Ben Franklin (see the gallery) said in Poor Richard's Almanack of 1738, “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

The same could be said of those who sacrifice our constitution in order to save it.

This came to me from a favorite cousin. Neat stuff. And the picture (See it in the gallery.)is spectacular. It is my new wallpaper.

The Red Planet is about to be spectacular!

This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again. The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot. At thebeginning of August it will rise in the east at 10p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m.

By the end of August when the two planets areclosest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30a.m. That's prettyconvenient to see something that no human being has seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month.

I first wrote this back in June. Having just returned from a couple of weeks travelling around Virginia seeing all of our children and grandchildren, it bears some revisiting.

There are a lot of things I like about all that The United States and our Constitution mean to our everyday life. One of the most dear is that each generation need not be stuck in the situation their previous one has dealt them. That means that God is in his Heaven, all is right with the world, evolution is alive and well. Each generation can be better than the one before.

“We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life.”

Anyone who does not believe in evolution is insulting their progeny. I know it works because our kids are so much an improvement on us, a living and breathing proof of the beauty of evolution. My wife and I must have done something right.

And the grandchildren! They are the most dramatic proof of all.

It is always difficult, even in retrospect, to narrow down root causes of complex situations such as the unrest in the Middle east. Even if we had Arthur C. Clarke's Foundation, could anything have altered this idiotic bunch of nations?

Perhaps the blame lies with England and France and the Treaty of Versailles where the developed countries treated the Middle East with such dishonor and contempt. The end of The Great War caused so much horror and it still does. Does it go to Roosevelt's administration's failure to address the situation and the Jewish refugees? Or to the rest of the “developed nations” and their treatment of that area at the end of World War II?

Or does it go all the way back to the Crusades? Is it still religion, people slaughtering other people in the name of God? Or is religion just a handy excuse to do what they would have done anyway? Is it just politicians doing what they do best? What is the real reason for mass idiocy?