How Obama’s Health Care Mimics the Gold Standard Issues of 1933.

          Many of the issues concerning America today are reminiscent of what was going on during the 1930s. For example, while both Obama and Roosevelt came into office during very bad economic times, both presidents were concerned about the welfare of the people. Additionally, both presidents tried to jumpstart the economy trying new techniques. Although both presidents seemed to fail at the time, it may be possible to see the near future by looking at the 1930s past.

Although there had been earlier attempts at organizing farmers, it was not until 1933 that farmers, then newly organized into the Holiday Farmer’s Association of 1933, that they became politically strong enough to make a national difference. Goodwyn described how and why the original groups formed and why their organization became strong enough to pressure President Roosevelt into making changes that ultimately helped move the country out of the Great Depression while making lives easier during the 1930s. 

At the time, the country was on the gold standard. Goodwyn explained how the Gold Standard worked against ordinary farmers and production workers. His simple example, starting with ten pieces of gold, and then doubling the population while simultaneously doubling the production demonstrated how, if the overall amount of available gold was also not also simultaneously doubled, the value of the produced goods then dropped by one half, thereby making it difficult turn any profits over the long term. In other words, as population and the amount of available goods grew, if the amount of available currency did not grow, the prices people paid for those goods would drop because the value of the money would continue to rise in comparison. Therefore, anyone holding onto their gold could buy even more goods over time. Without people buying things, the economy faltered and crashed.

In another example, McElvaine’s Great Depression, explained how President Roosevelt tried in vain to show to explain how a possible farming revolution might have developed as gold prices for the grains fell.  According to McElvaine, Roosevelt felt the best way to counter declining prices was by increasing the value of Gold while simultaneously devaluing soft currencies. Borrowers used soft currencies like silver to repay the loans given in the form of gold. While the process kept the economy moving, Roosevelt’s plan could not move fast enough, and was not large enough, to keep the economy solvent. Furthermore, according to McElvaine, eventually Roosevelt recognized his bankers economic advice centered on their own well being, not the producers and farmers who needed the most help. However, Goodwin had even less kind words, and took the issue a step further by stating that while Federal Government Officials recognized there would be hardships, unlike President Roosevelt, they were apathetic to the needs and issues that concerning everyday people.

Recently, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of President Obama’s Health Care plan. Conservatives have argued the plan will lead the country directly to socialism and bankrupt the economy while Liberals claim the country needs the health care plan to help the people who need it most. 

So how are Roosevelt and Obama similar? The argument over health care reminds me of the arguments about staying on or getting off the Gold Standard. People who had money and worked in banking and the government wanted to stay on the gold standard, while farmers and the poor recognized the hopelessness they would endure if the country remained on the gold standard. Today, President Obama has led the country into a future of heath care solvency. Roosevelt got the country off the Gold Standard, Obama gave the people of America the ability to become healthy. Roosevelt had the bankers, land speculators, and his own government officials fighting him. Obama had the bankers, drug reps, and the government officials fighting him. In both cases, the public was being harmed. In both cases, it took a strong president to protect the people. After all, isn’t that the role of the President of the United States?

"Does Islam play a unique role in modern religious terrorism?"

According to several websites, the total number of Muslim in the world today is close to 1.4 billion people. Additionally, there is no regimented clerical hierarchy, no councils, and no synods to provide standards of orthodoxy. So why is that a problem? It turns out only extremists have spokespeople. Therefore, without a central Muslim orthodoxy, the hundreds of millions of moderate Muslims that reject terrorism have no single unified voice to rally behind. Instead, the only Muslims that actually have a spokespeople tend to be extremists. Furthermore, that tends to create mistrust among the non-Muslim people of the world because non-Muslim people correctly wonder why the moderates refuse to refute the extremists, or at the very least, voice their anger more than they do.

