Time Immortal

Seven years ago today, nineteen Islamic men commandeered four large passenger aircraft. Two of them were flown into the tallest towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. One was flown into the Pentagon. And one was retaken by its passengers, who rallied and overcame their hijackers…only to crash in a field in Pennsylvania. Roughly three thousand people died on a September Tuesday back in 2001.

This was a shattering act of Terrorism…and should have been proof positive that all those many violent things we see on the news, which transpire almost daily in many other parts of the world, can and will happen here unless we are vigilant. Our freedom, in the West, is not something which is without cost, nor is it something which simply endures on its own merits. It was bought in blood, and its ongoing cost is also blood. Because “freedom” is not “free.”

Seven years and one day ago, as David Warren so ably notes, was “the last day in history in which such an event was inconceivable.

The cost — which extends to blood on the fields of Afghanistan and Iraq, and in several other countries infrequently mentioned in the news, and to the lesser investments in blood and money by U.S. allies — may seem, by now, out of all proportion to the benefit conferred. This is a hard reality of democratic politics. For if the politicians are successful in restraining a mortal enemy, we assume the threat must have been overstated. Ditto, if serious threats remain, but are concealed from us because they are kept far away.“

Vigilance. What does this word mean? To read a dictionary, one sees that it means “watchfulness,” and this is a good starting point. But more than that, it should mean — for us who so depend on it to ensure our ongoing freedom — also that we remember what has transpired before. We should remember that just because the bully has not yet succeeded in giving us another bloody nose does not mean that he does not lurk nearby still, waiting for us to drop our guard but a little so as to give us a black eye to match.

No, we shouldn’t be paranoid about terrorism either. But we must be honest, at least: it happened, once, that Muslim terrorists were able to slaughter thousands of people on this continent. It is still possible that they might do so again, if we give them the opening they are looking for.

Update: As much as the above is not comedic in any way, shape, or form, I have to share Dale Price’s priceless warning to would-be commentators:

This is a “Truther”-[sic]-free zone. You try to peddle your fraudulent wares here — on this of all days — and I’ll boot your ass out so fast you’ll red-shift.

I don’t have a comment form on my posts anymore, although the good Reader is of course free — and encouraged — to offer his or her thoughts via the contact form (I have a very good track record of re-posting what I receive). That said, Trutherism is somewhat less likely to be re-posted.

For a Few Updates More: Welcome, Steynians!

In most of the United States, there about 24 abortions performed for every 100 live births that take place. In New York, the ratio rises to 72:100.

This suggests — strongly suggests — that New York women are making use of abortion as their main form of birth control (this comes as no real surprise).

The proposed solution: even more and better access to contraception.

The main concern of the pro-choice advocates? That by using abortion as a primary method of birth control, women may not be using other forms of contraception to full effect, especially condoms…thus leaving themselves potentially more vulnerable to contracting STDs. The over 250 infants butchered daily does not seem to register as a concern.

But strangely, the potentially harmful side effects of procuring an abortion — especially surgical complications — do cause concern. We don’t often see mention of those showing up in print, despite the fact that abortion does pose some very real risks to the health of women, some of which can be catastrophic and fatal in their aftermath.

What the contraception advocates seem to miss is that more and more people don’t seem to care about things like STDs and “protection”. In like manner to how something like obesity (an almost wholly preventable condition) is becoming more and more common (and more of a strain on health care resources), it would seem to be the case that fewer and fewer people are genuinely concerned about things which might pose real and tangible risks to their health. Indeed, the case of obesity is telling, as it is demonstrative of how people will prefer convenience over health — it’s not hard to shed pounds by doing as little as giving up fast food and soda pop.

So too where sex is concerned. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that women in New York, living a fast-paced urban lifestyle in one of the biggest, busiest cities in the world, want convenience everywhere they can get it, including in their birth control. And while the contraception advocates rightly point out that birth control pills are much cheaper than abortion as a method of contraception, those same pills are also more convenient. Even the pill regimens that allow you to miss a day here and there are just not as convenient as an occasional, one-time appointment at a “day surgery” clinic. Ditto condoms…and I’d also be willing to bet that the partners these women take are just as glad that they don’t have to worry about using a condom.

Convenience trumps good sense almost every time, and that’s what we’re seeing in New York, methinks.

And really, as the Curt Jester points out, why are pro-choice advocates actually calling attention to this issue? Why, for them, is it an issue? If it is not considered immoral to obtain an abortion, then is a ratio of 72:100 really any worse than a ratio of 24:100? Is it any better than a ratio of 110:100? Who cares if people are using abortion in a contraceptive capacity, if we’re not supposed to care that people are able to obtain abortions at all?

