OBAMA DIRECTS NASA TO REACH OUT TO MUSLIMS

Charles Bolden, NASA administrator, was charged by Obama to: "One, he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering” (http://www.sfexaminer.com/politics/NASA_s-new-mission_-Building-ties-to-Muslim-world-97817909.html#ixzz0tcyLPn8p).

Since the Democrats and Obama are wondering how to save money, I thought I would decrease their budget by a few billion dollars by listing all of the Islamic contributions to science, math and engineering. This should save NASA and Bolden the time and money needed to rediscover all of Islam’s historic contributions.


ARAB CONTRIBUTIONS TO MATHEMATICS

• Developed solutions to quadratic equations – year 850.
• Introduced the first use of tangent function. Developed tables of sines and tangents at 15 minute intervals – 940-998.
• Gave numerical solutions to certain higher order equations – around 11th century.
• Discovered a geometrical solution of solving cubic equations – 1048-1122.
• Calculated the value of pi to sixteen decimal places – 1390-1450.
• After this time, the Arab world was closed to mathematics. Historical data taken from http://www.math.tamu.edu/~dallen/history/arab/arab.html.

If you wish to read an exaggerated view of Arab mathematics see http://worldupdates.tripod.com/newupdates10/id142.htm.

The Arabs claim they invented the ZERO. The number zero was invented in India and by the Maya. In India they used an empty space and later a dot for the zero symbol. This was around the third century BC. The Maya invented the number zero for their calendars in the third century AD. The number zero (0) was first used in the seventh century AD. The Arabs introduced the zero into Europe after 800 AD. The name zero comes from the Arabic word sifr
(http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen99/gen99535.htm). I guess maybe they did discover the number zero since they developed a word for it “sifr”.

ARAB CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE

The Islamic Golden Age occurred between the eighth and thirteenth centuries. There were advances in alchemy, astronomy, medicine etc. Individual items are too numerous to mention in such a short article, so I’ll just give a summary of what some of the scholars of our time think of the Arabic contributions. Bertrand Russell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A History of Western Philosophy) suggests that Islamic Science was not innovative but communicated ancient knowledge to medieval Europe. Others say that Muslim scientists did help in defining experimental science and a quantitative approach to experimental study and this is probably true. Huff says that they did not bring about a modern scientific revolution (Huff, Toby E. The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West, Cambridge University Press, 1993, p87.)

The Islamic Arabs did make one notable contribution: Ibn al-Haytham was regarded as the "father of modern optics" for his influential Book of Optics written between 1011 and 1021 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Optics). The sixth ruler of the Fatmid Caliphate ordered him to control the flooding of the river Nile. He realized the impossibility of such a task and fearing for his life, he feigned madness. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest doing scientific studies.

ARAB CONTRIBUTIONS TO ENGINEERING

The Arab website (http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=247) defines the extent of their engineering contributions: “Concerning Arab contributions to engineering, one can look to the water wheel, cisterns, irrigation, water wells at fixed levels, and the water clock. In 860, the three sons of Musa ibn Shakir published the Book on Artifices, which described a hundred technical constructions.” Does anybody have use for a water clock lately?

SO WHY DID THE ISLAMIC GOLDEN AGE END IN THE 13TH CENTURY?

The Islam Awareness web page (http://www.islamawareness.net/Maths/science4.html) perhaps summarizes it best:

“1. Internal Pressures (From Inside the Empire): the End to Scientific Progress

With the end of the Abbasid Caliphate and the beginning of the Turkish Seljuk Caliphate in 1057 CE, the centralized power of the empire began to shatter. Religious differences resulted in splinter groups, charges of heresy, and assassinations. Aristotelian logic, adopted early on as a framework upon which to build science and philosophy, appeared to be undermining the beliefs of educated Muslims. Orthodox faith was in decline and skepticism on the rise.
The appeal made by theologian … al-Ghazali turned the religious tide back to orthodox (traditional) belief. In a masterful philosophical argument, most clearly stated in his book, The Destruction of Philosophy, al-Ghazali declared reason and all its works to be bankrupt. Experience and the reason that grew out of it were not to be trusted; they could say nothing meaningful about the reality of Allah. Only direct intuition of God led to worthwhile knowledge. Philosophy was a snare, leading the unwary to the pits of Hell. By the time of his death in 1111, free scientific investigation and philosophical and religious toleration were phenomena of the past. Schools limited their teaching to theology (religion and the nature of God). Scientific progress came to a halt.

2. External Pressures (From Without)

During this same period, the European Crusades (1097-1291) weakened the Islamic Empires' powers from without. Cordoba fell to Spanish Christians in 1236. When the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1256 the Islamic Empire never recovered. Trade routes became unsafe. Urban life broke down.
Individual communities drew in upon themselves in feudal isolation. Science and philosophy survived for a while in scattered pockets, but the golden age of Islamic culture was at an end.”

SO WHAT DID THE ARABS CONTRIBUTE AFTER THE ISLAMIC GOLDEN AGE?

In 2007, Nobel Prize recipient, physicist Steven Weinberg, stated that Islamic science never achieved much of importance since the twelfth century and quoted a Nature magazine (italics are my inclusion) survey that identified just three areas of science in which Islamic countries excel: desalination, falconry and camel reproduction” (http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2008/01/islamic-science.html). Try Googling for info on important advances in science by the Muslims since the Golden Age. I could only find some scant info for the last ten years. Islam had done its job and Obama should be proud.

Susan Estrich Hypes Immigration Reform

There is nothing more dangerous than a feel good, kind hearted, mis-informed Democrat that tries to spin the news. Susan Estrich, recently poured her heart out in an article posted on Newsmax (http://www.newsmax.com/Estrich/Steele-Rendell-Obama-immigration/2010/07/07/id/364027). Her heart goes out to the illegal immigrants. She undoubtedly means well but is mis-informed.

