It was an awe inspiring spectacle permerated with maudlin self absorption and naked partisanship. To hear Torricelli cry his crocedile tears and pat himself on the back, one would have never thought that he had been driven from politicals in disgrace and ignominy. At one point he actually complained that he lacked Bill Clinton's "strength" (that is to say, sociopathology) for riding out the scandal he had brought upon himself.

Now the New Jersey Democrat machine has to find a way to circumnavigate the law and pick a replacement on the ballot. If I understand the legal talking heads, stickly speaking it is too late for them to legally do so, meaning that the Torch, in flaming out, has forfetted the race. But, being Democrats, I suspect that boys in Trenton are not going to let a silly thing like the law stand in their way in their quest to keep the Democrats' clammy hands in control of the Senate. The resulting mess, I predict, will make Florida pale in comparison.

Jihad Johney, while fighting for a regime which kills gay people as a matter of "Islamic law", was apparently engaging in gay sex with some of his jihadi bretheran. This reminds me of an old Pashtu song which dates back a century or so:

There's a boy across the river
With a bottom like a peach.
But alas I cannot swim.

Torricelli is in the process of trying to slide out of the Senate race and perhaps the Senate in such a way as it will look good and allow the Democrats to keep their clammy grasp on power. The Republicans may sue to keep him from doing so, just a month before the election, since New Jersey law says one can't do this unless one dies. Oh, what fun.

Close to forty five years since Sputnik, it is time again to summon the future.

President Al Gore addresses the nation in the wake of 9/11. Embrace the horror.

Three liberal Democrat Congressmen, David Bonior of Michigan, Jim McDermott of Washington State, and Mike Thompson of California, announced in Baghdad that Saddam Hussein will allowed unfettered access for arms inspectors. How do they know such a thing? Why Tareq Aziz told them so.

They also suggested that President Bush is lying to the world to justify an invasion of Iraq.

In my humble opinion, these people give appeasement a bad name. They have performed the rough equivilent of going to Berlin three months before D-Day and embracing Adolf Hitler and calling FDR and Eisenhower liars for wanting to invade Europe. Bonior will be out of Congress soon, but the constituents of the other two really need to vote them out as well. And every Democrat office holder should denounce them, or else it should be assumed that they share their views.

The Turks caught some folks smuggling 33 pounds of weapons grade uranium just 155 miles from the Iraqi border. But Gore, Daschle, and Teddy Kennedy insist that Hussein isn't getting the Bomb anytime soon and that we shouldn't attack him.

Armadillo Aerospace is making good progress toward building a piloted, suborbital vehicle.

The Orlando Sentinal casts the light of day on pork barrel spending inside NASA. These earmarks, many of which have little if anything to do with space, are gobbling up resources NASA needs to maintain its programs and fix decaying infrastructure. The problem certainly has to be addressed if we propose to embark on a bold, new program of exploration beyond Low Earth Orbit.

I just finished Red Rabbit, Tom Clancy's latest novel. It's a departure for Clancy in several ways. Instead of writing a near term technothriller, Clancy goes back to the history of the Cold War. It's the early 1980s and then KGB Chief Yuri Andropov is very annoyed at Pope John Paul II. Andropov, typically for a Soviet boss, decides that the Pope has lived too long. And so, in the same vein as Day of the Jackal and my own cold war thriller, Nocturne (in which we have a plot not just against one world leader, but seven including President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher), Clancy uses real world events to craft a story of intrigue and suspense which ends with a confrontation between KGB paid assasins and a small team of Western operatives (including a young analyst named Jack Ryan) in St. Peter's Square. I highly recommend the book.

Bill Buckley reminds us of the banal dysfunction of European socialism.

Edward Crane believes privitizing social security should be a civil rights issue for American blacks. Indeed.

One question I would like to have answered concerning the Department of Homeland Defense debate. If Leiberman's union protection rules get passed, how hard will it be to fire or even discipline a federalized airport inspector if he/she abuses a passenger. There have been too many cases of that sort of thing happening already for the question to remain unanswered.

Madeleine Albright thinks that the Bush Administration is displaying "irrational exuberence" for war with Iraq. This is the same woman who, when then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell cautioned about military adventures in the Balkans, blew up and demanded to know why we even had an army if it wasn't going to get used from time to time.

