Blogito

Astronomers now know the universe has not lasted forever. It was born in the Big Bang, which somehow set the arrow of time, 14 billion years ago. The linchpin of the Big Bang is thought to be an explosive moment known as inflation, during which space became suffused with energy that had an antigravitational effect and ballooned violently outward, ironing the kinks and irregularities out of what is now the observable universe and endowing primordial chaos with order.

This is what astronomers now know and thus constitutes science. If astronomers did not KNOW, this, however, it would be religion. It's a fun article if you want to scramble your brain a little bit, but I have to warn you if you do that the time arrow points in only one direction and you won't be able to unscramble it again. (This will make more sense after you read the item. Or it won't.) I'm glad that we have people thinking about things like this, because that obviates any necessity for my having to do so any longer.

It is unclear why this should be surprising, considering the other front-page item:

One of these days somebody is going to figure out that this isn't simply a war against the United States, as well as the fact that Iraq and Afghanistan are not THE war.

Mr. Qadir was in the United States to discuss the two nations’ long-term military relationship, starting with how to build the new Iraqi armed forces from the ground up over the next decade and beyond, with American assistance.

The United States and Iraq announced in November that they would negotiate formal agreements on that relationship, including the legal status of American military forces remaining in Iraq and an array of measures for cooperation in the diplomatic and economic arenas.

Negotiations have yet to begin in earnest, but both countries have begun sketching their goals, and Mr. Qadir’s visit certainly is part of measures by the Iraqi government to lay the foundation for those talks, which are to be completed by July.

Liberals don't see any improvement in this versus the way things were with Saddam in control.

Mr. Bush met with King Abdullah on Monday to discuss a range of issues, focused mostly on Iraq, Iran and the prospect of a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians.

At a second meeting Tuesday evening at the king’s ranch outside of Riyadh, he said he would talk “about the fact that oil prices are very high, which is tough on our economy, and that I would hope, as OPEC considers different production levels, that they understand that if their — one of their biggest consumers’ economy suffers, it will mean less purchases, less oil and gas sold.”

The response has been muted, according to the presidential counselor, Ed Gillespie. “They talked about the nature of the market and the vast demand that’s on the world market today for oil,” he said on Monday night, referring to the leaders Mr. Bush met. “That was a point that was obviously made in the course of these conversations by our friends, and that’s a legitimate and accurate point.”

Mr. Bush last met King Abdullah in Crawford, Tex., in April 2005, before he assumed the Saudi throne. At the time, concern about rising oil prices prompted the Bush administration to prod Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer, to raise production to ease prices. At the time, oil was selling for $54 a barrel. It is now hovering at $94 a barrel.

It would sure be nice if everything was Bush's fault, but I'm afraid world demand is going to be the deciding factor. India has just started selling a $2500 automobile so that billions of Indians can own a car. The Chinese say get in line. Too bad Bush let them have all that economic growth in their countries, or all those people.

I hate to find myself defending the Clintons, but I have to admit that I think they're right on this one:

Speaking to black and Hispanic New Yorkers, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton tried on Monday to quell a controversy over race in the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination by praising the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and describing him as a trailblazer for both herself and her rival, Senator Barack Obama.

Last week, Mrs. Clinton said President Lyndon B. Johnson had been the shepherd of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, enacting a priority of Dr. King — a comment that Obama supporters and some other people viewed as minimizing Dr. King’s work.

Mrs. Clinton quickly said she had meant no slight, and on Monday she issued a statement proposing a truce. At about the same time, though, a prominent supporter of hers, Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, said in an interview that Mr. Obama was “absolutely stupid” for calling Mrs. Clinton’s original remark ill-advised.

“How race got into this thing is because Obama said ‘race,’ ” Mr. Rangel said on the NY1 cable channel. “I would challenge anybody to belittle the contribution that Dr. King has made to the world, to our country, to civil rights, and the Voting Rights Act. But for him to suggest that Dr. King could have signed that act is absolutely stupid.”

Hillary was trying to promote the importance of her presidency, not put anybody down. The problem is, it seems to me, that there are so many super-sensitive people more than willing to find anything and everything hurtful that they are eager to view things in that context. And the press loves to egg them on.

Just like Bill Clinton's "fairy-tale" remark, which was perfectly valid, taken in context. But the press prefers to snip it out by itself. I'm surprised the gay groups aren't protesting that their feelings were hurt.

Joe Klein seems to be faulting Obama:

"A good part of Obama's appeal--in fact, as Shelby Steele has argued--a good part of the subconscious exhilaration of white voters has been the post-racial nature of Obama's campaign. The color of his skin became an afterthought in Iowa.

