Got word today from my publisher that they have accepted the first third of the book that I turned into them on February 7. My editor "posted" my "cheque" to me today. I anticpate no trouble getting the remainder of the book in to them well before my next deadline, March 30.

Another interesting posting from Memri.org:


Special Dispatch-Reform Project
February 13, 2007
No. 1460
Iraqi Reformist 'Abd Al-Khaliq Hussein: A Hands-On Lesson in Tolerance for Muslims, From Pope Benedict XVI

To view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit:
http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD146007 .

In an article titled "A Hands-On Lesson in Tolerance for Muslims, From Pope Benedict," posted on the liberal website Elaph, Iraqi reformist columnist 'Abd Al-Khaliq Hussein ridiculed Muslims who had responded to Pope Benedict XVI's statements on the role of violence in the spread of Islam with threats and violence of their own. In his article, he also set out the human rights violations committed by the Arab and Muslim world and its discrimination against religious minorities, and held up Europe and the Pope himself as examples of true religious tolerance.
The following are excerpts from the article:(1)

"Islamic Countries Are... the Greatest Crematorium for Books and the Greatest Slaughterhouse for Freethinkers in History"

"Political Islamists raise a huge hubbub, saying that Islam is a religion of tolerance, but at the same time they threaten to decapitate anyone who directs the least bit of criticism at them – even if it is just a question, or a doubt concerning religious thought, or the writing of an article, or the publishing of a book... to the point where fatwas are issued that make it licit to kill the asker of the question or the writer [of the article].

"For this reason, the Islamic countries are considered the greatest crematorium for books and the greatest slaughterhouse for freethinkers in history, and we see that the majority of freethinkers in Arab and Islamic countries are either expatriates or have chosen to keep silent in order to remain safe.

"A few months ago, Pope Benedict XVI cited, in a lecture before academics at a German university, what a 14th century emperor had said about the Muslims' reliance on the sword in spreading Islam, and that it was better to employ the mind and persuasion instead of force in spreading a religion. [In saying this, the Pope] angered the political Islamists and Islamic sheikhs, who demanded that he kneel down and apologize! As usual, they resorted to instigating riots in the streets, and there were attacks on Christians in Islamic countries... and churches were burned"...
"How Can the Threat of Decapitation Go Hand in Hand with a Spirit of Tolerance?"
"To give just one example of these protests, a demonstration was held in London to protest against the Pope and to defend [the claim] of the tolerance of Islam. The strange thing was that among the slogans that were heard at this demonstration was the threat to decapitate anyone who doubts Islam's tolerance... How can the threat of decapitation go hand in hand with a spirit of tolerance?

"In addition, a sign was raised on which a threat to Europe was written: 'Europe, you will pay. Your 9/11 is on its way!!'... These people are among those who fled their Islamic countries because of the oppression they suffered at the hands of their Islamic governments, and who found a safe haven, honor, bread, and freedom in the 'infidel' countries of Europe – which they are threatening with another 9/11. And the 'infidel' Europeans bear all this with true tolerance, and not with [merely] the claim [of tolerance] like the Islamists. The question is: Can Christians in any Islamic country demonstrate in demand of their rights?"
To view an image of the poster mentioned above visit:

http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD146007 .

"I Don't Know Why... the Muslim Brotherhood Deny the Role of the Sword and Violence in Spreading Islam"

"I don't know why these people – especially the Muslim Brotherhood – deny the role of the sword and violence in the spreading of Islam. Arab-Islamic history is full of wars and raids... The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ali Khamenei, never delivers the Friday sermon without holding a rifle, which has replaced the sword. Likewise, the logo of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has a picture of the Koran and two crossed swords, as is clearly seen in the picture here: http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD146007

We see under the sword hilts the slogan 'Make Ready,' which is the beginning of the Koranic verse [8:60]: 'Make ready for them whatever you can of force and horses of war with which to frighten Allah's enemies and yours [...]' Terrorists rely on this text when they kill innocent people for the sole reason of their being of another religion.

"I think that these people [i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood], by associating the Koran with the sword and making this into their logo, have done damage to Islam, whether knowingly or unknowingly. It is well known that commercial advertising relies on psychology to sell any given product, in that they associate the commodity with something enticing to the human soul in a way that excites basic instincts, like the sexual [instinct]. They use a picture of a beautiful half-naked girl, for example, in order to sell the product, and so on. And on the other hand, if they want to launch a negative campaign against a competitor or anything else, they try to give it a bad image, and they distribute images of it with something disgusting or terrifying that drives away the viewer... This is what is called in psychology 'advertisement by association'...

