The Argument From Personal Credulity

Keep trying, guys. Also see the comments.

Rosie Fisked By Gagdad

Here:

Just ponder this disgusting non-apology by Rosie O'Donnell -- not just the words, but the abuse of language:

--"9/11 affected me deeply, as I know it did many Americans."

Wow, nothing gets past you, does it! Next:

--"The falling of the twin towers served to remind me that many of the assumptions Americans have about their lives are rooted in false feelings of security. "

Hmm. That's an odd thing to be reminded of when people are jumping to their death from a hundred floors up. Where's she going with this? "Assumptions rooted in false feelings of security." Is she talking about our denial of the evils of contemporary Islam? I guess I'm on board.

--"In light of this reminder, I have begun doing exactly what this country, at its best, allows for me to do: inquire. Investigate."

I see. Very good. So you've been reading the Koran, logging onto MEMRI.org., checking out Little Green Footballs, that kind of thing?

"America is great in so many ways, one of which is the freedom to speak, and indeed think, freely."

Indeed. But you sound a little defensive. What does this have to do with accusing the American government of attacking its own citizens on 9-11?

--"I have, of late, begun exercising the rights bestowed upon me by the democratic system I value, and the exercising of these rights has taken the form of an inquiry into what happened five years ago, an inquiry that resists the dominant explanations and that dares to entertain ideas that push me to the edge of what is bearable."

Wo, wo, slow down, sister. Are you suggesting that you're not really a vicious and paranoid hater and kook, but a daring intellectual adventerer who refuses to be dominated by racistsexisthomophobicwhiterethuglicanoppressors and is courageously skirting the edge of unbearable truth? Is that it?

--"I have come to no conclusions and, given the scope of the subject, will not for some time."

Sounds like you've concluded that you'd better shut your piehole about your daring discoveries in order to appease your corporate oppressors and keep your job.

--"If the very act of asking is so destabilizing for people, than I have to wonder whether the fabric of our democracy is indeed so raveled it is beyond salvage."

I see. The people who are exercising their free speech by questioning your sanity are "destabilized" and evidence that our system is beyond repair. Would it surprise you to learn that your continuing presence on national TV is prima faeces evidence of a liberal news media establishment so lacking in credibility or even basic decency that is broken beyond repair?

--"My own belief is that the act of asking is itself reparative, because it brings to life the values on which our constitution rests."

But why then isn't questioning your evil ideas reparative?

--"I am, therefore, pledging my allegiance, hand over heart, trying, as always, for a rigorous truth."

The news-speak credo of the leftist MSMistry of Truth. Pledge allegiance to the Truth you have spent your life undermining.

Closeminded Dogmatism

Good Mark Shea post.

North Shore Oahu

Good times.

(Click to zoom)

George W Bush Sank The Titanic

Good video parody of Loose Change foolishness.

It Is Becoming More And More Self-Evident

Good piece here:

The Creationists aren't going away. They're just getting sneakier."

Thus Dave Thomas ended his commentary in The Tribune ("Intelligent design supporters find new, creative ways to get their message out," Insight & Opinion, March 13), which warned of yet another assault on evolutionary theory by the creationist, this time in the form of academic freedom legislation.

The principle objectives of this legislation are to "give teachers the right and freedom, when a theory of biological origins is taught, to objectively inform students of scientific information relevant to the strengths and weaknesses of that theory and protect teachers from reassignment, termination, discipline or other discrimination for doing so," and to give students the "right and freedom to reach their own conclusions about biological origins."

Thomas warns that while the bill is about academic freedom, its intent is to teach creationism in the science classroom.

Having assisted in the drafting of this legislation, I can say that it says what it means and means what it says - nothing different, nothing more and nothing less.

There is a lawyer's adage that says, "If the facts are on your side, argue the facts. If the law is on your side, argue the law. If neither are on your side, change the subject and go after the motives of your opponent." Bingo! Right out of the Darwinist playbook.

Now, this business of going after your opponent's motives can be tricky. While your objective may be to expose your opponent's hidden agenda, there is a real risk that instead, you will expose your own worst fears.

Thomas reads a lot into the language of these measures and what he "reads in" is a reflection of his own paranoia. His worst nightmare is not that Biblical Creationism will be taught in public schools - that is not going to happen - but that the evidentiary weakness of Darwin's theory will be exposed.

But the truth is that Darwinists have much more to be concerned about than academic freedom legislation and the distribution of science documentaries to science teachers. The greatest threat to the Darwinian dogma today is science itself.

There is a revolution under way in the biological sciences. A whole new field of biology called "Systems Biology" has emerged during the past 10 or 15 years. This revolution is just as profound for the biological sciences today as the transition in physics was from classical physics to quantum physics and relativity in the early part of the 20th century.

In this exciting new field, research is guided not by Darwinian principles but by design principles because design principles are needed to explain design-like features.

The teaching of evolution today in public schools is frozen in the past where it is based largely on a mid-20th century understanding of biology. Research in the biological sciences has moved far beyond that understanding because of the hopeless inability of Darwinian principles to explain the complexity observed in living things.

Public education has a quandary. How do we teach evolution so that it reflects our current understanding of biology rather than a mid-20th century understanding?

Modern science arose in Christian Europe - there and nowhere else - and it was rational Christian theology that gave it its birth. The commonly accepted wisdom that the war between science and religion started with Galileo is mythology.

There never has been such a war and the actual conflict between Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church is far more interesting than the simple one-dimensional mythological portrayal of a humble scientist pitted against a powerful and dogmatic church.

The so-called war between science and religion exists today as a mythology created in the 19th century as a political maneuver to aid the cause of materialism. That mythology has been preserved through the 20th century and is broadly regarded as true.

The success of this strategy can be attributed largely to Thomas Huxley, Darwin's bulldog, who saw relatively little scientific value in Darwin's theory but saw great value in its ability to provide the foundation for a new secular religion to replace Christianity, which he judged was no longer adequate to meet the needs of late 19th-century England.

And, he saw public schools as the means for spreading this new faith.

It is academic freedom the Darwinists fear because it will expose the weakness of the evolutionary theory. And if that weakness is exposed, then suddenly, public education becomes not the vehicle for propagation of their materialistic religious faith as envisioned by Huxley but the instrument of its demise.

That Maui Feeling

Another picture from the honeymoon. We had fun in our Mustang convertible. There are hundreds of these on Maui.

(Click to zoom)

Portraits In Dhimmitude

One picture is worth a thousand words.

With Enemies Like This, Who Needs Friends?

The Darwinists are simply embarrassing themselves.

The Suffering Servant

Great essay by The Anchoress.

Back

I'm back from the Maui honeymoon and am blogging again. I got some neat pictures on the trip. Here's one I took from our balcony at the Lahaina Inn, where we stayed the first two nights (camera was a Nikon D40).

(Click to zoom)

In The Event Of Us Getting Married And Being On Our Honeymoon, This Blog Will Not Be Updated

I'll be back March 31st'ish.

My bride-to-be and home-to-be await me! Wedding tomorrow, then to Maui!

(Click to zoom)

Why Would I Want My Doctor To Have Studied French Literature?

Great essay here:

excerpt:

The folks at the Alliance for Science have sponsored an essay contest for high school students. They ask students to write an essay on ‘Why I would want my doctor to have studied evolution.’ First prize is a copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Second prize is two copies of Darwin’s Origin of Species! (Just kidding.)

Really, it’s a funny question. Think about it. Would anyone sponsor an essay contest on ‘Why I would want my doctor to study anatomy’ or ‘Why I would want my doctor to study physiology’? Of course not, because we all know that these kinds of science are important to medicine. Is evolutionary biology important? If it is, why do they have to ask the question?

Doctors don’t study evolution. Doctors never study it in medical school, and they never use evolutionary biology in their practice. There are no courses in medical school on evolution. There are no ‘professors of evolution’ in medical schools. There are no departments of evolutionary biology in medical schools.

