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Where the Hell is Matt?
Introducing Lisa Nova
LisaNova takes the Bus
Bikini Wax

You’ll need your speakers on.

US prepares military blitz against Iran’s nuclear sites

~The Daily Telegraph

Related:
Where the World Stands

Interesting to see McCain described as the Republican front runner for 2008. McCain/Lieberman? That’d be an interesting ticket. Drive the wings on both sides completely nuts. Strong center and cross party appeal, obviously.

More interesting perhaps, and certainly of more immediate relevance, is the article’s disclosure that submarine ballistic missiles are being refitted with conventional warheads. How odd. Why?
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Never Give In! Never Surrender!

~ The Chicago Boyz

Voltaire

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

Patrick Henry

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

Theodore Roosevelt

Free speech, exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where people are themselves free.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands, they must be made brighter in our own. If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored, we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are threatened by intolerance, we must provide a safe place for their perpetuation.

This is fascinating. It is truly a bizarre universe we inhabit.

Cosmic Flyer
The premier iconographer of the 60′s is still around and still making beautiful art.

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Democrats and Republicans Both Adept at Ignoring Facts, Study Finds

In sum: Iran is mountainous, full of hardened underground sites. Surgical anything is out. Conventional would be bad/really bad. Nuclear would be really really bad. Doing nothing would also be really really bad.

Take your pick……………….

~Colonel Jerry USMC

The Mission:

SiteAdvisor helps protect you from all kinds of Web-based security threats including spyware, adware, spam, viruses, browser-based attacks, phishing, online fraud and identity theft.

Our automated testers continually patrol the Web to browse sites, download files, and sign-up for things with e-mail addresses. As you search, browse, download or register online, SiteAdvisor’s safety ratings help you stay safe and in control.

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Heard about the coming age of nanobots, have you? You’ll believe it when you see it, right? Me too. However, looks the building blocks for those micromachines are up and running. Ever thought you’d see a chip-scale motor? A gear train smaller than a pinhead?

This alignment clip is used in conjunction with a transmission. This complex device is entirely batch-fabricated, with no assembly required. Amazing!
(Sandia National Laboratories)

Here’s a birds-eye overview of a chip-scale, six gear train in operation. The black, pointed objects are tiny probes applying power to the “circuit” that runs the train. The tiny semi-circle in the center is the actual gear train. The object on the right is the actuator mechanism, where electrical forces are converted to mechanical movement, which then applies the mechanical power to the gears. This is a silicon machine.

And here’s a closeup of that tiny gear train running.

Here’s a comb drive linear actuator. The basic princle is that of opposite charges attracting and like charges repelling. The actuator in the center, attached to the bottom comb, is negatively charged. When the top comb is positively charged, the bottom comb is attracted, moving towards it. When the charge is reversed, the bottom comb is pushed away. Simple, no? You can see the charge reversing by the top comb alternately lighting up and going dark.

Perhaps what’s most impressive about these machines is their manufacturability. They are made from the same materials (silicon wafers and aluminum) and the same photo-lithography techniques as the chips in your computer. Most people don’t realize (why would they?) that those microchips are not single layer devices, but complex, 3-D, multilayer stacks of silicon, conductors, and dielectrics. Imagine building complex, reliable, low power, low cost machines using the same technologies. Impressive.

There are at least three facilities pursuing MEMS (micro electromechanical machine systems) that I’m aware of: Sandia National Lab, The Applied Physics Lab and UC Berkely. Darpa is a primary funding agency.

Image Gallery
Movie Gallery

Amidst all the controversy, one needs to ask. Growing up in the Baltimore-Washington metro area, I spent most of my life with thousands of Russian ICBMs pointed at my head. I’m still here. So are you. Anyone who grew up in Moscow had the same, but polar opposite, experience. Because a nation is armed with nukes does not, by definition, mean those weapons will be used, whatever their dislike or distrust of the those people at whom the weapons are targeted. Which leads me to the larger question at hand, does the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran in and of itself justify a war, even a limited war, for their removal?

Let’s look at some possible courses of action.
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Der Westen der USA…

Wonderful photography of the American Southwest, courtesy of Steffen Synnatschke.

Startseite = Home Page.
Fotoalbem = Photo album.
G�stebuch = Guest Book. Leave a comment.
Touren = Maps of his photo excursions.
Reiseberichte = Photos by locale.

Following up on Shannon’s post below, a long overdue assessment on the dangers of DHMO contamination in our environment.

