Commenting on Jim Henley's blog, Gary Farber points out that the "news story" about the Stephen Cambone memo (which I mentioned here is not a "new" news story at all, but is at least three years and change old.
That is all.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Figures of Speech Question
Does anyone know if there is a name for the figure of speech where the attributes of one sex are given to someone of the opposite sex? (If you're not certain what I mean by a name for a figure of speech, click here).
For example, referring to a man's "cherry" or a woman's "cajones."
If there is no such term, what do you guys think would be a good term to use?
That is all.
For example, referring to a man's "cherry" or a woman's "cajones."
If there is no such term, what do you guys think would be a good term to use?
That is all.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Ol' Sully Beats Crazy Mickey to the Punch
Andrew Sullivan suggests an Iranian connection to the mosque bombing, when Michael Ledeen hasn't even done so yet.
Here and here are more suggestions that Iran was behind the bombing.
I take these theories very seriously. You know, just like I take these theories seriously.
That is all.
Here and here are more suggestions that Iran was behind the bombing.
I take these theories very seriously. You know, just like I take these theories seriously.
That is all.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Tip of the Iceberg
In a rebuttal to those so-called "conservatives" who are unconcerned about the recent wiretapping incidents, there is a claim there is a far more wide-ranging surveillance program in place.
Rush Limbaugh has already indicated on his show that he has no problem with the information from warrantless wiretaps being used in court (which punctures one pro-wiretapping argument, that it is okay because it isn't being used as testimony in court, so it isn't covered by the fourth amendment).
If this other program involved domestic rather than half-domestic (i.e. one end in the U.S.) and foreign calls, then the other fig leaf drops.
Of course, some "conservatives" wouldn't give a damn if this were true. Andrew McCarthy has made it perfectly clear that he feels that the President has the power to take us into war (declaring war is dismissed as an unnecessary formality) and that once we are at war, the President can spy on anyone whom he chooses to designate a "potential enemy".
That is all.
Rush Limbaugh has already indicated on his show that he has no problem with the information from warrantless wiretaps being used in court (which punctures one pro-wiretapping argument, that it is okay because it isn't being used as testimony in court, so it isn't covered by the fourth amendment).
If this other program involved domestic rather than half-domestic (i.e. one end in the U.S.) and foreign calls, then the other fig leaf drops.
Of course, some "conservatives" wouldn't give a damn if this were true. Andrew McCarthy has made it perfectly clear that he feels that the President has the power to take us into war (declaring war is dismissed as an unnecessary formality) and that once we are at war, the President can spy on anyone whom he chooses to designate a "potential enemy".
That is all.
Uh-Oh
Matt Yglesias has noted that even Ol' Sully is beginning to think that Bush misled the American people into after 9/11.
The Stephen Cambone memo indicates that Rumsfeld was eager to use 9/11 as a pretext to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Of course, the fact that the Bush administration was looking for an opportunity to get Saddam is obvious to anyone who isn't it total denial.
That is all.
The Stephen Cambone memo indicates that Rumsfeld was eager to use 9/11 as a pretext to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Of course, the fact that the Bush administration was looking for an opportunity to get Saddam is obvious to anyone who isn't it total denial.
That is all.
Discussion Topic
I'm interested in knowing what the people who read Glaivester think about Peter Duesberg.
I think that his theory that HIV does not cause AIDS is wrong, but Donald W. Miller, Jr. has a piece on LewRockwell.com that argues that he is likely correct, and I can't find too much fault with what he says, assuming that the factual information he cites for support are accurate. On the other hand, a person can make a reasonable sounding argument that colds are caused by little monkey who play in your nose, so the fact that he sounds reasonable doesn't mean I should trust what he writes.
Anyone have any thoughts, or any commentary on Dr. Miller's article?
That is all.
I think that his theory that HIV does not cause AIDS is wrong, but Donald W. Miller, Jr. has a piece on LewRockwell.com that argues that he is likely correct, and I can't find too much fault with what he says, assuming that the factual information he cites for support are accurate. On the other hand, a person can make a reasonable sounding argument that colds are caused by little monkey who play in your nose, so the fact that he sounds reasonable doesn't mean I should trust what he writes.
Anyone have any thoughts, or any commentary on Dr. Miller's article?
That is all.
Prostate Cancer May Have a Virus Connection?
As I person with a father who has prostate cancer, I think that this is interesting news.
That is all.
That is all.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
A Plea to Comics Fans
Help to save a great comic!
Go to your local comic book store and buy the latest issue of Spider-Girl
!
That is all.
Go to your local comic book store and buy the latest issue of Spider-Girl
!That is all.
Speak of the Devil
James S. Robbins blames the mosque bombings on al Qaeda, and as I had suggested it would be, it seems that the major motive in doing this is to pawn off the blame onto "foreign fighters" so as to maintian the fiction that the Iraqis really want to get along.
That is all.
That is all.
Prediction
Michael Ledeen will find some way of blaming the bombing of the Al-Askariya mosque on Iran. His argument will go something along the lines of "this proves that there is no loyalty felt from the mullahs towards the Iraqi Shiites," or "most people would have you believe that the Shiite Iranians wouldn't attack Shiite Iraqis, but in reality, they attack each other all the time, just as Shiite terrorists and tyrants always love working with Sunni and Wahhabi terrorists and tyrants." In otehr words, more of his "all Muslims who hate democracy (and are U.S. and Israel-unfriendly) are automatically aligned, and all who like democracy (and are U.S. and Israel-friendly) are automatically aligned, and that is the only meaningful division."
That is all.
That is all.
Civil War Roundup
The destruction of a Shiite mosque in Samarra, the most famous in Iraq, has sparked some counter-attacks against Sunni Arabs, whom the Shiites accuse of making the attack.
Here, here, and here are some more reports on this story.
Everyone seems to be getting in on the blame game. The U.S., unwilling to admit that the Iraqis may not love each other and may not want to live in multiethnic peace, blames Al Qaeda. SCIRI blames the U.S. because our allies in Iraq don't want Shiite death squads to roam the country. The Sunni clerics blame the Shiite clerics for the violent counter-attacks.
At some point, I'm certain that some Middle Eastern bigwig will accuse Israel or the U.S. of blowing up the mosque. I'm surprised they haven't already.
That is all.
Here, here, and here are some more reports on this story.
Everyone seems to be getting in on the blame game. The U.S., unwilling to admit that the Iraqis may not love each other and may not want to live in multiethnic peace, blames Al Qaeda. SCIRI blames the U.S. because our allies in Iraq don't want Shiite death squads to roam the country. The Sunni clerics blame the Shiite clerics for the violent counter-attacks.
At some point, I'm certain that some Middle Eastern bigwig will accuse Israel or the U.S. of blowing up the mosque. I'm surprised they haven't already.
That is all.
Why Was Larry Summers Fired
The natural assumption is that he was fired (well, technically he resigned, but that is like saying that a woman with a gun to her head "consented" to sex) for his politically incorrect statements about women and math and science. Matt Yglesias, though, wonders if he wasn't nixed due to internal issues, including the firing of a professor and attempts at rearranging the administrative structure and campus.
Matt's (well-documented and likely true) assertion is interesting, in a boring sort of way, for someone like me who likes to find boring answers to controversies.
That is all.
Matt's (well-documented and likely true) assertion is interesting, in a boring sort of way, for someone like me who likes to find boring answers to controversies.
That is all.
More Sectarian Attacks
If you haven't heard already, fresh sectarian attacks have rocked Iraq.
I'll comment more if I can think of anything interesting or original to say.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Sully.
That is all.
I'll comment more if I can think of anything interesting or original to say.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Sully.
That is all.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
It's the End of the Pair-Bond as We Know It...
Stanley Kurtz on the attempt to do away with marriage and gender in Sweden.
A lot of good stuff. The fact of the matter is, as much as Andrew Sullivan may want to deny it, expanding the definition of marriage outside of male-female pair-bonds dilutes the institution. Some people don't understand that, and for them the demeaning of marriage is an unintended consequence, but for others it is the actual goal.
That is all.
A lot of good stuff. The fact of the matter is, as much as Andrew Sullivan may want to deny it, expanding the definition of marriage outside of male-female pair-bonds dilutes the institution. Some people don't understand that, and for them the demeaning of marriage is an unintended consequence, but for others it is the actual goal.
That is all.
X-Chromosomes and Homosexuality
There appears to be a link to how a woman's X-chromosomes are inactivated and to her propensity to have multiple gay sons.
However, it appears that this does not occur in the majority of mothers who have multiple gay sons but only in about 25% of them (as opposed to 13% with one gay son and 4% with no gay sons).
How this affects the "germ theory" of Greg Cochran, I am not certain. But it hardly refutes it, as it occurs in a relatively small number of mothers whose sons are gay.
That is all.
However, it appears that this does not occur in the majority of mothers who have multiple gay sons but only in about 25% of them (as opposed to 13% with one gay son and 4% with no gay sons).
How this affects the "germ theory" of Greg Cochran, I am not certain. But it hardly refutes it, as it occurs in a relatively small number of mothers whose sons are gay.
That is all.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Government-Funding = Pro-Government Bias?
A while back, I commented on a piece by Tibor Machan suggesting that government funding doesn't necessarily imply impartiality (as the government is hardly a neutral player in the world). I think there used to be a comment by Greg Cohcran on that post saying that he thought that government-funded scientists usually were more objective, but it appears to have disappeared (perhaps Haloscan deleted it after it had been on for a certain amount of time).
Now Michael Fumento brings up a similar point.
Interesting article.
That is all.
Now Michael Fumento brings up a similar point.
Interesting article.
That is all.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Substitute Teaching
I've been doing some substitute teaching recently, and the most surprising thing is the way that some students have an attitude toward learning. It's as if school is a contest and the first one to learn something loses. I mean, I will admit that I never liked going to school per se (in the same way that all kids don't like school much), but I never actively resisted learning.
The Simpsons quote: "Not only am I not learning, I'm forgetting stuff I used to know." (Said by Milhouse after Ned Flanders became principal and basically wound up letting the students walk all over him) didn't use to make much sense to me; I thought that viewing students as not hating just school, but hating learning itself was a gross exaggerration.
But now experiencing classes with students who are not on the honors track, I am beginning to get the picture. Not that all of them are like that, but there are a fair number.
That is all.
The Simpsons quote: "Not only am I not learning, I'm forgetting stuff I used to know." (Said by Milhouse after Ned Flanders became principal and basically wound up letting the students walk all over him) didn't use to make much sense to me; I thought that viewing students as not hating just school, but hating learning itself was a gross exaggerration.
But now experiencing classes with students who are not on the honors track, I am beginning to get the picture. Not that all of them are like that, but there are a fair number.
That is all.
Sailer on Harris
An old commentary by Steve Sailer on Judith Rich Harris's thesis that "parents don't matter."
I previously (and recently) commented on this issue here.
That is all.
I previously (and recently) commented on this issue here.
That is all.
About the State-Sanctioned Rigged Numbers Game
Dan Tarrant directs his rage at the state lotteries.
It's pretty good stuff, and connects nicely with a post of mine from a month ago.
The thing, though, that bothers me the most about the lottery are the advertisements, most of which practically scream "get rich quick! You could win! Come on and try it!" The worst of these was one where it mentioned how bad a generic "you" must feel that you had all of those dreary things to look forward too, including bills you had to pay. Then the ad stated that the narrator was "that little voice in the back of your head" and that you should buy a lottery ticket because "you will think about winning all day." Yes, if you have a difficult time making ends meet, by all means invest in a gambling scheme with a less than 50% payout (much less, if you include taxes and the fact that you don't get the advertised jackpot as a lump sum).
The lottery is, in essence, a system of taking money from the poorest and stupidest segments of society (yes, people who put a lot of money into the lottery are almost certainly more likely to have low IQs and not to actually think things through).
It's bad, and it should be stopped.
That is all.
It's pretty good stuff, and connects nicely with a post of mine from a month ago.
The thing, though, that bothers me the most about the lottery are the advertisements, most of which practically scream "get rich quick! You could win! Come on and try it!" The worst of these was one where it mentioned how bad a generic "you" must feel that you had all of those dreary things to look forward too, including bills you had to pay. Then the ad stated that the narrator was "that little voice in the back of your head" and that you should buy a lottery ticket because "you will think about winning all day." Yes, if you have a difficult time making ends meet, by all means invest in a gambling scheme with a less than 50% payout (much less, if you include taxes and the fact that you don't get the advertised jackpot as a lump sum).
The lottery is, in essence, a system of taking money from the poorest and stupidest segments of society (yes, people who put a lot of money into the lottery are almost certainly more likely to have low IQs and not to actually think things through).
It's bad, and it should be stopped.
That is all.
The Unborn as Commodities
Joshua Trevino explains why in vitro fertilization is morally problematic.
This should show people that the claim that pro-lifers don't care about the life of the fetus but just want to control women's bodies is not accurate.
That is all.
This should show people that the claim that pro-lifers don't care about the life of the fetus but just want to control women's bodies is not accurate.
That is all.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Stephen Birmingham Debunks the "Saddam Tapes"
An excellent post with a pretty thorough debunking of the "latest" "evidence" that Saddam had WMDs in recent years.
