Forget about tweaking rockets to get Cheap Access to Space. There is a group of engineers and businessmen who think that a space elevator is doable in about ten to fifteen years for less than ten billion dollars.

Current House Majority Whip and future House Majority Leader Tom Delay has spoken out on the general malaise afflicting the US civil space program.

Here's a suggestion, Tom, for doing something about it. Use your influence to get a little bit of money added to NASA's budget to develop technologies for sending and sustaining people beyond Low Earth Orbit. It doesn't have to be a lot of money, but it would set down a marker and set the stage for a Presidential decision in-say-2004 when O'Keefe has gotten NASA's finances in order.

Some sharp eyed astronomers have gone over maps of the lunar surface created by the Clementine mission and have concluded that Malapert Mountain, overlooking the ice fields at the Lunar South Pole. Read the article and then ask yourself: Why aren't we assembling the first expedition to there?

George Will gives the Bush Administration the back of his hand for applying a double standard to Israel. We're in effect asking the Israelis to appease terrorists, while we hunt down other terrorists and kill them.

I know why Bush is doing this. He wants to keep the Arabs quiet so that we can go after Saddem. But this strategery is only delaying the inevitable. At some point, Israel will have to take Arafat and his absurd terrorist kingdom out. Better, in my view, that it be sooner than later. Let the Arabs howl all they want. If we show strength, there is nothing they can do about it.

A reader named Randolph Addison has some interesting thoughts on the best actor/best actress Oscars:

The saddest part of the Oscars and Halle Berry/Denzel winning is that they (Hollywood producers and actors) will pat themselves on the back as though they are pushing the envelope of acceptance for blacks--"Look at us, we're special. We gave, oops, we awarded a black person." So, did they earn the awards or were they given the awards? It is an ugly question but it must be asked after the gaudy acceptance speech by Halle. She should have said something simple about blacks but spent the majority of her speech on her acting skills and her future prospects (or something along those lines)--that's what Oscars are about, right?

Lest Hollywood forget that the American public goes to the movies and makes them wealthy; thusly, it is the American people who pay money to go see movies (with blacks in lead rolls) and have long crossed the hurdle of stereotypes and subtle or implied racism.

It simply saddens me that someone could receive an award and seem to wholly believe that the award was for being a little melanin-rich and not for acting ability...

Never let it be said that even the worst catastrophe does not contain within it certain opportunities. It looks like Playboy is looking for candidates for the Women of Enron spread.

Even though the Enron scandal is old news, a reader suggests thjat we still need to pay attention to it. That is to say, the real scandal:

Certainly there is a political dimension here.
Enron's chairman did meet with the president and the vice president in the Oval Office.

Enron gave $420,000 to the president's party over three years.
Enron donated $100,000 to the president's inauguration festivities!
The Enron chairman stayed at the White House 11times.

The corporation had access to the administration at its highest levels and even enlisted the Commerce and State Departments to grease deals for it.

The taxpayer-supported Export-Import Bank subsidized Enron for more than $600 million in just one transaction.

BUT...the president under whom all this happened wasn't George W. Bush.

It was Bill Clinton.

Congratulations to Hallie Berry and Denzel Washington for their Oscars. However, is it not remarkable that "progressive" Hollywood finds itself, in the year 2002, congratulating itself for giving the first Best Actress Award to a black American ever and the first Best Actor Award to a black American since Sydney Portier in 1964?

Some day, Tinseltown may catch up with the rest of the country in recognizing the accomplishments of blacks on a regular basis.

Tom Clancy's new Jack Ryan novel, Red Rabbit will be out in August. This time, the story does not take place during the fictional Presidency of Jack Ryan. Instead, Clancy will take us back to those wonderful days of yesteryear during the Cold War when President Reagan was busy bringing about the downfall of the Soviet Empire. In a story which takes place after Patriot Games but before Hunt for Red October, young CIA analyst Jack Ryan must prevent the assassination of His Holiness John Paul II.

A web site about the science and art of Solar Sailing has crossed my notice. Check it out if you're interested in this unique method of space travel.

Last night we saw the 20th Anniversary edition of ET: The Extraterrestrial. The first thought which occured to me was what primative lives we endured back then. We had no CD players, no DVD, no home computers. Just broadcast TV and that absurd, clunky analog record player which was so prominent in Elliot's room.

And then of course there was how twenty years of popular culture have changed our additudes. Twenty years which have included fare such as the X Files (not to mention Waco and Ruby Ridge) have rendered those evil government agents which frightened us so much back then somewhat less than scary now. We know what real evil, government agents are capable of and those clowns weren't them.
Now if Speilberg had digitally inserted the Cigarette Smoking Man from the X-Files, instead of digitally removing their guns, things would be different.

