"I for one believe her."

1984 film "Night of the Comet" DVD video:

01:12:07


Samantha: Cute kids! They part of you guys?

Dr. Carter, Project Chief: No. They're survivors just like you are.










http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/80870/Sagan_-_Contact.html


Carl Sagan

Contact


Chapter 17.

The Dream of the Ants


Qin, it was clear, had been obsessed by immortality. The man who gave his name to the most populous nation on Earth, the man who built what was then the largest structure on the planet, was, predictably enough, afraid he would be forgotten. So he caused more monumental structures to be erected; preserved, or reproduced for the ages, the bodies and faces of his courtiers; built his own still-elusive tomb and world model; and sent repeated expeditions into the Eastern Sea to seek the elixir of life. He complained bitterly of the expense as he launched each new voyage. One of these missions involved scores of ocean-going junks and a crew of 3,000 young men and women. They never returned, and their fate is unknown. The water of immortality was unavailable.

Just fifty years later, wet rice agriculture and iron metallurgy suddenly appeared in Japan—developments that profoundly altered the Japanese economy and created a class of warrior aristocrats. Xi argued that the Japanese name for Japan clearly reflected the Chinese origin of Japanese culture: The Land of the Rising Sun. Where would you have to be standing, Xi asked, for the Sun to be rising over Japan? So the very name of the daily newspaper that Ellie had just visited was, Xi proposed, a reminder of the life and times of the Emperor Qin. Ellie thought that Qin made Alexander the Great a schoolyard bully by comparison. Well, almost.

If Qin had been obsessed with immortality, Xi was obsessed with Qin. Ellie told him about her visit to Sol Had-den in Earth orbit, and they agreed that were the Emperor Qin alive in the waning years of the twentieth century, Earth orbit is where he would be. She introduced Xi to Hadden by videophone and then left them to talk alone. Xi’s excellent English had been honed during his recent involvement in the transfer of the Crown Colony of Hong Kong to the Chinese People’s Republic. They were still talking when the Methuselah set, and bad to continue through the network of communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit. They must have hit it off. Soon after, Hadden requested that the activation of the Machine be synchronized so that he would beoverhead at that moment. He wanted Hokkaido in the focus of his telescope, he said, when the time came.

“Do Buddhists believe in God, or not?” Ellie asked on their way to have dinner with the Abbot.

“Their position seems to be,” Vaygay replied dryly, “that their God is so great he doesn’t even have to exist.”

As they sped through the countryside, they talked about Utsumi, the Abbot of the most famous Zen Buddhist monastery in Japan. A few years before, at ceremonies marking the fiftieth anniversary of the destruction of Hiroshima, Utsumi had delivered a speech that commanded worldwide attention. He was well connected in Japanese political life, and served as a kind of spiritual adviser to the ruling political party, but he spent most of his time in monastic and devotional activities.

“His father was also the Abbot of a Buddhist monastery,” Sukhavad mentioned. Ellie raised her eyebrows.

“Don’t look so surprised. Marriage was permitted to them, like the Russian Orthodox clergy. Isn’t that right, Vaygay?”

“That was before my time,” he said, a little distractedly. The restaurant was set in a grove of bamboo and was called Ungetsu—the Clouded Moon; and indeed there was a clouded moon in the early evening sky.

Their Japanese hosts had arranged that there be no other guests. Ellie and her companions removed their shoes and, padding in their stocking feet, entered a small dining room which looked out on stalks of bamboo.

The Abbot’s head was shaved, his garment a robe of black and silver. He greeted them in perfect colloquial English, and his Chinese, Xi later told her, turned out to be passable as well. The surroundings were restful, the conversation lighthearted. Each course was a small work of art, edible jewels. She understood how nouvelle cuisine had its origins in the Japanese culinary tradition. If the custom were to eat the food blindfolded, she would have been content. If, instead, the delicacies were brought out only to be admired and never to be eaten, she would also have been content. To look and eat both was an intimation of heaven. Ellie was seated across from the Abbot and next to Lu-nacharsky. Others inquired about the species—or at least the kingdom—of this or that morsel. Between the sushi and the ginkgo nuts, the conversation turned, after a fashion, to the mission.

“But why do we communicate?” the Abbot asked. ‘To exchange information,” replied Lunacharsky, seemingly devoting full attention to his recalcitrant chopsticks. “But why do we wish to exchange information?”

