Battle Fatigue

Austin Bay, writing from Iraq, sent an e-mail to Instapundit in response to a number of writers who say that voting for Kerry would be like a necessary "breather" or "time-out" from the war. Read the whole thing, but here is what I see as the key graf:

"Time out" is a mirage of the chattering class. Credit Peggy's and Andrew's antennae for culling out the driving emotional angst behind the chatter. Hate to say it, but the call for "time out" Noonan fears may be another case of Baby Boomers who can't separate Hollywood war from the real thing. Hollywood wars end in a couple of hours. Real earthly hells have no intermission. In current GI lingo, "the enemy has a vote" (the enemy can exercise his will, and act). Take a break and the enemy votes. On 9/11 our enemy went to the polls. We were either going to work, eating breakfast, or lollygagging in bed.

I have written before that while the United States is the greatest power in the world, it is not the only power. The rest of the world does not exist merely as an echo chamber to reflect our actions back upon us. There are people who wish to influence, curb, and eventually destroy our power, and they have the free will to choose to take action. If we make a choice in this election because we are weary of the battle that we face, then we send the message that we are weary and that the best time to hit us will be while we try to rest.

There are some who say that we are in this war because of classic American Arrogance. I may grant that is so, but it would be far more arrogant to believe that we have the power to say "time out" and expect our enemies to just sit back on their haunches while we catch our breath.

The Utter Failure of the CIA

Glenn Reynolds has a chunk of links at Instapundit.com regarding the Niger unranium issue. Between this, Iraqi WMD, the Sudanese aspirin factory, and let's not forget the Chinese Embassy in Sarajevo being mistakenly targetted in that war, the CIA's credibility is currently zero. At this point, I wouldn't trust them for directions to the men's room.

The immediate problem: we as the US have no means left to gather intelligence that can be considered reliable. The CIA is supposed to be the eyes and ears of our foreign policy, and a person that can not trust his eyes is as good as blind.

Not a Pleasant Combination

1. The digestive system kindly redirects all of it contents to the nearest available exit.
2. Some of the fluids that I have put down included a super-caffeinated beverage that was able to deliver its payload prior to explusion. I won't name the beverage, let's leave it at that most of my friend says that I dew too much of it.
and 3. Reading a collection of short works inspired by Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

The end result: lying awake at 1:by-god-45 in the morning with really pretentious poetry based on the Endless running through my head. Normally I would seek to punish the little mutt that would come up with such doggerel, so I have decided to do so by checking up on the blogs I missed today.

That and to share the wealth of my happy state. Except for the poetry, that is, you may me strangers but you still deserve some consideration.

The Clock is Running

Any bets on how long it will take before someone makes the accusation that the Ken Lay indictment was timed to make it look as if Bush really does care about corporate fraud going into an election? I haven't been looking at any of the bigger blogs yet, so I may have already missed it.

Stop the Slaughter

It has occurred to me that the tale of the Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs has a serious flaw to it. The foolish couuple, upon killing gthe goose, should have found gold, more gold than the two had seen in their entire lives. With that gold they should have left their hum drum little lives and lived like a lord and lady. The original ending should come around when they realize that their purse has a bottom, unlike the goose.

I came to this idea there has been a group of people in the last deacade or so who have killed their geese and gotten quite wealthy by it. I write of the CEOs and other executives who have run companies into the ground and jump with their golden parachutes just before impact.

If one looks at the various stories, a couple of themes emerge: living the high life on the company diame, and manipulating the stock price with accounting shenanigans. The first is just flat out theft, while the secong is theft by a more subtle method.

The only remedy I can suggest for the first case is to the share-holders: "Wake up!" There has come to be a mystique surrounding CEOs and other members of the MBA caste. What has been forgotten is that these executives are no less servants of a company than a butler would be the servant of a house. So keep an eye on them. (Not that I think that employees are by definition untrustworthy, but I have worked for companies where the execs. acted as if they were.)

The second case is where the execs. make everything look fine and dandy untile the house fall in on everyone. Some would say that this is the result of so many executives reimbursement being dependant on the price of the stock. Once upon a time, CEOs were paid ludicrous millions of dollars a year. It became fashionable among the left wing types to be able to rattle off how many times more the CEO earned than his average line worker. The huge numbers were vulgar, and they made easy targets of political opportunity. Eventually a law was passed that denied the tax exempt status of employee compensation to any one salary of over a million dollars a year.

So, instead of getting paid in cash, the idea was to pay them in stock options. Not only would it bea tax-free way of renumerating the honchos, it would tie their compensation to a clear measure of performance: the stock price.

Now, that worked for a while until some on the MBA caste did the math and realized just how stinkng rich they could become in one shot by inflating the stock price in the short term while damning the company in the long term.

The remedy? Give back the tax-break on salaries. We may see what some would call vulgar salaries, but it would be a much clearer gauge of performance. It would be much easier to say if a CEO is worth $15 million dollars a year than it is to say if he is worth 20 thousand shares at a strike price of thirty dollars a share maturing in nine months. It would also not pressuer said CEO to have the price high in nine months at the expense of the price of the stock two years after he leaves.

Topic for Discussion

(or, Pandering to the Comment Section)

I'll be away from the computer for most of the day today, so I leave you with a thought to leave a comment upon:

Since the advent of television, there has not been an administration as inept at handling the media as Bush #43. Discuss.

Now Why Didn't I Think of That?

In connection with this post below, I point you too:

ScrappleFace: Edwards Has Plan to 'Drive Up Cost of Doing Terrorism'

And here I was, being short sighted, limitting myself to the mere idea of having the cost of terrorism being death by GPS-guided high-explosive. Thank you, Mr. Ott, for having expanded my views on the subject.

File Under: Unintended Consequences

Everyone looks to the FCC and John Ashcroft when it comes to villains crushing free speech in America. Having jackbooted thugs break into your studio smashing pieces of art hasn't happened yet, but we may be coming close to small providers of media getting fined out of existence.

But what about getting sued out of existence in Civil Court?Instapundit.com gives us a great example of speech being self-censored for fear of huge lawsuits. In this case, companies have to become oppressive in order to protect themselves from the liability of maintaining a "sexually hostile" work environment.

Let's Hear it for the Home Team

The Iraqis are pissed, and they aren't going to take it anymore. They recognize the hand of the foreigners that have brought them suffering and humiliation. These guys are angry and they are taking the fight to the enemy: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

If nothing else, this at least shows that some Iraqis are picking up on the American way of "If no one else is going to get it done, then I will." At least I still think that is an American way.

Disclaimer for those who lack a sense of judgement: I am not advocating vigilantism in the United States. I am just very glad to see that there are people in Iraq who do not immediately blame the US as the sole responsibility holder for all of the bad things that happen in their world.

Someone Please Help This Man.

This must have been shot over a series of really bad days. Entitled Winnebago Man, it is the gripping documentary of a man in desperate need of a fifth of Jim Beam, a vacation, or, best yet, a new job.

Warning: The above movie contains strong language the way way a bag of manure contains crap.

Happy Fourth of July!

I just spent a very nice evening at my folk's place. The night ended with watching at least ten different pyrotechnical displays from their balcony. Here in California, anything that shoots over ten feet or so is illegal, so at lest 90% of the shows we were observing were non-municipality sanctioned events. The elevation of the balcony gave us a good view of everything shot off in about a five mile arc. We probably had a better view of what was going on that those people who were launching the illegals. All told: at least eight times the entertainment with none of the neck strain or liability.

Here's to hoping that all of you who celebrated the holiday had fun and kept all of your digits.

Spiderman 2: Your Humble Host's Review

I went to see Spiderman 2 yesterday (kind of sad that that needs to be said, but hey, at least I'm making a game effort at professionalism here) with a friend, and I have a couple of things to say about it. Point 1 is actually something in the back of my mind since the commercials started playing, so no spoiler there. Point 2 is a complete spoiler, so don't say I didn't warn you.

1. Peter Parker is always going on about how he can't clue the people he loves into the fact that he is Spiderman because it would endanger their lives. Yet, even in the commercials we have Dr. Octopus telling Peter to get Spiderman to a certain place at a certain time, because Peter is obviously the one person in all of New York with the most reliable contact with the hero. The penalty for failing to arrange the meeting? The stripping of Mary Jane's flesh from her bones. Therefore, we have Mary Jane Watson in danger from a villain trying to lure Spiderman out into the open. Granted it is a second hand threat, but that wouldn't make the flesh stripping any more pleasant.

2. SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT Stop reading now if you don't want to know how the movie ends.

Spiderman wins.

Moving on past the Well, D'uh! spoiler, the ending just set my scientific teeth on edge. The movie ends when the massive ball of fusion energy is plunged into the river (Hudson or East, I don't know, like it matters) because there is no technical way to stop the fusion once it becomes self-sustaining. Now, this is fusion, not fire, so dunking it in water will not put it out. If there were at least a little bit of techno-babble about the water cooling the fusion below a minimum energy threshold, then I could buy it. Well, that and a shot of millions of gallons of New York river water flashing to steam almost instantly, which the movie omitted. I've never been to New York, but from what I heard, that type of steam would not be what one could call springtime fresh.

