There are two reasons that I am keeping this weblog. The first is deeply personal. I enjoy the opportunity to put out my thoughts, heck, even to force them into a coherent form, and to possibly have them examined under a similarly interested scrutiny. I can create new ideas, for me at least, and have them tested by the rest of the world. If they are found wanting, the reasons that they are wanting come back to me and I can consider them and change the ideas if necessary.
When I first started writing this, I had an imaginary audience in my mind, and I wrote to them. After a few weeks, however, I stopped feeling that presence. That was probably when I put on the Site Meter and saw that I could go days without a single hit. That actually gave me the courage to start wrtiting down a more perssonal narrative. Obviously I was only writing for myself, so why not?
The second reason is really the first in a way. I came upon blogs and the connectivity with the rest of the world that they seemed to have. This article makes a lot of the points that lead me to take up this hobby. The idea of reading many different impressions on an event, each one from a different reference point, is very striking for me. I go on and on about how the world is fractal and that to properly understand it, one can not rely on one master view but instead need to have many smaller views from many smaller places. The environment of bloggers, known as the blogosphere, is tightly connected, with ideas able to bounce from one end of the world to the other and back again in seconds. I myself have posted comments on boards all over the world. The first comment to this blog came from England, how cool is that?
I believe that the blogosphere is similar, perhaps analogous, to a mind. Information comes in, is noticed by other elements around it, and is reacted to. If the reaction is positive, then the idea spreads, where it interacts with even more ideas. If the response is negative, it clashes with other ideas, and it dies off. The iterative nature of the exchange is fundamentally chaotic, ideas grow and change like storms over the ocean.
And like the apochryphal butterfly, this blog might just play a role in one of those storms someday.
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Stamp Out American Imperialism!
No wonder the rest of the world hates us. Especially when we have senators saying that America should get what it wants by throwing a little weight around:
Kerry's campaign aides said the Democratic candidate wants the United States to pressure the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase production and apply diplomatic pressure to the member nations to reduce prices.
Just who does Senator Kerry think we are, to go around and diplomatically dictate what other countries should do with their resources? Come on, lets get MoveOn.org and ANSWER on this, pronto.
Kerry's campaign aides said the Democratic candidate wants the United States to pressure the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase production and apply diplomatic pressure to the member nations to reduce prices.
Just who does Senator Kerry think we are, to go around and diplomatically dictate what other countries should do with their resources? Come on, lets get MoveOn.org and ANSWER on this, pronto.
Monday, March 29, 2004
Gotta Love the Irony
Just overheard a conversation about people having seen bootlegged copies of The Passion of The Christ. It just seems a little odd that someone who would want to see the movie badly enough would also be willing to get an illegal copy.
Sunday, March 28, 2004
I'll Say it When It Needs to be Said
And I'll say it again when the opportunity comes to make the point more clearly. I don't blame Clinton or Bush for 9/11. I blame Osama for that. I believe that only eight months is not enough time for Bush to have done anything to Al Qaeda. I also believe that without an extreme event like 9/11 Clinton could never have mustered up enough political support to do what Bush is doing. Yes, Al-Qaeda was backing Ramzeh Yousef when he and his group blew up the bomb under the WTC in 1993. That it failed to accomplish destruction on a military scale would have had Republicans howling if we had responded to it militarily.
Scott Ganz, aka Doctor Suarez, on half of the husband and wife of The Protocols of the Yuppies of Zion makes this point very well. Granted, Clinton may have handled most of what he did do poorly, in this arena, but the Congress would never have backed him enough to really do it right.
So don't let it be said that I never criticize Republicans. Next time you hear about some idiot bombing an abortion clinic, I'll be right with the Democrats yelling to fry the bastard. Although the Democrats tend to be anti-death penalty, so I'll still be pretty lonely. You get the point, anyway.
Scott Ganz, aka Doctor Suarez, on half of the husband and wife of The Protocols of the Yuppies of Zion makes this point very well. Granted, Clinton may have handled most of what he did do poorly, in this arena, but the Congress would never have backed him enough to really do it right.
So don't let it be said that I never criticize Republicans. Next time you hear about some idiot bombing an abortion clinic, I'll be right with the Democrats yelling to fry the bastard. Although the Democrats tend to be anti-death penalty, so I'll still be pretty lonely. You get the point, anyway.
Is it OK to Start Getting Scared Now?