I will try to post a fresh analysis of my own later. In the meantime, you can read my previous posts on this issue here, here, and here.
That is all.
I will try to post a fresh analysis of my own later. In the meantime, you can read my previous posts on this issue here, here, and here.
That is all.
Nature vs. Nurture
Dennis Mangan has a post about a recent book by Judith Rich Harris that claims that parental care has no effect on a child's behavior:
The developmentalists found that the children's behavior was correlated with the parents' behavior and attributed the correlation to the effects of the home environment. Though they realized that heredity might account for some of the correlation, they never considered the possibility that heredity might account for all of it. But that is exactly how it turned out. Once the effects of genetic similarities were estimated and skimmed off, the correlation declined to zero. The putative effects of the home environment disappeared.
I can't entirely buy that. Taken literally, it would mean that you can beat up your children, sexually molest them, let them be raised by wolves, and it doesn't change a thing.
I think a far more likely explanation is the "weakest link" one: nurture and nature each determine a level of behavior for your child (I'm pretending that behavior can be looked at as a linear quantity from "good" to "bad") and whichever level is worse, is where your child is. Put another way, parental care cannot overcome a child's genetics, but it can harm a child. The reason why parnetal care does not seem to have an effect is that the parents are almost always equal to or better than the genetics; when the parent is biological, they tend to be equal to; when adoptive, better than; because adoptive parents tend to be screened and because people who have to give their babies up for adoption are probably disproportionately people with genetic disadvantages.
I think that this would fit the facts and also seem more reasonable to me; it does not strike me as odd that a child whose parents are from a disadvantaged ackground might not be "fixed" by putting him with a well-behaved upper middle-class family. It beggars belief that the child of a well-behaved upper middle-class family would not be damaged by letting a couple who are abusive to him and who run a crackhouse adopt him.
That is all.
The developmentalists found that the children's behavior was correlated with the parents' behavior and attributed the correlation to the effects of the home environment. Though they realized that heredity might account for some of the correlation, they never considered the possibility that heredity might account for all of it. But that is exactly how it turned out. Once the effects of genetic similarities were estimated and skimmed off, the correlation declined to zero. The putative effects of the home environment disappeared.
I can't entirely buy that. Taken literally, it would mean that you can beat up your children, sexually molest them, let them be raised by wolves, and it doesn't change a thing.
I think a far more likely explanation is the "weakest link" one: nurture and nature each determine a level of behavior for your child (I'm pretending that behavior can be looked at as a linear quantity from "good" to "bad") and whichever level is worse, is where your child is. Put another way, parental care cannot overcome a child's genetics, but it can harm a child. The reason why parnetal care does not seem to have an effect is that the parents are almost always equal to or better than the genetics; when the parent is biological, they tend to be equal to; when adoptive, better than; because adoptive parents tend to be screened and because people who have to give their babies up for adoption are probably disproportionately people with genetic disadvantages.
I think that this would fit the facts and also seem more reasonable to me; it does not strike me as odd that a child whose parents are from a disadvantaged ackground might not be "fixed" by putting him with a well-behaved upper middle-class family. It beggars belief that the child of a well-behaved upper middle-class family would not be damaged by letting a couple who are abusive to him and who run a crackhouse adopt him.
That is all.
New Links on Glaivester
I have decided to put up some new links, one to a paleoconservative site, one to a liberal site.
Pumpkinhead, the blog of Pieter Friedrich (formerly of "Blogs for Peroutka") has a bunch of interesting thoughts on politics, religion, and Macdom, among other things. He is also involved with The Backwater Report, a Constitution Party-affiliated blog to which I have linked for some time.
The Center for Advanced Sarcasm, a former Glaivester blog of the week, contains the thoughts of one Dan Tarrant. It tends toward liberalism, but has some good stuff in there occasionally.
That is all.
Pumpkinhead, the blog of Pieter Friedrich (formerly of "Blogs for Peroutka") has a bunch of interesting thoughts on politics, religion, and Macdom, among other things. He is also involved with The Backwater Report, a Constitution Party-affiliated blog to which I have linked for some time.
The Center for Advanced Sarcasm, a former Glaivester blog of the week, contains the thoughts of one Dan Tarrant. It tends toward liberalism, but has some good stuff in there occasionally.
That is all.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Michael Ledeen Must Be Happy...
So the government is officially backing Syrian and Iranian dissidents in their efforts to replace he current governments of thsoe countries.
This is going to bring us a whole lot of problems...
That is all.
This is going to bring us a whole lot of problems...
That is all.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Those Tapes
I'll wait for any extensive commentary on those Saddam tapes that have just come out until there has been enough time for more substantial analysis to take place.
But I do want to point out something.
The tapes in question are from 1995. This does not prove that there was a weapons program there after 1998.
Moreover, if there were a weapons program, why didn't Saddam either use it when we invaded (it might not have saved his regime, but it would take (presumably) a lot of American soldiers down with him, or give it up and thus bring international pressure against the U.S. to bear to try to delay or stop our invasion?
We are to believe that he was hiding WMDs so that he could not use them, but ship them to Syria while his country fell, as claimed by Ali Ibrahim al-Tikritit? Please. This guy has as much reason to be honest as Ahmad Chalabi.
I think that the sudden surfacing of these tapes at this time, and the sudden publicizing of the Tikriti interview, occurred primarily because the Bush administration needs to shore up its credibility before it begins to ratchet up the war machine against Iran. After all, if Iraq really was planning WMD terrrorist attacks against the U.S., then Bush was right, so he must be right in his claims against Iran as well. You do trust our glorious leader, don't you?
That is all.
But I do want to point out something.
The tapes in question are from 1995. This does not prove that there was a weapons program there after 1998.
Moreover, if there were a weapons program, why didn't Saddam either use it when we invaded (it might not have saved his regime, but it would take (presumably) a lot of American soldiers down with him, or give it up and thus bring international pressure against the U.S. to bear to try to delay or stop our invasion?
We are to believe that he was hiding WMDs so that he could not use them, but ship them to Syria while his country fell, as claimed by Ali Ibrahim al-Tikritit? Please. This guy has as much reason to be honest as Ahmad Chalabi.
I think that the sudden surfacing of these tapes at this time, and the sudden publicizing of the Tikriti interview, occurred primarily because the Bush administration needs to shore up its credibility before it begins to ratchet up the war machine against Iran. After all, if Iraq really was planning WMD terrrorist attacks against the U.S., then Bush was right, so he must be right in his claims against Iran as well. You do trust our glorious leader, don't you?
That is all.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
They Don't Get It
Deb Saunders has an article on the test controversy in California.
The argument that exit exams should not be required for students to graduate usually amount to:
The lawyer's argument is that it is unfair to not grant a diploma to a student who has completed 13 years of school and repeatedly received passing grades in math, English and other classes, because the student cannot pass "one test."
What they ignore is that if the students can't pass this "one test," then it is likely that all of the classes they took weren't worth very much.
Some of the anxiety appears to be over the fact that some of the students don't do well because English is not their first language.
Tough. English is what we speak here. Learn it fluently if you want to pass.
That is all.
The argument that exit exams should not be required for students to graduate usually amount to:
The lawyer's argument is that it is unfair to not grant a diploma to a student who has completed 13 years of school and repeatedly received passing grades in math, English and other classes, because the student cannot pass "one test."
What they ignore is that if the students can't pass this "one test," then it is likely that all of the classes they took weren't worth very much.
Some of the anxiety appears to be over the fact that some of the students don't do well because English is not their first language.
Tough. English is what we speak here. Learn it fluently if you want to pass.
That is all.
Andrew McCarthy: Bush Should Be Allowed to Be a Dictator
While there are some legitimate things in this article by Andy McCarthy, this line beggars belief:
The power to declare war has never been a power to make, authorize, or initiate war. Indeed, as demonstrated in The Powers of War and Peace by Professor John Yoo, formerly of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the Framers altered a draft of the Constitution that would have empowered Congress to "make" war, settling on "declare," a term of art which, at the time of the founding, merely meant the provision of formal notice to the world (including the enemy) of a state of total war (as opposed to some lesser degree of hostilities), which triggered various rights for belligerents under international law. It is no accident either that the U.S., despite having participated in numerous wars, has formally declared war only five times in its history (and not since 1941), or that our British forebears frequently fought wars with no formal declaration whatsoever.
Put another way, the President has the power to take us into a war without the consent of Congress. This is madness. The reason why the Congress is not given the power to "make war" is so that they cannot take the country to war without hte President's consent. That is, they can declare war, but the president can refuse to actually fight it. Thsi is far different from saying that the President can fight a war without a declaration.
And McCarthy's apparent endorsement of our fighting undeclared wars shows that he is another imperialist with a dictatorial ideal for the president.
His line that a formal declaration of war "triggered various rights for belligerents under international law" is also worrisome. Is he stating that without a declaration, our troops are not legally protected from abuse (e.g. we cannot charge those who capture our troops and mistreat them with war crimes) or that the declaration of war triggers rights for our enemies (in which case he is arguing that the President can figght a war harder without a declaration, making a declaration of war actually a statement of restraint rather than a statement of belligerence.
Let's be honest, Andy. You want the President to have absolute power. You really believe what this website sarcastically states.
That is all.
The power to declare war has never been a power to make, authorize, or initiate war. Indeed, as demonstrated in The Powers of War and Peace by Professor John Yoo, formerly of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the Framers altered a draft of the Constitution that would have empowered Congress to "make" war, settling on "declare," a term of art which, at the time of the founding, merely meant the provision of formal notice to the world (including the enemy) of a state of total war (as opposed to some lesser degree of hostilities), which triggered various rights for belligerents under international law. It is no accident either that the U.S., despite having participated in numerous wars, has formally declared war only five times in its history (and not since 1941), or that our British forebears frequently fought wars with no formal declaration whatsoever.
Put another way, the President has the power to take us into a war without the consent of Congress. This is madness. The reason why the Congress is not given the power to "make war" is so that they cannot take the country to war without hte President's consent. That is, they can declare war, but the president can refuse to actually fight it. Thsi is far different from saying that the President can fight a war without a declaration.
And McCarthy's apparent endorsement of our fighting undeclared wars shows that he is another imperialist with a dictatorial ideal for the president.
His line that a formal declaration of war "triggered various rights for belligerents under international law" is also worrisome. Is he stating that without a declaration, our troops are not legally protected from abuse (e.g. we cannot charge those who capture our troops and mistreat them with war crimes) or that the declaration of war triggers rights for our enemies (in which case he is arguing that the President can figght a war harder without a declaration, making a declaration of war actually a statement of restraint rather than a statement of belligerence.
Let's be honest, Andy. You want the President to have absolute power. You really believe what this website sarcastically states.
That is all.
Why Affirmative Action is Dumb
Steve Sailer on the latest nuisance launched upon us by the diversity police.
As a job-seeker, this worries me greatly.
Meanwhile, I don't recall our stupid "conservative" president actually doing anythign to fight this, or, like, even actually, like, you know, saying anything about it.
That is all.
As a job-seeker, this worries me greatly.
Meanwhile, I don't recall our stupid "conservative" president actually doing anythign to fight this, or, like, even actually, like, you know, saying anything about it.
That is all.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Thoughts on Al-Tikriti
So the WMDs are in Syria, eh?
The latest "confession" by Ali Ibrahim al-Tikriti means one of two things:
(1) Saddam behaved in an entirely preposterous manner prior to the war, deciding to let Iraq get invaded without putting up a no-holds-barred defense (i.e. moving his WMDs to Syria rather than using them against American troops), because humiliating Dubya was his primary goal.
(2) Someone is coercing or bribing him to say what the administration wants him to say, including creating a casus belli for us to attack Syria. (Sorry folks, when I first read this I thought he was one of the guys we captured in the Second Gulf War; I didn't read carefully enough and see that he actually had defected in the early 90s).
(2) He fell out of favor with Saddam [which is why he defected] and initially had been trying to pay him back by asserting whatever the U.S. wanted to hear in order to justify the overthrow of Saddam. Now that Saddam is gone, he is trying to curry favor with the U.S. in order to gain a position for himself in the new Iraq [again, by telling the current U.S. administration what it wants to hear, including creating a casus belli for us to attack Syria].
Given that this is a WorldNetDaily article, guess which one I am siding with.
That is all.
The latest "confession" by Ali Ibrahim al-Tikriti means one of two things:
(1) Saddam behaved in an entirely preposterous manner prior to the war, deciding to let Iraq get invaded without putting up a no-holds-barred defense (i.e. moving his WMDs to Syria rather than using them against American troops), because humiliating Dubya was his primary goal.
(2) He fell out of favor with Saddam [which is why he defected] and initially had been trying to pay him back by asserting whatever the U.S. wanted to hear in order to justify the overthrow of Saddam. Now that Saddam is gone, he is trying to curry favor with the U.S. in order to gain a position for himself in the new Iraq [again, by telling the current U.S. administration what it wants to hear, including creating a casus belli for us to attack Syria].
Given that this is a WorldNetDaily article, guess which one I am siding with.
That is all.
New Things on Glaivester
I have put up some links through the Amazon Associates program, so if people want to buy what I advertise, I get a cut. (This also gives me an opportunity to advertise Spider-Girl, a comic I greatly enjoy).
