Steaming Turd

Slashdot reports that sales of Motley Crue’s new single did better as a download add-on for Rock Band for the Xbox than as a regular download on iTunes and Amazon.

Among the comments was this gem:

“This means that no one wants to listen to a poser, but everybody would like to be one.”

Man claims he has proof of four-foot tall gray aliens that can blink.

Kinda like this.

This is mainly a reminder for myself, for what good it will do, that NASA will be webcasting the Mars Phoenix landing Sunday evening around 7:30pm EDT.

They’ll be landing it the old-fashioned way, with parachutes and retrothrust, instead of bouncing it on the ground with airbag protection. Here’s hoping it works!

Update: I actually remembered to watch it (although there’s not much else to do waiting for this backup to finish). Lots of cheering and hugs in mission control, as Phoenix successfully landed on the surface of Mars.

Congratulations to all involved!

Has anyone else noticed a significant increase in spam e-mail over the past few days, or is it just me? I used to get maybe five a day, and I’m currently around 15.

Obama says that Iran is not a serious threat compared to the Soviet Union, hence we should engage Iran in dialogue. Via Fox News.

This is, quite possibly, the most naive thing that Obama has ever said. It demonstrates that he not only doesn’t understand Iran’s motivations, but also that he doesn’t understand the motivations of the former Soviet Union.

The Soviets were xenophobic and constantly viewed the US with suspicion, however unfounded such suspicions may have been, but they were motivated by control, in much the same way that China is today. They had nukes, we had nukes, and they realized as well as we did that nuclear war would devastate both countries (and probably everyone else on the planet). We could engage the Soviets because, when faced with the prospect of annihilation, they realized that dialogue was the better option.

Iran, on the other hand, is driven by religious ideology and hatred for Israel. Iran’s leadership, first Khomeini and then Khamenei, are motivated by the goal of Islamic revolutions across the globe. They ultimately want the elimination of Israel, and worse yet, Ahmadinejad wants the destruction of Israel. They have sponsored terrorism for decades in hopes of achieving such a goal, though they steadfastly deny much of these terrorist activities. They are undermining the Iraqi government by sending in Quds Force fighters to deliver (and possibly even set up) explosive materials to splinter factions of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Nuclear weapons become the “one-click solution” to all their problems.

One difference between the two is that while the USSR wasn’t crazy enough to engage in nuclear war, the Iranian regime - or at least some parts of it - are likely to consider the deployment and detonation of nuclear weapons to be a viable solution to gaining control in the region. I think they (correctly) gauge that the rest of the known nuclear nations (I’ll get to Israel in a second) won’t respond with nukes of their own, in part because of the implications of exterminating large swaths of Iran’s 70 million people, and in part because the deployment of such a device by their terrorist proxies would present big questions on the world stage of whether Iran then becomes a legitimate military target. And even conventional war with Iran would be a significant undertaking, far harder than the campaign against Saddam’s Iraq.

(As for Israel, yes, it’s likely that they do have nuclear weapons, and I believe they would definitely make use of them if attacked in similar manner. I also believe they would use them against Iran, Syria, and/or other nations that sponsor Hezbollah and Hamas if a nuclear device were detonated inside Israel.)

The other difference: Gorbachev. It was only once a Soviet leader with true vision for making his own nation (and the world) better that the US could really engage in deep dialogue at closer-than-arms-length. The closest thing that the Iranians had to such a visionary was Khatami, and the Islamic regime there took care of that problem by putting Ahmadinejad in place (and for that matter, it’s not like Khatami had true power in Iran, anyway).

Until such time as Iran presents the world with a leader open to constructive dialogue, the correct response is to continue isolating their nation economically while obtaining as much intelligence as possible on their activities, as well as conducting covert operations designed to undermine the stability of their government. If a president like Khatami is put forward at a later date, then perhaps we can take that as a sign that the Iranian regime is willing to engage in meaningful dialogue. But even then, I have my doubts - Iran would have to drop its desire for the elimination of Israel, because that’s not negotiable from the Western world’s point of view.

On a side note, Libya and North Korea have been presented as examples of other despotic nations where the US has engaged in dialogue. These also aren’t the same thing as Iran, though - Qaddafi and Kim Jong Il are motivated by getting what they want at minimum cost. The North Korean perspective has been to make token steps toward making their neighbors and the US happy, just enough to get something out of us, and then take back what steps they gave. Libya’s perspective shifted dramatically recently when Qaddafi finally reached the conclusion that he could get what he wanted for Libya by working with the Western world rather than against them. (I personally suspect that the Iraq War may have had something to do with that, by removing Saddam as a counterbalance against the West, but there may have been other motivating factors we’re not aware of.) In both cases, those nations continually say that they’re willing to deal, if you make a sweet enough offer. Nations like that seek out nuclear weapons to use them as a bargaining chip, not to actually use, and while they push the boundaries all the time, they know that they have a lot to lose by engaging in open conflict. Preventing them from gaining nuclear weapons isn’t so much about preventing a nuclear war and saving millions of lives as it is about preventing them from gaining an advantage in negotiations.

On another side note, the Democrats should stop whining about being out-thunk by the Bush Administration concerning the Knesset speech the other day. Obama has a weak spot when it comes to his foreign policy because of the normally Democrat-leaning Jewish vote. What better way to exploit that weakness than to go to Israel and point that weakness out to Israel’s leaders. The liberals can wring their hands all they want on this, but it doesn’t matter - the people likely to get a sour taste from the speech are going to vote for Obama no matter what, but on the other hand, it gives the Jewish community in America some food for thought on an issue that carries a lot of importance to them.

Whew! Been a while since I’ve done a political rant. Let the flames begin!

Invisible bike LOL-on-a-wall.

Seen on foxnews.com.

Bonus points if you get the title reference and why it’s relevant.

The Shining trailer as it should have been.

Maybe.