But another thing, so far not mentioned in other media, is the famous OR scene, where the scary doctors are working over ET while Elliot is screaming, "Stop! You're killing him! YOU'RE KILLING HIM!" Back them most of us remember being frightened and scared along with Elliot. But now, after watching a lot of episodes of ER, we all had a vaugue understanding of the medical jargon the doctors were using. They weren't trying to kill ET. They were trying to help. Yep, blood gasses look bad. Need to start defibing. And for God's sake, someone take that hysterical kid out of here.

Nope, I guess you can't go home again.

One interesting result of the passage of CFR is that it seems to have brought together liberals and conservatives in an unprecedented way.

Speaking of Ron Howard, it looks like he's coming out with an Imax version of his epic film Apollo 13.

There's a horrible rumor that Alec Baldwin may play Colonel William Travis in Ron Howard's upcoming movie about the Alamo. This, in my humble opinion, is an evil idea and should be nipped in the bud.

Now Russell Crowe as Jim Bowie and Tom Hanks as Travis, though....

So who to play Crockett?

I know. Tommy Lee Jones.

A reader seeks to entertain us with the following:

An airplane was about to crash; there were 4 passengers on board, but only 3 parachutes. The first passenger said, "I'm Kobe Bryant, the best NBA basketball player. The Lakers need me, I can't afford to die.." So he took the first parachute and left the plane. The second passenger, Hillary Clinton, said, "I am the wife of the former President of the United States; I am the most ambitious woman in the world. I am also a New York Senator, a potential future President and, above all, the smartest woman in the world." She grabbed the second parachute and jumped out of the plane. The third passenger, the Pope, says to the fourth passenger, a 10 year-old school boy, "I am old and frail and I don't have many years left. As a Christian I will sacrifice my life and let you have the last parachute." The boy said, "It's ok, there's still a parachute left for you. America's smartest woman took my school backpack."

A British historian named Gavin Menzies is about to publish a book which suggests that the 15th Century Chinese explorer Zheng He not only discovered America seventy years before Columbus, but circumnaviagted the globe a century before Magellan.

If this turns out to be true, the decision by Ming Dynasty mandarians to shut down Zheng's voyages of exploration can be seen as especially bone headed. Ming China turned away from exploration just as she was on the verge of becoming a world wide naval, trading empire, and became isolated and decadent. Five centuries later, China had become the door mat of every European colonial power.

This is a mistake that the current rulers of China are not prepared to make again, as witness their plans to become the third spacefaring power. And it should serve as a warning to Western (especially American) politicians who think it's safe to go slow on our own space efforts.

A Congressional hearing has revealed that NASA's accounting system is so antiquated that no one can figure out what things cost at the space agency. Yet, NASA's auidtor until last year gave the space agency a clean bill of health five years running.

The auditor? You guessed it. Arthur Anderson.

Fortunately, though, Price Waterhouse is now doingthe auditing and O'Keefe has fast tracked a new accounting system to be in place as early as next year.

So far Trent Lott hasn't backed down from his threats to tie up the Senate in revenge for the borking of Judge Pickering. Why the sudden infusion of backbone? Perhaps the Democrats have commited one outrage too many. Perhaps the Republicans senses, as Democrat Senator Zell Miller suggested, that the borking of Pickering is causing outrage in the South. Or maybe Lott is taking this matter personally.

Despite that troublesome First Amendment which David Henderson (and others, see below) cite, sixty Senators voted to repeal the Constitution and pass Campaign Finance Reform.

President Bush should veto the bill because it is unconstitutional and he did, after all, swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, even John McCain. But he may sign the bill, ironically, because his advisors have concluded that it's the best way to sink CFR.

The scenario goes like this. If Bush vetos the bill, CFR fanatics will just try to pass it again and again until, at some point, they get a veto proof majority or-worse-a President willing to sign it. But if Bush signs it, then it goes straight to the Supreme Court which will-we are assured-strip out all the unconstitutional bits. That will just leave the doubling of the hard money limit to two thousand dollars per person, indexed to inflation. And there it will end.

Brilliant plan. But what if-as it has certainly done before-the Supremes decide to be creative and actually rule that CFR really doesn't violate the First Amendment? Could happen.

David Henderson poses the question, related to campaign finance reform: What part of "make no law" does Congress not understand?

Clarence Page is bemused that no one seems to be offended by the Fighting Whities basketball team.

9/11, it seems, has had an affect on teenage slang. Here are some examples:

Their bedrooms are "ground zero." Translation? A total mess.

A mean teacher? He's "such a terrorist."

A student is disciplined? "It was total jihad."

Petty concerns? "That's so Sept. 10."

And out-of-style clothes? "Is that a burqa?"

The corrected galleys for my next novel, Children of Apollo, have arrived and I shall be checking to make sure the corrections have all been made. We'll also send out review copies to various places. If you are interested in receiving a review copy of Children of Apollo, please e-mail me at mwhittingt@sprynet.com with your credentials and I'll send a copy in PDF format.

Baroness Margaret Thatcher believes that most of the world's ills come out of continental Europe. She therefore-wisely-suggests that Great Britain withdraw from the European Union.