"We know that the sword terrifies people, as it is a means of killing used in violent battles in order to behead people. When the sword is associated with the Koran and with the threat [inherent] in the slogan 'Make Ready,' this yields a result opposite [to what is desired], to the point where when we see a Koran, we are reminded of the sword and violence and beheadings, and we are terrified. In this I think that the Muslims have twice done damage to their religion. First, when they associate the sword with the Koran in their logos, and again when they contradict themselves and deny the role of the sword in spreading Islam, and deal violently with the world instead of showing a spirit of tolerance."

"Why is it that Christians and Jews and Members of all Religions Other than Islam Can Criticize Their Religious Leaders and Raise Questions... Without Provoking any Tumult or Violence?"
"Let us return to the role of tolerance in Islam and in other religions. The question that arises is: Why is it that Christians and Jews and members of all religions other than Islam can criticize their religious leaders and raise questions about anything and everything, and raise doubts concerning some of the concepts in their beliefs, without provoking any tumult or violence against those asking the questions or raising the doubts, and without their being punished? The Muslims are the only ones who raise a storm when any criticism or question is directed at an issue concerning their religion, while [at the same time] insisting that freedom of religion and belief is guaranteed in Islam and in Islamic countries.

"The latest thing I read on this issue was an article by Dr. Ahmad Al-Baghdadi on the Aafaq website [www.aafaq.org] titled 'Defending the Religion through Ignorance'(2)... The author noted the intention of 'the Kuwaiti Ministry of Education to omit Article 18 of the International Declaration of Human Rights from the human rights curriculum for high school students, since it stipulates that every individual has freedom of thought, which includes the freedom to change one's religion and beliefs. The head of the technical council for the curriculum and professor of law... Rashid Al-'Anzi said that the reason why Article 18 of the [Declaration of] Human Rights will no longer be taught is that it is contrary to the Islamic shari'a, saying that we [in Kuwait] are a conservative Islamic society, in which we must instill religious, Islamic beliefs in accordance with the Islamic shari'a, and thus this article is not in keeping with how we want the students to be.'... But the Islamists are tolerant, and woe to whoever doubts their tolerance and their devotion to freedom!

"Islamists... are Emptying [Iraq] of Christians and Mandeans... And There is No Doubt" that Allah "Will Reward Them for These Abominable Acts, with Paradise and Virgins"
"A friend in Egypt sent me a photocopy of a letter by [Egyptian] MP 'Ismat Al-Sadat addressed to the head of the Egyptian Parliament, in which he demanded [that the parliament] invite the prime minister and question him concerning sectarian discrimination against the Copts – who are the original Egyptians. [Palestinian journalist] Dr. Ahmad Abu Matar did well to publish the photocopy of this letter in his article on this scandal, titled 'This Is Happening in Egypt!'(3) The letter reads: 'Concerning the matter of the Faisal Islamic Bank's preventing Coptic investors from buying its stock and speculating in its funds – which is [a form of] sectarian classification of Egyptians, etc.' In other words, the aforementioned bank made a decision to prevent Copts from exercising their right of investment in their [own] country like the rest of Egyptian citizens, for no reason other than that they are Copts. This is blatant and unequivocal sectarian discrimination.

"The problem is that no sooner do we point out the tribulations of Coptic Christians in Egypt than we are flooded with a torrent of responses and letters of disapproval from Islamists who deny that there is any sectarian discrimination against Copts in Egypt. The same thing recurs when [we] defend any oppressed minority in the Arab countries. This is another example of political Islam's lack of tolerance for people of other religions.

"In the Gulf states, Christians and people of any other religion except Islam are not allowed to build churches or houses of worship, or even to bring in the New Testament or any holy book other than the Koran; [these books] are confiscated at the airport if [the authorities] come across them. By Allah, where is the tolerance, oh Muslims devoted to Islam's [good] reputation?
"As for Iraq... the Islamists – the Sunni and Shi'ite Taliban – have been emptying [Iraq] of the Christians and the Mandeans, who are among the original residents of Iraq and the builders of its first civilization – just like the previous regimes emptied Iraq of the Jews. There is no doubt that all of this is being done in the name of Allah and Islam, and that they will merit Allah's satisfaction, and that he will reward them for these abominable acts with Paradise and virgins.
During his Visit to Turkey, the Pope "Taught a Hands-On Lesson in Rapprochement Among Religions, Civilizations, And Cultures"

"Pope Benedict XVI, in his recent visit to Turkey, taught a hands-on lesson in Christian tolerance for Muslims... The Pope did not go back on his promise to visit, despite the threats he received – [which came] even from the Turkish prisoner [Mehmet Ali Agca], who attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in the 1980s, and who warned [Pope Benedict] in a special letter that Islamists in Turkey were planning to assassinate him, and advised him to cancel his trip to save his life.

