Islamic conquest

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

If you never learned about the Barbary wars or the Muslim slave trade, you have lots of company because often it's only our own history of slavery that is taught. It was abolished here in the 1860's and we've been trying to rectify the wrongs, but sometimes it's implied that white people were alone in the guilt. That's just incorrect.

Starting in the early 600's AD, Islam spread quickly across the Middle East, Arabian peninsula, northern Africa, even to what is now Spain and Portugal, by warfare and violence. Much of the vast conquered (map) land was Christian. Slavery was practiced throughout the empire.

The Christian pope in the year 1095 sent a message to Christian kings in Europe: "your brethren who live in the East are in urgent need of your help!" Europe did rally to come help Christians of the Middle East regain their land, and thus began the Crusades.

Given this history, someone on X asks the question, "Why don't history books refer to Muslims as colonizers, oppressors, genociders, slave traders or imperialists?" Did those history books in your school or your kids' school apply these descriptions to Western civilization alone? 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Barbary pirates

Capturing, buying, selling, and enslaving people has been done throughout human history, in every region and among every race. Before the transatlantic slave trade (1600's through 1800's), there was an earlier trade in persons.

From the time that Mohammed started a new religion in the 600's AD in the Middle East, slavery was commonly practiced in Muslim lands until the 20th century. As many as 1.5 million Europeans and Americans were enslaved. 

Raids on Europe (ex: 100 captured in an Irish village) and piracy on the seas were typical methods of capture. Pirates from the Barbary Coast (North Africa) were justified by the Tripoli ambassador who said the Koran told Muslims to "make slaves of all they could take as prisoners."

They demanded blackmail payments from America and Europe as a purchase of peace, and originally we complied. But eventually President Thomas Jefferson refused, resulting in the Barbary Wars (image).

(cont'd tomorrow)

Meta will pay

Being in the "crosshairs of the attorneys general" of an eventual total of 48 states must have been a crisis for Meta. The states claimed that Meta knowingly harmed their kids and teens by intentionally "cultivating addiction to boost corporate profits".

Evidence in the lawsuits must have been strong. Meta denies all. But instead of pursuing innocence in this matter, the social media company decided to settle with their accusers--to the tune of about $18 billion.

Also included in the deal are protective safety measures for youth, which they say "set a new industry standard, building on our longstanding efforts to empower parents and support teens" (their what??). They want other social medias to follow their lead in these safety limits. Of course they do. They wouldn't want teenagers to leave their platforms and go to one which didn't install limits.

from CBS News

Space Academy

As with the other branches of our military, there may soon be a U.S. Space Academy for the relatively new Space Force.

A commission chaired by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will figure out what that should look like and report back to the president in 120 days. We need leaders of strength, skill, and character in the vitally important domain of space who will secure our interests.

"The nation must prepare the next generation of astronauts, scientists, engineers, operators, entrepreneurs, civil servants and warfighters and ensure that they are capable of advancing American interests in space."

Graduates of this top-tier educational institution (with free tuition) may choose going into the U.S. Space Force, but most will go to NASA and civilian positions.

from The White House

Tunnels vision

 Cities get more crowded, and road traffic gets more frustrating. There's the irritation of driving in that "soul-destroying" traffic, and then there's the irritation of arriving far later than the distance should require. 

The Boring Company was formed to relieve some of that pain. Its mission: "solve traffic, enable point-to-point transportation, and transform cities." They say that roads must go 3-D. Flying cars are not as practical as tunnels, which are weather-proof and don't conflict with existing transport or the valuable urban surface land above. Las Vegas now has an underground loop, and a Nashville loop is under construction.

All its advantages can be achieved only if you have a reliable, effective, relatively low-cost way to tunnel underneath the city. "Prufrock" is their solution. See how it works:

"Boring, it's what we do."

from Investopedia

Starbase LA

Starship is the vessel that will take humanity to the moon, then to Mars, and then beyond--according to the folks at SpaceX. The big project of becoming a "multi-planetary species" continued to move forward with the official big announcement last week.

A much bigger spaceport is needed; the decision has been made. It will be located in Louisiana.

Ten launch pads will eventually make about 30 launches per day--thousands of launches per year when the site is fully developed (image). 

That's the plan. This site will include more than launch pads: propellant farms, a propellant-production facility, and employee housing. Additionally, there will be an airport, deep water shipping capability, electricity generation. 