If you needed treatment for a brain tumor, your medical team would include a physicist (who designed the MRI that diagnosed your tumor), a chemist and a pharmacologist (who made the medicine to treat you), an engineer and an anesthesiologist (who designed and used the machine that give you anesthesia), a neurosurgeon (who did the surgery to remove your tumor), a pathologist (who studied the tumor under a microscope and determined what type of tumor it was), and nurses and oncologists (who help you recover and help make sure the tumor doesn’t come back). There would be no evolutionary biologists on your team.

I am a professor of neurosurgery, I work and teach at a medical school, I do brain research, and in 20 years I’ve performed over 4000 brain operations. I never use evolutionary biology in my work. Would I be a better surgeon if I assumed that the brain arose by random events? Of course not. Doctors are detectives. We look for patterns, and in the human body, patterns look very much like they were designed. Doctors know that, from the intricate structure of the human brain to the genetic code, our bodies show astonishing evidence of design. That’s why most doctors—nearly two-thirds according to national polls—don’t believe that human beings arose merely by chance and natural selection. Most doctors don’t accept evolutionary biology as an adequate explanation for life. Doctors see, first-hand, the design of life.

I do use many kinds of science related to changes in organisms over time. Genetics is very important, as are population biology and microbiology. But evolutionary biology itself, as distinct from these scientific fields, contributes nothing to modern medicine...

Good Question

Found in the comments here:

I like what Alistair McGrath asked. “If believing in Jesus Christ is the same as believing in the tooth fairy, how many people do you know who started to believe in the tooth fairy in their mid twenties whilst at university?”

The Creed For The Only True Faith

Via Mark Shea:

We believe in Global Warming
the Sea-Raiser, the All-Powerful,
maker of tsunami and hurricane,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Cause, The Activities of Man,
the lowest of all creatures,
except the ones that are brown.
Gasses from Coal, not Recycling from Blight, true Cause from true Gasoline, made, not begotten, of Driving when One Could Walk; through Man all pollutions were made.
For us and for our salvation
Gore came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Nader
and the Virgin Chomsky
and became truly political.
For our sake he was un-elected
under Pontius Harris;
he suffered defeat and was retired.
On the third year he rose again
in accordance with the Documentatrians;
he ascended into Hollywood
and is seated at the right hand
of the Film Executives.
He will come again in glory
to judge the polluting and the recycling,
and his kingdom will have a biodegradable end.

We believe in Global Warming, the Destroyer,
and the taker of life,
who proceeds from the Car and the Industry,
who with the Suburbs and the Factory Farm
is worshiped and glorified,
by the prophets of GREED.
We believe in the scientists who agree with us
and our beliefs.
We accept the starvation of Billions,
for the forgiveness of environmental sins.
We look for the return to subsistence farming,
and the whole grain life of the world to come.

Amen.

Kill Dash Nine!

Some good Nerdcore rap by some Stanford engineering students. Yo. I am down with it.

A Refreshing Surprise

The Yahoo homepage is highlighting a very sensible answer to a common question, and it isn't the usual secularist foolishness.

Urban Design

Lileks:

Anyway. The Professor’s views, or more accurately my objection to his views, are best expressed in his opinion of the skyways, the second-story bridges that connect most of downtown. They gave rise to a second-floor retail economy that did not exist before, and granted, they had a hand in siphoning off the retail and energy of the first floor. But downtown retail was headed south ever since the end of WW2, and the price seemed fair for what what we got: a sprawling urban center punctuated by enclosed plazas and public places, lined with restaurants and shops, with views of the street below. You can walk to lunch without a coat and come back with all your toes and fingers. In the brutal summer, you can dine in comfort. I love them. They’re one of the truly unique things about this city. The professor, well, he’s less sure.

His opinion of the skyways:

“Good in some ways, but they are too private, exclusive, and don’t help built the 24-hour city [living, working, shopping, mixing] that we need.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about. Private? Well, they are privately owned, inasmuch as the system winds its way through private buildings, and the rules of the street don’t apply; you can’t upend a pickle-bucket and bang away for nine hours for spare change, like you can on the street below. Most people are willing to sacrifice this freedom, it seems. Exclusive? I never noticed the bouncers and the velvet rope. If he means that the commercial purposes of the stores has an exclusionary effect on those who don’t have the means to shop, perhaps, but such a person could walk the system all day without anyone asking to see their receipts. “Don’t help build the 24-hour city”? Minneapolis is not New York. Minneapolis is not Chicago. We’re not big enough to have a 24-hour downtown. I don’t even know what that means. People live downtown, work there, shop there, and “mix.” They’re just not doing it at 3 AM. They’re asleep.

You might be wondering just what he’s on about, and I share your confusion. I too am fascinated by urban design, particularly the mistakes made by the previous designers. Like freeways, for example – some of the decisions made about our freeway system were ill-considered and short-sighted. But others will insist that the freeway system itself was a mistake, because it allowed people to leave the city. This almost – almost, mind you – suggests that the traditional model for urban habitation is an unalloyed good that must be held together by force, and that anything that allows people to choose an alternative must be judged not on what it provides people in general, but how it affects the city.

In which camp might we find the subject of the interview? Well, when discussing his concepts of “design,” and how cities might be better organized, we get a whiff:

“We’ve been doing work with homeless teenage mothers,” he says. “In wondering how to make things better –“

Stop. Homeless teenage mothers. One of those conditions is immutable. One of them is a matter of choice. One of them arises from a combination of the other two. If you want to make things better, perhaps you’d concentrate on the attribute most closely aligned with individual choice? Apparently not:

“ – I asked if the problem was housing or train or transportation They said it was all of those. They can’t get from affordable hosing to day care to a job and back again because we’ve designed a bus system for the benefit of the operators (??), housing at the behest of zooming code and jobs that require a car, which people can’t afford. This is a classic design problem.”

Well. As the adage has it, if all you have is a degree in Design, everything looks like a design problem. You, bus driver operator! Move that route closer to the teenaged unwed mother’s house! You there, subsidized day-care – shimmy over a mile to the left and a few versts the south, so the teenaged unwed mother can take the bus to your place without having to transfer. You there, “supplier” of jobs, even though you merely leech off the labor of others and turn the profit into a smooth cream you rub on your spats-chafed ankles - move the jobs into the city near the teenage unwed mother’s house and daycare.

It would be easier if the teenaged unwed mother wasn’t a mother or wasn’t unwed, but those problems do not present the delicious opportunities to Design. And by “design,” I suspect they mean what the mold-breakers and the paradigm-crackers and all the rest of the utopians and revolutionaries mean:

“A whole new mind is required,” the professor goes on to say. Sigh. A whole new doubeplus newthink mind, brother, until oldthink unbellyfeel. “The legalistic way of looking at things – black or white, public or private, win or lose – does not match real life.”

Beware people who regard the distinctions between public and private as a mere legality, and one based on subjective viewpoint at that. In the end, they can define anything private as public, which gives them the right to take it away. And if you lose something you own, well, “loss” is a subjective concept as well that does not match real life. Or at least the real life you can understand if you have a whole new mind.

I still don’t know what he wants, except something that’s well-designed. From the interview:

Q. Let’s consider a local example: Minneapolis’ pending policy on downtown transportation. Most of the emphasis has been on getting bus commuters in and out faster. Is that the best focus?

A. That’s what happens when a project is given over to engineers who think mostly about how fast they can move the traffic and not on the quality of the urban experience itself.

I think if you asked most people waiting for the bus if they would rather A) get home quickly, or B) have a quality urban experience, the first option would nose ahead by a comfortable margin. Is it better to sit on a bus for an hour if you can look at trees and the occasional abstract sculpture, or is it better to get home quickly so you can be with your family, or dog, or just relax in that legalistic private space to which people are so inordinately attached?

More good stuff follows.

The End Of This Gravy Train Is Going To Be Ugly

Government. Is there anything it can't do?

Weyall Butter My Butt An' Call Me-A-Biskit!

Ah din't know tha' Hillary wuz one a dem Southern folk. Take a listen here, all y'all!

Oh, My Ears And Whiskers!

