We’re all agreed, then, that if we don’t remember our history we’re doomed to repeat it. Yes? Yes.

Ok, here’s my question. How many people (make that, how many millions of people) died in Cambodia and South Vietnam when (because) we pulled out of Vietnam back in 1973? Stay with me now, it’s time to learn from history: How many people will die when we pull out of Iraq?

This is not about whether we should have gone to Iraq in the first place. You can’t always undo an earlier mistake by just reversing your course (and I”m not arguing that it was a mistake to go, either). This is about what we should do now that we find ourselves there.

“A panel reviewing astronaut health issues in the wake of the Lisa Nowak arrest has found that on at least two occasions astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so intoxicated that they posed a flight-safety risk.”

If the flight surgeons were that intoxicated, they shouldn’t have been evaluating astronauts.

“The panel, also reported “heavy use of alcohol” by astronauts before launch, within the standard 12-hour “bottle to throttle” rule applied to NASA flight crew members.” [bad use of commas not mine]

So where’s the proble…. Oh wait, I see now. The 12-hour “bottle to throttle” rule means they’re supposed to not drink during that 12 hours.

Read about it here.

…is for everyone to wear their own Schola tee-shirt and drink coffee from their own Schola mug (hey, it’s as likely to work as swimming at the North Pole, right? … see below) Go to the Schola homepage and click the Bookstore link in the sidebar.

EDIT:

Um, some of you said you got lost. I’m not sure how you managed that, but here’s a direct link to the product page.

From Jeff Moss’s blog (Friday, July 20):

‘A prison inmate serving a 20-year sentence for murder had filed suit against “the person known as God, resident in heaven and represented on earth by the Orthodox Church,” and charged him with “fraud, breach of trust, corruption, and abuse of power.” According to the plaintiff, at his baptism he had made a contract with the defendant by which the latter was required to protect him from any kind of misfortune. However, God had never fulfilled any of his contractual obligations, despite the many offerings and prayers made to him by the plaintiff.’

Hey, if God is that corrupt and isn’t fulfilling his contractual obligations, what makes this Einstein think that God would pay up if he lost the court case? Huh?

Lewis Gordon Pugh swam at the North Pole “to raise awareness of how global warming is effecting the polar ice cap.”

He said, “I hope my swim will inspire world leaders to take climate change seriously.” He really knows how to go for the jugular, doesn’t he? My gosh, how can they not take climate change seriously now?

“I want my children, and their children, to know that polar bears are still living in the Arctic. These creatures are on the front line up here…” I feel so much more secure knowing that the polar bears are standing between me and climate change.

“I am obviously ecstatic to have succeeded, but this swim is a triumph and a tragedy: a triumph that I could swim in such ferocious conditions but a tragedy that it’s possible to swim at the North Pole…” I know I’ve asked this before, but do these people have to study somewhere to become so mind-bogglingly stupid or does it just come natural?

“Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.”

(Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. III)

“”Here we are, just one species on the earth, and we’re grabbing a quarter of the renewable resources … we’re probably being a bit greedy.” He’s talking about SOLAR ENERGY. And just think: some university somewhere gave him a degree.

EDIT:

In all seriousness, these people are leaving something so huge and obvious out of the picture that it boggles the mind. Did they practice being this stupid or does it just come naturally? Look: humans are using all this solar energy captured in plant material but we are doing so to be PRODUCTIVE with it. We may use way more than the animals do, but we’re being immeasurably more productive with the stuff we use than the animals are with their share. We’re not just cutting down plant matter (trees, crops, etc.) and letting it rot, we’re FEEDING millions of people with the crops, BUILDING things with the trees, and we re-plant them after we cut them down. Or can, anyway — if we’re cutting down too much plant material (pardon me while I roll my eyes vigorously) the solution is not the stop doing it, but to replant. The solution to environmental problems is not to leave the environment alone, but to do better at how we use it.

Given that much of the population of Spaceship Earth is more worried about “dog mess” and graffiti than global warming, ‘Ipsos Mori’s head of environmental research, Phil Downing, said the research showed there was “still a lot to do” in encouraging “low-carbon lifestyles”.’

Hey, isn’t worrying about dog mess evidence of a low-carbon lifestyle?