Read this and other pearls of wisdom in her new book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World.

Phil Brennan asks Senator Zell Miller to come home to the Republican Party.

Speaking of Pickering (see below) Senator Zell Miller says that Pickering's Borking may have just elected a Republican to be Governor of Mississippi. Say, Zell, it's increasingly obvious that your fellow Democrats don't give a rat's behind about what you think. Why not get their attention by joining the GOP? That would really be payback.

Trent Lott is threatening to retaliate for the Borking of Judge Pickering. Yeah, we've heard that one before.

Now that a lot of people (not me, but that's another story) have seen Tonya Harding and Paula Jones duke it out, how about a real celeb bout. It would be Jean-Claude Van Damme (the "Muscles from Brussels"); Jackie Chan; Arnold Schwarzenegger; Sylvester Stallone; Dolph "Drago" Lundgren (Stallone's opponent in Rocky IV); Chuck Norris; David Carradine (for sentiment's sake); Steven Seagal; Wesley Snipes; and, because this is fantasy, Bruce Lee himself in a elimination fight to the death.

President Bush appears to want to do with foreign aid what Newt Gingrich did with welfare. Poor countries will get development money. But in return they have toi stop being corrupt and embrace capitalism and freedom. Should be interesting.

An intramural basketball team at the University of Northern Colorado thought it had come up with the perfect vehicle to protest the use of American Indian names (the Chiefs, the Braves, the Redskins, etc) on sports teams. It had decided to call itself the Fighting Whities to show white folks what it's like.

However, according to Rush Limbaugh, American Whities are refusing to be offended. Indeed the University is being beseiged with requests for tee shirts and other memorabilia.

I think this is a healthy development. If people would only learn to calm now and not be offended by the least little thing, we might all live healthier lives.

Some kind of hidden strategery may be behind the President's mild criticism of Israel's own war on terrorism. I think (hope) that he's speaking primarily for Arab consumption. As evidence for this theory, Sharon's hammering of the Palestinian terrorists seems to be going on unabated.

The danger of publicly criticizing Israel, even mildly and just for public consumption, is that it might tend to embolden the terrorists and their supporters. The Saudis are already watering down their "peace proposal" (which was a joke to begin with.) And Arafat remains defiant.

When Zinni gets to the Middle East, he needs to tell Arafat in no uncertain terms that he needs to get serious about making peace and about stopping rather than inciting terror, or he and his absurd little kingdom will be shortly on the ash heap of history.

President Bush has been taken roundly to task by other bloggers and pundits over his decision to slap tarrifs on imported steel. But Donald Lambro suggests that this is part of a larger strategy to further free trade.

Has anyone noticed that ever since Geraldo arrived at his current assignment in the Middle East that he's gotten positively squishy concerning who's right and who's wrong in the Israel-Palestinian War? Tonight, on Fox News, he went positively hysterical, comparing the Israelis to Nazis and accusing them of employing tactics designed to kill civilians.

Geraldo's stint in Afghanistan was frought with comedy. In between watching him dodge Taliban snipers and gas on about "mujahidin tribal freedom fighters", one at least got some entertainment. And his heart was at least on the right side. But now he's become positively dangerous, having assumed the role of Arafat's mouthpiece. I'm not sure why he's chosen to do this. He claims to be shocked by the carnage, but the carnage is far less today than during the Israeli-Lebenon War of 1982 when Geraldo was one of the few corespondants who did not have an anti-Israeli bias. But now perhaps the same moral flaw which caused him to support Clinton is causing him to slam the Israelis and support the terrorists who want to kill all of them.

In my opinion, Fox News needs to recall Geraldo from the Middle East immediately and then fire him. He is no long an objective or even a rational journalist. Hehas become a propegandist for terrorists and murderers.

And meanwhile in an election which was not fixed, Tony Sanchez won the right to get beat in the general election by Texas Governor Rick Perry. Also, as predicted by the Curmudgeon some time ago, Congressman Ken Bentsen's political career ended when he failed to make the runoff for the right to get beat in the general election for US Senator from Texas by the GOP.

It looks like Robert Mugabe of Zimbawae has managed to steal himself an election fair and square.

The superb Homer Hickam, the bestselling author of
Rocket Boys and Back to the Moon has just the idea for opening up the Solar System and its vast resources. A nuclear rocket.

Janet Reno former Attorney General (when she headed the Obstruction of Justice Department of Behalf of Bill Clinton) and current candidate for Governor of Florida is-well-uncomfortable about certain aspects of the war of terrorism. You know, the potential erosion of personal freedom and the open ended nature of the whole thing.

Right. This is the same woman who incited a barbarque of some ninety of so human beings in Waco, Texas as practically her first act as Attorney General. This is the same woman who arranged for the abduction and deportation to Cuba of Elian Gonzales. Indeed, this is the same woman, as Miami DA, who put people in jail on child molestation charges on evidence which can be said to be very flimsy.