According to Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review Institute, (page 101-115), Islam does play a unique role on modern terrorism. Andrew McCarthy argues that there are features unique to Islam that explain not just the current global outbreak of terrorism, but also why it is particularly vicious, complete with images of beheadings, suicide bombings, and mass-casualty attacks. McCarthy claims the spiritual importance of violent jihad and martyrdom for tens of millions of adherents of militant Islam are not well understood by the West and states this violent movement has been growing in strength for centuries; “It is not simply an outgrowth of recent policies. The threat will cease only if the worldwide Muslim community redirects itself toward moderation and tolerance." (101)

However, not everyone agrees. Fawaz A. Gerges, of the London School of Economics sees the issue differently and says, "No: Islam itself is not the problem in the current wave of global terrorism," (115-130) According to Fawaz A. Gerges, such moderation and tolerance already predominate in the Muslim worldview; most Muslims admire Western values and wish to coexist peacefully with the West. Muslims (religious or otherwise) do not detest Americans or Westerners for "who they are" but rather for "what they do" -- their specific policies, which always seem to place their interests first and the interests of Muslims last. He says, the world is not in the midst of an existential religious war, “Only a tiny minority of Muslims condone or engage in violence. If the West would endeavor to better understand the Muslim world and craft more thoughtful policies, support for militant movements would quickly dry up." (101-102).

However McCarthy responded by saying, "There seems to be an infinite variety of Muslim sects, [and] even if a small percentage are violent, the shear number of Muslims, 1.4 Billion people, makes the religious very dangerous for Muslim and non Muslim alike.” (Page 101-115) If we do the math for example, if only one percent of 1.4 billion have violent tendencies, then that leaves 14,000,000 very dangerous Muslims, if McCarthy is correct. 

Even so, Fawaz A. Gerges responds by stating it is not too late to reach out to Muslim moderates and insists Western policy makers, "Should eschew ideology in favor of a more analytical and constructive approach, one that draws distinctions between the many faces of Islamism."

So the question remains, "Does Islam play a unique role in modern religious terrorism?"

Source: Gottlieb, Stuart, ed. Debating Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Conflicting Perspectives on Causes, Contexts, and Responses. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2010. (101-130)

A Short History of US and UK Terror Laws

         The governments of both United States and United Kingdom continually write new legislation in their individual terror laws to counteract terrorists as they become more sophisticated. Therefore, any survey of terrorism and counter-terror should begin with a short history course on how and why the laws were written. Additionally, it may be useful to compare and contrast the nation’s terror laws to better understand what was originally done to combat terrorism and why the laws may need to be changed or augmented to remain current.

The United States and the United Kingdom are often seen by States and non-state actors alike as two major Western powers often collaborating on matters of national security. However, it should be noted that all peoples, since the dawn of history, have gathered into groups for protection. Eventually, those groups turned into civilizations, and those civilizations into States and eventually Nation-States. Therefore, one goal of any Nation-State is to maintain security for the protection of its people. However, unlike previous wars, since the 1960s, States have increasingly been attacked by non-state actors. Over time, these non-State groups have learned and adjusted their attacks from simple murders and bombs placed in garbage containers near populated areas to using ever more aggressive and sinister techniques, like flying jet commercial aircraft into the sides of buildings. Nation-States often refer to these non-State actors as Terrorists, while Nation-States call their fight against the terrorist, Counter-Terrorism.

After the September 11,2001 attack, the United States created a legal document called, “The Patriot Act.” Its lofty aims were simple, to create a legal document designed to give law enforcement personnel and government agencies the lawful power to investigate and prosecute individuals and groups whose goal is to harm the United States of America, whether it be its people, territories including embassies, or any other American interest. These may include places like American cemeteries located on foreign soils around the world because that is where Americans go. However, the United States was not the first Nation-State to create such a document following a major terrorist attack. 

Great Britain forged a similar document in 1974. Known as the 1974 Security Act, the UK wrote the document as retaliation for Irish Republican Army attacks in within the UK. Like the Patriot Act, the earlier 1974 Security Act worked to give UK police and military the lawful right to investigate, prosecute, and if possible, prevent future attacks, by eliminating the people responsible. Unlike the Patriot Act, which was required to pass the strict guidelines established by the United States Constitution as interpreted by the US Supreme Court, the 1974 Security Act had no such constraints because England had no written constitution. Nor did the UK have a Supreme Court to review such a law. Instead, the Parliament, as the supreme legislative body, alone decided on how the law should be written and implemented. However, that being said, it must be noted that while England does not have a written constitution that must be followed, the UK did, and does continue to follow its own set of laws in the form of presidents. By following, and building on what went before to craft future laws, the government was less likely to offend the people it was supposed to protect. This policy also moderated any government responses to any action, including terrorist attacks.