Two of the victims were Canadian citizens.

Militants brandishing assault rifles ambushed a New York-based relief organization’s vehicle south of Kabul Wednesday, killing three Western aid workers and their Afghan driver and leaving their white SUV riddled with hundreds of bullets, officials said.

The three women killed in Logar province worked for the International Rescue Committee, said Melissa Winkler, a spokeswoman for the group.

One was Canadian, another was a dual British-Canadian citizen and the third was a dual American-Trinidadian citizen, the IRC said.

The women were in Afghanistan working in volunteer programs that focused on children’s education, according to agency spokeswoman Melissa Winkler.

And of course, we all know the Taliban’s stance on the education of children, some of whom might even be female: haram! Killkillkill!

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Easy to see where Jonathan Kay gets his skill with the written word from:

Ayatollah-prescribed fatwas are so pre-9/11. Nowadays, as liberal elites rush prophylactically to ward off charges of tolerating “Islamophobia,” the fatwas (in all but name) against damn good books like Mark Steyn’s America Alone aren’t bruited in mosques; they issue forth from human rights commissioners.

…

Many Canadians believe the nation’s human rights commissions (HRCs) are motivated by high ideals and good intentions. But in conspiring to silence what a handful of Muslims deem “hate speech,” these good intentions are paving the way for the hell of global “soft jihad.”

The soft jihad is gradualistic and law-abiding, but no less desirous of Islamic domination of the West than its violent counterpart. Soft jihad strategy exploits liberal discourse and weaknesses in our legal system to induce guilt about a largely mythical “Islamophobia.”

The list of complaint-triggering speech offences is long in all Western countries, and ranges from the trivial to the politically existential: A decoration on a lid of ice cream distributed by Burger King offends because it resembles Allah in Arabic script; Fox Entertainment’s drama 24 portrays South Americans, Bosnians, Germans and Muslims as terrorists, but only Muslims complain; a Turkish lawyer sues an Italian soccer team because the red cross on their jerseys reminds him of the Crusades.

…

One way or another we must stop the fatwa industry in its tracks. Begin with removal of speech-regulation from the HRCs’ legal mandate. Build on that with legislation that imposes costs and damages on litigious third parties who seek to chill journalists.

Canada should also pass legislation imitative of the U.S. Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) law, presently active in 24 U.S. states, which disallows harassment of those writing on matters of “public concern,” as well as the Libel Terrorism Protection Act, a New York state initiative that will combat libel tourism.

The HRC crisis is not a tempest in a teapot. Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, says: “I don’t think it’s too strong to say that the [HRC] complaint against Mark Steyn is a totalitarian document.”

It is therefore no exaggeration to say that Levant and Steyn are fighting for the defining ideal of Western civilization which, once lost, would spell the beginning of the end of all our other freedoms.

Freedom of speech/expression is the cornerstone human right in truly free societies — without it, all the other rights we enjoy will crumble. And in their zeal to protect the smaller rights, the HRCs will destroy this most important right unless we are able, somehow, to reverse their course or cast them down.

At the end of Revelations, the mid-season cliffhanger of Battlestar Galactica’s fourth and final season, the Colonial fleet and their renegade Cylon allies find and land on a planet that all involved believe to be Earth, the legendary home of the 13th Tribe of Kobol.

The planet itself appears blue from space, but is quickly discovered to be a nuclear wasteland, devoid of life and marked only by decimated buildings and burnt-out ruins. The immediate conclusion that the producers of the show likely wanted us to jump to was that yes, this was Earth, and that the 13th colony had somehow destroyed itself. As a lesson in human concupiscence, that wouldn’t be a bad ending in and of itself, but there are a few questions left unanswered if one simply assumes that one can take the show at face value as to the identity of this ruined planet.

First off, there’s the issue of how vague and masked the shots of the planet from orbit are. I mentioned this before, but I just found a handy comparison image (as well as a reasonable theory about who the final Cylon might just be) on another blog that tells the tale better than before:

Now, there’s been a fair bit of argument that the ruins themselves tell the tale. In particular, a number of people have made the association between the ruined bridge seen at the end of Revelations and the Brooklyn Bridge. Personally, I’m not convinced; this show has been marked by repeated examples that what the characters think they see is not necessarily what is (e.g. Starbuck’s seeing a gas giant that was thought to be Jupiter, but turned out not to be, or her seeing a comet that turned out to be the damaged rebel basestar). I certainly think that the ending scene was composed so as to make us think of New York, but I won’t say for certain whether that’s what was being depicted.