I have also fixed my Paypal button, so if you want to donate using PayPal, you can now.
(To donate to Glaivester, click on the link on the "DONATE" link on the right-hand sidebar, and then you see the donation options. If you don't see a right-hand sidebar, then scroll down; the sidebar will be on your left after the text runs out).
That is all.
I have also fixed my Paypal button, so if you want to donate using PayPal, you can now.
(To donate to Glaivester, click on the link on the "DONATE" link on the right-hand sidebar, and then you see the donation options. If you don't see a right-hand sidebar, then scroll down; the sidebar will be on your left after the text runs out).
That is all.
Argentum et Aurum
Gary North comments on whether silver or gold is a better investment.
Me? I do both, although my gold outnumbers my silver by 4 to 1 (in dollar terms).
But Mr. North makes one important point, that silver has more industrial uses than gold and so is more vulnerable to alterations in demand, particularly more vulnerable to loss of value during a recession.
That is all.
Me? I do both, although my gold outnumbers my silver by 4 to 1 (in dollar terms).
But Mr. North makes one important point, that silver has more industrial uses than gold and so is more vulnerable to alterations in demand, particularly more vulnerable to loss of value during a recession.
That is all.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Hack Kelly is at it Again
This article is mostly laughable.
While I agree that the anti-Bush comments at the Coretta Scott King funeral were not what I would consider appropriate, I think that the idea that the blacks will be voting Republican en masse any day now is stupid. Moreover, the idea that the GOP should make Condoleeza Rice the new Presidential candidate - ridiculous.
That is all.
While I agree that the anti-Bush comments at the Coretta Scott King funeral were not what I would consider appropriate, I think that the idea that the blacks will be voting Republican en masse any day now is stupid. Moreover, the idea that the GOP should make Condoleeza Rice the new Presidential candidate - ridiculous.
That is all.
Heterohomophilia
Steve Sailer has printed an email of mine on the "Brokeback Mountain" issue (the second email), where I offer my thoughts on the fascination by some heterosexuals with homosexual activity amongst the opposite sex, a term I call "heterohomophilia." (I actually referred to it in my email as fascination with homosexuals, but on second thought I realize that it is homosexual activity (either sex or pair-bonding), not actual homosexuals, that is found fascinating by the opposite gender).
In any case, I brought up the parallel between "slash fanfiction" and girl-on-girl porn was myself way back in January of last year, and Yggy brought in up in the context of Brokeback Mountain here.
That is all.
In any case, I brought up the parallel between "slash fanfiction" and girl-on-girl porn was myself way back in January of last year, and Yggy brought in up in the context of Brokeback Mountain here.
That is all.
Monday, February 13, 2006
About that Accident
I probably should make a comment about Dick Cheney shooting that guy by accident. But I can't really think of anything novel and/or non-obvious to say. I don't really see much importance in the story from a standpoint of what it shows about Cheney or the Bush administration in general. It was a hunting accident, and doesn't really prove anything one way or the other about the war, or Halliburton, or illegal immigration, etc. So I'll wait to comment until I find something to say that is either relevant or clever.
As for those of you who take joy in berating Cheney, best of luck to you. He deserves all of the ribbing he gets. But I'm not going to join in the party.
That is all.
As for those of you who take joy in berating Cheney, best of luck to you. He deserves all of the ribbing he gets. But I'm not going to join in the party.
That is all.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Math and Science
Lew Rockwell denies that there is a shortage of Americans qualified in math and science.
As usual, he believes that the free market calibrates it so that we have jsut about the right amount.
It's an interesting proposition.
And of course, as I have mentioned before, any discussion of the gaps between the U.S. and other countries on test scores have to be considered in the context of our different racial demographics.
That is all.
As usual, he believes that the free market calibrates it so that we have jsut about the right amount.
It's an interesting proposition.
And of course, as I have mentioned before, any discussion of the gaps between the U.S. and other countries on test scores have to be considered in the context of our different racial demographics.
That is all.
York and Iran
Blow the Hell out of Iran now, says Byron York.
There are two problems with Mr. York's analysis of a post by Atrios.
First, he willfully misrepresents Atrios as suggesting that he wouldn't mind if nukes took out a city or two. Obviously, what Atrios is actually saying is (a) Iran is not an existentiaal threa to the U.S. and (b) it would by far be at a disadvantage in a nuclear exchange with the U.S., so it can easily be deterred from attacking us. Atrios is suggesting that taking out Iran's nuclear program is not necessary to prevent nuclear attacks, not that nuclear attacks would not be devastating.
If a nuclear Iran took out Jerusalem and London, to name a city or two, wouldn't that be really bad -- even if the U.S. was capable of devastating retaliation? Wouldn't it be better to prevent such an outcome, even if it involved a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities?
Would such an attack end there, or would we be forced into actually conquering Iran in order to have any long-term victory? Byron York coneniently ignores all of the unintended but likely consequences of an attack on Iran.
Second, Byron York trots out the old "[Insert eeeeevil country here] is just crazy, and will gladly let itself be blow to nothingness by the U.S. in order to destroy a city" canard.
In addition, there was a certain rationality that underlay the Cold War system of mutually assured destruction. Does anyone know whether Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would display that rationality?
York would do well to remember that (a) Ahmadinejad isn't a dictator; he can't choose to nuke something without other branches of government consenting, and (b) Ahmadinejad is a lot less crazy than people think.
I'll analyze (b) first. For one thing, even if his comment on the Holocaust were a denial - the term "myth" does not necessarily imply fiction, so he might have simply been saying that the Holocaust has become Israel's raison d'etre, and he thinks the implications of that are unfair (I would disagree with him) - that would be more playing to the crowds than an evidence of madness. Most of the Middle Eastern Muslims hate Jews, so it wouldn't be irrational for a Muslim leader to publicly speak nasty lies about them. For the second thing, the statements about taking Israel off the map are again, almost certainly just normal Iranian boilerplate to try and direct the people's anger outside fo the country.
Finally, back to the issue of (a) Ahmadinejad isn't a dictator: Steve Sailer has pointed out that the neocons always seem to assume that whatever branch of government in Iran contains the most belligerent people must be the one in charge, the better to wave the bloody shirt over; if Ahmadinejad were a moderate, like Khameini, they would assert that he had no power and that the crazed mullahs were really in charge. As it is, they claim, if not directly then by implication that Ahmadinejad is essentially a dictator.
Thanx and a tip o' that hat to Thrasymachus.
That is all.
There are two problems with Mr. York's analysis of a post by Atrios.
First, he willfully misrepresents Atrios as suggesting that he wouldn't mind if nukes took out a city or two. Obviously, what Atrios is actually saying is (a) Iran is not an existentiaal threa to the U.S. and (b) it would by far be at a disadvantage in a nuclear exchange with the U.S., so it can easily be deterred from attacking us. Atrios is suggesting that taking out Iran's nuclear program is not necessary to prevent nuclear attacks, not that nuclear attacks would not be devastating.
If a nuclear Iran took out Jerusalem and London, to name a city or two, wouldn't that be really bad -- even if the U.S. was capable of devastating retaliation? Wouldn't it be better to prevent such an outcome, even if it involved a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities?
Would such an attack end there, or would we be forced into actually conquering Iran in order to have any long-term victory? Byron York coneniently ignores all of the unintended but likely consequences of an attack on Iran.
Second, Byron York trots out the old "[Insert eeeeevil country here] is just crazy, and will gladly let itself be blow to nothingness by the U.S. in order to destroy a city" canard.
In addition, there was a certain rationality that underlay the Cold War system of mutually assured destruction. Does anyone know whether Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would display that rationality?
York would do well to remember that (a) Ahmadinejad isn't a dictator; he can't choose to nuke something without other branches of government consenting, and (b) Ahmadinejad is a lot less crazy than people think.
I'll analyze (b) first. For one thing, even if his comment on the Holocaust were a denial - the term "myth" does not necessarily imply fiction, so he might have simply been saying that the Holocaust has become Israel's raison d'etre, and he thinks the implications of that are unfair (I would disagree with him) - that would be more playing to the crowds than an evidence of madness. Most of the Middle Eastern Muslims hate Jews, so it wouldn't be irrational for a Muslim leader to publicly speak nasty lies about them. For the second thing, the statements about taking Israel off the map are again, almost certainly just normal Iranian boilerplate to try and direct the people's anger outside fo the country.
Finally, back to the issue of (a) Ahmadinejad isn't a dictator: Steve Sailer has pointed out that the neocons always seem to assume that whatever branch of government in Iran contains the most belligerent people must be the one in charge, the better to wave the bloody shirt over; if Ahmadinejad were a moderate, like Khameini, they would assert that he had no power and that the crazed mullahs were really in charge. As it is, they claim, if not directly then by implication that Ahmadinejad is essentially a dictator.
Thanx and a tip o' that hat to Thrasymachus.
That is all.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Not About Dollars v. Euros After All?
Paul Craig Roberts disputes the idea that the Middle-East war is motivated mainly by the "petrodollar," and also disputes that the currency in which oil is priced has more than a marginal effect on the dollar's value.
That is all.
That is all.
"Str8ening" Things Out
More of that Sailer good stuff, publishing an email from a gay reader on why he can accept Jake Gyllenhaal as a gay shepherd, but not Heath Ledger.
That is all.
That is all.
Everything Has an Economic Dimension
Economics is not just about wealth, says Llewellyn Rockwell Jr.
This is an interesting point that is overlooked by too many people who dismiss economists as assuming that man is "homo economicus," concerned only with wealth maximization. Love, charity, the warm fuzzy feeling that you get doing a good deed are all economic decisions in that in each case, you are exchanging finite resources (even if the resource is only your time) in order to satisfy a desire (e.g. you spend an hour giving and receiving affection from a loved one rather than cataloguing your comic book collection, because the affection is more satisfying to you at the current time than having the collection be complete).
Although I suppose one could argue that everything could be considered wealth as well, depending on how you define wealth. Certainly, one could argue that non-material benefits could be considered wealth of a sort.
That is all.
This is an interesting point that is overlooked by too many people who dismiss economists as assuming that man is "homo economicus," concerned only with wealth maximization. Love, charity, the warm fuzzy feeling that you get doing a good deed are all economic decisions in that in each case, you are exchanging finite resources (even if the resource is only your time) in order to satisfy a desire (e.g. you spend an hour giving and receiving affection from a loved one rather than cataloguing your comic book collection, because the affection is more satisfying to you at the current time than having the collection be complete).
Although I suppose one could argue that everything could be considered wealth as well, depending on how you define wealth. Certainly, one could argue that non-material benefits could be considered wealth of a sort.
That is all.
CIA vs. W.
Paul Pillar reports on the (blindingly obvious) fact that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War.
For what it is worth, here is the Weakly Standard's (deliberate misspelling) response.
That is all.
For what it is worth, here is the Weakly Standard's (deliberate misspelling) response.
That is all.
Thomas Sowell a Utilitarian?
According to William L. Anderson, Mr. Sowell's recent column on wiretapping veers in that direction.
That is all.
That is all.
Repeat a Lie Often Enough
Rumsfeld once again accuses (and subtly threatens) Syria and Iran of aiding the insurgency.
While I won't say that Iran and Syria have never done anything that might help the insurgents, they are not anywhere near important enough to the insurgents to justify the constant focus on them.
This is obviously done more for the edification of Rumsfeld's American audience than out of a desire to alter Iranian or Syrian policy, neither of which is likely a major player in the insurgency.
As I have said before, the two goals of this "blame Syria and Iran" campaign are (a) to excuse our failure to stop the insurgency, and (b) to set the public up to support the next Middle East war.
That is all.
While I won't say that Iran and Syria have never done anything that might help the insurgents, they are not anywhere near important enough to the insurgents to justify the constant focus on them.
This is obviously done more for the edification of Rumsfeld's American audience than out of a desire to alter Iranian or Syrian policy, neither of which is likely a major player in the insurgency.
As I have said before, the two goals of this "blame Syria and Iran" campaign are (a) to excuse our failure to stop the insurgency, and (b) to set the public up to support the next Middle East war.
That is all.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
On Wiretapping
It is strange how many otherwise good, government-distrusting conservatives ªincluding those who believe thatpublic schooling is terribly wrong) don't seem to have any problem whatsoever with the wiretapping issuethat has recently been brought up. I am specifically thinking of a personal acquaintance of mine when I say this.
But what the pundits are saying is also distressing. Just today, Sean Hannity essentially came out and said that the President has unlimited power as long as he is doing it under the rubric of "protecting the country," and that if Congress tries to curb him, it is the institution which is abusive its power.
Why doesn't Hannity come right out and suggest that we add a dictatorship clause to the constitution like the Romans had, but without the six-month limit?
That is all.
But what the pundits are saying is also distressing. Just today, Sean Hannity essentially came out and said that the President has unlimited power as long as he is doing it under the rubric of "protecting the country," and that if Congress tries to curb him, it is the institution which is abusive its power.
Why doesn't Hannity come right out and suggest that we add a dictatorship clause to the constitution like the Romans had, but without the six-month limit?
