Sunday, May 18, 2008

I'll take a rain check on the Tang


Well, we now know why liquids are banned on aircraft. A British court was presented with startling evidence concerning the "liquid explosives terror plot" dismantled by UK police in August 2006. The ingredients for the bombs intended to bring down seven jets were shockingly commonplace: Tang, hydrogen peroxide and a digital camera.

Prosecutors say the suspects had planned to hide the Tang-and-bleach mixture in plastic soda bottles and the HMTD in hollowed-out AA batteries. The initial charge would have been set off in the HMTD, causing a larger explosion.

Just one bottle-sized bomb could be powerful enough to rip a hole in a plane’s hull — certain tragedy for the passengers aboard the seven targeted flights... Prosecutors say the attack was planned for between August and December, two of the busiest months of the year for air travel. Had the planes been full, nearly 2,000 people would have been killed.

...Scientists at the Forensic Explosives Laboratory in London re-created the device, but as a precaution they left the testing area and had a robotic arm mix the deadly chemicals... It was a smart move: The tiny bomb destroyed one of the video cameras and sprayed the lab with pieces of the protective walls meant to contain the blast...

Remember how the left-wing blogs described the plot at the time?

Once again, the astonishingly incompetent notion of "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" has been shown to be nothing but ideologically-backed neoconservative bungling of the highest order.

A dangerous and blood-soaked farce that has gained nothing except expanded territories in which terrorism can flourish, and has not made the nation safer...

Even Juan Cole, writing at the time of the incident, could instantly shred the Kos-kook argument:

"So how did we find out about this plot, and the deadly mode of operation, which might otherwise have been so hard to detect? The investigation was kicked off by an arrest in Pakistan "last year."

I'll chalk this up to yet another simple error by the left -- we'll just add it to the list that includes "Great Society", Reagan's destruction of Communism, the Clintons' handling of terrorism, The Welfare Reform Act of 1996, Earmarks, "Draining the Swamp", etc., etc., etc.

Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: We hunt because of economic anxiety


Vanderleun links to this amazing video. Watch it now. I'll wait.

• Gateway Pundit spotlights the support of Hamas and Hezbollah by Obama's church of 20 years. But maybe he was sick all of those days.

Tom Harkin (D-IA) says John McCain, with his history of military service and that of his family, might just be too tight with the military to be President. Coming from a guy who embellished (i.e., made up) his own military record, Harkin's statement is particularly galling. GM Roper and Big Dog shred Harkin's pathetic pronouncement.

• Just a Grunt catches a mysterious news story: "State Representative from Unknown Party Arrested for Fourth Time."

• WKYX AM 570 reports that two protestors were ejected from a massive Bill (oops, I meant Hillary) Clinton rally in Murray, Kentucky. Given the increasing scale of Hillary's loans to her campaign, I'd say that the odds of Peter Paul getting repaid are about the same as Lindsey Lohan getting tagged as Obama's running mate.

CNN covers Karl Rove's speech at the NRA Convention (via PrairiePundit):

You probably didn't know you hunted out of economic anxiety, and if gas was a $1.50 a gallon, you probably wouldn't be hunting... You probably thought you hunted because you enjoyed the outdoors and companionship with family and friends...

We here have news for Barack Obama. The values of those people you diminished are the values of America. And those people don't like getting patronized, or viewed as an alien species, by a fellow who pretends to embody a new kind of politics, and especially by someone who wants to be president not of red states or blue states, but the United States...

It is distracting to say in a Democratic primary when you are trying to cozy up to Moveon.org that an American flag on your lapel is a quote 'substitute' for true patriotism. Belittling all those who care to wear our country's flag, calling them false patriots, and then when you focus on the general election, like this week, start to showing up with an American flag on your lapel again.