"But the Pope risked his life and made the visit despite the dangers. The Pope taught a hands-on lesson in rapprochement among religions, civilizations, and cultures. He also gave an inspiring hands-on lesson in religious tolerance when he visited the Blue Mosque in Istanbul... and prayed with Muslims while facing Mecca. The Mufti of Istanbul, Mustafa Cagrici, said that the Pope's salat [prayer] at the Blue Mosque was 'more meaningful than the offering of apologies... It was a wonderful harbinger on his part, through which he sent a message to the Muslims'...
"This is religious tolerance, oh Muslims. Do you have sufficient courage and humility to do the same? Or will you give this a Bedouin interpretation, and say that this initiative is a sign of the Pope's weakness and a sign of the Muslims' victory over 'malicious Crusaderism?'
"A friend who is an enlightened Islamist wrote me a letter on this occasion, in which he said: 'I think that the Pope taught the Muslims a profound lesson in morals and how to treat others. It would be better if Al-Qaradhawi would play such a role, instead of stirring up the Muslim public against the Pope – especially after the Pope apologized to the entire world, an apology which Al-Qaradhawi refused to accept at the time... (The Pope) proved that he is possessed of lofty morals and a religion that does not recognize [the use of] slaughter, flaying, and dismemberment.'

"When will Muslims be governed by rationality and wisdom, and by the essence of true Islam in the interpretation of religious texts in their historical context and in accordance with the current era, so as to live in peace with the world? Is anybody listening?"

Endnotes:
(1) http://www.elaph.com/ElaphWeb/ElaphWriter/2006/12/198693.htm, December 20, 2006.
(2) http://www.aafaq.org/reformist/aa/1758.htm, December 16, 2006.
(3) Elaph.com, December 17, 2006, http://www.elaph.com/ElaphWeb/ElaphWriter/2006/12/198001.htm .

*********************
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.
MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with proper attribution.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
P.O. Box 27837, Washington, DC 20038-7837
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Search previous MEMRI publications at www.memri.org

I am currently under deadline with my publisher. I had to turn in the first third of the book, 100 Characters from the Bible by February 15. I managed to send it off on Wednesday, February 7. Now I am waiting to see what I may need to change in it--what errors I missed--what stuff they want me to fix.

The second third of the book is due March 30. The last third I have to have in by May 15. So far, so good.

This afternoon I received a check from my publisher. It was for signing my contract. Given that it was just for giving them two initials and a word in my scribbly handwriting, it's a huge amount when you consider the per word rate. Heh. Even when you don't think about it that way, it was still quite a lot of money. My wife was very happy.

Mike Griffin, head of NASA, gave an excellent speach on why we go to space: Space Exploration: Real Reasons and Acceptable Reasons

If you ask why we're going back to the moon and, later, beyond, you can get a variety of answers. The President, quite correctly said that we do it for purposes of scientific discovery, economic benefit and national security. I've given speeches on each of those topics, and I think these reasons can be clearly shown to be true. And Presidential Science Advisor Jack Marburger has said that questions about space exploration come down to whether or not we want to bring the solar system within mankind's sphere of economic influence. I think that is extraordinarily well put.

These reasons have in common the fact that they can be discussed within the circles of public policy making. They can be debated on their merits, on logical principles. They can be justified. They are what I am going to call tonight "Acceptable Reasons." You can attach whatever importance you want to any of those factors, and some citizens will weight some factors more and some will weight them less, but most of us would agree that they are, indeed, relevant factors.

But who talks like that? Who talks about doing something for purposes of scientific or economic gain or national security other than in policy circles? If anybody asked Lindberg why he crossed the Atlantic – and many did –he never indicated that he personally flew the Atlantic to win the Orteig prize. His backers might have done it in part for that, but Lindberg did it for other reasons.

If you ask Burt Rutan why he designed and built Voyager, and why Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager flew it around the world, it wasn't for any money involved, it was because it was one of the last unconquered feats in aviation. If you ask Burt and his backer Paul Allen why they developed a vehicle to win the X-Prize, it wasn't for the money. They spent twice as much as they made.