That is all.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Public vs. Private Schools
Gary North and Steve Sailer opine on a recent New York Times article that suggests that private schools are no better than public ones.
That is all.
That is all.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Not Even Israel First; Bush First
Mona Charen and Dennis Prager are apparently hallucinating a silver lining to the cloud of a Hamas electoral victory.
Presumably, their goal in this is either ideological (they want to preserve their neoconservatism) or loyalty-to-Bush-based (they are unwilling to admit that Bush's foreign policy is flawed in any way).
While Charen seems to be finding reasons to excuse the Palestinians for voting for Hamas, Prager, as Lawrence Auster points out, seems to be looking at the issue mainly as a club with which to attack the left rather than worrying about the actual issue of the Palestinians themselves.
This reminds me from something Steve Sailer has been saying: that a lot of whites look at minorities as being props that they use in order to improve their status with other whites. In this case, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is being used more as a prop in the right-left wars than as an issue in and of itself.
That is all.
Presumably, their goal in this is either ideological (they want to preserve their neoconservatism) or loyalty-to-Bush-based (they are unwilling to admit that Bush's foreign policy is flawed in any way).
While Charen seems to be finding reasons to excuse the Palestinians for voting for Hamas, Prager, as Lawrence Auster points out, seems to be looking at the issue mainly as a club with which to attack the left rather than worrying about the actual issue of the Palestinians themselves.
This reminds me from something Steve Sailer has been saying: that a lot of whites look at minorities as being props that they use in order to improve their status with other whites. In this case, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is being used more as a prop in the right-left wars than as an issue in and of itself.
That is all.
Good Ol' Tom Toles
Clark Stooksbury comments on the hoopla over a recent Tom Toles cartoon. He's pretty much on the money.
I must say that I find most of the criticism of the cartoon to be disingenuous. One of the commenters on The O'Reilly Factor compared it to Nazi-era cartoons of Jews. This is totally ridiculous, as the point of Nazi-era cartoons was to make the Jews look like evil monsters needing to be destroyed; not as victims of bad decisions by the leaders of their community.
Most of the other criticism simply seems to be that it is offensive to portray a wounded soldier. My answer is, why? It seems to me that Rumsfeld and company's cavalier attitude about our military's limits is a much bigger concern, one that the cartoon's critics have apparently ignored.
I also note that I don't see any similar concern about offending the Kopechnes when making jokes about Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick. (This is, of course, a good thing, as jokes about Ol' Rock-Liver are usualy pretty funny).
That is all.
I must say that I find most of the criticism of the cartoon to be disingenuous. One of the commenters on The O'Reilly Factor compared it to Nazi-era cartoons of Jews. This is totally ridiculous, as the point of Nazi-era cartoons was to make the Jews look like evil monsters needing to be destroyed; not as victims of bad decisions by the leaders of their community.
Most of the other criticism simply seems to be that it is offensive to portray a wounded soldier. My answer is, why? It seems to me that Rumsfeld and company's cavalier attitude about our military's limits is a much bigger concern, one that the cartoon's critics have apparently ignored.
I also note that I don't see any similar concern about offending the Kopechnes when making jokes about Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick. (This is, of course, a good thing, as jokes about Ol' Rock-Liver are usualy pretty funny).
That is all.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Supporting the Troops and not the War
Some morons on the right and the left don't believe that it is possible to support the troops and not the war.
Well, it is.
Because, you see, there is a difference between believing that a policy is stupid and will likely fail, and between hoping it will fail.
Obviously, I hope that our troops will do as well as they can, and that they will help to create a better situation in the Middle East. It would be nice if they could create a functioning multiethnic democracy there.
However, I would rather they not try, because I think they will fail. However, if they do try, I hope they succeed. But I can't support a policy that I don't think will succeed, as much as I would like to see it succeed.
This is as opposed to someone who wants the other side to win and who wants to see as many coalition soldiers get hurt as possible.
Capische?
That is all.
Well, it is.
Because, you see, there is a difference between believing that a policy is stupid and will likely fail, and between hoping it will fail.
Obviously, I hope that our troops will do as well as they can, and that they will help to create a better situation in the Middle East. It would be nice if they could create a functioning multiethnic democracy there.
However, I would rather they not try, because I think they will fail. However, if they do try, I hope they succeed. But I can't support a policy that I don't think will succeed, as much as I would like to see it succeed.
This is as opposed to someone who wants the other side to win and who wants to see as many coalition soldiers get hurt as possible.
Capische?
That is all.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Gay Un-Rights
A good article to read for anyone who claims that the gay rights lobby is only interested in protecting gays' rights, and doesn't want to take away the rights of people who dislike homosexuality.
That is all.
That is all.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Shylock, the Arab
In Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Portia, Bassanio's newlywed wife, pretends to be a judge and hears the case of Antonio and Shylock.
In case anyone here doesn't know the story, in essence, Antonio borrows money from Shylock, with the condition that if he cannot pay, he must let Shylock cut a pound of flesh from his chest (which will obviously kill him). When he can't pay, Shylock takes him to court to collect the penalty. (Shylock is a Jewish moneylender and he hates Antoino because of suffering prejudice from Christians all his life (as well as from the fact that Antonio undercut his lending business).
In any case, an interesting exchange occurs in the fourth act that shows one of themes of the play, which is (according to Shakespeare) the difference between the Christian and the Jewish outlook on life; between the (supposedly) overly legalistic outlook of the Jews and the merciful forgiveness of hte Christians.
Por. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow;
Yet in such rule that the Venetian law
Cannot impugn you as you do proceed.
[To ANTONIO.] You stand within his danger, do you not?
Ant. Ay, so he says.
Por. Do you confess the bond?
Ant. I do.
Por. Then must the Jew be merciful.
Shy. On what compulsion must I? tell me that.
Act IV. Scene 1 ll. 171-179
Forgetting the specifics of the play, and of the specific comparison used here (Jews v. Christians), we get a clear picture of a person trying to operate under the assumption of universalism, that all people share the same values.
Portia finds it so absurd that someone would kill someone as punishment for an unpaid debt that her response to the deal is "Then must [Shylock] be merciful," as no other reasonable option occurs to her.
Shylock, however, doesn't see it that way. He doesn't see why be merciful unless he is forced to by an outside power. "On what compulsion must I [be merciful]?"
After this, Portia goes into her "the quality of mercy is not strained" speech, where she in essence admits that Shylock doesn't have to be merciful, but really, no one could possibly not be merciful in such a situation.
Shylock responds (ll. 202-203) "My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,
The penalty and forfeit of my bond."
In other words, "I don't have to be merciuful, I ain't gonna be merciful!"
In a nutshell, this shows why it is unwise to approach people from other cultures as if they share your values, and why it is foolhardy to try and project your worldview onto them.
For our next exercise, students, let's pretend that the Israelis are Antonio (so the Jew [or the Jewish state, at least] is now the hero), the Americans Portia, and the Palestinians are Shylock. Omar al-Shylock.
In his recent state of the union, Bush said:
The Palestinian people have voted in elections. And now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace.
I can just hear Omar al-Shylock's reply:
Under what compulsion must I?
That is all.
In case anyone here doesn't know the story, in essence, Antonio borrows money from Shylock, with the condition that if he cannot pay, he must let Shylock cut a pound of flesh from his chest (which will obviously kill him). When he can't pay, Shylock takes him to court to collect the penalty. (Shylock is a Jewish moneylender and he hates Antoino because of suffering prejudice from Christians all his life (as well as from the fact that Antonio undercut his lending business).
In any case, an interesting exchange occurs in the fourth act that shows one of themes of the play, which is (according to Shakespeare) the difference between the Christian and the Jewish outlook on life; between the (supposedly) overly legalistic outlook of the Jews and the merciful forgiveness of hte Christians.
Por. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow;
Yet in such rule that the Venetian law
Cannot impugn you as you do proceed.
[To ANTONIO.] You stand within his danger, do you not?
Ant. Ay, so he says.
Por. Do you confess the bond?
Ant. I do.
Por. Then must the Jew be merciful.
Shy. On what compulsion must I? tell me that.
Act IV. Scene 1 ll. 171-179
Forgetting the specifics of the play, and of the specific comparison used here (Jews v. Christians), we get a clear picture of a person trying to operate under the assumption of universalism, that all people share the same values.
Portia finds it so absurd that someone would kill someone as punishment for an unpaid debt that her response to the deal is "Then must [Shylock] be merciful," as no other reasonable option occurs to her.
Shylock, however, doesn't see it that way. He doesn't see why be merciful unless he is forced to by an outside power. "On what compulsion must I [be merciful]?"
After this, Portia goes into her "the quality of mercy is not strained" speech, where she in essence admits that Shylock doesn't have to be merciful, but really, no one could possibly not be merciful in such a situation.
Shylock responds (ll. 202-203) "My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,
The penalty and forfeit of my bond."
In other words, "I don't have to be merciuful, I ain't gonna be merciful!"
In a nutshell, this shows why it is unwise to approach people from other cultures as if they share your values, and why it is foolhardy to try and project your worldview onto them.
For our next exercise, students, let's pretend that the Israelis are Antonio (so the Jew [or the Jewish state, at least] is now the hero), the Americans Portia, and the Palestinians are Shylock. Omar al-Shylock.
In his recent state of the union, Bush said:
The Palestinian people have voted in elections. And now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace.
I can just hear Omar al-Shylock's reply:
Under what compulsion must I?
That is all.
Thoughts About Guest-Worker Programs
Unless we can get rid of birthright citizenship, an essential part of any alien guest-worker program is a massive spaying/neutering campaign.
That is all.
That is all.
So Far, So Good
From some predictions I made earlier this month:
(1) Killing of U.S. and other coalition troops will be down (< 50 hostile deaths for the entire coalition per month) for January and February, and then will start to climb again in March. Unless major changes in the way the war is fought occur, (see next prediction) there will be >1000 U.S. deaths in Iraq (hostile and non-hostile) by the time 2007 rolls around.
For January 2006, the current coalition fatality numbers are 44 hostile (i.e. combat-related) and 20 non-hostile (i.e. accidental or otherwise non-combat-related, e.g. deaths.
Turns out my doubts were unfounded.
So far, my predictions on coalition fatalities are pretty accurate.
That is all.
(1) Killing of U.S. and other coalition troops will be down (< 50 hostile deaths for the entire coalition per month) for January and February, and then will start to climb again in March. Unless major changes in the way the war is fought occur, (see next prediction) there will be >1000 U.S. deaths in Iraq (hostile and non-hostile) by the time 2007 rolls around.
For January 2006, the current coalition fatality numbers are 44 hostile (i.e. combat-related) and 20 non-hostile (i.e. accidental or otherwise non-combat-related, e.g. deaths.
Turns out my doubts were unfounded.
So far, my predictions on coalition fatalities are pretty accurate.
That is all.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
Gender Selection
In this piece by Colby Cosh, about gender-selection around the world (i.e. the practice of determinnig the gender of one's children, generally in the direction of more males) has one very interesting quote:
The Indian case suggests that state intervention is helpless to support a one-to-one sex ratio where abortion is otherwise legal: fetal sex-selection has been formally illegal in India for more than two decades, but the rule has proven unenforceable.
This reminds me of the smackdown I put on Osagie Obasogie a few months back, for the assertion essentially that we ought to ban testing the pre-born for gender lest that plus legal abortion lead people to slect for sex (according to Oh-Oh, we can't restrict abortion, so the only solution is to ban gender-testing).
That is all.
The Indian case suggests that state intervention is helpless to support a one-to-one sex ratio where abortion is otherwise legal: fetal sex-selection has been formally illegal in India for more than two decades, but the rule has proven unenforceable.
This reminds me of the smackdown I put on Osagie Obasogie a few months back, for the assertion essentially that we ought to ban testing the pre-born for gender lest that plus legal abortion lead people to slect for sex (according to Oh-Oh, we can't restrict abortion, so the only solution is to ban gender-testing).
That is all.
They Can Never Admit that there is an Insurgency
Because Iraqis love us, love us, I tell you!
It seems to me that there are two rationales behind neocons trying to deny that there those we fight in Iraq are genuinely Iraqi insurgents, mostly led by other Iraqis (Zarqawi is not, I think, in charge of most the insurgency; I don't think any one person or group is really in charge).
First, one major rationale for our invasion of Iraq was that we were going to liberate it. Of course, a lot of people deny that that was Bush's major stated intention prior to the war (his real rationale was the WMDs, they say), but the very fact that the action was named "Operation Iraqi Freedom" tells you that he was down with the messianic democratist program from the get-go, and certainly there were no shortage of war supporters whose main cry was that we were bringing democracy to the Middle East. There was also the belief that the Iraqis would more or less welcome us with open arms and then would all settle down to help us build a democracy - or do whatever the real goal was while we claimed to be building a democracy. (Of course, if the "democracy" bit were a lie, then the neocons and the administration probably didn't think that Iraq would settle down, but they couldn't say that, obviously).