Ms. Estrich says that “…Republican leaders put out the story that President Obama needs to take a trip to the border to see just how dangerous it is. The only thing that could be more of a stunt than his taking that trip is the Republicans' call for him to do so. However dangerous the border is — or isn't — the president would certainly not find out by going there. It's the job of the Secret Service to see to that.”

First of all, she obviously doesn’t believe the news coming out of Arizona. She obviously doesn’t think it is dangerous. I suppose the citizens there are hallucinating about the dangers they face. I guess she missed the sign warning our citizens about travelling along a road because of drug smugglers and illegal immigrants. Secondly, the Secret Service is not in charge of border security and does not investigate the dangers involved (http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos160.htm).

She further states that “The Mexican gangs who have been killing each other, the irresponsible coyotes who take people's money and risk their lives — you can be sure they wouldn't be anywhere near the president.” I agree with this remark because of all the security around the President. What illegal alien or criminal would want to be around him with all the security he has? She makes a rather superfluous statement – for effect I guess.

She then goes into a diatribe of how the Republicans are blocking immigration reform. For good measure she adds the following comment “The president is giving speeches about immigration not because he is pushing a bill, but to explain to Hispanic voters why he isn't.” She obviously doesn’t listen to the liberal news (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-renews-push-comprehensive-immigration-reform/story?id=11062758). I don’t blame her for not listening to the liberal media, but if she is going to be a good liberal, she should try to keep up to date.

Next she goes into an altruistic story telling: “Why reward those who violate the law? Then you tell them the story of a mother whose children were born in the United States, who are themselves citizens, whose oldest son is serving our country in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they say yes, well, that's different.” I don’t know who “they” are but children born to illegal’s should not be citizens.

“You tell them the story of young adults who came here as children and have lived their entire lives in this country, who are working hard, going to school, paying taxes, and they agree that of course we should not deport the high school valedictorian because his parents brought him here "illegally" as a child.” It’s tough to find a valedictorian and I would appreciate your source for such a person.

I offer the following in opposition to your heartwarming stories. “In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.” (http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_the_illegal_alien.html)

“Twelve Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That's 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001.” (http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=39031)

“Based on a one-year in-depth study, Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute of Atlanta estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each. She analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants.” (http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=39031)

I could give you a lot more statistics but this article would be too long. I suggest that you Google the question “what percentage of illegal aliens are criminals?” You’ll get 246,000 results. I must admit that I would feel sorry for the one valedictorian but I sure as heck would feel no remorse for the rest. By the way, two thirds of illegal aliens do not graduate high school. (http://cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html). You might have a hard time finding a valedictorian.

Estrich rambles on further with the statement “The only way to address the immigration issue fairly is if we can put partisan politics aside, stop posturing, stop scoring points with language and stunts, and try to work together on a solution. That won't happen in an election season, no chance.”

My rebuttal to this is the following quote:
“Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household.
Among the largest costs are Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion).” (http://cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html)

Why not say directly what you’re true intent is? The Democrats are counting on the illegal vote. Why not? It only furthers the cause of a Socialist state.

THE HYPOCRITICAL LYING DEMOCRATS

President Clinton gave a glowing and apologetic eulogy to the late Senator Byrd. His lying comments were as follows:
"He once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan, what does that mean? I'll tell you what it means. He was a country boy from the hills and hollows from West Virginia. He was trying to get elected," former President Bill Clinton said of Sen. Robert Byrd.

"And maybe he did something he shouldn't have done come and he spent the rest of his life making it up. And that's what a good person does. There are no perfect people. There are certainly no perfect politicians," he added.
(http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/07/02/clinton_defends_byrds_kkk_ties_he_was_trying_to_get_elected.html)

Let’s discuss his “fleeting association” as President Clinton described it. I think this falls into the classification of what the definition of “is” is.
1. Senator Byrd was a recruiter for the KKK while in his twenties and thirties. By my reasoning, this is about ten years. I guess if you’re a Democrat this could be called a “fleeting” period of time.
2. Senator Byrd achieved the title of Kleagle. What is a Kleagle? A Kleagle is a KKK officer commissioned to recruit new members.
3. He later rose to the rank of Exalted Cyclops. What is an Exalted Cyclops? He is the leader of the klavern (a local unit of the KKK) i.e., den leader.

Now let’s discuss President Clinton’s statement “he spent the rest of his life making it up.” I suppose that this statement requires a definition just as “is” did. The following items are ways in which he spent the rest of his life making it up.
1. Byrd claimed he left the KKK in 1943. He was born in 1917. This made him 27 years old at the time – a direct contradiction to point one above.
2. In 1946 he wrote a letter to the Klan’s Imperial Wizard that the Klan was needed now more than ever – he is now 29 years old.
(http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/index.php?news=383
3. When he won his election in 1958, he defended the Klan and “he personally felt the Klan had been incorrectly blamed for many acts committed by others.” He is now forty one years old.
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp “A Senator’s Shame”)
4. He voted against two black Supreme Court nominees: Marshall and Thomas.
5. He filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – he was now 47 years old.
6. In 2001 he used the phrase “white niggers” on a television broadcast – now age 84.
(http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/03/04/byrd.slur/)
7. The NAACP gave him a 100% rating during the 108th Congress – 2003-2005. I guess this meant that he finally supported African Americans. He is now 86-88 years old.
I suppose he spent the last four to six years of his life “making it up” as President Clinton says.

Now let’s discuss Clintons comment “He was trying to get elected.” What does this tell you about the Democrats? They will, lie, steal, cheat and say anything to get elected. Clinton did a good job of personifying the true Democrat and Senator Byrd was an excellent example of the same.