At the end of the third season, the CGI was unambiguous: Earth was easily recognized, and the shape of the North American continent was distinct. As the comparison photos above tell, in this discovery of Earth there is nothing about the planet itself which obviously suggests that it is Earth. No continents are visible, and much of the world is dark. Ron Moore et. al. are far too “tricksy” (apologies to Smeagol) for this to be a mere coincidence, or simple artistic license. There is some meaning to the sudden lack of clarity.

There is also the matter of pretty much every main character, including Laura Roslin (supposedly the “dying leader” who will not live to see the proper end of the journey of humanity across the stars), being on the surface of the planet. Unless the producers are setting us up for some kind of “actually, it was this dead character all along” sort of letdown, it seems that a second objection to the probability that this devastated planet is actually Earth must be raised¹.

On the other hand, there is the matter that Felix Gaeta did match the various constellations when the fleet first arrived into orbit of this ruined planet. Initially, I remarked that “it would be very nearly impossible to find another point in the galaxy in which all those stars appeared to align in just that way.” However, in making that statement, I forgot to take three things into account, which I was reminded of when I read this article at The Science of Battlestar Galactica:

1. How accurate were the images of the constellations that Gaeta was working from?
2. How many of the constellations were visible to Gaeta when he made his checks (e.g. were any of them occluded by the planet or the system’s Sun)?
3. Is it actually impossible that the stars might not line up in more or less the same manner from some other point?

The answer to the third question has actually already been given to us in a subtle way by BSG’s producers: the constellation Orion appears, more or less properly configured, in the episode The Ties that Bind, in the backdrop of the ambush on the rebel basestars by the pro-Raider-lobotomy Cylon faction. Surely the Cylons would have noticed whether or not there was a habitable world in reasonably close proximity to the location of said fracas?

Of course, one constellation lining up could just be a coincidence — in theory, so long as the Cylons were on a more or less straight-line path between Earth and the approximate middle of Orion’s shape, the alignment of the stars would remain the same — one would expect to see the constellation get “larger” in one’s view, perhaps, and one might also reasonably expect to note changes in the apparent brightness of the various stars themselves. The shape of the constellation, though, would be essentially unchanged.

That by no means implies that the shape of eleven other constellations visible from Earth would likewise remain constant. This illustration demonstrates how different Orion would look to us were we viewing it from a position situated roughly 90 degrees counter-clockwise from Earth’s present location.

However, the distances we are talking about in such a hypothetical situation are immense; were we fairly close to Earth, would the constellations look drastically different, or would they appear somewhat similar?

It turns out that “similar” is the correct answer (and it further turns out that this brings us to the second question):

If Gaeta was checking the position of the zodiacal constellations with a sketch made from the Temple of Athena data, he’s out of luck. As seen from Alpha Centauri, those constellations would be virtually identical to those seen from Earth, the chief difference being that Castor and Pollux, the Heads of the Gemini Twins, don’t quite line up with their bodies. If Gaeta had incomplete data, or if the constellation Gemini was not visible for some reason (being occulted by Alpha Centauri, for example), he’d be absolutely correct in reporting that all “visible” constellations are a match, even though the fleet would be in the wrong place.

In the same way, the fleet could have arrived at Tai Ceti or Epsilon Eridani, two other type G sunlike stars in our local neighborhood. The zodiacal constellations as seen from those systems would be more distorted, especially around the cancer-Leo and Aries-Taurus regions. But again, if Gaeta’s data are sketchy and the local star is blocking out the appropriate regions of the zodiac, the rest of the constellations should pass muster.

This issue of distorted constellations leads us back to the first question. The data set Gaeta would be working from would be some manner of representation of the constellations seen by those few who entered into the Tomb of Athena and saw the holographic projection therein. As far as we, the viewer, know, nobody took any kind of recording of the images displayed therein, and it is reasonable to assume that any reproduction of the positions of the stars would be hand-drawn sketches made while the memory of what was seen was reasonably fresh. That’s all well and good, but it is by no means an assurance of accuracy.

Lt. Gaeta, when checking to see whether the fleet had jumped to the right spot, said that the visible constellations are a match. But a match with what set of data? Lee said that they had “projected a course to the signal” and that it would probably take some revising. That tells me the Colonial beacon signal did not include a 3-d starmap. Is Gaeta checking the constellations with what the jump calculations predicted the resulting constellations should look like? That would only prove that they jumped to where they expected to jump — it wouldn’t prove that they had jumped to Earth.

Or is he comparing the visible constellations with the constellations they saw in the planetarium show back at the Temple of Athena on Kobol? It’s hardly likely — the display in the temple focused on the twelve constellations of our Zodiac. Lee spotted the Lagoon Nebula, and his father backed him up by calling it “M8” — but did we see either of them record those constellations? (If it was a shared hallucination, was it even possible to have recorded the constellations? ) And if they did record the constellations, to what level of precision did they do so? I think it’s much more likely that the pilots come out of the planetarium and, at best, drew the stick figures from memory. And if that’s that happened, then Gaeta’s comparison data are going to be literally sketchy.