When things did not go as planned (or at least as it was claimed that they were planned), the neocons and to a lesser extent the administration had to either admit they were wrong or find some excuse as to why it looked like they were wrong when they were, in fact, right. The general excuse they decided to use was that (a) the insurgency was very small, without popular support, and that (b) it was mostly composed of non-Iraqis in the first place. This makes it such that we are still fighting for the Iraqis, and conveniently sidesteps the issue of occupation by claiming that those we are fighting against are the real invaders, and thus are fighting against Iraq's independence and "liberation." Whenever we attack a house or even a city in order to kill insurgents we are thus defending, not attacking, the iraqi people. Mark Steyn has made it his policy to continuously assert both things to be true without supporting them with a shred of evidence, as if by saying it he causes reality to conform to his wishes.
Second, foreign fighters have to come from somewhere. By blaming another country, the neocons can set up the next war. If the goal is truly hegemony in the Middle east, and the destruction of any regime that we dislike, then blaming whatever country or countries we wish to attack next is a very useful tactic, and one that can be used again if we invade Syria and/or Iran and once again discover that an insurgency is greeting us.
With that in mind, I bring your attention to Michael Ledeen's recent (3 weeks ago) screed in National Review Online, called "Who’s an Iraqi?".
Essentially, he is trying to argue that any Iraqi who is working for the insurgency is really an Iranian, because they have been supplied and trained by Iran and have been in Iran for the past 20 yeras (strangely enough, he has no trouble viwing Ahmad Chalabi as an Iraqi, despite his exile status for far longer than 20 years).
While this could be used to argue that "true Iraqis" are supporting us and therefore we do have the support of the people, Mr. Ledeen doesn't seem to be stressing the moral import of the insurgents supposedly being "foreign" (although he makes a big deal out of the moral import of them being terrorists). The real upshot of this is that Iran is the problem, and that we need to get rid of the Mullahs (i.e. the single point that he has constantly been harping on since 9/11, as if he is the seventh type of college professor (single-theory-to-explain-everything-maniac)).
There is, unfortunately, a big problem with Ledeen's entire piece. And that is that he appears to be assuming that just because a group in Iraq uses terrorist tactics, and because it was trained by Iran, and because it is theocratic, it must be operating on the side of the insurgents.
In reality, most of these Shiite militias are probably fighting (for the time being) on our side, or staying out of our way at least. SCIRI (the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq) has not been involved in the insurgency, as far as I can tell.
In fact, there is a great deal of evidence that Shiite militias, including the ones in the Washington Times article that Ledeen kindly warns us about, are actually doing our dirty work for us. Tom Engelhardt and Gareth Porter have an interesting article up on LewRockwell.Com that talks about Shiite militias being used as Iraqi Security forces and terrorizing the Sunni population in a fit of vengeance.
In the WashTimes aritcle, it is stated:
But, Muhammad said, "They took them to a camp and gave them a briefing on what is happening in Iraq, and what Iran is trying to do: Support the Shi'ites and help them retain power. ...
"They trained them for militia purposes -- to go out on patrol, to get people out of their houses, execute them and leave them on the street," he said, adding that his nephew had boasted about his training to the family when he returned in early December.
Which seems to support Ledeen until you realize that the people that the Shiites are executing are Sunni Arabs, and that the shiites are working for us, as the LewRockwell piece explains:
Many of the Shiite troops and officers in the military and police commando units of the new Iraqi military are, in fact, motivated by hatred not just of Sunni insurgents but of the Sunni population as a whole. One fine reporter in Iraq, Knight Ridder's Tom Lasseter has, in fact, explored this new Iraqi reality on the ground in ways no other American reporter has thought to do. Last October, he "embedded" himself for a week in a unit of Lt. Gen. Petraeus's new military, the all-Shiite 1st Brigade, the first Iraqi unit to be given its own area of operations and often considered the template for the future of the army. What he discovered was a purely sectarian outfit obsessed with revenge against Sunnis. His is a chilling account of the violent Shiite hatred of Sunnis that drives Iraqi military operations in Sunni neighborhoods and essentially guarantees that the insurgency will only grow fiercer in response.
Lasseter found that Shiite officers and troops want to inflict death on a far broader swath of Sunnis than simply those insurgents they can identify. Their motive is clearly to intimidate the Sunni population into silence and acquiescence, while at the same time satisfying their own lust for revenge for past acts of oppression by the formerly powerful Sunni minority.
Ledeen also trots out another chestnut: The old "all Muslim terrorists are automatically allies" card. For some reason, we are supposed to believe that it is the height of naivete to actually look at different groups of unfriendly Muslims as different and to assume that they may not share goals or work together. For some reason, we are to believe that there are only "good Muslims" and "bad Muslims" and all of the bad Muslims work together. In other words, one is ridiculed if one does not have a six-year-old's view of the world. Odd.
This line in particular is a roarer:
And let's stop the bogus "analysis" that turns Iranian-trained terrorists into "domestic insurgents" by punching find-and-replace. They're terrorists working at the behest of Iran. And let's (finally!) stop acting as if Sunnis and Shiites don't cooperate in the killing fields of the Middle East.
Because he has evidence that the terrorists trained by Iran are Sunnis, I assume? Evidence from where, exactly? Nowhere in his article does he actually say that those who are being trained by Iran are anything but Shiites. What he does, essentially, is (a) state, without evidence, that Iranian-trained Shiites are part (presumably a major part) of the insurgency attacking our troops, and (b) label Iranian-trained Iraqi Shiites as "terrorists" and then conflate them with the insurgency because the insurgents are also labeled as terrorists. He doesn't actually give us any evidence of complicity in the Iraqi insurgency by Shiite Iraqis; he simply states that Sunnis and Shiites can work together, as shown by (alleged) Iranian support of Zarqawi and Zawahiri and the bin Laden family, and apparently assumes that by showing that Sunnis and Shiites can work together, that must mean that Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites are working together in the insurgency. He is assuming (or pretending to) that those who deny cooperation are simply doing so on principle, because of an irrational prejudice against the two groups working together. In fact, they are doing so largely because, looking at the current facts on the ground, they don't see any Shiite cooperation with the Sunni insurgency. Indeed, there is little evidence that the Shiites in Iraq are even running their own insurgency (rather they are using the government to get rid of or to suppress their rivals), let alone that they are working with the Sunnis.
Indeed, "let's stop acting as if they don't cooperate?" Earth to Mr. Ledeen, the Shiite terrorists aren't even leaving the Sunnis alone. They are targeting Sunni Arabs and cooperating with us (or perhaps more accurately, we with them). Ledeen's willful ignorance here is striking.
What Ledeen also neglects to look at here is that if we decide to put pressure on Iran, there is a good chance that the Shiite Iraqis will interpret that as a hostile act and will respond by forming their own insurgency against us. Far from easing up our problems in Iraq (by eliminating Iran's supposed support of the insurgents), putting pressure on Iran may actually turn our allies (the Iraqi Shiites) against us and instead of us being caught in a civil war where at least one group is on our side, we will get caught between Sunni and Shiite Arabs who both want us out. You think the current insurgency is bad? What if it triples (or more) in size due to an influx of angry Shiites?
Ledeen is not an idiot. If he is truly trying to get us to follow the plans he is advocating (rather than doing so for some sort of triangultion purpose), then he must want us at war with the entire Muslim Middle East, including with those who are now our allies (however uneasy). I don't know exactly what his game is, but Michael Ledeen is obviously a liar, a fraud, and not to be trusted.
Anyone who cares about the U.S. has to work to make certain that our information regarding the Middle East is accurate, and that means continuous, constant, redundant, merciless debunking of evil men such as he.
That is all.
It seems to me that there are two rationales behind neocons trying to deny that there those we fight in Iraq are genuinely Iraqi insurgents, mostly led by other Iraqis (Zarqawi is not, I think, in charge of most the insurgency; I don't think any one person or group is really in charge).
First, one major rationale for our invasion of Iraq was that we were going to liberate it. Of course, a lot of people deny that that was Bush's major stated intention prior to the war (his real rationale was the WMDs, they say), but the very fact that the action was named "Operation Iraqi Freedom" tells you that he was down with the messianic democratist program from the get-go, and certainly there were no shortage of war supporters whose main cry was that we were bringing democracy to the Middle East. There was also the belief that the Iraqis would more or less welcome us with open arms and then would all settle down to help us build a democracy - or do whatever the real goal was while we claimed to be building a democracy. (Of course, if the "democracy" bit were a lie, then the neocons and the administration probably didn't think that Iraq would settle down, but they couldn't say that, obviously).
When things did not go as planned (or at least as it was claimed that they were planned), the neocons and to a lesser extent the administration had to either admit they were wrong or find some excuse as to why it looked like they were wrong when they were, in fact, right. The general excuse they decided to use was that (a) the insurgency was very small, without popular support, and that (b) it was mostly composed of non-Iraqis in the first place. This makes it such that we are still fighting for the Iraqis, and conveniently sidesteps the issue of occupation by claiming that those we are fighting against are the real invaders, and thus are fighting against Iraq's independence and "liberation." Whenever we attack a house or even a city in order to kill insurgents we are thus defending, not attacking, the iraqi people. Mark Steyn has made it his policy to continuously assert both things to be true without supporting them with a shred of evidence, as if by saying it he causes reality to conform to his wishes.
Second, foreign fighters have to come from somewhere. By blaming another country, the neocons can set up the next war. If the goal is truly hegemony in the Middle east, and the destruction of any regime that we dislike, then blaming whatever country or countries we wish to attack next is a very useful tactic, and one that can be used again if we invade Syria and/or Iran and once again discover that an insurgency is greeting us.
With that in mind, I bring your attention to Michael Ledeen's recent (3 weeks ago) screed in National Review Online, called "Who’s an Iraqi?".
Essentially, he is trying to argue that any Iraqi who is working for the insurgency is really an Iranian, because they have been supplied and trained by Iran and have been in Iran for the past 20 yeras (strangely enough, he has no trouble viwing Ahmad Chalabi as an Iraqi, despite his exile status for far longer than 20 years).
While this could be used to argue that "true Iraqis" are supporting us and therefore we do have the support of the people, Mr. Ledeen doesn't seem to be stressing the moral import of the insurgents supposedly being "foreign" (although he makes a big deal out of the moral import of them being terrorists). The real upshot of this is that Iran is the problem, and that we need to get rid of the Mullahs (i.e. the single point that he has constantly been harping on since 9/11, as if he is the seventh type of college professor (single-theory-to-explain-everything-maniac)).
There is, unfortunately, a big problem with Ledeen's entire piece. And that is that he appears to be assuming that just because a group in Iraq uses terrorist tactics, and because it was trained by Iran, and because it is theocratic, it must be operating on the side of the insurgents.
In reality, most of these Shiite militias are probably fighting (for the time being) on our side, or staying out of our way at least. SCIRI (the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq) has not been involved in the insurgency, as far as I can tell.
In fact, there is a great deal of evidence that Shiite militias, including the ones in the Washington Times article that Ledeen kindly warns us about, are actually doing our dirty work for us. Tom Engelhardt and Gareth Porter have an interesting article up on LewRockwell.Com that talks about Shiite militias being used as Iraqi Security forces and terrorizing the Sunni population in a fit of vengeance.
In the WashTimes aritcle, it is stated:
But, Muhammad said, "They took them to a camp and gave them a briefing on what is happening in Iraq, and what Iran is trying to do: Support the Shi'ites and help them retain power. ...
"They trained them for militia purposes -- to go out on patrol, to get people out of their houses, execute them and leave them on the street," he said, adding that his nephew had boasted about his training to the family when he returned in early December.
Which seems to support Ledeen until you realize that the people that the Shiites are executing are Sunni Arabs, and that the shiites are working for us, as the LewRockwell piece explains:
Many of the Shiite troops and officers in the military and police commando units of the new Iraqi military are, in fact, motivated by hatred not just of Sunni insurgents but of the Sunni population as a whole. One fine reporter in Iraq, Knight Ridder's Tom Lasseter has, in fact, explored this new Iraqi reality on the ground in ways no other American reporter has thought to do. Last October, he "embedded" himself for a week in a unit of Lt. Gen. Petraeus's new military, the all-Shiite 1st Brigade, the first Iraqi unit to be given its own area of operations and often considered the template for the future of the army. What he discovered was a purely sectarian outfit obsessed with revenge against Sunnis. His is a chilling account of the violent Shiite hatred of Sunnis that drives Iraqi military operations in Sunni neighborhoods and essentially guarantees that the insurgency will only grow fiercer in response.
Lasseter found that Shiite officers and troops want to inflict death on a far broader swath of Sunnis than simply those insurgents they can identify. Their motive is clearly to intimidate the Sunni population into silence and acquiescence, while at the same time satisfying their own lust for revenge for past acts of oppression by the formerly powerful Sunni minority.
Ledeen also trots out another chestnut: The old "all Muslim terrorists are automatically allies" card. For some reason, we are supposed to believe that it is the height of naivete to actually look at different groups of unfriendly Muslims as different and to assume that they may not share goals or work together. For some reason, we are to believe that there are only "good Muslims" and "bad Muslims" and all of the bad Muslims work together. In other words, one is ridiculed if one does not have a six-year-old's view of the world. Odd.
This line in particular is a roarer:
And let's stop the bogus "analysis" that turns Iranian-trained terrorists into "domestic insurgents" by punching find-and-replace. They're terrorists working at the behest of Iran. And let's (finally!) stop acting as if Sunnis and Shiites don't cooperate in the killing fields of the Middle East.