Nice little ABC News video piece on chronic tardiness.

Alchemy Had A Future, Unlike Other Pseudosciences

Great post by Jonathan Wells comparing Darwinism to alchemy.

The Reports Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Well-put post by Denise O'Leary.

There Is More In Heaven And Earth...

This is just plain fascinating.

It Took Me Five Years To Replace Windows ME, I Figure I'm Good With XP For Another Five

I'm starting to get the impression that Vista, like all Microsoft products (except XP), sucks. Here's a good jumping-off point to learn why.

Giving Gore What For

That's what The Anchoress does in this post.

I'm Not Who I Was

Stumbled across a neat song and video at Dawn Eden's site. A good testament to transforming grace.

Those Who Can Think, Argue For Their Position, Those Who Can't, Hurl Profanities

The blogger Instapunk made the following challenge the other day:

I propose an exercise to be performed by those who have the software and expertise to carry it out. The exercise is this: Search six months' worth of content, posts and comments, of the 20 most popular blogs on the right and the left. The search criteria are George Carlin's infamous '7 Dirty Words.'

Initial research indicates that the blogospheric left spews potty-mouthed locutions at somewhere between an 18 to 1 and a 44 to 1 ratio compared to the blogospheric right.

Nuance.

Gee, What A Surprise

"Soros buys 1.9 million shares in Halliburton."

If There Were No Human Tendency To Leftism, We Would Need No Ten Commandments

Michael Medved has an interesting reflection regarding why leftists hate the Ten Commandments. Hint: leftism is all about breaking every last one of them.

Rocket Science Is Dangerous In The Hands Of Kindergartners

It's all so simple for leftists. For real people working in the real world with real concerns for real technical details, not so much.

Interesting American Thinker piece about the uncertainties of atmospheric modeling. Good engineering geek stuff.

If You're Feeling Guilt, It Ain't Because The Church Is Hectoring You

Mark Shea:

Catholic Guilt is Hogwash

How often do people have to see some utterly brazen extrovert on the tube moan about "Catholic guilt" before they wake up and realize, "Waitaminnit! This person wouldn't know guilt if it bit them on the nose!" Here's a priceless piece on Gwen Stefani's "struggle" with "Catholic guilt".

When somebody like Madonna complains about "Catholic guilt" what they mean is, "I resent the feeling my conscience gives me when I blaspheme God." Being angry at this is like being angry at the feeling your fingertips afflict you with when you touch a red hot stove. Most sane people stop touching the stove and go to the sacrament of reconciliation for bandaids and burn ointment. Some people, however, have figured out ways to procure lots of morphine and novocaine so they can go on touching the stove.

I learned to dismiss the Catholic guilt thing before I became a Catholic. I was raised completely outside the Church and I can tell you all about guilt. I suffered from it, not because somebody was "making me feel guilty" but because I *was* guilty. When I met ex-Catholics who hated reconciliation, I felt like I was talking to people from another planet. "You mean, you have a sacrament where you are authoritatively absolved of your sins by the power of Christ and given the power of the Holy Spirit to start all over again? I've been searching for that all my life! What are you? Crazy? You'd turn your back on that for some crap about self-affirmation and Being True to Yourself?"

Champions Of Free Speech

YouTube demonstrates a certain consistency.

The New Anti-God Crusade

Good roundup post of roundup posts by Denyse O'Leary.

We Got Your Back

Great poster, seen here:

Great Blog Headline

"Raceless Female Raped by Raceless Male at a Party Hosted By a Raceless Fraternity in the Same City Where Rich White Boys Raped A Poor Black Stripper"

Here.

More details here.

Wheels Within Wheels

More purely random molecular jostlings on display here.

One Big Sprawling Accident. Obviously.

Researchers at Harvard University have produced some interesting visualizations of what all is going on inside of a cell at the level of biological macromolecules.

Hewitt On The Dying Newspaper Business

A couple of weeks old, but these two columns are good reads.

I don't understand why somebody, somewhere doesn't realize that there is a lot of great daily content on the web that needs a collector and editor. I'd be more than happy to have access to the stuff I must now read online in a printed newspaper edition. But I'd never waste my time reading the bland, propagandistic crap served up in current newspapers. It would be great not to have to sit in front of a computer to read intelligent, fresh writing. Why can't I read the best of the web in a paper?

Science!

Fun video here.

Remember, O Man, That Thou Art Dust, And To Dust Thou Shall Return

Ash Wednesday! Lent! A very good reflection here.

New Phillip Johnson Piece

This is a great assessment of the current state of the Intelligent Design/Darwinism debate.

Can There Be Any Doubt That The Origin Was An Accident?

Interesting animation of a biological molecular machine central to cellular metabolism.

A Video Fisking Of Lady Macbeth

Hillary Clinton has a plan for defeat. The video announcement of her glorious plan is fisked here.

Gutenberg's Tech Support

H/T Mark Shea.

Evolution's Swift-Boaters

Good discussion on a Time magazine blog highlighted here. I think it's darned amusing that the time magazine writer says, "Evolution's Swift-Boaters will undoubtedly continue to try and mislead you. But don't worry: I'll continue to set the record straight." As if calling someone a Swift-Boater were some kind of insult, when, as far as I can tell, it is and always has meant telling the inconvenient truth, causing mainstream journalists to effectively wet their pants over the unfairness of it all. John Kerry was a complete fraud. The Swift Boaters did us all a big favor. There is a parallel here.

Some Digital Camera Fun

Sometimes February gives us a bit of perfect beach weather. Yesterday was such a day, so that's where I went with my bride-to-be (exactly 4 weeks away!). At the parking lot I saw a truck with very shiny hubcaps, so I snapped a digital photo and employed my Photoshop Elements Skillz (such as they are). Click to zoom.






Also, I noticed a neat backlighting situation and made a picture of that (click to zoom):

The Whole Universe A Cataclysm

Ace of Spades does a great job fisking Amanda Marcotte, a poor soul stewing in a cauldron of delusional leftist hate. (Language warning)

Great Christian One Liners

I originally got these in a PDF document of scannned pages, but found them on the web here:

Don't let your worries get the best of you;
remember, Moses started out as a basket case.

Some people are kind, polite, and sweet-spirited
until you try to sit in their pews.

Many folks want to serve God, but only as advisors.

It is easier to preach ten sermons than it is to live one.

The good Lord didn't create anything without a purpose,
but mosquitoes come close.

When you get to your wit's end, you'll find God lives there.

People are funny; they want the front of the bus,
the middle of the road,
and the back of the church.

Opportunity may knock once, but temptation
bangs on your front door forever.

Quit griping about your church; if it was perfect,
you couldn't belong.

If the church wants a better pastor,
it only needs to pray for the one it has.

God Himself does not propose to judge a man until he is dead.
So why should you?

Some minds are like concrete
thoroughly mixed up and permanently set.

Peace starts with a smile.

I don't know why some people change churches;
what difference does it make which one you stay home from?!

A lot of church members who are singing
"Standing on the Promises" are just sitting on the premises.

We were called to be witnesses, not lawyers or judges.

Be ye fishers of men. You catch them - He'll clean them.

Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous.

Don't put a question mark where God put a period.

Don't wait for 6 strong men to take you to church.

Forbidden fruits create many jams.

God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called.

God grades on the cross, not the curve.

God loves everyone, but probably prefers
"fruits of the spirit" over "religious nuts!"

God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage.

He who angers you, controls you!

If God is your Co-pilot - swap seats!

Don't give God instructions -- just report for duty!

The task ahead of us is never as great as the Power behind us.

The Will of God never takes you to where the Grace
of God will not protect you.

We don't change the message, the message changes us.

You can tell how big a person is by what it takes
to discourage him.

The best mathematical equation I have ever seen:
1 cross + 3 nails= 4 given.

I Find Their Candor Most Refreshing

The loyal opposition forgets the importance of nuance.

