Sunday, January 18, 2009
Obama continues Bush Policies III
This deals with the question of interrogations.
Obama has promised that the US will never waterboard detainees, or subject them to other aggressive interrogation techniques.
Unless he has to.
When McCain was asked what he would do in the "ticking time bomb" situation, where we have in our custody a terrorist with knowledge of plots in progress that may kill Americans, his response was that in that case, he would expect the President to do whatever was necessary. That is exactly the position Obama is now taking: we won't torture detainees. Unless, of course, we need to!
All of this might make some kind of sense if you assume that the Bush administration had a nasty habit of hauling terrorists (or Democrats, maybe) off the street for no particular reason, and waterboarding them. In fact, though, a total of three top-ranking al Qaeda terrorists were waterboarded, in the period shortly after September 11 when there was good reason to believe that they had knowledge of plots that were still active. This was exactly the "ticking time bomb" scenario where McCain has explicitly admitted, and Obama now implicitly agrees, "torture," or harsh interrogation tactics anyway, may be necessary.
In short, Obama's posturing is meaningless and politically motivated. His policy will not be any different from President Bush's; he is just trying to score cheap political points. Obama is no dummy, and is acutely aware of the Bush administration's extraordinary record of keeping us safe from terrorist attacks over the last seven years. He knows that his approval rating will sink like a stone if he exposes Americans to mass murder because of a foolish consideration for the comfort of terrorists. If and when the time comes, he will act exactly as George Bush did.
(Also noted at Instapundit.)
Torture and the NRE
Newspeak -- new and improved!
The Dalai Lama and GWB
"It is difficult to deal with terrorism through non-violence," the Tibetan spiritual leader said delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture here.
He termed terrorism as the worst kind of violence which is not carried by a few mad people but by those who are very brilliant and educated.
"They (terrorists) are very brilliant and educated...but a strong ill feeling is bred in them. Their minds are closed," the Dalai Lama said.
He said the only way to tackle terrorism is through prevention.
Suicidalism
Armed and Dangerous offers a take on a doctrine he calls "suicidalism".
self-loathing that afflicts too many Western intellectuals. Nor, I
believe, is it a natural development. It was brought to us by
Department V of the KGB, which was charged during the Cold War with
conducting memetic warfare that would destroy the will of the West's
intelligentsia to resist a Communist takeover. This they did with
such magnificent effect that the infection outlasted the Soviet Union
itself and remains a pervasive disease of contemporary Western
intellectual life.
Consider the following propositions:
- There is no truth, only competing agendas.
- All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority
over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West's history of racism and
colonialism. - There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture
to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such
standards is an evil oppressor. - The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of
the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be
impoverished and miserable. - Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal.
Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to
criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it. - The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only
victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals
are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying
with poor people and criminals.) - For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It
is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself.
But "oppressed" people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are
merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors. - When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner
is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist's point of
view, and make concessions.
These ideas travel under many labels: postmodernism, nihilism,
multiculturalism, Third-World-ism, pacifism, "political correctness"
to name just a few. It is time to recognize them for what they are,
and call them by their right name: suicidalism.
Transition -- a study in contrasts
At approximately 12:30 PM on Tuesday, January 20, 2009, the first members of Barack Hussein Obama's official staff will walk up the sidewalk from the parking area between the White House and the Old Executive Office Building and enter the north entrance of the west wing. They will find the offices neat and clean, the desks and file cabinets all empty, the supply cabinets well stocked, the floors and carpets freshly cleaned, and telephones, computers, and FAX machines all in place and in working order, ready to be put to use.
When Obama, himself, enters the White House following the inaugural parade, he will be better prepared to begin serving than any president in history. His predecessor, George Bush, has seen to that. The president and every departing member of his staff have leaned over backward to make the transition as smooth and seamless as possible. Bush has even gone so far as to ask the Congress to release the remaining $350 billion of the $700 billion in Toxic Asset Recovery Program (TARP) funds so that Obama can have a pot of money to spend immediately... and later place all the blame on George Bush when it turns out to be money wasted.
Contrast this transfer of power, from Republicans to Democrats, with the last presidential transition, from Democrats to Republicans. January 20, 2001 was a cold dreary day, rainy and foggy with temperatures in the mid-30s. But the coolness of the day could not compare to the chill that the Bush people felt when they entered the White House that afternoon. According to news report of the day, one of Bush's first acts as president was to order an investigation into what appeared to be "a systematic disabling" of White House communications equipment and a general "trashing" of the White House, the people's house, by members of Bill Clinton's staff.
As news stories described the scene, White House telephone lines were cut and voice-mail messages were rerecorded with lewd and obscene greetings. One Bush staffer's grandmother called from the Midwest and was "horrified" by what she heard on his answering machine.
White House communications were extremely difficult because many telephone lines had been rerouted to the wrong offices. Desks were turned upside down, rubbish was scattered across the floors, file cabinet drawers were glued shut, pornographic photographs and obscene slogans were found in computer printers, and lewd graffiti messages had been scrawled on walls with magic markers. Hundreds of computer keyboards were found to be missing the letter "W". In some instances the 'W' keys had been taped to walls above the doorways, twelve feet above the floor. Others were found attached to the walls with superglue.
Offices in Vice President Cheney's quarters were found in what was described as a "complete shambles." When told of the vandalism, the former vice president's wife, Tipper, confessed to being "mortified" by the actions of her husband's staff and issued a personal apology to Cheney.
The extent of the vandalism was so great that Bush staffers were ordered not to speak publicly about the trashing of the White House by the departing Clinton people.
A video to check out
Climate changes
Torture prosecutions in the near future?
Does Eric Holder's statement mean he's going to prosecute Bush Administration figures for torture?
Eric Posner, writing at the Volokh Conspiracy, doesn't think so. Among other reasons:
3. There are other more mundane reasons that will allow Justice Department officials to persuade themselves not to investigate and/or prosecute that are not connected to politics. Prosecutors prosecute when they believe that they will win. To do otherwise is to waste public resources that could be used to put people in jail. Any experienced prosecutor would engage in the following train of reasoning (even putting aside the immunity provisions in the Military Commissions Act). The waterboarders themselves will testify that they received assurances from superiors and lawyers that waterboarding is not illegal, and that they believed that waterboarding was necessary to protect the nation. The superiors, up to Bush himself, will testify that lawyers assured them that waterboarding is not illegal, and that they believed that waterboarding was necessary to protect the nation. The lawyers will testify that they honestly believed that waterboarding is not torture—it caused “pain” but not “severe pain,” in the language of the statute—and that in any event statutes need to be interpreted narrowly to avoid a conflict with the president’s commander-in-chief powers. The jury will believe all these people and it will refuse to convict or, at best, it will hang, prolonging everyone’s agony. It might refuse to convict because it doesn’t believe that anyone has the requisite mens rea; because it doesn’t understand the law; or because (most likely) it just doesn’t believe that people should go to jail when they are trying to protect the nation and the law in question is confusing or ambiguous.
4. Back to politics. One can easily imagine the defense strategy, which will start by calling to the stand various Democratic senators and representatives who had been informed of the interrogation tactics and did not publicly object to them at the time. The testimony would surely be entertaining, as the politicians would be put in the impossible position of either admitting their moral complicity, which would make the entire trial look like a political show trial designed to punish Republicans but not Democrats, or looking like cowards who knew that the government was breaking the law but despite their oath to the Constitution were unwilling to do anything about it. Do Obama and Holder really want to put leaders of their own party in Congress in this position?
5. Finally, just what is Holder’s position on these issues? Has he really committed himself to anything? What about the all-important issue of executive power (I’ve added emphasis to certain sentences in the transcript excerpts below)?
....
HATCH: That still doesn't negate the fact that the president may have inherent powers under Article 2 that even a statute cannot vary.
HOLDER: Well, sure. The...
HATCH: Do you agree with that statement?
HOLDER: Yes, there are certain things that the president has the constitutional right, authority to do, that the legislative branch cannot impinge upon.
***
Holder himself can’t dispute the central premise of the Bush DOJ’s war-on-terror memos; at best, he can say that (in his words) “There’s always the tension in trying to decide where that balance is struck” when the president’s and Congress’ constitutional powers conflict, and that he would have struck it differently. A jury will convict on that basis?
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Climate science
Cato Institute has a piece on global warming. At most, there's not a lot of it. Looking at the actual planet – it's real hard to spot.
Judeo-Christian?
One interesting point:
Even if we are not religious, I would say that Christianity is the religion we are not if we are Western. Similarly, if one is Japanese, and not religious, Buddhism is the religion one is not, if you get my drift…
Inflation in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is now issuing $100 trillion notes.
Mere billion dollar notes aren't worth bothering with any more.
Inflation was last reported at 231 million percent in July, but the Washington think-tank Cato Institute has estimated it now at 89.7 sextillion percent -- a figure expressed with 21 zeroes.