To this point in the series, we’ve seen or heard of over a dozen human-habitable worlds: the Twelve Colonies, New Caprica, the algae planet, Kobol, and now this newly-discovered ruined world. That’s a fairly substantial chunk of real estate that the humans have discovered simply by jumping from place to place.

In the original series, there was an instance of an Earth-like planet being found, and for which several hints were dropped suggesting that it might be Earth. That planet was Terra, home of two warring factions that nearly wiped each other out in a nuclear confrontation. Indeed, they were saved only by Galactica’s timely arrival.

It’s possible, then, that in this iteration of BSG, Galactica has arrived too late, and has discovered a wiped-out Terra. But perhaps, in the ruins somewhere, will be found the final pointers toward Earth. This would certainly be a good reason for the show’s producers to make the planet so ambiguous when viewed from orbit as in Revelations — an unfamiliar continental form would give things away far too quickly².

At any rate, we know this show must go on from here³, and a big part of where it goes come 2009 is likely going to be caught up in the exact identity of this ruined world that the Colonials and Cylons have now come to. There’s plenty of good reason, based both in fact and in the idea of dramatic, message-driven storytelling, to think that the planet that was found was, in fact, Earth. But there’s also plenty of room for doubt. This season especially, BSG’s writers have pulled off one act of sleight-of-hand after another, and it’s entirely possible that they’re doing it to us again.

In fact, I think it’s probably likely.

Notes — mind the spoilers:

1. Admittedly, in the case that this planet is actually Earth, and the “promised land” which the dying leader shall not see is another planet (e.g. Terra or its equivalent), this objection is pretty much null and void.

2. Edward James Olmos asserted that there would be a dark end to the series, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this blogger’s counter-theory regarding Earth/Terra: perhaps this really is Earth, and the Fleet moves on to find the Thirteenth Tribe on Terra (or some analogous world).

3. Scenes for the final episodes of the series were shot in and around Kamloops, British Columbia, and involved lots of physically fit extras with crop-cut hair or dreadlocks. Scenes were also evidently shot in the city of Kamloops proper, which would imply that the series ends on some manner of inhabited world. Whether this is the Colonials realizing that they are the 13th tribe — itself perhaps a product of the twelve tribes united into one — and accepting that it is their bitter fate to be the ones to re-settle the Earth, or whether this is the Colonials finding their bretheren on another planet is yet to be seen.

Also, it should be noted that other scenes of the series finale were shot at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, in the area that had previously been used for the Riverwalk district on Caprica. The scenes apparently involved Laura Roslin. This would suggest either a return to Caprica (now that would be dark!) by the remnants of the Fleet, or perhaps various persistent visions/hallucinations on the part of some of the characters (William Adama, perhaps, pining for Roslin?).

Then too, perhaps my theory that BSG is an eschatological tale for our time will pan out, and the closing scenes of the series will be like those in Roslin and Emily’s dreams in the episode Faith. Certainly, there is a religious metaphor (and possibly more than just a metaphor — one would not be surprised to see humanity come into a confrontation with the divine in this show) at work within the plot of the series, and it has more or less been confirmed that God is an active, present force within the BSG universe.

More than a few people have suggested that there is a “creation myth” element to the series, and while many of these appeal to the significance of Hera Agathon, I think they miss something. Assuming I am wrong — that is, assuming that Karl Agathon — Helo — is not the final Cylon, and assuming that Hera is the humano-Cylon child who is exclusively significant (in keeping with everything we’ve seen on the series to date), then in her and Nicholas Tyrol there is not to be found a parallel in Adam and Eve.

There is, however, a parallel to be found in Joseph and Mary, in the Blessed Virgin and her carpenter husband.

Pope Benedict XVI will pray, at Ground Zero in New York, for the redemption of the Islamic terrorists who felled the Twin Towers, and will call on all who follow the ways of Islamist terror to convert to Christianity, abandoning their god of hatred and rage for the one true God of love and understanding.

Calls for his head on a platter will likely follow in lockstep with his praying thusly. But he’s saying what needs to be said, and I for one think it is long past time that Catholicism, globally, stopped taking a conciliatory tone where radical Islam is concerned.

It’s rather funny, you know? Historically, it was up to soldiers of the Church to fight and die on the battlefield in order to clean up the messes made by Islam’s conquests. In the modern era, it seems to be falling to Catholics to fight on the rhetorical battlefield against new advances, in that arena, by the same old foe.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!