For some reason I'm in a cynical mood right now, so I'll make another prediction. The first lawsuit against NASA will be filed by next Saturday. Well, lawyers help out any way they can.

You will hear a lot of whining and moaning over the next few days - from ambulance chaser types - that NASA should have had some system in place to allow the astronauts to eject or escape. Listen, Columbia broke up at 207,000 feet and Mach 18, at a point during the re-entry when atmospheric friction is heating the shuttle to 2500 degrees or hotter in some places. Space travel is still a risky business. It's small consolation, but I would imagine that none of them suffered.

Listening to the NASA press conference right now. It looks like the astronauts were getting problems from the temperature sensors on the left wing of the shuttle, as well as sensor readings from the auxiliary power units (used to power steering flaps) and tire pressure. So whatever went wrong took at least three or four minutes to happen - meaning this wasn't a sudden explosion.

An absolutely terrible day, as everybody probably knows by now, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry at 9:00 Central this morning. It immediately brings to mind two contrasting memories, one from junior high (watching the first Columbia launch), the other from my freshman year of college (the Challenger disaster). Every channel on TV is desperately trying to fill airtime right now with the same thin set of facts, and endless looping of various camera angles of the breakup.

In the category of "you know it was going to happen, but it's still disgusting": there are reports that an interviewer on CBC Newsworld asked an interviewee if the disaster was a result of "American arrogance". And of course, the official mouthpiece of the Iraqi government is celebrating the death of the American and Israeli astronauts. For a different sort of sickness, CBS reports that somebody in Texas has already tried to sell a piece of shuttle debris on Ebay. The auction has been removed.

Disasters like this do bring out the best in people, but they bring out the worst, too.

My friend Steve and I argue about the validity of a World Court, run by the United Nations. He's in favor, I'm passionately against. One of my main reasons (and one I would think is obvious) is that the U.N. has nothing to do with justice and everthing to do with political self-interest. Many on the left in the United States have a dangerously idealistic view that the United Nations is the path to utopian world government. Many on the left in Canada, Europe and the rest of the world make similiar comments, but value the U.N. as a tool to counter American dominence in the world. They have a bizarre world view that boils down to "If you're powerful and rich, then you must be evil". These people are, to the dictators and police states of the world, as Stalin would say, "useful idiots". Charles Krauthammer has a good starter column, commenting on the moral bankruptcy of the U.N.

Chilling reading: a first-hand account of a trip to North Korea. It wouldn't matter if there were no famine or nuclear programs, North Korea would still be an Orwellian hell on Earth.

Parliament Hill Comedy Hour, live from Ottawa! Yesterday during question period, after a conservative MP asked the Liberal government about steps to prevent a friendly-fire incident like the one that killed four Canadian servicemen last year with infrared signals, Liberal Defence Minister John McCallum (who once confused "Vimy" with "Vichy") shot back that all they'd need is sweaters like the one she was wearing! Oh, har, har, har! I bet those four dead servicemen are just giggling in their graves.
The Cretin Liberals - er, sorry, Chretien Liberals - drag Canada to lower levels of shame with every passing day.

Just in case you need a reason to lose sleep tonight - Japan has "lost" 206 kilograms of plutonium, enough to manufacture 25 nuclear bombs. Oopsie!

Like we need an excuse to hate the French even more - here's an interview with a former U.N. weapons inspector who says that the French actively spy for the Iraqis, to warn them of planned inspections so they'll have time to hide the Goodies of Mass Destruction. Be sure to read the whole article to see what the Pentagon thought of Christians during the Clinton administration.

Let's get ready to rumble. The US and its serious allies (i.e. not France) are sending increasing numbers of ships and troops to the Persian Gulf, and should arrive there in mid-February. Bush's State of the Union speech is Jan 28th. As good a time as any to deliver an ultimatum.

Every now and then DEBKA is a fun read. It's sort of like the Israeli version of the Drudge Report, with lots of "exclusives" not found in other media, most likely because the sources can't be confirmed. But this seems like something Saddam would do. A defector claims that Saddam has a nuclear program - and it's conducted in tunnels under downtown Baghdad. So if the U.S. wants to destroy it, they'll have to bomb civilian targets.


Let's make believe that Canada is developing a rogue nuclear weapons program (no giggling). George W. Bush decides that he can't accept that, and he's going to send in the Stealth fighters to take it out. So, where's the secret lab? "We're 80% sure that it's in a tunnel underneath the West Edmonton Mall." Is 80% a high enough certainty to bomb a target like that? For that matter, what if you're 100% sure?

Interesting comment on corruption in North Korea, by "The Armed Liberal". I have to admit, I pretty much sign on with the view that North Korea is some strange foreign communist country-gulag, trapped in a 1950's Stalinist time warp. The only pictures we regularly see are either the DMZ or the gaudy miliary parades. The idea that American CIA agents can easily bribe North Korean border guards suggests that there's some discontent in the North. I'm still not sure I believe it myself, but it is worth remembering how quickly and bloodlessly communism evaporated in Eastern Europe - and how it caught everybody, experts included, by surprise.

Mark Steyn is almost always a great read. Today he opines on that debate that's raged over many a Tim Horton's coffee over the years ... that Canada, eventually, will become a part of the United States. His position: Why the heck would they want us? I'm in agreement with him. What Republican in his right mind is going to vote to add two Quebeckers to the U.S. Senate? Canadians have inconsistent views about their neighbors to south; they complain that the U.S. never pays attention to Canada, then simultaneously worry that America wants to "take over". Canada - a nation forever on the psychiatric couch.

This week's sign that the apocalypse is nigh. How long does it take the Earth to orbit around the Sun? Easy question, right? Half of Americans surveyed don't know the answer. And these people vote.