Debris left over after the collision of U.S. and Russian satellites in 2009 threatens to hit a South Korean research satellite Sunday evening.
It appears that their options to prevent impact are limited. They are adjusting the satellite’s attitude to reduce its footprint relative to the junk, but do not seem capable of shifting its orbit enough to avoid the junk completely.
Finding out what’s in it: Beginning in 2015 employers of more than fifty employees will begin to pay penalties if they do not provide healthcare in precisely the amount and quality as required by Obamacare.
I challenge anyone who reads the article above to tell me exactly what those Obamacare requirements are. They are so complicated and obtuse that no one can easily decipher them. In other words, employers are going to be under increasing pressure — pressure they have already been under for the past four years — to reduce their workforce below 50 to avoid Obamacare.
Should do wonders for the economy, eh?
An evening pause: Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Pigs fly? Speaking at a religious conference on January 1, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for a major reassessment by Islam’s religious leaders.
I am referring here to the religious clerics. We have to think hard about what we are facing—and I have, in fact, addressed this topic a couple of times before. It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Impossible!
That thinking—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world! Is it possible that 1.6 billion people [Muslims] should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants—that is 7 billion—so that they themselves may live? Impossible!
I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now. All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it it from a more enlightened perspective.
I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move… because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.
Sisi was bluntly telling the religious leaders of Islam that their radical and violent interpretation of Islam is making the religion an object of hate and contempt and disgust by everyone else in the world, and they had better rethink that interpretation before it destroys the religion.
If only more Islamic leaders were willing to make this kind of demand.
An evening pause: Some post-New Year celebration.
Hat tip Danae.
Since so many readers asked, here is a short update on my eye surgery. I saw the doctor again today, and he says all looks good. For me, however, use of the right eye is presently difficult if not impossible. For the moment the eye is covered with a patch, as it hurts too much to use it. In addition, bright lights make both eyes hurt. I find I can only read the computer screen if the room is dark.
Posting should continue, but it will be at a slower pace until the right eye recovers more.
Thanks again to everyone who has expressed their good wishes. I truly appreciate it.
