What's next?

Two amusing news items today from the ISS:
Spider Missing Aboard International Space Station and Astronaut Loses Tool Bag in Space. Sounds like a bit of a rough trip to me. Actually the spider story is far less dramatic than the headline makes it sound, interesting weightless results from the orb spiders on board.

Evel Knievel, RIP

Evel Knievel died last night. Check out the Wikipedia article about his life, it's quite interesting.

He accepted Christ last year, an event he announced at the Crystal Cathedral (9 minute video here). Highlight of that announcement: "Devil, devil, you bastard you, get away from me. I cast you out of my life.'

Free Burma

RIP

Marcel Marceau died on Saturday. Hard not to crack a bad joke about being speechless.

what a way to go

The headline says it all: Man Dies from 3-Day Gaming Binge.

Random Aviation Post -- Boeing BWB

Boeing has long been an innovative company. If you click through to their site, be sure to refresh the splash page a couple of times -- they've got some sweet shots of several of their aircraft, including the Chinook, the Apache, and the B-1B Lancer (really cool pic!) as well as their more mundane commercial stuff.

One of their latest projects is something called the Blended Wing Body, or BWB. Last Friday they gave their scaled unmanned prototype a test flight, apparently to good effect. Essentially this is a cross between a traditional fuselage/wing configuration and a flying wing configuration. The idea is to give the most lift possible while producing the least drag and leaving lots of space inside for people and stuff.

The prototype they are flying was manufactured for them by a British company called Cranfield Aerospace and, at 21 ft wingspan, is only an 8.5% mockup of what they envision producing someday. Even so its three 50 lb-thrust micro-jet engines can get this little guy up to 10,000 ft -- not bad for an R/C bird!

Among the cool things about the BWB:
* 20 separate control surfaces on the trailing edge! And yes, those would count as 'elevons' -- and all of them are independently actuated. Wow, complex. Sounds like A&P job security...
* Mounting the engines above the tail (or lack thereof) should greatly reduce the amount of noise transmitted downward, making for a much quieter plane.
* The prototype includes a parachute to bring the plane down gently if something goes awry during testing.

More info here, here, here and here.

peace in action

I have been meaning to blog this story for a while now. Essentially (for those of you who won't click on the link no matter how hard I push it), a Washington burglar received an open invite for wine and cheese when he intruded on a dinner party. Things took a surprising turn from there.

"There was this degree of disbelief and terror at the same time," Rabdau said. "Then it miraculously just changed. His whole emotional tone turned — like, we're one big happy family now. I thought: Was it the wine? Was it the cheese?"

Over the past several months (two years, really) I have been on a journey towards pacifism, prompted by several forces. The real bug in my ear that wouldn't let me stop thinking about the issue was Derek Webb's line "how can I kill / the ones I'm supposed to love" -- and that is where I stand today, finally convinced. Not convinced that pacifism is effective, necessarily (yet), but convinced that it is where Jesus would have me stand. But it's nice to see stories like that where the peaceful route does indeed prove to be the effective route too.

And while we're on the topic of food...

Here's one for those of you who aren't so much into bug-infested cheese: cardboard dumplings courtesy of a particular 'chef' (let's use the term loosely) in Beijing.

Key quote: "You mean 60 percent cardboard? What is the other 40 percent?" asks the reporter. "Fatty meat," the man replies.

Update: I guess I get a 'hoax horn' -- CNN has recanted their story.

Rip City

So the Blazers got the first pick for this year's draft, as several others have already noted. It's the first time since 1978 that they have gotten pick numero uno, and it should make for a very interesting year here in Portland. I heard on OPB this afternoon that the Blazers set a one-day ticket sales record today (although I wasn't able to find that stat anywhere online just now) -- and I too will definitely try to make it out to see Oden (who I assume they will pick) at some point this season.

It's definitely fun to have a young team to cheer for -- it reminds me very much of being a Dodgers fan as a kid in the early '90s when they were pouring into their farm teams and bringing up guys from AAA ball every year who wowed everybody's socks off (think back-to-back-to-back rookies of the year Karros, Mondesi, and Piazza, all from their own farm system). The only Blazer I don't like now is Randolph, but who knows, maybe everybody else's work ethic will rub off on him. There's still hope, right? Right?!?

No school today

Looks like I get an unexpected break from classes as PCC Rock Creek has cancelled classes today due to someone threatening Virginia Tech style violence there today. I didn't hear about it until I was already on my way there, but I promptly turned around and now I've got the morning free.

Strange how interconnected we all are -- One thing leads to another and because of one man's violence and another man's prank, I get to get some stuff done around the house today. Seems like a callous way to look at it but I don't mean that flippantly, just observationally -- the chain of events happens so fast in today's world.

Pleased with my government?!?!?