Everything depends on the successful development of Starship. Orbit will hopefully be achieved with the next test flight (possibly in September), and then the other milestones must follow, including the re-usable heat shield and re-fueling while in space.

from Space

Back to TX

As you know, Starship landed in the Indian Ocean in one piece after its 13th test flight. It fortunately remained afloat til SpaceX could recover and move it to a safe place where they could look it over . . and then they decided to actually bring it back to Starbase, Texas, half a world away.

How would you do that? In the video below, there's someone who knows.

He describes himself as a "shipping guy," meaning that he knows what will be involved in transporting a big spaceship across oceans. He mentions that, in spite of its reputation of being huge, Starship is not huge compared to the huger ship that will bring it back, a "semi-submersible heavy transport" vessel by the name of Forte (pronounced for-tay).

Glitch

Folks, the Blogspot platform which supports this blog has been glitchy. Some of my posts are publishing at random, inappropriate times. There was a new one today, Sunday, as an example, which was supposed to have appeared next Wednesday. The glitch is probably temporary. You may or may not have noticed it.

I'll keep on top of it and make corrections when the platform allows me access this week, though I'll be traveling.

Thanks for being patient. The problem will eventually be solved by the Blogspot people.

Rags to riches

Forbes picked 250 individuals to celebrate as our "greatest living immigrants" on America's 250th birthday. Note that these are Forbes' choices, so over half of them are billionaires. You could guess who some of them are.

Why did they come to the US? In the magazine's words, "this is the place where people come to build a new life for themselves and their children." They did that, and they did much more.

"Rags to riches" stories do happen, and Jensen Huang can vouch for that. His parents sent him and his older 10-year-old brother - alone - from Thailand to Kentucky before they made the trip. Those early years were tough, the family poor and the boy lonely, cleaning toilets in local diners at night.

At the age of 30, Jensen and a couple of friends wanted to "build chips that can handle intense visuals for PC's." He had the vision to believe that "graphics chips would someday do far more than make video games look good." Two years later, their company Nvidia launched the first GPU.

Today he's the company's CEO as well as its co-founder, and Nvidia is the world's most valued company.

.

from Tech Startups

Still investing

After months of talks, Louisiana's governor has announced that a new rocket launch center will be built along the state's marshy coast by the world's richest man, Elon Musk, a South Africa-born immigrant to America. (That is, by one of his companies.)

SpaceX will invest $100 billion into the facility and start launching rockets in three years. The site of 100,000+ acres will eventually include ten launch pads and, according to Elon, will be the world's largest launch site: a self-sustaining spaceport.

Louisiana will give tax incentives to SpaceX, which will give $25 million to the community for regional planning plus that sum in cash every year to Vermilion Parish for 25 years. The deal includes SpaceX hiring for 3,000+ new jobs at almost twice the average salary in the parish.

from NOLA

Makes yogurt 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

What a positive impact this immigrant made in his new country. Employees kept their jobs. They accomplished something big and had the joy of it. They built a new Little League field in town. For every new Chobani hire, ten more jobs were created in the town. Every one of them enjoyed new wealth. 

He didn't take a course on how to create vision or how to motivate his employees or how to draw up a business plan. As an intuitive, natural-born entrepreneur, he saw what needed to be done and kept doing it. 

Only a small percentage of people are willing to take big financial risk and put enough hard work into it to make it successful. Today he still invests time and money into the business, even billions of dollars.

Hamdi is another in the long tradition of immigrants who come to America and bloom in the liberty. 

Makes yogurt 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

In his homeland of Turkey, Hamdi's nomad family lived in tents, raised sheep and goats, and made cheese and yogurt. Upon emigrating to the US, he judged that we had only inferior yogurt. He thought many Americans would buy his better product.

He bought an 85-year-old factory with borrowed money ($700,000) and had a meeting with four employees that he rehired. His only idea was to paint the walls white. Mike (one of the four) said, "Hamdi, tell me you have more ideas than that!"

To make enough money to keep this business operating, they would have to make and sell a lot of yogurt, at least enough to cover all their expenses and pay the employees. They did that. Eventually Chobani ("shepherd" in Turkish) captured half of the $8 billion yogurt market in America.

Only one hint of how they did it is given in yesterday's video: Hamdi and his original employees worked day, night, and weekends - for five years.

from Substack

(cont'd tomorrow)

Makes yogurt

Hamdi, originally from Turkey, drove down a dead-end road in upstate New York and toured the factory of a failed business. He met the people. He had no experience. He took a serious risk.

Listen to this inspiring story.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Recovered!

SpaceX was ecstatic about the landing of the upper stage of Starship after its 13th test flight last month. It was on target in the Indian Ocean, it landed upright, and it was floating in the sea--rather than exploding or sinking, which had happened in all 12 previous test flights. That meant engineers at SpaceX could view and study it for valuable data after its flight.