Review in brief: The action scenes were great, better than the original in both spectacle and execution. Note to Mr. Raimey (Director): For Pete's Sake, please cut down on the romantic, Will-He-Tell-Her-Won't-He-Tell-Her, angst. We've got Smallville for that.

Alienating Friends and Allies

Sometimes one just has to look at one's behavior in public and come to grips that one's self-serving position is taking a toll. It's all well and good to act in the best interests of your nation, but not if all that is is knocking someone else down a peg or two.

From the Independant of the UK:

Britain has concluded that its three-nation alliance with France and Germany is in effect over after a series of rows between Tony Blair and the French President, Jacques Chirac.

Ministers believe President Chirac has become impossible to work with, and one government source described him as a "rogue elephant".

So, what's the French word for "Cowboy" again?

Link via Instapundit

The Count is Now: 90

Nothing torques me more than being treating as an inferior. So Hillary Clinton, maybe for the second time, adds to the Count with this little bit of wit:

"Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

Of course, we should ensure that the wisest among us are the ones who do go to Washington to see to the common good. The wisest should be those who understand that they aren't wise enough to enforce plans that will serve the common good.

Here's another metaphor for statist vs. dynamic (I love ya, Virginia) thinking. Government spending on programs is like using a sledgehammer, great if you have one problem, like a rock, sitting in one place that you can swing at. Most problems, however, are spread out, they are more like jagged edges and smooth surfaces. Hitting them with a sledgehammer may obliterate the old imperfections quickly, but at the cost of making new imperfections. Let people keep the power of their earned wealth to themselves, applying it in small (compared to the government, even Bill Gates is small) increments. This method is like sandpaper. You can never really see what each grain is doing, but with patience the imperfections are smoothed away without making new problems that are as big or bigger than what came before.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

I would like to stop down for a moment and wish my parents, Larry and Eleanor, a very happy 35th wedding anniversary. Life has been far from perfect throughout my life (for my readers: I am 31 and the eldest child, so you can see they got it done in the right order) but that just serves to highlight why this marriage is such an amazing thing.

Among my friends it is a rare thing to find anyone whose parents are still together. My friends Dave and Teala, after meeting my parents for the first time, have expressed wonder to me over how a pair of people like my parents could manage to produce a square such as myself. I can only shrug and point to a good upbringing, but then you can see who is responsible for that.

I would like to invite whomever is reading today to lift up their beverage of choice and join me in a toast (it is 10:30 am here in California, so its Diet Pepsi currently) to Larry and Eleanor. Thanks for always being there with either the hand up or boot to the rear as apporpriate.

Cheers.

With Love,
Ted

Federalism for an Analog World

Andrew Sullivan's latest article takes a pragmatic view of marriage rights and how a federalist system allows for social change without he jarring shock of an all-or-nothing decision. The best that I can say is right-on, I haven't had any coffee yet this morning and the wheels have yet to start spinning.

Like everything else in the world, rights can be included in a cost/benefit check. Would you value a given right enough to move to another place that offers it to you? You would have to weigh it against all of the other factors involved in moving: would your carreer take a hit? Would you leave family and friends behind? Would you tolerate the weather where you are going? Essentially, it all comes down to how much you are willing to pay for that right.

This is not to say that if one chooses not to pay by moving that one should forever surrender the hope for that right. One could pay for the chance of having the right by continuing to be active in bringing it about in their locality. The cost there is time spent lobbying and probably the hostility of those who oppose you. Hopefully we are more enlightened now than in the time of the Freedom Marches when the law looked the other way as crimes were committed against those who rallied for justice.

As for those on the ban-it-everywhere bandwagon, you too would have the freedom under a federalist system to move yourself to where your marriage would be protected from those who would corrode the institution (how it would be corroded, I don't know). For your sake, I hope you like either humidity (Deep South) or snow (rural Northwest).

A One Stop Source...

For all of the information members of the Democratic Party had admitted to having prior to the Iraq Invasion.

Perry on Politics: Gored

As has been said before: never say something that you know can be contradicted by something you said earlier. That is why before I started this blog, I had decided to never seek elective office. Of course, should the nuances change sometime in the future, I might reconsider that position.

Pitching in the Two Cents

The Professor at Instapundit.com has a section on various observations regarding Space Ship One. I'd just like to pass on one point from a conversation at Lone Wolf Cigars in Santa Monica.

Some people may gripe that SS1 is small and can only hold three people and is incapable of carrying any type of payload. In my mind, this is just another case of modern lack of gratification delay. Take a look at the differnce between the Wright Flyer and and the variety of aircraft available by World War II. Being the first to do something rarely involves actually making it useful. The point of being first is to prove the concept, that something is possible. It comes to hundreds and thousands of other people to take that possibility and improve on it, round off the corners, if you will.

I think I had better start taking better care of my health, because I want to be around after another fifty years to see just what we'll have flying by then.

I Must Have Sneezed...

Because I missed all mention of this:

Army unit claims victory over sheik - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - June 23, 2004

in the news last week. It was good news, and you know the shelf-life of that these days.

Greetings from Mojave

I had the pleasure this morning of attending the Launch of Space Ship One (SS1) from Mojave Airport, which has just recently won approval from the FAA as the first inland spaceport in the country. What follows are a rough transcription of the notes I made as the morning went along.

Note: Go to the bathroom and grab a fresh cup of coffee, this is going to take a while.

3:45 a.m.
I am beginning to wonder if hitting the snooze bar at 2:00 may have cost me a parking space as the line to get onto Mojave Spaceport (I love writing that) stretched back at least a mile. The parking lot opened 45 minutes ago, and it seems that most of the LA basin is showing up. Fortunately there is still plenty of room in the well organized parking lot. Commendations to the Civil Air Patrol members who were directing traffic.

4:30 a.m.
I headed for the one lighted area that I could see, which turned out to be a concession stand and memorabilia shop. Even here with the sales matters were well organized, with a line for those paying with cash and those with credit. Sadly, in respect to the rate of movement, the cellular card readers gave those in the credit line little love, myself included. However, I got my cap and travel coffee mug, and I was good to go.

I should note that I was feeling particularly good for 4:30 in the morning and three hours of sleep. It was the excitement in the air, the 24 Oz. of Mocha Alert (Instant Cappucino with extra caffeine), or both.

The sun had yet to rise, but we are treated to a very clear view of Venus over the eastern horizon. There was a slight breeze, enough to make me glad of the sweatshirt I had bought, but the forecast was for the wind to die down shortly after sunrise.

The following is more directly from my notebook:
5:10 a.m.
I'm not sure which runway is going to used, Presumably runway A. The wind is coming from the north, and I am standing at the northernmost end of the viewing area. I'm probably a dozen or so people back in the crowd behind people who had the foresight to get here earlier and to bring camp chairs. It is no big deal that I will be standing the whole time, this should be worth it.

I figure that everyone will be standing when White Knight/ Space Ship One taxi by. At that point, being 6 Ft. 5 in. tall will have yet another advantage.

I'm standing next to a family that have chairs, binoculars, and, coolest of all, a receiver picking up the tower frequency. The mother just commented on the no one writes anymore (this is first draft in a notebook with a fountain pen, I love the classics), but I told her that this would go up on my weblog.

Sorry, folks, no pictures here, wouldn't know how to upload them, but I'll link to others as I find them. (Update 7-1-04: Found some damn good ones via Samizdata.net)

5:30 a.m.
I just realized while this is a historic first, this is still exciting because this is a space launch. I've been out at Edwards AFB a couple of times for landings. The first time was when President Reagan was present, and the second time on the spur of the moment when the shuttle had to be diverted from Cape Canaveral about four years ago. The second time was better, better view, and better point of view and appreciation from having studied engineering and the whole space program.

Still, those were both coming down. While tricky, its still the more natural of the two necessary operations: coming and going. The launch is where the power is, the sheer defiance, maybe hubris, in the whole project.

5:39 a.m. and the sun is just crowing over the horizon. Someone mentions this is the Summer Solstice. Since my best friends got married on the Solstice, and that I can never remember these dates precisely, I always use that as their anniversary, so Happy Anniversary Dave and Teala.

Okay, back to the reportage and awaiting the karmic payback for using the word "hubris" in a blog post.

5:45 a.m.
Music is now being played over the make shift PA system.

Good clear day as the sun clears the horizon. I can make out the windmills in Tehachapi from here. According to the Airport Manager, the conditions should be good for contrails, and White Knight (WK) will pop smoke near launch.

5:55 a.m.
Stewart Witt, the General Manager of the airport came on the PA to announce the launch is a go.

Later this afternoon there will be a small ceremony to officially proclaim Mojave Airport as the first inland spaceport in the country. Just getting anything through the FAA is worth a celebration in itself.

Just a side note, I would wager there are more digital cameras than film-loaders here. Obviously there are professional rigs out here, but the spectator contingent is almost all digital. No real importance with respect to the goings on, but I found it interesting none the less.