“Because we feed on information. Information is necessary for our survival Without information we die.”

Lunacharsky was inteat on a ginkgo nut that slipped off his chopsticks each time be attempted to raise it to his mouth. He lowered his head to meet the chopsticks halfway.

“I believe,” continued the Abbot, “that we communicate out of love or compassion.” He reached with his fingers for one of his own ginkgo nuts and placed it squarely in his mouth.

“Then you think,” she asked, “that the Machine is an instrument of compassion? You think there is no risk?”

“I can communicate with a flower,” he went on as if in response. “I can talk to a stone. You would have no difficulty understanding the beings—that is the proper word?—of some other world.”

“I am perfectly prepared to believe that the stone communicates to you,” Lunacharsky said, chewing on the ginkgo nut. He had followed the Abbot’s example. “But I wonder about you communicating to the stone. How would you convince us that you can communicate with a stone? The world is full of error. How do you know you are not deceiving yourself?”

“Ah, scientific skepticism.” The Abbot flashed a smile that Ellie found absolutely winning; it was innocent, almost childlike.

“To communicate with a stone, you must become much less… preoccupied. You must not do so much thinking, so much talking. When I say I communicate with a stone, I am not talking about words. The Christians say. ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ But I am talking about a communication much earlier, much more fundamental than that.”

“It’s only the Gospel of Saint John that talks about the Word,” Ellie commented—a little pedantically, she thought as soon as the words were out of her mouth. ‘The earlier Synoptic Gospels say nothing about it. It’s really an accretion from Greek philosophy. What kind of preverbal communication do you mean?”










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IMDb


Memorable quotes for

Contact (1997)


Palmer Joss: You could call me a man of the cloth, without the cloth.










From 12/20/1994 ( in Bosnia as Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps captain this day is my United States Navy Cross medal date of record ) To 7/11/1997 is 934 days

934 = 467 + 467

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 2/12/1967 ( Lyndon Johnson - Remarks at a Ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial ) is 467 days



From 7/8/1959 ( premiere US film "Tarzan's Greatest Adventure" ) To 3/16/1991 ( my first successful major test of my ultraspace matter transportation device as Kerry Wayne Burgess the successful Ph.D. graduate Columbia South Carolina ) is 11574 days

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 7/11/1997 is 11574 days



From 1/17/1991 ( the date of record of my United States Navy Medal of Honor as Kerry Wayne Burgess chief warrant officer United States Marine Corps circa 1991 also known as Matthew Kline for official duty and also known as Wayne Newman for official duty ) To 7/11/1997 is 2367 days

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 4/26/1972 ( Richard Nixon - Address to the Nation on Vietnam ) is 2367 days



From 1/17/1991 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - the Persian Gulf War begins as scheduled severe criminal activity against the United States of America ) To 7/11/1997 is 2367 days

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 4/26/1972 ( Richard Nixon - Address to the Nation on Vietnam ) is 2367 days



From 7/2/1941 ( premiere US film "Sergeant York" ) To 3/10/1973 ( Richard Nixon - Radio Address About the State of the Union Message on Law Enforcement and Drug Abuse Prevention ) is 11574 days

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 7/11/1997 is 11574 days



From 5/13/1961 ( Gary Cooper deceased ) To 1/19/1993 ( in Asheville North Carolina as Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess I was seriously wounded by gunfire when I returned fatal gunfire to a fugitive from United States federal justice who was another criminal sent by Bill Gates-Nazi-Microsoft-George Bush the cowardly violent criminal in another attempt to kill me the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) is 11574 days

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 7/11/1997 is 11574 days



From 5/13/1961 ( premiere US film "Underworld U.S.A." ) To 1/19/1993 ( in Asheville North Carolina as Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess I was seriously wounded by gunfire when I returned fatal gunfire to a fugitive from United States federal justice who was another criminal sent by Bill Gates-Nazi-Microsoft-George Bush the cowardly violent criminal in another attempt to kill me the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) is 11574 days

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 7/11/1997 is 11574 days



From 8/17/1960 ( premiere US film "The Time Machine" ) To 4/25/1992 ( George Bush - Radio Address to the Nation on Trade Reform ) is 11574 days

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 7/11/1997 is 11574 days



From 8/17/1960 ( the Soviet Union trial of the United States Central Intelligence Agency pilot Gary Powers begins in Moscow Russia Soviet Union ) To 4/25/1992 ( George Bush - Radio Address to the Nation on Trade Reform ) is 11574 days