When Dilbert featured a series on one billion percent per day inflation in Elbonia, I figured that worked out to an increase of 1 1/8 percent per minute.
I guess the 89.7 sextillion percent is annual. A little bit of math shows the per-minute inflation rate is.....
One percent.
We're still not at Elbonian levels.
Surprised?
The Toronto Star
The Toronto Star takes great pleasure in playing fast and loose with the truth. While it purports to be a news service, the fact that it is no better than any propagandist journal that was ever printed in the Soviet Union is provable. You can point to it. Unlike most papers, this reality becomes obvious upon reading just a few issues. And the more you familiarize yourself with the paper, the greater your disgust at its dishonesty, its falsification of facts and the agenda driven manipulations that grace not only its op-eds, but also its front pages on a daily basis.
....
Promotion of radically leftist myths at the expense of logic is the central mission of the Toronto Star. We get it. But if that’s the case then be upfront about it. There are many liberal and conservative publications that market themselves accordingly. They do not pretend to be unbiased conveyors of news. Their purpose is to share thoughts and opinions. That would be a hard task for an outfit like the Star that is short on facts and long on insults, diatribes and unsubstantiated pronouncements. But that’s no excuse for it to dress itself up as a news organization.
Outgoing CIA chief defends interrogations
Hat tip: Just One Minute via Gateway Pundit
Obama's nominee to serve as the next CIA director, former California lawmaker Leon E. Panetta, is expected to rein in an array of agency activities, including its use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.
Hayden noted that the agency had stopped the use of waterboarding more than five years ago, but he argued that the CIA should not be bound by the same restrictive interrogation rules as the U.S. Army.
Responding to critics who contend that harsh interrogation methods produce faulty intelligence, Hayden said that interrogations of key Al Qaeda figures accounted for the bulk of the United States' understanding of the terrorist network and led to a series of successful operations around the globe.
"Do not allow others to say it didn't work," Hayden said. "It worked."
The other shoe drops
Remember the fellow who threw his shoes at President Bush during his last press conference in Iraq? The BBC reported that the fellow was beaten while in custody, suffering broken ribs, a broken arm, and internal bleeding. Now, the AP reports that his injuries, resulting from being wrestled to the floor after throwing his shoes, had healed.
Gateway Pundit quotes Tom W:
An Arab man tossed his shoes at a head of state, and he was not killed; his family was not arrested; the press reported on both sides of the issue; people were allowed to protest in support of the shoe chucker, as is their right; and the Iraqi prime minister did not interfere in the prosecution of the man.
Arabs all over the region have seen that Iraq is now a free country, due to the man who was the target of the shoe throwing.
The shoe chucker did a huge service to President Bush and our troops. He proved definitively that Operation Iraqi Freedom is a success, and the war is won.
Maybe the people in these countries will decide they want some of that freedom.
Obama continues Bush Policies II
Barack Obama seems to be validating his predecessor's policies – by retaining them.
President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general has endorsed an extension of the law that allows federal agents to demand Americans' library and bookstore records as part of terrorism probes, dismaying a national group of independent booksellers.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Obama and Bush's policies
Obama the BushiteBy Charles KrauthammerExcept for Richard Nixon, no president since Harry Truman has left office more unloved than George W. Bush. Truman's rehabilitation took decades. Bush's will come sooner. Indeed, it has already begun. The chief revisionist? Barack Obama. Vindication is being expressed not in words but in deeds -- the tacit endorsement conveyed by the Obama continuity-we-can-believe-in transition. It's not just the retention of such key figures as Defense Secretary Bob Gates or Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner, who, as president of the New York Fed, has been instrumental in guiding the Bush financial rescue over the past year. It's the continuity of policy.It is the repeated pledge to conduct a withdrawal from Iraq that does not destabilize its new democracy and that, as Vice President-elect Joe Biden said just this week in Baghdad, adheres to the Bush-negotiated status-of-forces agreement that envisions a U.S. withdrawal over three years, not the 16-month timetable on which Obama campaigned.It is the great care Obama is taking in not preemptively abandoning the anti-terror infrastructure that the Bush administration leaves behind. While still a candidate, Obama voted for the expanded presidential wiretapping (FISA) powers that Bush had fervently pursued. And while Obama opposes waterboarding (already banned, by the way, by Bush's CIA in 2006), he declined George Stephanopoulos's invitation (on ABC's "This Week") to outlaw all interrogation not permitted by the Army Field Manual. Explained Obama: "Dick Cheney's advice was good, which is let's make sure we know everything that's being done," i.e., before throwing out methods simply because Obama campaigned against them.Obama still disagrees with Cheney's view of the acceptability of some of these techniques. But citing as sage the advice offered by "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history" (according to Joe Biden) -- advice paraphrased by Obama as "we shouldn't be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric" -- is a startlingly early sign of a newly respectful consideration of the Bush-Cheney legacy.Not from any change of heart. But from simple reality. The beauty of democratic rotations of power is that when the opposition takes office, cheap criticism and calumny will no longer do. The Democrats now own Iraq. They own the war on al-Qaeda. And they own the panoply of anti-terror measures with which the Bush administration kept us safe these past seven years.Which is why Obama is consciously creating a gulf between what he now dismissively calls "campaign rhetoric" and the policy choices he must make as president. Accordingly, Newsweek -- Obama acolyte and scourge of everything Bush/Cheney -- has on the eve of the Democratic restoration miraculously discovered the arguments for warrantless wiretaps, enhanced interrogation and detention without trial. Indeed, Newsweek's neck-snapping cover declares, "Why Obama May Soon Find Virtue in Cheney's Vision of Power." Obama will be loath to throw away the tools that have kept the homeland safe. Just as he will be loath to jeopardize the remarkable turnaround in American fortunes in Iraq.Obama opposed the war. But the war is all but over. What remains is an Iraq turned from aggressive, hostile power in the heart of the Middle East to an emerging democracy openly allied with the United States. No president would want to be responsible for undoing that success.In Iraq, Bush rightly took criticism for all that went wrong -- the WMD fiasco, Abu Ghraib, the descent into bloody chaos in 2005-06. Then Bush goes to Baghdad to ratify the ultimate post-surge success of that troubled campaign -- the signing of a strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq -- and ends up dodging two size 10 shoes for his pains. Absorbing that insult was Bush's final service on Iraq. Whatever venom the war generated is concentrated on Bush himself. By having personalized the responsibility for the awfulness of the war, Bush has done his successor a favor. Obama enters office with a strategic success on his hands -- while Bush leaves the scene taking a shoe for his country.Which I suspect is why Bush showed such equanimity during a private farewell interview at the White House a few weeks ago. He leaves behind the sinews of war, for the creation of which he has been so vilified but which will serve his successor -- and his country -- well over the coming years. The very continuation by Democrats of Bush's policies will be grudging, if silent, acknowledgment of how much he got right.
Ticking time bomb
Brains and the law
No one really knows how millions of microscopic brain cells can weigh objective legal notions of right and wrong. But last month, researchers at Vanderbilt University for the first time identified distinctive strands of neural tissue active when, like a judge or juror, we think about crime and punishment. In an experiment at the frontier of law and philosophy, the researchers used a brain scanner to examine the impartial judgments at the heart of our legal system, recording how brain cells behave when assessing criminal responsibility and meting out sentences.
....
No one part of the brain stands in judgment of others, they found. Instead, at least two areas of the brain assess guilt and assign an appropriate penalty. An area associated with analytical reasoning, called the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, became very active, they reported. But the decision process also electrified emotional circuits.
Dr. Marois found so much emotional activity during an impartial legal decision surprising. "This reasoning may not be so detached. It shattered my preconceived ideas of the legal system," says Dr. Marois. "But for a lawyer, maybe it doesn't."
Further research will look at the brains of diagnosed psychopaths and of State and Federal judges. (No, they're not saying the two are the same -- they're trying to look at extreme ends of the spectrum: people who can't judge to save their lives, and people who judge for a living.)
Researchers caution people against reading too much into these early results:
So far, neuroscience has delivered few, if any, dependable courtroom insights into criminality. "This is baby science, first-step science, like genetics in the 1950s," says Dr. Gazzaniga, a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, which studied the impact of neuroscience evidence in criminal law. "This should be used cautiously in the courtroom -- if at all."
There have been some interesting findings, but we don't know how widely they can be applied.
Last spring, for example, an Indian court found a woman guilty of murder based, in part, on the evidence of guilty knowledge purportedly revealed by her brain wave oscillations, even though a government panel of scientists had recommended that the technique should be ignored.
Why? What we have is a brain wave pattern that was associated with "guilty knowledge" in a small number of people. What we don't have is any way of knowing that's the only thing that produces that brain wave pattern. It may turn out that "guilty knowledge" is one of a dozen mental states that produce the same kind of brain wave, and of that dozen, who knows how many even rise to conscious awareness. Maybe not, but the point is, we just don't know. Yet.