How very sad and pathetic.

According to this LA Times story, maybe we should be bombarding the Taliban and other terrorists with Prozac rather than smart bombs.

Fred Thompson is retiring from the Senate. Now a weary nation casts its eyes toward-Professor Glenn Reynolds of the University of Tennessee Law School and the best and most well known web logs in existance.

Now what I am about to say will probably end all hope of a Senator Glenn Reynolds, but nevertheless should he choose to run he has my whole hearted support.

The carnage continues apace in the Middle East. It seems to me that the Sharon government is finally edging toward what I call the Sherman scenario in dealing with the Palestinians. For those who are history impaired, General Sherman was an American Civil War General who concluded that the will of the Confederacy to fight had to be broken, as well as its abbility. To that end he marched his army from Atlanta to the Atlantic Ocean through Georgia, then the Carolinas, cutting a swath of destruction unparalleled since the days of Geingas Khan. While Sherman's name is still cursed today in some parts of the South, he achieved his objective.

That is precisely the strategy Israel needs to pursue. They need to go through the West Bank and Gaza and anniliate the infrastructure of Yassir Arafat's absurd terrorist kingdom. Not only to the Israelis need to destroy the military power of the Palestinians, but whatever economic infrastructure they have. Water and power systems, roads, farms, businesses, all need to be put the torch. Anyone connected with Arafat's terrorist kingdom, as well as allied terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezebollah, and Islamic Jihad, should be hunted down and killed outright.

Having done this, Israel can then-as Professor Glenn Reynolds has suggested-turn the West Bank and Gaza over to Jordanian "peacekeepers." Then the word community needs to engage in a bit of nationa building. Let's start with the schools and remove the antisemitic subtext which has permerated Palestinian curriculi and has inflamed generations of Palestinians to hate and terrorism. Let's teach Palestinian children to build and not to destroy.

Then-perhaps-they will have earned the right to their own state.,

There's yet another person trying for a tourist spot on ISS. Former Associate Administrator for Policy and Plans and former Executive Director of the National Space Society Lori Garver is seeking corporate and private sponserships to finance her space jaunt. The purpose? To demonstrate that "ordinary people" can fly in space.

Of course, most ordinary people I know couldn't begin to raise the twenty million necessary to finance a trip to ISS.

Garver's tenure at NSS was frought with considerable controversy. She was often accused of supporting whatever the agenda NASA supported at the time as opposed to the National Space Society's stated goal of "creating a space faring civilization." She also presided over declining membership and influence of NSS.

In the manner of "failing upward", Garver left NSS to first become an aid to then NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, and then an Associate Administrator. Rumor had it that she was on the short list to be Administrator under a Gore Presidency.

Now, as an editorial aside, I'm all in favor of corporate sponsers getting together to send people on space tours. But can't we find better candidates than a failed, ex-bureaucrat claiming to be an "ordinary person?" Let's select from a list of writers, poets, artists, journalists to send into space. Indeed, let's hold an essay contest for High School Students. Every year, the student who submits the best essay on the subject of-say-why people should live in space-gets to go. Have a college level version of the contest too. Or, as an alterantive, have the student submit an idea for an experiment. The winner gets to fly with his or her experiment on board ISS.

That would certainly generate more interest in space travel than yet another Washington insider grabbing a flight into space. It would certainly be less cynical.

Alec Baldwin has let slip why he didn't leave the country when GW Bush became President. It's a word parsing worthy of Bill Clinton.

The suits at ABC want to revamp This Week Without David Brinkley. Under plans being discussed in the media, Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts would be out. All well and good so far, but the new hosts would be George Stephenapolis and Claire Shipman. Shipman would be fine, but Stephenapolis is part of This Week's problem, not the solution. He's too young, too callow, and especially too liberal.

Worse, the suits want to move the program to New York. That's not how a Sunday morning talk show works. That's more like Good Morning America or The Today Show.

Here's an idea, ABC, free of charge. Give Donaldson, Roberts, and Stephenapolis the boot. Bring in Claire Shipman and offer Ted Koppel the other anchor position. Then give George Will a bigger role, allowing him to interview guests again. Then sit back and watch the revitalized show duke it out with Russert.

Scientists at Oak Ridge think they may have found a way to generate a fusion reaction with a desk top device. Despite the fact that the experiment and the paper describing it to be published in Science has been peer reviewed, the revelation is already generating quite a bit of controversy. This situation is similer to what took place during the "Cold Fusion" affair of about twelve or thirteen years ago.

Dr. David Criswell of the University of Houston in Clear Lake thinks he has just the reason to colonize the Moon. It involves the production and distribution of clean, limitless solar energy.

Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson by Kenneth R. Timmerman is now out and it looks like it will be the final nail in the coffin of one of the most skilled and nortorious flimflam men in the history of the United States. The book apparently shows that Jackson's great civil rights movement has been nothing less than a massive confidence scheme.