I think we all know why people do some of these things. They are well-captured in many famous phrases. When Sir George Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he said "Because it is there." He didn't say that it was for economic gain.
We know these reasons, and tonight I will call them "Real Reasons". Real Reasons are intuitive and compelling to all of us, but they're not immediately logical. They're exactly the opposite of Acceptable Reasons, which are eminently logical but neither intuitive nor emotionally compelling. The Real Reasons we do things like exploring space involve competitiveness, curiosity and monument building. So let's talk about them. . . . .

Real Reasons are not amenable to cost/benefit analysis. I'm reminded of the famous quote "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing," by the character Lord Darlington in Oscar Wilde's play "Lady Windermere's Fan." It's one of my favorites. Well, in today's America it's smart, it's popular, it's clever to be a cynic. And a certain amount of it is appropriate; a healthy skepticism of bold claims is necessary. But too much skepticism causes us to deny a part of what we are.

Real Reasons are old fashioned. How many of us grew up reading Tom Swift, or Jack Armstrong, All American Boy? Or other similar books stories? Not great literature, for sure, but they exemplified many of the values I think we like to see in people: inventiveness, competitiveness, boldness, and a sense of good feeling about what it was to be an American, in very simplistic ways but ones which hit close to home.

To read those books was to understand, even as a child, that achievement is to be valued, and is not something to be set aside. So, how do we talk about our achievers today? Other than in the field of sports, we talk about today's achievers as "geeks" and "workaholics". People are advised to lead "balanced lives". I don't know about you, but I haven't led a balanced life. But people who want to accomplish something are not balanced. And they are geeks, and workaholics. I think we owe our country to people who were like that. I don't know that one could say that folks like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson led balanced lives. Any rational cost/benefit analysis would tell you to stay out of a quarrel with the mother country, and let other people deal with it! Who today would talk about pledging "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" to a cause? Today we are uncomfortable with such value discussions, and I think it's a shame.

Read the whole thing.

I received my contract from Quarto (my publisher in London) today about 5:50 PM. They sent it by DHL. It is for my book, 100 Characters From the Bible, scheduled for publication in the Autumn of 2007. It will be published in the US by Reader's Digest Books.

To my surprise, I get paid quite a bit just for signing the contract. I am then required to deliver the book in three parts: 1/3 by February 15, 1/3 by March 30, and the final 1/3 by May 15, 2007. I will be busy between now and then, obviously. I get paid at each step along the way, which is pleasant indeed.

Pessimism is easy because pain always gets our attention, while comfort goes unnoticed and unremarked. If you do your job well, and nothing goes wrong, no one will say a word. Make one little mistake and you’ll never hear the end of it. If you dribbled a bit of ketchup on your shirt at lunch, that’s all anyone will see despite the fact that most of your clothing is stain free. Animals are the same. Monkeys groom one another, focusing their attention only on the fleas and other parasites.

Despite all the things wrong in the world, the problems are small compared to the successes. Being an optimist is not unrealistic as we look at the United States and the world today.

Despite the current focus on the conflict in Iraq, war is becoming increasingly rare in the world. Consider that the casualty rate in the current war in Iraq is miniscule by historical standards. Our grand children may not even remember it, any more than most of us remember the Philippine-American War of 1899-1913 in which 4324 US soldiers and at least 16,000 Filipino soldiers died, while 1 million Filipino civilians were killed.

The last large war in the world is one that most people probably haven’t even heard of: the Second Congo War which lasted from 1998 until 2003 and resulted in 3.8 million deaths. Despite a formal end to the war in July 2003 and an agreement by the former belligerents to create a government of national unity, the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains weak and much of its eastern region continues to suffer from violent conflict. In 2004, an estimated one thousand people died every day from violence and disruptions to basic social services and food supply. Oddly, we rarely read about any of this in the newspapers nor are we likely to hear that the UN has issued any condemnations or pronouncements.

We have to go back ten years in order to find a comparable big war: the one between Iraq and Iran from 1980 to 1988. 1.5 million people died from that conflict. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and fought there for ten years, from 1979 to 1989, one million people died. 2.4 million died in the Vietnam War between 1957 and 1975—not counting the 1.5 million deaths from genocide at the hands of the Khmer Rouge in neighboring Cambodia. Only 50,000 of those deaths were Americans. It took only three years, from 1950 to 1953 for three million people to die in the Korean War. Again, only about 50,000 of those were American.
And yet, as bad as all those deaths were, we have to remember that even in the times of the bloodiest conflicts, the overwhelming majority of people in the world were not at war and were not being killed. According to the CIA World Fact Book, there are 8.67 deaths per 1,000 people world wide annually. That works out to .86 percent. Therefore, less than one percent of the human race dies each year from all causes—and most of those deaths are obviously due to old age.