Another problem has to do with the technology used to create images. It's easy to be misled by the apparent precision of a computer display. Certainly, in my physics lab classes, one of the things we had to learn was when to ignore the last few digits of an electronic computer display. It's one thing when we're looking at a needle on a dial. We can watch the needle wobble and see for ourselves that we can't pin the number down past a certain point. But when a numeric display pops up with five digits of precision, we have to be careful not to read too much into any changes in the last digit. That may just be noise.
Even functional brain imaging -- invaluable as a medical research tool since its debut 15 years ago -- can't be trusted yet as courtroom evidence of an individual's personality traits, truthfulness, bias or criminal intent, experts say. Nonetheless, fMRI brain scans are showing up as evidence before the U.S Supreme Court.
Although such scans often look like a photograph of a brain at work, they actually are easily manipulated computer creations resulting from sophisticated signal processing.
"The image that can come out is very dependent on the statistics you use and the colors you pick and the tasks involved and the inferences you make," says Dartmouth College philosopher Adina Roskies, who is studying how such brain images may unduly influence legal judgment. "You can get very different images from the same test depending on what the experimenter does."
A brain image from fMRI has the same problem that we see with electronic displays, compounded millions of times. Each pixel in the image is the result of millions of calculations, subject to a certain amount of noise. Artifacts -- are a common problem. Errors in the calculation can result in images of things that aren't there, or they can hide things that are there.
Precision in the display does not equal precision in the input data.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Joe, you're not supposed to ask those questions!
KRYSTIA FREELAND: I think Guantanamo will be shut down by the Obama administration and on aggressive interrogation, I think that's a really dangerous term, it has sort of an Orwellian flavor to it. I think that there is a clear line between torture and interrogation.SCARBOROUGH: What is it?FREELAND: What's the line?SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, what's the line?FREELAND: For me, in my judgment, waterboarding has always been torture.SCARBOROUGH: Oh, has it really?FREELAND: And some of what they describe as the "stress postures," I would call those torture too, and I think certain levels of sleep deprivation are torture as well.SCARBOROUGH: Sleep deprivation is torture?FREELAND: Depending on how far you go.SCARBOROUGH: So tell me, what should we do? Should we just bring them a birthday cake and ask them what soccer match they'd like to see?FREELAND: No; I think that's unfair Joe. I think there are ways --SCARBOROUGH: It's not unfair: it's unrealistic.FREELAND: No it's not.SCARBOROUGH: Sleep deprivation is torture?FREELAND: Depending on how long it goes on.SCARBOROUGH: I can't even engage in this conversation. This is so sophomoric I can't even engage in this conversation.FREELAND: No it's not; it's not sophomoric.
More debate on torture
As you might imagine, mine is the minority view. Bottom line:Ms. Crawford's conclusion is another instance of the military getting it wrong. Isolation and temperature variations of the type we are talking about here are not torture. To contend otherwise is to trivialize something that is truly heinous. It may be politically correct, but it is wrong. American law has always maintained a bright line between the egregious pain and suffering caused by actual torture and other forms of abusive conduct. Ms. Crawford's suggestion that abusive conduct that has a "medical impact" meets the "legal definition of torture" is preposterous.
What impact will it have on cases? Exactly none. In the first commission case, a judge ruled some confession evidence could not be admitted at trial because it was adduced by coercion. That is the standard: "Was the declarant's will overborne?" Not, "Was the declarant tortured?" Ms. Crawford's assessment that "torture" occurred is not proof that it did, nor should any defendant be required to demonstrate that he was tortured in order to have confession evidence suppressed.
I did not have time and space to add this observation, but I will now. John Yoo has come under blistering criticism for suggesting, while at DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, an unduly narrow definition of the severe pain and suffering required to prove torture — calling for the type of intense pain caused by organ failure or death. I don't see how people can condemn John and applaud Ms. Crawford, who uses an impossibly broad definition. Stubbing one's toe can have a "medical impact" ... that doesn't make it torture.
When everyone's a sex offender...
Yikes. What they did was stupid, but the legal system is way out of bounds if it seeks to permanently ruin the future lives of these teenagers with child pornography convictions. The amount of humiliation they will suffer as a result of this stunt going public should be sufficient.
Apparently these uninhibited Pennsylvania teens are part of a new phenomenon that includes everyone from the kids next door to Disney teen star Vanessa Hudgens, a disturbing wide-spread trend known as "sexting": do-it-yourself nude photography distributed among teens via cell phones and the Internet.
....
As I stated earlier, I don't believe that ruining a teenager's adult life by finding him guilty of a sexual offense is an appropriate way to handle this problem. But we should be leery of outright dismissal of this kind of activity as "normal" and "good clean fun." And we should resist anyone who suggests that this kind of exploitation should be promoted as a "safe alternative" to sexual intercourse.
Another problem with finding a teenager guilty of a sexual offence because of "sexting" is that it dilutes the meaning of "sexual offense". Right now, sex offenders are stigmatized. In a number of ways, a wall is built between anyone charged with a sex offense and "the rest of us". The reasoning behind this is very straightforward -- we want to separate sexual predators from potential victims.
But when people can be charged with sex offenses for doing what "everyone" is doing, we soon have a perverse system where predators and victims are shoved to the same side of this protective wall. This "tough love" policy will, I'm convinced, have the effect of making it easier to victimize teenagers, not harder.
The law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.
Wiretapping legal
So President Bush's extraordinary efforts to keep us safe were ruled legal after all the hand wringing by the left that Bush is shredding the Constitution. And the ruling has come just in time for Obama to pull back the program anyway in order to appease the hand wringing left. However, considering how the media worship Obama, their stance on this program will probably shift and Obama will be seen as the savior of America should he decide to keep the program going.
A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, is expected to issue a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order, even when Americans' private communications may be involved.
....The decision marks the first time since the disclosure of the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program three years ago that an appellate court has addressed the constitutionality of the federal government's wiretapping powers. In validating the government's wide authority to collect foreign intelligence, it may offer legal credence to the Bush administration's repeated assertions that the president has constitutional authority to act without specific court approval in ordering national security eavesdropping.
This creates a problem for George Stephanopoulos who pushed Obama to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush's warrantless wiretapping.
The people who declared the program unarguably illegal seem not to have known what they were talking about. But doing the work to learn the other side would have destroyed the lovely narrative that has Bush shredding the Constitution, wouldn't it?
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Climate and Clouds
It seems there's a study that shows clouds reflect more light as atmospheric carbon dioxide climbs. But you have to read deep into the report, and draw your own inferences, because the authors aren't about to make it in the abstract.
Definition of torture
Dafydd at Big Lizards is looking at the definition of "torture".
The United Nations General Assembly enacted a Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1984; this included (as one might expect) a definition of torture:For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.This would ban not only obvious torture, such as Saddam Hussein regularly engaged in (Iraq was not a signatory), but even any form of questioning that coerced, frightened, or indimidated detainees into revealing information they would rather keep secret; it would essentially ban any interrogation harsher than polite asking.
But are we legally bound by that definition? We signed the convention in 1988, and it was ratified by the Senate in 1994... but it was ratified with a list of "reservations" and "understandings":• First, we held that the convention's reference to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" would be interpreted in the United States as, and was only ratified under the definition of, "the cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States."In other words, we officially and formally rejected the wider, expansive defintion of torture, inhuman treatment, or degrading treatment. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see how the U.N. defintion can legally be enforced here.
And there's more.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
But don't call them anti-semites!
Critics of Israel are often quick to insist that they're not anti-Semitic—just anti-Zionist, anti-"occupation," or something along those lines. But not these guys: at a protest against Israel in downtown Calgary on the weekend, the Nazi group, the Aryan Guard, showed up to march alongside the Muslims. Of course, the Aryan Guard is honest enough to admit they just plain hate Jews, not bothering to strain themselves with arguments of nuance. They fit right in on Saturday with their posters of Israeli flags defaced with the accusation "Terror State." As Darcey at Dust My Broom notes, the 150 "anti-racists" who came out in force to protest an Aryan Guard march in downtown Calgary last year didn't complain this time. In fact, they marched right along with the Aryans, united under the swastika: the Arabs and Communists labeling the Jewish State a "Nazi" regime; the skinheads hoping to resurrect the Real McCoy.
Tortured debate
As far as I am concerned, the real impediment to an honest dialog about the deprogramming, softening, and and interrogation of captured terrorists has been from the Democrats, because their primary objective has not been to protect America, but to exact revenge upon the Bush Administration. This is most evident in the incredible hypocrisy of their professed horror at the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, while they knew -- AND APPROVED -- of prisoner interrogation methods almost from the get-go:
Readings on conservative economics
A likely feature of the political debate of the next few years will look something like this. Conservatives will make a specific argument about a specific public-policy dispute — say, NR's editorial today questioning the need and wisdom of appropriating the second half of the TARP funds — and liberals will then respond not with a meaningful rebuttal of the specific argument but instead with a general attack on conservative credibility. "Your free-market ideology led to the worst recession since the Great Depression," they will assert. "Why should we believe anything you say now?"
