It's Not A Left-Wing Conspiracy, But...

Journalists have industry newsletters and industry get-togethers, just like most other industries. A recent article in such a newsletter ("Editor & Publisher") described a recent get-together (The Unity Convention in Washington) where apparently, during the course of the convention, the 7000 attendees were shown clips of speeches made by John Kerry and by President Bush. The concept of "journalistic neutrality" seems to have been lost on many of the reporters, who hooted and cheered for Kerry but who snickered and derided the President, demonstrating that the vast majority of reporters are politically left-wing, no matter how often they deny it. But at least a few people at the convention were disappointed by the unprofessional display. Read more here.

 
Rarer Still

I've voiced support here many times for the "Rare Earth" hypothesis. While microbial life is probably common, and will probably be found anywhere there's liquid water and an energy gradient, multicellular life (plants and animals) require very specialized conditions -- like those found on Earth today. But there are a great many reasons to believe that planets like Earth are extremely rare, given the number of flukes involved in the sequence of events that made Earth the way it is.

Now more evidence has appeared, in the form of a study of the hundred-plus extra solar planets we've discovered so far. These are mostly "hot Jupiters" (Jupiter-sized worlds orbiting very close to their sun) and some researchers believe that the way these hot Jupiter systems formed and the way our solar system formed is fundamentally different. The implication is that solar systems like ours are not the norm.

But I believe we will find other worlds that, if not Earth-like, will at least be interesting enough to be worth a visit. The technical challenge of interstellar travel just got a tiny bit easier, thanks to researchers helping make an old sci-fi staple into a reality. It looks like long-term suspended animation for space travelers may be available soon.

 
Hollywood Republicans

They do exist, contrary to popular belief. But they are a closeted minority, justifiably fearful of reprisals from the Left if they make their opinions known. However a few brave souls have begun to come forward. Perhaps someday that will lead to a movie virtually inconceivable today: a political thriller where the Republicans are not the bad guys.

 
The Good News from Iraq

If that sounds odd to you it's because the media, for reasons of its own, has chosen not to tell you about any good news connected to Iraq. Check here for more details.

 
Cause for Dismissal

The Earth is getting warmer (maybe). In answer to the seperate question, "Why is the Earth getting warmer?" an accusing finger has been pointed at mankind. In previous posts (here and here) I have made it clear that there is a great deal of cause for reasonable doubt. Now a new suspect has emerged that, if mankind was on trial, would probably be grounds for dismissal.

Previous "expert" witnesses for the prosecution, the nobel laureates who sent a letter to the President about the "scientific consensus" on global warming, get a few hard facts pointed out to them here, including the fact that "consensus" means nothing in science. Something is either a fact or it isn't. Their letter is an excellent example of the Fallacy of Argument from Authority. A more honest approach would involve admitting that the current state of our understanding of global warming is full of unknowns.

 
I Thought You Should Know

The Left often portrays Republicans in general and President Bush in particular as evil. Cartoonishly evil, like some kind of comic book super villain. That's why I wanted people to know about this incident, involving the President and a wounded soldier. Think about it the next time MoveOn.org compares the President to Hitler.

 
Negative Affirmative Action

It's a conditioned response for most people: affirmative action is good and any who oppose it are bad. But like everything else, the situation is more complicated than that. You have to ask, "Is Affirmative Action actually helping?" There is evidence that the answer is no.

 
An Innumerable Pleasure

John Allen Paulos is a very smart man. He has written many books, including the excellent "Innumeracy" (the numerical equivalent of illiteracy) and "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper." He also writes a column for ABCNews.com and one particular column bothered me. So I told him. What follows is our email conversation.

ME:

Dr. Paulos,


I've long been a fan of your writing, especially "Innumeracy". You have a great talent for putting things in perspective.

I have a question regarding a recent commentary piece on ABCNews.com: "Psychology and the War in Iraq". Is it possible that you yourself are exhibiting some of the psychological effects you describe? For example, you mention that "In small groups, for example, interactions among members can easily engender extreme actions. If they want to be valued by the group, members freely express opinions in line with what they perceive to be the group's attitudes and suppress those that run counter to those of the group". This same small group effect often involves the demonization of those who are "different" and an over simplification or deliberate misunderstanding of their motivations and goals. If the small group in this case is your circle of friends, all of whom share your opposition to the war in Iraq, isn't it possible that your opinions of that issue have become extreme as a result?

The reason I ask is your discussion later in the article about similarity bias. You imply that the reason we invaded Iraq is because Saddam looked like Osama. This unsubstantiated assumption is both a gross over simplification and an excellent example of confirmation bias, which you define as "...the tendency people have, once they've made even a tentative judgment, to look thereafter for factors that suggest the judgment was brilliant and ignore those that suggest otherwise." If you are intellectually honest, sir, you will admit that you tend to automatically be disdainful of the ideas of your political opponents. That represents your tentative judgment. From that point on anything that tends to make you feel better about that judgment tends to get accepted by you and your small group with little or no question as to its accuracy or relevance.

I respect your opinions, Dr. Paulos, and plan on continuing to read your commentary and buy your books. But you are just as human as the next man and not above allowing your politics to over ride your mathematics.

PAULOS:

Hi KP,
Thanks for your response. Certainly the fact that Osama and Saddam were both enemies and Arabs was not the only reason we went to war, but I do think it was deluded and a part of the reason
Am I subject to these some of these same foibles? Of course, I am. Part of my recent book on the stock market details the sad degree to which I am.
Best Wishes, JAP

ME:

Dr. Paulos,

But sir, by dismissing the reasoning of your political opponents as "deluded", aren't you once again exhibiting both the "small group" bias (demonizing the outsiders) and the confirmation bias (rationalizing away the possibility that there might be substance to their argument)?

That is assuming the basis for your belief in their deluded nature isn't a straw man argument to begin with. For example, if I say, "My opponent believes X and X is clearly a crazy belief therefore my opponent is crazy", a necessary condition for this statement to be valid is for my opponent to actually believe X. If he does not then the argument is false. I've followed the Iraq issue pretty closely and I can't recall any public statement by the Bush administration explaining the war in terms of Saddam and Osama both being enemies and Arabs. The reasoning was more along the lines of "Al Qaeda wants WMD's. Saddam is the most likely to provide them. Can we guarentee he won't? No? Then he's gotta go."