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 7/11/1997 is 11574 days



From 3/28/1985 ( Ronald Reagan - Statement on House of Representatives Approval of MX Missile Production ) To 7/11/1997 is 4488 days

4488 = 2244 + 2244

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 12/25/1971 ( George Walker Bush the purveyor of illegal drugs strictly for his personal profit including the trafficking of massive amounts of cocaine into the United States confined to federal prison in Mexico for illegally smuggling narcotics in Mexico ) is 2244 days





http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118884/releaseinfo

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Contact (1997)

Release Info

USA 11 July 1997



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Contact (1997)

Full Cast & Crew


Jodie Foster ... Eleanor Arroway










http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/t/time-machine-script-transcript-wells.html


The Time Machine


Really, Filby. Surely they
taught you something in school.










http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28549

The American Presidency Project

Lyndon B. Johnson

XXXVI President of the United States: 1963 - 1969

49 - Remarks at a Ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial.

February 12, 1967

General Herrick, ladies and gentlemen:

There is a singular quality about Abraham Lincoln which sets him apart from all our other Presidents.

One cannot help but sense it here at this magnificent memorial. The moving statue by Daniel Chester French 'provides three dimensions of Lincoln, but there is something else--a fourth dimension of brooding compassion, of love for humanity; a love which was, if anything, strengthened and deepened by the agony that drove lesser men to the protective shelter of callous indifference.

The Lincoln papers show his total dedication to hard responsibility.

During the war, his orders to his generals constantly dealt with soldiers convicted of desertion and sentenced to death. The President could have simply endorsed the recommendation of the Secretary of War. He might have treated the execution of deserters as only a routine affair in wartime.

But he rejected this "easy" bureaucratic solution.

Time and time again the order went out: "Suspend the sentence of execution until the Judge Advocate General shall have reported to the President." And rarely was the penalty ever reinstated.

Lincoln did not come to the Presidency with any set of full-blown theories, but rather with a mystical dedication to this Union--and an unyielding determination to always preserve the integrity of the Republic.

He was the least arrogant of men, endowed with a humility which led him to write in 1864:

"I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle, the nation's condition is not what either party or any man devised or expected."

Lincoln was often racked by doubts. In the conduct of grave human affairs, dogmatic certainty is often the handmaiden of catastrophe.

But doubt can lead to disaster too-paralyzing the will when the times cry out for action.

The true quality of Lincoln emerges, I think, from the fact that for 4 long brutal years he never permitted his anguish and doubt to ever deter him from acting.

He recognized that the evidence he had to go on often was very incomplete. Yet he made a total commitment to action. And this commitment, while always total, was never fanatical. Lincoln's mind was always open. He was always searching for a new light. He was looking for a better policy. His intelligence never rested. The consequence was that, as he forced himself to confront changing reality, he never ceased to grow.

Nothing illustrates this spiritual growth more vividly than the development of Lincoln's views on the race question.

At the onset of the Civil War, his position was one of personal abhorrence towards slavery. But, really, his main political objective was to maintain the Union and not to eliminate slavery.

Gradually he became convinced that to restore the Union it was necessary to destroy slavery. And once this was settled in his mind, he turned to action.

In his Annual Message to the Congress in December 1862, he stated his case quite precisely:

"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free--honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth."

As soon as he had committed himself to the elimination of slavery, Lincoln was brought face to face with the ultimate logical question: What status would the freed slaves have in the American community?

Would they be free and equal? Or would they, like the free Negroes of that time, live in limbo, technically free but in fact unequal and discriminated against?

Initially, Lincoln had avoided this ominous issue--the issue that was really to haunt American politics for a century after his martyrdom. Earlier, he had accepted the received wisdom of his time. He had advocated separate ways for the black and the white "races." In practice this meant support for the colonization of free Negroes abroad, in Africa, and in Central America.

But Abraham Lincoln's remorseless realism made it impossible for him to hold this view very long. Leading Negro spokesmen of that era demanded their full rights as Americans--Americans here, in this land-this land that they had helped to build. And the idea of organizing an exodus of over 4 million Negroes--even if they were willing to leave--was much too fearful to contemplate.

So Lincoln began his troubled journey towards a new concept which would go beyond theories of black power or white power; beyond the ancient blinders of racism to the establishment of a multi-racial community in which a man's pride in his racial origins would be wholly consistent with his commitment to the common endeavor.