6:15 a.m.
Message off the PA: we are still go with White Knight/ Space Ship One (WK/SS1) taxiing out at 6:30 - 6:45. Should we expect this to happen right on schedule? Probably not, even the routine tech of commercial airlines is subject to delays. Regardless, both should be a damn sight more reliable than the Space Shuttle. I hope, I hope.

6:27 a.m.
PA of Kevin Mickey, VP of Scaled Composites: White Knight has started its engines in the Scaled Composites Hangar.

Dick Rutan, brother of SS1 designer Burt Rutan and pilot of the Voyager, has taken the podium, and has reported that the re-entry point is calm. He then went on to describe how Scaled Composites was the first to enter the X-Prize competition in 1996. When Dick asked Burt how he came up with these almost nonsensical designs, Burt replied with a quote I want to make into a poster:

The ability to deal with chaos and nonsense defines creativity.
-Burt Rutan

Emphasize "make shift" with respect to the PA, it sounds like a bad cell phone connection.

Cogent observation by Dick Rutan: This is the first manned US spaceflight in over two years. Recall: the Space Shuttle has been grounded since the Columbia.

6:36 a.m.
The first chase plane taxis out. It is a prop plane capable of aerobatics and will handle the chase through the lower altitudes.

White Knight/ SS1 has come onto the runway. White Knight is a short, twin tailed, twin jet engine, single fuselage craft that is almost surrounded by SS1.

The second chase plane, a Rutan design called the Starship, looks like a Gulfstream, except for the twin pusher props behind the back set main wing and canard along the nose. This one is the mid altitude chaser.

WK/SS1 will have a take off weight of 18,000 lbs. A long roll-out is expected.

6:46 a.m.

White Knight/Space Ship One is airborne.

It is expected to take one hour to reach the 47,000 foot launch elevation.

6:57 a.m.
The Starship has joined the formation and they are rapidly diminishing into the clear sky.

The final chase plane is called the Alpha Jet and has just taxied by. Two man, one engine jet to accompany WK/SS1 up to the launch altitude.

7:00 a.m.
Alpha jet takes off. It does gain altitude rapidly.

7:10 a.m.
Elevation approximately 30,000 feet. Even from this far the Rutan designs of the Starship and WK/SS1 are still distinctive. This launch is a great day, not only for private enterprise or the Antelope Valley, but also for the local chiropractic community. All of the neck craning is going to be awesome for their business.

Alpha jet has reached altitude and is drawing contrails. While everyone was looking at that, we lost track of WK/SS1.

The launch of SS1 will be to and toward the east in the direction of California City.

7:20 a.m.
WK/SS1 and Starship are contrailing, evidently Starship has separated. In fact, three contrails are intermittently visible. WK/SS1's is the most clearly visible.

7:42 a.m.
Needless to say, it is difficult following the planes toward the sun. The contrails are washed out. WK should pop smoke soon.

Announcement: 8 minutes to launch.

7:50 a.m.
Main separation of WK/SS1 and SS1 engine ignition. From the angle of the viewing area, it looks as if SS1 is climbing straight for the sun. First word from my neighbor with the radio is that the engine cut off prematurely and that the pilot is trying to check the fuse box to relight it. [This report is erroneous, there was a fuse problem with some of the surface controls.]

7:58 a.m.
A sonic boom rolls across the airfield. Everyone around me is still uncertain if the 100 kilometer mark was reached. The last rumor I heard was 210 thousand feet at 5 G's. Well short of the 330 thousand mark. Radio has 219 thousand.

8:10 a.m.
Waiting for some sort of announcement over the PA and for the planes to come back down. Some of my neighbors are discussion metric conversions. I am wishing I had a camera with me, SS1 and all three of its chase planes flew right overhead. The prop plane is in tight formation and has popped smoke.

8:14 a.m.
SS1 lands. Beautiful landing, almost right in front of me.

8:15 a.m.
WK executes a high bank turn to prepare to loop back for a landing.

8:19 a.m.
WK touches down.

8:20 a.m.
Flyby of the three chase planes.

PA has it that it may have been a trim system and not the engine that cut out and that they did hit the 100 kilometer mark.

Still quite a bit of uncertainty about if the mark has been hit. The PA is announcing matters as if the flight was a success. Given the amateur status of my radio operator, I will go with the official read of the PA. Success!

Either way, that is the most fun I've had before 8:30 a.m. and on four hours sleep.

The pilot of SS1, Mike Melvill, claims 340,000 feet.

8:45 a.m.
SS1 with Mike Melvill atop is towed by the public viewing area. They pulled the craft to about ten yards from the boundary ropes. Much cheering and hoopla.

Mr. Melvill had a sign on his victory lap on his ship that read:

Space Ship One
Government Zero

That was probably the best point of the whole exercise.

Update: From some of the scuttlebutt Dale Amon picked up, it looks like my amateur radio operator was not all that wrong. The engine cut out approximately 15 seconds before schedule. It would certainly explain whatever changes in vectors that would result in a 26 mile divergence from the re-entry box. I too heard on the immediate repeat of communication with the tower that there were trim problems on the way back to the spaceport. It was toward that problem that the instructions to check the circuit breakers came from.

What to Make of This?

CNN.com - Putin: Russia warned U.S. of Iraq terror - Jun 18, 2004

I'm scratching my head on this one.

What Would They Be Left Thinking?

I refer to all of those people who only got news from CBS. If this is the report on the report of the 9/11 commission, then you are going to have a lot of Americans with a seriously off view of the world. Even Mickey Kaus calls a foul on this one, and he is an ostensible liberal in most matters.

Screw "Enlightenment"

Back in the day, well before yours truly came along, it was the way of America that if a foreign agency kidnapped or harmed on American citizen, then America would exact a steep price. The government would accept a raid to rescue two hostages at the cost of twenty Marines.

Somewhere around the Carter Administration we lost that will. We became enlightened and transcended the need for brute force. It is the enlightenment that our allies in France and Germany and our own peace acitvist crowds want us to hew to.

After hearing about the death of Paul Johnson, an American civilian, I had to wonder at just what cost we are purchasing this enlightenment. Unlike most atrocities committed by Al Qaeda, this one was the follow-up to an act of extortion: do what we want or this person dies. If this is the rule of this war, that civilians may be targetted to achieve political or military aims, then so be it.

If it is discovered where Mr. Johnson was held and murdered, then that block and every block next to it should be bombed flat. An announcement should then be made: This is what happens if you allow terrorists to operate in your neighborhood. If you do not harbor terrorists, then this shall not happen to you. If you do harbor men such as this, then this is the price you and everyone around you shall pay.

This is not sinking down to the level of the terrorists. This groups demand was that other terrorists be released from prison, conceivably in order to continue the fight. Our demands would have the goal of denying the enemy a place to hide, and thus ending the fighting all the quicker. I would hold that the do it quickly method would result in fewer net casualties, although it would come in one big photogenic event, rather than spread out in drips and drabs.

If the US is pursuing a policy of torture in its interrogations, I would regret it. However, I would regret more an attack that could have been thwarted if only our side had the information that could not be gotten with kid gloves.

Via the Drudge report I have a link to some of the photos put on the web by the murderers. WARNING: Extremely Graphic Andrew Sullivan expresses doubt that these pictures will get nearly the play that photos from Abu Ghraib received. I have the same doubts, yet people need to understand what we are fighting. I would like people to look at these photos, and then shut the hell up about what seems thus far in the photos little more than fraternity hazing stunts.

We can live in a state of enlightenment in peace. When attacked by those who call that same enlightenment a weakness, however, then we must show how we earned that enlightenment. We earned elightenment because we have been that barbaric, and were very, very good at it. So good at it that we would have destroyed the world had we not become enlightened. We earned that enlightenment because we survived barbarity. We now fight a foe who does not understand the power that is constrained only by our desire to be enlightened. Our enemy has not yet tasted the full cost of his barbarity, and my suggestion to level nine city blocks is far below the line of what we could acheive.

Update: Michele at A Small Victory posts a pair of posts that show that I am not the only seeing the difference enlightenment makes. I'm afraid that I have turned that corner, or at least 45 degrees of it. If the United States gives up some of its power in the form of allowing the terrorists the choice: kill any of our people and the result will be the flattening of some of your neighborhoods, and proved that if A then B a couple of times, then the Arab Street can truly make an informed choice as to the cost of this war, the cost of allowing the barbarous among them.

I won't bactrack to Michele on this post because of her feelings on posting or linking to the picture. I don't do so to be gruesome. I do so to drive home the point of the cost of our enlightenment. When we come out of the far side of this war, I will remember the price we paid. That is a solemn oath.

My belated condolences to the Johnson family.

A tip of the hat to Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, and Dean Ing for the description of man's reason to give up war as being just too good at it.

Fickle as the Winds

Granted, any report about media bias is meta-reporting. I just can't make out why a story ceases to be newsworthy. If this report is true, then maybe it is a case of bad news selling better than good news. In that case I would like to complain, as many who consider themselves liberal do, that corporate interests are skewing what the news reports.

