Category Archives: Scribbles

The marijuana laws are a terrible injustice

Posted on May 4, 2011 | Comments Off on The marijuana laws are a terrible injustice

Great quote on the subject from Ann Druyan, the widow of Carl Sagan:

“I really believe that the marijuana laws are a terrible injustice. They make no sense scientifically, ethically, legally, or any way. They cost a fortune to enforce and we incarcerate hundreds of thousands of people who have done nothing else, but possess or distribute marijuana. Maybe it’s because I’m a child of the 60’s and marijuana has been such a positive part of my life. I have never seen it as being addictive, having spent weeks, and months, and days of my life (and years) without using marijuana in any form.For me, it’s a kind of a sacrament, something that should be used wisely and in the context of a loving family existence. There’s a place for alcohol too, but there’s no reason why adults shouldn’t be allowed to do something which not only doesn’t add harm to themselves or others, but is a way to enhance the beauty of life, the beauty of eating, of listening to music, of being with friends and family, of being with the one you love.”

—Ann Druyan in the video podcast At Home in the Cosmos with Annie Druyan.

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Posted in Library, Science/Engineering, Scribbles, Space

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Israeli Centurion MBT

Posted on May 3, 2011 | Comments Off on Israeli Centurion MBT

It was chilly up there on the Golan Heights in late March when I posed beside this Israeli Centurion, a mainstay of the IDF Armored Corps on the Golan in the 1973 war. It was parked at a memorial for the 679 Reserve Armored Brigade which lost 98 men and two score tanks fighting a superior force of Syrians.

The Centurions have been replaced by Merkevas, but the old British tanks are remembered for the accuracy of their 105mm main guns and the way shells from Syria’s Russian T-62s ricocheted off the Centurion plate. Which is why, although the Israeli Armored Corps also purchased U.S. M-48s and M-60s, they bought more of the Centurions and preferred them.

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Posted in Israel, Science/Engineering, Scribbles, The War

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Why the birthers will live on

Posted on May 2, 2011 | Comments Off on Why the birthers will live on

Because, as Richard Fernandez says, they, and a growing part of the electorate who don’t care about the birth certificate, don’t trust Obama.

“At least part of this mistrust springs from the reticence of Obama himself. He has cloaked his school records and civil documents in confidentiality and it was normal to wonder at the contents of a locked box. It is impossible to understand the birth certificate drama without realizing that was never about the birth certificate document. It was about building or destroying trust in Obama.”

UPDATE:  For instance, Osama was supposedly “quickly buried at sea.” If this was Bush in office, nobody in the media would buy that. It’s truly touching that they’re buying it when Barry is prez. But why should anyone else? Something is fishy here, and it’s more than the O Man.

MORE: Meanwhile, Obamalot’s story of the alleged killing of OBL is unraveling. But his supporters say, hey, if you don’t trust him, you’re a racist! Yeah, that’ll convince ’em.

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Posted in Obamalot, Scribbles

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Where have all the flowers gone?

Posted on April 30, 2011 | Comments Off on Where have all the flowers gone?

Texas wildflowers are scarce this spring, done in by the drought, the heat of the past few weeks, and, last but hardly least, the wildfires that have scorched the landscape.

It’s made for a sad season, as Austin’s KXAN shows in this video report.

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Posted in Scribbles, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Katie Couric resigns. Yawn.

Posted on April 27, 2011 | Comments Off on Katie Couric resigns. Yawn.

You remember Couric, the so-called journalist who did the hatchet-job on Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential campaign? Well, Sarah’s still viable. Couric is leaving cBS. She’s become even more irrelevant than the network she used to work for.

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Posted in Library, Obituaries, Scribbles

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Why I never give money to the Red Cross

Posted on April 24, 2011 | Comments Off on Why I never give money to the Red Cross

Because, for one thing, their executives live much too high on the, er, hog, already. For another, the whole organization is very political.

Shown, for instance, by their preference for visiting legally-convicted Hamas murderers in Israeli prisons while (until recently) ignoring Israelis kidnapped by Hamas, such as the young IDF enlisted man Gilad Shalit. They have asked to visit him but have never urged Hamas to free him. Why not?

When it comes to international charities, I much prefer the Salvation Army. The “Sally” performs its good works impartially, and its executives live modestly. Relative to the big time, big shot, and biased suits of the ICRC, that is.

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Posted in Israel, Scribbles

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Yad Vashem

Posted on April 23, 2011 | Comments Off on Yad Vashem

This is the main hall of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Yes, the walls really do lean in that way, giving you the feeling of being trapped and about to be crushed. One is not supposed to take pictures there, but I wanted this one and so I did it secretly. Most of the exhibits are in the rooms off this disquieting hall.

Most of it I knew, having read a dozen survivor narratives over the years and taken a college history course on the Nazis in the 1960s before the teaching of history slid into its present relativistic swamp.

The pictures, the faces and names of the dead, were the emotional part of the exhibits for me. And the simple quotes, especially the short ones: “Today they came and took my only child away.”

For the first time, though, I got a real understanding of why there was not more resistance among the lambs driven to the slaughter: because the Nazis were very careful, right up until they turned on the gas, to make the people think that death was not the aim of it all.

No one getting off those freight cars at the extermination camps, however already grossly humiliated, could be sure what would happen to them and their families until it was too late.

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Posted in Israel, Library, Obituaries, Scribbles

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