Cornered

Generally Bill O'Reilly is an overdramatic blowhard. But he does a good job cornering someone spouting the usual leftist double-standard excuses for bigotry. The prey keeps trying to change the subject to the alleged wrongdoings of others, rather than facing up to John Edwards' egregious mishandling of his hate-spewing bloggers. The video clip is worth watching.

There Can Be No Legitimate Evidence For Such Things, Because We Know Such Things Cannot Happen, Because There Is No Legitimate Evidence For Them.

Good post at Mark Shea's blog as he responds to an atheist commenter. In the post, Mark gives a fascinating account of eyewitness evidence for miracles at Lourdes. Which we know can be discounted. Because miracles are impossible. Because there is no evidence for them. And therefore, the eyewitness accounts must be wrong. Because they cannot count as evidence for something for which we have no evidence. Because if they did count as evidence that would violate the lack of evidence. Which is scientifically impossible.

Beauty Is In The Resized Eyes Of The Beholder

Via Instapundit and Virginia Postrel, here's an interesting little movie.

My Estimation Of John McCain Has Just Gone Up A Couple Of Notches

Due to this. H/T The Anchoress.

If You're For The War And You're Not In The Military, You're A Chickenhawk. If You're For The War And You Are In The Military, Shut Up.

Following links from this Glen Reynold's roundup re:Arkin, I came across this good point by Ace of Spades:

Exit question: Since Arkin asserts that the troops should not be allowed to influence the public's opinion on the war, and since the entire left demands that anyone supporting the war become a troop himself -- has the left pretty much created a Catch-22 by which any and all support for the war is illegitimate?

You can listen to Arkin offer up plenty of simpering leftist sophistry here.

Ace also points out:

Incidentally, does anyone doubt for one moment that had the report that sent him into leftist la-la land gone the other way -- with troops complaining that their mission was impossible and stating that they'd like to come home ASAP -- Arkin would have written a precisely opposite post about the "wisdom and expertise of our very-professional highly-educated military"?

It woud have been insincere, of course. But any club within arm's reach for these people.

Update: Well, dang, I've been Instalanched! Thank you, Professor Reynolds.

News Flash

Here:

LONDON, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- Fashion models feel less happy and less fulfilled than people in other careers, researchers in London said.

Other characteristics models tend to exhibit include low self-esteem, loneliness and suspicions of others, Sky News said Monday.

The findings, released as London Fashion Week begins, were the results of interviews by City University researchers with a group of models and other workers.

In the study, models on average scored lower on several questionnaires, particularly when asked about their psychological need satisfaction. PNS measures a person's need to feel connected with others, their ability to feel comfortable making independent decisions and their need to feel competent in daily work.

Bjorn Meyer, the researcher who led the study, told Sky News, "These results do not mean that models are mentally disturbed but they are nevertheless concerning, and point to a potentially serious issue."

Monumental Leftist Scam

Breaking the hold of the bourgeoisie, liberating the peasant masses, throwing off the shackles of colonialism, fighting global warming. Is there any excuse that won't do for leftist tyranny?

The "global warming" juggernaut continues to gather steam. If something cold happens, that is not evidence against global warming, but if anything whatsoever warm happens, it is evidence for.

Nigel Calder doesn't like it. Neither does the Czech president. But if you don't get on the bandwagon, there will be consequences.

The whole thing is ridiculously transparent.

We're All About Free Expression Against Theocrats And-Uhh-Did You Just Say Something Against Islam? You Are Dead To Me!

YouTube is all too predictable in its censorship. Glen Reynolds has a nice roundup, including this good post by a Christian blogger.

Astonishing Talent Driven By Visions Of Heaven

CNN has a very good video piece about the 12 year old artist named Akiane. You can see some of her amazing work here.

Carrier, Not A Source

Hydrogen for energy is no panacea. This article explains why. The overall message:

The trouble is that making hydrogen requires more energy than the hydrogen so produced can provide. Hydrogen, therefore, is not a source of energy. It simply is a carrier of energy. And it is, as we shall see, an extremely poor one.

Vitriol Is Not A Side Effect, It's The Whole Point

Glen Reynolds:

JONAH GOLDBERG SPANKS ELLEN GOODMAN for a silly column comparing people who disagree with global warming theater to holocaust deniers.

This sort of behavior by global-warming enthusiasts is offputting, and justifies those who compare them with religious fanatics. As Arnold Kling wrote the other day:

The Left's religion often comes dressed up as science. Marxism is one example. The eugenics movement of the early twentieth century is another. The Global Warming crusade is probably another.

On a practical level this doesn't matter that much to me -- as I wrote before, we should probably be acting as if global warming theories are true regardless -- but acting as if isn't the same as crushing all dissent. And I can't help but feel that for people like Goodman, getting to compare people you disagree with to holocaust deniers is the main point, and global warming is just the excuse. Don't want me to get that impression? Don't act that way, then.

Jonah Goldberg has quite a good column about the Global Warming power grab juggernaut. Here's a line I liked (bolded below):

Environmentalists like to claim the “energy independence” issue, but it’s not a neat fit. We could be energy independent soon enough with coal and nuclear power. But coal contributes to global warming, and nuclear power is icky. So, instead, we’re going to massively subsidize the government-brewed moonshine called ethanol.

Here again, the benefits barely outweigh the costs. Ethanol requires almost as much energy to make as it provides, and the costs to the environment and the economy may be staggering.

Frankly, I don’t think the trade-off is worth it — yet. The history of capitalism and technology tells us that what starts out expensive and arduous becomes cheap and easy over time.

Lewis and Clark took months to do what a truck carrying Tickle-Me Elmos does every week. Technology 10 years from now could solve global warming at a fraction of today’s costs. What technologies? I don’t know. Maybe fusion. Maybe hydrogen. Maybe we’ll harness the perpetual motion of Sen. Joe Biden’s mouth.

Defending Theism

Mark Shea style.

You'd Like To Get Some Work Done. Cancel Or Allow?

Good Vista parody video.

They Favor Only One Kind Of Obedience

Great Anchoress post.

Raving Leftist Bigot Under Scrutiny

John Edwards has appointed a foaming-at-the-mouth hysteric as his blogger-in-chief. Her paper trail of previous postings as an unaffiliated blogger are causing her trouble, poor thing. This piece rounds up some of her more bigoted rantings. Dean Barnett opines here. And Michell Malkin does a parody video here.

Boy Oh Boy

The oppression in the US is just as bad as that in Cuba. I know this because Charlize Theron says so. H/T Hot Air.

Nice Try

A really bad argument for the nonexistence of God fisked here.

Funny Commercial Made For $12.79

Creativity beats a huge budget every time it's tried. Saw this in a superbowl commercial roundup post at Hot Air.

Class, All The Way

Over the last week I've read a bit about the contempt that one WaPo blogger named Bill Arkin has for the troops. This post serves as a good up-to-date roundup.

A Good First Draft

Here's a libertarian statement of principles that seems quite sane, all around. If libertarians could lose their usual wretched advocacy of license, and a view of society as nothing but idealized atomistic individuals, I'd be with 'em. This statement is a step in that direction.

Outstanding Dawkins Impersonation

Here's a great parody. Someone who sounds exactly like Dawkins explains why it is wholly unreasonable to infer the existence of Dawkins. The whole interview is very well executed.

</being a doofus>

This is amusing:

</HATE> I spotted a T-shirt at school bearing this inscription, but I don't think it quite means what some people assume it means.

I take it that it's supposed to mean "end hate." But when you use a tag like </i>, you don't mean "end italics" in the sense "abandon italics forever." You mean "I've been using italics for a bit, I'm stopping for a while now, but I'll get back to using it later."

Substitute "hate" for "i," and you'll get my drift. I bet the guy has a T-shirt in his closet that he was wearing three days before; he's hated all the stuff between then and the </hate> shirt; and he'll be wearing the <hate> shirt next time he's got some hating to do. Plus he certainly wouldn't just wear the </hate> shirt without having worn <hate> before, and on the same page -- that would be syntactically non-compliant.

Re: my headline. The doofus is the guy with the </HATE> t-shirt, not Volokh for pointing this out.