I say that the previous owners of the big media outlets be brought back on board. You remember them, the ones that could not stop crowing about how the economy was going great guns in the 90's despite the prognositcators who pointed at the huge technology bubble. We just need to get rid of the new corporate influences who took over sometime around the last presidential election. These guys just can't seem to stand considering even the biggest pieces of positive information newsworthy. Evidently the MS (Microsoft) of MSNBC has not sold out of the venture yet. Like Bill Gates sells anything.

The Historical Horizon

Vindication in politics takes a really long time to come along. Andrew Sullivan posted a number of published quotes from the Reagan years that display the hand-wringing and worrying about a cowboy president who had us on the brink of war with the Soviets.

Was it just me (and Andrew, you're not fooling anyone) or has anyone else noticed the similarity between these quotes and the rhetoric thrown at President Bush today?

Did You Hear that Reagan Died?

I know that Ronald Reagan had done the most as President as any other President in the Twentieth Century. While at the time it seemed reckless to be baiting the Soviets (remember them?) and to cut taxes while spending hugely on defense projects, we have gotten past the historical horizon where we can see what the actual results of his policies were. In that respect, thank God for Ronald Reagan.

On the other hand, will someone please tell CNN that there has to be SOMETHING else going on in the world? Even I'm getting sick of the wall to wall coverage. I wouldn't want to accuse CNN of being ghoulish about the death of the icon of Conservatism, but...

About Fricking Time

From the better late than never column:

CIA chief Tenet resigns - Jun 3, 2004

Now if the Bush Administration would have just fessed up and said that the guy had just flat screwed up too many times and that they canned his ass, then they can get back to regaining they face they think they are still trying to save.

And This Guy Was In Charge of Bringing Us the Truth

Former Executive Editior of the New York Times Howell Raines has a column up on The Guardian of the UK.

I'll sight from one of Andrew Sullivan's takes on the article:

Reading it is a very useful insight into how he turned the New York Times into a crusading left-populist pamphlet. Take Iraq. Of course Raines opposed the war. The notion that he might have supported it under any circumstance while Republicans were in power is ludicrous. No doubt he takes the New York Review line that we should get out now. But then he's criticizing the Bush administration for a "cut-and-run" strategy:

White House strategists are betting that leaving Iraq in 30 days - no matter what chaos ensues in that country - will leave them time to revise history between now and election day and, more importantly, get on with the work of destroying Kerry's image.

Let's look at that quote again: "... leaving Iraq in 30 days ..." The question is: does Raines believe this? If he does, he believes keeping up to 140,000 troops in a foreign country is the same as "leaving" it. Now imagine that the Bush administration decided not to transfer sovereignty and remain in control of Iraq for another year. Do you think Raines would support them? The truth is: Raines would oppose any policy in Iraq as long as it was pursued by the Bush administration. And that was indeed the rule during his editorship: the Bush administration was wrong and evil, whatever it did.

Andrew made another point about another section of the column, quoted below, that I would like to add my two cents to.

As matters now stand, Kerry has assured the DLC, "I am not a redistributionist Democrat."

That's actually a good start. Using that promise as disinformation, he must now figure out a creative way to become a redistributionist Democrat. As a corporation-bashing populist, I'd like to think he could do that by promising to make every person's retirement as secure as Cheney's investment in Halliburton. But that won't sell with the sun-belt suburbanites. Not being a trained economist like, say, Arthur Laffer, I can't figure out the exact legerdemain that Kerry ought to endorse. But greed will make folks vote for Democrats if it's properly packaged, just as it now makes them vote Republican, and in terms of the kind of voters Kerry must win away from Bush, I think the pot-of-gold retirement strategy is a way to work. Forget a chicken in every pot. It's time for a Winnebago in every driveway.

So does Mr. Raines believe that it is appropriate for a Democratic candidate to pander to the populace's greed so that the party can later ram down what said populace really needs down their collective throats? And should it not be the duty of a self-respecting newspaper man to uncover such "disinformation"? Is it any wonder that the New York Times has earned the reputation of the Newspaper of Record for the Democratic Party.

Edited because the second quote seemed to be from Andrew as opposed to the proper attribution going to Mr. Raines.

Definition of Success

Members of the Provisional Iraqi government have already gone on record that the United States have not done enough to improve security throughout the country. They have legitimate grievances against us for what happened in Abu Ghraib prison.

And so long as they are not willing to pay for terrorists to advance their political causes or to use murder as a standard procedure for dealing with those who disagree with them, I would still count the US action in Iraq a success.

The Long Road Back

I was really into blogging about a month ago. And then I went into therapy, and now I blog a lot less. Let the wags wag, but for me I realize that it was part of a problem that I had with myself, my job, and my life.

In essence, I was using the blog as a means of hiding from the rest of the world while in theory facing it head on. For now, this means that I am going to be blogging on a less frequent basis than I was in the past. Mainly this is because my paper journal has been getting the attention. Nothing against any of you who have been checking in over time, just that the realizations I have been making over the past few weeks are more of the keep-it-to-myself variety.

On the other hand, does anyone out there know of a place in the Southern California area looking for a slightly used Materials Engineer?

Let's Hear It For Proper Science

The Institute of Health has released a study finding no relation between vaccines with mercury preservatives and autism:

The Institute of Medicine’s panel of prominent scientists pointed to five large studies, here and abroad, that tracked thousands of children since 2001 and found no association between autism and thimerosal.

While high doses of mercury can cause neurological damage, there’s no evidence that this type of damage causes the symptoms specific to autism and no laboratory or animal research that would prove how the much-smaller amounts in thimerosal could do so, either, the IOM concluded.

It is nothing but commendable that parents will look out for the best interests of their children. The danger lies in those who have agendas and wrap them up in scientific sounding jargon. From Glenn Reynold's Tech Central Station Article:

It's not the Bubonic Plague, but it's nothing you want. So what gives? Why did people abandon the vaccine?

The short answer is media hysteria and alternative-health shysterism. As Hoyt reports, dubious studies were seized on by anti-vaccination activists (described by Hoyt as "religious groups whose opposition was based on religious or moral grounds. . . [and] followers and practitioners of homeopathy, chiropractic, and natural and alternative medicine.") Those groups discouraged vaccination with scare stories, and the media picked up isolated cases of vaccine side-effects and -- by drawing a lot of attention to them, while paying little or no attention to the vaccine's benefits -- left people more afraid of the vaccine than the disease.

The result is that large numbers of people -- mostly children -- who might have stayed healthy have instead sickened and sometimes died. This is because some people were crazed, or dishonest, or hysterical, and others were stupid enough to believe them. (And it's not just in America and the West, or with whooping cough: Africa is facing a resurgence of polio as Islamic leaders encourage a boycott based on conspiracy theories.)

Modern America does not understand risk they way we used to. Thank God that we don't, because that understanding came from watching people, especially children, die. Too many people can be convinced to chase the chimera of perfect safety, and the result becomes less safety for themselves and others.

A Long Time Away

As Michelle at A Small Victory would have put it, I have been down for some mental mantenance for the past few weeks. Thanks to all of you who have stopped by during the slowdown. The best advangtage I can say about the lay-off, aside from actually liking life again, is that I finally had the chance to read Virginia Postrel's The Future and It's Enemies. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It provided a vocabulary for so many of the ideas that I have been trying to communicate here.

Cliche Beyond Belief

Will the someone please tell the people behind the Sasser Worm that the name of their company: "Skynet anti-virus group" is so obviously a rip off of the Terminator franchise that it isn't even funny?

Thank you.

The First Report I've Read...

I have been hearing second hand that John Kerry had the respect of those who served with him. Now comes word of a letter signed by a large number of men who served with him that claims that he is unfit to be Commander in Chief. Read the whole thing.

Not That They Deserve and Good Breaks...

It would seem that there are some young men in the Washington D.C. area who are going to be missing some time at home for a while.

Supreme Court justice suffers minor injuries in assault

It would take a truly paranoid mind to come up with this being a case of deliberate coersion upon a Supreme Court member. I fancy myself to be a writer, so I am allowed that type of pondering. Or was it that I fancy myself to be a writer as a post facto justification for paranoia?

Link via Daily Kos

The Political Bell Curve

On a more distanced examination of Michelle's post, I liked the examples of the ideas from both ends of the Left/Right spectrm. The immediate result, the trainling ends of the bell curve to either side, at least the loudest elements of those tails, largely seem to be idiots. Short sightedness and obsessive focus seem to be the defining factors.

Shortsightedness is what leads to populating the tails of the Left/Right spectrum (whereas one has to look wide a very wide angle to have a reasoned opinion on the Libertarian/Totalitarian spectrum). The idiots for whom the first thought was "Goody, this is really going to hurt Bush," or "Wish I was there for the fun," are both judging the world through a very narrow set of values. The first is the home of the person who thinks that the sun will or will not rise the day after election day depending on who wins. The second is, if possible, a little scarier to me, in that the thought that they can devalue an enemy so much and allow that such a thing might be fun. Granted, both characterizations are over the top, but I sincerely believe that such views exist even if they were not explicitly cited.