Last Thursday, blogger Matt Margolis was assaulted at a demonstration outside of a Bush appearance in Boston. I'm not sure of the details, Matt has them on his site, and the actual occurrence of the assault is not what I want to write about.
What has me concerned has been some of the reaction of some people to justify assault. That one person does not have equal recourse to the arena of verbal debate, the author argues, is justification to move to the arena of fisticuffs.
And then there is a comment left on Matt's site:
Hitler had his beliefs, just like Matt has his. Sometimes violence is the only way to show people how devastatingly bad their ideas are. When society is so distraught about policy that individuals feel the need to take violent action, revolution is not only expected, but necessary. I'm no union man, but I'd have probably taken a swing at you too.
Maybe violence is the only way, sometimes. That some people are already starting to think this way has me really worried. If Bush wins re-election, I would seriously doubt that he will make it all the way through his term without a domestic attempt on his life. Come on, people, this is still America. We don't work this way.
Thanks to Michelle at A Small Victory
What has me concerned has been some of the reaction of some people to justify assault. That one person does not have equal recourse to the arena of verbal debate, the author argues, is justification to move to the arena of fisticuffs.
And then there is a comment left on Matt's site:
Hitler had his beliefs, just like Matt has his. Sometimes violence is the only way to show people how devastatingly bad their ideas are. When society is so distraught about policy that individuals feel the need to take violent action, revolution is not only expected, but necessary. I'm no union man, but I'd have probably taken a swing at you too.
Maybe violence is the only way, sometimes. That some people are already starting to think this way has me really worried. If Bush wins re-election, I would seriously doubt that he will make it all the way through his term without a domestic attempt on his life. Come on, people, this is still America. We don't work this way.
Thanks to Michelle at A Small Victory
Saturday, March 27, 2004
The Right Methods and The Right Results
I just finished reading this post: Pejmanesque: "THE HOLOCAUST SHRUG". Once I get more than a few minutes of breathing time I'll read the whole articles. What I have seen so far reminds me of the post I made below. Who do you reconcile "War is NOT the Answer" with the potential that Iraq now has? I can allow that some people truly believe that Bush is a fascist thug who is looking to crush rights all over the world. I would ask those people, can you not agree that at least the lesser of two evils won?
In philosophy, there are two positions that are opposed to one another, two positions that describe the divide I see in civil discourse. The first is the Categorical Imperative, the most visible portion being that it is immoral to treat another person as a mean to an end rather than as an end in and of themselves. We often see this expressed as "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you." "War is NOT the Answer" also derives from this. It is a necessity of war that one kills the other side and any other poor slob who gets in the way. The Categorical Imperative would hold that one must not seek out the right ends in a way that exploits or infringes on the rights of others: If one can secure the health and well being of all the world at the cost of the life of one innocent new-born infant, then the Categorical Imperative would say that that is too high of a price.
The opposing view is derived from Consequentialist Utilitarianism, so long as an act creates a net increase of good as opposed to bad, then the act was moral. The articles in the top referenced link take the Utilitarian view. In the first season of The Shield, a police officer beats a kidnapping suspect in an interrogation room until the suspect confesses where he is keeping his victim. Given that the girl would have eventually died where she was buried, the Utilitarian would have said that it was moral to have beaten the man to save the life of the girl. One can look at the necessity of paying taxes at the simple end, to the extreme of saying that it is allowable that 51 people, to ward off starvation, kill and cannabalize 49 others.
My philosophy is of the utilitarian avenue. I come to it because I have learned that to choose not to act is still a choice that will lead to real consequences. To categorically deny that a method is absolutely wrong is dangerous.
That last sentence was difficult for me to write. That is because I want to be able to say "Terrorism can never be a right means." Terrorism is a means to an end. Al Qaeda and all of the terrorist organizations have goals, from get money to remake the world into an Islamic world. That is why the War on Terror is unlike any other ever fought. We are not at war with any individual or group, we are at war with a method. If we capture Osama bin Ladin and every other person in the world who has ever applied the words Al Qaeda to themselves, the war would still go on, because there would still be conditions in which the means of terrorism would still be attractive.
That is why I supported the Invasion of Iraq. Iraq is the means to end the conditions that push people to terrorism. With Iraq fallen, Saddam Hussein is no longer paying the families of suicide bombers in Palestine, he is no longer bribing UN officials in charge of the Oil-for-Food program (indeed, the sanctions aimed at him that were hurting his people are now gone, a plus for the people of Iraq), and he is no longer torturing and murdering his own people. All of these would have continued if the US had not invaded.