An old Jerry Pournelle novel, Birth of Fire, in which a young man gets shipped off to a penal colony on Mars, has been optioned for film. That's fine, but I'm still waiting for the movie version of Footfall.

One thing which might explain Daschle, et al going nuts is that they fear losing the Senate.

We saw, as promised, Barbershop tonight, thus defying Al Sharpton's boycott of the film. The humor was uproariously funny, especially the politically incorrect parts which have Jackson, Sharpton, et al in a tizzy. And the story actually imparted some universal values.

Eric Bana, who will be the big screen Increadible Hulk, will also be Prince Hector in Wolfgang Peterson's epic about the seige of Troy. Brad Pitt has already been signed as Achilles.

Steve Speilberg and Tom Cruise support war with Iraq.

Dick Morris says that the liberal Democrats have thrown themselves into the Iraq abyss and-being liberal Democrats-can't get out.

Rand Simberg suggests that, unlike in 1962, space ought to be easy, considering how much technology we have and how much we've learned in the past forty years. He's right, of course, though I think he focuses exclusively on the commercial aspects of what a space effort should be, and less on ensuring that the United States remains a great power by expanding it's influence beyond Low Earth Orbit.

I'm beginning to notice that several Democrats, following Daschle's lead, have taken up a time honored arguement when trying to defend a pacifist position on questions of war and peace. The argument goes like this: HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY PATRIOTISM?!

It's less of an arguement, in a way, than a means to shut people up who think that appeasing tyrants is a bad thing. In this case it is being used to counter the President's reasonable position that certain Democrats are kowtowing to big labor special interests at the expense of the security of the American people. I don't think it's going to work. In fact it has all the stench of an act of desperation, as Denocrats see their hold of the Senate slipping away.

Emerging from the eight year Clinton malaise, NASA is daring to consider plans for actual space exploration. This sort of thing is a much better task than going around in circles. But where to first? The Moon or Mars? Like Dr. Spudis, I favor the Moon. Especially if it can be done, as he suggests, in five years.

Oh goodness, gracious, Daschle just did it again! I think it is time for him to resign as Senate Majority Leader, if not from the Senate altogether.

Ms. Whittington had an excellent suggestion, which I'll pass along. People should send Mr. Daschle and Mr. Gore a single, white chicken feather, just like the charecter in The Four Feathers who shirked his duty. I doubt, though, they either of them will disguise themselves as Arabs and go to the Middle East to redeem their lost honor in order to make us take the feathers back.

The prospect of losing power when the Republicans retake the Senate this November has apparently caused Tom Daschle to lose his reason. In most places, after a performence like this, men in white coats come to take the person responsible away. Daschle must content himself with having his embaressing meltdown replayed endlessly on the news.

The website Democrats.Com which recently claimed that the Bush Administration was trying to take over the Moon, is now claiming that the news networks are biased for not running Al Gore's entire speech attacking the President's Iraq policy. Let it never be said that we would do such a thing. Judge for yourself whether the speach helps or hurts Mr. Gore in his cause.

Most Democrats are running for the tall grass to avoid being associated with Al Gore's vitriolic attack on the President's desire to liberate Iraq.

Certain corporate CEOs who feel they are being tarred unfairly for the crimes of a few are turning to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged for inspiration.

Once again Rand Simberg neatly exposes the arguements of the antiwar left by translating them to 1941.

Jesse Jackson is miffed at some politically incorrect jokes in the hit film Barbershop. He demands that they be expunged from the film at once. Another example, in my humble opinion, of jackbooted liberalism.

Added note: After a brief discussion, Ms. Whittington and I have decided to see Barbershop this Friday. It has been our policy to support most art which the politically correct wish to squelch. Occasionally this has gotten me into trouble, such as the time I bought a copy of Satanic Verses because Khomeini wanted to kill it's author for impiety. After a few pages, I did not cast the book aside, but rather hurtled it with great force, so consumed I was by the wish to kill the author myself-for bad writing.

In the coming war against Saddam Hussein, Al Gore sounds retreat, with an uncertain trumpet. I suspect there are quite a few Democrats, trying desperately to shed their party of it's pacifist, defeatist image, who feel that they have been stabbed in the back by their titular leader.