I'm not trying to change your opinion of the war. But I disagree with your opinion that the decision to go to war was based on delusion.


PAULOS:

Many of the Bush administration's pre-war statements strongly suggested without saying so explicitly that Saddam was harboring Al Qaeda, was somehow associated with 9-11, etc. Happily we can still disagree in this country, and I guess we just do. Best, JP


ME:

Dr. Paulos,

Indeed we do disagree about the war. But we can agree that yes, the Bush administration didn't just imply a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda, but in fact stated it openly (and presented evidence like the fact that bin Laden had at least eight documented meetings with the Special Security Organization, Iraq's secret police run by Saddam's son Qusay). But that's a whole other can of worms. My original point was for you to dismiss the reasoning for the war as either "deluded" or as an example of a similarity bias was in fact an example of you yourself exhibiting the effects of a small group belief-reinforcement and a confirmation bias. If you are intellectually honest you will admit (if only to yourself) that there may be some truth in that.

In fact, think of this as an opportunity to perform an interesting experiment. The next time you are gathered together with your circle of friends, choose an idle moment and say something mildly supportive of the Bush administration. Nothing outrageous -- no huge leap from your current position -- but just a small compliment. Maybe, "Well, at least there will be a liberal democracy in the middle east -- a first for the Arab world." (I'm not asking you to believe it. Remember, this is just an experiment). But say it with enough conviction that they believe you. Then observe their reaction. See how quickly the small group phenomenon comes into play as they try to make you conform to the group's accepted beliefs.


PAULOS:

I think a demcracy in Iraq would be a fine thing, a great consequence of the war, but I have essentially zero expectation that it will come about nor do I think it was the motivation for the war.


ME:

Which of course begs the question, "Why is your expectation of the successful establishment of a democracy in Iraq essentially zero?" Is it because you've made a careful analysis of the geopolitical situation and factored in local history, relations between ethnic groups, the empirically established observation that democracy only works when the people have per capita incomes above about $3500, and various other influences and arrived mathematically at a zero probability? Or is it a further example of you being dismissive about the "other" group, just as with your original comment about their reasoning being "deluded"?

I'm truly not trying to change your mind about the war, sir. I'm just pointing out that dismissing the other group's reasoning as crazy (or worse yet, dismissing your group's strawman version of the other group's arguments) is not a very scientific approach.

If you truly wanted to be rigorous in your reasoning, may I suggest surveying various books and articles (from both sides of the argument) and making a list of established facts. That would be an excellent starting point for the formation of a valuable opinion. You might even get another book out of it.


PAULOS:

I don't think I dismissed others' opinions as crazy. I merely observed that certain psychological foibles we're all subject to can play a role in the formation of these opinions (yes, in both directions).


ME:

Well, you did describe it as deluded. But I exaggerated that into "crazy" which wasn't accurate. My apologies. And I certainly agree with the observation that various psychological foibles can play a role in forming opinions, especially the role of filtering out information that doesn't fit our world view.

That's the impression I got from the end of your article on ABCNews.com: that you were dismissing anyone who was in favor of the war because such an opinion was so incompatible with your worldview that the only explanation you could find was to treat it as evidence of a psychological dysfunction.

I assure you, sir, that it is possible for a person to be intelligent, well read, well informed and well aware of things like similarity bias, confirmation bias, small group effects and a variety of other psychological failings and *still* be in favor of the war in Iraq.


PAULOS:

I certainly don't deny this. You're a counterexample, and I realize there are many others. Best, John


Which I decided was as close as I was going to get to an admission that I was right and he was wrong.

 
Read This -- Avoid That

Hate the French? Yeah, me too. How can you not? Snooty, cheese-eating bastards.

Okay, that's not fair. In fact it's way off because there are some French citizens who not only don't hate the United States and don't blame America for all their own problems, but who actually like us. As proof I offer the excellent book "Anti-Americanism" by Jean Francois Revel. This savvy Frenchman points out how the endless criticisms of the U.S. in the European media are 1) contradictory 2) often more applicable to Europe than to America and 3) usually not true. This book was a best seller in France, by the way, which leads me to suspect that the impression we have of France through the French media isn't really representative of the French people. Just like in America.

So read Revel but don't read Ehrlich. Paul Ehrlich, that is, author of "One with Nineveh". This doomsaying moron has been around since the 70's, when he was writing books and going on talk shows predicting worldwide famine and hundreds of millions of people starving to death in the next 10 years. (His solution was to stop giving aid to poor countries because that only prolonged the inevitable. Elitist asshole!) Ehrlich has been so consistently wrong that some call him a Reverse Cassandra, since generally the opposite of what he predicts is what happens. If that holds up then the future looks pretty bright.

 
F Michael Moore

I meant to say F9/11, the abbreviation for Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's new pseudo-documentary. I haven't seen it and have no intention of seeing it unless I see it for free because I don't want him to have a single penny of my money. What I have seen is some scathing reviews here and here. (The second one is an Australian newspaper and may require registration to view). Plus this excellent list of lies found in the movie.

By the way, a scene that has been much commented on purports to show President Bush sitting indecisively for seven minutes in a classroom after he'd been told a plane hit the first tower of the world trade center. This article shows that the principal of the school completely disagrees with that interpretation.

The movie is doing very well at the box office but I don't think it'll do much damage to the Bush re-election campaign. Moore is very good at preaching to the converted. People who already hate Bush love this film. But people who don't go into the theatre hating the president don't come out that way either because without that emotional filter they can see through the lies and contradictions. But that's just my opinion.

It's also my opinion that Michael Moore Hates America. Hey, now that's a good idea for a movie!

 
The Real Problem with Stupid People

The real problem with stupid people is that they don't know they're stupid. I've always known that but now I have scientific proof.

 
Osama's People Talked to Saddam's People

Just in case you missed it (easy to do since the mainstream media hasn't reported it) the 9/11 commission *did* find links between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. More details can be found here. They also found evidence of a link between al-Qaida and Iran. You do know that the entire proceedings of the commission is available online, right?

Speaking of things about Iraq not being mentioned in the press, did you know that Russian President Putin warned the Bush administration after 9/11 that Iraq was planning terrorist attacks on U.S. soil?