However, since 1974, terrorists have learned much from their attacks. They also learned how the government would respond to those attacks. Furthermore, the resulting attacks then forced the British government to adapt their own responses in kind. Additionally, as terrorist attacks became increasingly sophisticated, the government further lagged behind in its ability to catch terrorists before they could attack. Part of the problem was that as the terrorist become more technologically sophisticated, they also become better educated about how to manipulate the laws to make it easier to plan and execute new acts of terror. Therefore, almost by definition, the police agencies remained at a disadvantage, almost hamstrung by their own inability to lawfully pursue suspects. For that reason, and because of legal challenges to the laws, both the US Patriot Act and the UK 1974 Security Act were forced by courts and by ever changing events to undergo major changes since their inceptions. It also seems likely that these laws must continue to evolve as terrorist become increasingly sophisticated in both their attacks, and in their own subterfuge.

Church and State: A Historical Power Struggle

The 1122 Concordat of Worms settled disagreements over the practice of simony, but power struggles continued between western rulers and the papacy.  Popes and monarchs used the law, deceit, disinformation, and when all else failed, threats, violence and outright bullying to gain power. Eventually, rules of laws and presidents overcame secular encroachment of temporal government authority, but before that happened, succeeding popes attempted to use public perceptions to gain an edge. For example, Pope Leo III, understanding how imagery could be misconstrued among the masses erected a picture, thereby angering King Lother III, who said:

“It began with a picture, the picture became an inscription, the inscription seeks to become an authoritative utterance. We shall not endure it, we shall not submit to it; we shall lay down the crown before we consent to have the imperial crown and ourself thus degraded. Let the pictures be destroyed, let the inscriptions be withdrawn, that they may not remain as eternal memorials of enmity between the empire and the papacy.”

The picture in question was a mosaic erected in Lateran Palace.  The picture showed Lother III kneeling at the Pope’s feet. Its inscription claimed Lother III had received the crown from Pope Leo III, thereby implying a new precedent of Papal lordship.  Lother III insisted the picture and inscription be removed from public viewing, and after some argument, the Pope agree. Eventually, the incident was forgotten by everyone except the next king, Frederick of Barbarossa.

When Frederic became King in 1152, he vigorously resisted any attempt of papal subterfuge, even refusing the customary acts. For example, upon his first meeting with the Pope, Frederick refused to hold the Pope’s stirrup, which was customary at the time, but after twenty-four hours, his nobles convinced him the act was purely ceremonial and meant nothing.  However, when Frederick and Pope Hadrian entered Rome and the Roman Senators announced the imperial crown only laid within their terms to bestow on Frederick, Frederick broke into a bitter rant and said,

“I have come. I have made your Prince my vassal and from that time until present have transferred you to my jurisdiction. I am the lawful possessor. Let him who can, snatch the club from the hand of Hercules...”

In other words, Frederick was stating that he had conquered all the empire on his own terms, and he did not need anyone else’s permission for anything, unless of course, someone else had the will and power to take the empire from him. Of course the implications of the speech were not lost on the Pope Hadrian, but that did not stop him from attempting to circumvent the new King Frederick. Pope Hadrian sent two representatives and a letter to Frederick who had gone to the Diet of Besancon.  While translating and reading the letter, one asked rather innocently, “From whom then does he have the empire if not from our Lord the Pope?”

  The question implied Pope Hadrian had given Frederick the empire making letter ambiguous at best, deceitful at worst.  The angry Frederick ordered the papal representatives back to Rome and warned them to take the most direct route so they would have no opportunities to instill unrest within the empire.

  

King Frederick was not wrong to question the Pope Hadrian’s true intentions concerning the letter because as it turned out, Pope Hadrian had hoped the letter would be unchallenged and become a new precedent to the Pope’s claim of lordship over the empire. Furthermore, Hadrian could afford to write such an ambiguous letter because he knew that even if the letter was challenged, he could simply explain it away as a simple misunderstanding.

  

Both the Pope and the King complained bitterly about the incident to German Bishops, each tried to make a case against the other.  In the end, the German Bishops sided with Frederick. Since they did, both Barbarossa and Hadrian decided it would be prudent to adopt a more conciliatory tone.

 Therefore, while the twelfth century ended with a personal defeat for the pontiff and weakening papal authority over all the monarchs. However, things changed abruptly as Aristotle was formally reintroduced to western society.  