Because he has evidence that the terrorists trained by Iran are Sunnis, I assume? Evidence from where, exactly? Nowhere in his article does he actually say that those who are being trained by Iran are anything but Shiites. What he does, essentially, is (a) state, without evidence, that Iranian-trained Shiites are part (presumably a major part) of the insurgency attacking our troops, and (b) label Iranian-trained Iraqi Shiites as "terrorists" and then conflate them with the insurgency because the insurgents are also labeled as terrorists. He doesn't actually give us any evidence of complicity in the Iraqi insurgency by Shiite Iraqis; he simply states that Sunnis and Shiites can work together, as shown by (alleged) Iranian support of Zarqawi and Zawahiri and the bin Laden family, and apparently assumes that by showing that Sunnis and Shiites can work together, that must mean that Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites are working together in the insurgency. He is assuming (or pretending to) that those who deny cooperation are simply doing so on principle, because of an irrational prejudice against the two groups working together. In fact, they are doing so largely because, looking at the current facts on the ground, they don't see any Shiite cooperation with the Sunni insurgency. Indeed, there is little evidence that the Shiites in Iraq are even running their own insurgency (rather they are using the government to get rid of or to suppress their rivals), let alone that they are working with the Sunnis.
Indeed, "let's stop acting as if they don't cooperate?" Earth to Mr. Ledeen, the Shiite terrorists aren't even leaving the Sunnis alone. They are targeting Sunni Arabs and cooperating with us (or perhaps more accurately, we with them). Ledeen's willful ignorance here is striking.
What Ledeen also neglects to look at here is that if we decide to put pressure on Iran, there is a good chance that the Shiite Iraqis will interpret that as a hostile act and will respond by forming their own insurgency against us. Far from easing up our problems in Iraq (by eliminating Iran's supposed support of the insurgents), putting pressure on Iran may actually turn our allies (the Iraqi Shiites) against us and instead of us being caught in a civil war where at least one group is on our side, we will get caught between Sunni and Shiite Arabs who both want us out. You think the current insurgency is bad? What if it triples (or more) in size due to an influx of angry Shiites?
Ledeen is not an idiot. If he is truly trying to get us to follow the plans he is advocating (rather than doing so for some sort of triangultion purpose), then he must want us at war with the entire Muslim Middle East, including with those who are now our allies (however uneasy). I don't know exactly what his game is, but Michael Ledeen is obviously a liar, a fraud, and not to be trusted.
Anyone who cares about the U.S. has to work to make certain that our information regarding the Middle East is accurate, and that means continuous, constant, redundant, merciless debunking of evil men such as he.
That is all.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Sorry About the Lack of Posting
I've been rather tired. I'll try to bring the pace up a little soon, but it may be awhile before I'm posting five times a day or more on a regular basis again.
I'll try to post something every day, though, so keep on tunin' in.
That is all.
I'll try to post something every day, though, so keep on tunin' in.
That is all.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
More on Iran
I ought to point out here that in my earlier post, I was not suggesting that I think that a nuclear-armed Iran would necessarily threaten us. Indeed, as Steve Sailer points out, Iran is not known for starting wars.
My point, in any case, was simply that Mark Steyn's proposals did not seem to match his rhetoric about what a problem Iran's nuclear problem was.
This means either that he simply doesn't have a plan; or more likely, that he doesn't really believe that Iran is that big a threat, but is trying to paint it as a bogeyman in order to wqve the old bloody shirt and stir up his readers for eventual war; that is, he is trying to incite the U.S. to take the next step down the path of conflict with Iran, so as to eventually put us in a place where we have to remove their curent government.
That is all.
My point, in any case, was simply that Mark Steyn's proposals did not seem to match his rhetoric about what a problem Iran's nuclear problem was.
This means either that he simply doesn't have a plan; or more likely, that he doesn't really believe that Iran is that big a threat, but is trying to paint it as a bogeyman in order to wqve the old bloody shirt and stir up his readers for eventual war; that is, he is trying to incite the U.S. to take the next step down the path of conflict with Iran, so as to eventually put us in a place where we have to remove their curent government.
That is all.
Method to the Madness - Maybe
Christopher Deliso wonders aloud at the fact that the neocons, with their fetishism for "democracy," have brought such groups as Hamas to power.
Or two, they planned [the election of extremist parties] all along, aware that more "democracy" in the Middle East would result in mass upheaval, the empowerment of Islamic parties, and more fuel for the fire of jihad- thus handily ensuring that the war on terror will go on for years
It's an interesting hypothesis. And that they view election of Hamas is a positive development essentially for this reason (that it allows more overt wars to be fought against hte Arabs) is not necessarily denied by all of the pro-warriors:
[The heads of Hamas] are one and the same with the Palestinian Authority. If they bomb Israel from Gaza — not under occupation anymore, and is therefore, technically, part of the Palestinian state the PLO proclaimed in Algiers in 1988, but never bothered to take responsibility for — that is an act of war, which can be responded to in kind, under the full cover of the internationally recognized right of self-defense. No more excuses that the Palestinians live under occupation, that the PA is too weak to disarm Hamas, that violence is not the policy of the PA. Hamas and the PA will be the same: What Hamas does is what the PA will stand for. -Emanuele Ottolenghi
Of course, in many cases, particularly with those who were not eager for Arab elections but accepted them as invevitable, it is possible that the elections and the empowerment of Hamas, with all that implies in terms of Israel or the U.S. getting a pass to go to war, is seen as a lucky accident. But there are some (presumably those who were democratists from the beginning, although I'll have to look through their earlier writings to be certain) who seem to feel that this election was a good plan, because it gives us a "moment of truth," presumably one that was part of the plan all along:
...the policy of democratizing the Middle East creates a win-win situation for America and the free world...
But if the pessimists are right it is to our advantage that we discover now that the Arab world and Islam is fundamentally incompatible with our liberal democratic values, and that their goal of seeking a global caliphate means they are permanently at war with everything we stand for. If the clash of civilizations is inevitable, it's better we learn this when we're stronger, when we have the stronger military and the nuclear weapons, and can defeat them in an all-out war and destroy them before they destroy us. -Daniel Freedman
So was the democratization of the Middle East all along a ploy so that we could justify the conquest of the Arab world? Perhaps. If so, then the who claimed that democracies never went to war with each otehr, so democratization is the surest path to peace was a blatant lie. (Assuming that the democratists claiming this overlapped with those who were hoping for the election of extremists).
That is all.
Or two, they planned [the election of extremist parties] all along, aware that more "democracy" in the Middle East would result in mass upheaval, the empowerment of Islamic parties, and more fuel for the fire of jihad- thus handily ensuring that the war on terror will go on for years
It's an interesting hypothesis. And that they view election of Hamas is a positive development essentially for this reason (that it allows more overt wars to be fought against hte Arabs) is not necessarily denied by all of the pro-warriors:
[The heads of Hamas] are one and the same with the Palestinian Authority. If they bomb Israel from Gaza — not under occupation anymore, and is therefore, technically, part of the Palestinian state the PLO proclaimed in Algiers in 1988, but never bothered to take responsibility for — that is an act of war, which can be responded to in kind, under the full cover of the internationally recognized right of self-defense. No more excuses that the Palestinians live under occupation, that the PA is too weak to disarm Hamas, that violence is not the policy of the PA. Hamas and the PA will be the same: What Hamas does is what the PA will stand for. -Emanuele Ottolenghi
Of course, in many cases, particularly with those who were not eager for Arab elections but accepted them as invevitable, it is possible that the elections and the empowerment of Hamas, with all that implies in terms of Israel or the U.S. getting a pass to go to war, is seen as a lucky accident. But there are some (presumably those who were democratists from the beginning, although I'll have to look through their earlier writings to be certain) who seem to feel that this election was a good plan, because it gives us a "moment of truth," presumably one that was part of the plan all along:
...the policy of democratizing the Middle East creates a win-win situation for America and the free world...
But if the pessimists are right it is to our advantage that we discover now that the Arab world and Islam is fundamentally incompatible with our liberal democratic values, and that their goal of seeking a global caliphate means they are permanently at war with everything we stand for. If the clash of civilizations is inevitable, it's better we learn this when we're stronger, when we have the stronger military and the nuclear weapons, and can defeat them in an all-out war and destroy them before they destroy us. -Daniel Freedman
So was the democratization of the Middle East all along a ploy so that we could justify the conquest of the Arab world? Perhaps. If so, then the who claimed that democracies never went to war with each otehr, so democratization is the surest path to peace was a blatant lie. (Assuming that the democratists claiming this overlapped with those who were hoping for the election of extremists).
That is all.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Time to Pick on Steyn
A recent post by Lawrence Auster about a recent article by Mark Steyn brought a few things to my attention.
First, for all of his bluster about how cowardly the Europeans are for not dealing with Iran's (supposed) nuclear weapons programs strongly enough, he never actually proposes anything more aggressive to deal with the issue. Rather, he suggests a number of ways that we might harry and annoy the Iranian regime. Although he doesn't come out and say it, presumably the goal of Mark Steyn's strategy is to lead to the overthrow of the current Iranian regime. Unfortunately, his ideas are too random and do not gel together at all; there is no overall strategy to turn any Iranian insurgency or instability into a change of regime. This makes his strategy incredibly dangerous - at least if the Iranians are actually pursuing nukes. You don't want to antagonize the Iranian government - particularly if they have a nuclear bomb - by stirring up dissent against it unless you have a plan to actually overthrow it.
It would be one thing if the ideas Mark Steyn proposes would actually do anything to slow the nuclear program, but I don't see how they would, so all he would accomplish is to get the Iranian government more angry at us at precisely the time when they are the most dangerous. Perhaps, as Steyn writes: "A Tehran preoccupied by internal suppression will find it harder to pull off its pretensions to regional superpower status." But all that this would mean would be that Iran could devote less resources to conventional warmaking. It wouldn't likely stop any nuclear weapons programs that Iran might have.
So ultimately, if we follow Steyn's advice but do not have a plan to get regime change in Iran, we are screwed. The absolute worst thing we could do would be to take actions which get Iran mad at us but do not effectively weaken it at all, particularly if Iran is actually pursuing nuclear weapons. If there is a rabid dog in the neighborhood, you either shoot to kill or you try to avoid him. You don't go up and shoot him with a BB gun.
Second, even if we assume that Steyn does have a plan for regime change, that is no guarantee that Iran would give up any nuclear weapons programs it might have, nor that the new people in charge would be trustworthy with them. However, it is in no way clear that Steyn cares whether or not Iran has nukes as long as the regime is changed. Indeed, Michael Ledeen, the neocon who brays the loudest for us to help catalyze or instigate a regime-changing revolution in Iran has hinted that he might not mind a nuclear-armed Iran if it were under other leadership:
To be sure, many of our finest Iran-watchers, including the great Bernard Lewis, believe that any future Iranian government, even a democratic one, is likely to continue the nuclear program. That may be true, although we should remember that once South Africa became a democracy it abandoned nuclear weapons. But even if it is true, a democratic Iran will not be inclined to commit hara-kiri by launching a nuclear first strike against Israel, nor will it likely brandish its bombs against the United States.
This suggests a loyalty more to ideology than to the nation.
Lawrence Auster calls Mark Steyn's position "Ledeenist," which I believe I have just shown is a very apt description.
Thirdly, Steyn can't resist using this article as an opportunity to spout off some of the usual neocon lies, even though they are tangential to his "argument" (if you can call it that) at best.
and for the Iranians recent history, from the Shah and the embassy siege to the Iraqi "insurgency" and Jack Straw's soundbites, tells them the West can't muster the strength of will needed to force them to back down.
(That is, the insurgency is mostly or entirely the creature of Iran)
As the foreign terrorists have demonstrated in Iraq, you don't need a lot of local support to give the impression (at least to Western leftists) of a popular insurgency.
(That is, the insurgency is mostly foreign and has little popular support).
That the insurgency is mostly foreign has been debunked, it is most unlikely that the insurgents are heavily dependent on Iran, and it is quite likely that there is significant popular support for the insurgency (I'll get more links up later). So he is basically pouring B.S. on us.
In short, Mark Steyn is being, well, Mark Steyn.
That is all.
First, for all of his bluster about how cowardly the Europeans are for not dealing with Iran's (supposed) nuclear weapons programs strongly enough, he never actually proposes anything more aggressive to deal with the issue. Rather, he suggests a number of ways that we might harry and annoy the Iranian regime. Although he doesn't come out and say it, presumably the goal of Mark Steyn's strategy is to lead to the overthrow of the current Iranian regime. Unfortunately, his ideas are too random and do not gel together at all; there is no overall strategy to turn any Iranian insurgency or instability into a change of regime. This makes his strategy incredibly dangerous - at least if the Iranians are actually pursuing nukes. You don't want to antagonize the Iranian government - particularly if they have a nuclear bomb - by stirring up dissent against it unless you have a plan to actually overthrow it.