Getting ready for this tactic means mastering the details of the bipartisan economic policy mistakes that have led us to the present moment, including excessive money creation, coddling of Fannie and Freddie, whipsaw imposition of post-Enron accounting rules, and regulatory constraints on production and investment. But it also means shoring up the intellectual defense of our basic conservative principles. The process will need to include clear definitions (distinguishing between purportedly "pro-business" policy and true market-based policies where bad economic decisions are allowed to lead to loss and failure) and solid empirical studies demonstrating how political and economic freedom make people wealthier, healthier, and happier.
A good starting point would be to read the latest Index of Economic Freedom, published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal.....
More to come. Conservatism must be innovative, adaptive, and relevant — but it should never been defensive. We're on the side of freedom, and it works.
Interesting legal case
Tim DeChristopher, a Utah-based environmental activist, has discovered a new tactic in the war on global warming: intentional breach of contract. The Washington Post reports:
....
"I leaned forward to one of my colleagues and said, 'This guy behind us is just running up the prices,' " said David Terry, a Salt Lake City oil-land man who routinely attends the BLM auctions. "And my friend said, 'Yeah, he's going to get stuck with a tract.' "
The University of Utah economics student got stuck with 13. Promising the federal government $1.8 million he does not have, DeChristopher emerged holding leases on 22,000 acres in the scenic southeast corner of Utah.DeChristopher, of course, is judgment proof. Unlike the strategy of say the Nature Conservancy, which seeks to preserve wilderness through purchase or other contractual arrangements, DeChristopher's goal seems to have been disruption and the running up of oil lease prices. He's also apparently under investigation by federal agents. Not being a government contracts geek, I don't know what federal statutes he may have broken by participating in the auction on a bad-faith basis. As an ordinary matter of contract law, however, his case creates some interesting issues.
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Were DeChristopher bidding with real money, I would actually find his tactics laudable. From an economic standpoint the reason why participation of someone like DeChristopher in the auctions is valuable is that it internalizes some more of the externalities involved in gas leases. On the other hand, if DeChristopher can drive up the price without actually having to pay for anything, then his incentive will be overbid. Another way of putting this is that so long as he is judgment proof, he is massively over-incentivized to breach. Furthermore, unlike the Nature Conservancy, DeChristopher's actions will not ultimately stop the leases he purportedly purchased from being used. His failure to pay the $1.8 million will be material breach, relieving the BLM of the duty to convey rights to the land. The leases will simply be sold at the next auction.
Dropping the DIME on Gazans?
Noted lying douchebag and terrorist mouthpiece Dr. Mads Gilbert has returned to his native Norway. but not before spreading some more BS propaganda. His latest slurs claim Israel is using Gaza as a testing grounds for heinous new weapons. He and his partner in lies claim a lot of garbage that sounds good to the gullible media, but makes no sense with even a little due diligence. First what the evil Zionists are up to.
"There's a very strong suspicion I think that Gaza is now being used as a test laboratory for new weapons," Mads Gilbert told reporters at Oslo's Gardermoen airport, commenting on the kinds of injuries he and his colleague Erik Fosse had seen while working at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
The two medics, who were sent into the war zone by the pro-Palestinian aid organisation NORWAC on December 31, said they had seen clear signs that Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME), an experimental kind of explosive, were being used in Gaza.
"This is a new generation of very powerful small explosives that detonates with an extreme power and dissipates its power within a range of five to 10 metres (16-98 feet)," said Gilbert, 61.
"We have not seen the casualties affected directly by the bomb because they are normally torn to pieces and do not survive, but we have seen a number of very brutal amputations... without shrapnel injuries which we strongly suspect must have been caused by the DIME weapons," he added.
He does make one true statement, it does dissipate within a short range, but let's see why.
Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME)The Air Force is demonstrating a low collateral damage warhead, allowing a "behind-the-wall" threat prosecution with a highly localized lethal footprint. The warhead case consists of a low-density, wrapped carbon-fiber/epoxy matrix integrated with a steel nose and base. The low-density composite case can survive penetration into a one-foot hardened concrete wall. Upon detonation, the carbon-fiber warhead case disintegrates into small non-lethal fibers with little or no metallic fragments, thus significantly reducing collateral damage to people and structures.So this hellish new weapon, which we don't even know for sure they are using, is actually designed to cause less collateral damage. That would make sense if the Israelis were not actually trying to kill innocent civilians, but hey we know that is not the case. 2 cents worth of common sense would show anyone that if they simply wanted to kill Gazans, using bombs that cause less collateral damage, calling them to tell them when an attack is coming and all the other measures they have taken would be counter-productive. But as usual common sense plays no part for the Israel haters.
Monday, January 12, 2009
White phosphorus and other war crimes
The current contender for dumbest accusation has to be that Israel is violating international law by using white phosphorus munitions in Gaza. This is a re-run — the same charge was made a couple of years ago against the United States and Fallujah. This is an argument born of tremendous ignorance — the type that can only be explained as deliberate. White phosphorus munitions have tremendous utility for the military. Due to White phosphorus's unique properties, it serves two very useful (and contradictory) purposes. It burns very brightly, and it gives off a great deal of smoke. That means that if it's used in midair, it lights up the area and makes it very hard for the enemy to hide. When it's used on the ground, it puts out a lot of smoke that makes it very hard for the enemy to see.
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But it's rarely used as an incendiary weapon. The reason is that there are other substances that do the same job, far more efficiently. Thermite burns even hotter, and is used to destroy metal. Napalm works better on "softer" targets, as it is more flexible (it can be sprayed easily) and tends to cling to whatever it touches.
Critics are also fond of calling white phosphorus a "chemical weapon." This is also nonsensical. The specific laws and treaties governing chemical weapons are very specific on definitions: a chemical weapon is one that causes harm by a chemical process other than combustion. The mere fact that a substance is toxic doesn't make it a chemical weapon; in sufficient qualities, a lot of things are poisonous. Indeed, lead itself is a toxic metal, but no one wants to call a bullet a chemical weapon.
And indeed, the same applies for depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is toxic, in large enough quantities, but it's not used for its toxic properties. It's used because it's heavy, and its momentum carries it through armor more easily.
The best answer to that I've ever seen was in David Gerrold's novel A Matter For Men. The topic comes up while a grizzled veteran is equips the new soldier (and protagonist) with a flamethrower.
"…Let me ask you this: what is it that makes a weapon inhumane?""Uh…" I thought about it.
"Let me make it easier for you. Tell me a humane weapon."
"Um– I see your point."
"Right. There's no such thing. It's like Christmas — it's not the gift, it's the thought that counts." He came around behind me and started fitting the pads under the straps. "A weapon, Jim — never forget this; lift your arms — is a tool for stopping the other fellow. That's the purpose — stopping him. The so-called humane weapons merely stop a man without permanently injuring him. The best weapons — you can put your arms down now — are the ones that work by implication, by threat, and never have to be used at all. The enemy stops himself."
"It's when they don't stop" — he turned me around to adjust the fittings in front — "that the weapons become inhumane, because that's when you have to use them. And so far, the most effective ones are the ones that kill — because they stop the guy permanently."
War is brutal. War is inhumane. War is horrible. So are the tools used to wage war. Indeed, the only thing worse than war is to not fight back.
Friday, January 09, 2009
CNN video watch
Confederate Yankee has a number of posts on the apparently fraudulent CNN video.
Pro-Hamas Doctors Caught Faking A Civilian Death... After CNN Airs Footage
More about the CNN video
David Bernstein seems to be the Volokh Conspiracy's point man for the Gaza mess. He has noticed the buzz over the CNN video, and has some comments:
What hasn't gotten attention is that the broader story told by the photographer to the CNN reporter is seemingly rather obviously false propaganda. From the video:Reporter: "Mahmoud and his 14 year old cousin Ahmed were allowed to play on the roof.... Now they are both dead." Mashharawi: "The Israeli plane targeted them with a small rocket just for them, just for them, and killed both of them."So the allegation is that not only did an Israeli plane purposely target two children playing on a roof, but did so with a special, small rocket that it apparently reserves for killing children on roofs without creating any of the obvious signs of serious damage to the building that a missile would cause. Putting aside the issue of Israel targeting civilians, the idea that a plane came to the building with a special small missile just to kill these two boys seems rather implausible, to say the least. [UPDATE: Is it possible that the "plane," in theory, could have been a drone of the sort used in targeted assassinations? How much damage would a rocket launched from such a drone cause to a roof? OK, I'll reserve judgment on that, in case it's as implausible as I initially thought. FURTHER UPDATE: A reader writes: "As an introduction, I am an attack helicopter pilot with somewhere north of 400 combat missions in geographic areas very similar to Gaza. Your thoughts are correct. Events as described didn’t happen as alleged. The link http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/agm-114.htm has significant info regarding one of the smaller drone armed weapons, the AGM-114 Hellfire. I am very familiar with this weapon as this is the same missile with a different type of warhead that US Attack helicopters are armed with. Bottom line, 100lb missile moving at about 400 M/s is going to cause structural damage to the building even if it was one of the inert warhead types." See also this contribution to the comments. That seems to settle that.]
