Awesome news! Finally we have an ally east of the English Channel again! Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidency by a decent margin. Maybe there is some hope for the French after all...

Well, I didn't watch the GOP debate on MSNBC last night since I had my Toastmasters meeting last night, but I saw a note linked on the Google news page that the candidates were asked whether they "believed in evolution". It is kind of a stupid, misphrased question since evolution isn't a belief system, but even so, three of the candidates: Tancredo, Huckabee, and Brownback said "no". So there is no way I could ever vote for any of them. How absurd to be living in the 21st century and not accept the mountain of science supporting evolution. The Washington Post note that I saw on this is here.

Christopher Hitchens puts George Tenet in his place in this piece.

It is really amazing to read some of the articles about the French election such as this one. The type of over-the-top rhetoric that has been used in this country about George W. Bush is being used over there to demonize Nicolas Sarkozy. I especially like the following line from the article that I linked above:

"His doctrines of radical economic reform and individual responsibility — never before aired by a senior French politician — have been welcomed by many as a revolution, but cast by opponents as divisive, cruel and unFrench."

Amazing! A French politician who actually talks about individual responsibility!!! Imagine that!!!

Man, I am just down on my knees praying that that guy gets elected. I am still afraid that France will be under Sharia law in my lifetime, but if Sarkozy is elected that might get delayed until I am in the old folks home otherwise it could be much sooner.

I have been enjoying Dennis Miller's new radio show. Where he comes up with some of these comparisons and references to pop culture past and present I'll never know. Today he referenced Sybil Danning. I hadn't thought about her in years, but years ago... va, va, voom!

I gave a talk at my Toastmasters club last night on this topic. Here's the text as I had it written out beforehand:
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Fellow Toastmasters and guests, there is a cancer in our society. This cancer has more than one name. Some know it as “political correctness”, others as “multiculturalism”. Examples of the unchecked spread of these ills are legion. Let me just give you a few examples:

Recently in Frankfurt, Germany a woman of Moroccan descent sought an expedited divorce from her husband who had beat her and had threatened to kill her. The judge in the case rejected the application for a speedy divorce by referring to a passage in the Koran that some have interpreted to mean that a husband can beat his wife. Yes, you heard me right, a judge in a Western country used Islamic law as grounds to keep a woman from divorcing an abusive husband. Because, you know, it is their culture and who are we to impose our values on them?

Another recent case: in Virginia Beach, VA a drunk driver killed two teenage girls. Tragic events like this happen all over the country, but this one could have been avoided if it were not for misguided political correctness. It turns out that the drunk driver was an illegal alien who had been detained for previous drunk driving offenses, but since Virginia Beach is a “sanctuary city”, the police are forbidden, FORBIDDEN, to report illegal aliens, EVEN THOSE WHO BREAK THE LAW, to the Immigration authorities. A Virginia Beach police spokesman says it possibly could be a violation of an illegal alien's civil rights to ask if the person is here legally or not. This case has been highlighted by Bill O’Reilly on his Fox News Channel show and the Virginia Beach authorities seem more outraged about O’Reilly than about their own perverted system of justice.

Another example from abroad (not that we don’t have lots more PC cases in this country it is just that the cancer has spread so much more in Europe): In England, teachers are dropping subjects such as the Holocaust and the Crusades from history lessons because they do not want to cause offence to to Muslim children who have been taught by their parents or at the mosque that the Holocaust didn’t happen or that the Crusades were unmitigated evil. No, no we can’t offend people by teaching about something THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!!

What is happening here? What is the common thread in these stories? It is political correctness and “multi-culturalism”. In a politically correct society one can not assert that one’s values are better than another person’s values. The cardinal sin in a politically correct society is not breaking the law as in the case of the Virginia Beach story, or failing to uphold the truth, as in the teachers in England story, no, the cardinal sin in the world of the politically correct is that you might offend someone from a different culture. If the norm in that culture is for husbands to beat their wives, then FINE, who are we to tell that Moroccan man that beating his wife is wrong? Who are we to judge?

In order for a society to survive. It must have a set of standards that all of its citizens adhere to. If that society has no confidence in its standards, if it throws its standards out the window in favor of standards from other societies then it ceases to be a unique society.

So what is behind this failure to support standards of western civilization? At its root, at its very core is a rejection of religion. Now, I have to admit that I personally am not the most religious person. However, I acknowledge the positive role that religion has played in the lives of many people and I strongly believe in the Judeo-Christian principles that are at the heart of western civilization. Elites who support a PC/multicultural agenda reject religion and hence reject those Judeo-Christian principles or, at best, refuse to say that they are any “better” than principles from other cultures. G.K. Chesterton said that "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing -- they believe in anything." And that is what we have happening today. If one believes in anything then anything goes: want to beat your wife? Sure! Why not? The Koran says it is OK. If you don’t want to hear about the Holocaust… no problem! The imam at the mosque said it didn’t happen and we don’t want to offend the imam now do we?

So what are we to do? We have to know ourselves. We have to know what made our country… what made western civilization great. This is why education is so important and why students need to study American history and the history of Western Civilization. Advocates of the PC/multicultural agenda have sought to just have American and European history put on a level equal with that of African or Asian history, but that is crazy. Certainly there are lessons to be learned from other societies, but they must come after our own if we are to maintain our integrity as a society. Once we know our history then we have to follow and maintain the standards and traditions that have kept our culture together for hundreds even thousands of years.

