Friday, May 25, 2007
The administration broke a leg coming out of the starting gate this week
when a House panel eliminated funding for the Reliable Replacement
Warhead. First, the administration declined to ratify the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty, and now proposes to develop a whole new generation of
nuclear weapons, while at the same telling other nations not to develop
them. That might rank among the most dangerous strategies in history –
unless the United States has an impenetrable shield against attack. Let's
take a look at how that's coming.
A lot depends on a test of the antimissile shield in California and Alaska
scheduled for this week. The shield hasn't been exactly impenetrable in
previous tests, though it's alleged to have hit the target once in a
highly choreographed test. In Texas they say, "Even a blind sow will pick
up an acorn occasionally." Fred Lamb, a physics professor at the
University of Illinois, who recently led a study of missile defense for
the American Physical Society, is concerned that the new test might be
another acorn. He is quoted in the New York Times as worrying that a
successful test would be cited as proof that "the system has a substantial
capability in a real battle situation. That would be a gross exaggeration."
Jurassic Park it's not. The $27M Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY opens
Monday. Petersburg is across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, but it's
about 150 years behind. I was in Cincinnati for a meeting a number of
years ago. It was a bright spring day, and I took the lunch period to
walk in a pleasant park that ran a mile or so along the bank above the
river. There were bronze plaques set in the walkway depicting long-
extinct life forms characteristic of each geologic period. As they walked
further and further back in time, children would stop to read each one.
Across the river, the Creation Museum shows the world after "the fall" and
expulsion from Eden. Frozen in time, dinosaurs and people were created on
the sixth day, and never ate each other. The museum is a monument to the
failure of education. Meanwhile, the National Association of State Boards
of Education will elect officers in July. There is only one candidate for
President-elect: Kenneth Wilson, a Kansas Republican who voted to change
the state's science standards to include intelligent design.
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