By the first half of the thirteenth century, new translations of Aristotle developed theories of state that made papal arguments impotent.  The newly developed theories no longer used theological premises and as early as 1202 new kingdoms of national rulers used the Aristotle arguments to stop recognizing any external superiors in temporal affairs.  Unfortunately, those kingdoms also built up bureaucracies and networks of local administrators to administer justice and finance.  And is so often the case, they also relied heavily on mercenaries to “legislate sporadically and attack systematically.” With the new powers, the monarchs mobilized national representative assemblies for whatever the kings wished to pursue and all these things cost money.

Therefore, while the church had used Papal authority to tax thus getting wealthy enough to begin interfering with secular politics, critics of the church, like Thomas Aquinas, pounced and claimed while both the spiritual and the secular had their places under god, it was up to man to determine when it was appropriate to obey either the church or the state because each was superior in its own way.

  

The Aquinas argument was not lost on the new pope. Pope Boniface VIII understood that if the Aquinas was right, and the Church and State were truly on equal footing, then the Church and its representatives were not required to obey the monarch. This made a convenient loophole to not pay taxes to the monarchs. So while Pope Innocent IV had stated Church property was to be used “so that it might come to the aid of all in need,” Pope Boniface VIII use the Aquinas argument to instruct the churches not to pay any taxes levied by any ruler unless first those taxes were first approved by the Pope.

 However Philip the Fair (IV) of France took the opposite view and stated every monarch the right to tax anyone in their reign, including the clergy. In this way, the dispute over the right to tax clergy then became an issue over national sovereignty.

In the past, monarchs imposed taxes on ecclesiastical property throughout the thirteenth century with impunity. They understood it was not necessary to ask permission from the papacy because it was understood that the taxes were to only be used to fund armies needed to fight a just war. Normally just wars were defined as any war in which a Christian monarch was fighting a non-Christian nation to bring that nation under Christian leadership. Doing so, it was argued would then enrich the Church even more because there would then be more Christians to pay taxes and tithes to the Church. However, when two Christian Nations fought each other, and both kings raised funds by taxing everyone, including the clergy, the idea of fighting a religiously motivated just war became difficult to fathom. For example in at least one case Pope Boniface once Boniface declared a war unjust, he was able to flex the papal muscle by instructing the Clergy not to pay the taxes levied against them. However, when the kings then tried to force the Clergy to pay the taxes, Boniface further strengthened the Pope’s power by threatening to excommunicate not only any clergy who paid the taxes, but anyone who tried to collect the taxes too.

  

However, King Philip the Fair of France, much to his credit, did not attempt to enter a theoretical debate over the issue of the Pope’s right or the authority to stop a  monarch from demanding taxes from anyone in his own realm. Instead, in August 1296, Philip forbade the export of all forms of negotiable currency from France. This action effectively stopped any money from making its way to the Papacy. Since the Church relied heavily on French funding for every aspect of the Papacy, Boniface was livid, saying, “He would suffer ruin and death rather than sacrifice any of the liberties of the church.”

    

Furthermore, while Philip the Fair was cutting off French Papal funding, two other groups also had their targets set upon Pope Boniface. The Powerful Colonna family of Rome had two cardinals as family members. The cardinals were angry at Boniface for what they considered inappropriate family favoritism.  The second group, the even more powerful Spiritual Franciscans, “Hated Boniface as the epitome of the clerical worldliness that they despised and denounced.”  Between the two groups, they publicly charged Boniface with heresy, simony, and that he had tricked the former Pope into resigning and then had arranged that Pope’s murder.  The charges were to be considered along with the whole question of succession to the papacy. 

Meanwhile, as the months passed, the papal coffer diminished and eventually Pope Boniface was forced to negotiate with Philip. Now negotiating from a power of weakness Boniface also discovered Philip had sent Pierre Flotte, his chief minister to join the Colonna Cardinals and the Franciscans. Now Boniface had no room to negotiate and was forced to concede in principle that only the King could decide when it was necessary to tax the clergy within his own kingdom. This was an extremely important victory for the monarchs because now monarchy everywhere could now tax the church.

 So while deciding the question of taxes had followed relatively straight forward rules of logic and principles of law, the next crises did not, and instead used deceit and misinformation and violence to decide the question.  