It would be one thing if the ideas Mark Steyn proposes would actually do anything to slow the nuclear program, but I don't see how they would, so all he would accomplish is to get the Iranian government more angry at us at precisely the time when they are the most dangerous. Perhaps, as Steyn writes: "A Tehran preoccupied by internal suppression will find it harder to pull off its pretensions to regional superpower status." But all that this would mean would be that Iran could devote less resources to conventional warmaking. It wouldn't likely stop any nuclear weapons programs that Iran might have.
So ultimately, if we follow Steyn's advice but do not have a plan to get regime change in Iran, we are screwed. The absolute worst thing we could do would be to take actions which get Iran mad at us but do not effectively weaken it at all, particularly if Iran is actually pursuing nuclear weapons. If there is a rabid dog in the neighborhood, you either shoot to kill or you try to avoid him. You don't go up and shoot him with a BB gun.
Second, even if we assume that Steyn does have a plan for regime change, that is no guarantee that Iran would give up any nuclear weapons programs it might have, nor that the new people in charge would be trustworthy with them. However, it is in no way clear that Steyn cares whether or not Iran has nukes as long as the regime is changed. Indeed, Michael Ledeen, the neocon who brays the loudest for us to help catalyze or instigate a regime-changing revolution in Iran has hinted that he might not mind a nuclear-armed Iran if it were under other leadership:
To be sure, many of our finest Iran-watchers, including the great Bernard Lewis, believe that any future Iranian government, even a democratic one, is likely to continue the nuclear program. That may be true, although we should remember that once South Africa became a democracy it abandoned nuclear weapons. But even if it is true, a democratic Iran will not be inclined to commit hara-kiri by launching a nuclear first strike against Israel, nor will it likely brandish its bombs against the United States.
This suggests a loyalty more to ideology than to the nation.
Lawrence Auster calls Mark Steyn's position "Ledeenist," which I believe I have just shown is a very apt description.
Thirdly, Steyn can't resist using this article as an opportunity to spout off some of the usual neocon lies, even though they are tangential to his "argument" (if you can call it that) at best.
and for the Iranians recent history, from the Shah and the embassy siege to the Iraqi "insurgency" and Jack Straw's soundbites, tells them the West can't muster the strength of will needed to force them to back down.
(That is, the insurgency is mostly or entirely the creature of Iran)
As the foreign terrorists have demonstrated in Iraq, you don't need a lot of local support to give the impression (at least to Western leftists) of a popular insurgency.
(That is, the insurgency is mostly foreign and has little popular support).
That the insurgency is mostly foreign has been debunked, it is most unlikely that the insurgents are heavily dependent on Iran, and it is quite likely that there is significant popular support for the insurgency (I'll get more links up later). So he is basically pouring B.S. on us.
In short, Mark Steyn is being, well, Mark Steyn.
That is all.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Toothless Watchdogs
Some frothing at the mouth about the New York Times by Henry Mark Holzer.
Esentially, he is arguing that the media should shut up and trust the government.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to the LewRockwell Blog.
That is all.
Esentially, he is arguing that the media should shut up and trust the government.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to the LewRockwell Blog.
That is all.
Oooo... Exciting. Maybe I can get Windows to Speed Up...
The new Intel-based Macs won't run virtual PC. But when Microsoft updates Virtual PC, it will likely run much faster due to more compatible hardware.
I can hardly wait until I can afford to turn in my old G4 and get a new Intel-based Mac.
That is all.
I can hardly wait until I can afford to turn in my old G4 and get a new Intel-based Mac.
That is all.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Corn on Troop Human Shields
In a recent piece, David Corn makes the same point that I have made about Dubya using the troops as "human shields" (although he doesn't use precisely that term).
That is all.
That is all.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Paul Craig Roberts is Worried About 2006
As he writes in his latest column, which brings up everything from the possibility of using tactical nukes on Iran to the petrodollar theory of the war in the Middle East.
That is all.
That is all.
More Sailer Good Stuff, But He Didn't Consider Something
Steve Sailer wonders why the neocons were so intent that invading Iraq was the only way to get rid of Saddam's supposed WMDs, but in Iran, airstrikes are supposed to be enough.
But now that the American public has g[r]own wary of invading countries that begin with I-R-A, the neocons are telling us that no invasion of Iran would be [necessary] to root out Iran's entire nuclear infrastructure. We could just do it all push-button style from the air.
Perhaps it's because the neocons think that they have a better chance of convincing the Americans to attack Iran in a way that they could not have gotten us to attack Iraq.
I think that Mr. Sailer has overlooked a possible American response that the neocons may be planning.
Two words: Tactical nukes.
More specifically, any airstrikes will likely be aimed not at destroying missile installations but at devastating Iran so that it will collapse. The Bush administration nuking Teheran and killing much of Iran's government is not, in my opinion, an impossible-to-imagine scenario.
On the other hand, a lot of neocons are convinced that all we need to do is prod the Iranian populace and they will overthrow the mullahs; so if they are willing too have that much wishful thinking, why not a smaller bit of wishful thinking like thinking we can get rid of their installations from the air?
That is all.
But now that the American public has g[r]own wary of invading countries that begin with I-R-A, the neocons are telling us that no invasion of Iran would be [necessary] to root out Iran's entire nuclear infrastructure. We could just do it all push-button style from the air.
Perhaps it's because the neocons think that they have a better chance of convincing the Americans to attack Iran in a way that they could not have gotten us to attack Iraq.
I think that Mr. Sailer has overlooked a possible American response that the neocons may be planning.
Two words: Tactical nukes.
More specifically, any airstrikes will likely be aimed not at destroying missile installations but at devastating Iran so that it will collapse. The Bush administration nuking Teheran and killing much of Iran's government is not, in my opinion, an impossible-to-imagine scenario.
On the other hand, a lot of neocons are convinced that all we need to do is prod the Iranian populace and they will overthrow the mullahs; so if they are willing too have that much wishful thinking, why not a smaller bit of wishful thinking like thinking we can get rid of their installations from the air?
That is all.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Friday, January 20, 2006
Iodizing Africa
Ghana is getting it.
I got it the first time I read about it on VDARE, and got it all over again the second time.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Steve (please permalink your post prior to it passing off your page) Sailer.
That is all.
I got it the first time I read about it on VDARE, and got it all over again the second time.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Steve (please permalink your post prior to it passing off your page) Sailer.
That is all.
Sorry for Lack of Posts
There was a power outage and then I was very busy.
Should be back to normal this afternoon/evening or tomorrow morning.
That is all.
Should be back to normal this afternoon/evening or tomorrow morning.
That is all.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Thoughts on Munich
I haven't seen the movie yet, so I cannot really review the movie itself.
However, one thing that has occurred to me from reading the reviews of people who dislike this movie for pro-Israel reasons (i.e. because they think that it portrays Israel less than fairly) is that a lot of them seem to be getting what I think is an erroneous impression of why people see the actions of the Israeli government after the Munich attacks as morally ambiguous.
The genreal refrain seems to be that the evil anti-Zionists, or antisemites, or anti-western, etc., people find Israel's actions morally ambiguous is because they killed the people behind the attack instead of forgiving them and because they pursued justice, or because they can't be any better than the terrorists because they kill people too.
However, I was under the impression that the reason why Israel's actions were considered morally ambiguous was because they were assassinating their suspects without a trial. That is, they were not pursuing the people behind the Munich attacks through the proper legal channels (e.g. capturing them and bringing them to Israel for trial as with Adolph Eichmann).
This is not to say that Israel's method of pursuit was necessarily legitimate. But to try to bring people to justice via assassination is an extraordinary measure for any country that values freedom and rule of law. This is not to say that it may not be a justified response, a necessary response, or a moral response. Rather, it is to say that such a situation is morally complex, and that there are defensible arguments both for and against assassination as policy.
Therefore, I see no reason why presenting Israel's response to the Munich assassinations as morally ambiguous or why trying to present both sides is necessarily a bad thing. Noe granted, there may be a pro-Palestinian subtext that is unwarranted, but as I see it, most commentators don't object just to this but to the very idea that anyone would view the Israeli response to Munich with anything other than gung-ho support.
When I have more time, I may give a more detailed analysis, with links.
That is all for now.
However, one thing that has occurred to me from reading the reviews of people who dislike this movie for pro-Israel reasons (i.e. because they think that it portrays Israel less than fairly) is that a lot of them seem to be getting what I think is an erroneous impression of why people see the actions of the Israeli government after the Munich attacks as morally ambiguous.
The genreal refrain seems to be that the evil anti-Zionists, or antisemites, or anti-western, etc., people find Israel's actions morally ambiguous is because they killed the people behind the attack instead of forgiving them and because they pursued justice, or because they can't be any better than the terrorists because they kill people too.
However, I was under the impression that the reason why Israel's actions were considered morally ambiguous was because they were assassinating their suspects without a trial. That is, they were not pursuing the people behind the Munich attacks through the proper legal channels (e.g. capturing them and bringing them to Israel for trial as with Adolph Eichmann).
This is not to say that Israel's method of pursuit was necessarily legitimate. But to try to bring people to justice via assassination is an extraordinary measure for any country that values freedom and rule of law. This is not to say that it may not be a justified response, a necessary response, or a moral response. Rather, it is to say that such a situation is morally complex, and that there are defensible arguments both for and against assassination as policy.
Therefore, I see no reason why presenting Israel's response to the Munich assassinations as morally ambiguous or why trying to present both sides is necessarily a bad thing. Noe granted, there may be a pro-Palestinian subtext that is unwarranted, but as I see it, most commentators don't object just to this but to the very idea that anyone would view the Israeli response to Munich with anything other than gung-ho support.
When I have more time, I may give a more detailed analysis, with links.
That is all for now.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Wishful Thinking, Indeed
Wishful thinking still dominates global 'leadership.'"
So claims Michael Ledeen in his latest National Review column.
Coming from someone who believes (or claims to believe) that we can create a pro-American Iran simply by appealing to the innate pro-Americanness of the Iranians and that doing so will in no way lead to a ground war, accusing other people of "wishful thinking" is rather rich.
Steve Sailer has more on how the neocon view of the power structure in Iran always seems to assume that whichever branch is the most extreme (and therefore, the one who makes the best bogeyman for stirring up the old war fever) is the one that is really in charge.
That is all.
So claims Michael Ledeen in his latest National Review column.
Coming from someone who believes (or claims to believe) that we can create a pro-American Iran simply by appealing to the innate pro-Americanness of the Iranians and that doing so will in no way lead to a ground war, accusing other people of "wishful thinking" is rather rich.
Steve Sailer has more on how the neocon view of the power structure in Iran always seems to assume that whichever branch is the most extreme (and therefore, the one who makes the best bogeyman for stirring up the old war fever) is the one that is really in charge.
That is all.
Maybe She is Taking the Pentagon's Advice?
Christiane Amanpour has attracted the wrath of K-J-Lo
for having the temerity to laugh during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's press conference. Obviously, she must be antisemitic.
Or maybe she is just taking retired Army colonel James "Scotty" Scott's advice.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to the Antiwar.com Blog.
That is all.
for having the temerity to laugh during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's press conference. Obviously, she must be antisemitic.
Or maybe she is just taking retired Army colonel James "Scotty" Scott's advice.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to the Antiwar.com Blog.
That is all.
Resistance is Futile, You Will All Be Assimilated
Lawrence Auster makes a convincing argument that the idea that we need to "nuke Mecca" is actually a left-wing liberal idea, not a conservative or right-wing one.
This is because it is based on the idea that everyone in the world is the same, or more precisely, should be the same. In particular, everyone has to live by liberal ideas. If they can't do that, the two solutions liberals come up with is first, insist that they can and then try to force them to, and second, if it is hopeless, eliminate them. The idea of people living isolated from the west, and therefore from liberalism, doesn't occur to them.
Granted, this is a somewhat narrow definition of liberalism, as there are many liberals/leftists who seem to be content to be liberal within their own countries or regions and let the rest of the world be, but I think it is a fair description of the internationalist liberals, including the neoliberals (Gore, Clinton) and the neoconservatives.
More on this later.
That is all.
This is because it is based on the idea that everyone in the world is the same, or more precisely, should be the same. In particular, everyone has to live by liberal ideas. If they can't do that, the two solutions liberals come up with is first, insist that they can and then try to force them to, and second, if it is hopeless, eliminate them. The idea of people living isolated from the west, and therefore from liberalism, doesn't occur to them.
Granted, this is a somewhat narrow definition of liberalism, as there are many liberals/leftists who seem to be content to be liberal within their own countries or regions and let the rest of the world be, but I think it is a fair description of the internationalist liberals, including the neoliberals (Gore, Clinton) and the neoconservatives.
That is all.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
It Takes Sixteen
If you click on this link to the J-Walk Blog, and then continue to click through on the "blonde joke" links, you will come back to the J-Walk Blog after sixteen clicks (having not much to do, I decided to keep clicking to see where the links would lead and how many clicks you would have to do to (a) get to the end or (b) get back to where you began.
That is all.
That is all.
Mistaken Arrests?
Or deliberate attmepts at media intimidation?
William Fisher has the goods.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Juan Cole.
That is all.
William Fisher has the goods.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Juan Cole.
That is all.
Monday, January 16, 2006
So Close, Yet So Far...
John Tamny of National Review Online almost gets it. Almost.
