A Child Sees Through The Handwaving

With all of the issues that are being discussed at a frenzied intensity these days, Nat Hentoff zeroes in on what has really been the major crisis in our society these last thirty-plus years, and cites the wisdom of a child who saw past all the verbal and mental handwaving.

"But," said her son, "that means killing the baby." The mother then explained that there are certain months during which an abortion cannot be performed, with very few exceptions. The 9-year-old shook his head. "But," he said, "it doesn't matter what month. It still means killing the babies." Hearing the story, I wished it could be repeated to the justices of the Supreme Court, in the hope that at least five of them might act on this 9-year-old's clarity of thought and vision.

The Week That Was

I got home late Friday/early Saturday from a week of payload safety training at Johnson Space Center. As usual, I'm a couple of days behind when a big story breaks. On the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, I'll cite a commentary from National Review Online for insight into the strategic and political implications.

The killing of Zarqawi and the completion of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government is a fortunate confluence that allows a new departure in Iraq. Zarqawi's killing will make the American public think progress is possible in a way that a recitation of optimistic statistics never will. The White House believes- correctly, in our view-that the portion of the American public that is persuadable on Iraq will listen to a message based on the argument that loss in Iraq will bring dire consequences, and that the U.S. is constantly adjusting based on conditions rather than mindlessly "staying the course." A redoubling of effort now could be sold in these terms, and it would be natural to couple it with the completion of Maliki's government.

And here is a report from SpaceflightNow.com on the vital role that space assets played in the operation to take out Zarqawi.

As a Christian, I have to pray that even such an evil man can find redemption from eternal damnation. However, in a lighter vein, I can't help speculating on what the appropriate form such a fate might be. Perhaps instead of enjoying eternity with seventy-two voluptuous virgins, it would be finding one's self stuck for eternity in the company of seventy-two clones of Hillary Clinton.

Memorial Day

Ben Stein delivered a moving message to families of those who have given their lives to defend our freedom.

Your loved ones' lives and deaths had as much meaning at the lives and deaths of every American who died for freedom from Valley Forge to the Battle of the Bulge to Cho-Sin Reservoir to the Cu Chi tunnels to the Balkans to Kabul, Afghanistan, to Falluja, Iraq.

And if the media doesn't know it, every other American does. This is a very difficult fight, but the ordinary American knows what your loved ones have done and respects them.

Democrats' Worst Nightmare

That is the title of Bob Novak's column describing Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele's campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Steele sees national implications and put it to me this way in a conversation before the recent rally in Upper Marlboro: "It's a breaking point. I've heard the talk: 'Hillary, Bill, Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, all are coming in to campaign against you. They can't bear to see you win this race.' If I win this race, I am sure that the whole dynamic changes."

This morning I was one of a large, enthusiastic group of supporters who walked with Lt. Gov. Steele in the parade in downtown Rockville, wearing the official Steele T-shirt I'd just received for the occasion. (Once you've got the T-shirt, you know the campaign is really underway.) The response of the crowds was as warm as today's summery weather, so it looks like it's going to be a good race for the Senate.

"--time for a great new American enterprise--"

I had not yet even reached my sixth birthday, so I don't remember watching a presidential speech forty five years ago today (though I do remember watching Alan Shepard's flight a few weeks earlier), but this one had a lasting impact on my life and my career.

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

President John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961

Dud Vinci Code

With the long awaited/debated opening of the film version of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code at hand, critics have turned thumbs down on the film's artistic traits, while Christians around the world are preparing to respond to its spiritual challenge. One of the best resources is Jesus Decoded, a TV/DVD documentary and an associated web site containing volumes of information challenging the myths portrayed in The Da Vinci Code. Both are sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Also, check out the many Catholic bloggers who are commenting (which makes this an opportune time to update the link to the Catholic Blog Directory (St. Blog's Parish) at the top of the 'Blogs' section of my sidebar).

I haven't read the novel and I don't expect to spend my money to promote the movie. Now if you want to see Ron Howard and Tom Hanks do something that they do well (portraying space exploration), check out a copy of Apollo 13 and enjoy it at home this weekend.

Newt on the Frontier

Meanwhile, a potential successor to W shares his thoughts in an e-mail interview on how to enable developments which will lead to migration into space.

Prez Speech

W proposed a multiple part approach to the illegal immigration issue, including National Guard deployment while Border Patrol forces are ramped up, enforcement against employers, and a 'guest worker' program. Commentary I've seen so far is ambiguous, although the combination of approaches proposed is what was generally expected.

Old Media v. Reality

As the Old Media continues its downward spiral into absurdity, it's about time I add the Media Research Center and its associated blog, NewsBusters, to my lists of links and blogs. In the blog, Rich Noyes dives into the Old Media hyperventilating over the NSA database story. My favorite paragraph is where he puts into perspective the relative intrusion into our privacy by the NSA v. that of another government agency.

Today’s article does not allege that any calls are listened in on. Indeed, as USA Today describes it, the program seems like a thoroughly innocuous database of the same information that appears on your phone bill, but with your name, address and other personal information removed. Given that another government agency — the IRS — maintains information on American citizens’ employment, banking, investments, mortgages, charitable contributions and even any declared medical expenses, this hardly seems like a major assault on personal liberty.

(Hat tip to Tim Graham at The Corner.)

ISDC 2006

So much information coming out of the International Space Development Conference just held in LA. There is a sense of hopefulness in the air that efforts to open the frontier are gaining momentum.

No time right now to recapture it all here, so I'll refer you to a compendium of many of the presentations and other web reports at HobbySpace.com.

Follow-up: Andrea Clark

Andrea Clark died peacefully on Sunday after her family successfully fought to reverse a Hospital decision to deny her life sustaining care.

Her family said she was not in pain but had developed a severe infection her body was unable to continue fighting.

"We hope that the battle that we fought for our sister will bring to light and bear witness to the horrible acts committed in the name of ethics in hospitals across the state of Texas," the Clark family said in a statement provided to LifeNews.com.

Important Matters

While I don't like the rising costs of fueling my car more than anyone else, I hope people will put things into perspective by the time they vote in this year's vital elections. Three things I did this weekend are reminders of what are really important matters.

On Saturday evening, I went to downtown Silver Spring to see the newly released movie United 93, an intense retelling of that horrific September morning five years ago and the courageous actions of a band of airline passengers and crew members who prevented one more devastating attack, probably on the U.S. Capitol. (Not the most soothing movie to see a few days before I fly out of town to the ISDC, but I had to go see it.) Definitely a reminder of what we're up against.

Leaving the theater after the movie, I went next door to Border's and bought a copy of Party of Death, the new book by National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru examining how the anti-life agenda of abortion, euthanasia, etc. were imposed on the nation by the courts and the media, and how the Democratic Party was coopted into becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Planned Parenthood & company. I'm looking forward to reading this account of how we got to where we are and how we can take back our future for a more life-affirming agenda.

Another situation where the dignity of human life is being blatantly disregarded is the genocide taking place in the Darfur region of the Sudan. I attended the rally on the Mall today with thousands of others to support action by our nation and the world to end the atrocities. This issue transcends the usual partisan divisions, with rally speakers from across the political and religious spectrums. Perhaps for that very reason, the situation has been undercovered in the media. Anyway, for more information and to sign an on-line petition, check out SaveDarfur.org.