MAYBE Bush lied, full-on knew-it-wasn't-true-but-said-different-anyway, lied about Iraq having stockpiles of WMD. If he did, I would feel very indignant and deeply offended. Is that indignance and offense enough to offset the good that has come about due to the war? I hardly think so.
In philosophy, there are two positions that are opposed to one another, two positions that describe the divide I see in civil discourse. The first is the Categorical Imperative, the most visible portion being that it is immoral to treat another person as a mean to an end rather than as an end in and of themselves. We often see this expressed as "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you." "War is NOT the Answer" also derives from this. It is a necessity of war that one kills the other side and any other poor slob who gets in the way. The Categorical Imperative would hold that one must not seek out the right ends in a way that exploits or infringes on the rights of others: If one can secure the health and well being of all the world at the cost of the life of one innocent new-born infant, then the Categorical Imperative would say that that is too high of a price.
The opposing view is derived from Consequentialist Utilitarianism, so long as an act creates a net increase of good as opposed to bad, then the act was moral. The articles in the top referenced link take the Utilitarian view. In the first season of The Shield, a police officer beats a kidnapping suspect in an interrogation room until the suspect confesses where he is keeping his victim. Given that the girl would have eventually died where she was buried, the Utilitarian would have said that it was moral to have beaten the man to save the life of the girl. One can look at the necessity of paying taxes at the simple end, to the extreme of saying that it is allowable that 51 people, to ward off starvation, kill and cannabalize 49 others.
My philosophy is of the utilitarian avenue. I come to it because I have learned that to choose not to act is still a choice that will lead to real consequences. To categorically deny that a method is absolutely wrong is dangerous.
That last sentence was difficult for me to write. That is because I want to be able to say "Terrorism can never be a right means." Terrorism is a means to an end. Al Qaeda and all of the terrorist organizations have goals, from get money to remake the world into an Islamic world. That is why the War on Terror is unlike any other ever fought. We are not at war with any individual or group, we are at war with a method. If we capture Osama bin Ladin and every other person in the world who has ever applied the words Al Qaeda to themselves, the war would still go on, because there would still be conditions in which the means of terrorism would still be attractive.
That is why I supported the Invasion of Iraq. Iraq is the means to end the conditions that push people to terrorism. With Iraq fallen, Saddam Hussein is no longer paying the families of suicide bombers in Palestine, he is no longer bribing UN officials in charge of the Oil-for-Food program (indeed, the sanctions aimed at him that were hurting his people are now gone, a plus for the people of Iraq), and he is no longer torturing and murdering his own people. All of these would have continued if the US had not invaded.
MAYBE Bush lied, full-on knew-it-wasn't-true-but-said-different-anyway, lied about Iraq having stockpiles of WMD. If he did, I would feel very indignant and deeply offended. Is that indignance and offense enough to offset the good that has come about due to the war? I hardly think so.
Friday, March 26, 2004
The Count is Now: 70
I might just be able to appreciate that some things are so horrible that a person's mind would not wish to acknowledge it. Certainly the events of September 11 are a case in point. But to go to such an extreme that such a thing is not horrible, and is in fact good grist for a comedy, is entirely beyond the pale. I would like to write about making a counter-proposal about producing dramatic recreations of all of the bombings in England carried out by the IRA in mime. However, even the extended 15 count has still not gotten me past the image of carrying out the addage: Why not kick a man while he's down? He's that much closer to your foot.
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Something to Torture Yourself With Over Lunch
Stumbled on these Mind Games during my lunch break. I am proud to say that I got the math challenges right, even the ones I hadn't already seen.
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Thank God We Won the Revolution
Or else we would have to live in a country that would imprison a man for killing one of four men breaking into his home. Or maybe we could be in a country where if a man is found to have been wrongfully incarcerated the government, upon his release, can charge him for room and board that he was obviously not entitled to.
God bless the USA. (For now at least)
God bless the USA. (For now at least)
And You Wonder Why We Haven't Found Bin Ladin
Take a look at this photo taken by a Marine Corp aviator. Could you imagine trying to find a moving target in that type of terrain?
Makes Me Wish I Could Just Turn Around...
so that I could use my hindsight to see what's coming. A panel is investigating the intelligence acitivities of the US with respect to Al Qaeda throughout the nineties and up to September 11, 2001. The implications made in that inquiry are that the US was too cautious in its reading of the intelligence.
