In light of the current more mundane concerns of Islamofascism, asteroids seem like a frivolity, but the fact remains that they are continually bombarding the planet, and occasionally, we are hit by ones big enough to matter. The Tonguska event of 1910, had it hit a major city, rather than a remote Siberian forest, would have killed thousands, and almost certainly been the greatest natural disaster of the twentieth century. Thus, just as we should be continuing to look into missile defense (even though our enemy didn’t happen to use missiles this time), we should also remain concerned about planetary defense.

Which is why it’s disturbing that NASA is cutting off funds for the sky survey that was being performed at Arecibo, in order to find money to cover the ISS overrun. NASA has a mandated goal of doing an inventory of all Near Earth Objects (NEO) greater than a mile in diameter, and this will prevent them from meeting it. In addition to telling us if there are any bodies out there with our number on them, it would also provide useful information for future resource utilization, should we ever decide we want to become a serious space-faring nation.

This is just one more reason for O’Keefe to clean up the Augean stables that is NASA. I hope that there’s a river big enough to divert…

Listening to NPR this morning (I know, I know…), they had a story on the “economic stimulus package” and why it was probably not going to pass, and the only issue now was who would take the blame. I listened to Senator Daschle sadly (and smarmily, with crocodile tears) explain that it just didn’t have the sixty votes it needed in the Senate. And then the NPR reporter dutifully repeated that it didn’t have the “sixty votes needed” to pass the Senate in the story wrap up. Anyone listening to the story, who knew no better, would have (mistakenly) concluded that bills cannot pass the Senate without sixty votes.

When I last took a class in government (admittedly many years ago), I was taught that bills passed either house with a majority–not a supermajority. Now I understand that the Senate has established rules of debate that require three fifths to close the debate, and that if even a single Senator wants to continue debate, that the bill will not go to a full vote without the three-fifths cloture vote. But that’s just a Senate rule–it’s certainly not Constitutionally mandated. And in fact, I think that if someone really wants to filibuster a bill, they should actually have to maintain the debate–threatening to do so should not be sufficient, and allowing people to make such threats without requiring them to actually carry it out does mean that effectively a supermajority is required to pass a bill in the Senate.

(Not that I think this a bad thing, mind you–as a minimum-government type, I actually like the idea that it’s hard to pass legislation, but given that legislation is required to undo much of the damage of the past two-plus centuries, it would be nice to be able to fast-track that process…)

So I was curious as to whether this was really something that the founders had intended. I dutifully went back and read Article I, and lo, I couldn’t find any reference to the requirement for bill passage–the Constitution seems to be silent on it. It does stipulate that two thirds is required to overcome a presidential veto, but nothing explicit about what constitutes a bill “passing a house.” I had always thought that simple majority was mandated, but I can’t see it anywhere. Can someone enlighten me?

[Update at 5PM PST]

I finally got an answer to my question from reader John W. Lanius Jr.:

I’m not a constitutional lawyer, just a lawyer who had to take Con-Law in Law School and who has read the document several times. Starting with the text itself, under Article I, Section 5, Clause [2], “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings…”

Seems pretty clear to me. The only real question is whether the cloture rule has to do with the “Proceedings” of the Senate. I think it does, and has the added benefit of being just the type of rule the framers would have loved: i.e., an obstacle to too much governance.

I guess so. That was my interpretation, too, based on my reading this morning, but I thought it was strange. I was aware that they could make up their rules, but I didn’t know that the size of majority required was part of that. I had always thought that the Constitution explicitly stipulated a simple majority for bill passage. Learn something new every day…

Now I wonder if this implies that, if they so chose, they could decide to pass things only by unanimous vote?

New Zealand reader Del Robinson points out this interesting article from USA Today, which analyzes who lived and who died in the World Trade Center, and why.

The interactive sequence is particularly well done. It almost seems (if we believe the article) that for the majority of the workers (not the rescuers mind) their fate was sealed as soon as the planes hit, and whether or not the towers fell would not have made much difference.

A couple of what ifs jumped out:

1. Some people found their way down stairway A in the South Tower. If they had been able to ring cell phones or emergency phones in stairwell to tell others that it was ok, then others might have attempted to go down that stairwell too. As it was only four did.

2. They suggest quite a few people were stuck in elevators and there was too much confusion to rescue them. Is there anything the average person can do to get themselves “unstuck” from inside elevators (and if not why not) I understand that you don’t generally want people getting out of elevators because they will probably Darwin themselves, but it harks back to the “protect people from themselves / professional rescue only” which is all very well, but unhelpful when the professionals don’t appear 🙁

Yes, that’s the general problem we have with the nanny-government approach–when it fails, it often fails spectacularly (as in the hijacked aircraft).

