“In the first place, God made idiots.”

April 26, 2012 By vorjack 17 Comments

“That was for practice. Then he made school boards.” – Mark Twain

According to the Providence Journal, the Cranston RI school district now has a whopping big legal bill to pay as a result of their fight to preserve a prayer banner against a complaint lodged by Jessica Ahlquist. It’s large enough that they’re putting the local taxpayers on the hook immediately:

The school district and the city will split the $150,000 in legal fees owed to the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, under a proposal approved by the School Committee Monday night.

The vote was unanimous in favor of the proposed fee split proposal submitted by School Supt. Peter L. Nero.

The school district will pay $75,000 toward the legal fees owed the ACLU for representing Cranston High School West student Jessica Ahlquist, 16, in a challenge to the constitutionality of a prayer banner which used to hang in the school’s auditorium.

$150,000 is actually less than I’d expect. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that the ACLU bargained down its own fees so as not to bankrupt the district. I remember that they did that in Dover.

We used to talk about the “Dover Trap,” the tendency of certain school districts to push “intelligent design,” get sued, and wind up in debt. This looks to be the same sort of thing.

Honestly, what kind of legal advice are these school boards getting? They rarely even have any new arguments, and yet they hope to win court cases against long established precedents. All they’re doing is breaking their own budgets.

Filed Under: Current Events 17 Comments

Asteroid Mining

April 25, 2012 By vorjack 31 Comments

I heard rumors about this, and I honestly thought it was a joke. But according to the good folks at io9, James Cameron, some Google executives and other backers are forming Planetary Resources, Inc. The goal of Planetary Resources is asteroid mining:

Planetary Resources is establishing a new paradigm for resource discovery and utilization that will bring the solar system into humanity’s sphere of influence. Our technical principals boast extensive experience in all phases of robotic space missions, from designing and building, to testing and operating. We are comprised of visionaries, pioneers, rocket scientists and industry leaders with proven track records on—and off—this planet.

Back to io9:

This is big news on several fronts, not the least of which being the fact that this venture stands to reinvigorate the world’s passion for space exploration. Money can be a powerful motivating factor, and all indications suggest that there a LOT of it to be made mining resources like water and precious metals from near-Earth asteroids. [...]

“If you look at space resources, the logical next step is to go to the near-Earth asteroids,” Planetary Resources co-founder and co-chairman Eric Anderson told SPACE.com. “They’re just so valuable, and so easy to reach energetically. Near-Earth asteroids really are the low-hanging fruit of the solar system.”

Well, damn. I didn’t think I’d see a serious bid to mine near Earth asteroids in my lifetime. Of course, it still remains to be seen how serious this is, and then how successful it is.

Still, I’m excited. That’s your cue to tell me why this is all going to end in tears.

Filed Under: Science 31 Comments

Natural Wonders

April 24, 2012 By vorjack 2 Comments

Two videos that deserve viewing at full screen in high definition:

A video of the aurora taken in norther Finland, Norway and Sweden during 2011

This video was created using images of Saturn and its rings from NASA’s Cassini probe and Voyager mission:

Filed Under: Science, Videos 2 Comments

Saladin the Skeptic?

April 24, 2012 By vorjack 12 Comments

Reading through Thomas Asbridge’s The Crusades, I ran across this little snippet about Saladin:

That summer, one marked distraction was provided by the prediction of an impending apocalypse. For decades, astrologers had foretold that, on 16 September 1186, a momentous planetary alignment would stir up a devastating wind storm, scouring the Earth of life. This bleak prophecy had circulated among Muslims and Christians alike, but the sultan nonetheless thought it ridiculous. He made a point of holding a candlelit, open-air party on the appointed night of disaster, even as ‘feeble-mind[ed]‘ fools huddled in caves and underground shelters. Needless to say, the evening passed without event; indeed, one of his companions pointedly remarked that ‘we never saw a night as calm as that’.

Say what you want about Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn, but the man had style.

Filed Under: History, Islam 12 Comments

Crusaders

April 23, 2012 By vorjack 16 Comments

Chris Rodda picks up on this story of a Marine fighter unit that is changing its name to recapture some old glory:

In 2008, when Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 122 was preparing to deploy to Iraq, the unit’s commander, Lt. Col. William Lieblein, did something very wise and sensible — he changed the nickname of the unit from “Crusaders” back to its former name, the “Werewolves.” Stating the obvious, Lt. Col. Lieblein said, “The notion of being a crusader in that part of the world doesn’t float.”

But now, under new leadership, the unit is going back to being the “Crusaders,” complete with an insignia of a crusader shield with a big red cross on it and a crusader knight as its mascot.

The squadron’s new commander, Lt. Col. Wade Wiegel, is apparently focused on the history of the name within the Marines rather than the larger history of the name. At least in print.

Rodda and Fred Clark focus on the offensiveness of the name. Clark brings up the massacre of Jerusalem, and points out the obvious problem of accepting the Crusaders as role models. But there’s another problem that interests me.

Let’s be honest: taken as a whole, the Crusaders lost. They lost bad. They spent as much time fighting amongst each other and against their own allies as against the infidels. They committed every sin in the book, from the aforementioned massacre to (allegedly) cannibalism. Yes, they had initial success against a disunited foe, but they were unable to sustain, and they left behind an Islam that was more unified, more militant and meaner.

Why do we celebrate these losers? Whether it’s the Crusaders, or the Confederate States of America or the Spartans, we always seem to want to romanticize the folks who got spanked by history. Why can’t we let them moulder in peace and model ourselves on the winners?

Filed Under: History 16 Comments
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