"This phenomenon is extremely threatening to two groups of people: Republicans and the old civil-rights establishment. Racism was, after all, the initial propellant for the Republican ascendancy that began with Nixon's southern strategy. As for the Al Sharptons of the world: If race becomes an afterthought in American politics, they become powerless. That's why some of them raised the loathsome question of whether Obama is 'black enough.' Now, however, they are rallying--a bit too enthusiastically--to Obama's cause after several thoughtless remarks from the Clintons in the waning hours of the New Hampshire primary.

"Two thoughts: First, any attempt to paint the Clintons as racists is idiotic. Bill Clinton calling the Obama campaign a 'fairy tale' had nothing to do with race and everything to do with (a) Obama's lack of experience and (b) Obama's alleged wobbling on the war in Iraq, which was the topic being discussed at the time. It was a stupid attack . . .

"Second, it is really foolish for the Obama campaign to allow this controversy to continue."

It really isn't about Obama's race or even Obama himself. It's all about being able to label somebody as a "racist" whether they actually are, or not. In fact, it's most useful when they are not.

Would Obama even be in the race if he weren't black? Of course he would...he's better qualified than John Edwards, currently running third, and definitely more sensible than guys like Kucinich, et al.

Anyhow, I have to chuckle at all of the people who say that race and gender don't matter, yet still they write endlessly about the "black vote" and the "women's vote". Such categories wouldn't even exist if race and gender weren't distinguishable.

Riehl World View:

"It's desperation time for Hillary. They found a black surrogate to play the drug card and hopefully prevent more criticism for its being a racial attack. Still, I don't think it'll play, except perhaps on BET. And, honestly, how many BET fans are going to bail on Obama because he may have done a little coke back in the day?"

From what I hear about the amount of money in the drug trade, gazillions of dollars, there have to be a lot more people doing coke than just the poor black folk in the 'hood. Unless black people are a hell of a lot richer than we're told, there have to be lots and lots of white folks doing a little coke, too.

It was never realistic to think that race -- or gender, for that matter -- would stay out of a contest starring the first woman and the first African American with realistic hopes of becoming president. From the Democrats' perspective, it's probably better to hash all this out now rather than wait until the general election campaign, when the Republican Swift-boat machine would set the parameters and tone for the discussion.

A million dollars is the reward for finding an untruth in anything the Swift-boat machine said.

Rubinomics is the concept of "deficit reduction" as growth policy: Lower the federal budget deficit and, as dawn follows night, interest rates will fall and prosperity will break upon the land. Named for former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and much celebrated in the 1990s, the concept was embraced as gospel by nearly all Democrats as recently as a few weeks ago. But last week it officially expired, as those same Democrats reconverted to Keynesian deficit spending in the name of "economic stimulus."

Mr. Rubin's successor at Treasury, Larry Summers, started the bidding with a $65 billion tax rebate and spending plan. Hillary Clinton saw that and raised, and now wants $40 billion in tax rebates and $70 billion in new spending for unemployment insurance, housing assistance, home heating subsidies and green technologies. Barack Obama joined the fray Sunday, proposing a $75 billion "stimulus" that would have the government send millions of Americans a check for $250, plus another $250 in bonus Social Security payments.

But wait, what about those evil Bush deficits? Only weeks ago, Democrats claimed those were the road to perdition, even if the deficit had shrunk to 1.2% of GDP last year thanks to booming revenue growth. Remember the imperative of "pay as you go" budgeting? Ah, that was all before Iraq faded as a political winner and the economy became their favorite issue for regaining the White House. Now, all of a sudden, their motto is tax cut and spend.

"Stimulus shouldn't be paid for," declared Mrs. Clinton on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "The stimulus, by the very nature of the economic problems we're facing, is going to require an injection of federal funding." And no less than the oracle himself, Mr. Rubin, appeared at Brookings last week to declare that a deficit-padding stimulus "can give the economy a timely boost in the face of great uncertainty and concern with the short-term economic outlook."

Two papers in one!

• "Mr. Bush's troop buildup was sold as a way to buy Iraqi politicians breathing room to finally address the tensions driving sectarian violence, including an equitable division of oil wealth and strategies to bring more Baathists and Sunnis into the Shiite-led government. Those goals have not been met, and the administration has virtually abandoned them."--editorial, New York Times, Jan. 13

• "The Iraqi Parliament passed a bill on Saturday that would allow some former officials from Saddam Hussein's party to fill government positions but would impose a strict ban on others. The legislation is the first of the major so-called political benchmark measures to pass after months of American pressure for progress."--news story, New York Times, Jan. 13

Editors don't read the news section, they're busy creating the news themselves. The New York Times editors are so far in denial of reality that I can hardly wait to see what they have to say. But do you think the January 13th editor was embarrassed when he found that news story directly contradicting his editorial? Don't be silly.

He's already assigned McCain a top spot over the other Republican candidates! With Michigan and South Carolina yet to come! Does he know something we don't know?

