate the near-perfect annihilation of the electrical grid in southeast Texas. Continued hardening the major transmission lines and critical points and aggressive maintenance of electrical rights of way from overgrowth seem two obvious items that could be put on a prioritized year-to-year progress plan. I know it's ugly when the limbs well-shaped trees are lopped to allow clearance for power lines, but I think a memory of the current hardships endured by many should suffice to procure agreement on a reasonable compromise here.

If you were inland and west of downtown Houston,

... it appears that the worst part of the storm was the last 4 to 6 hours, when north and then west gales howled over and through the greater part of residential Houston and its suburbs. My neighbors and the co-workers I contacted agreed, based on the sound of the wind. At our home it sounded like a locomotive parked outside the back windows. I'm sure that's when we lost some shingles and the majority of our fence. Just a trickle, thankfully, of windblown water seeped from the bathroom ceiling. I'm guessing that our steady winds here on the southwest side were in the neighborhood of 75 to 80 mph, with some higher gusts. Outside the storm surge zones, the storm was not especially a wet one. The major flooding that took place Sunday was due to the straight-down showers preceding the cold front that slid through.

The enemy below...

not the enemy above. It appears that Ike will be a storm-surge event and a wind event, but not a rain even, at least not in the Houston region. Galveston continues to get punished horribly and the low-lying communities around Galveston Bay will flood, as will Texas and Louisiana coastal areas east of here. However, Dr. Siebert of channel 26 just confirmed what I've been noticing for about an hour: Ike has started to suck wind, dry wind, into the region surrounding his eye, and his structure seems to be loosening. Dr. Siebert mentioned something about the winds being ready to drop to 80 mph or less. This and the continued rapid motion of this storm will bring some somewhat sooner relief from the wind/rain conditions, although we're still facing a long night's vigil over this storm. Let's keep our fingers crossed that this in fact turns out to be the trend. The damage will still be staggering, but let's hope there's a light in this windy tunnel.

Don't like Ike...

General Ike is preparing to launch an assault on the TTO (Texas Theatre of Operations) by the weekend. We'll keep our eyes and ears open, begin some basic prep, and hope his beachhead is not our backyard.

Meanwhile, unless we receive a rescinding order from University Command, we are planning to hold class Thursday evening. See you there.