No? Well, did you know that many Iraqis have started publishing weblogs to tell the world about all the good things going on in Iraq and to complain about all the negative coverage? Or that callers to the first Iraqi call in radio station universally condemn the acts of terror and believe they're the work of foreigners? Or that the new government of Iraq publically thanked the United States for toppling Saddam?

Hmmmmm. Ok. But certainly you know that since 2002 approximately 3.6 million Afghans living abroad have returned to Afghanistan, a sign that they finally have hope for the future of their country?

Odd. All these things paint a very different picture of the War on Terror than one would get from watching CNN. It makes you wonder why they're being ignored.

 
Please, Let This be a Trend!

The Senators in charge of NASA policy are apparently upset with the agency's cost estimates for the planned 2008 Lunar Orbiter mission, a first step toward sending people back to the moon by 2020 or so. (Details here -- free registration required to view). The committee points to the Air Force's 1994 Clementine mission, which only cost $80 million and is very similar to the proposed NASA mission (price tag: $400 million).

The cool part is that some members of the committee have suggested NASA let private companies perform the Lunar mission! Something like this is just the kind of project that can get private space missions -- as an industry -- started.

 
Hate Group Murders Thousands of Blacks

That is an accurate headline. But it's not the KKK doing the killing -- it's an Arab militia called the Janjaweed. In Sudan's Darfur region (in the west along the border with Chad) black farmers have risen against the government, demanding more of the oil revenue of Sudan be spent on their impoverished province. The government responded by bombing Darfur villages and arming the Janjaweed miltia, who immediately went on a killing spree. Most villages in the area are abandoned now. The survivors are all in huge camps (a recipe for disease and starvation). By some estimate 350,000 people are dead because of this conflict.

And as I said, the headline is accurate. This Arab militia (with weapons supplied by the Sudanese government) is specifically terrorizing and killing black people. Where is the outrage? Where is Jesse Jackson? Why doesn't anyone seem to care?

 
Bradbury is Pissed!

Science fiction legend Ray Bradbury is mad as hell at professional liar (What? He's made a lot of money by saying things he knows aren't true) Michael Moore for ripping off the title of one of Bradbury's best known works, "Fahrenheit 451", for his new documentary (ha!) "Fahrenheit 9/11".

 
My Reagan Research Continues

Lech Walesa lead Poland's "Solidarity" movement, a labor organization that faced off against communist officials in the 80's. He went on to a career in Polish politics and to win the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize. This article from the Wall Street Journal (free membership may be required to view) makes it clear that Mr. Walesa gives full credit for the fall of communism and the freedom of his country to Ronald Reagan.

I read the Wall Street article at an opportune moment because I'm also reading "Reagan's War: The Epic Story of his Forty Year Struggle and Final Triumph over Communism" by Peter Schweizer, and I'd just finished a chapter dealing with Eisenhower. Reagan was still a registered democrat in the early 1950's, but he'd formed "Democrats for Eisenhower" to help Ike (a Republican) get elected. Reagan did this because he believed Ike was better suited to facing the Soviets, an opinion that changed when he saw that Eisenhower was more interested cutting back the military than in facing down anyone. This became especially obvious when the Hungarians revolted against their communist overlords in 1956. The rebels called for help many times but the West was afraid of the Soviet war machine and pretended not to hear. Reagan felt we betrayed Hungary. I imagine that was why, when the Poles asked his administration for similar help decades later, he welcomed the opportunity.

 
Ronald Reagan (1911 - 2004)

There is an old military stratagem: "Never pit your weakness against your enemy's strength." It was by remembering this principle that President Reagan won the cold war. The Soviet Union, once upon a time, had us severely outnumbered in terms of troops and tanks across the whole of Europe. A conventional conflict probably would have swiftly gone in their favor, something that could have easily happened if they'd thought America had a weak enough, appeasement-minded enough President.

But thankfully for us and for all freedom loving people, the Soviets faced a man eager to confront communism. Reagan was not trying to start a war, but he believed the Soviet system was weak and corrupt and would ultimately collapse. He wanted to speed this along by forcing them to face a stronger United States and he did this by building up our military and by openly stating his opinions about the Soviet Union, making it very clear to them and to world where he stood. He also started the Strategic Defense Initiative (better known as Star Wars, much to George Lucas' annoyance), a plan to build a defense against ICBM's (something 50% of Americans assume we already have -- we don't).

So in other words he pitted our strengths (technology and strong economy) against the Soviets (whose economy, we know now, was on the ragged edge) and the result was our victory in the Cold War without a shot being fired. The Soviet Union collapsed, East Germany and West Germany are re-united and the threat of a massive, civilization-destroying nuclear conflict (that hung over all our heads for decades) has been all but forgotten. It's hard to underestimate the accomplishments of Ronald Reagan.

But some do try. The Discovery Channel (specifically, the Discovery Times channel, if you have digital cable) ran a series earlier this year called "The Reagan Legacy". They partnered with the New York Times so it goes without saying what a leftward slant the entire production had. But some unintentional glory did slip through. There is a segment where one of the generals that first proposed the SDI concept to Reagan recounted his surprise at the President's reaction. The general thought the proposal would lead, at most, to further study and maybe some R&D. But Reagan loved the idea and made it into a major goal of his administration.

The intent (on the part of the documentarians) was to show Reagan being unrealistic and overzealous about something that the show hinted verged on the technologically impossible. But to me Reagan's reaction is founded in his belief that America can do anything it puts its mind to and that bureaucrats of all stripes are too interested in playing it safe. What Reagan did is the difference between a caretaker President who does what his handlers tell him and a bold man altering the course of history.

If you want some insight into Reagan and the way he thought about the world, I highly recommend the audio book "Reagan in His Own Voice". This is a compilation of the short radio shows Reagan did in the years between the end of his governorship of California and the beginning of his first term as President. It's worth your time.

 
The Day After Tomorrow

I saw "The Day After Tomorrow" at a press screening the other night (I get invited to press screenings because I'm a movie critic). My review is here. I mention it only because a variety of people (including Al Gore) are trying to make this big budget disaster flick into an "important" film. Trust me, it's not. I explain why in the review.

 
History's Greatest Monster

Okay, Jimmy Carter isn't history's greatest monster (that's actually a reference to a Simpsons episode, for the true geeks out there). But this article (free membership may be required to view) makes a good case for a chain of responsibility that begins with the American hostages taken during the Carter administration and that ends with 9/11. No, neither I nor the article is saying that 9/11 is Carter's fault. It's just pointing out the transition in our response to what would historically have been acts of war. Under Carter we started treating them as a matter for law enforcement rather than the military. This combined with our self-doubt and endless self-flagellation (blaming ourselves for the evils others do to us) changed the mindset about how to respond to terrorism.