Ridley Scott is set to direct a movie about one of the earlier struggles of the West against Militant Islam. The film is called Crusades and is scheduled to be out next year some time.

The continuing meltdown of Tom Daschle and the Democrats is amazing to witness. Now Daschle is actually threatening the funding of the War on Terror for political gain. This kind of threat harkens back to the Post Vietnam War practice Liberal Democrats indulged in to hamper Republican Presidents' foreign and defense policy.

Why, with three thousand dead Americans in New York and the Pentagon, is Daschle doing this? Possibly because nothing he has tried to cut down President Bush and the GOP has worked. Not the economy, not the deficit, and not even Enron. The tragedy of Tom Daschle is that when it comes to a choice of enemies to fight, Al Qaeda or the Republicans, Daschle has chosen the latter. I'm not sure that the voters are going to go along with that at the polls this November.

We Were Soldiers is a powerful, even searing account of the first major, American land battle in Vietnam, in a valley called Ia Drang over three bloody days in November, 1965. The performances, especially that of Mel Gibson, were solid. The battle sequences were horrifying. Despite the great advantage the Americans had in air and artillery, Ia Drang was an infantryman's battle, fought muzzle to muzzle, and even hand to hand. Death could come at one at any time, from any direction.

Much is made of the fact that the film shows some scenes from the point of view of the enemy, seeming to make him more symphathetic. I would tend to disagree. While Mel Gibson's Colonel Moore leads from the front, sharing the perils of his men, the Communist NVA commander commands from the relative safety of an underground bunker, sending hordes of his men out to die.

Most symphathetic are the men who fought and died, along with the women back home who loved them and in some cases mourned for them. Not one Oliver Stone style drug addict or baby killer among them. Just a group of Americans thrown into Hell and coming out the other end in honor and valor.

Go see this movie.

The mission of Mars Odyssey is not more than a few days old and it has already discovered "vast fields of ice" on Mars. Scientists are excited because the presence of water indicates the possibility of life. But the discovery is even more exciting when one considers the implications for human exploration and settlement.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe has had a chance to go over NASA's financial books. It is worse than anyone ever dreamed. It seems that the books are in such horrible shape that an audit cannot be completed and no one knows the true cost of such programs as the International Space Station.

And people thought Enron was bad.

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, who should know better, repeats a theory raised in a Washington Monthly article, while cleverly not letting us know whether he agrees with it or not.The theory is that there is no liberal bias in the media, that the New York Times, Washington Post, the major networks, et al, actually try to be balanced and present both sides. the theory goes on to suggest that its the evil "conservative media" (Washington Times, New York Post, Fox News, talk radio, et al) that's biased and continues to beat the poor "mainstream media" over their collective heads because they won't be balanced.

This kind of reminds me of the recent Gallup Poll taken in Moslem countries which suggests that people over there do not believe that Arabs are responsible for 9/11 and that the United States is the Great Satan. The theory which Kurtz repeats is on that level of denial. After Bernard Goldberg published his book on media bias, whether there is or is nor media bias should no longer be a subject of discussion. We should move on and try to decide what should be done about it. But we can't so long as reporters are still living by that river in Egypt.

A baby has been born who has been geneticly selected to be free of a particularly horrible form of alzheimers. This technique could be used to prevent a whole variety of deseases.

Naturally, bio-ethticists are apalled and horrified.

Professor Glenn Reynolds provides an eloquent answer to Fred Reed's questions about why we should have a space program.

For a look at what things are like under the ultimate camapaign finance reform, one may look no further than Zimbabwae. It seems that President Robert Mugabe has charged his political opponent with treason, for the crime of-well-campaigning against him. Eliminating campaigns is certainly a way to get money out of politics.

Fred Reed makes an even bigger mistake than does Eli Lehrer (see below) in a piece in the Washington Times. He suggests that because the current way we're doing space exploration is flawed, then all space exploration is flawed and should be cancelled. He also makes the mistake of assuming that just because he can't justify a space effort, there are no justifications.

The National Review online has published a piece by a gentleman named Eli Lehrer about what's wrong with the civil space program. Like most such articles it's rather good in pointing out what the problems are, but vague about solutions. What doesn, for instance, "But cutting back obligations for the space station and other human space flight as quickly as possible and redirecting the money towards science." mean? I think I know what it does mean, which is funding more robotic space probes. The proposal illustrates two misconceptions about space exploration.

The first misconception is that "science" can be best done with robots. While robots are very useful for remote sensing, humans beat them hands down in most field science. That's why when we do field science on Earth we tend to send live scientists. The problem is that people are more expensive. But the solution, it seems to me, is not to switch entirely over to robots, but to find ways to make sending people cheaper.

The second misconception is that space exploration consists solely of doing "science." Science is just one part of a properly balanced civil space program. Other goals should include encouraging commercial development, developing technology, and enhancing national security.