It kept right on floating for days, and then for weeks. They had not expected this potential bounty of information and were unprepared to bring it back to Starbase TX. Rough seas made recovery difficult, but eventually they managed to bring it into a port about 24 days after it landed. SpaceX engineers will go there to inspect it.

Why was recovery both difficult and expensive for SpaceX? Watch below.

from USA Today

"We're exempt" 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Compassion" justifies the sanctuary movement in their opinion. Our laws limiting who and how many may enter the US are an outrageous violation of the virtue of compassion, they seem to think. Instead of working to change those laws they consider un-compassionate (as our system allows), they choose to defy the lawfully created rules.

That's very bad policy. It won't work for them and it won't work for America.

Of course we need laws, and of course the laws should be enforced. Citizens who want completely open borders make a claim that is irrational, and they have left common sense behind. No other country's borders are open in that way, and for good reason.

If "no one is illegal [image]," then no one is safe either.

"We're exempt" 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

A 32-year-old woman, Kate Steinle, died in July of 2015 while walking in San Francisco. She was with her father and a friend when a man, Jose Garcia-Zarate, shot her in the back. He was in the US illegally and had a long criminal record.

He had earlier been arrested on a drug warrant. US immigration officials asked San Francisco police to hold him for a couple days, but they dropped charges and released him. Kate was shot less than three months later. He said at his murder trial that it was an accident. The jury found him innocent of that but guilty of a minor charge. Then an appeals court threw out that charge. He was only deported--for the seventh time.

How could a man here illegally break our laws, kill one of us, and get home free?

Under our previous president's administration, immigrants illegally crossing our border were set free and told to show up later in court for processing. One example in 2022 from Venezuela went to New York (sanctuary city), was housed at the Crown Plaza hotel, and then requested to be flown to Georgia. Taxpayers paid for his flight, then in Georgia he brutally killed a nursing student, Laken Riley (photo).

from Imprimis

(cont'd tomorrow)

"We're exempt"

Our first president, trusted for his integrity, was elected unanimously. George Washington "was, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man" according to Thomas Jefferson. Some thought he was so good that he should be made into a king.

But he rejected the idea then, and we don't want a king today. Why? A king can be a tyrant with power to overwhelm the people. America is a republic. Our representatives are elected by citizens to make laws that govern us according to the people's will--not a king's will. We call ourselves a nation of laws (not men) and we enforce those laws.

That is, we all did respect and enforce our laws . . until recently. Now, segments of this country declare themselves exempt from laws they don't like. That's the "sanctuary" movement (image). It started with the city of Berkeley, California, back in 1971 and now it's that whole state and more.

A long list of cities, counties, and states declare that they refuse to enforce America's immigration laws.

from Imprimis

(cont'd tomorrow)

Unjust

Luigi Mangione murdered a man in cold blood on a street in New York City. He said he did it, and there's video evidence of it, so there's no doubt about it. He's on trial for the crime now.

It's an "open and shut" case of breaking the law, of doing what's obviously and morally wrong. But a substantial group of people disagree. Alarmingly, 41% of registered voters between 18 and 29 say that this murder is ok with them.

How do they justify the killing? The victim was an insurance executive, and they say that insurance companies are unjustly withholding payments from clients who deserve to have their claims paid (image).

"Clear Thinker" Kaizen Asiedu tries to clear up the confusion by saying: "It's not that hard. Murder is bad. Luigi Mangione murdering Brian Thompson is bad. People dying because they were denied healthcare is bad. Murdering someone to fix healthcare does not fix healthcare and is bad." Yes, that's rational thinking.

But we're in trouble when a sizeable number of us think murder is ok as a way to solve a problem.

from Clear Thinker

Bee design 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Bee algorithm 3

(cont'd from last Friday's post) 

If you are open to the idea that God exists, the obvious appearance of design in the natural world -- in honeybee hives and the intricate dance directing other bees to flowers -- makes sense. If you start with a commitment to believing God does not exist, you have to think up something to explain away the design of the natural world. 

Even the famous crusader for atheism, Richard Dawkins, concedes that living animals appear to have been designed and wisely assembled, though He definitely would not agree that the Creator placed an algorithm in the bee's brain to direct its behavior.

Committed atheistic scientists have to mentally fight the ubiquitous appearance of design in living systems. Francis Crick advises them: "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." 