Not two weeks earlier, however, we have another panel grilling George Tenet, Director of the CIA, over whether the intelligence regarding Iraq's WMD stockpiles and programs were spun to sell the war to the public. Personally, every time I hear the voice of Ted Kennedy (D-Mas), I have the urge to ask people to call me by my real given name for the rest of the day.
The Game is Intelligence. The object, figure out what the other guy is hiding while preventing anyone else from discovering what you are hiding. The second part is far easier than the first. In the second part, you look at all of the evidence your activities leave behind and ask yourself, "If Sherlock Holmes had this evidence, could he figure out what I'm up to?" If yes, get rid of the evidence. If no, get rid of it anyway, because you can't be sure if the other guy isn't better than Sherlock Holmes.
The discovering side of intelligence is the hard part, because, face it, you never have Sherlock Holmes on your side. All that you have are a bunch of people, buried under a pile of information in which useful clues look no different than random noise on first, second, or third look. It would be like looking for a needle in all the hay in Kansas.
Remember, these are people who, while patriotic, are doing a job to put food on the table. They face the constant dilemna of Get it Done versus Don't Screw UP. Before 9/11, the juiciest stories were when the US would go in only to find that they had the wrong target. "Heads Must Roll!" would be the cry from the Congressional Oversight Commitees. So someone's head would roll, and all the rest would keep their personal favorite heads down. To do nothing would usually be the safest course of action unless the rare golden perfection of "knowing" was reached. Since that almost never happens, nothing is what was usually done.
And Nothing was done, until 9/11 showed that the safety of doing nothing was far from perfect.
Not two weeks earlier, however, we have another panel grilling George Tenet, Director of the CIA, over whether the intelligence regarding Iraq's WMD stockpiles and programs were spun to sell the war to the public. Personally, every time I hear the voice of Ted Kennedy (D-Mas), I have the urge to ask people to call me by my real given name for the rest of the day.
The Game is Intelligence. The object, figure out what the other guy is hiding while preventing anyone else from discovering what you are hiding. The second part is far easier than the first. In the second part, you look at all of the evidence your activities leave behind and ask yourself, "If Sherlock Holmes had this evidence, could he figure out what I'm up to?" If yes, get rid of the evidence. If no, get rid of it anyway, because you can't be sure if the other guy isn't better than Sherlock Holmes.
The discovering side of intelligence is the hard part, because, face it, you never have Sherlock Holmes on your side. All that you have are a bunch of people, buried under a pile of information in which useful clues look no different than random noise on first, second, or third look. It would be like looking for a needle in all the hay in Kansas.
Remember, these are people who, while patriotic, are doing a job to put food on the table. They face the constant dilemna of Get it Done versus Don't Screw UP. Before 9/11, the juiciest stories were when the US would go in only to find that they had the wrong target. "Heads Must Roll!" would be the cry from the Congressional Oversight Commitees. So someone's head would roll, and all the rest would keep their personal favorite heads down. To do nothing would usually be the safest course of action unless the rare golden perfection of "knowing" was reached. Since that almost never happens, nothing is what was usually done.
And Nothing was done, until 9/11 showed that the safety of doing nothing was far from perfect.
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Why a Good Education in Science is Important
This article starts off as an expose of Ralph Nader and fails miserably. It tries to impugn Nader's credibility by pointing out the apparently intentionally sloppy work done by the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG). With no other, more direct, link between unethical activities and Ralph Nader, his premise falls short.
What the article does bring up is an issue near and dear to me: the misuse of science for political purposes. This is a condition I blame on the way that science is taught today. For the most part, science classes, particularly on the elementary level, are taught as a rote set of facts. What tends to be lacking is a study of the method by which scientific data and conclusions are reached. In the article, NYPIRG is cited repeatedly for willfully bad methodologies, apparently for the purposes of achieving results that would invite the political action that they are seeking. Without a proper grounding in the proper methods of science, people would have no way of telling what are reliable results and what are not.
As it currently is, science is taught much like history, a series of facts with no indication or basis for justification. Science taught like this allows the unscrupulous to slap the label of "Scientific" on something without being called on it. Science taught like this is like a catechism, something handed down by an anonymous authority that has to be taken on face value.