What really matters is how this change was perceived by terrorists specifically and by countries that just plain don't like us in general. It was correctly perceived as weakness. When bin Laden was planning 9/11 he assumed America would respond. But he assumed the response would be some cruise missiles fired at his camps in Afghanistan, something he'd survived several times already. That was a fair assumption, given our history. We'd taught the Arab world that we have no stomach for bloodshed. When dead American soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu under Clinton, many locals left town, convinced America would bomb the city after such a terrible insult. They were stunned when we simply left. (So was I, by the way).

I believe the President's decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq accomplishes a great many things. But chief among them is the lesson that America is not weak. We won't play the endless game of you hit me, I hit you, round and round, anymore. If you hit me, I'll kill you to make sure you never hit me again.

 
One More Reason to Ignore Kyoto

A NASA study recently concluded that clouds caused by the contrails of high-flying jets may be a significant contributor to global warming. This is just one of many factors that affect global warming that were completely unknown when the Kyoto Treaty was drafted. The economically debilitating recommendations of Kyoto are based on severely outdated information.

 
An Excellent Analysis of What's Missing from News About Iraq

This article at RightWingNews is worth your time. There's more going on in Iraq than you realize and than the media is reporting.

 
A Great Accomplishment...Depending on Your Point of View

An excellent letter to the editor in the April 24-30, 2004 issue of New Scientist magazine (sorry, no link to the letter, just to their main site) makes a point I want to pass on. The Mars rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) are a great accomplishment in the sense that through them we are learning orders of magnitude more about Mars than we knew before. But when you put what the rovers have done in perspective (drilled a few holes and traveled about 600 meters in that last 90 days) it's obvious to anyone that a single astronaut could have done all that and more in one day. There's just no comparison -- having a geologist with a hammer actually on Mars would accomplish vastly more real science. Humans: there is no substitute.

 
Michael Moore Caught in Publicity Stunt / Lie

In some alternate reality Michael Moore is working as the Minister of Propaganda in a third world dictatorship, and is doing a really good job. This guy's singular talent is mixing lies with truth to create an image he wants, getting caught in public in his lies, and dismissing his lies as "comedy" or "attacks from the right." Very much an ends-justify-the-means kind of guy.

So the latest situation is just more of the same. Moore is about to release his new film "Fahrenheit 911" (a reference to the classic movie "Fahrenheit 451", based on a story by Ray Bradbury) and has been making a big deal about being censored by Disney since they've refused to distribute his movie. He's acting like this all just happened but the fact is he knew Disney wasn't going to distribute his new hate-spew at least a year ago, as he has admitted. But will this contradiction make the front page (or any page) of the New York Times? Nope.

 
This is Probably Just Talk, But....

Russia is a strange place. Their attempt at democracy is making a slow spiral into dictatorship (not entirely Putin's fault -- Yeltsin set the stage for it). Democracy is not the universal answer to everything that we in the West like to think. There's a lot of evidence that democracy can only work well if you have a capitalist economy, a decent average income per citizen and the rule of law. Most places that try democracy without the proper institutions and economic conditions end up with dictatorships or chaos. (For more information see the excellent book "The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad" by Fareed Zakaria).

Anyway, Russia being the odd place that it is, it's hard to know what to think about this website. This is the site of a Russian company called Aerospace Systems that claims to be planning a privately funded manned Mars mission, with a launch date in 2009. There's nothing impossible about this and I sincerely hope it's for real. It's probably not -- just a PR stunt -- but if it was real it'd be just the kind of paradigm-buster that the whole field desperately needs. I'll let you know.

 
Why is the Media Ignoring This?

Al Qaeda just tried to kill thousands of people again. They were going to use chemical weapons to murder innocents, including Americans, and would probably have caused the fall of a government which could have lead to chaos, war and more death. A combination of hard work and dumb luck foiled this plot but it came pretty close. They had equipment and personnel in place just waiting for the go signal. By some estimates as many as 80,000 people would have died.

So why the hell isn't this getting more coverage? Is it because it doesn't fit the agenda / image the media has of the situation?

 
A Seismic Shift to the Right

Politics are dynamic. People forget that and assume that the way things are is the way they've always been but that's not the case. Prior to WWII if you said "conservative" you were referring to a Democrat and a "liberal" was a Republican. America has a flexible political spectrum and we as a people and as a polity shift left and right as times dictate. It's just that usually these shifts happen gradually and we don't really notice. So let me point one out.

School vouchers. The idea is that you are given a voucher for your child's education. You can use that voucher to have your child attend the public (or private) school of your choice. That means good schools get more students (and more state money) and bad schools don't. In other words schools have to compete for your business.

In places where this has been tried it's worked very well. Parents (with children previously trapped in bad school districts and receiving sub-standard educations) are able to move their kids to better schools. Bad schools have no choice but to make improvements and do a better job or they lose their funding. Everyone wins.

Predictably, teachers hate this idea because it means they're being judged on their merits. The teacher's union (a major contributor to the democrats) has fought tooth and nail whenever anyone proposes any kind of school voucher program. But, as described in this article (free membership may be required to view), a voucher program in Florida is working so well that even the local liberals are coming on board.

I had a feeling a shift like this was taking place because a recent episode of the excellent TV show "The West Wing" showed a democratic President at first objecting to but finally accepting a similar program in Washington, D.C. This traditionally conservative idea is slowly becoming a centrist / bi-partisan idea that everyone can support. Now if we can do the same thing for tax cuts we'll really be making progress.

 
I'm Very Excited About Venereal Microbes!

Ok, actually they're called Venusian microbes by most people, even though the proper term for something from Venus is "venereal." I mentioned previously that there's evidence the place in the solar system where we may first actually discover extraterrestrial life is not Mars, but Venus. Now new theoretical work makes this even more likely by answering an objection raised by some researchers to the idea of life in the clouds of Venus. The objection was that high amounts of ultra-violet radiation would make life very unlikely. But the odd sulfur chemistry in these clouds (that made people suspect life-based chemistry in the first place) would act to block most of the UV. Details can be found here. We have *got* to get a probe there!

