Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Cal Thomas: Vanishing England
From RealClearPolitics:
If you're an Anglophile like me - I'd recommend the whole article.
It's scarier yet to think about who it is that leaves. It's not the old, the enfeebled, or the slow-witted. It's the self-selected prime movers, determined to maintain and improve their lives and those of their families. Seeing that they can no longer do so in Britain - they go. Who gets left behind? How long until Sharia is the law of London? It's roughly net +1 million "Asian" immigrants a year in a population of 60 million - but the one's leaving are the ones needed to maintain the culture. It's going to be over in less than 20 years, much less.
The figures, making headlines in London newspapers, tell only part of the story. Between June 2005 and June 2006 nearly 200,000 British citizens chose to leave the country for a new life elsewhere. During the same period, at least 574,000 immigrants came to Britain.
If you're an Anglophile like me - I'd recommend the whole article.
It's scarier yet to think about who it is that leaves. It's not the old, the enfeebled, or the slow-witted. It's the self-selected prime movers, determined to maintain and improve their lives and those of their families. Seeing that they can no longer do so in Britain - they go. Who gets left behind? How long until Sharia is the law of London? It's roughly net +1 million "Asian" immigrants a year in a population of 60 million - but the one's leaving are the ones needed to maintain the culture. It's going to be over in less than 20 years, much less.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
The Rocket-Powered Bureaucracy
An American carrier at sea leads a flotilla of auxiliary ships and a submarine. It launches aircraft more-or-less continuously on patrol missions around the carrier. The greatest part of the resources of the carrier and its flotilla are directed to protecting the carrier. Were that all that it did, it would be entirely unnecessary, since the purpose it serves is to defend itself. A nuclear-powered ocean-going variant of the Mark 1 Mod 0 bureaucracy.
But of course the carrier gets something else done. In the process of protecting itself it maintains surveillance and a measure of control over a few hundred square miles, and it launches strike aircraft. Still, one has to ask, does the infrastructure outweigh the punch?
The space shuttle has become a rocket-powered space-going bureaucracy. After launch, it deploys high-resolution cameras and laser range-finders. Not to conquer space, but to measure the damage. The shuttle is launched to begin an extensive and expensive program to make it safe for space travel. We could save a lot of time and energy here.
If NASA were to replace the Teacher in Space insanity with a mailing of DVD's full of Mars rover video's to all the elementary schools in America it would 1) incite more interest in science, 2) risk less lives, and 3) spend less money than it does shooting teachers into space as if the shuttle is a safe vehicle. I have two elementary school kids in my house. They don't know jack about teachers in space. They think the Mars rover is cool.
This is the shuttle Endeavor's belly - with a hole in the thermal protection system pretty much clean-through to the aluminum. This is not a safe vehicle. We've lost 40% of the shuttle fleet at a cost of 14 lives. Now the astronauts are going to break-out the Bondo to patch this up in the hope that we don't get another teacher killed.
Let's all hope they are successful, and then lets get serious. This is a dangerous publicity stunt of no scientific value or national interest. We are not honoring the lost astronauts by continuing to ignore the lessons we should have learned from their sacrifice.
But of course the carrier gets something else done. In the process of protecting itself it maintains surveillance and a measure of control over a few hundred square miles, and it launches strike aircraft. Still, one has to ask, does the infrastructure outweigh the punch?
The space shuttle has become a rocket-powered space-going bureaucracy. After launch, it deploys high-resolution cameras and laser range-finders. Not to conquer space, but to measure the damage. The shuttle is launched to begin an extensive and expensive program to make it safe for space travel. We could save a lot of time and energy here.
If NASA were to replace the Teacher in Space insanity with a mailing of DVD's full of Mars rover video's to all the elementary schools in America it would 1) incite more interest in science, 2) risk less lives, and 3) spend less money than it does shooting teachers into space as if the shuttle is a safe vehicle. I have two elementary school kids in my house. They don't know jack about teachers in space. They think the Mars rover is cool.
This is the shuttle Endeavor's belly - with a hole in the thermal protection system pretty much clean-through to the aluminum. This is not a safe vehicle. We've lost 40% of the shuttle fleet at a cost of 14 lives. Now the astronauts are going to break-out the Bondo to patch this up in the hope that we don't get another teacher killed.Let's all hope they are successful, and then lets get serious. This is a dangerous publicity stunt of no scientific value or national interest. We are not honoring the lost astronauts by continuing to ignore the lessons we should have learned from their sacrifice.