Reflections on Space Policy Priorities

Dennis Wingo analyzes the keynote address given by White House Science Advisor Dr. John Marburger to the Goddard Symposium in March, pointing out the significance of integrating space into economic and security interests.

The Vision for Space Exploration, as laid out in amplified form by Marburger, is an incredibly positive vision - one that we as space advocates have been pining forever to be stated. It is incredible to me that this speech by Marburger is not on the wall of every single space advocate, and on the front of ever space advocate group's web page. Even Ad Astra left off almost 40% of the speech from its web page - ironically, the part where a cost/benefit analysis leaves space wanting. We as space advocates need to absorb this speech (space advocate in this context includes NASA), look at its "vision" and look to see what can be done to align NASA and other national space efforts to support space development as an engine of U.S. economic competitiveness.

Urgent Case: Hospital 'Ethics' Committee Threatens Woman's Life

Andrea Clarke, a patient at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in Houston, TX, will be denied life sustaining medical treatment over her and her family's objections. More info at ProLifeBlogs.

Get on the phone. Again, the info: Andrea Clarke is at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in Houston, TX. St. Luke’s is located at: 6720 Bertner Avenue, Houston, TX. Their phone number is: 832-355-1000. Here’s the website, and a general email address: generalinformation@sleh.com

Andrea's cause has been taken up by a diverse community including the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, Democratic Underground, and Right Wing News.

Happy 16th for the Hubble Space Telescope


NASA, ESA

HST was launched sixteen years ago today and the Space Telescope Science Institute has released a new image of the galaxy Messier 82 (M82).

Habemus Papam! - One Year Later

Today is the first anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's election to the Chair of St. Peter. Happy Anniversary BXVI!

Earthquake Anniversary

Today marks the one hundredth anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. When I lived in the Bay Area (from 1979 to 1996), I learned how such a singular event could have an impact on the history of a region, and of the resilience of humans and all life to come back and thrive in spite of adversity.

Have a Blessed and Happy Easter and Passover!


Link from www.truecatholic.org, artist not listed.

Brothers and sisters:
If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.
Col 3:1-4

Have We Forgotten?

Whatever sentence is decided for Zacarias Moussaoui, perhaps the most important outcome of the proceedings is the reminder the public is receiving of the horrors of the September 11 attacks and of the heroism of ordinary people, particularly the passengers of United Flight 93 who prevented another devastating attack, perhaps on the U.S. Capitol. A transcript of the struggle onboard the plane is here.

Happy Anniversary

Today marks the anniversaries of Yuri Gagarin's pioneering orbital flight (45th) and the of first launch of the Space Shuttle (25th). Rand Simberg has an NRO column up on the significance for the future.

Finally, this double anniversary is being celebrated around the world with Yuri's Night parties. (I'm planning to go to the DC event tonight.)

Exploring a Planetary Neighbor

Europe's Venus Express has arrived.

Double Moonshot

NASA has added a secondary spacecraft mission to its planned 2008 launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission is designed by the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA and is explained in this NASA press release.

After launch, the secondary payload LCROSS spacecraft will arrive in the lunar vicinity independent of the LRO satellite. On the way to the moon, the LCROSS spacecraft's two main parts, the Shepherding Spacecraft (S-S/C) and the Earth Departure Upper Stage (EDUS), will remain coupled.

As the spacecraft approaches the moon's south pole, the upper stage will separate, and then will impact a crater in the south pole area. A plume from the upper stage crash will develop as the Shepherding Spacecraft heads in toward the moon. The Shepherding Spacecraft will fly through the plume, and instruments on the spacecraft will analyze the cloud to look for signs of water and other compounds. Additional space and Earth-based instruments also will study the 2.2-million-pound (1000-metric-ton) plume.

NASA added the option for a secondary payload since an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) launch allows for additional payload weight in addition to LRO. This proposal was selected from nineteen responses to NASA's request and provides an innovative, economical and timely way to obtain additional data vital for future human lunar exploration and development.

Three Years After the Fall

Today is the third anniversary of the toppling of the Saddam statue in Baghdad marking the fall of that brutal regime. Just what kind of threat Saddam Hussein was is discussed in this Investors Business Daily article (hat tip to Power Line Blog) analyzing the information revealed so far by the release of captured documents and recordings by the government (with many more on the way).

The Pentagon has obviously been sitting on a treasure trove of paper incriminations against Saddam's regime. So far, just a minuscule amount of the more than 3,000 hours of tape recordings of Saddam and 48,000 boxes of intelligence documents has been translated and deciphered.

What has come out so far has confirmed Americans' worst fears about Saddam's evil regime. To review:

Saddam is heard on a 1997 tape predicting terrorism would soon be coming to the U.S., while his son-in-law — who was in charge of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction — gloats about lying to U.N. weapons inspectors to hide the extent of Iraq's WMD program.

Saddam, in a tape made in 2000, talks with Iraqi scientists about his plans to build a nuclear device. He discusses Iraq's plasma separation program — an advanced uranium-enrichment technique completely missed by U.N. inspectors.

The article also asserts why the Bush Administration would pass on an obvious opportunity to vindicate its justification for going to war.

At present, we're relying too much on translations by bloggers and other amateurs. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., says the White House has been dragging its feet for fear of embarrassing supposed allies (such as Russia) whose links with Saddam would come under scrutiny.

Here is the web site where the government is posting the captured intelligence information.

ISS Crew Swap Completed

The Expedition 12 crew landed accompanied by the Brazilian crew member who launched with the Expedition 13 crew which replaced them.

Conservatives and the Frontier

In this week's Space Review, Taylor Dinerman challenges Stephen Moore's article in the April issue of American Spectator magazine (I could not find the article on the American Spectator web site.) which criticizes W's space exploration plans as just another wasteful government program. Many conservatives do not seem to realize how vital opening the frontier is to our national defense and economic prosperity. Of course, it is critical that the implementation of the NASA program enables the private sector to follow the explorers and develop and settle the frontier.

At last month’s Goddard Symposium Marburger made the point that “The ultimate goal is not to impress others, or merely to explore our planetary system, but to use accessible space for the benefit of humankind. It is a goal that is not confined to a decade or a century. Nor is it confined to a single nearby destination, or to a fleeting dash to plant a flag. The idea is to begin preparing now for a future in which material trapped in the sun’s vicinity is available for incorporation into our way of life.”

And as I have pointed out in this post, developing the frontier is a vital long term part of building a culture of life.

And All Without Even One Embryonic Stem Cell

We do live in exciting times. This Washington Post article describes how urinary bladders were regenerated in a laboratory and are functioning in several young patients.

The "neo-bladders," each one grown in a small laboratory container from a pinch of a patient's own cells, have been working in seven young patients for an average of almost four years, according to a report released yesterday by the British journal the Lancet. The organs have remained free of the many complications that bedevil the conventional practice of surgically constructing bladders from other tissues.

If ongoing studies continue apace, the researchers said, they hope someday to offer patients more than a dozen other homegrown organs, including blood-vessel complexes, partial kidneys and perhaps hearts.

Remembering Pope John Paul II

The first anniversary of Pope John Paul's death is being commemorated around the world. His successor, Pope Benedict XVI recalled JPII's impact on the world.

Benedict said John Paul had left a profound mark on the history of the church and all of humanity, ushering the church into the third millennium, visiting the world and meeting with heads of state, young people, believers and nonbelievers alike.