What the article does bring up is an issue near and dear to me: the misuse of science for political purposes. This is a condition I blame on the way that science is taught today. For the most part, science classes, particularly on the elementary level, are taught as a rote set of facts. What tends to be lacking is a study of the method by which scientific data and conclusions are reached. In the article, NYPIRG is cited repeatedly for willfully bad methodologies, apparently for the purposes of achieving results that would invite the political action that they are seeking. Without a proper grounding in the proper methods of science, people would have no way of telling what are reliable results and what are not.
As it currently is, science is taught much like history, a series of facts with no indication or basis for justification. Science taught like this allows the unscrupulous to slap the label of "Scientific" on something without being called on it. Science taught like this is like a catechism, something handed down by an anonymous authority that has to be taken on face value.
Monday, March 22, 2004
So What is it That You Want?
James Lileks has a very good look at the anti-(whatever it is they're against) protests over the weekend.
Do the ends justify the means? That is one of the big ones, really. I'm sick of war, but can I say that there are not things worth fighting for? No. The line we try to draw between ends and means gives lie to the truly fractal nature of the boundary. Is it right to go to war for this? It could be that there are fingers of yes reaching into no that any small change of the conditions can change the answer. That is why we one can not say yes all of the time, or no all of the time. That is why I will keep my little head as far away from actual leadership as possible. I just don't want the headache.
Do the ends justify the means? That is one of the big ones, really. I'm sick of war, but can I say that there are not things worth fighting for? No. The line we try to draw between ends and means gives lie to the truly fractal nature of the boundary. Is it right to go to war for this? It could be that there are fingers of yes reaching into no that any small change of the conditions can change the answer. That is why we one can not say yes all of the time, or no all of the time. That is why I will keep my little head as far away from actual leadership as possible. I just don't want the headache.
Guilty as Well
It is shameful how some former members of the Clinton administration are pointing fingers at members of the Bush administration for not following up on their warnings about Al Qaeda in the eight months prior to 9/11. Many people are jumping all over them pointing out that Bush had eight months, Clinton had eight years.
Glenn Reynolds links to a number of sites on this topic, but he makes a point in the update that applies to me as well:
Well, I'd give Clinton a bit more of a pass on this than Hewitt does. I think a lot of people -- including me -- viewed Islamic terrorism in the 1990s as a minor threat that could be contained until it collapsed under the weight of its own stupidity. That was wrong, but I don't blame the Clinton people for getting it wrong.
The cruise missile attacks took place during the Lewinsky scandal. I recall my impression, as I was looking at a headline in a sidewalk newspaper machine, when I first read the name Osama bin Ladin. Here is a billionaire Saudi oilman using terrorism to take over the world. Out of what James Bond novel did Clinton find this guy? It was so transparently a ploy to take attention off of Lewinsky's grand jury testimony (or somesuch new event in the scandal) that bin Ladin just didn't merit my mental faculties.
Count me among those who didn't take the guy seriously enough.
Glenn Reynolds links to a number of sites on this topic, but he makes a point in the update that applies to me as well:
Well, I'd give Clinton a bit more of a pass on this than Hewitt does. I think a lot of people -- including me -- viewed Islamic terrorism in the 1990s as a minor threat that could be contained until it collapsed under the weight of its own stupidity. That was wrong, but I don't blame the Clinton people for getting it wrong.
The cruise missile attacks took place during the Lewinsky scandal. I recall my impression, as I was looking at a headline in a sidewalk newspaper machine, when I first read the name Osama bin Ladin. Here is a billionaire Saudi oilman using terrorism to take over the world. Out of what James Bond novel did Clinton find this guy? It was so transparently a ploy to take attention off of Lewinsky's grand jury testimony (or somesuch new event in the scandal) that bin Ladin just didn't merit my mental faculties.
Count me among those who didn't take the guy seriously enough.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Just a Random Thought:
In the age of television, people have been conditioned to think that something that can be photographed is more real than that which can not.
Case in point: the steel tarrifs President Bush pushed through a couple of years ago. A video camera can be pointed at a dilapidated steel factory and the workers filing out of it with a voice over telling us that these men will not be returning for another shift. One can see the line and be told that 800 men at this one plant will be out of work. The result, hue and cry for government to Do Something to either prevent the plant from shutting down or to prevent the workers from suffering too badly.
On the other hand, tariffs are enacted and the price of steel goes up. Thousands of small to midsize companies, running thin margins to begin with due to tight competition, have to cut loose four or five employees apiece in order to stay afloat. The thousands put out of work due to the tariffs are diffused across the country. No plants go under and there are no lines of workers all in one place to point a camera at. No hue and cry, no single legislator with enough voters discomfitted to make a point about, yet, by shear number of unemployed, no one can doubt that the tariffs have made things worse.