The ramifications of a "fusion" Obama-Clinton ticket


Flashback to February 2008:

Sen. Barack Obama Friday knocked Sen. Hillary Clinton for taking lobbyists' money and said she was too much a part of "business-as-usual in Washington" to bring about reform... "In this campaign, [Clinton has] taken nearly double the amount of money from lobbyists than any Democrat or Republican running for president," he said. "That's not being a part of the solutions business. That's being a part of business-as-usual in Washington..."

Now consider the implications of a "fusion" ticket consisting of Obama and Clinton.


Hmmm. That could be problematic.

Here's another ticket that might be more effective.


William Ayers is another potential running mate aligned with Obama's interests.

Obama highlights "legitimate claims" of Hamas, Hezbollah


Paul Mirengoff:

Noah Pollak has an insightful piece on Barack Obama's absurdly naive prescription for neutralizing Hezbollah in Lebanon...

[Obama] said the U.S. should help the Lebanese government deliver better services to the Shiites “to peel support away from Hezbollah” and encourage the local populace to “view them as an oppressive force.” The U.S. should “find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them they are getting social services.”


AFP caption: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president (L) pledges funds to Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas.

The U.S. needs a foreign policy that “looks at the root causes of problems and dangers.” Obama compared Hezbollah to Hamas. Both need to be compelled to understand that “they’re going down a blind alley with violence that weakens their legitimate claims.”

[Obama says that Hamas and Hezbollah "need to be compelled"... But compulsion entails force and/or coercision, and Obama won't commit to either... The larger problem... is that Obama's... salute to the "legitimate claims" of Hamas and Hezbollah, would only persuade them they are going down precisely the alley that serves their interests.

What are the "legitimate claims" of Hamas and Hezbollah?

Mark Steyn reminds us.

Here are some words of Hussein Massawi, the former leader of Hezbollah:

"We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."

Are his actions consistent with those words? Amazingly so. So, too, are those of Hezbollah's patrons in Tehran.

President Reagan talked with the Soviets while pushing ahead with the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. He spoke softly – after getting himself a bigger stick. Sen. Obama is proposing to reward a man who pledges to wipe Israel off the map with a presidential photo-op to which he will bring not even a twig.

I'll say it again. Barack Obama makes Jimmy Carter look like General Sherman.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Krauthammer eviscerates Obama's fabrications


The brilliant Charles Krauthammer on Obama:

Obama and his defenders here are really a piece of work. Remember how all this started — we saw it earlier in the show in the clip in which he answered the question in that debate, would you speak with these thugs who run Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, et cetera.

He said yes, and then he immediately said that he was saying this because it is, quote, "a central diplomatic principle of this administration not to talk to them," and that, he then said, is ridiculous and disgraceful. That was in his answer.

He has repeated that in one form or another at least 20 times over the course of this campaign. So he makes it an issue of an attack on the Bush administration and its diplomacy, and if the president defends himself and defends the policy of not speaking with these thugs, all of a sudden it's illegitimate, disgraceful, and unworthy of the president.

Of course he should defend himself on this, and of course he should include Obama with Jimmy Carter, who spoke with Hamas, and with Pelosi, who went cap in hand to Damascus and spoke with Assad.

And the question John McCain asks is a good one — what exactly is he going to say to these thugs that has not already been said? If he doesn't have anything new to say, then a trip to Iran or a negotiation with Ahmadinejad is an exercise in redundancy, and in honoring him.

And if he has new stuff to say, what is it going to be? It's not going to be more sticks. He is not going to be tougher on Iran than Bush and Cheney. It's going to be carrots.

So let's ask Obama — are you going to offer Iran Lebanon? Are you going to offer sway over Iraq? Are you going to offer it domination of the Gulf? Or are you are going to offer it America squeezing Israel?

So it is about appeasement, and Israel is a place in which he wants to make that statement...

...Obama took [Bush's statement] as an attack on him. Obama has a problem. He says he will not speak with Hamas because it engages in terror.

On the other hand, he wants a direct diplomacy with Iran, which is the world's most proliferate, prodigious supporter of state terror. And if you have that contradiction, you've got to explain it.