Pope John Paul II was the Vicar of Christ for half of my life and I'd say the most influential person in the world during that time. To see how the passing of Pope John Paul, the funeral rites, and the selection of his successor were reflected on this humble blog, check out my April 2005 archives. (Remember to go to the bottom and scroll up for chronological order.)

Irish in Silver Spring

Saturday evening I went to explore downtown Silver Spring's new Irish pub/restaurant, McGinty's Public House.

Good food and drink. I had a pint of Harp, Boxty (scallion & potato cake) and beef chili. They assure me the menu will soon be expanded to include that Irish pub standard, Shepherd's Pie.

Definitely a fun place to visit when you're in the area.

One Year Ago

Today is the first anniversary of Terri Schindler-Schiavo's cruel court imposed death by dehydration. This is how I posted the news (from my March 2005 archive) after hearing it announced by Laura Ingraham on her radio show.

Terri Schindler-Schiavo (1963-2005)
Terri died this morning of court ordered dehydration/starvation. I won't say that she 'passed away' because, in fact, she was pushed. Pray for Terri in eternal rest, pray for her family and pray for all of us. The work of Terri's fight will go on.

See BlogsforTerri and ProLifeBlogs for many other remembrances and reflections. And Dory of Wittenberg Gate has posted her final installment of Bloggers' Best for Terri Schiavo, including a recent post from this humble blog.

Let's pray that history will not record that Terri's death was when our civilization went over the cliff into barbarism, but that it marked a turning point galvanizing society to protect the dignity of every human life.

Happy Tenth Birthday...

...to NASA Watch.

Activities in Memory of Terri Schindler-Schiavo

On the day before the first anniversary of her cruel court-imposed death, Terri's family formally launched the Terri-Schindler Schiavo Foundation to help protect other disabled people.

For numerous other articles related to Terri published in the past few days, check out BlogsforTerri and ProLifeBlogs.

Terri Schiavo, Iraq, and the Old Media

The Old Media found itself on the defensive last week when President Bush, radio talk show host Laura Ingraham (You go girl!) and others challenged the Media accuracy and balance in covering the war in Iraq. Tim Graham of the Media Research Center described the situation well in this NRO article.

Something I keep wondering is if President Clinton were conducting the same policy under the same circumstances, would the Old Media spin be so overwhelmingly negative? Because while the Media bias has reached a unprecedented frenzy in the past year on Iraq, anti-terror policies, Katrina, the economy, etc., I still feel the most appalling media bias occurs around social issues, especially those involving life and death.

I recall last year while in traffic listening to a network news report on the radio during the time when Terri Schindler-Schiavo was being dehydrated to death by court order. The announcer stated that 'most experts' assure us that Terri was totally unaware and not feeling a thing. Having access to other sources of information indicating the kind of suffering she was going through. I did something unusual for me and yelled an epithet at the car radio (you know, the colorful metaphor for bovine manure). Of course, this bias has a long history on the topic of abortion and is as current as the latest hype on embryonic stem cell research.

I've come to accept the possibility that some of the elites in the Old Media and elsewhere are so obsessed with protecting their politically correct lifestyle choice fantasies (which include justifying abortion, euthanasia, etc.) by trying to bring down George W. Bush and Congressional Republicans that they've lost sight of the national security impact of their distorted spin on the current situation.

Do they fear Pope Benedict more than they do Osama Bin Laden? After all, the Holy Father and other religious and social leaders and more and more common people are peacefully challenging the 'conventional wisdom' being spun by the Culture of Death.

And whatever W's effectiveness on other issues, his two most outstanding domestic accomplishments are named John Roberts and Samuel Alito. With more judicial nominations possibly on the way, the pc crowd must feel a desperation to stop W and the Senate majority from ensuring the dismantling of the 'new morality' which has been judicially imposed on our society for the past forty years.

So, hopefully, the awareness will continue to spread that the Old Media emperor has no clothes. The flood of information from alternative sources is already having a tumultuous but healthy effect on the nation's political climate.

And back to Terri, the blogburst continues. Check in with BlogsforTerri, ProLifeBlogs, and the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation.

Likely Cause

A fuel leak near the first stage engine is the likely cause of Friday's launch failure, according to preliminary analysis by SpaceX. A U.S. Government led anomaly investigation will follow.

SpaceX Has a Bad Day

The SpaceX Falcon 1 launch attempt ended in loss of the vehicle. The company is investigating the cause of the failure.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk earlier described the risks in undertaking a new launch venture, comparing it to his prior experience in the software industry.

In a pre-launch press briefing last November before the first attempt to fly the Falcon 1, Musk acknowledged the difficulty in rocketry. Successfully launching a rocket requires everything to go right, and history is littered with failed inaugural flights. Musk compared the maiden flight with trying to develop perfect software.

"It is like...if you had a very complex piece of software that you test pieces of but you can't test the whole thing together until you ran it for the first time, nor could you test it on the exact computer that it had to run for the first time. But when it does run for the first time it can have no bugs. When was the last time you saw a piece of software that met that criteria?"

Try, Try Again

That's what SpaceX will do tomorrow with its Falcon 1 first launch.

UPDATE Thur. ~ 1 PM: Make that Friday for the launch attempt.

Blogburst for Terri Continues

Stay tuned to BlogsforTerri,ProLifeBlogs, and Wittenberg Gate for comprehensive coverage of the blogging in memory of Terri that is going on at this time. This post from Sounding the Trumpet really recalls the heart wrenching emotional roller coaster a year ago.

It was the eighteenth, while we were all on spring break. We could scarcely believe they had done it, and then we thought it would be for a few hours; a judge would give an emergency injunction, it would be replaced. We don’t starve people in America. I remember refreshing the page, refreshing, waiting for a change, waiting for good news….how long would it be?

And as the hours turned into days, and the days melted into each other, and our hopes rose with one hour and fell with the next. Our hearts were there in Florida with her, in the hospice that had become a torture chamber, a prison of death. Her mouth was parched, her lips bled. How angry I was when they made those stupid arguments for “mercy-killing”. Come, shoot her then! That would be far more merciful. Starving is not a humane way to kill anyone–ask any of those who took part in the hunger strike, drinking only water.

Meanwhile, Brother Paul O'Donnell, a Franciscan monk who stood on the front lines for Terri, spoke at the University of Minnesota Duluth on Monday, with hope for new protective legislation in that state.

"Society has chosen to kill our most vulnerable," O'Donnell said during his hourlong presentation that included rare footage of Schiavo in her hospice room. "I ask you to choose life and defend life."

Iraq: Anniversary and New Information

As a new assault against terrorist forces was launched this week, today is being marked as the third anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq with official statements and debate and protest demonstrations. No doubt it is a time to remember and pray for those soldiers who gave their lives and for those people who suffered and died during the war and under the tyranny that preceded it.

Meanwhile, the government has discretely begun releasing documents and recordings through this web site which are shedding new light on the circumstances leading up to the war, according to Fox News.

The release of the documents, expected to continue for months, is designed to allow lawmakers and the public to investigate what documents from Saddam's regime said about such controversial issues as weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda in the period before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003.

The Web site cautioned that the U.S. government "has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy of the information contained therein, or the quality of any translations, when available."

The release of this information is being welcomed by key members of Congress.

House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., requested the release of millions pages of documents and audio recordings captured during current and previous U.S. military operations in Iraq. Most have sat untranslated for years.