If they don't fight hard against their own common sense, they'll conclude that a Creator designed it.

image

Bee design 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

Bee algorithm 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Boston Research Journal was quoted in yesterday's post saying, "The use of hexagonal honeycombs by bees is not a coincidence." They think they know where this "ingenious" design came from. Not from intelligence or a plan, of course; not from an algorithm in their design; but from natural selection working on random genetic variations (evolution):

"Hexagonal honeycombs built by bees showcase nature’s ingenuity and efficiency. Through their meticulous construction, bees optimize space, create sturdy structures, conserve resources, and regulate temperature within the hive. The hexagonal shape has evolved as a result of millions of years of evolutionary fine-tuning, allowing bees to build remarkable architectural marvels that support their survival and collective success."

Isn't a bit of a stretch to assume that evolution made it all happen: optimizing space, regulating temperature, meticulous construction, etc., without any direction or intelligence?

image

These publishers along with most of the scientific world assume that bee behavior--like the "waggle dance" to communicate location of flowers and the building of the ingenious hive--came about solely by chance through evolution, no plan or design or intelligence necessary. 

Like office buildings . . which pop up randomly all the time??!

No, you have to abandon common sense to believe that.

(cont'd next week)

Bee design 1

Nature and the human body, as per yesterday's post, show signs of intelligent engineering design. Consider the honeybee, for example. 

For our many new readers who haven't seen this before, enjoy some re-posts from three years ago.

Bee algorithm 1

You could describe an office building as a complex, functional system designed to enable people to carry out their jobs and accomplish their company's purpose. Well-educated people designed and constructed all the sub-systems (like electrical) that make it work.

You could also say that a honeybee hive is a complex, functional system designed to enable bees to carry out their jobs in this home which provides for their needs while they accomplish the mission to produce honey.

photo

Intelligent, these bees. They start working at their jobs when they're three weeks old. The ones who build the hive don't go to hive-building college, since they're born knowing exactly what to do. How, exactly, do they know that?

Glands in their bodies create construction material: "Wax is an expensive commodity and so comb construction can be quite costly for a honeybee colony. Honeycomb is constructed in such a way to minimize wax consumption." Like a responsible human engineering firm.

Its hexagonal pattern gives optimal strength and stability to its material (wax), while it optimizes space and thermal efficiency for its purpose. "The use of hexagonal honeycombs by bees is not a coincidence" (Boston Research Journal published this week).

from Evolution News

(cont'd tomorrow)

Human body 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

One thing that could go wrong in our bodies would be a failure of sufficient oxygen to get to our living cells. Every one of them (30 trillion cells) needs a supply of oxygen every minute. Our bodies store water and fat, but not oxygen. 

Muscles pull oxygen (O2) from outside the body into the lungs. Molecules of O2 diffuse into blood vessels at a limited speed. 

To maximize how much O2 can get through blood vessel membranes and into the blood, each lung's little air sacs are surrounded with tiny blood vessels. There are so many that the total membrane area of all the blood vessels together amounts to the size of a tennis court. The video pictures it for you.

Engineering--not magic--gets the job done.

We'll come back to these videos of the body's engineering design in a future week. Tomorrow . . design in the honeybee.

Human body

How many kinds of diseases are there? Nobody knows the answer because the number changes. Infectious diseases are caused by pathogens (bacteria, parasites, etc.), genetic diseases are caused by DNA abnormalities; there are degenerative and autoimmune diseases, and the list goes on. Over 7,000 identified diseases are rare, with research discovering more. 

Thousands and thousands of things can go wrong with the human body. It follows that thousands and thousands of things are functioning well in your body if you are not sick. 

Your body is fabulously fine-tuned. It's amazing to non-scientists like me, when I occasionally learn about some complex system. But what about engineers who understand and actually build complex systems? Their opinion would be valuable.

A computer engineer (a problem solver with expertise in changing complex systems to perform new tasks) got together with a medical doctor (who has primary care, hospital, and hospice experience). They both see evidence of a Designer in how our amazing bodies function. We'll take a look at their videos this week.

Yes, they recognize that their thinking is outside the box. Conventional thinking in our culture (and in the field of science) assumes that nothing exists beyond the material world (materialism). They disagree. They are unconventional.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Re-wilding

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Preserving nature has probably been around much longer than trendy, modern movements might lead you to think. But emphases have changed. "Environmentalism" pushed extreme, irrational claims for years. But "re-wilding" seems more reasonable.

A short description of the process might be just stepping back from human management and letting nature take over. 

Here's another example from Britain. Financial collapse drove property owners of a failing commercial farm to step back from farming their land. They removed their internal fences, broke up drainage systems, and released certain animals to live freely.