The 2004 election was a struggle for me. I didn't trust either Kerry or Bush and didn't feel like either of them knew what the right path was for this country or had the ability to get us there. In the end I became a one-issue voter and voted for Bush based purely on the fact that there was such a high likelihood of Supreme Court turnover and I felt like that was the one arena where I trusted Bush -- I believed that his high court appointments would be better than Kerry's. Fast-forward to that actually happening and I really wasn't sure I had done the right thing. Appointing Roberts straight to the top was strange at the very least and arguably downright irresponsible. Alito's history with the infamous torture memo weren't encouraging either, and I can't say that I feel comfortable still with either of those gentlemen.

Yet today, while listening to NPR, I had the strange sense that I agreed with something my government had done. While partial-birth abortions are only a tiny, tiny fraction of the abortions performed in this country, they are certainly the most gruesome and blur even the (already ridiculous) notion that the difference between "person" and "non-person" comes down to a matter of being inside or outside of the womb at the particular moment in question. Partial-birth abortion ought to be an issue we can all agree on.

I didn't realize that I had forgotten what it felt like to have a sense that my government is acting rightly. This story gave me that feeling today and I'm hanging onto it for all it's worth while I wait to hear what's next in this story, this story, this story, and even this story (not technically government, granted, but Wolfowitz is still inner circle enough to count).

Personalizing Google

Strange news from Google... I tried them out. They're cool and all, just... it feels like I'm using Yahoo or something...

I'm moving to New Mexico

Must be nice living in a place that is so problem-free that your elected politicians have nothing better to do than to debate a bill that would declare that "as Pluto passes overhead through New Mexico's excellent night skies, it be declared a planet."

Execution Video, Part II

First off, thank you, Hutch, Jeana, and Eli for your thoughts on the previous post -- I appreciate your willingness to interact. Sorry this follow-up was so long in coming. Thanks too to Mike for your comment and for the excellent Shane Claiborne post I'm going to reference here.

For those interested in the details but not wanting to see the video, the BBC has a (very descriptive) article here, which was how I found out about the video.

As far as the video goes, I have very mixed thoughts.

Am I glad it was taken? Unquestionably yes. Events such as this should be recorded, *must* be recorded so that they can be reviewed and interpreted by history. Memories are fleeting even when used honestly to their fullest extent; when it comes to something like this, if it hadn't been taped, I have no doubt that there would be 15 conflicting reports of how things went down. At least this way we can all be talking about what we think *about* what happened rather than talking about what we think happened. As Eli said in his comment, "Importance doesn't mean everyone has to see it. It just has to exist." I fully agree. What troubles me about the cellphone recording is that the official recording stopped and that those in charge did not think it was worth continuing. In recording comes accountability.

Am I glad it was released? I'm honestly still not sure. Does it desensitize us to death, or does it sensitize us to the harshness of *real* death (as opposed to the fake stuff we see in the movies)? There is a big part of me that thinks that anyone who supports the death penalty ought to be willing to witness it being administered -- how but by seeing it can you know that you are really in favor of it?

On one level, Hussein's death definitely *feels* right to me. We all have an innate sense that when one person does ill toward another, that same ill should be foisted upon him. I can't say that I felt "dirty" (as Brian McLaren has). Yet, as Jon put it, I do not rejoice. More precisely, I should say that I feel that I cannot or should not rejoice, whether I feel like I want to or not. That is, the news is that of a sinner dying without repenting.

This is definitely part of my journey toward pacifism -- I used to be very ok with the idea of capital punishment. Two months ago I would have said I was ambivalent. Now I'm awful close to saying I'm against it. It comes down to the simple fact that the ending of a life is also the ending (as far as we know) of opportunity for a sinner to repent. How can this be ok? How can we claim to "know" that he had had enough chances? How can we claim to know God's timing? I know I've quoted this before, but as Derek Webb sings, "How can I kill the one I'm supposed to love?"

We serve and love a God who loves the un-lovable -- praise Him! He didn't wait for us to become lovable before dying for us! I am all for justice being pursued and upheld. But surely to end outright someone's opportunity for salvation is not to walk in the way of the One who died for us while we were yet sinners.

I'll end this with a quote from Shane Claiborne's post Communicating Through a Noose on the God's Politics blog. Go read the whole post, it's worthwhile. Then come back here and give me some more thoughts.

It is rather scandalous to think that we have a God who loves murderers and terrorists like Saul of Tarsus, Osama bin Laden, or Saddam Hussein – but that is the "good news" isn't it? ... The gospels tell the story of a group of people who have dragged forward an adulteress and are ready to stone her (this was the legal consequence). Jesus is asked for his support of this death penalty case. His response is this... "You are all adulterers. If you have looked at someone lustfully, you have committed adultery in your heart." And the people drop their stones and walk away with their heads bowed. We want to kill the murderers, and Jesus says to us: "You are all murderers. If you have called your neighbor 'Raca, Fool' you are guilty of murder in your heart." Again the stones drop. We are all murderers and adulterers and terrorists. And we are all precious.