Last weekend, Negroponte agreed to set aside money and establish a system to make the documents available to the media, academics and other researchers.

In a statement, Hoekstra welcomed the chance to answer questions about prewar Iraq. "Whether Saddam Hussein destroyed Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or hid or transferred them, the most important thing is we discover the truth of what was happening in the country prior to the war," he said.

Blogburst for Terri

One year ago today, the court ordered death of Terri Schindler-Schiavo began with the removal of her feeding tube. Terri fought on for twelve days until March 31, 2005, when she succumbed to the effects of dehydration. This somber anniversary period is being marked by many bloggers in a 'blogburst', where bloggers participate in publishing posts focused on a particular topic during a particular time period.

This blogburst is being coordinated by BlogsforTerri, which was established last year during the fight for Terri's life by linking to relevant posts from participating bloggers. That list of bloggers grew to several hundred at that time. Also check out the site for the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation, founded by Terri's family to continue the fight to protect other vulnerable people from what Pope John Paul II so aptly called the 'Culture of Death'.

The last half of March was a heart wrenching time for all who were involved in the fight for Terri's life. The intensity is reflected in the March 2005 archive of this blog. While it is painful to look back at the events at that time, let us be encouraged that Terri's fight goes on in the larger battle to protect the dignity of every human life, regardless of condition.

I'll be posting at various times during this blogburst, relaying the powerful words of others and adding my own thoughts as appropriate.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!



Artist unknown, Link by Catholic Forum

Catholic Forum provides descriptions of St. Patrick here and here.

Saint Patrick's Breastplate

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort me and restore me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

In the spirit of the holiday, check out LiveIreland.com for webcasts of Irish music and other media direct from Ireland.

Arrival at Mars

A day after the news about Enceladus, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) successfully entered orbit around Mars, seven months after its launch last August. The spacecraft will provide unprecedented high quality imagery of the Martian surface and will probably add to the startling discoveries about our Solar System that are being made.

I've added the MRO web site to the list of links on the right.

Water, Water, Everywhere!


NASA/JPL

Well, in more and more places, anyway. The latest is the Saturnian moon Enceladus, where geysers of water were discovered by scientists on the NASA Cassini mission. The discovery is significant because the presence of water in various locations hints at the possibility of life elsewhere in space. Water is also vital to the enterprise of expanding the presence of human life beyond Earth.

"We realize that this is a radical conclusion -- that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold," said Dr. Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms."

The exciting news took an unusual twist this morning in what started out as an erroneous Internet report of a possible discovery of evidence life itself, as recounted here by Keith Cowing. No microbes or monoliths, but once you have water, who knows?

Prairie Fire!

Yesterday, Gov. Mike Rounds of South Dakota signed the bill passed by his state's legislature setting up a direct challenge to the imposition of abortion-on-demand that has existed in the United States since 1973. This 'prairie fire' is spreading as Mississippi and other states consider legislation sharply curtailing abortion. Of course these laws are expected to be challenged in court, with appeals working their way to the Supreme Court, which will have to consider whether to revise or overturn its 1973 abortion rulings.

I'm not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar, so I don't know if this is the best strategy or whether it will directly lead to the end of judicially imposed abortion-on-demand in our land. However, history is full of courageous acts that have challenged entrenched injustice. One can think of decisive moments in our country's anti-slavery and civil rights movements,or of the peaceful stirring of the workers in Poland's Gdansk shipyards which acted as a catalyst for the eventual downfall of Soviet Communism.

There will be setbacks. Don't expect the Culture of Death to turn the other cheek. Regardless, called to do God's work, we're in this to win and there's hope in the air, as was evident last night when I participated in the annual Maryland March for Life in Annapolis.

Two Space Developments

While preparing for the inaugural launch of the Falcon 1 launch vehicle scheduled for the week after next, SpaceX has revealed its plans for a manned orbital vehicle. Here are reports at SpaceRef.com and Space News.

Meanwhile, Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine published an intriguing report about what might be, or might have been, a hidden space program called "Black Star". There is skepticism, and even Aviation Week itself says "iron-clad confirmation that meets AW&ST standards has remained elusive." If it is accurate, it means that there are at least a few unnamed pilots who are members of a never revealed 'astronaut corps' who have shared the experience of flying in space.

Setting the Record Straight

A weird article by John Lasker on Wired Magazine's web site claimed that the participants in this week's March Storm on Capitol hill were sent by aerospace companies to advocate policies designed to establish the basing of weapons in space. The piece seems to rely heavily on the input of Bruce Gagnon, an activist who seems to be somewhere to the left of MoveOn.org.

ProSpace President Marc Schlather has responded in a letter to the magazine's editor, posted here at SpacePolitics.com.

By far his most grievous mischaracterization is this sentence: “Some of the lobbyists represent the aerospace industry, but most have been hired by smaller space startups and entrepreneurs.”

I was very clear with Mr. Lasker about the fact that our members are volunteers and private citizens. For instance, at this week’s March Storm those in attendance included:

Ten college students (from the University of Michigan, University of Illinois, University of Colorado and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical).
An emergency room doctor
A materials scientist (who does not work in the aerospace industry).
A software engineer
A corporate training specialist
A Wall Street executive

We do have one member in long standing who is employed by a major aerospace company as a systems engineer on the Hubble Space Telescope, which could hardly be described as a weapons system.

In addition each of our members pays their own way to Washington. As some came from as far away as California that represents a substantial expense. No aerospace company paid the airfare or hotel bills of our attendees, nor was any member compensated for attending March Storm (except this author, who is the only paid employee of ProSpace).

This is the way we have done things since our founding twelve years ago. And it is chief among the reasons we are warmly welcomed back by members of Congress and their staffs each year – they know our agenda is one that is not based on any possible personal gain for our members, but rather a genuine concern for the direction of our nation’s space efforts.

UPDATE: The Wired article linked above has now been modified to correct the more outrageous misinformation about ProSpace that was present in the original posting. Also, Marc Schlather's letter has been published on the Wired web site.

Citizens' Space Agenda

We conducted our training session today and this week space advocates will take to 'the Hill' in the annual ProSpace March Storm. Thirty volunteers will be visiting Congressional offices to advance an agenda of forming public policy to enable and expedite economic enterprise to expand our human presence in space. This year's objectives include:

- Using prizes to stimulate technological innovation in the
private sector while paying only for results and not effort;
- Using commercial space service providers to the maximum
extent possible;
- Creating a new public-private partnership between DOD
and the emerging space industry.

SpaceX Announces a New Window

SpaceX has announced a new launch window for the inaugural launch of its Falcon 1 launch vehicle, March 20 through 25.

The Partial Birth Abortion Ban Goes to Supreme Court

I've italicized the name of the procedure that many Media sources refer to vaguely as 'a certain late term abortion procedure'. The Supreme Court today agreed to review the appeal of a lower court ruling that blocked enforcement of the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2003.

According to LifeNews.com, the outcome of the case could likely turn on the changed make-up of the Supreme Court that occurred within the past year with the Selection of John Roberts as Chief Justice and Samuel Alito as Associate Justice. Alito replaced the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor, who cast the deciding vote overturning a Nebraska state law banning Partial Birth Abortion in 2000.

Responding to the 2000 Supreme Court decision, Congress included a lengthy findings section, detailing the hearings it held on partial-birth abortions, in hopes it would persuade the nation's top court that a health exception is unnecessary.