With no pictures, however, how do you convince people of that?
(So I may have lifted this line of argument from Tom Clancy's The Bear and The Dragon. Its been a couple of years since I read it, and the point is still a good one.)
Case in point: the steel tarrifs President Bush pushed through a couple of years ago. A video camera can be pointed at a dilapidated steel factory and the workers filing out of it with a voice over telling us that these men will not be returning for another shift. One can see the line and be told that 800 men at this one plant will be out of work. The result, hue and cry for government to Do Something to either prevent the plant from shutting down or to prevent the workers from suffering too badly.
On the other hand, tariffs are enacted and the price of steel goes up. Thousands of small to midsize companies, running thin margins to begin with due to tight competition, have to cut loose four or five employees apiece in order to stay afloat. The thousands put out of work due to the tariffs are diffused across the country. No plants go under and there are no lines of workers all in one place to point a camera at. No hue and cry, no single legislator with enough voters discomfitted to make a point about, yet, by shear number of unemployed, no one can doubt that the tariffs have made things worse.
With no pictures, however, how do you convince people of that?
(So I may have lifted this line of argument from Tom Clancy's The Bear and The Dragon. Its been a couple of years since I read it, and the point is still a good one.)
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Tolkien Knew Good vs. Evil
Apply this to debates on either the 2nd Amendment or the War on Terror.
Those who have not swords may still die upon them.
--Éowyn, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Link via baldilocks
Those who have not swords may still die upon them.
--Éowyn, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Link via baldilocks
I Think Someone Has Been Watching Too Much CSI.
Even better that this happened in Las Vegas. Its very good that the guy has finally been caught, but I just couldn't help but chuckle at this paragraph:
Malsom said he called the FBI in Cincinnati but said they were skeptical. He went back to the bar after McCoy had left, retrieved items that McCoy left behind and turned the objects -- including a matchbook and a drinking glass -- over to the FBI. He also downloaded photos and other information on the suspect from the Internet.
Gus Grissom would be proud.
Malsom said he called the FBI in Cincinnati but said they were skeptical. He went back to the bar after McCoy had left, retrieved items that McCoy left behind and turned the objects -- including a matchbook and a drinking glass -- over to the FBI. He also downloaded photos and other information on the suspect from the Internet.
Gus Grissom would be proud.
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Somebody Who Gets It
Via Vodkapundit, I read this entry from The Daily Ablution. His Open Letter to Osama really spells it out.
This is war, and the enemy has shown that it will be fought all or nothing. More than your life is at stake.
This is war, and the enemy has shown that it will be fought all or nothing. More than your life is at stake.
Peace is Never Unilateral (The Count is Now: 55)
By the time I decided whether or not to include this article in The Count, I had cooled off enough to proceed without it. At issue today is an editorial from the Guardian of the UK. This was written in response to the bombings in Madrid.
An international conference, to bridge the divide between Muslim and Christian communities, should be one first step.
I don't think that I have ever seen a clearer example of "Since what we have done hasn't worked, let's see if more of the same will do the trick" reasoning. We have been talking and discussing and conferring for the past thirty years. How many people have died due to terrorists in that time? By what reasonable measure can it be said that this is working?
We need to take the fight against terror out of America's hands.
I did add to The Count just now. "We need to the the fight against terror out of America's hands."? I suppose that might be a good idea. After all, the only things that have happened since America took the fight in its own hands have been the fall of the Taliban, the fall of Saddam Hussein, over half of Al Qaeda's leadership dead or in prison, the handover of Libya's WMD programs, Iran allowing IAEA inspectors to examine their nuclear weapons program, and North Korea engaging in multi-lateral talks. No, nothing positive at all.
We need to get beyond the them and us, the good guys and the bad guys, and seek a genuinely collective response.
I'm going to add my response to "War is Not the Answer" to my critique of this line. I entirely agree. I am thirty years old, and I am tired of all of the war and violence and bloodshed in the world. I fully believe that war and violence are the worst possible things that humans can bring upon this earth.
My question is: When do the terrorists learn that? When do they get past the them and us, the good guys and the bad guys? Yes, we need a collective response, but those who are attacking us have to be part of that collective. Unless and until then there can not be peace. I am not racist enough to think that the Muslim world is incapable of holding up its end of any type of peaceful consensus, nor do I think that the Western world can or should ensure peace only by its own action.