Tolerance Uber Alles

Sweetness and light:

The Nation Institute Fellow Calls for Suppression of Speech by "the Radical Christian Right":

From American Fascists by Chris Hedges, Senior Fellow at The Nation Institute, former reporter for the New York Times and NPR, and (paragraph break added):

This is the awful paradox of tolerance. There arise moments when those who would destroy the tolerance that makes an open society possible should no longer be tolerated. They must be held accountable by institutions that maintain the free exchange of ideas and liberty.

The radical Christian Right must be forced to include other points of view to counter their hate talk in their own broadcasts, watched by tens of millions of Americans. They must be denied the right to demonize whole segments of American society, saying they are manipulated by Satan and worthy only of conversion or eradication. They must be made to treat their opponents with respect and acknowledge the right of a fair hearing even as they exercise their own freedom to disagree with their opponents.

Passivity in the face of the rise of the Christian Right threatens the democratic state. And the movement has targeted the last remaining obstacles to its systems of indoctrination, mounting a fierce campaign to defeat hate-crime legislation, fearing the courts could apply it to them as they spew hate talk over the radio, television and Internet.

And to the extent there's some ambiguity about whether he's calling for legal suppression (which "denied the right" seems to strongly suggest) or just social pressure, he seems to have clarified it in favor of legal suppression (and "hate crimes legislation" in the sense of bans on supposed hate speech) on NPR's Talk of the Nation, Jan. 25, 2007...

The comments to the post contain this pithy quote:

"Free speech makes it easier to spot the idiots." --James Taranto.

Amusing Oxymoron

Spotted in this news article:

NEW YORK (AP) -- AP Video Acrobatics, blaring music and plenty of hype accompanied Microsoft Corp.'s long-delayed debut of its new Windows Vista operating system.

Hours before the software went on sale in New York, dancers clad in Microsoft colors dangled from ropes high above street level Monday and unfurled flags to form the red, green, blue and yellow Windows logo against a building wall.

Later, two explosively loud, percussion-heavy rock bands riled up Microsoft enthusiasts amid flashing lights at the Nokia Theatre _ temporarily renamed the Windows Vista Theatre _ in Times Square. As employees at Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., headquarters watched live video feeds, company-colored balloons dropped from the ceiling, a few wielding prizes.

"Microsoft enthusiasts"?

The Resultant Lack Of Mathematical Ability Is Not An Unfortunate Side Effect, It's The Whole Point

The educational system has decided that ignorant and malleable drones are the intended product. Such drones are, after all, a key to our glorious socialist future.

This fifteen minute video by a parent who has discovered something rotten about the way math is being taught in primary schools is worth watching. The lady is much more pleasant about all of this than I would be.

It can be seen here.

Who Would Know Better About Theology Than An Evolutionary Scientist?

Here's another one for the "Non-Overlapping Magisteria" file:

Remember Richard Sternberg, the editor who got in hot water for allowing a paper arguing for intelligent design to be published in a scientific journal, where intelligent design was "out of place"? Fortunately, other editors enjoy looser reigns. In the article "Intelligent design and biological complexity" in the journal Gene, molecular biologist at Stanford University Emile Zuckerkandl writes not only about intelligent design (he thinks it's an "intellectual virus") but even about the attributes of God:

Time implies change. Without change, there probably is no time. Time and change as unavoidable conditions of existence would have had to impose themselves upon that "higher intelligence" that is being peddled to the public. If the higher intelligence had to conform to time, then why not to the other dimensions of nature? It looks as though beyond the ascendancy of nature any other power may be superfluous - and inherently limited. Since life in particular could under no conditions be created instantaneously - biology makes this abundantly clear, because certain required simultaneities can only result from a history - no God can be almighty.

A few questions: How does speculations about intelligent design and theology fit in with the description of Gene as dealing with "structural, functional, and evolutionary aspects of genes, chromatin, chromosomes and genomes"? Will Gene be opening a forthcoming issue to a reply from theologians, defending the almightiness of God?

Scarce For A Reason

Seven-and-a-half weeks to my wedding, a dull blogosphere, and other priorities are keeping me away from the blog.

One of the other interests has been digital photography. I took a bunch of pictures at the West Coast Walk For Life last weekend. You can see them here.

Walk For Life

I was at the third annual West Coast Walk For Life on Saturday. This year the prolife crowd was absolutely huge, at about 20,000, while the "pro-choice" side was miniscule at just a couple of hundred. Doing a technorati search, I found this lamentation from the other side.

The post I did after the 2006 walk is here, that for the 2005 walk (where I met my wife-to-be for the first time) is here. You might find them interesting, if you've never seen them before.

Here's a quote from the lamentation I mentioned:

I celebrated this anniversary by joining approximately 400 other reproductive rights activist at the Embarcadero, to have a counter-protest to the 3rd Annual West Coast Walk For Life, a right wing predominantly Christian parade against abortion that converges every January here in the heart of liberalism, San Francisco CA.

Honestly, it was a pretty dismaying afternoon people, over 200 police officers were there to keep the crowds in check as over 20,000 pro-lifers from across the country marched bearing signs with totally falsified pictures of mangled fetuses and slogans like "abortion hurts women" and "abortion is the greatest destroyer of peace." They had their rosaries, and bibles, and walked in prayer for all of the fetuses, and all of the mothers, and all of the heathen activists that are going to burn in hell for their sins. For the most part the events remained cordial, a little yelling at times from both sides, but less out and out fights then last year and no one tried to pour holy water on me and exorcise my demons as has occurred in previous years. (true story!)

For the past three years that this march has come to town I have attended and sometimes helped to organize the counter demonstration. Every year the Walk for Life gets bigger and the activists grow fewer. This year, the sheer ratios of 1 protester to every 50 anti-choicers and 2 protesters to every 1 police officer got me a little blue, and an overall feeling of hopelessness permeated the thoughts of many of my fellow marchers.... They asked themselves "What's the point of coming anymore? Protesting accomplishes nothing."

It's true that protesting as a lone tactic rarely accomplishes much but it's exactly this mentality that keeps the numbers low at protests. We need to remember that protesting in conjunction with political organizing can make a powerful statement. We need to be there with our messages of "Forward Not Back: Reproductive Justice for All." "Our body! Our lives! Our right to decide!" and "Keep your Rosaries Off My Ovaries!" In era where our reproductive rights are being eroded by the Christian right, it's more important than ever to hit the streets and send the message that we're not going to stand for it. If we allow them to permeate our movement with hopelessness and doubt, then they have already won. And I for one refuse to go down that easily. Won't you join me?

A Sign That The Rules Of Engagement Have Changed?

Via Drudge Report, here's a video of the marines attacking an insurgent-infested minaret at a mosque.

Better Than Anything The MSM Is Willing To Give You

Michelle Malkin is starting to publish her excellent video blogs from her recent trip to Iraq. Here's the first one.

Winter Follies

My Dad alerted me to this one. They ain't used to snow in Portland, OR. It's a regular demolition derby, filmed from a guy's balcony above an intersection (presumably on a hill). Note: the video won't load in my Firefox 2.0, but works fine in IE 6.

Link.

Great Analogy

I had an eye exam today, during which they dilated my pupils. It's been amusing since then surfing the web using extra large text size, since for a few hours my near vision is completely shot.

Anyway, here's a good post examining the analogy between sports and war.

excerpt:

[W]hat would sports writers and fans make of this strange, strange turn of events? Of opportunities lost on both sides? Of outstanding athletes blowing very hot and very cold over the course of sixty minutes of play? Of the top seeded team, with the NFL’s MVP, losing at home?

It was an eye-opening experience to surf the Web this morning because I don’t read much sports journalism. The game was dissected in a thousand different ways. A few writers were clearly “in the bag” for one team or another but by and large I learned a great deal more about the game through the eyes of people who know it far better than I. It was clear, however, we’d watched the same game. The reference points, and the general sense of what was important, were the same.