There are plenty of real human tragedies involving civilians in Gaza. It would do wonders for CNN's credibility if it acknowledged its mistake, took the text story down, and, unless all the indications of the falsity of the story turn out to have an innocent explanation, fire the reporter (Michael Holmes) who either fell for, or actively participated in, a fake one.
Palin Derangement Syndrome in the media
The office of the Alaska Governor has seen fit to post a page dedicated to refuting the latest falsehoods in the press.
And the Anchorage Daily News is pursuing the conspiracy theory alleging that Trig Palin is not Sarah's son, but her grandson.
On Dec. 31, eight days ago, I received an email from Gov. Palin asking several questions about news coverage in the Daily News. I took her inquiry seriously and by the end of the day had prepared a long email addressing each of her questions in detail.
This was her final question:
And is your paper really still pursuing the sensational lie that I am not Trig's mother? Is it true you have a reporter still bothering my state office, my very busy doctor (who's already set the record straight for you), and the school district, in pursuit of your ridiculous conspiracy?”
This was my reply:
Yes, it's true.
You may have been too busy with the campaign to notice, but the Daily News has, from the beginning, dismissed the conspiracy theories about Trig's birth as nonsense. I don't believe we have ever published in the newspaper a story, a letter, a column or anything alleging a coverup surrounding your maternity.
In fact, my integrity and the integrity of the newspaper have been repeatedly attacked in national forums for our complicity in the "coverup." I have personally received more than 100 emails accusing me and the paper of conspiring to hide the truth (about Trig’s birth.)
(I should acknowledge, however, that many people who commented on adn.com have alleged a coverup. Many of those were deleted as soon as we saw them, but many were not.)
I want to be very clear on this: I have from the beginning and do now consider the conspiracy theories about Trig's birth to be nutty nonsense.
If that's true, why has Lisa Demer been asking questions about Trig's birth?
Because we have been amazed by the widespread and enduring quality of these rumors.
I don't know. It just seems to me, if you're interested in the "widespread and enduring quality of rumors", that's asking the wrong questions of the wrong people. I can see talking to psychologists, sociologists, and the people who are propagating the rumors, but not pursuing the lines of questioning that a person who believes the rumors would follow. Unless you don't think they're rumors.
Luttwackian war philosophy
One of my friends suggested how much nicer things would be if, instead of fighting wars, countries simply had an auction, with the spoils going to the winning bidder.
I commented that in a way, a war is an auction, with both sides raising the stakes until at least one side runs out of resources or the inclination to continue. Even if countries did agree to settling things by a purely monetary auction, the first party to run out of money has a definite incentive to change the rules. And of course, that means war.
With the UN Security Council’s passage of a cease-fire resolution that is being deservedly ignored by Hamas and Israel, the war has reached a Luttwakian phase. Edward Luttwak, the great military strategist, wrote a famous essay in 1999 entitled “Give War a Chance.” He was not kidding. The piece opened like this:An unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. Either way the key is that the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence. Hopes of military success must fade for accommodation to become more attractive than further combat.
A short brutal war costs less in the long run than lots of longer-lasting inconvenient wars.
Fake video at CNN?
Ed Morrissey has been following the case of a faked video at CNN, allegedly showing deaths resulting from an Israeli missile.
There are several points that clearly show this to be a fake. Yesterday I wrote about the doctors and the ridiculous effort at CPR, plus the inclusion of notorious pro-Hamas activist Mads Gilbert. When Duane and I looked at this again, we saw a few other points as well.It’s not only a fake, it’s an absurd fake. It’s not even done well, and Gilbert’s dramatic headshake at the end of the supposed CPR — in which Doctor #2’s hands keep coming off the body — is only the cheesy coup de grace. Why did CNN republish this?
- Take a look at the blood on the operating table. For penetrating wounds, there is almost no blood, and what little there is looks washed out — almost orange. The body should have been covered in blood, and much more than that should have transferred to the sheets, especially if someone was giving CPR.
- The video alleges that the Israelis used a missile from an unmanned drone to attack the rooftop, but look carefully at that roof. A missile hitting that roof would have left much more than a six-inch-diameter impact crater, even if it didn’t explode.
- Also, the plastic chair is sitting normally in the blast zone, and the clothes remain on the clothesline in the background. A missile blast that killed two boys on that roof would have done much more extensive damage.
CNN's response: "Is not!!!" (paraphrase)
And here's this from Little Green Footballs
CNN now responds to the charge that Mashharawi worked for a company that operates Hamas websites:Martin said accusations that Mashharawi owns a company that hosts Hamas Web sites were falsely based on Mashharawi having worked at a company that created the PS suffix to allow anyone of any political persuasion to create Palestinian Web sites.According to Internet Haganah’s database of terror website hosts, in 2004 nepras.net, which lists Mashharawi as general manager, was the operator of the main Hamas website and the website of Hamas’ radio station Voice of Al Aqsa.
Sea Kittens
Thursday, January 08, 2009
The double standard on Israel
I've seen this double standard all over the place. Israel is condemned for doing things that every other country in the world does with impunity, and protesters scream things that would be reviled as "hate crimes" were they directed at any other group on the planet. Indeed, the "criticisms" are leveled with such venom and vitriol that I suspect the motivation is not anything Israel has done, but what Israel is
The world-wide protests against Israel's ground incursion into Gaza are so full of hatred that they leave me with the terrible feeling that these protests have little to do with the so-called disproportionality of the Israeli response to Hamas rockets, or the resulting civilian casualties.
My fear is that the rage we see in the protesters marching in the streets is far more profound and dangerous than we would like to believe. There are a great many people in the world who, even after Auschwitz, just can't bear the Jewish state having the same rights they so readily grant to other nations. These voices insist Israel must take risks they would never dare ask of any other nation-state -- risks that threaten its very survival -- because they don't believe Israel should exist in the first place.
Just look at the spate of attacks this week on Jews and Jewish institutions around the world: a car ramming into a synagogue in France; a Chabad menorah and Jewish-owned shops sprayed with swastikas in Belgium; a banner at an Australian rally demanding "clean the earth from dirty Zionists!"; demonstrators in the Netherlands chanting "Gas the Jews"; and in Florida, protestors demanding Jews "Go back to the ovens!"
How else can we explain the double-standard that is applied to the Gaza conflict, if not for a more insidious bias against the Jewish state?
At the U.N., no surprise, this double-standard is in full force. In response to Israel's attack on Hamas, the Security Council immediately pulled an all-night emergency meeting to consider yet another resolution condemning Israel. Have there been any all-night Security Council sessions held during the seven months when Hamas fired 3,000 rockets at half a million innocent civilians in southern Israel? You can be certain that during those seven months, no midnight oil was burning at the U.N. headquarters over resolutions condemning terrorist organizations like Hamas. But put condemnation of Israel on the agenda and, rain or shine, it's sure to be a full house.
Red Cross officials are all over the Gaza crisis, describing it as a full-blown humanitarian nightmare. Where were they during the seven months when tens of thousands of Israeli families could not sleep for fear of a rocket attack? Where were their trauma experts to decry that humanitarian crisis?
There have been hundreds of articles and reports written from the Erez border crossing falsely accusing Israel of blocking humanitarian supplies from reaching beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza. (In fact, over 520 truck loads of humanitarian aid have been delivered through Israeli crossings since the beginning of the Israeli counterattack.) But how many news articles, NGO reports and special U.N. commissions have investigated Hamas's policy of deliberately placing rocket launchers near schools, mosques and homes in order to use innocent Palestinians as human shields?
Many people ask why there are so few Israeli casualties in comparison with the Palestinian death toll. It's because Israel's first priority is the safety of its citizens, which is why there are shelters and warning systems in Israeli towns. If Hamas can dig tunnels, it can certainly build shelters. Instead, it prefers to use women and children as human shields while its leaders rush into hiding.
And then there are the clarion calls for a cease-fire. These words, which come so easily, have proven to be a recipe for disaster. Hamas uses the cease-fire as a time-out to rearm and smuggle even more deadly weapons so the next time, instead of hitting Sderot and Ashkelon, they can target Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
The pattern is always the same. Following a cease-fire brought on by international pressure, there will be a call for a massive infusion of funds to help Palestinians recover from the devastation of the Israeli attack. The world will respond eagerly, handing over hundreds of millions of dollars. To whom does this money go? To Hamas, the same terrorist group that brought disaster to the Palestinians in the first place.