Obama at the beginning made a gaffe in answering that question. He knew he was stuck. He made it into a policy, and now it's a doctrine, and he's got to explain it, and he can't.

He may not be able to explain it, but he can certainly whine and cry about it.

Barack Obama makes Jimmy Carter look like Patton


It all started with President Bush, speaking at the Knesset in Jerusalem, in celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We've heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared, "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (applause)

Bud Simmons reminds us of the old saying: "When a stone is thrown into a pack of wolves, the one that yelps is the one that is hit."

Barack Obama immediately yelped with a faux anger that smacked of political calculation.

George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

In a speech this week, Obama reiterated his position: "I have never said I would negotiate with terrorists.”

Unfortunately for Sen. Obama, his own official campaign web site contradicts his assertions.

Diplomacy: Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior.

Let's hit the pause button. The US State Department calls Iran the world's "most active state sponsor of terrorism."


AFP caption: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president (L) pledges funds to Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas.

Okay, hit play.

Diplomacy: Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior. Obama would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization, economic investments, and a move toward normal diplomatic relations. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, we will step up our economic pressure and political isolation. Seeking this kind of comprehensive settlement with Iran is our best way to make progress.

Membership in the WTO, economic investments, normal diplomatic relations... what else can these carrots be called except "appeasement" when no stick is involved?

In short, Obama has repeatedly stated he favors appeasing a country that calls Israel a "stinking corpse", America "the Great Satan", and foments terrorism worldwide.

Self-described liberal David Corn writing at the Nation, mocked Obama's "direct negotiation" gaffes in October 2007.

I can see the ad now: Kim Jong Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Fidel Castro, Bashar al-Assad, and Hugo Chavez all strolling into the White House, and a grinning Barack Obama greeting them with a friendly "Welcome, boys; what do you want to talk about?"

If Obama gets close to the Democratic presidential nomination, pro-Hillary Clinton forces could air such an ad. If he wins the nomination, the Republicans could hammer him with such a spot.

...At the newfangled YouTube/CNN debate [the question was asked of Obama]: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since. In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

Obama replied:

I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous.

Furthermore, Obama's Middle East policy adviser secretly met with Hamas on multiple occasions.

Rob Malley, a Middle East policy adviser to likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, resigned after news surfaced that he had been meeting with Hamas -- something Obama pledged he himself would never do...

...Last month, as former President Jimmy Carter was set to meet with Hamas leaders, Obama told a group of Jewish activists and clergy in Philadelphia that he would not sit down with Hamas.

And while such activity is presumably outside of Obama's control, it is nonetheless highly bizarre to see phone banks -- operating in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip -- calling into the United States to urge voters to support Obama.


Upon hearing that Hamas had officially endorsed Obama (calling him Kennedy-esque), Obama campaign manager David Axelrod said that "it's flattering when anybody says that Barack Obama would follow in his footsteps."

Lest anyone think we're cherry-picking Obama's statements, let's revisit another interview -- this one on NPR's All Things Considered (Oct. 2007) -- in which Obama said:

Oh, we have to deal with the role of Iran. The question is whether we deal with Iran through saber-rattling, or whether we deal with Iran by direct diplomatic engagement. The key for us is to engage in the sort of direct talks that we engaged in, by the way, when Iran cooperated with us in dealing with the Taliban in Afghanistan. It's that sort of direct engagement that this president has been unwilling to do, but under an Obama administration would be, I think a top priority.

Put simply, Obama favors direct talks at the presidential level -- the sort of engagement that President Bush "has been unwilling to do."