It was a column by Pete King on the Sports Illustrated website which brought me up short and gave me reason to think. Here’s first-year NY Jets coach Eric Mangini’s post-season comments to the press corps:

I want to thank all of you guys. I know it’s been a long season for you. I appreciate your patience with me. I know I haven’t been Don Rickles in here. I’m trying. I think I made some progress. I’ll continue to try to make progress. I think the things that you guys do is extremely important. You’re the conduit to the fans. I just appreciate your patience with me and your understanding and your support throughout the course of the season.

“A conduit to the fans.” Jeez. That’s right. The media’s there to inform the fans.

It got me thinking. Most sports writers have an opinion. And certainly the local sports writers have an investment in communicating as much about their teams as humanly possible. Fan appetite for information is insatiable and where newspapers, TV and the Internet can’t satisfy it, fans will simply manufacture it themselves. Their passion is legendary.

Yet something still distinguishes sports media from the “current events” media — the MSM — that I usually read. Most of the sports media actually recognize that there are things that the coaches and players will not tell them. Never have. Never will. That the media do not require, and will not get, a briefing on all the details of a game plan, and certainly don’t need ongoing espionage operations to do a good job for their employers and readers. Coach Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots is legendary for his non-informative press conferences, yet sports reporters still line up to hear his words. One reason. His team wins, mostly.

Part of the “good guys” winning requires that the media play it straight. They can read between the lines all they want. They can dream up whatever schemes, plans, and strategies they think will prevail. They can interprete the slightest facial twitch or player limp in whatever way they want. But they cannot, must not, seek to betray confidences that would benefit the opposing team. A reporter who consistently attempted to sabotage the local team’s game plans would quickly be looking for work in a different discipline. Fans have too much invested in their teams to let that kind of behaviour continue.

Thus my broader view for the day — America will get the MSM it wants when America takes its national security as seriously as its football.

We don’t need “happy hacks” (to quote Mickey Kaus) but we do need media who recognize that they’ve got some skin in this game. That there are things that they do not need to know, immediately, under a system of representative government. That their role in life is not to undermine the effectiveness of the local team. Yes, we want to know the strengths and weaknesses. But winning the game … not exposing how the game is to be won … is what ultimately counts to the fans.

Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and the New England Patriots move on to the AFC Championship against Indianapolis next week. And the fans couldn’t care less what they discussed LAST week. Thank goodness the media in Pats’ world are actually required to love football more than themselves. Football fans can still dictate how the game is played.

Maybe America needs a few more fans.

Lileks Firing On Many Cylinders

I don't know how many, he has more than most to work with. Good, wide-ranging Bleat column today.

excerpt:

“Rome” is another matter. Too bad the second season will be the last. Not enough people watched the first season, and they spent about forty billion dollars on the sets – which are truly spectacular and immensely detailed; from what I’ve learned from my industry sources (i.e., stopping off at the TV critic’s desk at the paper to chat) they filled every inch of every frame with authentic items. When the camera pans across an alley or a room, every single detail has been researched, verified, reproduced. You can’t tell - but you can tell, somehow. So why didn’t it work?

Maybe people expected big battles, and didn't get them. But I don't think so; oddly enough, when people think of Rome they think of the city itself and its politics and culture, not the distant clang of sword and shield. Maybe people wanted gladitorial storylines, but A) that's been done, and B) the Colosseum hadn't been built yet. Perhaps because it lacked an obvious villain. All great HBO shows are about men whose villainy is obvious but complicated - Tony Soprano, obviously, plus Al Fargin' Swearenfargingen of "Deadwood," Avon Barksdale in "The Wire" (in subsequent seasons the villainy was found in institutional inertia, which made the last season the most impressive and heartbreaking of them all) and Larry David, a skittish judgmental nebbish with enough F-U money to avoid the consequences of his boundless schmucktitude. (Just kidding. Sort of.) Julius Caesar wasn't a typical HBO villain, and I don't think the death-of-the-Republic theme had enough dramatic resonance. . . and in a way, I'm glad, because hack writers could have really played that one up, George Lucas-style. ("Sith" was on the HD channel last night, and I watched some of it, and had the same irritated reaction: boundless talent in the service of a 7th grade imagination.)

Too bad season two will be the end of it. But they brought it back for ten more, and for that I’m grateful.

All Western cultures like to think of themselves as reflections of Rome – heirs who believe they have bested the legacy, but still suspect they lack the iron in the spine that made Rome great. But we’re better than they were. The attributes that held them together are incompatible with an Enlightened society, and what virtues they had they consumed in their rise to power. But we feel a kinship, and that’s only natural; we all grew up associating their architectural vocabulary with ours. Church, business, government – everyone took turns dressing up in Roman glory.

Why? It’s peculiar, the assumptions we make. Think of “Gothic” church architecture - busy facades, filigreed steeples, flying buttresses, everything squeezed together and competing to get to heaven first, giant stone mountains evaporating in an effervescence rapture. It seems very old and spooky. Roman, or “classical” architecture, almost stands outside of time: it’s a timeless ideal, and its effect on the Western imagination is so enduring that when the clumsy exhausted modernists came up with something like this in 1968 (click for a larger picture) they felt compelled to put columns out front to match the neighboring classical buildings. Because columns meant college and learning and civilization. Such a building might have meant something else 2000 years ago – say, “here’s the place where they slit the throat of the bull and dump the blood on the rich lady who wants Jove to make sure her husband gets that new job” – but those meanings have been drained from the structures, replaced with meanings particular to Christianity and concepts associated with Christian cultures.

...

Anyway. Strange as they may have been – and they were strange, believe me – you like to think you could figure it out if you woke up in Pompeii. Medieval France, ancient Greece, the Mongol Empire – you wouldn’t know where to start. But if you found yourself in a Roman city in a tunic with some coins in your pocket and smattering of Latin? You could figure out a meal and a drink and a place to stay, and if you avoided getting stabbed for absolutely no reason, you might find a job. Of course, the "Smattering of Latin" would be the deal-killer. Unless you were a graphic designer who'd memorized the Lorem Ipsum.

Didn’t mean to get off on that, and now it’s put me behind schedule. I’d hate to think I was unable to watch the first episode of Rome because I wasted time writing about Rome.

I've got the first season of Rome on its way to me.

Lileks also liveblogs the season opener to 24.

Unions. Is There Anything They Can't Accomplish?

Via John Hawkins:

"This is a common viewpoint, I've found, among my Democratic friends--Jon Alter, this means you!--who would never actually buy a Detroit product but who want to believe the UAW can't be blamed. The argument seems to be roughtly this: a) American cars are now reliable enough, having closed the gap with the Japanese brands, so b) the workers are doing their job; therefore c) if Detroit cars like the G6 are still obviously inferior--tacky and cheap, with mediocre handling--it must be because they're designed badly by white collar professionals, not because they're built badly by blue collar union members.

The trouble with this comforting liberal argument is labor costs. When Kuttner says "Japanese total labor costs are comparable, even with Detroit's higher health insurance costs," he is--as is so often the case--talking through his hat. Look at this chart. GM pays $31.35 an hour. Toyota pays $27 an hour. Not such a big difference. But--thanks in part to union work rules that prevent the thousands of little changes that boost productivity--it takes GM, on average, 34.3 hours to build a car, while it takes Toyota only 27.9 hours. ** Multiply those two numbers together and it comes out that GM spends 43% more on labor per car. And that's before health care costs (where GM has a $1,300/vehicle disadvantage).

If you're GM or Ford, how do you make up for a 43% disadvantage? Well, you concentrate on vehicle types where you don't have competition from Toyota--e.g. big SUVs in the 1980s and 1990s. Or you build cars that strike an iconic, patriotic chord--like pickup trucks, or the Mustang and Camaro. Or--and this is the most common technique--you skimp on the quality and expense of materials.