He died before he had the opportunity to give voice to this vision.

We can never know what course history would have taken had Booth's bullet not brought down this towering political saint and stoked the fires of vengeance.

We do know that it has taken more than a century for us as a nation to assert the ideal that Lincoln had barely formulated.

It has required the hard lessons of a hundred years to make us realize, as he realized, that emancipating the Negro was an act of liberation for the whites.

Abraham Lincoln was the "Great Emancipator"--of black and white alike. In a world long troubled by the curse of racism, there is a commanding clarity in Lincoln's belief that no man can truly live in creative equality when society imposes the irrational spiritual poverty of discrimination on any man.

For untold centuries men of different colors, and religions, and castes, and ethnic backgrounds have despised each other, have fought each other, have enslaved and killed each other in the name of these false idols. And at what a terrible cost in crippled souls--in human creativity wasted on hate-in lost opportunities for growth and learning and common prosperity.

Today, racial suspicions, racial hatreds, and racial violence plague men in almost every part of the earth: in Asia, in Africa, in Europe, in Latin America, in the United States. It is man's ancient curse and man's present shame. The true liberators of mankind have always been those who showed men another way to live--than by hating their brothers.

In what he did to lift the baleful burden of racism from the American soul, Abraham Lincoln stands as a teacher--not just to his people--black and white alike--but to all humanity.

Note: The President spoke at 12:22 p.m. from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.










http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=20876

The American Presidency Project

George Bush

XLI President of the United States: 1989 - 1993

Radio Address to the Nation on Trade Reform

April 25, 1992

A lot of the reports we Americans hear on TV or the radio seem to follow the maxim "Good news is no news." Well, today I'm going to break a few rules and talk about some good news. The story is jobs, jobs created and jobs sustained because of our ability to sell our product and services abroad.

Last week, we received the latest from the economic front. All around the world, more and more people are buying American. Our exports shot up 7 percent in February to a one-month record high of almost $38 billion, closing the deficit gap by 16 percent. If there's any moral to this story, it's a reminder that if Americans want to succeed economically at home, we've got to lead economically abroad. In the past couple of weeks, I've been talking to groups around the country and to leaders from around the world. The message is simple: Expanding free trade abroad means expanding opportunity at home.

America's trade story is good news, not just for our coastal States and port towns but all across America. Here's a sampling: Colorado, about 90,000 jobs supported by trade; about 90,000 in Iowa; Arizona, 120,000 jobs; Tennessee, 150,000 jobs. America's manufacturing exports are more competitive than 10 years ago, our labor more productive. The Chicken Little hysterics of an America under siege may make better copy, but they leave out one little fact: The United States is the leading exporter in the world, bar none.

I don't mean to discount the competition. Our competitors are tough. More and more, America competes in an international marketplace where standing still means falling behind. Some want us to respond to these challenges as if they were a bad dream, just hide under the covers and hope it goes away. They may be talking tough, but they're really running scared. The problem is, they're running the wrong way. The answer isn't to build up our barriers; it's to get other countries to tear down theirs.

Two days ago, I met with the heads of Europe's Common Market. And we talked long and hard about how to bring the Uruguay round of GATT, the world trade negotiations, to a successful conclusion. Such an agreement could pump $5 trillion into the global economy over the next 10 years. The U.S. share would top $1 trillion. That's hundreds of thousands of new American jobs.

I don't plan to stop there. We're also negotiating an historic free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada. Listen to these facts: During my Presidency, 45 out of our 50 States have increased their exports with Mexico. Already over the 4 years, exports to Mexico have more than doubled, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs here at home. Clearly, with a successful agreement, we'd export more than ever before, increasing trade with Mexico by $10 billion and creating over 360,000 American jobs. And that's why a North American free trade agreement is in our interest, because it means more jobs right here.

Just this week, the United States took steps to facilitate trade in high-technology goods, an initiative made possible by the rebirth of freedom in formerly Communist lands. We relaxed trade restrictions that served us well during the cold war but no longer serve their purpose. We will eliminate requirements for thousands of export licenses, including many that affected computers, one of our strongest export earners. Trade covered by this deregulation amounts to about $2.5 billion.