Guess what happened over the next 25 years.

Bison return

Picture a British landscape of farms, forests, meadows, gardens. It's beautiful and orderly. There's a "deeply rooted cultural assumption that nature, properly handled, should be visually orderly."

Britain has no genuine wilderness remaining. Every acre is owned. Even forests are managed, and there's a growing cost to it. Some are willing to give up that management to an animal that can accomplish some of their goals for the forests naturally.

European bison were native to the land until loss of habitat and hunting eliminated them 6,000 years ago. They're being brought back and given free range in some places. Bison do not produce a tidy woodland. They make a messy, complex one, but it's a healthy ecosystem.

Human management can't sustain or replicate what these animals do. They call it "re-wilding."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Forced woke 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

An extremist ideology behind the new standards teaches students that America is racist and oppressive, that it's their moral duty to "resist" America's evil.

Kindergartners will learn to look for unfair social situations. Sixth graders (age 12) will learn the thirteen principles guiding Black Lives Matter. Children will be trained to see injustice everywhere, inspired to lifelong bitterness.

As a mother and grandmother, I ask - what will their future be like when they've spent their childhood being trained in resentment? Consider also the whole state of Minnesota. What will it be like to live in a society of such people? 

Most of us would rather see our kids grow up in hope and faith and virtue, prepared for a satisfying life. Apparently, the rest of us prefer the vision of children being sacrificed to a political cause.

It's my hunch that most normal Minnesotans just don't know what's about to transform schools in this state.

from American Experiment

Forced woke 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

What will the implementation of these standards look like in your child's classroom?

Ethnic studies (under the social studies umbrella) lessons will teach kids to:

• Identity - know their social group and others'
• Resistance - both understand how people "fight for liberation against systemic exercises of power" and take action in this fight
• Ways of knowing - discover "contemporary systems of oppression" and what has worked in the past to fight them

This is an "intentional shift" away from "content" (like facts of history) to a "pedagogy" that tells students to "construct their own meaning."

All these standards need no further action by the legislature. They are official and carry the weight of law, since they were approved by the 2023 legislature to go into effect this school year.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Forced woke

When school starts, in just a matter of days, new state-mandated standards will apply to teachers in Minnesota. If you want to be licensed to teach in this state, you will have to demonstrate that you understand how to be "woke."

Specifically, you must, among other things, do the following:

• affirm students' identities including sex and gender
• understand white supremacy
• mitigate your own behavior in order to disrupt oppressive systems 
• empower learners to be agents of social change

These rules were set by the Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) under the authority of Gov. Tim Walz.

How does it justify such a radical, politically one-sided standard? They say that:

“[A] teacher must have a foundational understanding of how race and racism are embedded in our institutions and everyday life”

If your children go to a Minnesota public school (photo), understand that this is what they will be taught. It's not optional for the school or the teachers. 

Is this what you signed up for?

 from American Experiment

Not racial

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

It's easy to jump on the racism bandwagon as the explanation for the racial difference in the school's admission of new students. But the gap is not limited to Stuyvesant High School.

Educators around the country are well aware of a racial gap in student performance and have tried to fix it. "[E]fforts to close racial achievement gaps have increased over the years with varying degrees of success." Some efforts have helped; many have not. 

Perhaps the critical factor is not innately racial. There's no low achievement gap among Asian students. As a group, they achieve academically higher than either black or white students.

But there is another factor setting black students apart and hindering their achievement. Only 30% of black children live with married birth parents. For comparison, a whopping 80% of Asian students live with married birth parents.

Studies have found that "there is no meaningful difference in school grades among demographically diverse children raised in intact families."

A black student's family structure is a matter outside of the classroom. Schools are probably doing all they can -- but they can't manage that family. 

from WSJ

Racist school?

Stuyvesant is an elite public high school in New York which admits students (photo) on the basis of merit, that is, how they do on an entrance exam. Their incoming class numbers 777, but only three students are black. What could be the reason for this imbalance? Why are there not many more black kids? 

Predictable accusations come next. A New York Magazine columnist says that the "idealistic progressives and socialists" who lead the city ought to attack the "shameful, entrenched segregation of New York's public schools."  

"New Yorkers know a hustle when we see one, and the recent news that Stuyvesant offered admission to only three Black students this year is the latest example of a grotesquely obvious hijacking of public benefits, cynically disguised as a fair, merit-based outcome." They're racist. The test is unfair.

But there's a hidden factor in the racial achievement gap. 

from NYMag

(cont'd tomorrow)