According to the Done Deal site, Gladiator 2 has been optioned. The second film will take place fifteen years after the first. That would be interesting, since the first film implied a restoration of the Roman Republic after the death of Commodus which never happened. Fiffteen years after Commodus brings us to the reign of-if I am not mistaken-Septimus Severius, a sort of Patton in lorica who's slogan was, "Take care of the Army and to hell with everyone else." The sad part was that it took someone as ruthless as him to keep the Empire together.

More renewed interest in a return to the Moon.

Ron Kirk, Democrat candidate for Senate in Texas, continues his long, slow seppeku.

Even while the American Iliad blazes in the hills of Afghanistan and shortly on the deserts of Iraq, the American Odyssey may be coming. And if so, halleluja!

Mel Gibson's film about Christ will be entirely in aramaric and latin.

Dr. Robert Forward, scientist, science fiction writer, visionary has departed this Earth. Much of his papers can be found here.

Here's the text of President Kennedy's speach at Rice University, upon the subject of America's space effort, delivered forty years ago this month. It's amazing stuff.

The Federal Election Commission has levied record fines against various Democrat entities, including Clinton-Gore 96 and the Democratic National Committee, for various violations of election law. More would have been levied, but several perps are either on the lam or else hidden behind foreign shell companies.

In my opinion, this is a bigger scandal than Enron, et al. The clever boys at Enron were only stealing money. The Democrats were stealing democracy.

Looks like the state of California will not try to charge Buzz Aldrin with assault for decking a kook who was harassing him.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe states that the International Space Station will grow past its "core complete" size of three crew members.

In what ought to be a major scandal, Apollo 13: The Imax Experience is not being shown in Houston. Nor is it likely to ever be shown in Houston.

The collapse of the vaunted Canadian health care system continues apace. That must be why even Teddy Kennedy has given up trying to bring it's dubious benefits to the United States.

Ralph Peters would rather be with one, self-confident, American career woman than with the 72 virgins in the Moslem paradise.

Al Gore has already stepped into an Iraqi quaqmire, it seems, of his own making.

The Harry Potter series is deservedly one of the most beloved group of books of our generation. Unfortunately the books also top the list of books that certain people are attempting to ban from school libraries, fortunately so far without success.

Professor Reynolds gives the back of his hand to people who think that the "Wild West" model for settling space is a bad thing.

From the Done Deal site, news of the following movie being optioned:

A court jester goes on a mythical journey to return peace to his kingdom.

The title of the proposed picture: A Fool's Errand.

A site calling itself www.democrats.com has a series of hysterical posts about TransOrbital's plan to send a private mission to the Moon.

While Nation Looks the Other Way on 9/11 Anniversary, Bush Gives Moon to Private Corporation for 'Industrial Development'
Like all the other international laws, Bush is now ignoring those pertaining to space. As America is distracted by 9/11 remembrances and warnings of new threats, His Heinous has turned the moon over to a private, for-profit corporation called TransOrbital that has a far-reaching, frigthening agenda for the corporate domination of space. All TransOrbital had to do was promise not to contaminate and pollute the moon - yeah, right. That's what the oil companies say about ANWR. There was no Congressional vote - not even any consultation. Bush simply acted as if the moon were his to give away. The TransOrbital venture could be disastrous for the globe - no scientist today could predict yet how adding mass to the moon via human infrastructure or removing mass, via mining, will impact the delicate gravitational interplay between Earth and its only satellite. The moon belongs to all the people of the Earth - not to George. W. Bush or his friends at TransOrbital.

The Artemis Society is a right wing front, by the way.

TransOrbital Just Like Bush - Long on Grandiosity and Corporate Schemes, Short on Real Science
The company that Bush turned the moon over to as its personal corporate playground is a chip off the old Blockhead. Check out this home page: http://www.transorbital.net/index.html - notice the ad at the top of the page, where the company brags that it will make it possible to display commercial messages on the surface of the moon. Now check this site out for the Artemis Society - the group that is behind TransOrbital. It reminds us of those rghtwing front sites that lead to multiple front sites and nothing is what it seems. You'll notice that their web host calls itself the "Illuminati" and as based in Texas. How Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney can you get!? Here's another one of their "subsites": Project Leto, a moon tourism outfit based in Las Vegas to attract the glitzy crowd.

Of course it is all a Bush plot to seize the Moon for evil purposes.

