Events

You've got to hand it to USMC Chief Warrant Officer James Averhart: he's doing his part in the war on terrorism by tracking down Vietnam-era deserters: A man was being held in a US military prison yesterday for deserting from the marines 38 years ago after being caught on the American-Canadian border amid a new drive to track down Vietnam-era deserters. Since he took over the marine corps Absentee Collection Centre in 2004, Averhart has reopened cold cases and claims to have tracked down 33 deserters....

The President's job approval is at 33% today, according to Pew. And Garrison Keillor has a scathing op-ed as well. Ouch.

Larry Johnson over at Talking Points Memo Cafe posited what Sunday's activity in Baghdad might look like if it were in New York instead. I have changed the numbers to reflect the relative sizes of Iraq and the U.S.: 03/12/06 AP: A roadside bomb hit a police convoy in White Plains, New York, 35 miles northeast of New York City, killing 8 patrolmen and wounding 32 others, police said 03/12/06 AP: U.S. forces also clashed with gunmen Sunday afternoon in New York City's upper West side, Interior Ministry...

Yesterday the President apparently blamed Iran for supplying some of the explosives that are being used in the ongoing Iraqi civil war: "Iraqis have shown the world that they want a future of peace," Bush said. Bush also accused Iran of providing material support to the insurgency in Iraq and vowed to continue to pressure Iraq's neighbor. "Such actions, along with Iran's support for terrorism and its pursuit of nuclear weapons, are increasingly isolating Iran, and America will continue to rally the...

The Census Bureau estimates that as of the last week of February, world population exceeded 6.5 billion. They estimate also that the U.S. population will hit 300 million around November 25th. (Actually, they have a current estimate and a rate, which I used to compute a date. So check back in October to see how close this is.)

We were in Boston on Saturday. The weather was perfect. So naturally I took a photo of the Massachusetts State House:

Very interesting op-ed in today's New York Times: Slavoj Zizek calls athiests "Defenders of the Faith": Fundamentalists do what they perceive as good deeds in order to fulfill God's will and to earn salvation; atheists do them simply because it is the right thing to do. Is this also not our most elementary experience of morality? When I do a good deed, I do so not with an eye toward gaining God's favor; I do it because if I did not, I could not look at myself in the mirror. A moral deed is by definition...

My incredibly brave wife got into a Piper Warrior with me today, and we flew from Nashua to Portsmouth, N.H. I last flew in January 2005, also with Anne, so I was excited to get back into the cockpit. Landing in variable 8-to-12 knot winds—variable, in this context, meaning direct crosswind to tailwind—was not the most fun I've ever had flying. But it was still tons o' fun, and we still got Anne home on time.

I lost my ID case last week here in New Hampshire, and had Anne overnight my passport to me so I could go home. It turns out, I needn't have been so paranoid, as reported on Bruce Schneier's security blog: According to the TSA, in the 9th Circuit Case of John Gilmore, you are allowed to fly without showing ID -- you'll just have to submit yourself to secondary screening. Here's a link to the 9th Circuit decision (pdf).

Frontal systems can be a lot of fun. A warm front passed through Southern New Hampshire today; see if you can spot when that happened: Time Temperature 09:51 ET (14:51 UTC) 3°C (38°F) 10:51 4°C (39°F) 11:28 6°C (43°F) 11:51 9°C (48°F) 11:58 10°C (50°F) 12:51 (18:51 UTC) 17°C (63°F) The cold front following behind won't be quite as dramatic, but it will bring some wind. Gusts are predicted to 81 km/h (45 kts, 54 mph) this afternoon.