You know I saw the movie “300” recently. It is a stylized account of the historical stand of 300 Spartans against an army of tens of thousands of Persians. I would recommend that movie to everybody. It is violent and it is not perfect, but it actually espouses a lot of ideas central to Western Civilization- that freedom isn’t free, that there are causes worth dying for, that the law of men needs to stand above that of tyranny. Think about those 300 Spartans… they sacrificed their lives to defend their society. Now think about the 15 British sailors recently taken hostage by the Iranians (the modern day descendants of the Persians that the Spartans fought against)… they were threatened with prison and having their i-pods taken away and they folded like a card house and sang like canaries- mouthing whatever words the Iranians put in their mouths. I think King Leonidas and his fellow Spartans would be disgusted by the actions of those British sailors. Those sailors were raised in the PC/multicultural society that is modern-day England and they represent what happens when that ethic is followed… stand up for your country? Refuse to tell the lie that you were in Iranian waters? Heck… why do that? If you’re in Iranian prison, you might not be able to download the latest i-tunes? Why not just do what the Iranians want? They’re not really any worse or better than us after all, right?

My solution is that our society must have confidence and faith. Confidence in the Judeo-Christian values and Enlightenment-derived laws that have guided our society for hundreds of years and faith, if not in the Judeo-Christian God, then certainly in the precepts of those religions. Confidence also in ourselves and in the justness of our society. To paraphrase the great 19^th century philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay “Self Reliance”, he was addressing the individual, but his advice rings true to society as a whole: “Trust thyself! … Accept the place the divine providence has found for you. Great (societies) have always done so and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age.”.

I have often read pieces by people who try to draw an analogy between modern day America and the last days of the Roman empire. I have always thought that the more apt analogy was between modern America and between the final days of the Roman republic. It was then that Rome changed from a representative republic (albeit with a severely limited franchise) to an autocracy. I fear for similar changes in our future. One thing that happened in the latter days of the Roman republic was that when the dictator Sulla came to power and, later, in the early days of the second triumvirate of Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus that there were "proscription lists" put out... basically lists of people to be killed that Sulla and then the second triumvirate saw as threats... and those people were killed. That is how Cicero met his end (as recently shown on the HBO series "Rome"). Well, in the modern day, I am not sure that people will be put to death, but I think there will be efforts to silence people. The news just came out that Don Imus' radio show has been canceled. Sure, Imus' recent comments were rotten, but he has said things just as bad in the past. It is just that now a "perfect storm" of demagogues came together to get rid of Imus. Apparently last night the detestable Keith Olberman had a list of people to "get rid of" which included radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and Neal Bortz. This is what I see as the modern day proscription list. Let's hope that the likes of Olberman are not successful.

Good piece on the American Thinker site about how it is not just about killing the enemy, but breaking their will to fight and how the Democrats in Congress are doing the opposite.

Bjorn Lomborg wrote a good piece on global warming for the NY Post.  He states that human activities are responsible for global warming and I don't buy into that, but otherwise his logic is good.

There’s a hilarious song parody (with an imitation of Al Sharpton singing) off of Rush Limbaugh’s site that takes off on an LA Times article that called Barack Obama, “the magic negro”.  I’m not sure if this link will work, if not check out www.rushlimbaugh.com and the Wednesday, March 21 program.

 

http://mfile.akamai.com/5020/wma/rushlimb.download.akamai.com/5020/New/barackthemagicnegro.asx

 

Also, have you seen the take off on the Apple 1984 ad that depicts Hilary as “big brother”?  You can check it out at:

 

http://tammybruce.com/2007/03/anti-hillary_youtube.php

I just got back last night from the 38th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC). It was a good meeting. Since I do primarily Mars work, I mostly hung out in the Mars sessions though I did check out the astrobiology and Lunar remote sensing sessions too. I think everyone is really excited about the spectacular images that we have been getting back from the HiRISE camera. They really are amazing. It is as if we sent someone there with a balloon and he was sending back pictures. CRISM is providing some great results too though they are coming slower. Mostly, it seems, they are provided added spatial resolution to some of the discoveries made by the European OMEGA instrument. Specifically, it was fascinating to hear that they have been finding many exposures of phyllosilicate minerals in ancient terrains, albeit in smaller exposures than those at Mawrth Valles and Nili Fossae. I didn't attend the NASA meeting night on Monday, but I didn't hear any horror stories so I suppose it wasn't the smack-down that took place last year. I think everyone is just waiting to see how the 2008 NASA budget looks and also to see how the 2008 elections go since those could alter the NASA funding landscape as well.

We had some exciting weather for the conference.  On Sunday night/early Monday morning there was a huge thunderstorm and on Wednesday afternoon there was a huge thunderstorm.  My cousin, who lives in downtown Houston said that downtown Houston got three inches of rain in an hour.  I think everybody survived the weather though and Thursday and Friday were quite beautiful days weather-wise.

Claude Allegre has been an advocate of human-induced global warming for over 20 years, but a recent report indicates that he has now become skeptical of the human role in the modest increase in global temperatures. In his "conversion", he has cited evidence that Antarctica is gaining ice and that Kilimanjaro's retreating snow cover is the result of natural causes.

Within the next Martian day (sol) or two, the Opportunity will have droven over 10,000 m (10 km). Woo hoo! Who'd have thought it could go so far?

Here is a link to a piece by climatologist Timothy Ball of the University of Winnipeg regarding the misinformation regarding all the global warming hullaballoo.

Here is a great piece by Christopher Hitchens responding to some of the points in Mark Steyn's book America Alone on the menace from Islamic fundamentalism.