EIB adds the kicker:

It used to be... when Barack... hit the scene last summer the only thing we couldn't mention were his ears. He went out [and] told Maureen Dowd he's very sensitive about his ears, and she said, "We're trying to toughen you up." Hasn't worked. Since then, when we could only not mention his ears, now we cannot talk about his mother, now we can't talk about his father... we can't talk about his wife. Now we can't talk about his preacher... we can't talk about his voting record. And we dare not talk about his religion. And we don't use the appeasement word, can't say appeasement now. We can't talk about color. We can't talk about race. We can't talk about lack of color. We can't talk about his friends, mobsters and bombers, terrorists. We can't talk about schooling. Can't talk about his name. Can't talk about his experience. Can't talk about his income. Can't talk about his flag pin. In the beginning it was just his ears. Now he's a messiah, we can't say anything about the guy without it being a mean-spirited personal attack...

For a guy who wants to be president, there's a lot we can't talk about. And there's a hell of a lot of lying going on -- enough lying that I prefer to call him "Hillary Obama".

Most importantly, he continues to lie about direct engagement with terrorists -- even his own website calls him a liar -- and now he's incessantly whining about those very statements coming home to roost.

Barack Hamas Obama makes Jimmy Carter look like Patton.

Hat tips: Jim Geraghty and Larwyn

Taking down the Mullahs without firing a shot


Laurence Odhner offers "Greetings from the 'Great Satan'" and a plan to destroy Iran's despotic government without firing a shot.

“Call in the heads of all the airlines that currently fly into Iran, Lufthansa, Air France, KLM, to name a few, and remind them that Britain is a democratic monarchy, and likes to offer choices. Here are your choices. You are free to fly into Iran, and you are free to fly into Heathrow, but not both! And should you, Lufthansa, Air France, KLM choose to continue serving Iran, you will permanently lose your landing rights in Britain.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I guarantee you, there is not an airline on the planet that would cash in its landing rights in Britain and the US for its landing rights in lovely Teheran. Sorry, but the economics just don’t work. Only airlines that are state controlled, such as Aeroflot, might even consider the notion, but would wither if confronted with an alliance of western governments expressing solidarity. Even one country alone, either the US or Britain, could independently impose such an embargo, and all their allies would have to tow the line or suffer the consequences. Further, no landing rights for countries that allow third country airlines to try to skirt the embargo, either, i.e. Syrian airlines may not service both Iran and the Netherlands, or KLM would be embargoed as well.

...This would leave Iran like engine without oil. Suddenly, there would be no tourism, no air travel in or out of the country. No air cargo. No DHL, no FedEx, no UPS, no opportunity for the pimp president, Ahmadinijad, to visit Hugo Chavez for purposes of plotting the construction of more Iranian long range missiles in Venezuela, capable of hitting the southern United States (yes, I kid you not, they are manufacturing them in Venezuela to be used against us), no more air shipments of north Korean parts for the nuclear (energy) program...

...How long would it be before the wealthy and middle classes of Iran are ready to overthrow the mullahs when they are suddenly cut off from skiing trips to Chamonix, or visiting their cousins in London, or shopping in infidel Paris? The tourism/hospitality sector would die a sudden death. Hotels and restaurants will be empty. Traitorous European businessmen, will no longer able to trade with the enemy...

I'm not sure I see a downside.

Skeletons in the Left's Closet


Author Daniel J. Flynn resurrects the skeletons in the left's closet. A choice selection...

10. Ayatollah Khomeini, Leftist Hero

Reflexive anti-Americanism initially moved the Left to embrace the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Mother Jones, for instance, in 1979 predicted that “if Khomeini or his followers take power” then “democratic reforms, freedom for political prisoners, an end to the astronomical waste of huge arms purchases, and a constitutional government” would follow. The Nation, Michel Foucault, and other pillars of the Left similarly projected their ideals upon Khomeini and company...

8. Gay Activists Sue to Block AIDS Test

Today, homosexual activists blame Ronald Reagan and the clergy for the spread of AIDS. But in the mid-1980s, the National Gay Task Force and the Lambda Legal Defense, citing civil-liberties concerns, actually sued the federal government to stop the AIDS test. Thankfully, they lost and scores of lives have been saved as a result...