 
Russia is X-Files Territory

There's a long list of odd things in Russia among the wreckage of the old Soviet Empire. Many of them are excellent arguments for open governments and a free press, like what's happening to the Aral Sea. Because the Soviet Union was a police state, it made it easy for the government to keep their mistakes quiet. Anyone who critisized them ended up in the gulag.

I mentioned before the strange trip a young girl took through the Chernobyl wasteland. Going from the sad to the strange to the truly freaky is this article, about the Moscow Underground. I'm not talking about the subway, though old subway tunnels are part of it. Police states with a lot to hide (going back many decades) tend to build things underground. Now, in the chaos of modern Russia, many people with no where else to go end up living in these vast, man-made caves. Who knows what the hell is down there?

 
Geek Cool Crosses the Language Barrier

Because I review movies (at FeoAmante.com) I often come across odd bits and pieces of news and other information about movies that aren't out yet. For example: this trailer. It's for a Japanese science fiction movie. I don't speak Japanese so I have no idea what it's about. But damn, it looks cool!

 
The Definition of "Cherry Picking"

Ever heard of the Misery Index? It's been for decades and is a calculated combination of unemployment and inflation. And just so you know the Misery Index numbers under President Bush are some of the lowest values (lower is better) since WWII. More evidence that the economy is doing quite well, thank you.

Which is a problem for candidate Kerry, of course. All these good economic numbers make it difficult to argue that it's time to change administrations. I assume this is why Kerry decided to create his own Misery Index where he picks and chooses the facts he likes and ignores what he doesn't. That's what "cherry picking" means in a political context. The whole sad story is detailed in this article from the politically neutral web site FactCheck.org.

 
I Told You it was a Good Book

I've mentioned "The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else" by Hernando de Soto before. This excellent book explains why byzantine bureaucracy and lack of property rights keeps people poor in so many countries (including his native Peru). You and your family may have lived in your house for generations, but if you don't actually have legal title to it (because you can't because the contradictory laws of your country make it all but impossible) then you can't use it as collateral to get a loan to start a business. Your house is "dead capital", useless for growing an economy.

Pointing this out didn't make everyone a fan. The Shining Path (a Marxist terrorist group in Peru) targeted de Soto for assasination. Eliminating poverty cut into their support base.

Now the author is receiving a much better form of recognition: he was recently awarded the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. Read more here.

 
My Favorite Gun-Related History Lesson and What it Means to the Global Economy

Picture a knight on horseback. You don't need to imagine him doing anything heroic -- just imagine him sitting there. Now I want you to think about something hardly ever mentioned in movies (or restaurants) about medieval times: the cost. How much do you suppose it costs for all his equipment and training? Keep in mind that this is before any kind of mass production so his weapons and his armor are all hand made by rare, skilled artisans.

Let's skip a whole lot of scholarly discussions of the buying power of gold coins in the 14th century and just say it's the equivalent of many millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours of training. Now imagine that in the context of the near anarchy of cash-poor, feudal Europe, where there is no middle-class -- just a tiny percentage of sort-of wealthy (in the "not starving" sense) and huge numbers of dirt poor.

What I'm getting at is that only the upper classes could possibly afford these "tanks" of medieval times.

Similar arguments can be made about other cultures. The samurai of Japan (no horse but more training) was also unattainable for anyone outside the aristocracy.

The gun was invented independently in both places. Think about what that does to the equation. The knight and the samurai, with all their expensive equipment and training, can suddenly be picked off by any peasant who knows how to pull a trigger. In both cultures the aristocracy hated guns. In fact in Japan they hated guns so much that the various warring factions managed to agree on banning them. Eventually they were all gone from Japan.

Aristocrats in Europe very much wanted to do the same thing but they couldn't. Europe is not a homogeneous culture -- it's an unsettled mix of very different peoples most of whom don't like each other. Thus any European nation that didn't adopt guns (or any other disruptive innovation) would get eaten alive by his neighbors who did.

This is why, a few centuries later, when Europeans arrived in force in Japan the Japanese recognized the guns the Europeans had, but the Japanese themselves didn't have any, putting them at a big disadvantage.

Interesting lesson, right? More than you think. First, read this very insightful article by Daniel Henninger from the Wall Street Journal (free membership may be required to view). He points out that, just as the medieval Japanese tried to do, there are many technological (and social and political) trends that people would like to stop. They seek to isolate themselves and their culture but history shows you are only setting yourself up for a rude awakening by doing that. The "limits" both the U.S. and Europe are attempting to put on various aspects of biotechnology are the 21st century equivalent of my gun story. We (as in "the West") tend to think that if we pass laws against certain forms of biotech then these advances will never occur. That's why we're so surprised (as surprised as Japan was by the technically superior gaijin) when countries like Korea leapfrog ahead of us.

I know many people believe there are valid reasons to go slow with such powerful technologies. Maybe they're right. But when you make these kinds of policy decisions it's important to understand all of the consequences. Just because we don't develop them doesn't mean they won't get developed. And if we sit still while others pass us by then our ability to control the process (or even our own fate) will be greatly diminished.

 
This is a 9.5 on the Political Incorrectness Scale

This is completely non sequitur but I just had to share it because it's so very odd and squirm-inducing for those who value political correctness. Presented for your edification: a black man publically defending the Confederacy.

 
Russia Shows us the Way

Russia is proposing that tours of duty aboard the "International" Space Station be doubled to twelve months. Are they doing this to increase the scientific output of the station? No. They're doing it because it will allow them to have more seats available for tourists.

Space tourism is *the* market that will drive privately owned and operated space vehicles. It is the reasoning behind the X-Prize and it will lead to expeditions of adventurers to the Moon, Mars and points beyond. It wouldn't surprise me if private groups beat the Europeans, who recently announced long-term manned Mars plans of their own. Imagine the scene. A French astronaut descends from the lander. He manages to look both snooty and bored with the whole thing but he plants the French flag. But before he can make his claim a couple of good ole boys stroll up and say, "Hold on there, Frenchie. Let me see your passport."

 
The Conservative Side of Punk Rock

Conservative Punks! Really, this is another example of the Southpark Republican trend, as the leftist stereotype of conservatives as racist red necks fades deservedly away. I have great respect for people who stand up in a field of endeavor dominated by the left and say, "I like President Bush and I ROCK!". Or words to that effect.