President Bush's new NASA Administrator, Sean O'Keefe, has had a gone start at healing what ails the US civil space program. But there's more that can be done. About a year ago, when the Bush 43 Presidency was young, I wrote a piece with a few helpful suggestions for NASA.

There are other things which could be done outside NASA. One idea would be to revisit the Outer Space Treaty. Currently national soverignty in space (i.e. claiming the Moon as national territory) is forbidden. Unfortunately that means that there is no mechanism for protecting property rights in space. An international regime for space property rights is long over due.

Then, under that regime, lunar land grants can be sold to private individuals and other entities with-say-a fifty year homesteading clause requiring the owner (or the owner's heirs) to develop his or her property within fifty years to retain ownership. The cost for each garnt would be nominal and the income might be used to finance space technology development. In one stroke, thousands or even tens of thousands of people would become direct stakeholders in the settlement of space. It's an idea worth pursuing, in my humble opinion.

It looks like Oliver Stone's Alexander the Great is a go. It will star Heath Ledger of The Patriot and A Knight's Tale.

In my opinion, Ledger is a bit tall for the role. But more important, what will be the role of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy which killed JFK and brought Richard Nixon to power be in the movie? Was Alexander assasinated? Or was his career just a plot by a shadowy group of rich white guys to take over the world?

On This Week Without David Brinkley, Cokie Roberts expressed horror at the thought that people in Washington D.C. would watch a man, Mike Tyson, box, whom they would not want to be alone with their daughters.

Well and good. But how many people voted for a man, Bill Clinton, about whom they have or should have the same fear? And isn't the choice of President of the United States far more important than a boxing match?

So they slit Danny Pearl's throat and then left a snuff video of it as a kind of macabre gag gift. What in the name of heaven could these animals be thinking? Have they not learned the lesson of 9/11 that when they do these things, we will visit them with the entire might and majesty of our power and render justice so complete and so eternal that there can be no doubt of the folly of such atrocities?

Don't worry, you murdering bastards. We are coming. And Hell is coming with us.

The Supreme Court has heard a school voucher case brought against a program in Cleveland which gives vouchers to poor and disadvantaged students to attend private schools. The arguement by the liberal and union groups bringing the suit is that since most of the students are choosing religious schools, the program violates the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

In my opinion, that arguement is a crock. First of all, the government is not supporting religion because the choice is up to students and parents. Second, that bridge was crossed decades ago when the GI Bill was passed and veterans were able to attend religious colleges and universities such as Notra Dame and Brigham Young.

The real agenda is that the success of voucher programs have embaressed liberals and teachers' unions by demonstrating how public schools have failed poor and disadvantaged students. Rather than work to improve public schools, these groups prefer to drag these students back into failure and misery. They should slink away in shame.

Today, February 20th, is the 40th anniversary of John Glenn's first flight in orbit around the Earth. Glenn also is the third politician to use political manuevering to get himself a seat on the space shuttle.

These anniversaries of past space glories are very depressing as it reminds us what has not been accomplished since the sixties. The most depressing of all the anniversaries is coming up; it is the 30th anniversary of the last man to walk on the Moon during the mission of Apollo 17. The Curmudgeon believes that one of the great stains on American civilization is the fact that we went to the Moon and then stopped. It is a stain which can only be wiped out when we get the vision and the courage to send people back, this time to stay.

The Curmudgeon, by the way, will soon publish a novel, The Children of Apollo, set in an alternate history in which the United States did not stop going to the Moon. He turned in the corrected galleys to the publisher yesterday. Much more on that anon.

Meanwhile, all is not doom and gloom. It looks like Lance Bass of the boy band N Synch will become the third space tourist to visit the International Space Station. The Curmudgeon's heart is bursting with-er-joy.

Just when one thought one couldn't get any more cynical about campaign finance reform, here comes this story about how Democrats are plotting to circumnavigate the bill they just passed. In other words, having piously "taken money out of politics", they want to put it back in by other means.

This just proves that not only is campaign finance reform unconstitutional. It is a fraud.

It looks like Iran is trying to earn its place on the Axis of Evil by trying to undermine all the work we've done to save Afghanistan. The Curmudgeon's view is that we should return the favor by working to undermine the mad mullahs.

Senator Mitch McConnell, that champion of the Constitution, thinks he has the votes to fillibuster Campaign Finance Reform in the Senate and, if not outright kill it, amend it, which its supporters claim is the same thing.

The world is fortunate that Al Queda did not dare to attack the French. We were spared much horror.

Here is the roll call of the people who voted to trash the Constitution and those who voted to defend it under the guise of Campaign Finance "Reform."

Yassir Arafat may finally be losing it. It seems that during an argument he pulled heat on his chief of security, Jibril Rajoub. That's the sort of behavior that can get a terrorist chieftien slightly dead, in my humble opinion.

Rajoub, by the way, is one of the young, up and coming Palestinian leaders whom the Israelis think is pragmatic enough to deal with.

The inability of the Democrats to use Enron as a stick to beat up on GW Bush has them looking for other targets. Looks like they may have settled on something called "corporate America."