A broader view of the world tends to create a more centrist position. I believe that it results from a person being exposed to a set of influences in which the majority of influences in one direction are countered by a similar influence in the other. By limiting their visions, or perhaps by simple bad luck of only seeing one flavor of influence, the extremist comes to a point where they self-censor any data foreign to their pre-conceptions.

That's my opinion, and, pending further data, I'm sticking to it.

Make an Example, With a Proper Trial

I am completely in agreement with Michele at A Small Victory. These pictures are going to push far more "heroes" into the fight against us than will be scared off by the idea that they might have these methods used against them. Congratulations assholes, lets hope you have a long time to think about this in the brig. On the silver lining portion of this cloud, this will give the military the opportunity to show the world how we do justice. If it would not set a precedent, I might even consider turning these people over to a war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

Priorites, People!

Will somebody please draft a memo that bin Ladin and company are more important to American foreign policy than Cuba? I am more inclined to believe that this is a case of institutional inertia at work than anyone thinking that toursim to Cuba is a critical security issue.

Note to the Treasury Department: I think that we can let Castro twist in the wind for a while yet. Focus on people who might be bringing explosives and other nasty stuff into the country, and I promise that I won't support the Castro regime by buying too many Cuban cigars.

Just Holding Up a Sign...

... That reads "Go thattaway." There's not much more that I can add to this post other than I've been trying to communicate these ideas to people for quite a while now.

USS Clueless - The truth is...

A word of advice, before you start reading, go to the bathroom and refill your coffee cup. You are going to be here for a spell.

Attitude Check

Please take a look at the following news story:

The Scotsman - International - Mystery group wage war on Sadr's militia

Now gage your attitude against the following chart:

a) Optimistic (People in Iraq do want a representative secular government)
b) Pessimistic (Just another group of thugs looking to carve out a power base)
c) Opportunistic (Hopefully the Marines will make contact with these people and offer whatever material they need)
d) Paranoid (Who you kidding? You know that its only a team of US Special Forces operating behind enemy lines)
e) Pragmatic (What does it matter why whoever is doing this, so long as it helps end the fighting quickly)

My answer: e

Link via Instapundit

For the Geek in All of Us

Not much happens in this little bit of Flash, but here's your chance to briefly wield the Light Sabres of the Star Wars Saga.

Link via Venomous Kate

"I Don't Feel Bitter At All, Why Do You Ask?"

Divorce can leave an ugly legacy. And I don't mean just the pictures. If you are looking for a particularly pricey wedding dress with a history check out this item on E-Bay quickly. Just keep scrolling downward.

Score One for Rummy

Via Instapundit.com comes this quote from a recent press briefing by Donald Rumsfeld. Making a note of how some in the media spin the news, he said:

There are two ways, I suppose, one could inform readers of the Geneva Convention stipulation against using places of worship to conduct military attacks. One might be to headline saying that Terrorists Attack Coalition Forces From Mosques. That would be one way to present the information.

Another might be to say: Mosques Targeted in Fallujah. That was the Los Angeles Times headline this morning.


Alright, maybe using the "Terrorists" word would be a bit too right leaning. Let's compromise and say Insurgents Attack Coalition Forces from Mosques. Still gives the proper initiator/responder correlation.

The Inevitable Gas Crunch

Via Vodkapundit comes this article:

Running On Empty (washingtonpost.com)

detailing the situation facing motorists in America. Living in Southern California, I'm used to habing to pay upwards of thirty cents more than the national average for a gallon of gas. What I did not know is that the US is not only a net importer of oil, but it is also a net importer of refined gasoline. Our refineries do not have the capacity to produce all of the gasoline we use. As the government adds more and more requirements for the formulation of gasoline, the fewer and fewer foreign sources will be capable of providing what we want to buy. I would doubt seriously that any of the gas that I buy in California is imported as this state has even tighter regulations than the national standards.

As a free-market libertarian, I'll bite the bullet and stick with my principles. The only way to ride the inevitable price increases is to let it happen. Much as I know that it will slow down the economy in general, allowing market forces to work things out will be the path of least pain. The article's reference to increasing the fuel efficiency mandates would be redundant as people will increase the importance of fuel efficiency in their purchasing as prices rise. Standard engine SUV's will take a big hit, with manufacturing in those lines facing lay-offs and reorganizing. The flip side of that is going to be a harder push toward hybrid vehicles whose efficiencies start in the 40 mpg at minimum, and bigger numbers in that stat will be a key selling point, so look for increases there.

I don't see much expansion in refinery capacity in the near future. The article points out that it takes three years, minimum, to go from planning to production, and that does not take permitting into account with all of its attendant political hassles. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are not likely, in my opinion to get much traction from this unless gas prices hit about $4 per gallon, and then add another five or six years at that level so that the switch-over costs are competitive.

You Call That Evidence?

Today just seems to be a day of random thoughts, so why not go with it?

The way in which a person's bias can be most clearly seen is in the way that person evaluates evidence. I had a conversation over the weekend in which the matter of Bush being AWOL from the National Guard was proven by the fact that Bush could find only one old man who was a general at the time who was obviously partisan while a pile of papers showing that he was paid, had signed in for meetings in accordance with regulations and had partaken of the required physical examinations were not proof to the contrary. While it was never said out loud, the implication was that all of the "evidence" to the contrary was false, that they were lies.

It has been said that the playing of the "Liar" card must bring to a halt any principled or useful discussion. That is because the "Liar" card gives its user carte blanche to disregard any point or article of evidence on its face because of its presenter, not on its merits. Accusations of lying deny the opposition any opportunity to add value to the discussion by requiring that the accusers acceded to any new information being brought to the table.

It is in this way that any bias on the part of reporters becomes important. By deciding what evidence is important to the way a situation truly is, the reporter is the gatekeeper. This has to be done before the information is even discovered, a process that decides which questions need to be asked. For many years, the product of this process was the sum total of all of the information that was included in the public debate. As the ages old computer axiom goes: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Overcategorization

Humans always try to organize their world according to how things relate to one another. We are so good at it that the process tends to get carried away. I confess to falling prey to that tendency as well.

In politics, people slam each other with labels of right and left. If anything, I tend to the barest right of full on libertarian. When I see those who fall into the convenient left category and I listen to their arguments, I discover that I am getting lost more often than not. The problem is one of trying to fit too many points of view into an easy box. So, I'm putting out my list of apparent assumptions of various members of the "left".

George Bush (and his administration) is an idiot.
George Bush (and his administration) is an evil genius.
George Bush (ditto) is a Republican with all of the evil that entails.
George Bush (ditto) is not a Democrat with all of the goodness that entails.

This is a work in progress, comments, as always, are valued more than gold. Not really, and if you can find a way and actually send some gold, I'll be your friend for life.

A Question from One Too Young to Remember.

Take a look at the last things Sen. Kerry said in this transcript of his Good Morning America appearance. If I read the poorly transcribed words correctly, then he is saying that there is no difference between Bush and Nixon.

I'm all for parsing out analogies, so lets try this one on. George Bush has lead us into war in Afganistan and Iraq. Wasn't Richard Nixon the one that got us out of Viet Nam? Shouldn't that mean that Nixon was the one who did what war protestors like John Kerry wanted him to do?

Proper Use of Analogy

Reading through Daily Kos and a round up of Iraq news. Toward the end is a quote from Ahmad Chalabi. The issue is the ban on the Baath Party from any role in the new government. Chalabi said:

"This is like allowing Nazis into the German government immediately after World War Two,"

The poster then wrote:

Someone needs to tell Chalabi about Godwin's Law.

Godwin's Law pertains to the use of overheated rhetoric invoking Nazis in usenet discussions. The implication is that referencing the Nazis was unwarranted, an unnecessary analogy. Let us examine the parellels that Chalabi mentions.

The Nazi Party and the Baath Party were both lead by megalomaniacal leaders.

Both parties outlawed any type of democracy in their lands.

Both parties murdered mind boggling numbers of their own citizens.

Neither relinquished power willingly.

Both were banned from future government out of fear that they would sieze power again.

From the way it looks to me, this analogy is spot on. Certainly better than any of the Bush=Hitler comments I've seen on signs around town, and definitely not deserving of the snarky comment from Dem From CT.

I Couldn't Say it Better

It is always cool to find someone making the same point that I had earlier. The fun in this whole writing business is to see my ideas as they stand in the real world. I went on at length a couple of weeks ago about American Ideals and Interests in Iraq. The thrust was that the war in Iraq did not limit itself to being only about American interests or ideals, but was about advancing our interests through spreading our ideals.

Senator John McCain put it far more succinctly:

"In Iraq our national security interests and our national values converge. Iraq is truly the test of a generation, for America and for our role in the world. Faced with similar challenges, previous generations of Americans have passed such tests with honor. It is now our turn to demonstrate that our power, ennobled by our principles, is the greatest force for good on earth today. Iraq's transformation into a secure democracy and a force for freedom in the greater Middle East is the calling of our age. We can succeed. We must succeed.

