Meanwhile on Mars

Some nice pictures from the Opportunity rover. And I can't tell what that thing in the distance is -- it looks like a Volkswagen.

"Domestic military intervention"

Newsmax is apparently trying to outcompete WorldNetDaily for the title of stupidest and craziest right-wing publication.

Purple garden, Mohonk

At Mohonk Mountain House, this year's garden theme is "dark and stormy," with lots of purples and dark reds, along with an oversized chessboard.

Safire (1929-2009)

One of my idols has passed away. Rest in Peace, William Safire. If it weren't for him, it's entirely plausible I would never have been a journalist or a libertarian conservative "libcon."

Surrogates soon

Next on my list of films to see: Surrogates. At Scientific American, George Musser notes that the movie touches on various tech-related human issues, including "how comment boards lower the standards of civility."

Delayed discovery

As if Cassini hadn't proven its value at Saturn (and flying by Jupiter), it turns out it also collected lunar data that corroborates the new findings of water on the moon, and nobody knew it.

Beck flameout watch

I don't know what this frog thing is about and I don't care. What I wonder is how long before Glenn Beck shows up with a backwards swastika on his face, or in some other such predicament, when his career goes the same way as Morton Downey, Jr.'s.

Financial bookshelf

In anticipation of future writings on the Fed and related subjects, I've acquired a growing collection of relevant books. Here's some recent, current and prospective reading:

Finished reading:

The Road Ahead for the Fed, multiple authors.

Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged, and Worsened the Financial Crisis, by John B. Taylor.

The Case Against the Fed, by Murray Rothbard.

Partly read/in progress:

After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street and Washington, by Nicole Gelinas.

Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939, by Barry Eichengreen.

Will read sometime soon:

In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War on the Great Panic, by David Wessel.

This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, by Carmen N. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff.

A few thoughts: Eichengreen should be read by anyone who thinks we need the gold standard back, and has much to say on different types of gold standards. Rothbard presents much the same view as Ron Paul's End the Fed (about which readers may already know what I think) but, interestingly (and unlike Paul), ends with insistence on a gold-coin standard, seemingly in recognition that any kind of paper or electronic money merely backed by gold retains a credibility problem. Which leaves me to wonder how a modern economy could run on coins.

Pee-wee Herman and the Fed

Interesting. These are the current top searches on Yahoo:

Pee-wee Herman
Federal Reserve
Bruce Springsteen
Sweet Valley High
Eastwick
Gisele Bundchen
Mahmoud Ahmadinej…
See You at the Po…
Dalai Lama
Airline Passenger

What you owe

Take a look here and click on the charts (pdf).

And hoping the government will collapse and the debt get repudiated is not a good plan.

Saturnine thoughts

Lots of good Saturn material available today. Some pictures from the Cassini orbiter here, and a profile of Carolyn Porco, who heads the Cassini camera team, here. To think that some people wanted to scrap that spacecraft based on improbable scenarios and hyped-up radiation-phobia...

Nigerian backlash

"'District 9' depiction angers some Nigerians." Excerpt:

"Why do they want to denigrate Nigerians as criminals, cannibals and prostitutes who sleep with extra-terrestrial animals?" said Dora Akunyili, information minister. "We've had enough with the stereotypes they have branded us with ... we are not going to sit back and allow people to stigmatize us."

The movie will not be shown in Nigeria unless Sony apologizes and edits out any references to the country, she said.

On the other hand, at least the movie didn't accuse Nigerians of having government censorship.

Dance review

I just voted for Tom Delay on Dancing with the Stars. For dancing technique, it may have been merely adequate, but as political theater, it was brilliant.

More gold

For those who were didn't get enough dissension about the gold standard here, try here and here.

Flying armadillo

Armadillo Aerospace, contestant for NASA's million-dollar Lunar Lander Competition prize, has some great videos of its spacecraft in action. (Via Bad Astronomy.)

