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Pastimes : Authors & Books & Comments -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (386)	12/12/2007 10:08:37 PM
From: ManyMoose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9622

Thus a common sailor and buccaneer who is also at the cutting edge of scientific study seems somewhat incredulous to the modern reader. That report brought to mind a book that I recommend. "The Navigator" by Morris L. West is a fictional account of western mariners before celestial navigation was highly developed. In those days, mariners were confined to running coastlines, lest they become completely lost. There was no way to tell latitude nor longitude. Arab navigators learned a trick so simple that a child could do it but so powerful that the holder of the secret would defend it to the death, and those who knew he had it would kill or go to war to get it. The plot dramatizes how the western mariners might have obtained this trick. The instrument is a chip of wood on a string. The navigator holds the string against his cheek and orients the chip of wood on the horizon towards Polaris. He ties a knot in the string at the length where the chip exactly spans the gap between the horizon and Polaris. That length of string records the reference latitude, presumably of his Port. If the mariner is out of sight of shoreline, all he has to do is relocate Polaris and repeat the sighting. If Polaris is higher than the span of the wood chip, he is North of the reference latitude and if Polaris is lower he is South. All that remains is to return to the Port's latitude and head east or west by the compass to return to it. Simple, but so precious people would die for it. The ability to precisely determine longitude came much later, and required mechanical clocks that measured time accurately without a pendulum, which would be disturbed by the ship's motion at sea.

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (386)	12/14/2007 4:27:16 PM
From: goldworldnet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9622

Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders (Hardcover) by Tom A. Coburn (Author) amazon.com Extraordinary Case for a New Independent Party, January 11, 2006 Review By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) This is an extraordinary book, an easy to read book, which is organized to provide 10 truths, 3 myths, 4 dangers, and 5 actions that citizens can take to restore the integrity of the Congress (both Senate and House). The author's conclusions, based on his experience as a three-term Congressman, are consistent with both the recent polls that show that Americans damn both the Democrats and the Republicans as corrupt and ineffective at representing We the People, and with books such as Peter Peterson's "Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It." As a moderate Republican, I found this book representative precisely of the vision I signed up to in the 1970's--smaller government, less waste, more discretion to the states. Two quotes really stand out: xix: "Although the events o September 11, 2001 have focused the public attention on the threat of international terrorism, the greatest threat to the continuity of our form of government is our government itself." 79: "What makes this [Party Line] mentality dangerous is that when the team is held together by careerism and mindless partisanship, individual members are punished for thinking for themselves [or their Districts]. When members can't think for themselves their constituents are deprived of honest representation." The book itemizes the positive aspects of the "Contract with America" that the Republican class of 1994 hoped to achieve, and blasts Newt Gingrich for failing to honor the contract and failing as a leader. Robert Novak is to be complemented for his superb foreword and his support of this book. All of my reading suggests that America is ready to demand that the bulk of their representatives follow the example of the Member from Vermont, and declare Independence from the two corrupt incumbent parties. America appears to be ready for a new political party that will restore government of, by, and for the people. This book is a good starting point, and makes the case for discarding both parties as being so corrupt and unrepresentative as to be beyond salvation. We are on our own. * * *