In his piece "Always a Monetary Phenomenon", he claims that inflation is, in fact, a monetary phenomenon. That is, that inflation only refers to price increases caused by the creation of excess money. Price increases or decreases due to other factors are not inflation. So low-cost foreign goods should not be seen as an indication of the strongness of the dollar.
There is a little problem. Inflation does not "result from" excess money creation. It is excess money creation.
The semantic revolution which is one of the characteristic features of our day has also changed the traditional connotation of the terms inflation and deflation. What many people today call inflation or deflation is no longer the great increase or decrease in the supply of money, but its inexorable consequences, the general tendency toward a rise or a fall in commodity prices and wage rates. This innovation is by no means harmless. It plays an important role in fomenting the popular tendencies toward inflationism.
-Ludwig von Mises,
Human Action
But this is a mere semantic argument.
His larger error lies in this statement:
...[Low inflation] arises when the central bank matches currency supply with currency demand...one sure way to warp this process would be to let exogenous factors get in the way of a supply/demand concept.
For someone who proclaims the free market (as Mr. Tamny does in the rest of his piece), to argue that the Fed's goal is to match money supply with money demand seens to me to be a fundamental understadning of what the free market is. The Fed is a government-sponsored business with a government-mandated monopoly on creating and maintaining the money supply. It can't operate on normal supply and demand principles because it is a socialist, centrally-planned institution. To ask it to match supply with demand is like asking the Soviet Union's commissars to match supply and demand.
The only way to have a true free-market in money is for the supply of money to be determined by the market, not the government. And the only way to do this is to letthe market determine what will be accepted as money. In practice, this usually leads to commodity money (e.g. the gold standard).
That is all.
In his piece "Always a Monetary Phenomenon", he claims that inflation is, in fact, a monetary phenomenon. That is, that inflation only refers to price increases caused by the creation of excess money. Price increases or decreases due to other factors are not inflation. So low-cost foreign goods should not be seen as an indication of the strongness of the dollar.
There is a little problem. Inflation does not "result from" excess money creation. It is excess money creation.
The semantic revolution which is one of the characteristic features of our day has also changed the traditional connotation of the terms inflation and deflation. What many people today call inflation or deflation is no longer the great increase or decrease in the supply of money, but its inexorable consequences, the general tendency toward a rise or a fall in commodity prices and wage rates. This innovation is by no means harmless. It plays an important role in fomenting the popular tendencies toward inflationism.
-Ludwig von Mises,
Human Action
But this is a mere semantic argument.
His larger error lies in this statement:
...[Low inflation] arises when the central bank matches currency supply with currency demand...one sure way to warp this process would be to let exogenous factors get in the way of a supply/demand concept.
For someone who proclaims the free market (as Mr. Tamny does in the rest of his piece), to argue that the Fed's goal is to match money supply with money demand seens to me to be a fundamental understadning of what the free market is. The Fed is a government-sponsored business with a government-mandated monopoly on creating and maintaining the money supply. It can't operate on normal supply and demand principles because it is a socialist, centrally-planned institution. To ask it to match supply with demand is like asking the Soviet Union's commissars to match supply and demand.
The only way to have a true free-market in money is for the supply of money to be determined by the market, not the government. And the only way to do this is to letthe market determine what will be accepted as money. In practice, this usually leads to commodity money (e.g. the gold standard).
That is all.
What Would You Be Willing to Give?
Jim Henley offers an interesting variation on the "ticking time bomb" scenario. If information is important enough to justify torture, shouldn't the torturer be willing to go to jail to obtain it?
That is all.
That is all.
Very Interesting
I didn't realize that we were using plutonium fuel in spacecraft.
This is disturbing, particularly with a 1 in 350 chance of a plutonium leak, but it is possible that this sounds a lot worse than it actually is.
That is all.
This is disturbing, particularly with a 1 in 350 chance of a plutonium leak, but it is possible that this sounds a lot worse than it actually is.
That is all.
My Latest "To Blog" List
New! Discussing Michael Ledeen's "Blame Iran!" obsession, as mentioned here.
Talking about blaming the CIA for bad intelligence.
Update to my post on "Citizenism."
I will also talk some about the statement by Iraqi leaders apparently legitimizing he insurgency (Lawrence Auster discusses it here). Done!
A discussion of AIDS and Africa. Done!
The discussion of fatherlessness I mentioned here.
That is all.
Talking about blaming the CIA for bad intelligence.
Update to my post on "Citizenism."
The discussion of fatherlessness I mentioned here.
That is all.
Sorting Out AIDS and Africa
Previously I posted about questions regarding how many cases of "AIDS" in Africa are actually AIDS and how many are other diseases.
I got a comment that seemed to suggest that I would not doubt that all of the cases are genuine AIDS if I were to see for myself the circumstances in Africa. While I admit to ignorance as far as first-hand knowledge goes, I do not think that undertone I detect (that I am downplaying how bad things are in Africa) is accurate. Nor, necessarily, would more experience in Africa disprove the idea that AIDS is being over-diagnosed, unless I had the tools to give every supposed AIDS patient an HIV antibody test.
In any case, the concern is not that we are being too generous or too caring about Africa; the concern is that we may be reducing Africa's health and disease problems to a single issue because it is easier to understand, and in the process we may be not treating other problems.
In other words, Africa has a lot of diseases; we need to make certain that we don't get so focused on AIDS that we ignore other diseases, particularly diseases that we could easily cure with minimal effort:
And why are we to worry so terribly much about AIDS in Africa even as we ignore the millions of Africans each year who die of readily curable diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and diarrhea? Yes, diarrhea.
Moreover, there is the concern that the focus on African AIDS is less about compassion for Africans and more because it serves the ends of American AIDS activist groups (Read the article linked in the quote above).
Also important is the consideration of the role politics plays in how we view the African AIDS epidemic; for example, while it became very clear in the 90s that AIDS is primarily spread in the western world by anal sex (mostly by homosexual and bisexual males) and intravenous drug use, there is still the belief that in Africa it is spread mostly heterosexually through vaginal intercourse.
Michael Fumento has been challenging that assumption, backed by a study in The International Journal of STDs and AIDS. Penile-vaginal transmission is difficult (in a study over a period of ten years, 19% of women and 2.4% of men in a relationship with an HIV-positive person of the opposite sex contracted HIV from them). In particular, the female-to-male risk is so low, it seems unlikely that HIV could have the multigenerational spread (i.e. person A gives it to person B who gives it to person C who gives it to person D) through heterosexual sex that would be necessary to spread an epidemic even if male-to-female transmission were more frequent. That is, if women cannot spread it back to men, then it cannot spread more than one generation through heterosexual sex.
A common thought is that this is because of the fact that men in Africa don't get circumcised as often as in the west, and being uncircumcised makes it easier to transmit HIV from women to men.
Unfortunately for this school of thought, female-to-male heterosexual HIV transmission is pretty low regardless of circumcision (risk is reduced from 1 in 80 to 1 in 200)*, so being uncircumcised in unlikely to explain the higher AIDS rates in Africa.
So how does AIDS spread? Fumento suggests two ways:
(1) There is a lot of reuse of hypodermic needles in Africa, often without any sterilization. So there is a good chance that HIV is spread through medical care that involves skin puncture. This is quite likely the largest single risk factor in spreading HIV in Africa.
Yet almost certainly greater [than sex] – and more controllable – contributors to the African epidemic are "contaminated punctures from such sources as medical injections, dental injections, surgical procedures, drawing as well as injecting blood, and rehydration through IV tubes," says Brody.
You don't even need to go to a clinic to be injected with HIV: Almost two-thirds of 360 homes visited in sub-Saharan Africa had medical injection equipment that was apparently shared by family members. This, says Brody, can explain why both a husband and wife will be infected.
(2) There is a lot of homosexual activity going on that doesn't register, although this is likely a smaller part of the problem than dirty needles.
For example, German anthropologist Kurt Falk reported in the 1920s that bisexuality was almost universal among the male populations of African tribes he studied. Medical records also show that African men who insist they're straighter than the proverbial arrow often suffer transmissible anorectal diseases.
Why is this important? Because, if true, it means that what Africa needs most in order to fight AIDS is clean needles or needle-sterilization equipment. Moreover, any attempt to reduce sexual risk factors should be the most focused on eliminating or making safer anorectal sexual practices. Preferably, in my opinion, bisexual customs ought to be eliminated wherever possible (it seems to me that much of this sort of homosexual sex is not related to homosexuality [i.e. a primary attraction to one's own sex] as we understand it in the west, and so a lot of it should be stoppable without taking the Africans to Exodus International.
In any case, it is wise to try to find out exactly what is happening in Africa if we are going to fight AIDS there. For that matter, all attemtps to eliminate AIDS need to rely on honesty and truth rather than political agendas.
That is all.
*It is not clear if 1 in 80 this means 1 out of 80 sexual encounters or 1 out of 80 year-long sexual relationships, or 1 out of 80 something else.
I got a comment that seemed to suggest that I would not doubt that all of the cases are genuine AIDS if I were to see for myself the circumstances in Africa. While I admit to ignorance as far as first-hand knowledge goes, I do not think that undertone I detect (that I am downplaying how bad things are in Africa) is accurate. Nor, necessarily, would more experience in Africa disprove the idea that AIDS is being over-diagnosed, unless I had the tools to give every supposed AIDS patient an HIV antibody test.
In any case, the concern is not that we are being too generous or too caring about Africa; the concern is that we may be reducing Africa's health and disease problems to a single issue because it is easier to understand, and in the process we may be not treating other problems.
In other words, Africa has a lot of diseases; we need to make certain that we don't get so focused on AIDS that we ignore other diseases, particularly diseases that we could easily cure with minimal effort:
And why are we to worry so terribly much about AIDS in Africa even as we ignore the millions of Africans each year who die of readily curable diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and diarrhea? Yes, diarrhea.
Moreover, there is the concern that the focus on African AIDS is less about compassion for Africans and more because it serves the ends of American AIDS activist groups (Read the article linked in the quote above).
Also important is the consideration of the role politics plays in how we view the African AIDS epidemic; for example, while it became very clear in the 90s that AIDS is primarily spread in the western world by anal sex (mostly by homosexual and bisexual males) and intravenous drug use, there is still the belief that in Africa it is spread mostly heterosexually through vaginal intercourse.
Michael Fumento has been challenging that assumption, backed by a study in The International Journal of STDs and AIDS. Penile-vaginal transmission is difficult (in a study over a period of ten years, 19% of women and 2.4% of men in a relationship with an HIV-positive person of the opposite sex contracted HIV from them). In particular, the female-to-male risk is so low, it seems unlikely that HIV could have the multigenerational spread (i.e. person A gives it to person B who gives it to person C who gives it to person D) through heterosexual sex that would be necessary to spread an epidemic even if male-to-female transmission were more frequent. That is, if women cannot spread it back to men, then it cannot spread more than one generation through heterosexual sex.
A common thought is that this is because of the fact that men in Africa don't get circumcised as often as in the west, and being uncircumcised makes it easier to transmit HIV from women to men.
Unfortunately for this school of thought, female-to-male heterosexual HIV transmission is pretty low regardless of circumcision (risk is reduced from 1 in 80 to 1 in 200)*, so being uncircumcised in unlikely to explain the higher AIDS rates in Africa.
So how does AIDS spread? Fumento suggests two ways:
(1) There is a lot of reuse of hypodermic needles in Africa, often without any sterilization. So there is a good chance that HIV is spread through medical care that involves skin puncture. This is quite likely the largest single risk factor in spreading HIV in Africa.
Yet almost certainly greater [than sex] – and more controllable – contributors to the African epidemic are "contaminated punctures from such sources as medical injections, dental injections, surgical procedures, drawing as well as injecting blood, and rehydration through IV tubes," says Brody.
You don't even need to go to a clinic to be injected with HIV: Almost two-thirds of 360 homes visited in sub-Saharan Africa had medical injection equipment that was apparently shared by family members. This, says Brody, can explain why both a husband and wife will be infected.
(2) There is a lot of homosexual activity going on that doesn't register, although this is likely a smaller part of the problem than dirty needles.
For example, German anthropologist Kurt Falk reported in the 1920s that bisexuality was almost universal among the male populations of African tribes he studied. Medical records also show that African men who insist they're straighter than the proverbial arrow often suffer transmissible anorectal diseases.
Why is this important? Because, if true, it means that what Africa needs most in order to fight AIDS is clean needles or needle-sterilization equipment. Moreover, any attempt to reduce sexual risk factors should be the most focused on eliminating or making safer anorectal sexual practices. Preferably, in my opinion, bisexual customs ought to be eliminated wherever possible (it seems to me that much of this sort of homosexual sex is not related to homosexuality [i.e. a primary attraction to one's own sex] as we understand it in the west, and so a lot of it should be stoppable without taking the Africans to Exodus International.
In any case, it is wise to try to find out exactly what is happening in Africa if we are going to fight AIDS there. For that matter, all attemtps to eliminate AIDS need to rely on honesty and truth rather than political agendas.
That is all.
*It is not clear if 1 in 80 this means 1 out of 80 sexual encounters or 1 out of 80 year-long sexual relationships, or 1 out of 80 something else.
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