The findings section cites an American Medical Association convened to study the issue of partial-birth abortions. The expert panel "could not find 'any' identified circumstance" where partial-birth abortion "was 'the only appropriate alternative'" to preserve the health of the mother."

It also indicated partial-birth abortions may pose health risks for women. Such risks include cervical incompetence, trauma to the uterus, and lacerations or hemorrhaging.

Saddam Tapes

The unveiling of the tapes of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein discussing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was covered in a CNN web post on Saturday. The article included differing interpretations from various officials and experts and indicates much more information may be forthcoming.

The tapes, which were obtained by the U.S. government sometime after the invasion of Iraq, are part of about 35,000 additional boxes of material on Iraq's weapons programs and efforts, said an aide to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra, R-Michigan, who has reviewed the tapes.

The material is awaiting translation, the aide said, and the Bush administration is contemplating making all the material public for journalists and academics to translate and review.

Meanwhile, the FBI translator who originally interpreted the tapes says that ABC News reinterpreted the excerpts they broadcast last Wednesday night.

Tierney says, however, that what Saddam actually said was much more sinister. "He was discussing his intent to use chemical weapons against the United States and use proxies so it could not be traced back to Iraq," he told Hannity.

And national security expert and writer Ken Timmerman writes at NewsMax.com on what one former top Defense Department official says really happened to Iraq's WMDs.

"The short answer to the question of where the WMD Saddam bought from the Russians went was that they went to Syria and Lebanon," former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John. A. Shaw told an audience Saturday at a privately sponsored "Intelligence Summit" in Alexandria, Va.

Best of this Blog, etc.

Sometimes, I'll put a little more work into a post here, and get a lot of satisfaction out of seeing it at the top of this page. Then, of course, I stay current and blog again, meaning the favorite scrolls down and eventually off the page, to be found only in the archives. Occasionally, it's a special post that covers one of the major themes of this blog or, better yet, ties together two or more themes in a big picture view. (Yeah, I know some might say a 'flying leap'.) And the post will have an enduring timeliness beyond the events of the day.

So, I've introduced a feature called Best of this Blog near the top of the sidebar on the right. The first two posts to enter this 'hall of fame' are Why We March, my annual (slightly revised each year) essay I post around the time of the March for Life in January, and Most Precious Resource, the post from earlier this week that covers asteroid mining and the social implications of the frontier. I'll occasionally add others when I blog new posts that I feel deserve this enduring recognition, or discover old ones in the archives.

I've also added to and revised my links, including a few added blogs.

This Could Be Really Big

Saddam tapes including WMD discussions to be released at Intelligence Summit Saturday.

Not sure this will happen without some last minute interruption. There is apparently a giant struggle within the intelligence community which in some ways reflects the larger social/political divide in American society.

ABC News actually aired brief excerpts of these tapes last night, but they and the rest of the Old Media continued to obsess with VP Dick Cheney's hunting accident. Let's see how much Saturday's revelations are communicated to the public. Stay tuned.

The Most Precious Resource of All


NASA, Artist concept by Denise Watt.

Mark Sonter, an Australian mining expert, has been active for years in the space community pursuing the potential of extracting resources from the asteroids, which he explains in a column at Space.com. The author begins by stating the two reasons humanity has to be interested in asteroids, particularly those that follow paths that cross Earth's orbit around the sun.

The Near Earth Asteroids offer both threat and promise. They present the threat of planetary impact with regional or global disaster. And they also offer the promise of resources to support humanity's long-term prosperity on Earth, and our movement into space and the solar system.

The variety of resources available in these objects is presented.

Spectroscopic studies suggest, and 'ground-truth' chemical assays of meteorites confirm, that a wide range of resources are present in asteroids and comets, including nickel-iron metal, silicate minerals, semiconductor and platinum group metals, water, bituminous hydrocarbons, and trapped or frozen gases including carbon dioxide and ammonia.

As one startling pointer to the unexpected riches in asteroids, many stony and stony-iron meteorites contain Platinum Group Metals at grades of up to 100 ppm (or 100 grams per ton). Operating open pit platinum and gold mines in South Africa and elsewhere mine ores of grade 5 to 10 ppm, so grades of 10 to 20 times higher would be regarded as spectacular if available in quantity, on Earth.

Sonter goes on to explain the economics of asteroid mining and the fact that lowering the cost of getting into space is key to opening up this enormous new industry. The tremendous impact this industry can have on the lives of human beings is illustrated by this citation of another space resources expert.

Professor John Lewis has pointed out (in Mining the Sky) that the resources of the solar system (the most accessible of which being those in the NEAs) can permanently support in first-world comfort some quadrillion people. In other words, the resources of the solar system are essentially infinite... And they are there for us to use, to invest consciousness into the universe, no less. It's time for humankind to come out of its shell, and begin to grow!!

Note: a 'quadrillion' is a one followed by fifteen zeroes.

Professor Lewis, a noted planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, explains in a profound way the social significance of this potential frontier industry in his book when he says

The best use of the wealth of the asteroid belt is...to expand our supply of the most precious resource of all - human beings.

Let me make a personal observation here. This blog may seem to readers as an eclectic mix of seemingly unrelated topics. However, as I say up top, my goal is to tie together various themes in a big picture view.

The 'conventional wisdom' of the human future is often portrayed as a situation of limited and diminishing resources requiring 'population control' (and all its lethal implications) to prevent some kind of global catastrophe. This dismal view of the future is flawed on several levels.

For one, population control efforts are often coercive, especially on the world's poorest people, and often divert aid money that should be spent on providing food, clean water, and medicine. Also, even before space resources are considered, human resourcefulness in developing the resources of this planet and using them more efficiently make the population alarmists' case seem rather dubious.

However, many foresighted people see human expansion into space and development of the resources and energy there as the long term positive alternative to the more dismal agendas. Protecting and providing for future generations is the moral imperative behind our expansion into space. Part of a culture of life is to take the long view, to take risks on the frontiers to provide for the lives of future human beings, each of whom have a unique God-given dignity.

Winter Events

The Winter Olympics in Turin started Friday with the spectacular opening ceremonies.

Meanwhile, the unofficial snow shoveling event could involve millions of participants on Sunday. The venue, far from Turin, is the Middle Atlantic and New England states, where a 'nor'easter' is moving up the coast overnight. Forecasts tend to vary, but I'm hearing 5-8" here in the DC Area with more further up the coast, including blizzard conditions in parts of New York and New England.

UPDATE SUNDAY AM: Well, we got a little more, most places in the area getting well over 10", but the snow has stopped here, and radar shows the storm pulling away. Soon time to go and begin to dig out.

Out With A 'Big Bang'

Politically correct censorship these days most often occurs in the Old Media or in other circles supportive of left wing or so-called 'progressive' agendas. However, it can have negative consequences whichever side of the spectrum it come from.

A young public relations official assigned to NASA by the White House, George Deutsch, resigned this week following a controversy which surfaced in a New York Times article surrounding his restricting reporters' access to climate scientist James Hansen. Another episode involved Deutsch's alleged insistence that a web designer append every reference to the Big Bang with the word 'theory'.

Now I'll grant that I'm usually skeptical of any social/political controversy stirred up by the NYT. Never-the-less, I have heard that this is a real concern at NASA Goddard and other centers and in other federal science agencies, and that it goes beyond this one individual. Space.com describes the situation in this article.