We are trying to make our lives better by making other people's lives better. It may seem arrogant that we chose to impose this freedom on others, causing them some pain in the process. If one were to look closely at how things truly were under the Hussein regime, then what we have done is actually a relatively gentle cure for the sickness that was there.

Quote via Andrew Sullivan

Where's the Street?

During the lead up to the war in Iraq, I kept hearing references to the "Arab Street", the code for Mr. Mohammed Q. Public of the muslim world. Whatever reports we get out of that part of the world are largely unreliable, largely due to the ingrained fear of anything one says being used against them. What occurs to me is that the only terrrorists for which I have heard any great details about, namely the 9/11 19 and the upper echelons of Al-Qaeda, all seem to come from well-heeled, affluent families. Palestinian attackers seem to fulfill the prophesy of the street, but I believe that to be the result of having the enemy in one's face almost constantly. Those who would go across continents to strike at an enemy must be acting on a more abstract, disconnected from the here and now, level. If I recall correctly, all of the 19 were college educated. A cliche about a college education is that it expands your horizons. A person fighting off the pressures of poverty can not look very far beyond his immediate surroundings. If there is an enemy within sight, then that enemy can be targetted. If one has the leisure to pursue an education, then one can contemplate the larger picture and allow that people and places one may never see in person can influence one's life. From this pool are those who will be willing to "fight" in some far off land.

The Arab Street, consisting of those whose lives seldom reach past their neighborhoods, will have it's direct effect on very small scales. As such, it is a valid concern for the CPA. The longer that grievances are allowed to build with an easily identifiable target, the greater the opposition and threat to American troops. That anger, however, would be very difficult to turn to places very far from home. It is much easier to mobilise against a threat in one's own backyard, but much more difficult to go after a target on another continent. Only those who have been trained to think on a global scale can be easily recruited to carry out action on that scale.

Also, the elites who form the cadres of foreign action are more dependant on the street than the street is on them. If rule of law and free markets are successful in improving the prosperity of the Arab Street, then the theoretical lack of will to terrorism will tend to trickle up, either as a reduction of revolutionary fervor in the old guard or as a neuvaux riche class develops and subsumes the old guard.

The Price of War

Everything is economics. Every decision that a person makes takes a cost in what the decision requires, what you can't otherwise do, and whatever penalties come of it, and a benefit in the good things that come and the bad things that don't happen. In Iraq, we are trying to establish the some of the good thing we have in America, rule of law, personal liberty, etc., in the hopes that Iraq can earn some of the posperity that we take for granted and show the rest of the region that it is the structure of their governments and not the US that is holding them in poverty.

If the Iraqi method is to make the situation suitable for the carrot, the Palestinians are learning the sting of the stick. The intifada against Israel is causing vast increases in poverty. Granted, the Palestinian situation was not great to begin with, but when a person has little, they tend to be more dependant upon it. Whatever authority there is in Palestine is going to have to keep an eye out on their own. If they get hungry enough, and see the means to food with the other side, Hammas et al. are going to get a revolution, just not in the direction they wanted.

So What Are We Doing Here?

I've been out of the 'sphere for a few days now, and the whole "Does Wonkette deserve her rep?" issue seems to the be the latest hot button. The Lovely and Talented Kate throws down not on Wonkette herself but on the discussion of whether the blogosphere is a proper replacement for big media.

I am big on figurative navel gazing. I tried literal navel gazing and am too disturbed by the results to try that again. In that spirit, I am going to pitch in my figurative two cents in:

Bloggers should not seek to replace big media. Perhaps on the whole the blogosphere has the writers, but its forte is not on the level of data collection. I think the best use of blogging is to magnify the individual voices that occupy the innumerable points of view that surround every story. The rate of feedback between fact, opinion, theory, thesis, antithesis, and synthesis is the true strength of the blogosphere. If one were to rely on big media alone, then only a few points of view, interpretations of events, could be heard and the discussion would happen at the leisurely (yawn) pace that it always has. In the blogosphere you suddenly have a huge crew working at examining all of the permutations of the data in every philosophical framework imaginable. Those results are fed back into the machine, and reactions to the reactions occur. Not only do bloggers fact check the Big Boys, but they also fact check one another. Ideas that don't hold water die quickly, while the ones that survive first read get acid tested in the previously mentioned every viewpoint possible. The blogosphere is an environment for ideas where evolution has been speeded up a thousand-fold.

So, should the blogosphere replace Big Media? Absolutely not. Why should we limit ourselves to the lower level of mere data collection? Let Big Media continue to seek out "What happened?" The blogosphere is much better suited to question the editorial pages of Big Media, the level where the question is not "What happened?" but "What does it mean?"

This thought brought to you by some guy who might have had these ideas years ago, but you would not have known because he didn't feel like dedicating his life to journalism. Viva Blogspot, the primordial ooze of the blogosphere!

I Declare Shenanigans!

Either that or someone for whom idiomatic english is not their first language came up with this headline.

Link via Andrew Sullivan

Analogous Reasoning

Brian Micklethwait of Samizdata.net wrote an entry that pondered the concerns expressed in an article dealing with genetic engineering to achieve states of "better than health". The title he used: Is there perhaps a connection between the dangers of central planning and the dangers of genetic engineering? invokes a method that I use to a great deal on this blog, so I felt that I had to add my two cents worth.

Anything physical can be modeled with mathematics, and in my belief, so can the larger scale entities that evolve from those physical interactions, such as economies and societies. That being said, it does not mean that the math will be easy. Indeed, we have already cracked most of the easy ones such as the laws of kinetics and electrical circuits. Other problems, where we have the equations, are still intractible because of the need for perfect data to predict long term effects (we have the laws of thermodynamics down cold, but we still can't predict weather much past five days).

The difference between these two types of systems lies in the differential equations that define them. The easy differential equations are linear, the derivitives stand as they are. The hard ones are non-linear, the derivitives are squared, cubed, and even greater degrees of weirdness are imposed upon them. These as of yet unsolvable equations are the domain of chaos theory and what has become a whole new field of experimental mathematics.

Getting back to the Samizdata posting, I believe that there are really only a finite number of systems that are seen, systems that have a common number of derivitives that are raised to powers in the same places. This is sometimes found when the results of two different systems can be found to be driven by the same formulas. In one case (I believe this was referenced by James Gleick in his book Chaos) it was shown by a mathematician that the spasmodic movements of an eye due to a particular condition were similar to the motion of a ball in a semi-circular trough that was suspended as a pendulum. That all of the details of the strength and connectivity of the occular muscles did not exactly go over well with the optometrists at that conference.

It is possible that the equations for the biochemistry of the human body and the political operations of a human society may be of similar forms as well (so perhaps that old metaphor of the body politic isn't so far off). If those equations were to be found, and the necessary variable put into their respective places, then the variables that coincided in the similar places would be of a higher level of analogous. For instance, I sometimes picture stock markets and weather systems as being similar. If this were true, then I would believe that the sum total of money in the stock market would be analogous to the sum total of heat in the atmosphere. Both are the driving force within their systems, and all of the actions derive from them.

I am just now completing a promise to myself and finishing my first read of Popper's The Open Society and It's Enemies Vol. I. I definitely agree with his aversion to social engineering for the sake of acheiving utopia, and I too have a similar aversion to the idea of genetic engineering to acheive "better than health". I am more leery than Popper about "piecemeal engineering" however. One of the analogies I make is to propose an identity of the Butterfly Effect and Law of Unintended Consequences. Not to say that ameloriating deleterious effects (there goes by vocabulary budget for the day) is not wise, I would love to get rid of this pesky color-blindness, but that extreme care should be taken when making such changes. Wisdom won't come without pain, and wisdom is needed to avoid yet more.

Apology Forthcoming?

In all fairness, everyone from the military and media who covered this should make as much effort to get this story out as the original arrest and charges got. However, once the public eye turned from the case, the case turned into very little but an embarassment for the Army security services.

Captain James Yee was a muslim chaplin ministering to prisoners in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. When news broke that he had been charged with aiding the prisoners in communicating for them to the outside world, it just struck a chord with the outwardly turned paranoia of the times. I'll admit that it worked for me with my cynical, Hollywood trained mind.

Today's news isn't even that charges of treason and espionage were dropped. What were dropped were lesser charges of adultery and misuse of a government computer for downloading pornography. Those charges were brought when a first apology might have been in order. Overall, not good for a government that is still trying to communicate that it is seeking a new balance between security and freedom.

Link via Andrew Sullivan.

The Count is Now: 80

I just finished reading the interview: Oliver Stone's Twist - Is the director's latest film soft on Castro? By Ann Louise Bardach, and it just made me irate, hence the add to the count.

Stone comes off as so willing to give whatever rationalization to Castro that he becomes willfully blind. How on earth can he possibly believe that the prisoners would really be honest about how they were treated in prison with Fidel Castro sitting in the same room, hearing everything? Oliver Stone wouldn't believe an eye witness to the Kenedy assassination who has a film of Lee Harvey Oswald firing the gun and Kenedy's brains getting splattered if the guy so much as had a father whose cousin had roomed with a guy who once dated a stenographer for the FBI. Where was I? Oh, right. Evidently Mr. Stone is not one to handle evidence in an even handed and unbiased fashion.

