As a freeper said, you’ll never hear about this from the New York Times–we have to learn about it from a foreign paper like Der Zweibel. It says that Tom Ridge wants us to be prepared.

Besides Midway, today is another anniversary. The Tiananmen Square Massacre occurred thirteen years ago.

A woman was severely burned when she fell asleep in a tanning bed with a defective timer.

Professor Volokh has an interesting post up about blackmail.

Which reminds me of the bad old days during the Clinton impeachment. I don’t really want to rehash it, but sometimes it’s useful to recast the arguments in the context of the new reality, post September 11.

Generally, those who argued for impeachment argued (correctly, in my opinion) that his unwillingness to obey laws, particularly laws that he had signed with his own pen, and indeed his apparent contempt for them, were adequate grounds to remove him from office. He had, after all, among other things, taken an oath to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”) Of course, being Clinton, I suppose he could lawyer his way out of it and contend (probably correctly) that he did do it to the best of his ability…

But I rarely saw another argument for his removal that is, to me, just as powerful (and would have been cause to remove several previous presidents, though not, as far as I know, the present one, or any in the late seventies and eighties).

The President is the most powerful man in the world. He ultimately controls the nuclear arsenal. He has access to the most vital secrets of the nation. Given that, it is irresponsible, even treasonous, to put himself in a position in which he can be subjected to blackmail.

Suppose that, instead of Ken Starr, Linda Tripp had given the tapes to Saddam Hussein? Or Osama bin Laden?

I don’t think that this is the reason for Mr. Clinton’s apparent insouciance toward the latter, but only because I don’t think that Linda Tripp did that. It would otherwise not be an entirely implausible theory.

While many complained about the poor beleaguered President and how he wasn’t allowed to have a “private life,” (never mind that his trysts, at least with Ms. Lewinsky, occurred in the Oval Office, on company time), they ignore the fact that no one in a position of such awesome responsibility should be indulging in behavior that he’s not willing to read about on the front page of the Washington Post.

While it may be that America remains fundamentally puritan at heart, and some may (indeed do and did during the imbroglio) bemoan that fact, it is not puritanical to recognize it, and to expect the leader of the nation to accommodate himself to it. If America were France, then he could perhaps have as many mistresses as he chose. And even though America isn’t France, he still could–as long as he didn’t try to hide it, and was willing to accept the political consequences.

But instead, he not only hid it, but he broke the law to do so. Even ignoring the actual illegality of the behavior, anyone else with the level of security clearance implied by dint of being President would have it pulled immediately if such behavior came to light.

Mr. Clinton (and the Senate) should have taken the lesson from Spiderman.

With awesome power comes awesome responsibility.

Just for those who haven’t had enough, David Janes has one more post on evolution, and its falsifiability.

His focus is on the fundamental tenet that we are all descendants of a common ancestor, which implies that speciation has occured in the past, even if no one has actually seen it happen. (Hint to lawyer Orrin Judd–it’s called circumstantial evidence, which can often be much more powerful than eyewitness testimony…)

The Battle Of Midway, the first major American victory in the war against Japan after Pearl Harbor, and a crucial point at which momentum shifted in our favor, began sixty years ago today.

I’m listening to a debate right now on KPFK (90.7 FM in LA) between Rick Steiner (loony anti-lunar developer) and Ian Strock (The Moon Society) over lunar development.

[Update at 8:30 PDT]

The debate went about as expected. KPFK is a Pacifica station, fairly lefty, so it eventually degenerated into wailing about how evil corporations are, and they can’t be put in jail, so how can we trust them with our precious lunar heritage. Steiner said that he found the idea of advertising in space (and probably anywhere else) “distasteful.” I guess that means that we shouldn’t do it; apparently his aesthetic sense should prevent us from opening up the universe.

N.Z. Bear has developed a tool to categorize blogs by their linkage. What kind of animal are you?

Dave Kopel and Instantman have a sensible suggestion (one that I’ve made myself). It’s time, indeed past time, to withdraw from that other relic of the Cold War, the Outer Space Treaty.

[Update at 12:32 PM PDT]

Jim Bennett notes that there’s at least one other reason to get rid of the treaty that Glenn didn’t mention.

…the OST and its Liability Convention also raise the cost of space launch by assigning strict liability to all earth-to-space operations. This is no longer warranted for ordinary launch operations. Withdrawing from the OST should be accompanied by a new Liability Convention creating a more reasonable liability regime.

Yes. This could also affect the existing regulatory environment for spaceflight in the US, since the existing regulations are based on that strict liability.

Keith Cowing has a nice article up on the issues of growing food on Mars, given current knowledge, and longer-term implications for terraforming.