Administrator Michael Griffin sent an e-mail to the agency's workers on Saturday in which he discussed scientific openness and the role of the agency's public affairs office.

“The job of the Office of Public Affairs, at every level in NASA, is to convey the work done at NASA to our stakeholders in an intelligible way,'' Griffin wrote. ``It is not the job of public affairs officers to alter, filter or adjust engineering or scientific material produced by NASA's technical staff.''

Atrocity Thwarted

Actually, probably quite a number of terrorist attacks have been thwarted. President Bush spoke today and cited the disruption of a plot to attack the Library Tower in Los Angeles in 2002.

As the West Coast plot shows, in the war on terror we face a relentless and determined enemy that operates in many nations -- so protecting our citizens requires unprecedented cooperation from many nations as well. It took the combined efforts of several countries to break up this plot. By working together, we took dangerous terrorists off the streets; by working together we stopped a catastrophic attack on our homeland.

Definitely a reminder that we cannot remain complacent or distracted by political rancor in these testing times.

ProLife Organizing in Washington DC Area

Some prolife advocates in the DC Area met last weekend to step up the coordination of activities. The plans include taking advantage of Internet communication capabilities. More at ProLifeBlogs here.

I've added MarchTogether and Pro-Life Unity to the prolife links section of my sidebar.

White House FY2007 Budget Request

The Administration's Fiscal Year 2007 budget request was released on Monday. As expected, increases were primarily in national and homeland security areas and science and education efforts related to the American Competitiveness Initiative announced in the State of the Union Address.

The proposed budget for NASA is just under $16.8B. Exploration Systems, particularly the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) received a big increase over last year's budget. Costs for maintaining the Space Shuttle and finishing the International Space Station have put pressure on the rest of the budget, causing some science and aeronautics programs to be deferred or cancelled. There is $150M in the budget to continue preparations for a Shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, pending a safe Shuttle Return To Flight.

Jeff Foust provides reactions from several space organizations.

The Church and Western Civ

One advantage of traveling out of town as I did a couple of weeks ago is that time in an airline seat allows for activities that are often hard to fit in otherwise, like actually reading a book. The book I read upsets the conventional wisdom of recent decades or, in fact, of the last two or three centuries.

How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods Jr. Ph.D. is a revealing look at how the Catholic Church, through its principles and organization, provided the foundations for the progress we take for granted in our society today. The author provides numerous footnotes to source materials, so this work presents a real challenge to any would-be 'debunkers'.

Check out this TCRNews page for a review and Amazon link.

What Mr. Woods has deftly shown is that if anything, the opposite is true. Many of the principles that the Enlightenment promoted and that secular humanism embraces have actually been borrowed from Catholic thought! Far from being a threat to the concepts of equality, human dignity, peace, the advancement of science and other of the good concepts that secular thought cherishes, the Catholic Church is the very foundation on which these ideas are supported! Far from being a hindrance to the advancement of human culture, the Church was the only reason Western Civilization actually did advance at all! One shudders to think what would happen if Western culture did indeed altogether abandon its Catholic roots!

I think a big part of the issue is that the agenda pushed by politically correct forces today, including abortion, euthanasia, etc. is no longer compatible with the truly inclusive principles of human dignity espoused by the Church. Therefore, the myth of the Church as a regressive institution continues to be propagated today. Thankfully, Dr. Woods' work will be a powerful tool in setting the record straight.

Two Media Items on the Future in Space

A stimulating discussion on the direction of future space activities was aired on NPR's Talk of the Nation/Science Friday this pat week. The show featured Tom Jones, planetary scientist and former astronaut; Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX; Rick Tumlinson, co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation; and George Whitesides, Executive Director of the National Space Society.

Unfortunately, the NPR affiliates in some major markets, including Washington, D.C., do not air the second hour of Science Friday, when this segment was featured. However, you can listen to it from the link at this NPR web page.

Meanwhile, Clark Lindsey has posted his speculative predictions on the next ten years in entrepreneurial space activity in his Commercial Stairway to Space v.2006.

While no projection of future events comes precisely to pass, these projections are a realistic speculation on what could happen based on enterprises currently underway. The next step in this direction could come as soon as this week if SpaceX succeeds in its inaugural Falcon 1 launch.

Middle East Getting Crazier Than We Could Have Imagined

Time hasn't allowed me to keep up here with all the developments recently that threaten the peace of the world (Iran, Hamas, the anti-cartoon jihad, etc.). Victor Davis Hanson has a provocative commentary at NRO.

Ever since that seminal death sentence handed down to Salman Rushdie by the Iranian theocracy, the Western world has incrementally and insidiously accepted these laws of asymmetry. Perhaps due to what might legitimately be called the lunacy principle ("these people are capable of doing anything at anytime"), the Muslim Middle East can insist on one standard of behavior for itself and quite another for others. It asks nothing of its own people and everything of everyone else's, while expecting no serious repercussions in the age of political correctness, in which affluent and leisured Westerners are frantic to avoid any disruption in their rather sheltered lives.

A Distant Thunder

At the March for Life convention the day before the March, I bought an intriguing DVD being sold in the exhibit area. A Distant Thunder is a compelling story that combines courtroom drama and supernatural suspense. More in this review at ProLifeBlogs.com.

The movie itself is designed to be a supernatural thriller with provocative symbolism and a suspenseful surprise ending. It unmasks the horror of partial-birth abortion in a gripping court room setting by recounting the procedural steps from a medical perspective. After identifying with the main character, it becomes difficult not to accept the personhood and humanity of the unborn and question the morality of all abortion.

The Floras set out to make a difference by using their theatrical expertise to penetrate, in a thought provoking manner, into the modern culture without sounding “preachy”. A Distant Thunder certainly accomplishes this task and, at 35 minutes in length, is an excellent tool for productive discussion with teenagers and adults.

Jonathan and Deborah Flora spoke at the Blogs for Life conference I attended on the morning of the March and I met them again briefly later in the day near the Supreme Court.

While the Hollywood establishment continues to attempt to indoctrinate a politically correct agenda on our society, as demonstrated by this year's Academy Awards nominations, it is refreshing to see some Hollywood professionals produce a high quality countercultural (by today's standards) work.

UPDATE: A friend has sent me a link to Fr. Frank Pavone's commentary on the movie.

New House Majority Leader and 'Earmarks'

House Republicans chose a new Majority Leader, John Boehner, in a effort toward initiating reforms to move beyond recent congressional scandals.

One of the issues Mr. Boehner and the Congress will face is the question of 'earmarks', which now divert billions of dollars from federal agencies' primary missions toward projects designed to benefit individual congressional districts. The federal government is struggling with severe budget pressures, so it should be a priority to see that those dollars are spent on the purposes for which they were intended.

For just one example, the Fiscal Year 2006 NASA budget contains $321 million in earmarks. Now, some of these items probably do happen to contribute to NASA's core missions, and even serious reform probably won't end the practice of earmarks entirely. But suppose that $321 million could be focused on one or more of NASA's key efforts over 2 to 3 years. That amount of funding would probably cover a significant part of the cost of a final Shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Or it could provide for one or more robotic missions to the Moon or elsewhere in the inner solar system. This amount of money could also accelerate NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services and Centennial Challenges efforts to stimulate commercial space activity in support of NASA's goals.