6. Jonestown Kool-Aid

Before orchestrating the murder/suicides 900+ people in Guyana, Jim Jones was the darling of the San Francisco Left. Huey Newton, Angela Davis, and Willie Brown embraced a man who killed more blacks than the KKK. Democrats Rosalynn Carter, Walter Mondale, and Gerry Brown made campaign visits to the Peoples Temple’s “comrade leader.” The mayor of San Francisco even rewarded Jones for his activism by appointing him chairman of the city’s housing commission. “The temple was as much a left-wing political crusade as a church,” The Nation reported in 1978. Unfortunately, as the years progressed, more Americans gulped down the Left’s Kool-Aid that Jones was of the religious Right and not an atheist leftist.

5. Concentration Camps, American Style

A year before Hitler came to power in Germany, Margaret Sanger called for a vast system of concentration camps for the United States. The Planned Parenthood founder demanded “a stern and rigid policy of segregation or sterilization” for “dysgenic” Americans who “would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives.” The 1932 speech concluded that “fifteen or twenty millions of our population would then be organized into soldiers of defense—defending the unborn against their own disabilities.”

4. Heaven on Earth

American intellectuals looked upon the hell on earth that was post-revolutionary Russia and saw a heaven on earth. The New Republic credited the Russian Revolution with providing “the most democratic franchise yet devised in our world,” while The Nation found that “the franchise is more democratic in Russia than in England or in the United States.” Lincoln Steffens marveled after a visit to the Soviet Union, “The revolution in Russia is to establish the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth...”

1. Nazi-Soviet Pact

The Left switched from pacifists to warmongers overnight once the Nazi attack upon the Communists dissolved the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Communist Party USA chief Earl Browder, who had dubbed WWII “the second imperialist war” during the pact, so thoroughly switched course when the Nazis attacked the Communists that he embraced conscription (after his opposition to it led to jail in WWI), endorsed a ‘no-strike’ pledge for labor unions (after encouraging strikes to impede the war effort), and kicked out Japanese Americans from the CP (after ostensibly championing civil rights). The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League ceased operations during the pact. The Communists’ New Masses panned the anti-Nazi Watch on the Rhine when it appeared as a play during the pact only to praise it when it appeared as a movie when Hitler and Stalin were again enemies.

Read the whole thing.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Hillary Obama's faux complaints about Bush


Peter Wehner, writing at Commentary Magazine:

Obama’s faux anger in reaction to Bush’s speech is ludicrous. For one thing, the President did not even mention Senator Obama in his speech. What the President was rebutting was a (fairly prevalent) cast of mind, one which is shared by Obama but by many others–including Jimmy Carter, who just returned from the region, as well as a people serving in Bush’s own State Department.

For Obama’s communications director to call the President’s remarks an “unprecedented political attack on foreign soil” is utter nonsense. More than that, though, Obama’s reaction is exactly the kind of “distraction” that he constantly complains about – even when the issues raised are legitimate ones to discuss (like his association with the Reverend Wright). To take a serious address like the one President Bush delivered in Israel today and shoehorn it into a campaign is exactly the kind of thing that drags down political discourse in America–and is the opposite of what Obama claims to represent.

With every passing week, it seems, the gap between what Obama says he is and how he acts is widening...

The widening gap explains his nickname: Hillary Obama.

Update: Andy McCarthy asks: Can Somebody Explain to Me...

...how Obama sat in Wright's church for 20 years and managed never to hear anything, but hears 20 seconds of a Bush speech that doesn't mention him and perceives a shameful personal attack?

Hat tip: Larwyn.
Linked by: The Anchoress. Thanks!

Line o' the day: just right


George Will (via Diamond Bullet):

The housing perhaps-not-entirely-a-crisis resembles, in one particular, the curious consensus about the global warming "crisis," concerning which, the assumption is: Although Earth's temperature has risen and fallen through many millennia, the temperature was exactly right when, in the 1960s, Al Gore became interested in the subject.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Slumber Party!