I guess there is obviously a big if about how long the emergency services should have stayed in the buildings, but I don’t know enough to comment, and its very tragic whatever the answer. (i.e., tragic if no one realised and they were sent into a dangerous situation beyond their control, or tragic if they realised it was a possibility and did it anyway)

Well, as in the case of the hijacked aircraft (and as is the case with most problems in general) the key is information and communication. Even if nothing changes in future building design, the experience will hopefully guide our actions in any similar future occurrences. As digital wireless becomes more ubiquitous, the communications problem will become more tractable in the future. Consider: what happened on September 11 could have been done any time since the advent of jet airliners (over forty years ago), but what happened on Flight 93 would not have been possible twenty years ago–it required the advent of cell phones that could be used in the air (though the passengers violated the rules by doing so…)

Which is another interesting question that I haven’t seen discussed. I’ve always been suspicious that the no-cell-phones rule was less about avionics interference than it was about maintaining revenue for the airlines from the Skyphones. While it’s theoretically possible that cell-phone emissions could cause problems, I’m not aware of any actual studies to indicate that it’s the case. I suspect that it’s simply a “better safe than sorry” rule that just happens to financially benefit the airlines. It might be time to take a look at that situation (i.e., actually do some research to determine whether or not it is a real problem), because, as we saw on Flight 93, communications can be vital in staving off a (bigger) disaster.

[8:15 AM Update]

As usual, my readers are smarter (or at least better informed) than me. I guess I could have done a search myself, but an anonymous reader points out that there is some data to indicate that EMI from cell phones (and game boys) can be a problem in aircraft, according to Boeing, and that he or she has personally experienced disruptions to automobile electronics from a two-way radio.

So apparently it is a real issue. However, I suspect that it’s not an insurmountable one–neither the aircraft or the devices were designed to interact with each other–it probably wasn’t part of the spec for either. Of course, even if we did have FCC specs allowing safe usage, it would still be hard to guarantee that everyone’s device would meet them. The effort should probably go toward better EMI shielding on the aircraft avionics side (particularly in the next generation of aircraft), because it’s much easier to control, and the problem’s just going to get worse with wireless internet devices (like Bluetooth).

In addition to the day that we last walked on the Moon, it is another ignominious anniversary–on this day, three years ago, Bill Clinton was impeached. Sadly, the Senate decided to not have a real trial.

That was one of Al Bundy’s favorite sayings. Ann Coulter agrees. She thinks that rather than Iraq or the Sudan, that the land of the Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys should be our next conquest–after all, it’ll be easy–they’ve already surrendered…

And speaking of making profits in space, Jeff also points out this interesting item for sale at Ebay by Bob Truax.

It doesn’t look like it will leave the atmosphere, but it would be a thrill ride.

And speaking of making profits in space, Jeff also points out this interesting item for sale at Ebay by Bob Truax.

It doesn’t look like it will leave the atmosphere, but it would be a thrill ride.

And speaking of making profits in space, Jeff also points out this interesting item for sale at Ebay by Bob Truax.

It doesn’t look like it will leave the atmosphere, but it would be a thrill ride.

Jeff Greason of XCOR Aerospace notes that:

29 years ago today, the Apollo 17 mission left the Moon.

We have not been back since. Barring a miracle, the 30th anniversary of the event will pass in similar condition.

No special call to action — but every year, about this time, I note the anniversary. It would be nice if we could arrange some kind of formal observance for the 30th anniversary, although I don’t know what. Ceremonially bury a Saturn V model? Burn Nixon in effigy? I don’t know…

Well, actually the decision had already been made (by the Johnson Administration) by the time he took office, though of course, he could have reversed it. But there was no public support for further Apollo missions, let alone a lunar base. We had beaten the Russians, which was the only reason that NASA got the money to go to the Moon.

Ultimately, when we return to the Moon, it will be because there’s a profit to be made. Jeff and his team, and others, are following that path, which will, in the long run, be a more effective means of opening up space than waiting in futility for a visionary president, particularly given the fickleness of politics.

Charles Krauthammer has a piece in this week’s Time about why we’re winning the war against Islamicism. It was always pointless to ask “Why do they hate us?” They hate us for reasons that we can do nothing about, and still remain ourselves–they hate us because we are not radical Islamicists. The question we should have been asking instead is “Why don’t they respect us”? Well, now they do, and the “Arab street” has been silenced.

We can now, however, carry on with a confidence we did not have before Afghanistan. Confidence that even religious fanaticism can be defeated, that despite its bravado, it carries no mandate from heaven. The psychological effect of our stunning victory in Afghanistan is already evident. We see the beginning of self-reflection in the Arab press, asking what Arab jihadists are doing exporting their problems to places like Afghanistan and the West; wondering why the Arab world uniquely has not developed a single real democracy; and asking, most fundamentally, how a great religion like Islam could have harbored a malignant strain that would rejoice in the death of 3,000 innocents. It is the kind of questioning that Europeans engaged in after World War II (asking how Fascism and Nazism could have been bred in the bosom of European Christianity) but that was sadly lacking in the Islamic world. Until now.