Meanwhile, human life spans have increased in the last fifty years world wide and the reason for the rising world population is due directly to the good news that ever fewer people are dying. Birth rates have actually radically declined in the last century. The incidence of disease and starvation have dropped precipitously. Many diseases that once killed millions are now easily treatable. Some have even been eradicated.

Air pollution in the United States has declined by 29 per cent over the last thirty years, even while the population grew from 212 million to 300 million and the economy grew by 160 per cent. In southern California, the incidence of first stage smog alerts went from an average of 100 a year in the 1970s to none in the 21st century, despite a booming economy and enormous population growth.

And the economy of the world has continued an upward trend. Global output rose by 4.4% in 2005, led by China (9.3%), India (7.6%), and Russia (5.9%). The United States economy has grown at an average rate of 3.5 per cent per year, while the current unemployment rate is lower than it has been for thirty-five out of the last thirty-eight years.

The UN uses a composite index measuring average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development—a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living. An index ranking of .800 and above is considered “high.” In 1975 20 nations had a “high” Human Development Index. In 2004, 63 countries were rated as high. What’s interesting to notice is that extreme poverty is a rare occurrence outside of Africa. And even Africa is better off today than it was 30 years ago.

Noticing the bad things in the world is a good idea. We can’t fix the problems if we pretend they’re not there. But we need to be careful not to let our concern with current problems lead us to lose perspective and to forget the remarkable progress made, miss the good things in life, or to forget the problems solved.

I find puzzling the sorts of barbarity that some people choose to overlook, versus what they choose to focus on. I do not wish to dismiss bad behavior by anyone, but too often the practice of some pundits reminds me of something Jesus said about judging others: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3). Admittedly, I’d like to get rid of the sawdust from my eyes, and the eyes of all those suffering from such things. But really, wouldn’t it be better to focus on the planks first?

For instance, I read reviews of the film Apocalypto that criticized it for emphasizing the horror of human sacrifice among the Mayan, while paying almost no attention to the Mayan’s cultural achievements: monumental architecture, literature, and religion.

For some reason, I am deeply puzzled by criticism that begins, “sure, the Mayan killed people for sacrifice, but...” When we think about the fictional character from The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter, which is more important? The fact that he had good taste in wine, music, and literature—or the fact that he murdered a few people and ate them? When we study Nazi Germany, are we being unfair when we focus on the millions of Jews they slaughtered, rather than on Adolph Hitler’s love of opera, his vegetarianism, and all the buildings built, roads constructed, and technological innovations in rocketry and medicine?

When I read people criticizing Israel for building a fence, when I hear them decrying the checkpoints and careful examination by armed soldiers of all Palestinians traveling between the Palestinian territories and Israel; when I hear about how abusive this inconveniencing of the innocent is, since even women and children must submit to the indignity of being examined by armed soldiers, I’m reminded of the beginning of the movie Pearl Harbor. That movie began with how the Japanese were embittered by an embargo leveled on them by the United States, an embargo that was cutting off their supply of vital fuel oil. Poor Japan! No wonder they bombed Pearl Harbor.

Of course, the film maker failed to point out why the United States had embargoed Japan: the Japanese invasion and brutal decimation of China. Japan had invaded China in 1931 and by 1945 had slaughtered at least 20 million Chinese men, women and children. One of the more notorious atrocities, which occurred between 1937 and 1938, is known as the Rape of Nanking, when between 150,000 and 300,000 were murdered.

There is a reason that Israel has built a fence and “picks on” the Palestinians traveling into Israel: years of terrorism, years of daily barrages of rockets, years of suicide bombers. After you’ve had a few “nice Palestinians” blow themselves up in a crowded restaurant or shopping mall, loaded with shrapnel dipped in rat poison, for some reason your average Israeli starts to get paranoid and wants to check visitors from the Palestinian areas more closely. It may be nice that Hamas and Hezbollah build schools and hospitals, but their terrorism and preaching of hate seem to me the more critical issues. Likewise, I really don’t think that the Nazi youth programs, such as the Hitler Youth, that got inner-city kids out into the mountains really makes anyone want to overlook the Holocaust.