We refuse to drill for the offshore and Alaskan oil and natural gas we know is out there and accessible--some 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (a 19-year supply) and more than 100 billion barrels of oil (which would replace our importation of foreign oil for 25 years). We haven't built a new oil refinery in America for more than 30 years, and have not permitted the construction of a new nuclear power plant since the 1970s. Even with the current zeal over man-made global warming, additional nuclear power plants--which emit no greenhouse gases--have not been permitted.

Does it hurt your feelings to know that France has been operating all of those nuclear power plants safely for years and years and gets 70% of its electricity from nuclear power? Sacre bleu!

Here's a comment from out of nowhere special. You want to know what inflation has been like? I'm currently re-reading the entire Spenser series of books by Robert B. Parker, and right now I'm working on #7 (of 35). It was written in 1980, probably, copyright in 1981. Call it 27 years. He and his girlfriend and another person are dining at the Four Seasons in NYC. The only item mentioned was that the third person had pheasant and they all had wine. The bill came to $182.37. Spenser commented: "I have bought cars for less."

What would that meal cost for the three of them in the Four Seasons today? Depends a lot on the wine, of course.

It's really nice to read a series of books about a continuing character and see how he (together with the author) develops over the years. I'm learning a lot now that I'm paying more attention to style. My Dick Francis collection is next, although he uses a number of different characters in his, at least for the most part.

That's certainly my position...and it holds true for the 'scientific' Big Bang, too, about which astronomers, we are assured, now 'know'. Who is to say those weren't both the techniques selected by the intelligent designer?

One of the things that I always liked, as a young man, was my grandmother's philosophy. She was a very religious lady, and VERY is understating it, but she was accepting of the fact that there were things we not only did not know but weren't even expected to know. When we get to heaven, she used to tell me, everything we want to know about will be explained to us. I've always found that idea to be comforting, because there are certainly a whole host of things I'd like to know. Over my lifetime, thus far, I've discovered a lot more questions than I have answers.

Christopher Hitchens makes a very powerful indictment against Hillary Clinton. I cannot really excerpt it appropriately so I won't try. Go read it all here.

THE New York Times is trashing our troops again. With no new "atrocities" to report from Iraq for many a month, the limping Gray Lady turned to the home front. Front and center, above the fold, on the front page of Sunday's Times, the week's feature story sought to convince Americans that combat experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan are turning troops into murderers when they come home.

Heart-wringing tales of madness and murder not only made the front page, but filled two entire centerfold pages and spilled onto a fourth.

The Times did get one basic fact right: Returning vets committed or are charged with 121 murders in the United States since our current wars began. ...

A very conservative estimate of how many different service members have passed through Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait since 2003 is 350,000 (and no, that's not double-counting those with repeated tours of duty).

Now consider the Justice Department's numbers for murders committed by all Americans aged 18 to 34 - the key group for our men and women in uniform. To match the homicide rate of their peers, our troops would've had to come home and commit about 150 murders a year, for a total of 700 to 750 murders between 2003 and the end of 2007.

In other words, the Times unwittingly makes the case that military service reduces the likelihood of a young man or woman committing a murder by 80 percent.

Ralph goes on from there to crunch some numbers and show readers how to do it for themselves, discovering these:

In 2005 alone, 8,718 young Americans from the same age group were murdered in this country. That's well over twice as many as the number of troops killed in all our foreign missions since 2001. Maybe military service not only prevents you from committing crimes, but also keeps you alive?

Want more numbers? In the District of Columbia, our nation's capital, the murder rate for the 18-34 group was about 14 times higher than the rate of murders allegedly committed by returning vets.

Those on the left will never accept that the finest young Americans are those who risk their lives defending freedom. Sen. John Kerry summed up the views of the left perfectly when he disparaged our troops as too stupid to do anything but sling hamburgers.

And The New York Times will never forgive our men and women in uniform for their infuriating successes in Iraq.

They simply cannot adjust to the fact that there are no more draftees serving under duress. Even worse, some who might like to join cannot qualify and are rejected.

This does have its bad points, alas. Military service used to be the only way out of a hopeless situation for some disadvantaged kids. They joined--or even were drafted--and learned discipline, responsibility, even pride as a result. They had a job and a paycheck for maybe the first time. It's kind of too bad that way no longer exists.

And what do you know? NRO points out that apparently George Will asked MY question about global warming:

There has been this common misperception that global warming is a bad thing. My point is that at least so far, between twelve and twenty thousand years of it have made life habitable in North America and Europe. Give me a break. Global cooling, which may indeed be on its way, will be much, MUCH worse when crop levels start to decline in a hungry world.

Global warming is bad for us down here in Costa Rica because you guys can grow your own bananas and don't need to import ours. Global cooling will mean you have to buy ours, again.