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being that I'd believe he saw Elvis at Burger King if he told me) Oliver Stone's credibility score is a 2. Not a one or a zero, that low and I'd have to doubt that JFK really was assassinated.

Freedom Through Invention

Via Andrew Sullivan comes a link to the Rolex Awards for Enterprise. These awards are for inventions that have a great impact due to the use of simple inventions for fudamental problems in the lives of their communities. The link above describes the invention of a method for food preservation by refridgeration that uses no electricity, only a reliance on the simple rules of thermodynamics.

The lifetime of fruits and vegetables using this method, consisting of only two clay pots and wet sand, can be extended dramatically. For subsistence farmers, the difference eliminates the need to spend as much time selling the produce at market. That task has traditionally been done by young girls in the family. Now that their time is more open, these girls are starting to attend school in larger numbers.

With less spoilage occurring, some farmers are finding it possible to stay at their farms and not have to go look for work in the cities. This simple invention has slowed a major demographic trend in the area.

Everyone does what they do given the environment around them. One is only free with respect to physical reality. I can not fly like a bird merely by flapping my arms, nor am I free to get to New York in the next five minutes. With respect to the economic needs of their families, the girls were not free to go to school. Some farmers were not free to stay at their farms.

Technology is the means by which humanity changes its environment. With this blog, I am free to write words that are accesible all over the world at a moment's notice, a power that was only a dream twenty years ago. Some day people might be free to go to New York in five minutes or less provided teleporters are inventible.

Those are grand ideas, but even smaller ideas, like inexpensive refridgeration, can have vast repurcussions. Now that some of those girls can go to school, who can say whether one of them will be the next inventer, or at least inspire her children to invent.

Trends and Prognostications

Predicting the future for anything has always been tricky. Methods such as reading stars and the entrails of sanctified animals never really seemed to be all that effective, and despite all of our best technology, we can't get decent weather forecasts beyond five days.

Daily Kos takes a gander at the tea leaves and is already laying out the script for the right's withdrawal out of Iraq and inevitable ass covering. Aside from any political motivation, I want to examine the "Iraq is going to hell," statement and the trend that it implies.

Just about every prediction you here, be it crime rates, global warming, population, tax revenues, etc., tend to rely on the basis of "If present trends continue..." What strikes me is that very few people seem to realize what a whopping big assumption that is.

If one were to have a quantifiable value of how good things are in Iraq at any given moment, and use that value as the vertical axis with time as the horizontal axis, one could then observe the change of how things are in the country over time. The main thing to notice is that the graph would NOT be a straight line, the rate of improvement or deterioration will change over time. All predictions of the future rely on the graph suddenly freezing at the current rate of improvement/decline, a presumption that is the only one that can be categorically considered wrong. The prediction that Iraq is going to deteriorate far enough for the US to abandon the country is as unsupported by current events as rosy images of a free and prosperous Iraq in five to ten years based on shifting hold-out tactics three months ago.

Above all else remember: We are talking about human beings here on both sides. Each one has free will to exercise the power they have, from President Bush deciding to withdraw, nuke, or anything in between; to al Sadr aceding to the governing council or inciting his followers to martyrdom; to some random dude in the Shi'ite community joining a mob or saying, "Screw this", and going home to watch a soccer match. The impact and obviousness of that impact of each of those choices will vary, as will the size of that impact (Butterfly Effect). Either way, the best we can have is a plan and a readiness to follow through with it with our best considered actions to keep it on track.

As for me, I'll keep ignoring these long range prognostications until someone can tell me for certain if I'll need an umbrella for Thanksgiving.

The Definition of Ambivalence

No, I don't mean watching your mother-in-law driving off a cliff in your brand new H2.

I am definitely of two minds reading this story:

CNN.com - Stamos, Romijn-Stamos have separated

One part of me is sad to see any marriage come to an end.

The other part is trying desperate to come up with a way to discover if Rebecca did her own contorting in the X-men movies in person. This part is going to take me straight to hell, I know.

Information Wants to be Coherent

The term "fog of war" refers to the fact that it's never possible for anyone to truly know what's going on.

So begins an article from Stephen den Beste that looks at how information regarding war is dissemenated to the civilian population back home. He procedes to give a primer on how to read the news and actually come away with a semblence of the truth. His key observation is, "You have to look at a lot of different reports in order to figure out the true picture." While I think he means it as a criticism of the journalists writing the many different reports, I feel that he hit on something more fundamental.

No one is ever going to have the whole story on first read. I feel, however, that all of the information about the story is already available, and awaits assembly, some basic dot-connecting. The difficulty is that the dots for this story are mixed in with all of the dots from other stories and no one has bothered to number them. (I'll put this tortured metaphor out of its misery now and head onto another one)

The way the news and blogosphere are now is similar to the fable of the Blind Men and the Elephant, wherein several blind men attempt to describe an elephant by touching specific parts of it. When asked what an elephant is, they can not agree and fall into vigorous argument. Whether limited by a small amount of information or by philosophical blinders, reporters and bloggers give facts and opinions derived from a set of data that are far from comprehensive.

I could imagine in the fable that a wise blind man might have listened to each of his compatriots and considered that if each of the men were honest in his beliefs, then it would be possible that each was describing an aspect of the whole, and that the elephant was a totality of all reports. While the image of a combination of pot, ploughshare, blanket, etc., might seem ridiculous, the assembly would still be closer to the truth than any one impression.

That is why I spend so much time considering the differences between the ideologies of left vs. right, Democrat vs. Republican. Merely having all of the views is not to have all of the information, because there is information in what report matches with what viewpoint. The blanket, ploughshare and pot would be an accurate description of the elephant only if one knows where each impression belongs. Similarly, if I know the values and premises of the reporter/blogger in relation to my own, then I can add his/her report into the data set in the proper place. Optimally, all of the data that actually describes the event (as opposed to not describing the event, ie mistaken or false reports) will be included and the fullest possible sense of the event can be reached.

That's the plan anyway, stay tuned to see if it works out.

The Matter of Perspective

I was taught in a debate class that if one does not understand the position of the other side, then one does not understand one's own position. For that reason I am linking to the Daily Kos and Eschaton, two of the more widely read liberal weblogs (see right). That is also why I take so much time contemplating what principles motivate the various sides of any issue. Knowing how an issue that seems to be one way to me appears to someone else in another position is helpful, but only if I know how that person's viewing position is related to mine. I like the idea that a large number of small scale views give a better description of an object that one single overarching view. The composite view of many viewers is less likely to be manipulated than the one grand viewer. Hearing one person's view is useful, but until I have a fix on where the view should be placed it is like a jigsaw puzzle piece that has yet to be affixed to the rest. I'm in this to learn what I can, express what I have learned and figured for myself, and to have it peer-reviewed. Much like a doctoral thesis, my goal is to add to the sum total knowledge and understanding in the world, one iota at a time.

Damned If You Do...

and damned if you don't.

Gregg Easterbrook nails it with a report from an alternate timeline detailing the impeachment and conviction of President George W. Bush in the summer of 2001. Obviously his actions would have turned America into a true rogue state:

On August 7, 2001, Bush had ordered the United States military to stage an all-out attack on alleged terrorist camps in Afghanistan. Thousands of U.S. special forces units parachuted into this neutral country, while air strikes targeted the Afghan government and its supporting military. Pentagon units seized abandoned Soviet air bases throughout Afghanistan, while establishing support bases in nearby nations such as Uzbekistan. Simultaneously, FBI agents throughout the United States staged raids in which dozens of men accused of terrorism were taken prisoner.

Reaction was swift and furious. Florida Senator Bob Graham said Bush had "brought shame to the United States with his paranoid delusions about so-called terror networks." British Prime Minister Tony Blair accused the United States of "an inexcusable act of conquest in plain violation of international law." White House chief counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke immediately resigned in protest of "a disgusting exercise in over-kill."

The real genius of this piece is that it recreates the blissful ignorance we were living in up to 9/11. I might not have put it this far as to invade a country on a flimsy pretext, but at the very least we would be having hearings on why the FBI had policies that mandated such blatant racial profiling as to arrest Mohammed Atta and 18 other men for merely being Arab and taking flying lessons.

Link via A Small Victory

Update: Thanks to Dan Spencer for the pointer to this article by Kathleen Parker at TownHall.com

Who Do We Think We Are?

Stephen Den Beste takes a critical look at a report on the atrocities committed by Saddam's regime. The facts of the report are not questioned, merely the author's belief that revelation of the atrocities would take the pressure off of Bush for the failure to find stockpiles of WMD. I respect Stephen particularly for his acknowledgement of his own naivety in having believed the same himself several months ago.

I have tried in the past, more than once, to understand the principles that drive both sides of the political divide in this country. Neither has proven entirely satisfactory, so here I go with another idea that shall satisfy just as much as the last times.