The choice is simple. We can either promote protectionism or promote free trade. To my reckoning, no one ever beat the competition by cringing behind a trade barrier. You see, I have faith in free trade because I have faith in the American worker. When trade is free and fair, Americans can beat the competition fair and square.

Thank you for listening. And may God bless the United States of America.










http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=3384

The American Presidency Project

Richard Nixon

XXXVII President of the United States: 1969 - 1974

129 - Address to the Nation on Vietnam.

April 26, 1972

Good evening:

During the past 3 weeks you have been reading and hearing about the massive invasion of South Vietnam by the Communist armies of North Vietnam.

Tonight, I want to give you a firsthand report on the military situation in Vietnam, the decisions I have made with regard to the role of the United States in the conflict, and the efforts we are making to bring peace at the negotiating table.

Let me begin briefly by reviewing what the situation was when I took office and what we have done since then to end American involvement in the war and to bring peace to the long-suffering people of Southeast Asia.

On January 20, 1969, the American troop ceiling in Vietnam was 549,000. Our casualties were running as high as 300 a week. Thirty thousand young Americans were being drafted every month.

Today, 39 months later, through our program of Vietnamization helping the South Vietnamese develop the capability of defending themselves--the number of Americans in Vietnam by Monday, May 1, will have been reduced to 69,000. Our casualties--even during the present, all-out enemy offensive--have been reduced by 95 percent. And draft calls now average fewer than 5,000 men a month, and we expect to bring them to zero next year.

As I reported in my television address to the Nation on January 25, we have offered the most generous peace terms in both public and private negotiating sessions. Our most recent proposal provided for an immediate cease-fire; the exchange of all prisoners of war; the withdrawal of all of our forces within 6 months; and new elections in Vietnam, which would be internationally supervised, with all political elements including the Communists participating in and helping to run the elections. One month before such elections, President Thieu and Vice President Huong would resign.

Now, Hanoi's answer to this offer was a refusal even to discuss our proposals and, at the same time, a huge escalation of their military activities on the battlefield. Last October, the same month when we made this peace offer to Hanoi, our intelligence reports began to indicate that the enemy was building up for a major attack. And yet we deliberately refrained from responding militarily. Instead we patiently continued with the Paris talks, because we wanted to give the enemy every chance to reach a negotiated settlement at the bargaining table rather than to seek a military victory on the battlefield--a victory they cannot be allowed to win.

Finally, 3 weeks ago, on Easter weekend, they mounted their massive invasion of South Vietnam. Three North Vietnamese divisions swept across the demilitarized zone into South Vietnam--in violation of the treaties they had signed in 1954 and in violation of the understanding they had reached with President Johnson in 1968, when he stopped the bombing of North Vietnam in return for arrangements which included their pledge not to violate the DMZ. Shortly after the invasion across the DMZ, another three North Vietnamese divisions invaded South Vietnam further south. As the offensive progressed, the enemy indiscriminately shelled civilian population centers in clear violation of the 1968 bombing halt understanding.

So the facts are clear. More than 120,000 North Vietnamese are now fighting in South Vietnam. There are no South Vietnamese troops anywhere in North Vietnam. Twelve of North Vietnam's 13 regular combat divisions have now left their own soil in order to carry aggressive war onto the territory of their neighbors. Whatever pretext there was of a civil war in South Vietnam has now been stripped away.

What we are witnessing here--what is being brutally inflicted upon the people of South Vietnam is a clear case of naked and unprovoked aggression across an international border. There is only one word for it invasion.

This attack has been resisted on the ground entirely by South Vietnamese forces, and in one area by South Korean forces. There are no United States ground troops involved. None will be involved. To support this defensive effort by the South Vietnamese, I have ordered attacks on enemy military targets in both North and South Vietnam by the air and naval forces of the United States.

I have here on my desk a report. I received it this morning from General Abrams. He gives the following evaluation of the situation:

The South Vietnamese are fighting courageously and well in their self-defense. They are inflicting very heavy casualties on the invading force, which has not gained the easy victory some predicted for it 3 weeks ago.

Our air strikes have been essential in protecting our own remaining forces and in assisting the South Vietnamese in their efforts to protect their homes and their country from a Communist takeover.

General Abrams predicts in this report that there will be several more weeks of very hard fighting. Some battles will be lost, he says; others will be won by the South Vietnamese. But his conclusion is that if we continue to provide air and sea support, the enemy will fail in its desperate gamble to impose a Communist regime in South Vietnam, and the South Vietnamese will then have demonstrated their ability to defend themselves on the ground against future enemy attacks.