In those nice Hamas and Hezbollah-funded schools, the textbooks and teachers teach the children that Jews are an infection on the world that needs to be eradicated, parroting the same language the Nazis used in the 1930s. The daily instruction, the calls for the destruction of Israel from its politicians and religious leaders, the cry for jihad and the murder of Jews gets mostly ignored by the majority of the American media. Few who blame Israel for the lack of peace in the Middle East care to think about inconvenient little details like Mein Kampf remaining a perennial best seller in the Palestinian territories, together with the infamous forgery called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is accepted as true by most Palestinians. Or when the wide-spread anti-Semitism is mentioned, it is explained away using language remarkably similar to someone trying to blame the rape victim because of how she was dressed: they brought it on themselves.

Also ignored is the decline in the number of Christians in the Palestinian territories. Since the PLO took over, the percentage of Christians in Bethlehem, as an example, has gone from 90 per cent of the population down to 15 per cent, with the numbers continuing to drop. When I was in Bethlehem back in the summer of 1977, ten years into the Israeli occupation, it was a thriving tourist mecca. Today, it is a ghost town. What changed? The Palestinian National Authority was established in 1994 and Hamas runs that place today.

We are told that the western world must see that these people hate us because of our imperialism, our hubris, our colonialism, and any number of past real or imagined crimes. We’re supposed to think that the United States and other western democracies are the real trouble makers in the world, that their inconsistencies and evil deeds are actually far greater than those committed by anyone else. As the Iranian president argues, and many in the western intelligentsia seem to agree, the real threat to justice, peace, prosperity and freedom comes from Washington DC, not from the dictators and terrorists.

Maybe I’m just weird. But I don’t think occasionally pleasant words, good intentions, or number of schools built is how we should judge the Hannibal Lecters of the world. There should be a special place in Hell for those who look at murderous, totalitarian states and terrorists and say that they are better than the United States. There really is a difference between sawdust and planks.

Mike Griffin, the NASA administrator, pointed out the following in an editorial response published in USA Today:

America is a frontier nation. Two hundred years ago, the frontier was whatever Lewis & Clark would see the next day. One hundred years ago, it was in Alaska, labeled as "Seward's Folly" when it was purchased in 1867. Today, the human frontier is space, with the Apollo missions to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s, the development of the International Space Station today, or future missions to build an outpost on the moon.

Our great-great-grandparents accepted the challenge of their frontier. Will today's generation do less? And if so, why? To save 15 cents per day? To save six-tenths of 1% of the federal budget? Because that is the cost to the average citizen of our nation's space program. Whether we wish to explore space or not, to say that we cannot afford space exploration is ridiculous.

Raymond Ibrahim writes in the LA Times:

IN THE DAYS before Pope Benedict XVI's visit last Thursday to the Hagia Sophia complex in Istanbul, Muslims and Turks expressed fear, apprehension and rage. "The risk," according to Turkey's independent newspaper Vatan, "is that Benedict will send Turkey's Muslims and much of the Islamic world into paroxysms of fury if there is any perception that the pope is trying to re-appropriate a Christian center that fell to Muslims." Apparently making the sign of the cross or any other gesture of Christian worship in Hagia Sophia constitutes such a sacrilege.

Built in the 6th century, Hagia Sophia — Greek for "Holy Wisdom" — was Christendom's greatest and most celebrated church. After parrying centuries of jihadi thrusts from Arabs, Constantinople — now Istanbul — was finally sacked by Turks in 1453, and Hagia Sophia's crosses were desecrated, its icons defaced. Along with thousands of other churches in the Byzantine Empire, it was immediately converted into a mosque, the tall minarets of Islam surrounding it in triumph. Nearly 500 years later, in 1935, as part of reformer Kemal Ataturk's drive to modernize Turkey, Hagia Sophia was secularized and transformed into a museum....

Herein lies the conundrum. When Islamists wage jihad — past, present and future — conquering and consolidating non-Muslim territories and centers in the name of Islam, never once considering to cede them back to their previous owners, they ultimately demonstrate that they live by the age-old adage "might makes right." That's fine; many people agree with this Hobbesian view.

But if we live in a world where the strong rule and the weak submit, why is it that whenever Muslim regions are conquered, such as in the case of Palestine, the same Islamists who would never concede one inch of Islam's conquests resort to the United Nations and the court of public opinion, demanding justice, restitutions, rights and so forth?