The world seems to have forgotten that at the end of World War II, President Harry Truman initiated the Marshall Plan, investing vast sums to rebuild Germany. But he did so only with the clear understanding that the money would build a new kind of Germany -- not a Fourth Reich that would continue the policies of Adolf Hitler. Yet that is precisely what the world will be doing if we once again entrust funds to Hamas terrorists and their Iranian puppet masters.
In less than two weeks, Barack Obama will be sworn in as president of the United States. But there is no "change we can believe in" in the Middle East -- not where Israel is concerned. The double-standard continuously applied to the Jewish state proves that, for much of the world, the real lessons of World War II have yet to be learned.
Mr. Hier, a rabbi, is the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance.
Of course, some people will say this is just another example of "The Whiny Jews".
Stop the Bombing!
Stop This Vicious Slaughter! England Must Stop Waging War On The Nazis!Dateline: January 3rd 1944Fury continues to mount worldwide about the senseless loss of civilian life in Germany caused by England's callous bombing of German cities including Berlin, Hamburg and Dresden. As of today many innocent German women and children have died in these utterly brutal bombing missions. And now there are ground offensives starting on mainland Europe.The English have claimed that they are merely retaliating against the V-1 flying bombs being launched indiscriminately by Nazis at their civilian population in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Coventry and other cities. The English point out that their enemy is sworn to its utter destruction and has used the missiles and flying bombs against its civilians without any regard to English loss of life. Moreover it makes the case that their own bombing missions are specifically directed to military targets that the German army has intentionally planted in the heart of civilian populations to try and deter English counter-attacks.These points may of course be true - but they are utterly besides the point. Of course England has a right to exist. Of course England has a right to defend itself. But it should ensure that its responses are PROPORTIONATE. Since many more Germans are dying than English - the English should either tone down the success and accuracy of their bombing - or allow the Germans to catch up on the death count. To be honest - if more English women and children were dying - we wouldn't feel quite so bad about the number of Germans dying. But it's just so UNFAIR that more Germans are dying...Perhaps some English people could arrange to kill themselves to match the number of Germans dying as a result of the English retaliation bombing? It would be so considerate - and it might help England's critics feel less miserable about the number of Nazis dying. Something that is causing them so much concern. It would also put paid to that wretched proportionality argument.Alternatively, perhaps the English could arrange to be less effective in their bombing? Or only bomb military targets that are nowhere near civilians - even though the vast majority of the V-1 rockets are intentionally being launched from the heart of civilian population centers.Now the English will argue that the Germans have INTENTIONALLY positioned all their launch pads for the V-1 rockets in the middle of civilian populations to inhibit the English from bombing those launch sites. Well - tough noogies to the Brits! Sorry - but if the Germans are smarter or more skillful at cynically using their civilians as human shields than you - tough luck!You can't have it both ways. If you truly wish to save your nation from being annihilated by Nazi missiles you'd better stop looking to win a popularity contest. The Nazis are waging this war to win and to utterly destroy England. If all you Brits care about is popularity - then you may as well resign yourself to speaking German...It's about time that little nations who wish to defend themselves wised up to their responsibilities. Otherwise the same stupid complaints will be made at some point in the 21st Century when some little nation finds itself under constant attack from rockets fired at its civilian population by a terrorizing enemy that has sworn to destroy it....
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Polygamy
One recurring comment about same-sex marriage is that advocates don't have any reason why same-sex marriage is OK, but polygamy isn't. In fact, polygamy exists in more cultures than same-sex marriage does.
Solangel Maldonado at Concurring Opinions asks, what's wrong with polygamy?
Many Americans believe that polygamy is morally wrong, but this view is not universal. Polygamy is legal and widely practiced in many countries in Africa and the Middle East and Islamic law allows a man to have up to four wives so long as he treats them equally. So why are most Americans vehemently opposed to polygamy?
Silence on the West Bank
It's been pretty quiet on the Western Front – of Israel, that is. We constantly hear that the Arab Street will rise up in defense of the Palestinians. They don't seem to be rising up on the West Bank.
Now, there’s a headline. The great majority of Palestinians, it is being suggested, don’t feel that the war in Gaza is really something worth protesting. According to this theory, the Palestinians know what the alternatives are, know who’s to blame, and recognize that there might be another way to go on with their lives other than by dedicating them to suicidal support for fanatical terrorists.
Of course, maybe this is wrong. Maybe the first answer is closer: they are not protesting because they have been told not to, and they do what they’re told.
All this leaves us with a small number of possibilities regarding the Palestinians, at least one of which must be true, but none of which fit well with the anti-Israel narrative:
1. That the “Arab street” is a myth, and that violent protests are always directed top-down, even in the face of so-called Israeli atrocities;
2. That West Bank Palestinians are starting to understand that renouncing terror and violence might have serious advantages;
3. That the destruction of the Hamas regime is of importance not only to the West, and not only to the tacitly supportive Egyptians, but even to most Palestinians, even at the cost of civilian casualties in Gaza;
4. That Palestinian national identity is a lot weaker than we are usually told — that West Bankers are more willing to support their local regime and way of life than their brethren in Gaza.
Israel: The view from Ireland
From the Independent, Ian O'Doherty:
Are we watching the ethnic cleansing of an entire people? Are we witnessing the deliberate eradication of a race?
Well, no actually, we're not.
Yet the conventional dinner party wisdom which we've had to put up with in the media, both here in Ireland and generally across Britain, is that somehow Israel is the aggressor in the rapidly worsening situation in Gaza.
Footage of air strikes with the ensuing photogenic explosions and dramatic plumes of smoke, quickly followed by clips of collapsed buildings and enraged mourners, makes far better copy than actually looking at the reasons why Israel has done what it's done.
Anyone who devotes only a cursory glance at the news, both print and television, would be forgiven for thinking that, out of spite, might and malice, Israel has decided to destroy the Palestinian people.
The problem with that conclusion -- and it's not something you're going to learn from the BBC and most other outlets -- is that, contrary to the currently popular belief, Israel is actually acting with a ridiculous degree of restraint.
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It's a common feeling amongst residents of southern Israeli towns who have been the silent victims of a long campaign of violence, intimidation and murder carried out by Hamas. And now, finally, that the Israelis have said that enough is enough, they are somehow meant to be the aggressors?
There are people of good conscience on both sides of this argument, but one of the main problems in this debate lies in the cowardly tendency of the Western media to apply equivalence to both sides.
Thus, Hamas is seen to be as legitimate a government as the Israelis, and its rocket attacks across the border from Gaza are seen as being part of a yet another, intractable, interminable Middle Eastern dispute.
There's just one problem with that approach -- it's completely wrong.
Hamas is a fundamentalist Islamic organisation intent on the eradication of the state of Israel and all its citizens; a violent fascist regime that allows honour killings and the execution of homosexuals to continue in its sphere of influence. Bankrolled by Iran, it manages to make even Hezbollah look like a moderate organisation.
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But there's a bigger picture here, something which Israelis have been trying to broadcast to the world, but which, thanks to their spectacular inability to accurately and sympathetically portray their point of view, has not been properly transmitted. It's this -- Israel is the front line of the war between democracy and Islamic fascism.
Would you rather live in a society with a free press, equal rights for women -- and anyone who knows an Israeli woman will know that they're not easily suppressed, anyway -- equal rights for gay people and a proud and stubborn belief in the right of the individual to lead their life in the way that they see fit or would you rather exist in a society where women who dare to speak their mind are executed, where gay people are not just shunned but murdered and where having a dissenting thought marks you out for death?
The civilian deaths in Gaza are to be mourned, and anyone who says otherwise is reprehensible. But in a sick and twisted irony, they are mourned more by Israelis than by Hamas, who know that every dead Palestinian kid is worth another piece of propaganda.
Here in the West, where we share the same values as Israel, we need to start standing shoulder with this tiny oasis of democracy in a vast desert of savagery.
To do otherwise is moral cowardice of the most repugnant kind.
Dealing with the credit crunch
A village in Thailand has worked out a solution to the worldwide credit crunch. It's printing its own money.
Decorating their money with children's sketches of water buffaloes and Buddhist temples, the villagers conceived it as a do-it-yourself attempt to protect themselves from the whiplash of vast outflows of speculative money which undermined local currencies and threw Thailand -- and much of Asia -- into recession in 1997-98.
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with Thailand's economy slowing sharply, the DIY cash is beginning to flow freely again.
"We need our own money more than ever now," says Phra Supajarawat, the wiry, orange-robed abbot of the local Buddhist monastery, who doubles as a "governor" of Santi Suk's tiny, one-room bank. "Things are turning bad in Thailand and people need something they can believe in," he says.