The year was 1300 and the centennial of the church. Pope Boniface declared a year long celebration. It had been three years since the Pope’s humiliating loss over the right to decide if and when the clergy could be taxed. Philip the Fair tried to “assert once and for all his mastery over his own kingdom” when the second crisis between Philip and Boniface began. In 1300, Philip arrested Bishop Saisset. It really did not matter if he was guilty of any crimes.  Instead, the issue began as another question of the rules of law. It ended as another important test of strength between a pope and a monarch.

  

According to Church Canon, a bishop could only be tried by the pope. However, Philip refused to allow the Church to do so and Boniface, with the consent and approval of the College of Cardinals sent a personal letter other documents to attempt to settle the dispute. Furthermore, because Boniface also had other issues that needed to be address, he ordered all the Bishops to Rome for a November meeting to be held the following year. However, in a test of strength, when Philip found out about the bishops meeting, he refused to allow them to go. Instead, Philip burned the papal letter and documents and new forged new ones, making it seem as if the Pontiff had claimed attempted to claim feudal lordship over all France. To further his own power, Philip  created a brand new institution made up of nobles, commons, and clergy. This three prong entity met at the Cathedral of Notre Dame seven months before the bishops were supposed to be in Rome. During the meeting, the chief minister of France, Pierre Flotte repeated the story about Boniface claiming lordship over France knowing that if a lie were repeated often enough, people would accept it as fact. Flotte claimed Boniface had been in direct violation of God with the statements in the letter and accordingly should be branded a heretic. The repeated lies seemed to work. Everyone, it seemed, either believed the lies and forged documents or wanted to believe them. Seven months later, less than half of the French Bishops attended the mandatory meeting that November in Rome. 

To make matters worse, the meeting was a colossal failure. Boniface, in desperation to regain lost papal power, released the Unam Sanctam, “A set of general theological propositions about the nature of the church and the position of the pope within it.”

  The Unam Sanctam, by its very nature made any compromise between Boniface and Philip impossible. Philip, in retaliation, sent his new minister, Guillaume De Nogaret with several hundred mercenaries to kidnap Boniface. The plan initially worked but ultimately failed when the townspeople managed to rescue Boniface three days later. However, Boniface, given neither food nor water when as a prisoner never fully recovered from the ordeal and he ultimately died several months later, leading to a succession of new popes.

  

Eventually, a Frenchman named Clement V became pope.  As Pope, he stated the, “Unam Sanctam was not to be interpreted as any new claim by the papacy to lordship over France.”

 Instead Pope Clement V attempted to placate Philip by publicly commending Philip for his actions. However by this time it no longer mattered. Philip no longer seemed to care how he was viewed by the Catholic Church because Philip instinctively understood power had shifted from the Church to that of the monarchy.

 Therefore, Philip had completed the process earlier kings and emperors had started when they each attempted to use the law, deceit, disinformation, threats, and violence to overcome papal claims to supernatural authority.

Nation-States Don't Have To Follow Anyone Else's Rules

     Last week the Tehran Times quoted Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as saying Iran is helping Venezuela to produce US military style unmanned drones as part of their cooperation with other allies. Last year Iran shot down one of the US drones and then claimed to reverse engineer the drone to produce their own similar style drone. Now it has given the drone plans to Chavez, who claimed in an interview that the drones would only be used defensively and said, “We don’t have any plans to harm anyone.” Furthermore, when the Spanish media reported U.S. prosecutors were investigating the drone production. Of this Chavez reportedly said, “Of course we are doing it, and we have the right to. We are a free and independent country.”

     So why is this important? Combined with the reason Russia is supporting Syria and for Syria explaining it shot down a Turkish F-4 Jet that may or may not have accidentally flown into Syrian airspace and it demonstrates how difficult it is to force a free and independent country to do anything it does not want to do. This also demonstrates the long held principle by great political thinkers that explains the difference between the rights of nations and the rights of individuals. For example, for individuals, there is always a higher power to coerce them into doing things for the State or Nation. However, for Nations and Nation-States, there is no such thing as a higher power. Instead, the only forms of coercion possible tend to be either monetary or military. In the case of monetary coercion, the UN can levy sanctions which may or may not have any affect on the people of the country. However, while the case for military coercion is much more expensive and dangerous, it is nevertheless used far too often and quickly before other forms of diplomatic solutions might be found.