...Is it really an accident that all the UAW-organized auto companies are in deep trouble while all the non-union Japanese "transplants" building cars in America are doing fine? Detroit's designs are inferior for a reason, even when they're well built. And that reason probably as more to do with the impediments to productivity imposed by the UAW--or, rather, by legalistic, Wagner-Act unionism--than with slick and unhip Detroit corporate "culture." -- Mickey Kaus

Science Fiction From The Wide Ties And Polyester Era

Hot Air has the original trailer from an unprecedented cinematic experience of science fiction that will have you excited to see it in a movie coming this summer.

Very interesting to see scenes from Star Wars before the score was finished and when science fiction still had a "late show" feeling to it. As Allahpundit says, "Whatever they paid you, John Williams, it wasn’t enough."

Why We Fight

Excellent essay by The Anchoress.

Uber-Feminist Rips Childless Career Woman

Leftist consistency is an oxymoron. They use whatever weapon is at hand. The Anchoress has a good post on Barbara Boxer's criticism of Condoleeza Rice.

An Amusin' Staurn Trek Parody Oan Yootube

This is worth a couple of minutes:



H/T Lileks.

I also found (and used) this translator to do the post title.

If You Were Really Serious About Conservatism, You'd Impose Leftism!

James Taranto:

Markos Moulitsas, Material Girl

"The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict," President Bush said last night. "It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time." Markos "Kos" Moulitsas begs to differ:

I can't take anyone bellowing crap like "decisive ideological struggle of our time" seriously when they refuse to call for the sort of national sacrifice that a real "decisive ideological struggle of our time" would demand.

If Bush and his pals truly believe the fate of Western civilization hangs in the balance, they should show they mean it. Mobilize the country. Call for a draft. . . .

And yeah, of course they won't go anywhere near a draft. They don't believe in their war that much, enough to kill them electorally for a generation. But if the struggle is so dire and dark, why not do something as tame as repeal their precious tax cuts for the wealthy?

It's a common trope on the left: the measure of your devotion to a cause is the extent to which you are willing to expand governmental power in the name of fulfilling it. The question of whether a draft or tax increases would, as a practical matter, benefit the cause is treated as irrelevant; what's important is the symbolism of the grand gesture. It is analogous to evaluating a man's devotion to his wife or girlfriend solely by how much money he spends on her.

The Surge

Dean Barnett has a very good 'FAQ' post about Bush's speech.

The Anchoress has a good roundup here.

Heads We Win, Tails You Lose

Taranto:

Driven to Distraction

We were hoping the Angry Left blogs would have an interesting take on the Somalia strike, and we weren't disappointed. Here's a sampling:

* "I don't have any facts or expertise, but it strikes me that the warmongers have pulled a fast one by escalating in Somalia instead of Iran or Syria. By tonight, Bush will be able to make a case that this has come up suddenly, that they have been ready for it, that it merely demonstrates what he has been saying about GWOT [global war on terror]."--"arper," DailyKos.com

* "Well, Well Well.....it never fails. Bush is about to ask America to allow him to escalate the war in Iraq. But whenever he needs to do something like this, it seems like there's always a 'terror scare,' or some trumped up success, even if it's not our own, some days before."--"sephius1," DailyKos.com

* "With Bush's umpteenth Iraqi war plan set for delivery today, was yesterday's cruise missile attack in Somalia supposed to change the subject, or score points elsewhere while the President was on the hot seat?"--Michael Shaw, PuffingtonHost.com

So now the war on terror is a distraction from Iraq?

Good Pictures Of iPhone Announcement

Here.

As Deadly Dull As The Nineties, Except Without The Hope That Giving Republicans Power Will Change Anything

We're in a new political era. Unfortunately, it makes for dull-as-hell blog reading. 10 years ago, you could look at all the inanities of the Clinton era, but still enthusiastically thirst for a change to Republicans to finally set things right. Now? Not so much. Conservatism is dead, Republicans have shown themselves to be quite useless, and mindless leftism is on the upswing. There is nothing whatsoever to get excited about, and little motivation to harbor false enthusiasms.

I'm afraid that we're in for a lot of meaningless, boring nothingness, punctuated by the occasional unopposed implementation of awful policies. Until something big happens (large scale terrorist attacks, economic collapse), well, here we are.

I'll still be posting items of interest that I find, but the pickings are very slim right now.

On the plus side, it looks like Apple, Inc has done it again, revolutionizing the phone and leaping years ahead of the competition. Details here. The iPhone introduction at Macworld Expo yesterday is worth watching. Steve Jobs is very excited by this new technology and his enthusiasm is contagious. I've never owned a cellphone (I hate the things) but I'd consider one of these.

See here for some interesting commentary about what this does to the competitive situation in the phone business.

Infectious Laughter

On display here.

I'll Fix You, Dastardly Lord Vader!

Nice job at Star Wars redone as a 20's-era silent movie. It really should have had some footage of the Princess in distress, though. H/T Ace Of Spades.

Good Discussion

At Uncommon Descent in response to this post:

The Emerald Cockroach Wasp

The emerald cockroach wasp (Ampulex compressa, also known as the jewel wasp) is a parasitoid wasp of the family Ampulicidae. It is known for its reproductive behavior, which involves using a live cockroach (specificially a Periplaneta americana) as a host for its larva. A number of other venomous animals which use live food for their larvae paralyze their prey. Unlike them, Ampulex compressa initially leaves the cockroach mobile, but modifies its behaviour in a unique way.

As early as the 1940s it was published that wasps of this species sting a roach twice, which modifies the behavior of the prey. A recent study using radioactive labeling proved that the wasp stings precisely into specific ganglia. Ampulex compressa delivers an initial sting to a thoracic ganglion of a cockroach to mildly paralyze the front legs of the insect. This facilitates the second sting at a carefully chosen spot in the cockroach’s head ganglia (brain), in the section that controls the escape reflex. As a result of this sting, the cockroach will now fail to produce normal escape responses.

The wasp, which is too small to carry the cockroach, then drives the victim to the wasp’s den, by pulling one of the cockroach’s antennae in a manner similar to a leash. Once they reach the den, the wasp lays an egg on the cockroach’s abdomen and proceeds to fill in the den’s entrance with pebbles, more to keep other predators out than to keep the cockroach in.

The stung cockroach, its escape reflex disabled, will simply rest in the den as the wasp’s egg hatches. A hatched larva chews its way into the abdomen of the cockroach and proceeds to live as an endoparasitoid. Over a period of eight days, the wasp larva consumes the cockroach’s internal organs in an order which guarantees that the cockroach will stay alive, at least until the larva enters the pupal stage and forms a cocoon inside the cockroach’s body. After about four weeks, the fully-grown wasp will emerge from the cockroach’s body to begin its adult life.

The wasp is common in tropical regions (Africa, India and the Pacific islands), and has been introduced to Hawaii by F. X. Williams in 1941 as a method of biocontrol. This was unsuccessful because of the territorial tendencies of the wasp, and the small scale on which they hunt.

Imagine, if you will, how a wasp evolved the ability to perform brain surgery complete with a drug that turns a cockroach into a docile zombie it can lead around like a dog on a leash. I emphasize the word imagine because any story you come up with is a work of fiction. Such fiction is the basis of the Theory of Evolution.

One of the commenters is quite forthright in asserting that his faith in Darwinism rests on theological grounds:

I’ve been waiting for an topic like this to show up.

Intelligent Design handsomely relies on intuition, prodding us to capitulate to our sense that nature is in fact designed. It is not an illusion, they tell us. Now, I hear some hedging about this occasionally, that we can be mistaken, but basically our intuition is correct that design is at work in the universe.

Darwinists, on the other hand, deny the reality of design, and therefore admonish those of us who believe our intuitive sense that design is at work in the universe. Intelligent Design is an illusion, they say. And moreover, the march of science proves this. What we once thought was the work of an intelligent agent turns out to be nothing more than natural, mechanistic processes at work. An intelligent agent may have been involved to get the ball rolling, they say, but there doesn’t appear to be any piercing or manipulation of this closed system we call the universe.