Those of you on the left should think about what this all means. You are the establishment that these kids are rebelling against by becoming conservatives. Ah, the irony!

 
NASA, Frustration and the Trillion Dollar Lie

This is how the media works. It's a cautionary tale and should be kept in mind whenever you read anything written by a reporter.

When President Bush announced his new space policy, he did *NOT* say we're going to Mars. His plan is for manned missions to the moon with the goal of establishing a lunar base. He said that this could lead to a manned Mars mission but an actual manned Mars mission is not part of the plan or the budget proposal. He also specified that the program would involve spending $12 billion over the next five years, with only $1 billion being "new" money since the rest would come from NASA's existing budget.

But if you've read any of the many news articles that have appeared in the last few months you've probably seen a very different number. Almost every article in print says something along the lines of, "President Bush's plan for a mission to Mars, which many experts think will cost $1 trillion..."

That's trillion (with a "t") as opposed to the billion (with a "b") that the President actually mentioned. Where did this three orders of magnitude (a trillion is equal to 1000 billion) increase come from?

The whole sad story can be found here, in this excellent article from SpaceReview. The source is ultimately from a NASA study done in 1989 for the Space Exploration Initiative, a proposal for manned missions and bases on the Moon and Mars that come out under the first President Bush. That estimate was the total cost of a Moon base and a Mars base and 30 years of operating costs and came to about $500 billion. Various reporters and "pundits" took that number and adjusted it for inflation to $800 billion, then referred to it in their articles as "nearly $1 trillion". Then other reporters used that as a source for their articles and simplified it to $1 trillion, a nice round number. The lie was born.

Keep in mind that the original $500 billion estimate from the 1989 study was the combined 30 year operating cost of a Moon base and a Mars base. Yet most articles are stating that the Mars mission (not a base -- just the mission) alone will cost $1 trillion! This is not inflation. This is a case study in why liberal arts majors shouldn't be allowed to discuss aerospace engineering topics. And remember that a manned Mars mission isn't even part of the President's proposal!

All this would be frustrating enough. But on top of that NASA has exhibited their usual complete lack of understanding of politics and publicity and done nothing to correct this. Isn't it obvious that polls showing the public reacting badly to the President's space policy are probably rooted in the public's misperception of the cost? NASA should do something to correct this. Take out full page ads, TV commercials, whatever it takes. The public has to be behind this for it to have a chance. Why isn't that obvious?

Besides, if NASA was sufficiently open minded, when they do get around to a manned Mars mission they might actually make a profit.

 
We Think We're Losing But the Iraqi's Think We're Winning

Okay, start with this article (free membership may be required to view) from the Wall Street Journal. The impression you get from our media is that Iraq is a mess and we're losing the peace. Funny that the Iraqi people don't see it that way. They're much more optimistic about they're future than CNN, CBS, etc. Why isn't this being reported?

The impact of a free democracy being established in the Middle East should not be underestimated, especially among younger Arabs.

Finally, regarding the debate about whether or not Iraq had WMD's (Weapons of Mass Destruction), a new blog by an Army Reserve intelligence officer puts this in perspective. In deciding to invade Iraq the question the President had to ask the intelligence community isn't, "Can you guarantee that Saddam has WMD's?". The proper question is, "Can you guarantee Saddam does NOT have WMD's?" Because if they can't give that guarantee (they couldn't) then you have to invade. You have to. It would be foolish beyond all reason to take a chance on someone like Saddam getting nukes.

 
Maybe the Aliens Could Eat Your Brain After All

Life is everywhere. I believe we'll find life on many worlds in our own solar system and many, many worlds in other solar systems. Bacterial life.

Multi-celluar life forms (plants and animals) are probably very rare (see "Rare Earth" by Ward and Brownlee). So rare that Earth might be alone in possesing them.

On top of that, there are lots of different chemical solutions to the problem of self-replicating molecules. That's why I used to think that DNA and all our various proteins were also probably unique to Earth. And Earth is a very tiny, obscure place lost in the vastness of our galaxy.

But then this study came along. It turns out that occasionally bits of Earth get blasted into space by asteroid impacts. These bits can eventually drift right out of our solar system. This means that there is an extremely diffuse cloud of Earth bits around the solar system, out to a distance of a light year or so. Now combine this with the fact that the sun is actually moving in an orbit around the center of the galaxy and you can see how, every once in a great while, these Earth bits can fall to the surface of other worlds in other solar systems. And then add in the fact that there are some single-celled life forms that can actually survive the millions-of-years long trip and you end up with the Earth seeding life all over the galaxy!

You know what this means? For years I've been saying that alien monsters wouldn't really be able to eat our brains because they would have to come from a very different chemical environment and be based on very different proteins and thus our proteins would almost certainly be deadly poison to them. Not so! If they came from a planet seeded by single-celled Earth life then they'll be based on DNA just like us and our brains would be tasty, not poisonous. Am I the only one worried about this?

 
Recommended Reading

I just finished two excellent books. First is "Give Me a Break : How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media" by John Stossel (co-anchor of ABC's "20/20" show). Stossel started his career as a consumer reporter, confronting hucksters and scam artists on camera. He gives insight into human nature when he says that he was always hoping for a "Perry Mason" moment. In other words, he always hoped these people he confronted would break down and confess to their wrong doing. That never happened. No matter how strong Stossel's evidence -- up to and including actual video tape of the accused committing a crime -- no one ever admitted they'd done anything wrong. Our ego defenses are too strong. We'd rather die than admit to fault or error.

As Stossel's career continued he noticed something: the government agencies and lawyers who had given him the stories he was investigating and who he thought would step in and fix the situation and help the victims rarely did any good. Usually government intervention just made things worse and often the lawyers took most of the settlement money for themselves and spread such fear of lawsuits that legitimate businesses were afraid to enter the marketplace. So Stossel started turning the camera on the bureaucrats and confronting them with their failures. That's when he went too far for the Left. Definitely worth reading.

The other book I just finished is "Arrogance: Rescuing America From the Media Elite" by Bernard Goldberg. (This is a sequel to his equally excellent book, "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News"). Goldberg has been a journalist for decades and was well thought of by his friends and co-workers until he published an article (later expanded into his first book) about the liberal bias in the media. This book is about the reaction from the Left and Big Media (sadly, the same thing) to his original accusation.