When was the last time Al Qaeda issued demands stating what had to be done in order to prevent further attacks? Never. If they have demands, then it is only that we should cast aside anything that is not Muslim in our culture and embrace the will of Allah. They are on a Crusade. They hate us because we give lie to their religion. We do not adhere to the tenets of their faith, and yet we are prosperous, healthy, and reap all of the other benefits that Allah should only bestow upon the faithful. Therefore, we must have gotten what we have by evil means, and that they must be the avenging hand of God to smite the unrighteous down into their proper place. Al Qaeda are not "beyond the them and us, the good guys and the bad guys." They are the Good Guys, and we are the Bad Guys.
I want my as of yet hypothetical children to never have to fear that their lives may be turned upside down, or even ended, because they are different than someone else. There are only two powers that can make that come to pass. One is for those who follow the path of radical Islam to set aside their weapons and agree to live and let live. The other is for us to destroy them. If they show us a sincere intent to use the first power, then we shall have peace. If they continue to fail to do so, then they shall be destroyed, and we shall have to continue wondering who else in the world hasn't yet gotten the message.
(via Andrew Sullivan and The New Republic)
An international conference, to bridge the divide between Muslim and Christian communities, should be one first step.
I don't think that I have ever seen a clearer example of "Since what we have done hasn't worked, let's see if more of the same will do the trick" reasoning. We have been talking and discussing and conferring for the past thirty years. How many people have died due to terrorists in that time? By what reasonable measure can it be said that this is working?
We need to take the fight against terror out of America's hands.
I did add to The Count just now. "We need to the the fight against terror out of America's hands."? I suppose that might be a good idea. After all, the only things that have happened since America took the fight in its own hands have been the fall of the Taliban, the fall of Saddam Hussein, over half of Al Qaeda's leadership dead or in prison, the handover of Libya's WMD programs, Iran allowing IAEA inspectors to examine their nuclear weapons program, and North Korea engaging in multi-lateral talks. No, nothing positive at all.
We need to get beyond the them and us, the good guys and the bad guys, and seek a genuinely collective response.
I'm going to add my response to "War is Not the Answer" to my critique of this line. I entirely agree. I am thirty years old, and I am tired of all of the war and violence and bloodshed in the world. I fully believe that war and violence are the worst possible things that humans can bring upon this earth.
My question is: When do the terrorists learn that? When do they get past the them and us, the good guys and the bad guys? Yes, we need a collective response, but those who are attacking us have to be part of that collective. Unless and until then there can not be peace. I am not racist enough to think that the Muslim world is incapable of holding up its end of any type of peaceful consensus, nor do I think that the Western world can or should ensure peace only by its own action.
When was the last time Al Qaeda issued demands stating what had to be done in order to prevent further attacks? Never. If they have demands, then it is only that we should cast aside anything that is not Muslim in our culture and embrace the will of Allah. They are on a Crusade. They hate us because we give lie to their religion. We do not adhere to the tenets of their faith, and yet we are prosperous, healthy, and reap all of the other benefits that Allah should only bestow upon the faithful. Therefore, we must have gotten what we have by evil means, and that they must be the avenging hand of God to smite the unrighteous down into their proper place. Al Qaeda are not "beyond the them and us, the good guys and the bad guys." They are the Good Guys, and we are the Bad Guys.
I want my as of yet hypothetical children to never have to fear that their lives may be turned upside down, or even ended, because they are different than someone else. There are only two powers that can make that come to pass. One is for those who follow the path of radical Islam to set aside their weapons and agree to live and let live. The other is for us to destroy them. If they show us a sincere intent to use the first power, then we shall have peace. If they continue to fail to do so, then they shall be destroyed, and we shall have to continue wondering who else in the world hasn't yet gotten the message.
(via Andrew Sullivan and The New Republic)
Monday, March 15, 2004
Ladies and Gentlemen, Can I Get a "D'oh!"?
Right now, some paralegal is wanting to crawl into a hole and pulling it in after him/herself. Because of some "bad research" the city of Aliso Viejo was contemplating the ban of any product made with dihydrogen monoxide.
The problem: dihydrogen monoxide is water. So much for "Eight a Day for Health".
For more information on this well hidden menace, you can check here and here.
The problem: dihydrogen monoxide is water. So much for "Eight a Day for Health".
For more information on this well hidden menace, you can check here and here.
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