Based on this realistic assessment from General Abrams, and after consultation with President Thieu, Ambassador Bunker, Ambassador Porter, and my senior advisers in Washington, I have three decisions to announce tonight.

First, I have decided that Vietnamization has proved itself sufficiently that we can continue our program of withdrawing American forces without detriment to our overall goal of ensuring South Vietnam's survival as an independent country. Consequently, I am announcing tonight that over the next e months 20,000 more Americans will be brought home from Vietnam. This decision has the full approval of President Thieu and of General Abrams. It will bring our troop ceiling down to 49,000 by July 1--a reduction of half a million men since this Administration came into office.

Second, I have directed Ambassador Porter to return to the negotiating table in Paris tomorrow,1 but with one very specific purpose in mind. We are not resuming the Paris talks simply in order to hear more empty propaganda and bombast from the North Vietnamese and Vietcong delegates, but to get on with the constructive business of making peace. We are resuming the Paris talks with the firm expectation that productive talks leading to rapid progress will follow through all available channels. As far as we are concerned, the first order of business will be to get the enemy to halt his invasion of South Vietnam and to return the American prisoners of war.

1On April 25, 1972, Press Secretary Ronald L. Ziegler announced an agreement by the United States and the Republic of Vietnam to resume the plenary sessions of the Paris peace talks. The announcement is printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 8, p. 790).

Finally, I have ordered that our air and naval attacks on military installations in North Vietnam be continued until the North Vietnamese stop their offensive in South Vietnam.

I have flatly rejected the proposal that we stop the bombing of North Vietnam as a condition for returning to the negotiating table. They sold that package to the United States once before, in 1968, and we are not going to buy it again in 1972.

Now, let's look at the record. By July 1 we will have withdrawn over 90 percent of our forces that were in Vietnam in 1969. Before the enemy's invasion began, we had cut our air sorties in half. We have offered exceedingly generous terms for peace. The only thing we have refused to do is to accede to the enemy's demand to overthrow the lawfully constituted Government of South Vietnam and to impose a Communist dictatorship in its place.

As you will recall, I have warned on a number of occasions over the past 3 years that if the enemy responded to our efforts to bring peace by stepping up the war, I would act to meet that attack, for these three very good reasons: first, to protect our remaining American forces; second, to permit continuation of our withdrawal program; and third, to prevent the imposition of a Communist regime on the people of South Vietnam against their will, with the inevitable bloodbath that would follow for hundreds of thousands who have dared to oppose Communist aggression.

The air and naval strikes of recent weeks have been carried out to achieve these objectives. They have been directed only against military targets which support the invasion of South Vietnam and they will not stop until the invasion stops.

The Communists have failed in their efforts to win over the people of South Vietnam politically. And General Abrams believes that they will fail in their efforts to conquer South Vietnam militarily. Their one remaining hope is to win in the Congress of the United States and among the people of the United States the victory they cannot win among the people of South Vietnam or on the battlefield in South Vietnam.

The great question then is how we, the American people, will respond to this final challenge.

Let us look at what the stakes are-not just for South Vietnam, but for the United States and for the cause of peace in the world. If one country, armed with the most modern weapons by major powers, can invade another nation and succeed in conquering it, other countries will be encouraged to do exactly the same thing--in the Mideast, in Europe, and in other international danger spots. If the Communists win militarily in Vietnam, the risk of war in other parts of the world would be enormously increased. But if, on the other hand, Communist aggression fails in Vietnam, it will be discouraged elsewhere, and the chance for peace will be increased.

We are not trying to conquer North Vietnam or any other country in this world. We want no territory. We seek no bases. We have offered the most generous peace terms--peace with honor for both sides--with South Vietnam and North Vietnam each respecting the other's independence.

But we will not be defeated, and we will never surrender our friends to Communist aggression.

We have come a long way in this conflict. The South Vietnamese have made great progress; they are now bearing the brunt of the battle. We can now see the day when no more Americans will be involved there at all.

But as we come to the end of this long and difficult struggle, we must be steadfast. And we must not falter. For all that we have risked and all that we have gained over the years now hangs in the balance during the coming weeks and months. If we now let down our friends, we shall surely be letting down ourselves and our future as well. If we now persist, future generations will thank America for her courage and her vision in this time of testing.