U.S. Military Control of Space from the Moon: The Real Plan behind TransOrbital's Permission to 'Develop' the Moon?
Everyone by now knows with painful clarity that the Bush administration does not do a single thing without having something in it for them, and usually something big and juicy. Now put two and two together: Bush gives a wacko commercial company with a scheme called the Artemis Project the green light to be the first to commandeer the moon, commercially - that means patents and legal privilege of a sweeping and unprecedent nature. Now add to that the USS Space Command's long range plan - military control of space. It doesn't take more than two neurons to figure out that once the Artemis Project gets its foot in the lunar door, the "state-sponsored" construction of a military space base will follow.

The Left has always been against government funded space exploration. Looks like they are against commercial space exploration as well. Thanks to Doug Haston on sci.space.policy for pointing this one out.

For a thorough Fisking of this, thanks to Thomas L. James.

About forty years ago, a young President spoke at Rice University about sending men to the Moon. Now the case for more lunar exploration is being made. My only arguement is that there is talk of a robotic sample return mission to the Lunar south pole "before this decade is out." Why send a robot to do a man's (or woman's) job? I want to see some geologists there, prospecting for ice and other resources, in advance to founding a lunar settlement. What a magnificent thing to do, to herald a new age of space exploration and settlement!

Ron Kirk, candidate for Senator in Texas, suggests that people who support war against Iraq (like his opponent John Cornyn) do so because many soldiers who will be going in harm's way are poor and/or black. Kirk, who is black himself, has been attempting to portray himself as a moderate, new Democrat, but this latest gaffe places him squarely alongside people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in his willingness to play to race card.

The Democrats, it seems, are trying to wag the dog in reverse. That is to say, delay a war for purely political reasons.

Candidate for California Governor Bill Simon finally caught a break when a judge threw out the 78 million dollar civil fraud judgement against his company.

Here's a unique reason for mounting a government funded expedition to Mars. If we don't, the arguement goes, a bunch of free market entrenpeneurs will get there first and it'll be like the "lawless wild west." The person making the supposition has seen too many Clint Eastwood westerns and has read too little history, of course.

Dick Morris suggests that the Democrats have handed Election 2002 to the GOP by changing the subject from corporate scandals, the economy, perscription drugs, etc, ect, ad nauseum, to-well-Iraq.

Democrats in Florida still do not have a candidate for governor. There are threats of law suits from all sides and fingers are already pointing, though the fault appears to lay-as with last time-with Democrat local election officials.

This is so delicious.

John Keegan, the greatest living military historian, examins what lies ahead in the War on Terror.

It was a day of infamy, yet too it was a day of glory. It was a day that imprinted on the memory of those who witnessed it forever, one of those public events about which one will say, “I was in such and such place, doing such and such, when it happened.” The assassination of President Kennedy, the first Moon landing, and the night the Berlin Wall fell come to mind.

I will not mourn the dead and bereaved here. They have been more that properly mourned a thousand times in a hundred million hearts. Now I wish to celebrate heroes whose courage more than matched any who fought on our battlefields from Lexington-Concord, to Kuwait City.

A small number of men, as the towers of the World Trade Center burned, rushed to their duty. These firemen, policemen, and emergency workers saved, in all likelihood, twenty five thousand people from what was becoming a funeral pyre. The carnage at Ground Zero was horrific, but it would have been more so without the selfless sacrifice of these men. And many of them gave the last full measure of devotion, so that others may live. Remember them. Remember them always.

In an airliner, flying over Pennsylvania, another group of heroes rose to the challenge. They were unlikely heroes, businessmen for the most part who had awakened that morning blissfully unaware of what was in store for them. As the monstrous scum took control of their plane, they called their loved ones on cell phones. Soon they knew the awful truth. This was no ordinary hijacking, with hostages and demands. This episode would end in another funeral pyre.

So a group of these passengers said farewell to their loved ones, uttered a prayer, and rose up to retake the plane regardless of cost. We will not know this side of Heaven the details of that epic battle. We do know that even though all passengers and crew of Flight 93 perished, yet they gained the victory. There is no smoking crater where the White House and the Capital is today. “Let’s roll!” will be remembered as long as such heroes are possible.

What could the Enemy have been thinking? They struck at us and they hurt us, but that which does not kill us only makes us stronger. The American Iliad had begun. By the end of the first month after 9/11, our power was being felt in the homeland of the Enemy. By Thanksgiving we entered Kabul and had broken the power of one of the most vicious tyrannies that had ever afflicted the Earth. As the New Year dawned, Afghanistan was liberated, the Enemy scattered and on the run.