Dick Morris believes he has found the political scandal in l'affaire d'Enron. It's not in the Bush White House.

A New York Times reporter (naturally!) has concluded that President GW Bush is culturally challenged. Why? He doesn't know who Leonardo Dicaprio and has never heard of Sex and the City.

Well, I say, good for him. I wish I were that lucky. In the case of Leo, while Titanic was a fine movie, by the end of it I was so sick of Leo's pretty good looks that I was glad when he finally froze to death in the icy, Atlantic waters. An as for Sex and the City, well, for what I understand it concerns the adventures of four New York bimbos who are forever whining about how disfunctional their sex lives are and how silly men behave. I had been praying that all four of them had been having breckfast at the World Trade Center on 9/11 for their latest gripe-fest about how there aren't any good men left anymore. But no such luck.

Oddly, the New York Times ink stauned wretch didn't count the fact the the POTUS loves Austin Powers in his favor. That demonstrates a bit of cultural elitism, in my humble opinion. As far as I'm concerned any man who does a good Dr. Evil and is also the most powerful man in the world is culturally in tune enough for me, thank you very much

George Will suggests that the war on terrorism will have one benifical side effect. Increased spending on bioterrorism will eventually improvethe health of all Americans.

Looks like the first film project directly inspired by 9/11 has been bought by MGM. The premise of the film is that after trying to get everyone to understand the dangers of Osama bin Laden, John O'Neill, former FBI head of counter terrorism, becomes a victim of the terrorist after starting his job as head of security for the World Trade Center on September 10th. This is apparently based on a true story.

In a very real sense we are all Reagan's Children. The world which existed at the time he assumed the Presidency was a scary place. Economic meltdown at home. The unrelenting march of tyranny aborad. The threat of nuclear war hanging over all.

By the time he rode into the sunset, all of that had changed. The Soviet Empire, which had frightened the world with it's ambition to rule it, was no more. The stagflation of the past was history. If there was any man who had summoned the future, who had in fact made the future possible, it was Ronald Reagan.

Happy birthday, Mr.President.

The Smithsonian has decided that individual achievement is not a factor in determining history. So much for the efforts of George Washington, Thomas Edison, Martin Luther King, and thousands of other people.

Proof that Sean O'Keefe has a lot of work to do to change NASA's corporate culture.

Well, NASA's space tourist requirements are out and Mrs. Whittington said it best, as usual. They seem to have been written by Queen Victoria.

My favorite clause, as it is of everyone else, is this one:

"(f) membership or sponsorship in organizations which adversely affect the confidence of the public in the integrity of, or reflecting unfavorably in a public forum on, any ISS Partner, Partner State or Cooperating Agency."

This would seem to forbid everybody, including:

A member of any space activist organization.

The United States Congress

The Media

The Democrat Party

The Republican Party

The Libertarian Party

The Clinton White House

The Bush White House (both of them)

Anyone who has ever used the words, "Yankee Imperialist, Eurotrash Socialist, Godless Communist, Japanese Industrialist" or any other national slur.

There are more, but you get the point I think.

Madeleine Halfbright proves to the world how much of a dufus she is by suggesting that President Bush is not enough of an appeaser.

Elizabeth Dole, of all people, seems to be the first target of the Democrats to slime Republicans with the Enron mess. Dole, who is running for the Senate, will soon be the target of campaign ads suggesting that she shouldn't have allowed an Enron sponsered fund raiser on her behalf to take place.

This, in my humble opinion, is so pathetic. First of all, Democrats took plenty of money from Enron too. Second of all, the American voters, who looked ascance at scandal politics when Clinton was in office, are not going to be very moved by the same now that Bush is President. I think people are going to find the sight of politicians pointing fingers at each other over a scandal where it is unclear any politician actually did anything wrong to be tiresome and unedifying. This is a case of the Democrats grasping for straws and maybe getting a hold of a razor blade.

One of my favorite SF series, The Lost Regiment, is being developed as a film project. The premise is that a Civil War Union regiment is sucked into a parallel universe where communities of humans are oppressed by nomadic aliens who roam about and literally treat the humans as cattle.

Aviation Week and Space Technology is reporting that the next NASA budget from the Bush administration will include money to build nuclear powered rockets. That's the kind of technology that could really open up the Solar System. A human expedition to Mars, for example, would take nine months round trip, instead of two and a half years with chemical rockets.

Also Drudge is reporting that DNC Chairman Terry Mcauliffe was up to his eyes involved in the bankruptcy of a company called Global Crossing. Global Crossing's Chairman helped Mcauliffe in a stock deal which turned $100,000 unto $18 million, which sort of makes Hillary's cattle futures scam pale by comparison. Global Crossing bought a lot of access to Bill Clinton for its generosity.

The GOP is supposed to be the party of big business. But Democrat Senator Chris Dodd helped Arthur Anderson a great deal and was well paid for his help.

