Michael Hiteshew

Guns, Germs And Steel: A Book Review

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It’s usually hard to go wrong reading a Pulitzer Prize winner and this book is no exception. Some books concentrate on a particular point in history, a particular event, or even – sometimes fascinatingly – the life of a single person. This book is on the opposite side of that spectrum. The author, Jared Diamond, attempts no less than describing the story of human social and technological development since the end of the last Ice Age, a span of about 13,000 years, in one 500 page volume.

But this is not a “normal” history book. You will not read about the Assyrians or the Hapsburgs. That is a scale so fine as to pass easily through this book’s filter. This book is better described as historical science. Diamond tackles the big, macro-scale questions of “How?” and “Why?” did the human race get to where we are today.

In the preface to this book, Diamond describes the book’s scope:

We all know that history has proceeded very differently for peoples from different parts of the globe. In the 13,000 years since the end of last Ice Age, some parts of the world developed literate industrial societies with metal tools, other parts developed only non-literate farming societies, and still others retained societies of hunter-gatherers with stone tools. Those historical inequalities have cast long shadows on the modern world, because the literate societies with metal tools have conquered or exterminated the other societies.

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Quote Of The Day

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As president, Clinton sold burial plots in Arlington Cemetery and liberals shrugged it off. What really gets their goat is the autopen. Evidently, the important thing was that every one of those pardons Clinton sold for cash on his last day in office was signed by Bill Clinton personally.

~Ann Coulter commenting on the Rumsfeld autosignature tempest. (Via Recovering Liberal)

This is a good example of a basic tactic in politics: when you’re in the opposition, the strategy is always “Attack!” It doesn’t matter what issue you’re attacking on because in the end, although most will fail to get real traction, some attacks will stick and do damage. It’s death by a thousand cuts. Attrition warfare.

The papers know this is a silly, non-issue. It doesn’t matter, nor does it stop them. It’s an attack, that’s the point. It’s one more pinprick that draws blood. Heap on the occassional body blow and your opponent, weakened finally to the point of exhaustion, stumbles and (hopefully) falls. We win.

Of course, had Donald Rumsfeld actually taken hours out his schedule each week to write and personally sign each letter of condolence, that would be a microscandal and point of attack as well. Imagine the story line, ‘Rumsfeld whiles away hours personally signing fallen soldiers’ death notices while commanders await important decisions.’ Or how about ‘Bush has SecDef do his dirty work.’ The possibilities are endless. Mind numbing too. The media elites wonder why so many Americans tune out 90% of what they say.

For the record, the sword cuts the other way as well. For all the things you could legitimately criticize Bill Clinton over, Monica-gate was an absurdity. I’m not endorsing adultery – far from it, I’m against it – but to tie up the US government in a months-long impeachment, to waste that much time and money over a matter that rightly belongs between Bill and Hillary and Monica, was ridiculus in the extreme. There’s been marital infidelity among presidents from Jefferson to JFK. Monica-gate was scandal mongering at its absolute worst. It was a national circus. Nothing like a touch of licentiousness to sell papers though. Or dead soldiers. One’s as good as the other. And either can advance your agenda. That’s all that matters.

Rendezvous with Titan

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Huygens Probe Descends on Titan

Cassini, the NASA/JPL spacecraft currently in orbit around magnificent Saturn, is about to release a probe. On December the 24th, the European Space Agency (ESA) designed and built Huygens Probe will be released on a glide path calculated to insert it on a landing trajectory on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. The landing is scheduled for January 14th, 2005.

The Huygens Probe is named after the multi-talented Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens, who discovered Titan and Saturn’s rings in the 17th century.

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