For the complete story from Iran in English, check out the Tehran Times at the following link: http://www.tehrantimes.com/politics/98783-iran-helping-venezuela-build-drones

Iran's Shooting Down the Turkish F-4: Accident or Deliberate?

While Syria finally admitted it accidentally shot down a Turkish F-4 fighter jet on June 22, 2012, the BBC is reporting the shooting down of the jet was likely not an accident, even though Syria stated the Turkish jet flew into their territorial waters, thereby prompting the Syrian military air defense to shoot it down, claiming at the time, that as far as they were concerned, it was an unknown aircraft flying into their airspace. Although no one can say for sure, one of the many problems in Syria is that Syrian civilians are trying to escape the civil war by fleeing to Turkey. Could it be that the shooting down of the F-4 might have been Syria’s way of telling Turkey to mind its own business and to stop helping the Syrians cross the boarder? With no proof, its hard to say for certain either way. 

Smart Phones and Water Pumps!

Can a smart phone app help save a village?

New smart phones are being plugged into hand operated water pumps in Africa. As reported in the Journal of Hydrinformatics, UK researches say they developed the technology to help millions of people across rural Sub Saharan Africa get reliable access to water. Unfortunately, many of these pumps are in such remote locations that if the pump breaks down, the people there often don’t get their pumps repaired for a month or more. However, with the new technology, if the pump breaks down, a special smart phone sends a text message directly to the repair center who then can make arrangements to get the pump fixed immediately, instead of waiting for a hand delivered message to make its way to civilization. 

So how does the pump know if its broken? Oxford University students developed and tested a mobile transmitter into the handle of the pump that measures the amount of water flow into the hand pump. I then periodically sends a message back to a central office that analyzes the data. If needed, they can then send out a repair team to fix the pump when needed.

The pilot program will begin with 70 villages in Kenya.

The reason this story is important on the grand scheme is not just because of the water pump saving individuals from drought, but because of terrorism. If a village is not being helped, or villagers need basic services that are not being satisfied by their own government, then terrorist groups step in to fill the void. They don’t do this out of any goodness of their heart, they do it to gain support from local communities who then end up allowing their children and young adults to join the terror groups. It may not the only reason people join terror groups, but never-the-less, it has been proven that if a government cannot protect and give the people the things they need to survive, then terror groups thrive by providing the humanitarian aid the government cannot, or will not. 

Fighting terror by using a telephone app to provide fresh water. Seems pretty good to me.

Vampires? Historian looks at idea:

Unlike the ridiculous stories about werewolves and other creatures from “B Movies” this story is real.

Archaeologists in Bulgaria announced they found two more medieval skeletons pieced through their chests with iron rods.  

Local historians state the discovery illustrates a common pagan practice common in some villages until a century ago. 

It turns out that similar archaeological sites have also been found in the Balkans and the latest specimens bring the total number, of what has been called the “vampire skeletons” to around 100 known burials. 

So why were their hearts really pierced with the steel bars? According to the local historians familiar with the practice, it seems that anyone considered evil or bad had their hearts stabbed after their death because it was common to fear they might otherwise return from the dead to feast on people’s blood. 

Historian Bozhidar Dimitrov, head of the National History Museum in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, says it was believed the rod would effectively pin the dead into their graves and prevent them from leaving at midnight to terrorize people living in the villages.  

These skeleton remains are important because the mythology associated with this practice inspired Bram Stoker’s to write his gothic novel, “Dracula,” first published in 1897. 

There really is a Captain Piccard!

Science News: There really is a Captain Piccard!

The BBC this week reported a solar-powered aircraft the size of a jumbo jet, but weighing about as much as a family sedan, made a 1,500 mile trip from Madrid, Spain to Morocco in just 19 hours. The pilot’s name is Captain Picard, Bertrand Piccard that is. Believe it or not, the plane uses 12,000 solar cells that turn four electrical motors. 

The reason the Solar Impulse project is important is that it proves that the sun’s energy really is strong enough to keep the a plane the size of a jumbo jet in the air for more than a 24 hours straight. The onboard batteries were also strong enough to keep the airplane flying through the night too.

Although the engineering is impressive, the BBC stated this trip was only a dress rehearsal for a much longer trip. Believe it or not, they are building a new aircraft and are planning a trip around the world, scheduled for the year 2014.