American hubris has been a favorite villain for decades. It has been a charge laid at the feet of the conservatives in our country by the resident liberals since the turn of the last century. In many cases, the charge sticks, the US government has in the past bent it's policies so that a select few could make profits, expanding their Liberty of Property, often in direct detriment to the Liberties of Property and Self of people in the way. That showed the old conservative hubris that the only interests in the world were American interests.

It was, and is, proper to protest such things, especially when they violated American ideals. In the War in Iraq, however, I believe that we actually are, for once, acting on our American principles. Granted, American interests are being served, and that we would not be acting unless they weren't. In this case, American interests and American ideals are congruent, and real good is happening for someone other than just ourselves.

Does this matter to the liberal opponents of President Bush? No. That is because they can only see that some American interests are being served and the fact that some people are being hurt and killed as a result. Whatever good is done, in this view, is thoroughly corrupted by the idea that Halliburton stands to make several millions of dollars in profits from the reconstruction. Its all about the oil, ya'know.

When you see this attitude in Americans, it shows a different type of arrogance. It assumes that the only evil that needs to be considered in the world is American evil. Any evil that happens is the result of past American hubris, and if America takes any action that is not utterly pure of motive, then we shall reap the whirlwind in some later time. America is responsible for Saddam Hussein having the power to do his evil, therefore America is to blame for all of Saddam Hussein's evil. Simultaneously, we can not act to remove him from power because to do so now may serve someone's interests to a greater degree than someone else's or may cause hurt to an innocent third party (most certainly an Iraqi).

The danger of this attitude is that it will paralyze the US from doing anything good for the world at all, because there is nothing the US can do that can not be spun as a benefit for some moneyed interest, real or imagined. The situation of Iraq is strange because Bush is unabashedly seeking to advance US interests by creating an Arab state that can serve as an example that the Islamic world can be improved through democracy and free market policies rather than through terrorism. The war in Iraq will not be won by the United States having more resources at the end of it all, but by Iraq having more resources and a better standard of living by the end of it all. Liberal objectors have themselves all turned around in knots, and far too many have opted to criticize the ultimate objective of American interests being served than the intermediate objective of Iraq become a freer and more prosperous place.

War in the Media

I happened upon some discussions of the latest outbreak of fighting in Iraq over atInstapundit.com. The view seems to be that the plans of al Sadr and the Baathists in Falluja are calculated to have as much impact on the TV watching public as they are on the soldiers they are fighting.

If that is the case, two can play at this game. I say it is time to call all of those embedded reports back into active duty. The more eyes on the scene, the more difficult manipulation becomes.

Find Some Priorities, Mr. Ashcroft

I had gotten to the point where I had thought that my bad opinion of John Ashcroft was a result of some seriously selective reporting. Now comes this crackdown on pornography that shows me that I should pay more attention to my first impressions. Add this to the story about how the Patriot Act is being used in cases with no connection to terrorism, and you can see my truly deep ambivalence to the Bush Administrations attitude toward law enforcement.

Note to everyone enamored with Federal authority: Get the hell out of my life. I do not need you to worry about what I am putting into my mind (pornography), or what I am putting into my body (super-sized fries). Why don't you just let me mind my own business, and you can mind yours. If what I do offends you or makes you think I am an idiot, let the effects kick me in the teeth. I'll deal with the mess. In the meantime, please keep those freelance oppressors (criminals, terrorists, et al.) off my back. That's what I'm paying you for.

Link via Instapundit.

Enough Already!

Will people please stop trying to make political points off of 9/11, please? In my quest to avoid hypocrisy, I do not hold anyone blameworthy for failing to prevent 9/11. Prior to the infamous date, terrorists hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings was something that might happen. Just as much as an attack on our military and commercial computer systems might happen, or that China might invade Taiwan. In those late 90 and very early 2000 days, any law enforcement agency would have seen an inquest into charges of racial profiling as more likely than an actual terrorist attack on American soil.I did not blame anyone, but trying to pin blame on someone will bias any findings and will prevent the report from actually fixing the mistakes that allowed the event to happen.

Examinations of President Clinton's last national security report show that terrorism was not the top on his administration's list of concerns. So what? It certainly wasn't on mine. Perhaps I am naive, but can people just stop thinking about politics and start getting on with the one thing that the federal government is supposed to do, which is protecting its populace? If mistakes were made, then learn from them, make changes and move on.

Update: Here is what a White House press release regarding the report cited above and about what the Clinton Administration's priorities were:

The report previews the President's national security agenda for the coming year, including: forging a lasting peace in the Middle East; securing the peace in the Balkans and Northern Ireland; helping Russia strengthen its economy and fight corruption as it heads toward its first democratic transfer of power; furthering arms control through discussions with Russia on the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and deeper reductions in strategic nuclear weapons; implementing China's entry into the WTO and other global institutions while promoting freedom and human rights there; easing tensions between India and Pakistan; building on hopeful developments between Greece and Turkey to make progress in the Aegean, particularly on Cyprus; securing new energy routes from the Caspian Sea that will allow newly independent states in the Caucasus to prosper; supporting democratic transitions from Nigeria to Indonesia; helping Colombia defeat the drug traffickers who threaten its democracy; fighting weapons proliferation, terrorism and the nexus between them; restraining North Korea's and Iran's missile programs; maintaining vigilance against Iraq and working to bring about a change in regime; consolidating reforms to the world's financial architecture as the basis for sustained economic growth; advancing global trade; enacting legislation to promote trade with Africa and the Caribbean; pressing ahead with debt relief for countries fighting poverty and embracing good government; reversing global climate change.

Two things strike me as necessary to say about this: First, it is a tour-de-force in the use of semicolons; and Second, the US had a shitload of stuff on its foreign relations plate. There was a lot to get done, and if non-state sponsored terrorism wasn't on the top of that list, it might be because it still didn't have the urgency that killing 3,000 people can give an issue.

Link via Robert Tagorda

At Least Some of Them Got it Right

Linked here is a PDF file of the opinions given in a 9th Circuit (California and the other western states) regarding gun show operations. (PDF file, so have Acrobat ready to read it)

That so many of the justices of what is considered to be the most liberal appeals court circuit dissented from the decision to hear a case en banc (to be heard before the whole court for those who don't speak italic) is something of a coup. Lets cheer these judges on so that we might start to get some sense out of these justices.

TV and Reality

I posted below about how things that can be shown on television tend to have more reality for people than things that can not. One of the ways this happens is that people we have seen on TV occupy a role much like a person you see in the coffee shop every so often.

A few years ago there was a reality series called Combat Missions where a number of active and retired special forces and SWAT members were put into teams and competed in simulated combat situations. One of the men on the show was named Scott Helveston. He was brash, messing with peoples heads and doing a hell of a job of psych warfare on the opposition. I personally didn't like the guy, but he was very effective at taking the opposition out of the game.

Scott Helveston was one of the four civilian contractors, former military hired to provide security for various humanitarian efforts, who was killed in Falluja, Iraq.

Just Out of Curiosity

One would certainly hope that these two stories aren't connected.

Vampire bats kill 13 people in Brazil

and

Rabies vaccines recalled

Great, in addition to everything else, now I need to keep an eye our mad dogs and whatnot. I much prefer insanity to going mad from rabies.

Even a Stopped Clock...

is correct twice a day.

I try not to be thoroughly cynical. Granted its fun and makes for much better jokes, but I honestly do try to keep a sunny disposition about people. (All comments from the peanut gallery should be filed properly below)

In that spirit, I would like to commend Senator Barbara Boxer (normally the only senator that John Kerry doesn't make look like a John Bircher) for her stance on arming commercial airline pilots. While one can can presume that this has something to do with a tight re-election race, I would like to think that she really is caring about the safety of the flying public.

Alright, its my birthday, and I am trying really hard to keep things pleasant.

Link via Will Collier at Vodkapundit.

Say What?!!

I seldom disagree with Andrew Sullivan, you can find a link to his site to the right. Agreement is never always, however, and he chose a doozy to split with me. To call this type of thinking short sighted is to make an extreme understatement.

One of the main reasons that the United States has had such a strong economy is because of low energy costs, primarily through the use of inexpensive oil. So now we are to emulate the economies of France, Germany, and Japan, even while their economic growth lags behind us and the only thing they have more of is unemployment? It has been noted that the vast bulk of American economic growth has been in small to medium businesses. There, the primary energy costs are not consumed in production, but in transportation. Whether in movement of product or materials, or even the delivery of personnel in more service oriented fields, the cost of transportation is almost entirely derived through the gasoline or diesel that gets put into the tank. With the rise of more specialized small businesses, the need to transport goods in which one company's product is another company's material becomes greater and greater. Increasing fuel costs would require a greater increase in the cost added to the goods along each step of the supply chain. Ultimately, all of those costs get passed on down to the final consumer.

Gas prices are not simply paid by the individual at the pump, everyone pays for it everywhere they buy something that has been moved. That Andrew Sullivan, someone I usually respect for his fical conservatism, would fail to see this is very surprising.