Homemade currencies, sometimes known as community or complementary currencies, have a habit of popping up during economic crises. Some towns in the U.S., Canada and Germany introduced their own scrip during the Great Depression. Similar schemes have emerged more recently in Japan, Argentina and Britain.
Gaza, Israel, and International Law
This links to a 40-page PDF laying out what international law says about the fighting going on in Gaza. A major conclusion is that the people who are accusing Israel of war crimes are not arguing the slam-dunk they think they are.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Goldberg on Israel
Across the Islamic world, and in too many points West, it is still considered a penetrating and poignant insight to call Zionists the "new Nazis." For instance, in Sunday's Gulf News, Mohammad Abdullah al Mutawa, a sociology professor at United Arab Emirates University, penned an essay titled "Zionists are the new Nazis." He began: "Today, the whole world stands as a witness to the fact that the Nazi Holocaust was a mere lie, which was devised by the Zionists to blackmail humanity."At a Saturday New York protest against Israel's military assault on Gaza, some carried signs that read: "Israel: The Fourth Reich"; "Holocaust by Holocaust Survivors"; "Stop Israel's Holocaust"; "Holocaust in Gaza"; and "Stop the Zionist Genocide in Gaza."Type "Israel" and "Nazi" into any news search engine and you'll be rewarded, or punished, with a bounty of such statements just over the last week or so.....First, let us note that if supposedly all-powerful Israel is dedicated to exterminating the Palestinian people, it is doing a very bad job. The Palestinian population has only grown since 1948. There are more Arab citizens living in Israel proper today than there were in all of Palestine the year Israel was founded.Perhaps one reason Israel fails at genocide is that it isn't interested in genocide? That would explain why Israel warned thousands of Gazans by cellphone to leave homes near Hamas rocket stockpiles. It would clarify why, even amid all-out war, it offers aid to enemy civilians. It would even illuminate the otherwise mysterious clamor from Israelis for a viable "peace partner."....I think, deep down, the desire to cast the Israelis as Nazis is fueled by the haters' need to see their own hatreds and ambitions mirrored in their enemy's actions. Hamas has an avowedly Hitlerite agenda. The only way to make such an agenda defensible is to convince yourself and others that the Israelis deserve it. Hence, Hamas and its allies insist that when they aim rockets at grade schools and playgrounds, they are resisting the "new Nazis." It brings to mind Huey Long's reported prophecy that if fascism ever came to America, it would be called anti-fascism. Well, with Hamas, Hitlerism comes to the Middle East wearing the mask of anti-Hitlerism.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Obama and Africa
Obama will try to fix Africa and will failBecause he will be ineffectual and irrelevant most everywhere else, one place Zero [Obama] will focus his foreign policy on will be Africa. We could call this drama Zero in Africa. He is going to be spending a lot of our money and risking many of our soldiers' lives in Africa. After all, that's where his alleged father is from. It's what the entire liberal elite expects of him. And it won't do any good.Endless wars, bottomless corruption, disease, tyranny and dictatorship seem standard operating procedure for Africa. Out of the over 50 nation-states on the continent, one can point to the mild success story here and there - but these are exceptions to Africa's being the bottom of humanity's barrel. The coup last week in Guinea is a fine example.The former French colony has the world's largest bauxite reserves, lots of iron ore, gold, and diamonds, lots of rich farmland. Most of its 10 million people live on less than $1 a day, it was ruled by a thug for the last 25 years until he died, whereupon some completely unknown army captain staged a coup and took over the country. Guineans are hailing him as "Obama Junior."Africans will be looking to Zero to end their paleolithic poverty and violence, and he won't be able to - because of a fundamental fact he cannot change. The American Psychiatric Association classifies people with an IQ of 70 or below as mentally retarded. The average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans is 67.Of course, there are plenty of very smart individual Africans. But the majority population of the entire continent of Africa (excluding North African countries such as Morocco and Egypt, and the whites of South Africa) is suffering mental retardation - or, put another way, has the mental faculties of a pre-teenage child. The average IQ in Guinea is 63.The world's foremost researcher on IQ is Richard Lynn, professor of psychology at the University of Ulster in the UK. His exhaustive research over 30 years has been compiled in monumental studies entitled IQ and the Wealth of Nations and Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. His latest study is The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ, and Inequality Worldwide.Sifting through 168 national IQ studies covering 81 countries and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, analyzing the entire body of scientific psychometric (psychological measurement) research for the last 100 years, Lynn has determined that:*East Asians (Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, but not China) have on average 5 IQ points higher than Europeans and European-Americans.*East Asian mean IQ is 105, China excluding Hong Kong is 100 (Hong Kong is 107, the world's highest), European/European-American is 100, Inuit Eskimo is 91, American Indian is 87, Mexican is 87, American Black is 85, South Asian (e.g. India, Pakistan) is 84, Middle East/North Africa Arab is 83, Sub-Saharan African is 67, Australian Aborigine is 62. The world average IQ is 90.The key words are "on average." For while the average East Asian is smarter than the average European or American, the latter have greater variability. Which means, especially for Americans whose culture allows for more flourishing of intelligence, there will be a lot more really smart folks, super-smart individuals with IQs above 130 among them. It is these geniuses of science and business that have enabled our culture, that of Western Civilization, to prosper far beyond any other.And it is just these folks, the brightest and most talented, that Zero will stifle and sacrifice on his altars of Equality, Fairness, and Redistribution. So a lot of them will give up or leave the US - they will shrug, as we discussed last month in Atlas in America.
Do conservative bloggers do reporting?
Who?
THE NEXT DOCTOR WHO: Matt Smith will succeed David Tennant in the role as the Time Lord in the BBC's sci-fi series Doctor Who. Photo: BBCMatt Smith has been cast as the replacement for David Tennant as the Time Lord in the BBC's sci-fi series Doctor Who. Ahead of Smith's incarnation as the 11th Doctor, we profile the young actor who has just won the biggest role in British television.
No, it's not Doctor Smith -- just "The Doctor".
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Brains without design?
It appears the next battleground for creationism is the brain. The premise of creationists seems to be that the brain has some properties which can not have arisen naturally. A Designer is required.
What kind of designer? Jason Rosenhouse has some thoughts:
Is the evidence for design in biological systems so obvious? I hold that the brain, the ultimate test case, is, in many respects, a true design nightmare. Let's review a bit. When we compare the human brain to that of other vertebrates, it becomes clear that the human brain has mostly developed through agglomeration. The difference between the lizard brain and the mouse brain does not involve wholesale redesign. Rather, the mouse brain is basically the lizard brain with some extra stuff on top. Likewise, the human brian is basically the mouse brain with still more stuff piled on top. That's how we wind up with two visual systems and two auditory systems (one ancient and one modern) jammed into our heads. The brain is built like an ice cream cone with new scoops piled on at each stage of our lineage.
Accidental design is even more obvious at the cellular level in the brain. The job of neurons is to integrate and propagate electrical signals. Yet, in almost all respects, neurons do a bad job. They propagate their signals slowly (a million times more slowly than copper wires), their signaling range is tiny (0 to 1,200 spikes/second), they leak signals to their neighbors, and, on average, they successfully propagate their signals to their targets only about 30 percent of the time. As electrical devices, the neurons of the brain are extremely inefficient.
One approach Creationists and ID/IOTs will take is to try to figure out reasons why It's Better This Way. Somehow, slow and leaky propagation is better than fast and well-insulated propagation. Somehow, a 1200 baud bandwidth is better than a megabaud or gigabaud bandwidth. (If nature can come up with crystalline lenses, couldn't she have come up with fiber optics?)
So, at either the systems or cellular level, the human brain, which the intelligent design crowd would imagine to be the most highly designed bit of tissue on the planet, is essentially a Rube Goldberg contraption. Not surprisingly, some proponents of intelligent design have left themselves a way to retreat on this point. Michael Behe writes, “Features that strike us as odd in a design might have been placed there by the designer for a reason -- for artistic reasons, for variety, to show off, for some as-yet-undetectable practical purpose or for some unguessable reason -- or they might not.” Or, stated another way, if on first glimpse biological systems look cool, that must be the result of intelligent design. If, on closer inspection, biological systems look like a cobbled-together contraption, that's still got to be from intelligent design, just intelligent design with an offbeat sense of humor. Clearly, this position is not a true, falsifiable scientific hypothesis, as is the theory of evolution. The idea of intelligent design is merely and assertion. (pp 241-242).
Here, Behe as much as admits that Intelligent Design is not science. A scientific theory, or even conjecture, is falsifiable. That is, there is some conceivable observation which someone can make that will show that theory or conjecture to be false. Behe admits that, no matter what anyone observes, intelligent design can never be proven false – at least not to him.
More proportionality
In this post, Michael J. Totten looks at what the Law of Armed Conflict has to say.