 
The Gloves are OFF!

President Bush began running his 2004 campaign ads (you can see them here) and as TV ads for incumbent Presidents always do, the ads mention the important moments of his presidency. Obviously that includes 9/11, the defining event of the Bush administration.

And just as obviously, the Left objects. That's true of anything and everything George Bush does so it's no surprise, but it's especially irritating when the liberal media attempts to twist 9/11 to their advantage with interviews with the so called "9/11 Families". You get the impression from the coverage that these people, who strongly object to the use of 9/11 imagery, are representative of the families of 9/11 victims in general. In fact: 1) Most relatives of 9/11 victims do not object to the ads and 2) the "9/11 Families" as an organization is associated with the very anti-Bush peace groups Peaceful Tomorrows and MoveOn.org.

Also, the firefighter mentioned in the article as being offended by the ads just happens to work for the Kerry campaign.

For more read this article (free membership may be required to view) by Debra Burlingame, sister of the Captain of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.

 
Firefly is GO!

I mostly like the Fox network. They gave me The Simpson's, after all, and I can't imagine life without Homer. They also gave me the brilliant and funny Family Guy (but then they took it away) and the brilliant and funny Futurama (but then they took it away). And Fox has, by far, the best cable news network (consistently beating CNN in the ratings).

All that adds up to a lot, but it's not enough for me to forgive Fox for what they did. Fox did something so horrible that it's taken months to be able to talk about it without wanting to smash things. They killed Firefly.

Firefly was the best sci-fi TV series of all time. Look here for an article I wrote on FeoAmante that describes why that is so. Fox had a show that easily could have been bigger than Star Trek but clearly no one at Fox "gets" sci-fi. It's just to weird for them I guess. A show like Firefly needs time and effort to nuture a fan base. But Fox showed the episodes out of order, then went weeks without showing it all because of baseball games. Then when the ratings weren't very high (a condition they created) Fox cancelled the show.

But all hope is not lost! Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly) has just gotten the green light to make "Serenity", a Firefly movie! Apparently a big part of the reason for the go ahead was the DVD sales of the Firefly boxed set. Sci-fi may be beyond the grasp of the Fox programming execs, but the number of DVD's sold are more their language. I certainly hope they feel like the idiots they are for letting this franchise go.

And who knows? Fox (to their credit) has admitted their mistake about Family Guy. That show also had very high DVD sales and the Family Guy / Futurama combo showing on the Cartoon Network cable channel regularly beats Leno and Letterman in the all important male 18 to 45 group. Fox is putting Family Guy back in production. Will this sudden outbreak of good decisions extend to a return for Firefly? Probably not. They'd just screw it up again anyway.

Buy the Firefly DVD set here.

 
A Very Unusual Sun

If you cruise the science sites like all good little science geeks should then you will come across plenty of articles about studies that relate to global warming. What you won't see mentioned much in the general media is that more and more of these studies show that 1) Yes, the Earth is getting warmer but 2) humanity is NOT causing it. An excellent example can be found here. There's simply a great deal of evidence that variations in the sun's activity is probably the biggest factor in global warming.

It is kind of arrogant to assume that our puny civilization can have such a profound effect on a body the size of Earth, after all.

 
This is what the End of the World looks like

Have you ever seen "On the Beach"? It's a very good movie (made in 1959) about the last few months before radiation from a nuclear war envelopes the Earth and wipes out the remnants of humanity.

By an odd concatenation of events, I was thinking about that movie when I came across this chronicle of a sad and dangerous trip taken by a young woman through the countryside near Chernobyl. Be sure to page through the whole thing. The abandoned city (and her description about how quiet it is freaking most visitors out) make it easy and scary to imagine the whole world looking like this.

I don't believe humanity will ever wipe itself out. I'm pretty optimistic about the future. But civilization has always been fragile. It took a long time for it to really take hold and barbarians wiped it out more than once. It's stronger now but it's not invulnerable. I'm telling you this because I didn't want to be the only one laying awake at night worrying about it. You're welcome.

 
Recommended Reading: Bush Country

If you were to tell me, in your most serious voice and with a straight-faced expression, that you were a member of the Flat Earth Society and that you firmly believed the world was flat regardless of the opinions of pretty much everyone else, the look on my face would approximate the look on a typical democrat's face if they were to hear me make this statement: "President George W. Bush is a canny politician, an excellent political strategist and above all, a very smart man."

The endless repetition that Dubya ain't too bright ("a lie repeated often enough...") has become such a part of the Left's mindset that evidence to the contrary is routinely ignored. But this particular lie / myth is one of several punctured by John Podhoretz in his wonderful book "Bush Country : How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane". Podhoretz is conservative and a reporter (a very rare combination) and provides great detail about the plans and thought processes of the current Bush administration.

This relates nicely to a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece: "The Know-'Em-All: How President Bush is smarter than the intellectuals who disdain him". Also worth your time (free membership may be required to view).

All these insulting lies are typical, by the way, of anyone who is losing an argument. If you can't beat the argument, attack the arguer. Discredit, discredit, discredit until no one believes your opponent anymore.

 
My 3 Year Old Grandson Kicks Ass! (At Halo)

Halo, for the uninitiated, is the best video game of all time. And aside from being a Republican atheist rocket scientist man, I am also a Halo grand champion, having played the game from beginning to end on the "Legendary" (hardest) setting many times. Just to make it interesting, I also did it once using only the human weapons -- no alien weapons allowed. (Yeah, I'm a geek. What's it to ya?)

It's gratifying to know that my great genetic gift has been passed on to my grandson. (Apparently it skipped a generation because my daughter thinks Halo is boring -- a statement that simply makes no sense). My grandson is only three, by the way. But that won't stop him from kicking your ass.

He's been playing Halo (and Mech Assault and SpongeBob Squarepants) since he was two. I just felt like sharing that.

 
A Great Debate

My best friend Eddie (aka Feo Amante) is no where near the Bush fan that I am. But he is true science geek (like me) and he enjoys discussing science topics over at Science-a-go-go. In an interesting but politically innocent thread concerning manned Mars missions another regular at Science-a-go-go decided to twist the topic (as he usually does) to an anti-Bush hate spew. Eddie had had enough. Read his excellent comeback here. (Be sure to read the follow ups too. Fun fun fun!)