And that is only the beginning. When this war is through, the shape of the Middle East and of the world will be changed forever. Where there was tyranny, there will be freedom. Where there was bigotry and intolerance, there will be understanding and forbearance. Where there was war and strife, there will be peace.

And there will be a lesson taught once again, as it was taught the British Empire, the Nazis, and the Soviets. America may seem soft, decadent, and even mendacious at times. But arouse the wrath of her people, and you’ll see the Eagle’s talons and hear the Eagle’s scream. And then you will wish you had never, ever trifled with the people whose ancestors settled a continent and made a nation that is a light onto the world.

9/11 the Musical will debut tomorrow. I'm not kidding.

A conspiracy nut named Bart Sibrel is miffed at the response Buzz Aldrin gave him when he confronted the former astronaut with a demand that he swear on the Bible that he had actually been to the Moon. Buzz replied by trying to send Sibrel to the Moon with a good sock to the jaw. And it was a good thing too.

Terry Eastland suggests that if the GOP retakes the Senate, the first thing President Bush should do in renominate Priscella Owen. That would be delicious.

Here's a review of the script of a movie now in development, entitled King Conan: Crown of Iron.

Meanwhile it looks like that the Maryland Democrat Party is falling apart.

Bill Frist is now far more optimistic about the GOP retaking the Senate. Indeed, if his numbers are correct, it looks like Election 2002 may be a GOP romp. Besides the weakness of some Democrat candidates like Carnahan and Torricelli, my suspician is that Daschle strategy of obstructionism is not playing well in the country.

William Burrows makes the case for space tourism. He makes one very glaring error in his essay, however:

There is nothing about space that relates directly to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (unless the pursuers work in the aerospace industry).

Well, that's wrong. It's understandable that Burrows might think this, because it is a wide spread perception. In fact the expansion of human civilization into space is essential not only to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" but to the survival of human civilization itself.

It seems that NASA is finally getting a handle on space station costs. My guess, by the way, is that NASA will decide to expand the facility past three person core complete.

When Ameriucans march to set free Iraq, Britons will march as well, secure in the knowledge that the cause is just. Now if only Tom Daschle and the other liberal fools on the hill could figure that one out.

NASA is getting serious about using nuclear power to send people and robots out beyond low earth orbit.

Despite a series of missteps and accidents which would have cratered any other candidate, Bill Simon is still only seven points behind Gray Davis. Someone should ask Gray Davis what it is like to be hated that much by so many.

The folllowing email from NASA Deputy Administrator Fred Gregory is making the rounds:

"Seems as though, even after telling the crowd last Wednesday that it is OK to combine NEXT and Eileen's science and the medical stuff as the beginning of several road maps with milestones that acknowledge the possibility of leaving Low Earth Orbit, there are still some who are afraid to take the next step without getting further permission. Those folks will be left at the station. Research driven exploration is where I am heading. If an email of this type will help, share this one with your folks and let's get rolling. We need the convincing arguments that only your folks can help provide, to plan for follow on activities once we are cleared of our past sins and omissions. And we need those requirements right now! Fred"

Hear hear.

David Limbaugh, brother to Rush the Magnificent, points out that it is now dangerous to utter words that even sound like a racial slur, even if they are not. Personally, I think that the hapless teacher in Wilmington, North Carolina should sue everybody, starting with the stupid parent who first complained and who-on Hannity a couple of nights ago-accused her of being a racist.

Texas Supreme Court Justice Pricella Owen was rejected by Senate Liberals for federal bench for the crime of following the law.

Ted Nugent, who was never in a boy band, has offered Lance Bass a consolation prize in the event he doesn't get to fly in space.

Rand Simberg suggests that environmentalist wackos think that the Earth is the center of the universe. I would go further than that. They don't think the rest of the universe beyond Earth even exists.

One of the most disasterous US Presidents of the last century has the chutzpah to criticize the current POTUS. Jimmy should really explain how he advanced the cause of human rights in Iran, Central America, and of course Afghanistan, among other places.

President Bush often ridicules the evildoers, suggesting, "Did they think we would just file a law suit or something?" That ridicule has not stopped Americans from unleashing a weapon some find more fearsome than smart bombs or cruise missiles. First Saudi Arabia has felt the wrath of our civil liability lawyers. Now it is Iraq's turn. Embrace the horror.