'My Friend Orion'


NASA

The words of Laurel Clark describing her reaction to seeing the well known winter constellation in an e-mail sent from the Space Shuttle Columbia three years ago today. Tomorrow is the third anniversary of the fatal re-entry that took the lives of Laurel Clark and her crewmates of the Columbia STS-107 mission.

One of these nights when the sky is clear, dress warmly and go out and look at the constellation of Orion. Think about those men and women from planet Earth who have begun our journey to the stars and those who will follow in order to provide resources and opportunities for future generations.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito

This superbly qualified man was confirmed and sworn in today, despite all the hyperventilating and maneuvering by leading Democratic Senators, who continued to bow to pressure from the usual suspects (who are having conniptions. See here and here) in a futile effort to block the nomination.

Justice Alito's confirmation makes it a good day for W as he delivers his State of the Union address tonight. The White House State of the Union 2006 page is here.

Challenger Twentieth Anniversary


NASA

The Palm Beach Post has an article with a link to a multimedia presentation, which includes a replay of the final countdown and launch which ended in tragedy.

Here is the poem quoted by President Reagan on national TV on that day.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high unsurpassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

Planning the Future While Remembering the Past

I got back today from traveling to Houston for a meeting discussing safety issues for the (not yet official) final Shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

I noticed that the flags at NASA and contractor facilities were at half-mast on Thursday. It was for NASA's Day of Remembrance for the Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia astronauts. As a SPACE.com article says

Friday marks the beginning of a somber time of year for NASA, commemorating the first of three spaceflight disasters that have claimed the lives of 17 astronauts over the last 40 years.

On Jan. 27, 1967, three astronauts perished in a fire that consumed their Apollo 1 spacecraft while it sat atop its launch pad as NASA worked feverishly to send Americans to the Moon.

Saturday also marks the 20th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger accident. The orbiter was destroyed 73 seconds after liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986 when rocket booster seal failed, leading to a subsequent fireball and the deaths of all seven astronauts aboard – including Christa McAuliffe, the first school teacher to launch spaceward.

NASA will also honor the seven STS-107 shuttle astronauts lost in the 2003 Columbia accident next week. The Columbia orbiter broke apart during reentry on Feb. 1, 2003 after a successful 16-day science mission. Wing damage sustained during launch by a chunk of fuel tank insulation was later cited as the accident cause.

These anniveraries are a reminder that there is always risk in spaceflight and safety is never to be taken for granted.

God Is Love

That's the English language title of Pope Benedict XVI's first encyclical which was released on Wednesday. From the Introduction:

We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.

A papal document usually takes time to digest. Blogs that have posted comments, with more follow-up to come, include Open book, Thrown Back, and The Revolution (a sister Blog for Life).

The People Speak Truth To Power

It's been an awesome couple of days with the events surrounding the March For Life. I attended Sunday afternoon's final convention session, which was capped by St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke's powerful discussion of natural law and civic life. Last evening was the National Prayer Vigil for Life at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, with a packed congregation. I talked with people from South Carolina, Connecticut, Minnesota, etc.

This morning I attended the Blogs for Life conference, meeting several bright and nice bloggers including La Shawn Barber, The Revolution, Tim of ProLife Blogs, realitycheck(dot)ie (all the way from Ireland!), Irish Law (as in Notre Dame), Pro-Life With Christ, The Stem Cell Extremist, plus a journalist and a student writer. My regrets to anyone I've overlooked and to the other fine bloggers in the room I did not get to talk with.

The Rally on the Mall included many fine speakers highlighted by a call from Kansas by President Bush. Nobody officially counts crowd numbers in DC anymore, but looking back from Capitol Hill during the March to the crowds filling Constitution Avenue many blocks distant, I can only guess the number was well over the standard 100,000 figure. Others I've talked to feel the same way.

After a short drop in at my pro-abortion congressman's office, I stopped by the Susan B. Anthony List reception, and could have stayed longer had I known that the RNC reception was closed due to overcapacity attendance.

Enroute to the Metro, my final stop was a particularly powerful event at the Supreme Court where women grievously hurt by their abortion experiences declared that they are Silent No More.

I really feel the peaceful strength of this movement is making history as did the Polish Solidarity movement and the 'People Power' movement in the Philippines, to name just two recent examples. We don't just do this March to complain about the status quo. We're in it to win, to restore the recognition of the God-given rights of every human being.

Why We March

This is a slightly revised and updated article I first wrote and posted in 2004 at this time.

Sunday, January 22, marks the 33rd anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court decisions which imposed abortion-on-demand in the United States. Once again, concerned citizens will gather on Monday for the annual March for Life, which in recent years has usually drawn more than 100,000 participants. Now, why do so many people consider it so important to take time on a weekday to come to Washington, DC at the coldest time of the year to make their voice heard on this matter?

Before I go on any further, I need to say a couple of things. First, nothing in this article is meant to condemn anyone who has had an abortion or has been involved in abortion in some way. Far from condemning those with an abortion in their past, the people in the prolife movement are about healing and forgiveness, and want it to be clear that there is hope after abortion. Post-abortion counseling can be found through many church denominations and pregnancy counseling centers.

And second, while the prolife movement consists largely of people with strong religious convictions who feel called by God to defend the defenseless, that doesn't make the protection of human life a narrow, religious issue. The facts that the defenseless exist and that they deserve protection in the human family can be persuasively advocated by non-religiously reasoned arguments.

First, let's start with a little scientific background (from the Science for Unborn Human Life website) about how each of us began our lives as unique human beings. A new human being is conceived when a sperm fertilizes an egg. The sperm has 23 chromosomes and so does the egg. But the fertilized egg has 46, half from each parent, and is genetically unique. These 46 chromosomes, which are fixed at conception, establish the child's sex and are a blueprint for how it will develop, both during pregnancy and after birth.

Blood vessels start to form very early, about 13-18 days after fertilization. Then, on about the 20th day - nearly the end of the third week - the foundation of the brain, the spinal cord, and the entire nervous system is established. The heart begins to beat on about the 22nd day after conception, circulating blood throughout the child. The arms begin to form on about day 26, followed by the beginnings of the legs on day 28, the same day that the mouth opens for the first time.

Both the eyes and ears are developing rapidly during the seventh week after conception. At this time, the thumbs, neck, heels of the feet and all of the fingers are also present. Taste buds begin to form during the eighth week after conception. All parts of the limbs are apparent at this time. In addition, the fingers and toes have lengthened and are completely separated.

By the end of the eighth week the overwhelming majority (several thousand) of the body's organs, structures and systems have already begun to develop. Few, if any, new structures begin to form after this time. During the remainder of the pregnancy, development consists mainly of growth and maturation of the parts of the body that are already present.

Isolated arm, leg and backward head movements begin at about 7 to 10 weeks after conception. During the ninth week, a regular pattern of breathing movements is observed, with a median frequency of about 30 breaths each hour.

These are just the highlights of how you developed during the first 2-3 months of your life. Now consider that a majority of abortions are performed during the tenth to twelfth week of gestation. Some are performed much later in the pregnancy, when the child has grown larger and any unbiased observer would recognize a baby when they see one.

So why if the evidence so clearly indicates that a unique human life begins at conception, how did the deliberate and violent destruction of that life come to be imposed as a 'constitutional right'? Time does not permit describing the whole history of abortion or the intertwining influences of the eugenics and population control movements. Let's start with the socially turbulent late sixties when a growing pro-abortion movement subversively exploited the legitimate aspirations of women for greater rights and participation in society.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, former abortionist and co-founder of the pro-abortion group NARAL, has since changed his mind and heart and is now a leading prolife advocate. He points out the disinformation at the heart of the pro-abortion campaign.

