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Saturday Smithsonian

I'm taking a soccer break Saturday to go to the Smithsonian with my sister and 9-year old nephew. We're heading back to the American History and Natural History museums, which are next door to each other on the Mall. I notice at the Natural History museum there's an IMAX film on sky diving.

This thrill ride of a film takes an up-close look at the world of sky diving and explores what the psychological and physiological forces behind risk-taking and extreme activities can tell us about the world of science and innovation.

It's interesting because I was talking about this with someone last night, how I we have our own walls set up for what risks we'll take. I know mine comes somewhere before sky diving, because I said I'm perfectly happy not jumping out of a plane (or bungee jumping, for that matter). How far does someone who likes to do this kind of thing have to go to find their adrenaline fix once they've done this? I hope I'll get a chance to see this, though I'm not sure my nephew will want to sit through the 40 minute film.

Thoughts On Terrorism, Patriotism

I've been to London twice, and it's hard to go through the city without having experienced the Underground, so it's stunning to hear of terrorist attacking there, using the Tube and a bus as the primary means of detonating their bombs.

Terrorists Attack London Transportation System

Horrible.

Another act of terrorism in London (Link roundup).  2 dead at this point, at least 150 seriously injured; let's hope it's no more. Witnesses check in as well. DC, NYC and other major metro areas, are upping security on their underground and city transportation networks.  ABC, the only network I can get on rabbit ears, is broadcasting its special report, and I've got the BBC on dialup now. (It surprises me that the LA Times, even with it being on the west coast and the fact that this happened while at night there, has not yet updated their website, as of 5:30 a.m. PDT, to note the attacks on London, while I've seen others on the left coast that have.)

I offer up my prayers, even as I'm not sure what to say within them. I'm glad God's a good interpreter, though.

Here, unrelated, we have I-95 mostly shutdown about 10 miles south of me as three tractor trailers have been involved in an accident--the shutdown due to hazardous materials on at least one of the trucks. And, we're about to get dumped with a few inches of rain from tropical depression Cindy later today.

And I didn't sleep well. Woke up from the couch sometime after 1 a.m., and again from bed before 7 a.m.

Update: ABC and the Associated Press are now saying at least 40 are now confirmed dead, with over 300 injured.

Supreme-ly Stupid

Your local government now has the right to kick you out of your home and sell it to a developer--without your permission. How ridiculous! A lot of people are already unhappy with the decision. Count me among them.

The Supreme Court has ruled that cities can seize homes through eminent domain for lame purposes such as “economic development.” ... My prediction? Abuse. Abuse. And more Abuse. Can anyone say “new athletic stadiums”? “New Wal-Marts”? “New strip malls”? 

From the opening paragraphs of the Washington Post:

The Supreme Court today effectively expanded the right of local governments to seize private property under eminent domain, ruling that people's homes and businesses -- even those not considered blighted -- can be taken against their will for private development if the seizure serves a broadly defined "public use."

In a 5-4 decision, the court upheld the ability of New London, Conn., to seize people's homes to make way for an office, residential and retail complex supporting a new $300 million research facility of the Pfizer pharmaceutical company. The city had argued that the project served a public use within the meaning of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution because it would increase tax revenues, create jobs and improve the local economy.

I saw someone mention that the only justification, seemingly, that a government needs to seize your property is that it wants more money, and, after all, what government wouldn't want more money?

I agree.

It's not as if you don't see this now, only the usual course has been for governments, or developers, to go to people with valuable property and try to buy it so they can put up their project. Now they don't have to ask.

It's getting harder to live without so much governmental interference, and this ruling gives businesses yet another boost at the expense of the rest of us.

First-Hand: The Revolution In Kyrgyzstan

A first-hand account of revolution in Kyrgyzstan's capital, Bishkek, from 23-year old Elnura Osmonalieva. She also took photos:

At 10:00 am on 24th March 2005 opposition forces gathered about 10,000 people to protest the falsified parliamentary election results and demand the resignation of President Askar Akaev in front of Nazaraliev’s Medical Clinic in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Most of them arrived from the southern parts of the country the night before driving for more than 12 hours to get to the capital. They were coming from Jalalabad, Osh, Batken, and some from Talas (in the north). Boys as young as nine and ten years old came along to “ouster Akaev”, as ten-year old Azim from Batken said. The crowd cheered and chanted “Akaev out, Akaev out” as a number of leading oppositionists addressed them from the roof of the Clinic calling for continued demonstrations until President Akaev steps down.

