Looks like Hollywood has gotten over its phobia about Muslim fanatics as bad people. I wonder if James Zogby has seen this?

The link, by the way, contains a few spoliers about next season's 24, one of my favorite TV shows.

President Bush's Middle East speach was not as horrible as I had feared. Indeed it seemed to be a dose of tough love for the Palestinians, giving them their marching orders which they must obey if they are to get their state. But can the Palestinians ween themselves from what Professor Glenn Reynolds has aptly called the "psychotic cult of death?" I tend to doubt it.

Is there no end to the damage caused to the environment by environmentalists? The latest example are the wild fires in Colorado and now Arizona caused primarily by the opposition by environmentalists to thinning forests.

My sources tell me that Men in Black 2 will have trailers for both Terminator 3 and The Two Towers.

Rand Simberg informs me the following of Mr. Carmack:

Is a writer of videogames, including Doom.

He's also the founder and president of Armadillo Aerospace, which he's
funding with his gaming fortune. He plans to have a passenger-carrying
suborbital vehicle in a couple years.

All I can say is, wow.

Oh, and good luck John on your space enterprise.

A reader named John Carmack was kind enough to drop me the following note about Chidren of Apollo:

I just wanted to say I enjoyed the book. It pushed a couple other books I had already started down my reading stack for a while, so it was pretty compelling. I'll give Nocturne a try now.

Wow, maybe Children of Apollo really is a pretty good story if I'm actually getting fan mail.

Nocturne, by the way, is a thriller I wrote with the lovely and talented Ms. Chantal Whittington a few years ago. It can best be described as Nick and Nora Charles meet the Manchurian Candidate in Venice toward the end of the Cold War. I'm probably biased, but I think its a pretty good read as well.

The High Frontier of space still beckons, despite the fallacious arguements of some detractors.

Looks like NASA is actually serious about cutting space station costs. This move is going to make some people, who believe that the purpose of a space project is to employ the most people possible, angry.

King Henry VIII of England may have delayed the Industrial Revolution by two hundred years when he seized the monasteries. It seems that some monks in Yorkshire had a working blast furnace.

Now PBS had banned a song by Charlie Daniels paying tribute to the victims of 9/11 from a 4th of July special.

Is there no end to the capacity of Chris Mathews to embaress himself over his squishiness on the subject of Iraq? Apparently not, for on Thursday's Hardball he offered the following scenario to Peter Arnett. A group of Iraqi women, wearing tight clothes, shorts, and makeup in the Western style confront a group of American occupation troops in Bahgdad in the near future and explain to these American boys how much they hate them for overthrowing Saddem. Even Peter Arnett, who in his time has been a shill for both the Viet Cong and Saddem, found this a little too much. He suggested that the American boys and Iraqi girls would quickly pair off and go off somewhere to do what boys and girls do naturally.

Children of Apollo is now available at Books A Million and Barnes and Noble at thirty percent off the cover price.

A fascinating article about designing lunar bases.

Here's a State Department circular which warns American women of the pitfalls of marrying Saudi men. The State Department also washes it's hands of the plight of American children kept hostage in the Kingdom by their Saudi fathers with a breath taking directness worthy of Pontius Pilate.

Naturally the State Department took the warning down when a Muslim pressure group complained. They are, to put it politely, gutless cowards and appeasers.

Looks like back to back suicide/murder bombings has caused the President to rethink his proposal for a "provisional state" for the Palestinians.

According to the Washington Times, Peter Jennings-a native of Canada-has banned American country singer Toby Keith from the opening slot on ABC's 4th of July Celebration for the crime of politically incorrect singing:

"Country star Toby Keith has never toed the politically correct line, but now it's cost him the opening slot on ABC's all-star Fourth of July celebration," reports Liza Zhito of the Texas Review Society.
"Keith was invited to perform his new song, 'Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)' at the upcoming telecast. But ABC's Peter Jennings pulled the plug, citing the song's lyrics, which he felt 'did not belong on his network,' Mr. Keith said."
Mr. Keith's song is an "angry tongue-lashing" of those behind the September 11 attacks, Miss Zhito says. The lyrics include a graphic offer to inflict painful damage on supporters of terrorism with a "boot that says 'Made in the USA.'"
As for ABC's Mr. Jennings, a native of Toronto, Mr. Keith is not impressed: "I don't care. He's Canadian, ain't he? It's our Fourth of July, not his."

Ted Turner called the Israelis terrorists just a few hours before a Palestinian terrorist blew himself and twenty or so Israelis up.

And meanwhile the Bush Administration seems hell bent on calling for a "provisional" Palestinian State, though perhaps with enough strings attached (i.e. the Palestinians must stop murdering people) that the proposal will never fly.

Children of Apollo is now listed on the Uchronia Alternate History List.

Robert Novak reports that Sharon had some straight talk for some United States Senators. Biden, Kerry, Chafee and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska seemed to still be in denial, though.

So interestingly enough seems to be Arabphile Robert Novak.

His own people have figured out that Governor Gray Davis is the most hated man in California. Not a nice thing to be when one is running for reelection.