Put another way, when Muslims beat infidels, it's just too bad for the latter; they must submit to their new overlords' rules with all the attendant discrimination and humiliation mandated for non-Muslims. Yet when Islam is beaten, demands for apologies and concessions are expected from the infidel world at large.

Double standards do not make for international justice. Either territorial conquests are always unjust and should therefore be ameliorated through concessions, or else they are merely a manifestation of the natural order of things — that is, survival of the fittest.

Read the whole thing.

Sigh. Despite the supposed truce, the Palestinians continue to attack Israel with rockets. And, if the past is any predicter of the future, when Israel finally gets fed up and tries to do something about it, it will be Israel that gets blamed for breaking the truce, and Israel will be denounced, as usual, as the warmonger and the evil one.

I am so tired of the world's anti-Semitism and all those who are the willing mouthpieces of the tired hatred in the world's media and college campuses. Why is it that the violent extremists who murder people, bomb restaurants, behead people, suicide bomb and the like are not held responsible for their actions by so many who claim intellectual acumen? Why do so many blame the victims of the extremists or believe that it is the fault of bad policy that leads murderers to murder? Why is it that people who would never imagine negotiating with the mafia think that negotiating with the likes of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas is a good idea? Do we negotiate with street gangs? Do we blame rape victims for being raped? The murdered for being murdered? What's wrong with so many people that they accept nonsense as wisdom and blame the victim for being victimized?

UCLA beat USC today. I am very happy.

I read today that the Pope visited a mosque, specifically the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. Apparently he is much more of a diplomat than I would have been. Me, I would have gone to the Hagia Sophia, which, until the Moslem imperialists conquered Contantinople and renamed it Istambul, was a Christian church. It was converted to a mosque in 1453 by the Moslem invaders, and then subsequently converted into a museum in 1935. I would have walked in, looked around, and made some comment about how the "religion of peace conquered Christian regions, slaughtered the Christians or forced conversions, and then turned their churches into mosques."

The Pope is much nicer than me, apparently.

Interesting how in condemnations of the Crusades no mention is ever made of why they happened.

World economic data demonstrates that overall, the world as a whole is doing pretty well. Optimism has data to support it.

Back in October, 2001 Linda Chavez wrote:

For nearly 1,000 years, Europe was under nearly constant siege from Islamic invaders, from the first Moors who conquered Spain in 710 to the last Ottoman attack on Vienna in 1683. So long as the trend within the Moslem world today is toward a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, the West will continue to face a new threat to its survival.

In some sense, from 1683 until the rise of Islamic extremism, we in the west have been living in a time of hudna with Islam. What is hudna? A temporary truce. According to Wikipedia:

Hudna (هدنة) is an Arabic term meaning "truce" or "armistice" as well as "calm" or "quiet", coming from a verbal root meaning "calm". It is sometimes translated as "cease-fire". In the Lisan al-Arab (Ibn al-Manzur's definitive dictionary of classical Arabic, dating to the 14th century) it is defined as follows:

"hadana: he grew quiet. hadina: he quieted (transitive or intransitive). haadana: he made peace with. The noun from each of these is hudna."
A particularly famous early hudna was the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah between Muhammad and the Quraysh tribe.

According to Umdat as-Salik, a medieval summary of Shafi'i jurisprudence, hudnas with a non-Muslim enemy should be limited to 10 years: "if Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud" ('Umdat as-Salik, o9.16).

Given that those who are not Muslim are said to belong to "the House of War," it needs to be recognized that the fundamentalists will continue to hate us until we either die or join them in the "House of Islam." From their perspective, the Hudna that began when the Moslems were driven from the gates of Vienna has gone on way too long.

Orson Scott Card is a science fiction author, most well known for his novel, Ender's Game. An excellent novel, widely recognized as a science fiction classic. If you haven't read it, go get a copy now.

He has an interesting essay that he wrote, The Only Issue This Election Day:

There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that's the War on Terror....

To all intents and purposes, when the Democratic Party jettisoned Joseph Lieberman over the issue of his support of this war, they kicked me out as well. The party of Harry Truman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- the party I joined back in the 1970s -- is dead. Of suicide.

I personally do not fear this or any election, whatever its outcome. I do not fear that somehow Islamic extremists can win. That simply isn't possible. But I do fear that there are many in positions of power that do not recognize the danger Islamic extremism still poses. One would have though that 911 would have been enough. Apparently not. One way or another we will win the conflict; the only question is how much it might cost us, how terrible it might be. For six years or more Churchill warned his compatriots of the danger the Nazis posed. Many opportunities came and went to put them in check. The Nazis ulitmately lost, but the cost of victory against them was far higher than it needed to be. I fear that our victory over Islamic extremism is likely to be very costly. Not because it needs to be, but because we will wait until it is nearly too late to actually do what needs doing.