- "The statistics that we gave to the American public about illegal abortions annually; the statistics we fabricated regarding the number of women dying from illegal abortions annually; all of these matters were pure fabrication and still persist to this very day."

- "We spoke of 5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year. I confess that I knew the figures were totally false. It was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics?"

- "We in NARAL were in the business of coining slogans principally for the media . . . we scattered catchy slogans for them . . . to use . . . in their stories. Slogans like "reproductive rights", "freedom of choice", "pro-choice". For many years we've known them to be hollow and meaningless. They're just catchy and, essentially, without substance."

The movement made rapid progress. California, New York and a few other states passed 'liberalized' abortion laws (though some other states rejected them). But what imposed abortion on American law were two Supreme Court cases, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, pronounced on January 22, 1973. The combined effect of the two decisions was to effectively impose abortion-on-demand throughout the nine months of pregnancy. Since that time, over forty five million human beings have been exterminated by abortion in the United States.

Aside from the grave issue that was decided, the finding that abortion is part of a constitutional 'right of privacy' is considered an overreach of judicial power even by some legal scholars who describe themselves as 'prochoice'. The 'reasoning' was based on 'penumbras' the justices claim to have seen in the constitution.

Did you know that the two plaintiffs in the Roe and Doe cases, Norma McCorvey and Sandra Cano, have filed affidavits to the effect that they were manipulated into their roles and that the decisions should be overturned? You would think that this development would be considered unprecedented in Supreme Court history, but I guess Dan Rather, Katie Couric, the New York Times, etc. forgot to inform you.

One fact that is becoming evident that abortion-on-demand is not such a great thing for women. Abortion has left many women emotionally and sometimes physically scarred. Campaigns such as Silent No More and Women Deserve Better are tapping into this hidden anguish.

Also evident is the effect on our society, with conflicting attitudes on how we treat not only the unborn, but also the sick, disabled and elderly. Consider the heart wrenching case of the judicially imposed death of Terri Schindler-Schiavo. Abortion has torn marriages and families apart, and led to a hardened and increasingly violent culture.

So, we have had for the past thirty years, a culture that in some ways has grown cynical, forgoing the promise of a hopeful future for instant gratification, or more often, the resignation to unimaginative 'solutions' that pit mother against child or people against the planet. One is reminded of a quote from the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats:

"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere a ceremony of innocence was drowned."

These Supreme Court abortion decisions were assumed to have 'settled' the issue in our society. Yet much to the consternation of the pro-abortion establishment, the movement of concerned citizens to protect life has only grown in strength over the past thirty years. The prolife movement has pursued multiple paths: educating the public, lobbying and litigating for change, participating in politics, and especially reaching out to help women with unplanned pregnancies. On the political front, abortion played a decisive role in the 2004 Election results and in the confirmation hearings of John Roberts and Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court.

Particularly significant is that the change in public attitudes on abortion is most striking among young people (who've lost peers they've never met). This is manifested in polling results and an upsurge of prolife activism among college students, much to the consternation of their professors and, in some cases, their parents. Sort of adds a new twist to some lyrics from the sixties by Buffalo Springfield:

"Young people speaking their minds, Getting so much resistance from behind."

So the buses are starting to roll, as thousands from distant states once again journey to Washington, where many will gather in prayer the night before or the morning of the March. Then we will rally and march, knowing that those we are trying to defend would some day defend our nation, write great literature, cure disease, compose stirring music, and explore and begin to settle the Solar System.

But more than for their potential accomplishments, we speak out for them simply because of the inherent dignity of each of their lives. In so doing we are responding to a great calling as individuals and as a civilization. And we'll continue to speak and march and work and pray, confident in the hope that, one of these years, we'll no longer face the cold winds. Instead, we'll gather on a warm spring day to celebrate the inclusion of the youngest in the human family within the protection of the law.

The Epic Journey Begins


NASA/KSC

The New Horizons mission to Pluto and beyond was successfully launched today from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard a Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket. The spacecraft was injected into a faster trajectory than any previous spacecraft launched from Earth. With an additional gravitational assist from a flyby of Jupiter in early 2007, New Horizons will reach Pluto in July 2015. From there the craft will continue to journey in the outer solar system to investigate one or more of the recently discovered Kuiper Belt objects. Considering the rate of recent discoveries, New Horizons may have a lengthening choice of targets to explore.

Another Scrub

I didn't realize that the storm passing through this area this morning would have interplanetary consequences until I found out that the New Horizons launch was scrubbed again due to a power outage affecting the control center at the Applied Physics Lab.

Moving Into The Fast Lane

I've had three excuses for my modest rate of blogging: a day job, slow typing fingers, and a dial-up modem. Well, the first two are still valid, but, as of yesterday, I'm online with Verizon's fiber-optic (FiOs) service.

I'm still learning features of the service and working through a few glitches, however I'm enjoying the advantages of faster opening web pages and higher quality streaming video. Now, I can watch decent webcasts of favorite sources such as EWTN and NASA TV at times when they are not provided by the local Comcast cable service.

No Launch Today

The New Horizons launch to Pluto and beyond was scrubbed for 24 hours due to high winds.

Not Good For The Most Vulnerable

There are valid arguments on both sides of the federal-vs.-state power issues in today's Supreme Court ruling permitting federally controlled drugs to be used for assisted suicide in Oregon. However, disability rights activists point out the danger in the assisted suicide issue underlying this ruling.

Life with a disability is so devalued, society is so bigoted against the idea that life with a severe disability can have quality, that in such a climate the "right to die" becomes a "duty to die." Activists fear that people who become disabled will choose suicide over living with disability. They fear that people whose disabilities make them burdens on family members will be pressured -- subtly or not so subtly -- to end their lives.

If there is a glimmer of hope in this situation, it is that today's ruling did not impose a Roe v. Wade -like 'right' to assisted suicide. Thus those who value the dignity of every human life are fully empowered to oppose assisted suicide through the legislative process at state and federal levels.

Stardust Comes Down To Earth

NASA's Stardust spacecraft' return capsule touched down early this morning in the Utah desert. The spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin, was launched in 1999 and intercepted Comet Wild 2 (pronounced “Vilt 2”) in January 2004 when it collected samples of cometary dust which may hold clues to the development of the solar system.

Enough, Already!

Samuel Alito has handled himself skillfully and gracefully during this week's Supreme Court confirmation hearings. The scene of Mrs. Alito in tears has probably sealed the human element of these hearings in Judge Alito's favor.

The line of attack taken by the Dems, including Princeton, Vanguard, etc. shows a desperation that they are losing control over our nation's future. Of course, the driving issue is abortion and I wonder how long the Dems will continue to drive off the cliff at the behest of NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and the other usual suspects.

For years, Teddy Kennedy, Chucky Schumer, and DiFi have been defining the 'mainstream' to exclude anyone who dares to challenge their so-called 'progressive' and 'enlightened' social policies, and it's refreshing to see their influence diminishing in today's political dynamic. Much of the credit for this shift in politics goes to the diversification of information sources that challenge the politically correct conventional 'wisdom' of the Old Media. One of the alternate sources that is particularly informative during judicial confirmation hearings is National Review Online's Bench Memos.