Beck ideology watch

There's a dispute between David Frum and David Horowitz on the question of whether Glenn Beck shares many of Ron Paul's views. Horowitz denounces Paul as an isolationist, but demands evidence that Beck is similar. So, here's Beck last month talking to Ron Paul's son Rand:

I disagree with your father on a few things, but I will tell you that I am becoming more and more libertarian on things like defense. I have always been a guy who believes in fight big, fight hard, and then come home. But I have also believed in a big footprint of the United States, because somebody's got to hold this thing together. That was a mistaken belief of mine. I have grown past that and I'm growing past it quickly. For instance, Germany, protect your own self. I could see us pulling everybody back. I'd like to see putting people who are currently serving in Germany on the border. But what do I know? ...

Notwithstanding some vagueness, it does suggest a Beck-Paul affinity on foreign policy. Also, Beck's question at the end is spot-on.

Romney wins by losing

I've been liking Mitt Romney more and more lately. Here are two more reasons. One, he lost a straw poll among social conservatives. And two, in speaking to them, he kept his priorities in order:

Huckabee won the straw poll Saturday, grabbing nearly 29 percent of the vote. Romney, Pawlenty, Palin and Pence each won roughly 12 percent of the 597 votes cast.

Just four of the eight prospective GOP standard-bearers spoke at the three-day conference: Romney, Pence, Huckabee, and Pawlenty. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who will speak later Saturday, earlier asked that his name be removed from the straw poll ballot.

Despite the makeup of the crowd, Romney's speech was relatively light on social issues, focusing instead on economic and security policy.

Algae car

At Scientific American, where I was freelancing yesterday, we got a visit from Algaeus, a car powered by a mix of algae fuel and gasoline plus electric battery. It gets about 150 miles per gallon. Someday pond scum may save civilization. UPDATE: Take a look (at the battery).

Paganism: Gingrich still worried

A few months ago, I criticized -- not without some mocking -- Newt Gingrich's warning that "We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism." Yet I harbored some vague hope that Gingrich might have been indulging in some transient (and expedient) rhetorical excess. Not so. He's still talking about the purported paganism problem:

I think our country is in a great struggle, and it’s something that Paul wrote about frequently. Paul wrote about a world where there was paganism. That’s where we are. A number of people with great social prestige think that paganism is a reasonable way of life. They like to think that they’re unique, but they’re not.

Now let's turn to the Merriam Webster online dictionary:

Main Entry: pa·gan
Pronunciation: \ˈpā-gən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin paganus, from Latin, civilian, country dweller, from pagus country district; akin to Latin pangere to fix —more at pact Date: 14th century
1 : heathen 1; especially : a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome)
2 : one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods : an irreligious or hedonistic person
3 : neo-pagan

So, let's be clear -- Paul was talking about pagans of definition 1 (who were often quite devout followers of their own religions); Gingrich is talking about the pagans of definition 2; and the neo-pagans of definition 3 are a rather small part of the current-day population. It seems that Gingrich is trying to capitalize on this ambiguity -- to stoke anxieties of current-day Christian conservatives that they are being persecuted by the government, as the early Christians were in pagan (definition 1) Rome.

If Gingrich wants to denounce people for being hedonistic or irreligious, let him do so. I don't generally share his concerns, but at least I'll respect his terminology. But using "paganism" as an expansive and slippery term of abuse (as I suggested in comments on my earlier post) is not in keeping with the classical heritage that inspired the American founding fathers. And considering that Gingrich has a PhD in history, he should (and does) know better.

Rocky, hellish world

Some interesting extrasolar planet news:

Scientists have discovered the first confirmed Earthlike planet outside our solar system, they announced Wednesday.

"This is the first confirmed rocky planet in another system," astronomer Artie Hatzes told CNN, contrasting the solid planet with gaseous ones like Jupiter and Saturn.

But "Earthlike" is a relative term.

The planet's composition may be similar to that of Earth, but its environment is more like a vision of hell, the project's lead astronomer said.

It is so close to the star it orbits "that the place may well look like Dante's Inferno, with a probable temperature on its 'day face' above 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit (2,000 degrees Celsius) and minus-328 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 200 degrees Celsius) on
its night face," said Didier Queloz of Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, the project leader.

Hatzes, explaining that one side of the body is always facing the star and the other side always faces away, said the side "facing the sun is probably molten. The other side could actually have ice" if there is water on the planet.

Me: And maybe there's a transitional zone between the two sides. Who knows what might be found there?