Those who argue that the extremists hate America because of our policies, because of their poverty, because of our support of Israel are simply ignorant. The reason these evil people hate us, the reason they attack us, is simply because we are not Moslem. Until that simple reality is fully recognized by most, we are going to continue dithering and frittering and fighting amongst ourselves.

Doomsayers are amusing because we will get to laugh at them eventually. We should, in fact, laugh at them now. They are like the characters in a cartoon walking about with a signboard proclaiming that the world is going to end tomorrow. And of course, tomorrow never seems to come.

We find them in the Christian world all the time, insisting that Armegeddon is upon us and that they know the date that all the awful things are going to happen. They seem to take a perverse delight in repeating all the awful things that are happening in the world, especially if people happen to be dying in the Middle East.

But Christians are not alone in doomsaying. Malthus in the 19th century insisted that we would all starve to death by now thanks to overpopulation. Numberless movies, pundits, politicians and scientists have been predicting disasters ever since. And yet, somehow, remarkably, the disasters predicted--of the human race becoming extinct, overpopulating, overpolluting, dying of epidemics, or whatever--never seem to quite happen.

Now, on MSNBC.com, I read this headline: "Seafood could collapse by 2050, experts warn: Overfishing, pollution, warming are destroying stocks, study finds."

Uh huh. I distrust doomsayers. Historically speaking, all of these sorts of doomsayers have been wrong. Why should I believe them this time?

This time the boy who cried wolf is telling me the truth?

Uh huh.

It's like those who tell me I should panic about global warming. A one degree average increase in world-wide temperatures over the next hundred years is supposed to scare me? When the world has been far warmer in the past?

Uh huh.

I believe these gloomy reports as much as I believe the doom proclaiming sandwhich board guys in long beards in the cartoons. I think they're about as rational.

Jim West found a site on the web, www.howmanyofme.com, which allows you to discover how many other people in the United States have the same name you do. According to this site, no one has my name, which is of course silly, since I know I exist. I can see myself in the mirror over there, and I do have a birth certificate around here somewhere.

I did discover some interesting statistics from the site regarding my first name (of course the accuracy is in question, since the site screwed up on my very existence):

There are 359,962 people in the U.S. with the first name Robin.

Statistically the 160th most popular first name.

86.67 percent of people with the first name Robin are female.

I aleady knew the issue with my first name, that most people with it were female. I realized that somewhere around the time I started getting tampon samples in the mail. Not really something a thirteen year old boy wants to be getting in the mail, I assure you. Once I got married, at least I could give them to my wife instead of tossing them in the trash.

This is why my books and articles always have "R.P. Nettelhorst" as my byline. I prefer to use my initials when I am not dealing with people face to face. I don't want folks to simply assume I'm not the gender I actually am due to the non-sexist nature of my first name. I am a man. I even have a beard to prove it. Just look at my picture on the back of my books or the front of my best selling story, Moon Over Aiyalon.

I dislike Daylight Savings Time. A lot. I would really prefer that we not have to change the clocks twice a year and to lose an hour's sleep in the Spring. I simply don't see the value of mucking with everyone's sleep schedules and inducing nationwide "jet lag" twice a year. I can't see how that can be good for productivity.

According to Wikipedia's article on the subject, Benjamin Franklin introduced the concept in 1784 in a letter to the editors of the Journal of Paris. However, the article says that his letter was satirical. I hope so. I rather like Ben Franklin and would prefer to think that he never came up with such a bad idea. Of course, he also stood out in the rain waiting for his kite to be struck by lightening, so he wasn't exactly a stranger to bad ideas.

Moon Over Aiyalon had dropped off the best seller list last Monday. But then, for awhile, over this weekend (Saturday and Sunday), it popped back on. So I guess I sold another short story.

I have no idea how many copies sold it takes to arrive on the Amazon Shorts best seller list; I know that my story has remained on the genre specific list for science fiction short stories all week. It's only on the main list that it has come and gone and come again.

But until I see my first accounting from Amazon, I have no idea what their ranking system really means. My pessimistic nature is to imagine that I've sold but three stories so far.

My grip on reality is probably about as firm as that of the new hire who decides he's a failure since he's been working since nine, it's lunch time, and he hasn't gotten paid yet.