[LINK] Some Friday links

• Over at 1948, Nicholas Li writes ("The False Choice of Pacifism") about Sam Harris' perspective on pacifism, arguing that Harris oversimplified the issue far too much.


• Daniel Drezner summarizes a recent Foreign Affairs article that suggests that sanctions against the Burmese regime should be organized by a contact group of Burma's neighbours and major world powers, so as to ensure a united front against the Burmese leadership.


• Joel at Far Outliers has two Burma-related posts up, one examining the question of the difference between the terms "Myanmar" and "Burma," the second
  arguing that the current ZBurma sanctions regime has to include China and India. (That, it seems, is unlikely.)


• Joe My God reports that Mike Jones, a Colorado personal trainer/prostitute famous for having been hired by prominent American evangelical Christian Ted Haggard, claims embattled Idaho senator Larry Craig as a client. (No, Craig's not gay or bi. Really.)


• Over at Language Hat, there's an interesting report on the controversy surrounding poet
  Blaise Cendrars' obscure poem "La légende de Novgorod." Is the claimed text actually a fake?


• Tim Gueguen observes that Dark Horse Comics' republishing of the rather bizarrely misogynistic Gor series seems to have met some troubles. I recommend the parody "Houseplants of Gor" for those people about what Gor is about.

Truly, I believed the plant would be watered. It was plant, and on Gor it had no rights. Perhaps on Earth, in its permissive society, which distorts the true roles of all beings, which forces both plant and waterer to go un happy and constrained, which forbids the fulfillment of owner and houseplant, such might not happen. Perhaps there, it would not be watered. But it was on Gor now, and would undoubtedly feel its true place, that of houseplant. It was plant. It would be watered at will. Such is the way with plants."

• Jeff at the Tin Man writes about the controversy surrounding the United States' proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which if passed would protect gays, lesbians, and bisexuals against most forms of workplace discrimination but doesn't include any protection for transsexuals. It looks like it all comes down to the fact that a lot of people don't see any reason why sexual orientations and gender identities should be grouped together.

[BRIEF NOTE] Sputnik fifty years later

It's been fifty years and one day since the launch of Sputnik 1. Reuters and NASA are both quite right to point out that the satellite technology first deployed by the Soviet Union has gone on to transform the fabric of human civilization.

"I am convinced that the Sputnik accomplishment by the Russian people was responsible for the creation of the American space program that I head today," NASA administrator Michael Griffin told space veterans at Russia's Academy of Science.

The ceremony was one of a number commemorating the Sputnik anniversary in Russia. Earlier, military officials laid flowers at the Kremlin Wall grave of Sputnik mastermind Sergei Korolyov.

"Without Sputnik there would have been no Apollo. Indeed when the space race of the 1960s was over, it may be said that we in America lost some of our own momentum," said Griffin, referring to the Apollo project, which put a man on the moon in 1969.

The world would be very different today without the satellites that followed on from Sputnik and now ensure communications, help people find directions, spy on foes and track the weather across the globe.

It's worth noting that, of all of the technological marvels developed in the space age so far, it's only the satellites that have turned a net profit. Other areas--manned space travel particularly, but also unmanned robotic space probes--seem to have served more national or other collective ego than any economically rational goal. Hopefully this will change in the not-too-distant future when space tourism gets off the ground. Hopefully.

[BRIEF NOTE] On Ahmedinejad

Philip Giraldi is quite right to note ("The myth of the all-powerful Ahmadinejad" that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad isn't a very significant factor in Iranian politics, given how actual power in Iran is concentrated away from the Islamic Republic's democratic organs in an unelected clerical elite. It's also true that Ahmedinejad's public statements--bashing non-hetersoexuals, bashing women, bashing Jews, bashing dissident factions, et cetera--makes him no different from any number of other crackpot leaders who like of populist reactionary nationalism. In that spirit, here's Andy Samberg with Adam Levine, performing their hit song "Iran So Far Away".