Pretty scary. One point they didn’t mention; despite it’s obviously dangerous nature and chemical persistence, the Clean Water Act makes absolutely NO reference to DHMO contamination in our rivers, lakes and reservoirs! Studies have shown you and your children are drinking water contaminated with DHMO. Be a proactive citizen. Act now. Ban DHMO. Your children will thank you.

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
-P.J. O�Rourke

When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, That I finally and inevitably settle southwest, toward some particular meadow or deserted pasture or hill in that direction.

The future lies that way for me and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. The outline which would bound my walks would be, not a circle, but a parabola, or rather like one of those cometary orbits which have been thought to be non-returning curves, in this case opening westward, in which my house occupies the place of the sun. I turn round and round irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I decide, for the thousandth time, that will walk into the west or southwest. Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.

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Cargo Launch Vehicle with Lunar Lander

Before the end of the next decade, NASA astronauts will again explore the surface of the moon. And this time, we’re going to stay, building outposts and paving the way for eventual journeys to Mars and beyond.

So opens the article How We’ll Get Back to the Moon on NASA’s website in their Vision for Space Exploration. Brave words. While I’ve no doubt they’re capable of doing it, I do have serious doubts whether we’ll see this program fully funded.

Why, you may ask, are we even going back to the Moon? Didn’t we already do that in 1969? Is there anything really left there to explore? Here’s NASA’s chief historian, Steven J. Dick, answer to Why We Explore:

In October 1995 – ten years ago this month – two Swiss astronomers announced the discovery of the first planet around a Sun-like star outside of our solar system. A few weeks later the American team of Geoff Marcy and Paul Butler confirmed the discovery, and a few months after that they added two more “extrasolar planets.” These landmark events were only the beginning of a deluge of new planets. Some 155 are now known in addition to the 9 in our own solar system. Hardly a week goes by without the discovery of more. In a way, each discoverer is a new Columbus, unveiling a new planet rather than a new continent. Although these planets are gas giants, Earth-sized planets are not far behind. A thousand years from now our descendants may explore them in person.

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Myths, Lies and Straight Talk ~Courtesy of John Stossel. Thanks John.

The news business is first and foremost a business. The product they sell is fear and scandal. Whether you accept and internalize the distorted image of reality they present is purely up to you.

The Spectacular New U.S. Grant Fifty Dollar Note

Take an Interactive Tour of the new $10, $20 and $50 bills courtesy of the U.S Bureau of Engraving and Printing (requires Macromedia Flashplayer).

Tour Hints:
Select the “Eyeball” icon for an automatic virtual tour.
Select the “Lightbulb” icon to see the bill backlight and view the watermarks.
Select the “Magnifier” icon to examine the bill up close.
Select the “Arrow” icon to flip the bill over.

I think this new U.S Grant / U.S Flag fifty is a phenomenal piece of currency art and strongly suspect this bill will become a classic, much collected in years to come. And since these bills are changing in design every few years now in an effort (in vain) to keep ahead of counterfeiters, now is the time to grab a few of these bills in mint, uncirculated condition and pass them along to your heirs. Or to me. Whichever.

While I can never hope to compete with the likes of Lex – who reads even while cooking – or Ginny, who can glean the subtlest moral from any tale and nimbly connect it to her own life’s experience; I did, for me, a lot of reading last year. Of all that I read two books stand out like flares amongst candles and I recommend them to you heartily.

No. 1: The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes.

I cannot, literally, praise this book highly enough. Published in 1986, it has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and if you read it, you’ll understand why.

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C’MON! 2005 WASN’T SO BAD AFTER ALL ~Amir Taheri

In September of last year, I posted on the efforts of Germany, Japan and Brazil to gain a seat on the UNSC. I wasn’t impressed. Neither, apparently, is David Frum. In his piece, The End of the Transatlantic Affair, he writes:

Over lunch at a Washington think-tank some time ago, a high-ranking German official told the room about his country’s determination to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council. The reaction? From the Americans present, indifference verging on boredom. For the Europeans, though, it was as if the official had dropped a concrete block on their toes.

It was a fascinating moment of culture clash that demonstrates some ominous truths about American-European relations. The first truth is the traditionalism of American policy elites. Even when the evidence is thrust into American faces, it is hard for them to accept that things have changed in the old alliance. From 1947 until 1991, US-European relations were guided by the rule that America would provide the protection and Europe the deference.

With the collapse of Soviet military power, the deal became obsolete. Yet this large geopolitical change has made little impression on American policy elites. Indeed, John Kerry won the backing of almost all of this elite by running a presidential campaign that promised that the alliance could be restored with just a few sweet words.

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