Version 2.0 of the Apache web server has been released. It reportedly performs as well as Microsoft IIS, and without the security problems.
Be afraid, Redmond.
Guess He’s Angling For A Longer Sentence
A terrorist suspect on trial in Germany told the court officials that “they were all Jews.”
Guess He’s Angling For A Longer Sentence
A terrorist suspect on trial in Germany told the court officials that “they were all Jews.”
Guess He’s Angling For A Longer Sentence
A terrorist suspect on trial in Germany told the court officials that “they were all Jews.”
“Massacre”
Our pet idiotarian over at warbloggerwatch is whining about the “massacre” in Jenin this morning.
I have just one question for him. If the Israelis wanted to indiscriminately massacre Palestinian civilians, why didn’t they just pound the camp into rubble with air strikes? Why did they put their soldiers at risk (they lost a couple dozen of them) in house-to-house combat?
I see two possible (and mutually-exclusive) explanations:
1) They don’t get enough satisfaction out of bloodless, remote atrocities conducted by air–they have a deep-felt need to go in and bayonet the infants personally, even at risk to their own lives.
2) They wanted to eliminate the terrorists, and the labs and armories, as precisely as possible, while minimizing civilian casualties.
I know which one makes the most sense to me. I can guess which one “George Orwell,” in his fevered fantasies, will go with.
[Update at 9:27 AM PDT]
The UN passed their usual resolution yesterday condemning Israel for “‘gross violations’ of international law.” In other shocking news, a dog is reported to have peed on a tree.
The BBC story contains no specifics. What the story does contain, however, is lots of allegations, with no actual evidence. All of the actual destruction described in the story sounds, so far, consistent with the Israeli government claims, with nothing to support Palestinian claims of a massacre.
But hey, we’re the UN. “Evidence? We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence!”
“Massacre”
Our pet idiotarian over at warbloggerwatch is whining about the “massacre” in Jenin this morning.
I have just one question for him. If the Israelis wanted to indiscriminately massacre Palestinian civilians, why didn’t they just pound the camp into rubble with air strikes? Why did they put their soldiers at risk (they lost a couple dozen of them) in house-to-house combat?
I see two possible (and mutually-exclusive) explanations:
1) They don’t get enough satisfaction out of bloodless, remote atrocities conducted by air–they have a deep-felt need to go in and bayonet the infants personally, even at risk to their own lives.
2) They wanted to eliminate the terrorists, and the labs and armories, as precisely as possible, while minimizing civilian casualties.
I know which one makes the most sense to me. I can guess which one “George Orwell,” in his fevered fantasies, will go with.
[Update at 9:27 AM PDT]
The UN passed their usual resolution yesterday condemning Israel for “‘gross violations’ of international law.” In other shocking news, a dog is reported to have peed on a tree.
The BBC story contains no specifics. What the story does contain, however, is lots of allegations, with no actual evidence. All of the actual destruction described in the story sounds, so far, consistent with the Israeli government claims, with nothing to support Palestinian claims of a massacre.
But hey, we’re the UN. “Evidence? We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence!”
“Massacre”
Our pet idiotarian over at warbloggerwatch is whining about the “massacre” in Jenin this morning.
I have just one question for him. If the Israelis wanted to indiscriminately massacre Palestinian civilians, why didn’t they just pound the camp into rubble with air strikes? Why did they put their soldiers at risk (they lost a couple dozen of them) in house-to-house combat?
I see two possible (and mutually-exclusive) explanations:
1) They don’t get enough satisfaction out of bloodless, remote atrocities conducted by air–they have a deep-felt need to go in and bayonet the infants personally, even at risk to their own lives.
2) They wanted to eliminate the terrorists, and the labs and armories, as precisely as possible, while minimizing civilian casualties.
I know which one makes the most sense to me. I can guess which one “George Orwell,” in his fevered fantasies, will go with.
[Update at 9:27 AM PDT]
The UN passed their usual resolution yesterday condemning Israel for “‘gross violations’ of international law.” In other shocking news, a dog is reported to have peed on a tree.
The BBC story contains no specifics. What the story does contain, however, is lots of allegations, with no actual evidence. All of the actual destruction described in the story sounds, so far, consistent with the Israeli government claims, with nothing to support Palestinian claims of a massacre.
But hey, we’re the UN. “Evidence? We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence!”
Westward Ho
I haven’t commented on the Cornel West circus much, leaving it to Instantman and others. But they had a piece on NPR this morning about it. Of course, the tone of the piece took it pretty much as a given that this was a major blow to Harvard. There was no questioning of the value of his work or performance. The closest they came was to find one guy who basically said that West made a fool of himself by feigning victimhood and making accusations of covert racism on Summers’ part, when the criticisms were legitimate, and had nothing to do with race.
They interviewed several Harvard students, some of whom were proclaiming doom. The closest they could come to the other side was one student who said it was a loss, but that Harvard would survive.
They didn’t bother to look for anyone, apparently (at least I assume that’s the reason, because I can’t believe that they don’t exist), who would say (as I would have), “Our gain is Princeton’s loss. Hope the doorknob doesn’t make a dent in his butt on the way out.”
[9:43 AM PDT Update]
John McWhorter has a piece in today’s Journal on the subject (link for paid subscribers only):
…he has implied that a CD and support for Mr. Sharpton are legitimate substitutes for academic work–a “visionary” paradigm of inquiry. Here is a coded wink to black people that Mr. Summers’ failure to understand this is racism.
I see a different subtext here: that serious academic work is optional for black intellectuals, and that to require it of a black scholar beyond a certain point is a racist insult. But can Prof. West not see that this only reinforces the stereotype of black mental dimness that feeds the very racism he is so quick to sniff out? Visionary or not, rap is not scholarship. Nor is putting one’s arm around a hustler like the Rev. Sharpton “speaking truth to power.”
Legacy Watch
Looks like Dollar Bill is getting a turndown for a speaking engagement. His price is too high.
Short Sighted
I’m not normally a big agitator for unmanned planetary missions. I’m not opposed to them, but I don’t find them all that urgent and compelling. Generally, I agree with Proxmire’s famous statement, “Mars will still be there…”
But in this case I think that the cancellation of this particular mission is a travesty and a tragedy. In the context of the total NASA budget, a mission to Pluto doesn’t cost that much, and it’s one of the cases in which it isn’t true that “it will still be there.” Pluto has an orbit such that it will get much more difficult to reach it if the launch doesn’t occur in the next few years, perhaps to the point that it will be decades before we have an opportunity to explore it (assuming, of course, no major advances in deep-space propulsion, admittedly a brave assumption).
Unfortunately, the problems aren’t just penny pinching–they’re political (what a surprise–politics in a government space program). First, they’ve designed to launch the mission on a new launch vehicle that may not be adequately tested to NASA’s satisfaction by the time the launch window closes. This problem could be resolved by using a Russian launcher, but that’s not poltically acceptable.
The other problem is that a mission that far away from the sun can only be done with a nuclear power source, called a radioisotope thermal generator (RTG). This isn’t a reactor–it’s just a lump of plutonium that generates heat as it decays, which is then converted to electricity. We’ve been using such power sources safely since the beginning if the space program, but the last few missions that required such power sources (most notably the Cassini mission to Saturn) have had to run a gauntlet of environmental approvals and hysterical and ignorant protestors, and there is fear that the delays from this for the Pluto mission could end up pushing it out beyond its date of viability.
So, barring some technological breakthrough, we may not see Pluto up close for many decades.