So, take the example posted above by DaveScot. My intuition is that an intelligent being would never consciously settle into his lab chair and design such a creature. For me, such a creature has no hallmarks of design. It has adapted and evolved and adapted and evolved over millions of years…Why do I think this? Because I can’t seem to make the connection between creatures like this and God. And it’s not because I have trouble with the morality of using another creature as a doomed vessel for hatching eggs. It’s just plain bizarre. And I have trouble with a bizarre God.

But like Darwinists, intelligent design proponents want me to ignore my intuition that the wasp is a product of evolutionary processes. They say the seeming bizarreness of God has been addressed by tortured theologians for thousands of years or something to that effect and the fact that it is designed is the basic point.

You see, for me, the appeal of intelligent design is that it squares with common sense. I can understand the intelligent design argument that the universe is bathed in a conscious God that was an continues to be involved in the universe. But this kind of example leads me to think otherwise.

Now, I bring this up because it is very, very important. I have talked to a number of scientists, medical researchers, physicians, many of which are brilliant people. You know why they reject intelligent design? Because of intuition. They can’t draw the connection between this wasp (and thousands of other examples) and an intelligent designer. It just doesn’t make sense.

His Darwinism is solidly supported by the argument from personal theological incredulity.

A Remarkably Incurious Elite

Great piece in the WSJ about the militant new atheists.

excerpts:

Thanks in part to the actions of a few jihadists in September 2001, it is believers who stand accused, not freethinkers. Among the prominent atheists who now sermonize to the believers in their midst are Dr. Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett ("Breaking the Spell") and Sam Harris ("The End of Faith" and, more recently, "Letter to a Christian Nation"). There are others, too, like Steven Weinberg, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Brooke Allen (whose "Moral Minority" was a celebration of the skeptical Founders) and a host of commentators appalled by the Intelligent Design movement. The transcript of a recent symposium on the perils of religious thought can be found at a science Web site called edge.org.

There are many themes to the atheist lament. A common worry is the political and social effect of religious belief. To a lot of atheists, the fate of civilization and of mankind depends on their ability to cool--or better, simply to ban--the fevered fancies of the God-intoxicated among us.

Naturally, the atheists focus their peevishness not on Muslim extremists (who advertise their hatred and violent intentions) but on the old-time Christian religion. ("Wisdom dwells with prudence," the Good Book teaches.) They can always haul out the abortion-clinic bomber if they need a boogeyman; and they can always argue as if all faiths are interchangeable: Persuade American Christians to give up their infantile attachment to God and maybe Muslims will too. In any case, they conclude: God is not necessary, God is impossible and God is not permissible if our society--or even our species--is to survive.

What is new about the new atheists? It's not their arguments. Spend as much time as you like with a pile of the recent anti-religion books, but you won't encounter a single point you didn't hear in your freshman dormitory. It's their tone that is novel. Belief, in their eyes, is not just misguided but contemptible, the product of provincial minds, the mark of people who need to be told how to think and how to vote--both of which, the new atheists assure us, they do in lockstep with the pope and Jerry Falwell.

For them, belief in God is beyond childish, it is unsuitable for children. Today's atheists are particularly disgusted by the religious training of young people--which Dr. Dawkins calls "a form of child abuse." He even floats the idea that the state should intervene to protect children from their parents' religious beliefs.

For the new atheists, believing in God is a form of stupidity, which sets off their own intelligence. They write as if they were the first to discover that biblical miracles are improbable, that Parson Weems was a fabulist, that religion is full of superstition. They write as if great minds had never before wrestled with the big questions of creation, moral law and the contending versions of revealed truth. They argue as if these questions are easily answered by their own blunt materialism. Most of all, they assume that no intelligent, reflective person could ever defend religion rather than dismiss it. The reviewer of Dr. Dawkins's volume in a recent New York Review of Books noted his unwillingness to take theology seriously, a starting point for any considered debate over religion.

The faith that the new atheists describe is a simple-minded parody. It is impossible to see within it what might have preoccupied great artists and thinkers like Homer, Milton, Michelangelo, Newton and Spinoza--let alone Aquinas, Dr. Johnson, Kierkegaard, Goya, Cardinal Newman, Reinhold Niebuhr or, for that matter, Albert Einstein. But to pass over this deeper faith--the kind that engaged the great minds of Western history--is to diminish the loss of faith too. The new atheists are separated from the old by their shallowness.

To read the accounts of the first generation of atheists is profoundly moving. Matthew Arnold wrote of the "eternal note of sadness" sounded when the "Sea of Faith" receded from human life. In one testament after another--George Eliot, Carlyle, Hardy, Darwin himself--the Victorians described the sense of grief they felt when religion goes--and the keen, often pathetic attempts to replace it by love, by art, by good works, by risk-seeking and--fatally--by politics.

...

There is no such sympathy among the new apostles of atheism--to find it, one has to look to believers. Anyone who has actually taught young people and listened to them knows that it is often the students who come from a trained sectarian background--Catholic, Orthodox Jewish, Muslim, Mormon--who are best at grasping different systems of belief and unbelief. Such students know, at least, what it feels like to have such a system, and can understand those who have very different ones. The new atheists remind me of other students from more "open-minded" homes--rigid, indifferent, puzzled by thought and incapable of sympathy.

The new atheists fail too often simply for want of charm or skill. Twenty-first century atheism hasn't found its H.G. Wells or its George Bernard Shaw, men who flattered their audiences, excited them and persuaded them by making them feel intelligent. Here is Sam Harris, for instance, addressing those who wonder if destroying human embryos in the process of stem cell research might be morally dicey: "Your qualms . . . are obscene."

The atheists say that they are addressing believers. Rationalists all, can they believe that believers would be swayed by such contumely and condescension? They seem instead to be preaching to people exactly like themselves--a remarkably incurious elite.

Welcome To Disneyland

Cartoons here, here, and here.

Yawn

Very little of interest to read lately. But Cartago Delenda Est is still keeping watch!

Pooling Our Collective Ignorance

Great Thomas Sowell column.

excerpt:

Perhaps it is one of the fruits of the "self-esteem" emphasis in our schools that so many people feel confident to voice strong convictions about things they know little or nothing about -- or, worse yet, are misinformed about.

One of the hardest things for anyone to be informed about is the value of someone else's productivity. Yet there are cries from all directions that some people are being paid "too much" and others "too little."

Who can possibly be better informed about the value of what someone else produces than those who use the goods or services that the person provides and pay for it with their own money?

Things are worth it or not worth it to particular individuals. What these things might be worth to somebody else is irrelevant.

People who think that they, or the government, ought to be deciding how much income people make are in effect saying that they know the value of people's output better than those who use that output and pay for it with their own money.

How did Bill Gates get his fortune? Not by someone deciding how much Bill Gates was worth to "society," but by innumerable people around the world deciding whether what Microsoft offered them was worth what Microsoft charged.

What all those sales added up to -- Microsoft's income and Gates' fortune -- nobody decided. Nor is there any reason why they should have, even aside from the fact that nobody is qualified to make such a decision.

We can each decide for ourselves whether what Microsoft offers is worth it to us. That is all we are competent to decide -- and only for ourselves individually, when spending our own money.

The idea that we should pool our collective ignorance and then decide how much it is "fair" for Gates or anybody else to earn in total income is as ridiculous as it is dangerous, for it means arming politicians with the arbitrary power to decide everyone's economic fate.

...

A recent campaign in California to sock the oil companies with bigger taxes hyped the fact that oil company profits were $78 billion.

That sounds like a lot of money. For that matter, $78 million would sound like a lot of money. If the truth be known, there was a time when just $78 would have seemed like a lot of money to me.

But so what? What do we know about the economics of the oil industry? How many billions did they invest to get that $78 billion in profits? And how many billions did they lose in their bad years?

Utter ignorance of all these things has not been enough to discourage people from loudly demanding that the government "do something" about "Big Oil" and its profits.

...

Are individual decisions made by people deciding what is best for themselves to be over-ruled by ignorant busybodies, obsessed by things they do not understand?

Is the whole economic system of supply and demand, on which the nation's prosperity is based, to be disrupted whenever moral exhibitionists have a need to feel puffed up about themselves?