Proportion, as defined by Beehner and the Hague Conventions, is impossible between Israel and Hamas. The Israel Defense Forces are more professional, competent and technologically advanced than Hamas and will inflict greater damage as a matter of course. And Hamas’s war aim is entirely out of proportion to Israel’s. Israel wants to halt the incoming rocket fire, while Hamas seeks the destruction or evacuation of Israel.
Beehner’s proportionality doctrine is therefore unhelpful. Each side’s ends and means are disproportionate to the other. And nowhere in that doctrine are casualty figures or the intent of the warring parties factored in.
....
So aside from the obvious, we’re wading into murky territory that could be debated forever. Another doctrine of proportionality, though, clearly applies to this war, and it’s found in the Law of Armed Conflict.
The Law of Armed Conflict “arises from a desire among civilized nations to prevent unnecessary suffering and destruction while not impeding the effective waging of war. A part of public international law, LOAC regulates the conduct of armed hostilities. It also aims to protect civilians, prisoners of war, the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked.”
Proportionality, in short and according to the law, “prohibits the use of any kind or degree of force that exceeds that needed to accomplish the military objective.”
In other words, if a surgical strike is all that is needed to take out a Grad rocket launcher, carpet bombing the entire city or even the neighborhood isn’t allowed.
Hamas is still firing rockets; therefore, the IDF is not using more force than necessary to disrupt the firing of rockets. Israel, arguably, is using less force than necessary. And the IDF, unlike Hamas, does what it can to minimize injury to civilians. “Militants often operate against Israel from civilian areas,” the Associated Press reported last week. “Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.” Israeli commanders are even warning individual Hamas leaders that their homes are on the target list so they can vacate the premises in advance.
It’s also worth looking at the doctrine of distinction, which Israel follows while Hamas does not.
Distinction, according to the Law of Armed Conflict, “means discriminating between lawful combatant targets and noncombatant targets such as civilians, civilian property, POWs, and wounded personnel who are out of combat. The central idea of distinction is to only engage valid military targets. An indiscriminate attack is one that strikes military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. Distinction requires defenders to separate military objects from civilian objects to the maximum extent feasible. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to locate a hospital or POW camp next to an ammunition factory.”
Hamas violates this doctrine in two ways at once. Its fighters launch Qassam, Katyusha, and Grad rockets into Israeli civilian areas, and they fire those rockets from inside Palestinian civilian areas. Both are prohibited by the Law of Armed Conflict.
The law does not, however, prohibit Israel from striking legitimate military targets in civilian areas. “Although civilians may not be made the object of a direct attack, the LOAC recognizes that a military target need not be spared because its destruction may cause collateral damage that results in the unintended death or injury to civilians or damage to their property.”
Hamas, then, is legally to blame for all, or nearly all, injuries and deaths of both Israelis and Palestinians.
I shouldn’t even need to point out that Hamas is not allowed to target civilians with rockets, but I’ll cite the law anyway. “The LOAC protects civilian populations. Military attacks against cities, towns, or villages not justified by military necessity are forbidden. Attacking noncombatants (generally referred to as civilians) for the sole purpose of terrorizing them is also prohibited.”
Concern for the suffering innocents of Gaza – and all children of all nations are innocent – is well, good, and proper. And whether Israel’s operation in Gaza will turn out to be prudent, wise, and productive is yet to be seen. But either way, and at the end of the day, Israel’s rules of engagement comply with the laws of war forged by civilized nations, while nearly every one of Hamas’s military tactics are war crimes.
Taking Andrew Sullivan seriously
Noal Pollak at Contentions takes Andrew Sullivan's question at face value.
"How does just war theory defend the deaths of many innocent civilians as a means to increase “deterrent strength”?"
Assuming Andrew Sullivan can imagine any act by Israel being "just" or "legitimate"...
The first answer is that Andrew is being coy; the ground operation is not only intended as a deterrent measure, it is intended to push Hamas off the territory it has been using near the Israeli border to launch rockets, and it is intended to kill important members of Hamas — its vanguard of fighters and leaders — and yes, it is also intended as a deterrent measure. If Andrew does not want to see the IDF either completely re-occupy Gaza or lay waste to ever-larger parts of the territory, he must allow the IDF a third way: create a new deterrence posture against Hamas so that the terror regime will be forced to make a new calculation about the value of its rocket war on Israeli civilians versus the destruction to its own infrastructure and lives that such attacks invite.
Increasing “deterrent strength” against an enemy is simply another way of saying that you intend to fight them until they stop attacking you. As far as just war theory is concerned, I invite Andrew to cite chapter and verse, or even vague tenets, which might guide us toward his claim of the illegitimacy of the ground operation.
Nobody knows at this moment whether Hamas is deterrable. The question depends on whether Hamas actually intends to fight to the last man and on the efficacy of the IDF’s ground war. But surely it is also true — according to just war theory, no less — that the sovereign state of Israel, in an attempt to protect its citizens, is allowed to discover whether deterrence is possible. I note that since August 2006, Hezbollah has been awfully quiet on Israel’s northern border; and that since 1973, so have Syria and Egypt.
Israel's crime
Jennifer Rubin at Contentions looks at the real reason protesters are protesting at Israeli embassies around the world.
For those who fret endlessly about self-determination and civilian harm, the vitriol only flows one way. One might attribute their pleas for restraint and a return to the non-existent peace process as naiveté. But at some point the facts become too difficult to ignore. The aim of the selective critics becomes clear: Israel simply can’t, in their scheme of things, be allowed to defend itself.
For the protesters, Israel simply doesn't have the right to behave as any real country would, because they don't believe Israel has the right to exist.
Israeli war crimes?
Eric Posner, at the Volokh Conspiracy, has a post on The Gaza Conflict and the Limits of International Law.
Here are the high points:
1. Jus ad bellum. Gaza is not a state. It’s not clear what it is—occupied territory? Mandate? If it’s not a state, the UN charter does not forbid an attack. Even if it were, the UN charter would not forbid an attack as long as Israel’s attack is in self-defense—which it appears to be, so far.
2. Jus in bello. Can there be a war between a state and a non-state entity? Yes! And most people think the regular laws of war apply. The laws of war forbid the deliberate killing of civilians, but so far no one has proved that Israel has deliberately killed civilians. That leaves the proportionality rule, which bars an attack that causes civilian casualties (or property damage) that are “disproportionate” to the attack. Unfortunately, no one knows what proportionality means. Can you drop a bomb on a Hamas leader that might or will kill a nearby civilian? Two civilians? Ten? A thousand? Does it matter how important the leader is? Whether he has taken refuge in a densely packed area? There are no settled answers to these questions.
3. Human rights. Ideally, the Israelis enter Gaza and arrest the rocket shooters and their leaders, try them, and convict them if they are guilty. In practice, this is impossible. Human rights law does not prohibit the use of violence when ordinary law enforcement practices are inadequate.
Marriage and adoption in Arkansas
Since AP appears unwilling to allow the pro-marriage side of the debate to speak, I must take up the conservative man's burden (despite my not being a conservative) and explain exactly why we should not allow same-sex couples or other sundry unmarried cohabitators to adopt a brood -- unless there is simply no other option (which is quite rare). So here goes:
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Children ideally should have both a (male) father and a (female) mother:
(a) Every person has both "male" and "female" components to his personality that require training and nurturing by the corresponding sex parent... every child needs both sexes in his life, preferably as parents. Since the State is picking the parents, why not satisfy this need?
(b) Girls learn best how to be women from their mothers, while boys learn best how to be men from their fathers... women best know the special problems girls have, while men best know the special problems boys have.
- Children ideally should have parents whose commitment to the family extends at least far enough to get legally married. (The question of who is legally allowed to marry should be taken up in a separate initiative or legislative bill all its own.)
- The State has a vested interest in promoting and encouraging family arrangements that most closely approximate the ideal, and in discouraging or even prohibiting some arrangements -- polygamy, underaged marriage, etc. -- that swing dangerously far away from that ideal.
- The State has no authority to take children away from their birth parents, but it does have the primary responsibility to ensure that those children under its own care -- adoptive and foster children -- are placed in families that satisfy (3) above.
- The people of Arkansas have the right, and I argue the duty, to enact such laws by initiative when the state legislature is pathetically unable or unwilling to do so.
I don't undersand why this should not be obvious to at least 90% of the adult population; but at least it was obvious to a majority, and the Arkansas initiative passed by 14 points.
Evidently, however, it is not obvious to the Associated Press... which obtusity, when generalized, may go a long way towards explaining the financial quagmire in which the elite news media in this country finds itself in recent years.
Maybe these reasons are ultimately bogus, but the news media have a duty to at least air them. I don't think they're conspiring to ignore them; I think they really, honestly, can't see them and don't understand them. Going back to the five-component model of morality and the notion of "moral color-blindness", I think the mainstream journalists, being on the left, simply can't perceive those arguments as in any way meaningful.
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