The Weekly Standard has a good suggestion of what ought to be done with Jihad Johney and the rest of those merry Taliban killers. I suspect that the author may have read Kipling about the tender mercies of Afghan women:

"When you're laying on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come down to cut up your remains,
Roll over to your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier!"

The notion of paying Black Americans money in the form of reparations for the evils of slavery is racist, fraudulent, and unworkable. But that fact doesn't prevent the unscrupulous from attempting to profit politically from furthering the cause. Or, as this story suggests, from profiting financially.

Looks like NASA is doing a little marketing research for the future of the planetary exploration program. Some of the options (search for suitable sites for human colonies) are rather interesting:

Looks like Campaign Finance Reform might pass after all, because they say of Enron. Why this is so is somewhat hard to explain, but we'll make an attempt.

Campaign Finance Reform must pass because the political class is tired of all those people trying to affect the political process. Of course it would be indecorous to say so, thus we have to come up with any excuse that even sounds plausiable.

So, had Bush tried to save Enron, that would be proof that CFR was necessary because Enron would have been seen as having bought and paid for that service. However, since Bush did not save Enron, the proponents of CFR have come up with a new one. Bush should have saved Enron but did not because he was afraid of the appearence of corruption. If Enron had not "bought access", then Bush would have felt free to help Enron "based on the merits."

Dick Gephardt, who thinks he wants to be President, actually said that.

Civilized states such as Texas have laws allowing responsible citizens to carry concealed handguns. Despite the huffing and puffing of gun control fanatics, these laws have proven to be a remarkable deterent to crime. One thinks twice, after all, about mugging or raping someone if one doesn't know if one's victem will pull a Glock.

Now it seems that a surprising icon of liberalism recognized the utility of carrying a pistol. She did so while campaigning in the south for the civil rights of blacks. Her name was Eleanor Roosevelt.

I wonder if she ever told Hillary Clinton about this during the Senator's many seances.

Democrats got all huffy when Karl Rove suggested that Republicans are seen as better able to handle issues of war and national defense. But now at least some Democrats seem bent on proving Rove right by actually opposing the President's proposed defense buildup. Is it any wonder why polls are showing that there's an electoral reallignment toward the GOP? What sort of idiot opposes defense spending in the middle of a war?

George Will talks about election reform born of a horrible case of fraud in the last election. Only the fraud took place in Missouri, not Florida.

Newt Gingrich suggests that the government offer cash prices to promote technological innovation. His most interesting idea along these lines is to give a billion dollars to the person or entity which comes up with a way to get people and material into Earth orbit at ten percent of the current cost.

John Podhoretz informs us that Enron is still dead as a political scandal a week after he first declared it so, despite the wishes of Bush haters.

Looks like Doris Kerns Goodwin, liberalism's most telegenic historian, also has a problem with using other people's material without attribution.

Drudge is reporting that Rush Limbaugh has regained eighty percent of his hearing. Some times medical science has the power not only to amaze, but to incite awe.

So that group of inbred degenerates known as the Saudi royal family thinks that America troops have become a "liability" in the Arab world and are thinking that those troops, which have kept the Iraqis and Iranians off of them for ten years, might have to leave.

Seems to me that it might be time to dust off those plans from the 1973 oil embargo to seize the oil fields. If that is too ungentle a solution, how about the following:

(1) Pass the Bush energy policy immediately. If this development is not sufficient evidence to Daschle and the other weird lefties in Congress that dependance on Arab oil has liabilities, then there is no hope for them.
(2) Seize territory in southern and/or nothern Iraq and use that as bases for American troops to finish off Saddem.
(3) Actively encourage dissidents in Iran to overthrow the iron rule of the mullahs.
(4) Tell Sharon that he may now take out that toy kingdom of Yassir Arafat's as well as Arafat himself. That will really torque the Saudis. It might even improve the chances for peace, however, by teaching the Palestinians the folly of war.

Looks like Geraldo got shot at again, this time in Somalia. Fortunately for bad journalism, the bad guys keep missing.

Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth offers a devestating critique of Teddy Kennedy's view of how to end a recession. One of the more fascinating facts is that John Kennedy, unlike his little brother, understood the utility of tax cuts-even for the rich-in fostering economic growth.

Indeed, if JFK-who not only believed in tax cuts, but a strong military, an agressive foreign policy against tyrants and terrorists, and the space program-were to come back, would he not be condemned as an extreme right winger?

Teddy Kennedy wants to raise your taxes. He just told you. Now so have I.

Looks like Joe Leiberman may have a conflict of interest which might just prevent him from leading the Senate investigation of Enron. But then, who in the Senate does not?

Fred Barnes disagrees with Podhoretz, though he believes rightly that so far President Bush has emerged wholely triumphant and unscathed. Bush may have learned the secret to surviving scandals. That secret is don't do anything wrong.

John Podhoretz has officially declared the Enron scandal dead. Great. Now we can turn out attention to more important matters.