Looks like Barack's friends are planning ahead!

I'd take bets that these dudes really know how to party!

Michelin's transparent tire


Chris sends us a Radical new tire design by Michelin.

This is the next generation of tires. They had a pair at the Philadelphia car show.

These tires are airless and are scheduled to be out on the market very soon. The bad news for law enforcement is that spike strips will not work on these tires.

This is what great R&D will do, and just think of the impact on existing technology: a. no more air valves; b. no more air compressors at gas stations; c. no more repair kits.





These pictures were taken at Michelin's South Carolina plant.

It will be a while before they are available to the automotive industry.

Believe me, I checked Snopes and they don't have anything up on this yet. So it's gotta be accurate!

The Next Survivor Series


Wifey dear sends along this missive.

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.

Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.

There is no fast food.

Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.

In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.

Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time--no emailing.

Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment, and a haircut appointment.

He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care.
;
He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function.

Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times.

The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.

The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails polished and eyebrows groomed.

During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.

They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.

They will need to read a book to the kids each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair b y 7:00 am.

A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size, and doctor's name. Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.

The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.

If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right to be called Mother!

All husbands in my area were unavailable for comment at press time.

Image hat tip: Mamapalooza

A conversation in the Vice President's office - Feb. 2009


*** Knock Knock***

Enter, g*dd***it!!

Vice President Clinton, the head of the Secret Service detail for Big Cahuna is here to see you. Says it's urgent.

Send 'im in, then! What the hell are you waiting for?

Ma'am - we've got a serious problem. President Obama is missing.

What? When did this happen?

1400 hours --

Speak English. 1400 --- what is that, 11 AM Eastern?

No, ma'am - 2pm.

Shuddup. Anyhow - what happened?

Ma'am, one minute he's standing in the small corridor off the Oval Office kitchenette, the next minute we turned around and he was... was... gone. It's almost like a secret trapdoor opened up and swallowed him whole!

Any fingerprints?

Fingerprints? Err, no...

Any suspects?

Suspects? No, no, not...

Tragic. It's just a tragedy... real crisis.

Ma'am, I think we just need to huddle up with the staff and work on next steps and a communication plan... we've got a search party scouring the lower level...

Oh, good, good.

So... when do I take the oath of office?

Linked by: Don Surber. Thanks!

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The face of Caesar


The London Times.

The world has been introduced to the true face of Julius Caesar with the discovery in a river in southern France of a bust that was sculpted in the lifetime of the Roman leader... The marble sculpture, found in the bed of the Rhône in the town of Arles, has been authenticated as a realistic likeness of Caesar, wrinkled and balding in his fifties and probably modelled from life.

“It is the only known bust of the living Caesar, except for the Mask of Turin, which was made just before or after his death, said Luc Long, the Ministry of Culture archaeologist who found it along with other treasures last autumn. “Even in Rome, no one has found a portrait of the living Caesar,” he added.

The bust, which has a broken nose, dates from between 49 and 46BC, the period when Caesar founded the Roman colony of Arles, to thank the town for helping him to conquer the nearby port of Marseille. Caesar used Arles as a base for his campaign against Pompey, his rival...

Photo: Culture Ministry of France, C. Chary.

Vatican astronomer: extraterrestrial brothers possible


Can extraterrestrial aliens and Catholicism coexist?

The Vatican's chief astronomer says there is no conflict between believing in God and in the possibility of extraterrestrial "brothers" perhaps more evolved than humans.

"In my opinion this possibility exists," said the Reverend José Gabriel Funes, head of the Vatican Observatory and a scientific adviser to Pope Benedict XVI, referring to life on other planets.

"How can we exclude that life has developed elsewhere," he said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, published in its Tuesday-Wednesday edition. The large number of galaxies with their own planets makes this possible, he noted.

I sense problems at the Vatican.

It's just a hunch.

Image credits: Tony Gentile/Reuters and Shalashaska77