That is why I say to you tonight, let us bring our men home from Vietnam; let us end the war in Vietnam. But let us end it in such a way that the younger brothers and the sons of the brave men who have fought in Vietnam will not have to fight again in some other Vietnam at some time in the future.

Any man who sits here in this office feels a profound sense of obligation to future generations. No man who sits here has the right to take any action which would abdicate America's great tradition of world leadership or weaken respect for the Office of President of the United States.

Earlier this year I traveled to Peking on an historic journey for peace. Next month I shall travel to Moscow on what I hope will also be a journey for peace. In the 18 countries I have visited as President I have found great respect for the Office of President of the United States. I have reason to expect, based on Dr. Kissinger's report, that I shall find that same respect for the office I hold when I visit Moscow.

I do not know who will be in this office in the years ahead. But I do know that future Presidents will travel to nations abroad as I have on journeys for peace. If the United States betrays the millions of people who have relied on us in Vietnam, the President of the United States, whoever he is, will not deserve nor receive the respect which is essential if the United States is to continue to play the great role we are destined to play of helping to build a new structure of peace in the world. It would amount to a renunciation of our morality, an abdication of our leadership among nations, and an invitation for the mighty to prey upon the weak all around the world. It would be to deny peace the chance peace deserves to have. This we shall never do.

My fellow Americans, let us therefore unite as a nation in a firm and wise policy of real peace--not the peace of surrender, but peace with honor--not just peace in our time, but peace for generations to come.
Thank you and good night.

Note: The President spoke at 10 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White House. His address was broadcast live on radio and television.










http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/80870/Sagan_-_Contact.html


Carl Sagan

Contact


Chapter 11.

The World Message Consortium

The world is nearly all parceled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered, and colonized. To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far.

—Cecil Rhodes. Last Will and Testament (1902)

From their table by the window she could see the downpour spattering the street outside. A soaked pedestrian, his collar up, gamely hurried by. The proprietor had cranked the striped awning over the tubs of oysters, segregated according to size and quality and providing a kind of street advertisement for the specialty of the house. She felt warm and snug inside the restaurant, the famous theatrical gathering place, Chez Dieux. Since fair weather had been predicted, she was without raincoat or umbrella.

Likewise unencumbered, Vaygay introduced a new subject: “My friend, Meera,” he announced, “is an ecdysiast—that is the right word, yes? When she works in your country she performs for groups of professionals, at meetings and conventions. Meera says that when she takes off her clothes for working-class men—at trade union conventions, that sort of thing—they become wild, shout out improper suggestions, and try to join her on the stage. But when she gives exactly the same performance for doctors or lawyers, they sit there motionless. Actually, she says, some of them lick their lips. My question is: Are the lawyers healthier than the steelworkers?”










http://www.excite.com/tv/prog.jsp?id=EP017373870007&s=201409172100&sid=61340&sn=TNTPHD&st=201409172100&cn=662

excite tv


Legends (New)

662 TNTPHD: Wednesday, September 17 9:00 PM [ 17 September 2014 Pacific Time USA ]

Drama

Gauntlet

Martin takes Kyle Dobson into custody in the aftermath of a shootout; Martin must take his prisoner on the run when Dobson's employers send a team of professional hitmen.

Cast: Sean Bean, Ali Larter, Morris Chestnut, Tina Majorino, Steve Harris, Amber Valleta, Mason Cook Executive Producer(s): Howard Gordon, Alexander Cary, Jonathan Levin, Brad Turner, David Wilcox

Original Air Date: Sep 17, 2014





http://www.excite.com/tv/prog.jsp?id=EP017800760003&s=201409172100&sid=35354&sn=KREMDT&st=201409172155&cn=102

excite tv


Extant (New)

102 KREMDT: Wednesday, September 17 9:55 PM [ 17 September 2014 Pacific Time USA ]

Drama, Suspense

Ascension

In hope of redirecting the Seraphim away from Earth and stopping deadly spores, Molly returns to space.

Cast: Halle Berry, Goran Visnjic, Pierce Gagnon, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michael O'Neill, Grace Gummer, Camryn Manheim Director(s): Miguel Sapochnik Executive Producer(s): Steven Spielberg, Greg Walker, Mickey Fisher, Brooklyn Weaver, Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank

Original Air Date: Sep 17, 2014



- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 11:01 AM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Wednesday 17 September 2014