Looks like the Frogs are against publishing information on Saddam's weapons programs.

"These are not issues which we can deal with publicly. This calls for serenity and seriousness, and we should therefore beware of any leaks and any saber-rattling proposals," Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told France Info radio.

Leaks? Like maybe that Saddam really is building nukes and plague weapons? Saber-rattling proposals? Like perhaps we really have to liberate Iraq.

Of course part of the real reason that France doesn't even want to air these questions publicly is that her role in helping Saddam might be uncovered. Bad enoigh that France would be seen as an appeaser. Worse still that France would be revealed as facilitating evil for money.

Houston area home owners are being fleeced by local governments who have found an excellent way to increase taxes to confisctatory levels. The trick is to let zooming property values do the increasing for you. The fly in the ointment is that the people being fleeced may well revolt. And I say the sooner the better.

A professor at Harvard (naturally) wants to "abolish" the white race. Oddly enough this would be accomplish without gas chambers, concentration camps, or mass sterilization. No word of what's to be done with people of mixed race ancestory.

Friends of America's Past provides information on the Kennewick Man controversy and other aspects of ancient human remains in North America.

Andrew Cuomo has just found out how much value being a friend of Bill Clinton really is. At least Clinton was kind enough to visit Cuomo's withdraw speach to say what a good sport Cuomo was about being stabbed in the back.

Jerry Brown, currently Mayor of Oakland, formerly Governor of California and a past Presidential candidate, has join the crusade to keep the Third World in poverty and despair.

A private company called TransOrbital has gotten official US government permission to launch a probe to explore the Moon. The company expects to launch the probe on a Russian rocket in 9-12 months.

Now perhaps Professor Reynolds, who is an expert in space law, could explain this, since I can't. Considering that the Outer Space Treaty prohibits the exercise of national sovereignty on celestrial bodies, why does a private company need permission to send anything to the Moon? Is it possible that the United States government is trying to establish a precedence which will later be used to establish defacto control over what happens or nor on the Moon? Or am I being silly?

Update. Here's the answer, for which I'm kicking myself because I researched the Outer Space Treaty for Children of Apollo.

Article VI, Outer Space Treaty:
"States Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty. The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty. When activities are carried on in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, by an international organization, responsibility for compliance with this Treaty shall be borne both by the international organization and by the States Parties to the Treaty participating in such organization."

Looks like Jim Pinkerton agrees with me that greenies who want to starve Third Worlders rather than have them be defiled with genetically engineered food are-well-racists. Fortunately the Third World will have none of it, not being willing to go quietly into that good night just to satisfy First World enviironmentalist wackos..

Itar-Tass is reporting that the on again off again space adventure of N'Synch boy band singer Lance Bass is off again. Stay tuned, though.This story has had more twists and turns than the average Clinton sex scandal.

Congratulations to J. N. Stroyer for winning the 2001 Sidewise Award for best long form alternate history for The Children's War. The novel, running at 1200 pages, depicts a 21st Century in which the Nazis won the Second World War.

While sunshine soldiers and summer patriots wring their hands, at least one person with no reason to love President Bush has answered the call and supports the liberation of Iraq. Bravo Zulu, John McCain.

A federal judge has blocked the reburial of an ancient skeleton which was discovered in Oregon six years ago. The skeleton, known as Kennewick Man has been the center of controversy because of a misinterpetation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 which was passed to protect American Indian artifacts and burial sites from looters. Kennewick Man, which was dated as being nine thousand years old, is not related to any known American Indian tribe. Indeed, the skeleton is said to have "Causcasian-like" features (a facial reconstruction expert suggested that Kennewick Man looked remarkably like Star Trek's Jean-Luc Picard). This discovery has led to speculation that early American peoples migrated to the Western Hemisphere from a variety of places, including various parts of Asia, and even Europe.

American Indian tribes attempted to have Kennewick Man reburied under the Act, an effort which was aided and abbeted by Clinton's Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit. The judge's order means that Kennewick Man will now be available for study by scientists who are eager to shed light on ancient America and its peoples, who may have been as multi racial and multi cultural as modern Americans.

Amazingly, the German government is so fanatically opposed to the death penalty that it proposes to shirk it's responsibility in the War on Terror. And we are suppose to listen to these clowns when they hand wring over invading Iraq.