Read the rest, and view photos from the revolution. This one I include she took of Kurmanbek Bakiev speaking from the tribune under the Freedom Statue in Bishkek. Here are archives from previous events there.

By the way, who needs CNN when you have weblogs giving first-hand accounts?

via registran.net and thinking-east.net.

I Don't Like ...

... news stories I read online that don't link the websites mentioned in their articles. I think if it's the case in the newspaper, they should put a box somewhere with the article for an easy reference to such websites.

Life And Death

I saw this car today parked near Union Station in downtown DC. I don't agree with the words on the car, but I agree with this, up to a point:   

. . . it is too complex, too multilayered, and too steeped in unknown or unknowable facts for me - indeed for most people - to have a fully informed opinion.

I don't know - and neither do you - if Michael Schiavo is trying to murder his wife or trying to fulfill her stated wishes for just such a scenario. I don't know what Terri Schiavo would want - and neither do you - because she didn't tell us via a living will. We have only the word of her husband who assures us that his wife once said she wouldn't want to be kept alive this way, and we have her parents, who love their daughter and desire only to care for her.

I do know that the Congress did the wrong thing, intervened where it had no Constitutional right, and solved nothing.

Where I differ is that this person says Congress should mandate a living will. I'm not against a living will, but I don't want Congress involved in my personal life; just as I'm opposed to Congress having any say in this, I don't think they need to be passing living will laws. What's going to be the penalty if I don't do as Congress proposes?

I think this was a private matter that is, like the steroids issue, being used for political grandstanding to the nth degree. I dislike that as much as anything. My own personal belief is that I wouldn't want to be kept alive that way.

The other thing that disturbs me a lot about this is that no one is outraged over this; Bush signed a law while Texas governor that would allow hospitals, over a family's objections, "to pull the plug on critically-ill patients". The law was applied last week when a Houston hospital cut off life support for a five-month old boy, who died almost immediately afterward.

If there was anyone who should have had the opportunity to spend more time on life support it is this boy, yet for public display is a woman who's lived in a vegatative state for the last 15-years. Somehow, our life-affirming, God-fearing president feels he--like Congress--has to get involved, and doesn't see the little boy as being connected to what's being shouted about on talk shows all over the place.

In this boy's case, as long as his mother has the mental capacity, the decision to take him off the machines should have been hers, and if she didn't have that capacity, then another family member or guardian should have had it.

In the end, I can't speak to the specific medical issues of Terri or the child, the motives of the families involved. It's just my belief that these kinds of life or death decisions shouldn't be ones made by governments, and shouldn't be played out in public.

Terri and the little boy are better left in God's care than ours. Our human hands aren't equipped like His.

Now Hear This

I spent a wasteful day up on Capitol Hill. 10 minutes of work in six-and-a-half hours, as it turns out.

Domestic Disputes

I've never felt particularly unsafe in the last four years living where I do, though I know from reading the weekly county crime report that things happen here. This, though, is particularly sad. I live in the same apartment complex, though not in the same building, as far as I know. The complex has about 25-30 different buildings where people live.

I wasn't aware of anything, as this happened three days ago, until I read the article this morning.

A part of me is wondering why it took three days to find out that someone was murdered in my own neighborhood.

I'm expecting my parents to read that article and think that I was in the same building at the same time or something, particularly since I was home at the time, though I'm pretty sure I wasn't awake, and, though the article doesn't say, I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the same building. I'd like to think that if something like that happened in my own building, I would have heard something.

This morning I got up at 8, which is about an hour earlier than I normally get up.

What happened doesn't make me feel any more or less safe, but it does make me a bit more wary.

Want An Island ... In Virginia?

Thirty-eight islands are being auctioned off in Virginia. Richmond businessman George Sydnor is selling the Goochland County islands, located in the James River.

He acquired his islands one by one after he made an unusual discovery: Nobody owned them. All he had to do was start paying taxes on them, and they were his.

"I recognized in studying the tax maps of the county that the smaller islands did not appear on the tax maps," he said. "So I had them surveyed and put on the tax maps. It was doing the county a favor. Most people are under the impression that islands in a river are in the public domain and belong to the state. It's a misconception."