 
Highly Recommended Reading

Dinesh D'Souza came to the United States from India as an exchange student. He went from student to policy analyst in the Reagan administration to professional writer and it's his book, "What's So Great About America?" that I want to tell you about.

I don't think I'll be ruining the story if I tell you that D'Souza thinks America is very great indeed and since I feel the same way I certainly enjoyed the book on that level. What's fascinating here is D'Souza pointing out something that most Americans tend to forget (or not even think of in the first place): people in the third world aren't stupid. There are scholars from third world countries who don't like America and who have well thought out reasons for feeling that way. These people aren't stupid or crazy and it's a mistake (sadly, a very American mistake) to just dismiss them.

D'Souza approaches the arguments against the United States in a very reasoned, intellectual way. He treats them with respect and doesn't dismiss them or attack the messenger. Then he methodically disproves them (most of the time -- sometimes he concedes a point or two).

He also points out a few things that are obvious to someone who has seen America from the outside as well as the inside. For example, if I moved to India, became an Indian citizen and lived there for the rest of my life, even if I lived to be 100, no one there would think of me as an "Indian". I couldn't become an Indian or a German or etc., etc. But anyone from any country can move here and they can really become an American.

The insight he provides into the Muslim world is especially interesting. It's common for Americans discussing the Middle East, for example, to make the assumption that certainly the citizens of the Arab countries want to be free like we are. Some do but it's a mistake to assume everyone has the same value system as we do. Many Muslims value virtue more than freedom. They dismiss America's accomplishments because they are tainted by our debauchery.

It's just like when we look at China and they boast of their economy and we say, "So what? You're not free." In the same sense the Muslims look at our economic success and say, "So what? You are without virtue." Our "debauchery" (in their eyes) is as bad as China's repression (in our eyes).

D'Souza walks you through the process of seeing America through the eyes of other cultures. It's worth your time.

 
C'mon, you apes! You wanna live forever?

Most people expect science to produce new discoveries and new technologies. They expect their computers and their DVD players to become obsolete. The built-in cultural expectation of increasing knowledge and improving technology is uniquely Western and very recent. We expect things to change.

But most people have no idea that big changes, unprecedented changes, are coming. Immortality, for example.

Yeah, I know. You think I'm exaggerating. Maybe you think, "Well, sure, someday." No, I don't mean someday. I'm not talking about some distant, sci-fi, Buck Rogers future. I mean soon, like in the next decade or two. Details can be found here. The work described here is based on the idea that we're pretty close to understanding the way aging causes biochemical damage and exactly how to repair that damage.

There are also efforts underway to create drugs that alter the behavior of the genes that regulate lifespan.

This is all based on very promising research with real money behind it. It won't result in a single pill that makes you live forever, but it will result in a series of supplements, drugs, and treatments that extend your lifespan. This dramatically increases your chances of living long enough to use the next life extension discovery, and the next.

When ever this subject comes up someone invariably says, "Yeah, but what if these treatments are so expensive that only the rich can afford them. That will only increase the gap between the haves and have nots." Then other people will nod, like some great wisdom has just wafted through the room.

There's no reason to assume these products will be especially expensive. Once the size of the market becomes clear that will bring competition and lower prices. But what else will it bring? If you could expect to live for at least a century, maybe more, would you live your life differently? Be more conservative? Take fewer risks?

This isn't meaningless philosophizing. This is a real issue that will affect your life in the near future.

 
Like we Need Another Reason to Hate the French

This article on ABCNews.com describes documents discoverd in the Iraqi oil ministry, including a list of contracts with a variety of companies and individuals under the U.N.'s "oil for food" program. (While U.N. sanctions against Saddam were in place he was only allowed to sell oil -- in theory -- in exchange for essentials like food for the Iraqi people). These contracts delivered Iraqi oil for a very low price, allowing the deliverees to turn around and sell it at market price and make a tidy profit.

The really interesting thing is the number of French and Russian companies, government officials and wealthy friends of and contributors to government officials on the list. The French, who endlessly critisized the Iraqi war, saying it was just about greed, just about the oil. It turns out these hypocrites had many millions of reasons to want Saddam to stay in power.

A more detailed analysis can be found in this article by columnist William Safire.

 
The President's Plans for the Moon and Mars

President Bush has announced a new policy making it NASA's goal to establish a manned base on the moon in a decade or so, followed by a manned mission to Mars in the 2020 time frame. This announcement has resulted in a tremendous amount of commentary in the blogosphere and I'll avoid rehashing it here. Instead I'll point you here and here, where aerospace engineer Rand Simberg responds to Greg Easterbrook's extremely negative reaction to the Bush plan.

Seeing Simberg defend the President's plan from politically motivated, poorly informed pundits like Easterbrook (although I did like his book, "The Progress Paradox") is an irony I can relate to because neither Simberg nor I are actually very happy with the plan. I want to see space travel made accessible and available to the general public. I want to see privately funded expeditions to Mars and privately run settlements on the moon. That's all perfectly doable if the government would just get out of the space business. My "dream" version of a new American space policy would have been something like this:

1. The Shuttle is clearly unsafe. It is hereby ordered permanently grounded.

2. The International Space Station has turned out to be unable to perform the tasks for which it was originally intended. The station will be turned over to our international partners and/or any private organizations interested in buying the American share.

3. NASA's annual budget of $14 billion / year will be reduced to $4 billion. Most of the NASA centers will be closed.

4. NASA's new mandate is to be exclusively a space R&D agency. They will perform research and development on space related technology and make the results of that research available to American industry. Their sole purpose is to develop new space technology to help stimulate the spece tech sector of the economy.

5. A series of prizes will be funded by the Federal government (similar to the X-Prize) that will reward private companies / organizations that push the envelope in manned space travel. The intent will be to develop a private space travel infrastructure including space tourism and lunar settlement.

6. The United States will officially recognize and establish the legal framework for private property ownership on the Moon and other celestial bodies, including the ownership of land. Part of the prizes meant to ecourage private lunar missions will include large land grants on Luna.

But that's far too radical a paradigm shift. Maybe someday...

In the mean time, there is one thing I'm very happy about in the Bush plan. Establishing a lunar base will also establish the precedent of humans actually living on another world. That's important because a significant barrier to private projects along these lines is the "Buck Rogers" effect. If you propose something that's never been done in space before most people